Full Comment - Conservatives are caught in a perfect electoral storm, but aren’t blown away yet

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00:01:50.060 It was the worst-kept secret in Ottawa.

00:01:56.040 Mark Carney was going to be calling an election before the House of Commons resumed on March 24th,

00:02:00.800 and there he was on Sunday, March 23rd, outside Rita Hall, announcing an election was underway.

00:02:07.660 I've just requested that the Governor-General dissolve Parliament and call it an election for April 28th.

00:02:15.700 Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:02:17.480 My name is Brian Lilly, your host, and today we're talking all things election,

00:02:21.440 and that's what we're going to be doing for the next several weeks.

00:02:24.900 Even before Carney went before the microphones on that Sunday,

00:02:30.100 Pierre Polyev had already kicked off his election campaign.

00:02:33.260 He didn't have the grandeur of Rita Hall and instead did something that Justin Trudeau smartly did in 2015

00:02:39.640 and stood in a park across the river from Parliament Hill,

00:02:44.700 using that as his backdrop to say that, well, sure, the Liberals have changed leaders,

00:02:49.700 but they're still the same guys.

00:02:51.020 Desperate for a fourth term, Liberals have replaced Justin Trudeau with his economic advisor

00:02:56.300 and hand-picked successor, Mark Carney.

00:02:58.860 But a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal.

00:03:01.900 This is really just a race between Mark Carney and Pierre Polyev.

00:03:06.760 You can say that the Greens are in it, you can say the Bloc Quebecois is in it,

00:03:10.100 you can pretend the NDP is in it, but none of that is really true.

00:03:14.220 And strangely, the election really comes down to what the words and actions of one man are,

00:03:21.240 and that is a man that doesn't even live in Canada.

00:03:24.340 Of course, we're talking about Donald Trump.

00:03:25.900 What we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States.

00:03:32.200 If they're made in the United States, there's absolutely no tariff.

00:03:34.960 And so where do we stand after a full week on the campaign trail?

00:03:38.040 Well, to talk about that is Stuart Thompson.

00:03:40.540 He is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for the National Post and Post Media in Ottawa,

00:03:45.340 and columnist Tasha Carradine, both of them well-connected politically

00:03:49.500 and here to discuss all things that are happening on this election.

00:03:54.060 Welcome to you both.

00:03:55.180 Hello.

00:03:56.060 Hey, Brian.

00:03:57.100 So, rough take.

00:03:59.680 Tasha, I see you on my screen first, so I'll ask you.

00:04:03.880 Rough take on the first week of the campaign.

00:04:06.080 Good, bad, indifferent, who's up, who's down, what's happening?

00:04:10.580 Well, it's been a rough take, I think, for the Conservatives.

00:04:15.920 The polls show that they are sliding, slip-sliding away continuously.

00:04:21.760 And it's probably because of the...

00:04:23.680 Now you're going to make me sing that song.

00:04:25.800 Yeah, slip-sliding away.

00:04:27.640 It's basically because of the man you mentioned, and that is Donald Trump.

00:04:30.900 And the tariff threat that every time Donald Trump says the word tariff,

00:04:36.560 it's as if the Conservative, you know, campaign drops into the point.

00:04:40.960 They had a lot of messaging this week.

00:04:42.540 They had a lot of, you know, things, TFSA increasing that.

00:04:47.360 They had messaging about defense.

00:04:49.540 They had messaging on a bunch of different topics.

00:04:51.900 Crime.

00:04:52.740 Crime, seniors.

00:04:54.160 They're going to keep dental care, though, and that's interesting.

00:04:56.640 I see this campaign actually as like a race, or a strange race for the center.

00:05:00.400 The Conservatives are trying to get back there after ignoring it for a very long time,

00:05:04.440 or go with dental care.

00:05:05.920 They're dropping some of the more angry language, like, you know, axe the CBC.

00:05:10.200 They're still axeing the tax, but the tax has been sort of half-axed already,

00:05:13.080 so that is, you know, questionable.

00:05:15.160 But the Liberals are definitely moving, tacking to the center, from the left this time.

00:05:19.720 So you're getting a situation where it's becoming a contest of personality,

00:05:22.800 and who do you trust, and who can take on Trump?

00:05:24.680 And I see that's how the first week has sort of shaken out.

00:05:27.460 The Liberals are taking the Conservative's thunder on lots of policies.

00:05:30.840 They're stealing their policies.

00:05:32.480 We're taking their policies.

00:05:34.040 Policies, you know, on taxes, on policies on, you know, capital gains tax,

00:05:38.880 flipping that back, trying to distinguish themselves from the Liberals they were a week before,

00:05:43.080 you know, we're two weeks under Justin Trudeau.

00:05:45.500 And it's working for them.

00:05:47.200 So that's what I see from the first week.

00:05:50.620 Liberals, if you don't like their policies, don't worry.

00:05:52.720 They've got more.

00:05:53.640 You don't like their principles, don't worry.

00:05:55.360 They've got more.

00:05:56.280 They've got others.

00:05:57.080 Let me go in the back and see if I can find something that you like.

00:06:01.000 Stuart, your take.

00:06:02.420 I mean, I would say that as far as the policy announcements that Poliev has come out with

00:06:07.200 in this first week, all very good, all very solid.

00:06:10.920 Not perhaps resonating.

00:06:14.560 Yeah, I actually was speaking to somebody in the Conservative war room last night who said,

00:06:18.540 you know, if you view this in a vacuum, this week was extraordinary.

00:06:23.220 We came out with all these great policies.

00:06:25.260 The announcements went off without a hitch.

00:06:26.980 The media was great.

00:06:28.040 They were even looking at the newspapers and the broadcasts.

00:06:31.140 And it was exactly what they would have wanted from those announcements.

00:06:34.760 They've been doing these morning videos with their policies in them.

00:06:37.980 6 a.m.

00:06:39.280 There's a video on Twitter.

00:06:41.100 And that means somebody on the desk at CTV or the National Post or wherever can write

00:06:46.200 it up.

00:06:46.640 You get a news hit almost immediately.

00:06:48.600 It's working really well for them.

00:06:50.200 But in this week where we have Trump doing what Trump's doing, it's not doing anything

00:06:56.040 for them.

00:06:56.520 And I think that is the hard thing for the Conservatives right now is that there are some people who

00:07:02.540 think we need to change our strategy.

00:07:04.800 We need to meet the moment.

00:07:05.940 We need to do this, do that.

00:07:07.500 And there are some who think actually the incumbency advantage that Mark Carney has is almost impossible

00:07:13.600 to rival right now.

00:07:14.780 And we're kind of at the whim of this environment.

00:07:18.060 So it's a tough spot for them.

00:07:20.240 And even harder for them is they think they've been doing pretty well, you know, on the policy

00:07:24.900 side so far.

00:07:27.000 Well, policy side and I would say execution, they have been far better.

00:07:34.300 Tasha, like, you know, Mark Carney did not have some great events this week.

00:07:39.140 He, of course, was coming off his trip to Europe where he told Rosemary Barton to look inside

00:07:44.900 yourself, all of that, you know, he's, he's getting snippy with the media when they ask

00:07:50.640 him about his assets.

00:07:52.400 So he, and they had this weird slow rollout where they went to all these writings that

00:07:57.700 they held.

00:07:59.140 And until Trump erupted again, it was like, okay, I'm not understanding the liberal campaign.

00:08:06.000 These guys, they started in St. John's.

00:08:08.440 They're going to sweep Atlantic Canada right now, regardless of who wins.

00:08:12.340 They're going to do really well in Atlantic Canada.

00:08:14.120 So they go to St. John's, then they go to Gander, then they go to Halifax, and they're

00:08:19.920 not doing a lot.

00:08:21.240 Whereas Polly have, as Stuart was saying, 630 a.m.

00:08:25.200 Video is posted.

00:08:26.880 News hit start, 930 a.m.

00:08:29.120 There is an event at the evening.

00:08:31.480 There's a rally.

00:08:32.180 There's a quick pick in the middle.

00:08:33.640 All those things are going great.

00:08:35.500 And then Trump.

00:08:37.180 Yeah, but you're missing the point of the liberal campaign.

00:08:39.180 It's very, it's heavy on symbolism.

00:08:41.100 And right now, symbolism is what matters.

00:08:42.820 The symbolism is what people are looking for.

00:08:44.840 There's this nationalistic sentiment of Canada, elbows up, rising up.

00:08:49.220 He went to Gander.

00:08:50.280 He went, yeah, exactly, because that's where Canada welcomed the Americans.

00:08:54.280 He went to Europe because those are the two countries that founded Canada.

00:08:58.320 He went to the Arctic because the indigenous people founded Canada.

00:09:01.160 This was just before the campaign.

00:09:02.540 You know, he's gone to places that have meaning to people.

00:09:07.420 And he does photo ops there that have meaning.

00:09:09.560 It doesn't matter.

00:09:10.280 Policies, you know, this is the conservatives are running a campaign as if all those policies

00:09:14.440 are going to change people's minds.

00:09:16.300 They're not.

00:09:16.980 This is a campaign about emotion and feeling.

00:09:19.540 And that's what they're not getting.

00:09:21.360 So they're running yesterday's campaign of we hated Justin Trudeau.

00:09:25.420 Well, he's gone, right?

00:09:26.940 The question now is, do people love you?

00:09:29.800 And they don't.

00:09:31.080 They clearly do not.

00:09:32.160 Do they love Mark Carney?

00:09:33.600 They don't know him as well.

00:09:34.960 So he's actually easier to love because you don't know someone.

00:09:37.660 You can project on what you want.

00:09:38.860 And if you see them hugging a widow in Halifax or, you know, being at the place in Gander

00:09:43.700 where the planes landed, like that is, it's got symbolism.

00:09:48.000 It's rich with meaning and they mine it for social media goal.

00:09:51.720 People are not going to listen to policy announcements day in, day out and like pay rapt attention.

00:09:55.640 They are not.

00:09:56.060 They are looking for the feeling and the liberals are wrapping themselves in that flag and they

00:10:00.600 got that feeling.

00:10:01.740 Well, I rarely think that people vote on policy.

00:10:04.580 I think people vote mostly on emotions, optics.

00:10:09.580 Those are the sorts of things that drive a campaign.

00:10:13.380 So, look, our latest Leger poll has what?

00:10:18.580 It's 44 percent for the liberals.

00:10:22.120 It's 38 percent for the conservatives.

00:10:25.000 That's a six point gap in the Leger poll.

00:10:28.160 In the CBC poll tracker, which I only use them because they, unlike some others, exclude

00:10:34.060 ecos, which I think needs to be excluded for various reasons that we all understand.

00:10:39.500 They've got, the CBC poll tracker has got it at 40 to 37.

00:10:46.040 So, three point gap.

00:10:47.600 This is not insurmountable a week out, but do you get the sense that the conservatives are

00:10:55.280 going to find a way to say, you know what, let's go to that emotion.

00:11:01.640 Let's, you know, sure, we've got a technically flawless campaign, but we're not resonating.

00:11:07.200 Are they going to figure that out, Stuart?

00:11:09.820 Well, so the one thing they have going against them is that, and we've kind of touched on

00:11:14.260 this, is that the normal rules of political physics do not seem to be applying to Mark

00:11:18.400 Carney right now.

00:11:19.380 And that could end in two weeks or it could end in two months.

00:11:23.300 And I think if you're a conservative, you're kind of just waiting because the best example

00:11:27.840 of this is Mark Carney keeps going to Quebec and having a disaster with the French language

00:11:33.340 in a way that would be devastating to most candidates.

00:11:36.100 I'm not sure what you're talking about.

00:11:38.140 It's flawless French.

00:11:40.700 Not even just the French, it's the screw-ups that happen, the Polytechnique massacre, getting 0.77

00:11:45.900 the school wrong and getting your candidate who survived that shooting, getting her name

00:11:50.100 wrong.

00:11:50.500 I mean, these are huge problems that you would think would resonate in Quebec, but those rules

00:11:56.440 of physics are not applying right now.

00:11:58.060 There's some kind of honeymoon happening.

00:11:59.520 Okay, so Mark Carney is 60 years old.

00:12:05.960 Anybody that is between 50 and 60 years old knows where they were when they heard about

00:12:12.340 a Colt Polytechnique.

00:12:13.500 I was finishing high school, December 6th, 1989.

00:12:16.960 I heard about it when I woke up in the morning.

00:12:19.200 You know, high school, I wasn't paying attention to evening news back then.

00:12:24.400 I heard about it when I woke up in the morning.

00:12:26.440 It was all everyone talked about in class when you showed up the next morning.

00:12:31.960 Carney doesn't know that because he left for Harvard.

00:12:34.500 It's not a knock against him, but he left for Harvard in the mid-80s, didn't come back

00:12:38.720 to Canada for almost 20 years.

00:12:40.700 So he's kind of detached from that.

00:12:44.400 Are you shocked that he made that gaffe and didn't know that...

00:12:48.760 I mean, okay, so he couldn't pronounce Provo as a last name, Natalie Provo.

00:12:55.480 But saying Concordia, we all know it's a Colt Polytechnique.

00:13:00.020 Yeah. 0.99

00:13:00.320 I am like the dumbest Anglo you can find, and I know that. 0.98

00:13:03.400 So I don't know anything about Quebec, and I know it. 0.98

00:13:06.820 So Carney should do better.

00:13:08.520 And I just don't understand why those Quebec poll numbers are still sky high.

00:13:13.060 Maybe, Tasha, you know.

00:13:14.260 I think I do.

00:13:14.960 Tasha, you've spent time in Quebec, and you're bilingual, so...

00:13:19.320 Yeah.

00:13:20.000 I'm from Quebec, baby.

00:13:21.420 And let me tell you, this is not an election about the French language.

00:13:25.640 This is an election about the existential question of Quebec, its culture, its immigration,

00:13:30.660 its fear of Quebecer.

00:13:31.560 And you're looking at this picture, and you're like, okay, what will serve the interests of

00:13:37.060 my province?

00:13:37.800 And the industries in the province, and the people in the province, and the language and

00:13:41.520 the preservation of that.

00:13:42.420 The bloc is trying to say, frame it as, we've got to be at the table to negotiate these

00:13:46.780 things.

00:13:47.540 No, no, no.

00:13:48.440 Canada has to stay together for this to function.

00:13:50.780 And Quebecers are seeing that for the first time in stark reality.

00:13:53.940 There's no space here for independent Quebec in a Trump North America universe.

00:13:59.100 It's gone, right?

00:14:00.460 So they're thinking, oh, wow.

00:14:01.860 Okay, so we've got to have someone who's negotiating for everybody here, keeping the

00:14:05.660 country together.

00:14:06.360 Who is that?

00:14:07.580 And it's not the bloc that has been a parking lot for a long time.

00:14:10.960 Their numbers are dropping.

00:14:12.460 It's not Pierre Pelliev in their image.

00:14:14.400 They don't think.

00:14:15.100 And here's the other thing.

00:14:16.240 Quebecers go with a winner.

00:14:17.680 Okay, the fact that conservative stock has dropped, Quebecers are like, oh, well, okay, 0.98

00:14:21.240 it's not going to be you.

00:14:22.260 We're not going to vote for you.

00:14:23.540 That is part of their mentality.

00:14:25.200 That's what we think.

00:14:26.480 And it's go with the winner.

00:14:28.040 Brian Mulroney had that in 1984.

00:14:29.760 You know, John Turner, things flipped sideways.

00:14:32.020 Mulroney ran away with it.

00:14:33.640 I think the liberals right now, the Quebecers are willing to forgive the bad French. 1.00

00:14:38.080 And I agree, the terrible mistake, like, I call polytechnique, like, hello, I know.

00:14:43.420 They're willing to forgive that because of this giant existential threat to their culture,

00:14:48.000 their language, their actual way of life.

00:14:49.760 And that's how they're seeing it, as dramatic as that.

00:14:52.720 And that's why they're voting or would vote the way they would if this election was today.

00:14:56.620 So, I mean, he's in the middle of an answer the other day in Windsor, in French, and had to switch to English.

00:15:06.240 They're willing to forgive that.

00:15:07.840 They're willing to forgive a call polytechnique.

00:15:09.840 They're willing to forgive the fact that the man knows nothing about the province

00:15:13.520 and speaks the French like an Ottawa bureaucrat and just say, yeah, okay.

00:15:19.640 It's a question right now of that not being the priority.

00:15:24.200 I agree with you.

00:15:24.760 It's this a regular election and Donald Trump was not president of the United States.

00:15:28.380 These things would matter a lot.

00:15:30.140 But in the context currently, they don't.

00:15:32.620 Now, we say this in week one.

00:15:34.120 If this keeps getting worse and repeating and so on, and we'll see the debate, the French debate,

00:15:38.880 we'll see how that goes.

00:15:39.980 That could be a tipping point.

00:15:40.960 It could.

00:15:41.580 It could.

00:15:41.980 But for now, these are not the questions.

00:15:47.800 He refused to do the TVA debate.

00:15:50.060 Now, I'll be up front and admit the TVA debate is weird because they're asking all the candidates

00:15:56.100 for $75,000 to produce it.

00:16:00.020 And Pierre-Carl Pelladeau is someone I worked for for years.

00:16:04.500 He's going to take that as a personal insult.

00:16:07.000 And he's not against using his media outlets to beat people up.

00:16:10.800 So they've been beating up on Carney for this.

00:16:13.200 The Journal de Montréal, you know, there's fewer and fewer papers sold every day, as

00:16:17.920 I can tell you.

00:16:19.100 But it's still the number one newspaper in Quebec.

00:16:21.500 He's got the number one TV network in Quebec.

00:16:24.940 They're going to beat up on him.

00:16:27.220 At some point, does that translate into a change?

00:16:32.340 Well, I'll tell you, when I worked for the White Court Star, it was owned by Quebecor.

00:16:36.720 And I couldn't start for six weeks because Pierre-Carl Pelladeau had to sign off on my

00:16:41.340 hire.

00:16:42.420 That's a guy.

00:16:43.380 He's into the details.

00:16:44.980 He was on a boat somewhere and couldn't do it.

00:16:47.380 So I know that he's paying attention.

00:16:49.720 And this is something.

00:16:51.500 We have a number of Quebecers in our bureau.

00:16:54.580 And we've just been following this.

00:16:56.220 And I think it is exactly the Trump problem, is that they are hyper-focused on Trump right

00:17:01.620 now.

00:17:01.920 And you can see this.

00:17:04.000 It's really amazing to watch the polls right now because it has become a two-horse race.

00:17:08.080 The NDP is cratering.

00:17:10.180 But also the bloc is having trouble too.

00:17:12.680 And that's just because I think people want a national figure.

00:17:17.260 And something else is going on, which is that they're singing O Canada in the Bell Centre.

00:17:22.560 And there's a weird strain of patriotism happening in Montreal that we've never seen before.

00:17:26.960 And I just think we're just in this weird moment right now.

00:17:30.260 Maybe nine elections out of ten, Carney doesn't win.

00:17:34.000 But now we're in that one election where it makes sense for him.

00:17:37.220 Yeah.

00:17:37.860 You know, our latest Leger poll has the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois tied at 23.

00:17:46.180 And Carney and his Liberals at 41 in Quebec.

00:17:50.800 That is something.

00:17:52.220 Okay.

00:17:52.440 Here's something I want to ask both of you about.

00:17:54.820 I know there's a certain segment of the population, not just on the right, but I think it's more predominant on the right, that doesn't believe polls.

00:18:06.220 In fact, what I would say is that partisans don't believe polls if their party is losing.

00:18:11.540 I've come to learn that.

00:18:14.640 But since 2016 and the American election, there's been this, oh, polls are always wrong.

00:18:19.540 They got Hillary wrong. 1.00

00:18:20.660 No, it was the interpretation.

00:18:22.860 I looked at the same numbers and I said Trump would win.

00:18:26.660 I looked at the same numbers as Brexit and said, hmm, Leave's going to win.

00:18:30.140 But a lot of people are looking at the polls now and saying, they must be wrong because look at these big rallies Pierre's having.

00:18:41.360 Yeah, there's obviously something happening on the ground and momentum, but doesn't necessarily mean the polls are wrong.

00:18:49.760 So, especially when they're all headed in one direction.

00:18:54.820 For a while there, I was saying, I don't know what to make of the polls because every pollster was off on their own.

00:19:00.940 There was no trend line.

00:19:02.460 Now there's definitely a trend line of the liberals being ahead.

00:19:05.800 So, Tasha, we'll start with you.

00:19:07.880 What would you say to the folks that are saying, yeah, but Pierre got 4,500 in Hamilton and he got 2,500 in, you know, Liberal Fortress Toronto.

00:19:17.200 There's more than 5,000 in an industrial warehouse in Surrey.

00:19:20.800 So, your polls mean nothing.

00:19:24.480 No, polls don't mean nothing.

00:19:26.720 You can get big crowds.

00:19:28.000 I know that, you know, the first year of Maxine Bernier's People's Party was running around.

00:19:32.140 He got big crowds the first election too.

00:19:33.780 Really big crowds.

00:19:35.180 I noticed that Pierre got 800 people in Quebec.

00:19:38.220 That was a lesser crowd.

00:19:39.540 It was in Quebec City, mind you.

00:19:40.640 That is the most conservative part of the province, electorally speaking.

00:19:44.500 But a bit less.

00:19:45.460 And I just say this.

00:19:47.360 I think the polls, I don't think the polls are wrong.

00:19:50.160 Are they all, you know, is this an exact science?

00:19:52.460 Of course not.

00:19:53.520 But I think that what the polls are showing makes sense to me because the NDP vote is collapsing.

00:19:59.240 And why is the liberal vote floating so high?

00:20:01.820 Again, it's not because everybody loves Mark Carney.

00:20:04.620 People like him.

00:20:05.420 Some people like him because, like I said, they don't know him.

00:20:07.500 Other people like him because he's not Trudeau.

00:20:09.040 Other people like him because he's not Pierre Paul yet.

00:20:10.840 But what they don't like is the NDP.

00:20:12.640 The NDP vote is collapsing.

00:20:14.040 And that is one of the reasons that the liberals have gone so high so fast.

00:20:20.240 And that is something the conservatives can do very little about.

00:20:24.960 So unless they crop up the NDP, right?

00:20:27.800 That ain't going to happen.

00:20:29.600 So that's why I do look at the polls.

00:20:32.040 It makes sense to me.

00:20:33.680 This is going on because this is becoming a two-party race.

00:20:36.880 And if it's a two-party race, I don't think these polls are wrong.

00:20:38.880 Because I think proportionally you will always have, in this country, you have always had a larger group of progressive, you know, small p, progressive voters than you've had core conservative voters.

00:20:47.740 The core conservatives are still there.

00:20:49.220 The base is there.

00:20:50.000 And the fringe is gone.

00:20:51.720 Like the edges of it, they're melting away.

00:20:53.740 And the NDP is just like, like it's snow and spring.

00:20:56.500 It's gone.

00:20:57.520 Okay.

00:20:57.860 So a little while ago, the conservatives would regularly poll 40 to 45%.

00:21:02.660 Right now, they're polling at 38%.

00:21:04.660 In a normal universe, that would get you a majority.

00:21:09.920 In a normal universe, Stephen Harper got his majority.

00:21:12.880 With a strong NDP.

00:21:15.920 Exactly.

00:21:16.460 Jack Satan's NDP.

00:21:17.980 But right now, among undecided voters, it's 44.

00:21:22.460 This is Leisha's latest numbers.

00:21:24.580 44% for Carney's liberals.

00:21:27.420 38% for Pollyov's conservatives.

00:21:30.000 6%.

00:21:31.120 6% for Jagmeet Sane and the NDP.

00:21:35.460 And as you pointed out, the bloc is down as well.

00:21:38.180 Elizabeth May's Green Party is down at 3%.

00:21:39.880 Last election, the NDP got 18%.

00:21:45.720 You know, so this isn't about, you know, people abandoning the conservatives.

00:21:52.380 They've lost some.

00:21:53.460 And we all knew if Trudeau left, there would be some people that were just parking their votes, Stuart,

00:21:59.840 who were just saying, oh, I'm going to go to the conservatives because I hate Trudeau.

00:22:04.320 Okay, Trudeau's gone.

00:22:05.440 So they've left.

00:22:06.080 But that 12% of the electorate abandoning the NDP is remarkable.

00:22:13.200 Yeah, if I were Jagmeet Singh, I would be polishing my resume right now because there's not a lot of scenarios where he survives this.

00:22:21.140 And so I spoke to a conservative on the campaign last night who said, you know, I'm rock solid on 37%, 38% of our support.

00:22:30.660 Like, those are people who are with us.

00:22:32.040 And they're solid.

00:22:33.840 And the optimistic side of this for the conservatives is that the Mark Carney liberal vote is a little soft.

00:22:40.620 It's people who don't quite know him.

00:22:42.500 It's people who aren't totally all in.

00:22:44.420 They're not fully decided on the liberals.

00:22:46.580 And that means anything can happen.

00:22:48.960 So that's why you see these rallies.

00:22:51.720 There's a big section of really enthusiastic conservatives who will come out and they'll drive an hour to see a pure polyev rally.

00:22:59.120 They won't be mad if they get turned away and they get a T-shirt like they did in Toronto the other day.

00:23:03.520 So that is good because that means the conservatives only have so far to fall in this.

00:23:09.460 And you can see it kind of sticking at that 37, 38 point.

00:23:13.220 The trouble for them is they just need to push it up.

00:23:16.080 And I think this is the older voters who are worried about Trump.

00:23:19.900 They weren't huge on polyev.

00:23:21.540 They probably were a little unfavorable to him, but they did just hate Trudeau.

00:23:24.520 And I saw a poll from Abacus Data that I actually wrote about today, a little piece for the National Post, where it showed Canadians' disapproval rating of the government.

00:23:34.920 It was 65% in December.

00:23:37.120 As soon as Trudeau resigned, it started falling and falling and falling.

00:23:40.560 Three months later, it's down in the 20s.

00:23:43.420 And that is a reset.

00:23:45.120 Canadians have basically wiped the slate clean on the government.

00:23:48.360 They are seemingly willing to forgive all of that baggage the liberals had.

00:23:52.360 And now Carney gets to run with that for at least a little while anyways.

00:23:55.340 You said older voters, 52% in Leger's numbers, and that's not dissimilar from other pollsters, 52% of people over 55 say they're going to vote for Carney's liberals compared to 34% for the Conservatives.

00:24:12.500 And voters between 18 and 54, the Conservatives are still winning.

00:24:19.040 But who decides elections?

00:24:20.900 People over 55 and people who live in Ontario.

00:24:24.540 We'll talk about Ontario when we come back.

00:24:26.460 Interesting dynamics between Doug Ford, Pierre Polyev.

00:24:29.540 Was that a mistake?

00:24:31.220 More on that in moments.

00:24:32.560 Hey, Dave Richardson here.

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00:25:58.260 Anyone who follows politics closely has long heard about a, well, a bad relationship or a lack of relationship between Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Conservative leader Pierre Polyev.

00:26:09.860 That was kind of exposed recently when there was a story in the Toronto Star about how they had their first phone call on March 17th of 2025.

00:26:22.280 Shortly thereafter, Doug Ford's campaign manager, Corey Tenike, turned around and went into a public forum talking about all the ways that the Conservatives federally are losing and what they need to do to turn things around.

00:26:36.180 You've got to get on that issue and, you know, you might not totally win, but you can't lose by 20 points on it.

00:26:42.700 You can't get blown away on it.

00:26:44.440 You've got to contest the election and maybe you can take that ballot question, if you're on it, and twist it to some things that are more favorable for you.

00:26:53.340 Like, you know, who do you trust to actually bring in change?

00:26:56.420 Who do you trust to lower costs for Canadians?

00:26:59.100 But you've got to have a pivot that is taking some of the momentum of that issue ship and directing it towards things that are yours.

00:27:07.220 It's not going to happen if you're talking about the World Economic Forum and the Century Initiative or God knows whatever other thing that is, you know, of little or no relevance to voters.

00:27:17.460 So, anyway, long answer, but it sucks right now.

00:27:21.880 Now, there was a lot more to what he said than that.

00:27:24.200 Some of it more colorful than we can play on the podcast here, although I've never tested the swearing rule on the podcast.

00:27:32.180 But let's just say it was very colorful at this event at the Empire Club in Toronto.

00:27:37.360 So, Stuart, do you think, Corey, tonight is wrong that they've got to get on the main issue of Trump and tariffs or they're going to lose badly in Ontario?

00:27:47.420 As I said earlier, 48% for the Liberals in Ontario, according to Leger, 40% for the Conservatives.

00:27:55.760 My math says they've got to win 70, 75 seats at least in Ontario to have a shot at winning government.

00:28:02.940 Yeah, no, that's correct.

00:28:03.820 It's over for them if they don't win in Ontario.

00:28:05.840 And I think the frustration, I talked to some people on Ford's team about this, and there is, I think, difficulties in that relationship.

00:28:15.320 But I also do think that they feel like they provided a template for how you win an election in this sort of Trump era.

00:28:23.060 Yeah, but Mark Carney took it, not Pierre Paulyev.

00:28:26.920 Well, I think that's exactly the point is when you talk to Paulyev's people, they say, look, we're not the incumbent.

00:28:32.040 We're not a premier.

00:28:33.100 We don't have all these other advantages that you have.

00:28:34.960 You were doing it before tariffs were actually imposed.

00:28:37.940 And you have all these other advantages going.

00:28:40.280 We can't just take your Ontario plan and apply it to this election.

00:28:44.400 And I think this speaks to broader frustration among Conservatives.

00:28:49.280 And even if they're not correct, I think you can understand this frustration, which is we got there with Scheer.

00:28:56.340 We had blackface. 0.94

00:28:58.080 We blew that one.

00:28:59.500 Aaron O'Toole came along.

00:29:00.660 He was supposed to be the moderate who would appeal to folks in the GTA.

00:29:03.940 We blew that one.

00:29:05.160 And now we have this guy, Pierre Paulyev, who was up by 20 points.

00:29:08.620 He was a real conservative.

00:29:09.640 And somehow this is slipping away from us.

00:29:12.480 And you can imagine how that feels to some of these people.

00:29:15.360 And there is, I think, a bigger division among people in the conservative movement who look at Doug Ford and they say, great, you win elections.

00:29:25.080 But what do you do?

00:29:26.260 What kind of policies are you doing?

00:29:27.640 Have you done a single conservative policy since you got in?

00:29:30.680 And Doug Ford's people will say, we're winning.

00:29:33.080 Maybe you should try that sometime.

00:29:34.940 And I think that's where it comes from.

00:29:37.200 I can argue both sides of that because I've taken Doug Ford to task for not being conservative enough in some areas.

00:29:45.180 You know, education, I remember talking to Stephen Lecce when he was still there.

00:29:49.260 All the craziness that shows up in the education system.

00:29:52.140 And he describes it as whack-a-mole.

00:29:53.900 He says, I find out about these crazy things at the same time you do.

00:29:57.240 And you've got to whack it down.

00:29:58.720 And then it pops up somewhere else, some crazy policy.

00:30:01.120 But, you know, in terms of fiscal, given the fact that the province has grown hugely in terms of population, yeah, they're spending more than anyone else.

00:30:11.460 But they've actually kept it in check.

00:30:14.160 And the debt to GDP ratio compared to the feds is so much better.

00:30:20.240 There are things that they should have done that, you know, I wish they had and things that they have done that they don't get credit for.

00:30:26.340 And, you know, you talk to the people.

00:30:30.200 I've never heard Pierre Polyev say a bad word about Doug Ford.

00:30:33.280 I'll be upfront about that.

00:30:35.500 But you talk to some of the people who surround Polyev and they will say, well, Comrade Ford.

00:30:42.680 Or he's just like Kathleen Wynne. 0.89

00:30:45.180 Or, you know, there's nothing conservative about him.

00:30:48.440 He's a liberal.

00:30:49.420 Why would we copy that?

00:30:50.960 Look at COVID.

00:30:51.640 You know, well, he's winning.

00:30:54.520 Shouldn't they have broken bread at some point, Tasha, and just sat down and said, okay, we're not going to agree on everything, but we'll agree on something.

00:31:03.240 You can't run as an Alberta conservative in Ontario and win.

00:31:07.800 Bingo.

00:31:08.520 The Reform Party learned that many years ago.

00:31:10.800 And what you said about COVID, what you said about, you know, Doug Ford's not a real conservative.

00:31:18.260 Well, he's a progressive conservative.

00:31:19.560 That's the actual name of his party.

00:31:21.800 The federal conservative party is just the conservative party.

00:31:24.560 Under Harper, it was a conservative party.

00:31:26.280 It is now a populist party.

00:31:27.580 I do not believe it is a conservative party, just like the Republican Party.

00:31:31.060 It's not a conservative party.

00:31:32.080 You know, ranting about the WEF and these arcane issues that the average person who's working doesn't care about.

00:31:38.500 Some people are obsessed with that.

00:31:39.840 And some people cannot let COVID go.

00:31:41.320 They cannot let it go.

00:31:43.080 Most people have let it go.

00:31:44.800 And those people are going to decide this election.

00:31:47.160 And they are Monsieur and Madame Tout Le Monde in Quebec.

00:31:49.540 And they are the hardworking suburban people in Ontario, new Canadians and others who are just like, you know what?

00:31:55.960 I look at Ford, the guys defending our province.

00:31:59.160 I mean, this is the Ontario election, the second time over.

00:32:02.300 We are fighting.

00:32:02.980 It is the exact same election as Doug Ford had.

00:32:05.600 And why did Doug Ford, as the government who had so much to account for, you know, look at, you mentioned education, health care, housing, all the things within his wheelhouse.

00:32:15.140 He didn't have to account for anything and any mistakes because the only issue is Donald Trump.

00:32:19.160 And he got that.

00:32:20.020 And that was what he talked about.

00:32:21.160 And Bonnie Crombie, you know, and Merritt Stiles were running around trying to talk about all the other things that matter, just like Polly was talking about all the things that matter.

00:32:28.600 And no one cared.

00:32:29.820 And this is exactly what the Carney liberals are doing.

00:32:32.460 They're very smart.

00:32:33.360 They are fighting Doug Ford's election.

00:32:35.040 And Polly is not fighting Doug Ford's election.

00:32:37.140 He's fighting Bonnie Crombie's election.

00:32:38.900 And he's going to lose if he keeps doing that.

00:32:41.060 Okay.

00:32:41.700 But is there a generational divide?

00:32:43.800 Because when you do look at the polling, regardless of firm, and you look at top issues, Donald Trump is the number one issue for people 55 plus.

00:32:54.180 Everybody else is focused on housing affordability, inflation, the economy.

00:32:58.940 Is there a way to talk about both and try and win voters in both?

00:33:05.540 Well, I think Polly is trying to do that. 1.00

00:33:07.960 And I think they're starting to realize it's not working because they've been tacking on little bits to their slogans and saying Canada first this and Canada first that and trying to apply it to different things.

00:33:18.340 The TFSA one, the announcement this week is a great example where that was an increase in your TFSA limit, but it had to be Canadian investments.

00:33:26.420 Obviously, there's a Trump, you know, bring it home kind of part to that.

00:33:30.540 So I do think that when you talk to the strategist, though, they'll tell you, you need a message.

00:33:36.080 It needs to be clear and you need to just make it when you make it.

00:33:38.820 Don't try to bring these other things in.

00:33:40.540 But that division is true. 1.00

00:33:42.140 I think the young people I talk to, people younger than me, I'm like an old millennial, but the people younger than me, they care a lot about housing.

00:33:50.240 They are still a little pissed off about COVID and, you know, closing their schools or closing the things they were doing at the time, which was to them unnecessary.

00:33:59.600 And I think that is a tough thing for Polly have to bridge because you do just have these totally disparate topics and you kind of have to tack them separately. 1.00

00:34:08.460 Tasha?

00:34:09.120 Well, I was going to say, Mark Carney didn't have anything to do with COVID.

00:34:12.160 So this is the other thing is that the COVID anger that is fueling some of those rallies, too, and people are still, you know, still very amped up about that.

00:34:20.240 But you can't pin that on Carney.

00:34:22.780 You can say the party, yeah, but people pin that on Trudeau.

00:34:25.720 The anti-COVID, the anti-mandate, you know, anger was really directed at the person of Trudeau, even though he wasn't responsible for most of the mandates.

00:34:34.700 In fact, Doug Ford was responsible for a lot.

00:34:36.600 The provincial premiers were.

00:34:38.060 But Trudeau wore that.

00:34:39.320 What?

00:34:39.680 Yeah.

00:34:40.300 Yeah.

00:34:40.820 Trudeau wore that.

00:34:41.840 He wore that.

00:34:42.800 He was the symbol of every, you know, hatred of restrictions of COVID.

00:34:46.940 He was because also he didn't speak to the protesters.

00:34:50.060 He didn't get in the street.

00:34:51.540 He used it for his own purposes, too.

00:34:53.320 Everyone politicized the whole thing.

00:34:55.080 So it's still with us.

00:34:57.340 But here's the thing.

00:34:58.120 Those older voters you talked about who were voting liberal, they have interests to protect.

00:35:02.640 Okay.

00:35:03.000 They have a house.

00:35:04.340 They have savings.

00:35:05.700 They're looking at the markets and they're like, they're tanking.

00:35:07.880 Their retirement's disappearing.

00:35:09.360 Telling you right here, I look every day and I'm like, oh, that's not good.

00:35:12.820 And I'm almost in that bracket.

00:35:14.780 So I get that.

00:35:16.160 They are thinking of voting liberal because they think who will be the best person to

00:35:19.740 protect what I've got.

00:35:20.700 The younger people don't have anything yet.

00:35:22.860 They are, like you said, they want something.

00:35:24.420 They don't have a housing.

00:35:25.320 They don't have, they're frustrated.

00:35:26.540 They're angry.

00:35:27.560 And many of them are still going to vote conservative.

00:35:30.220 But when you look at who turns out in elections, like you said, who wins elections, you've got

00:35:36.160 more of those older voters who will traditionally turn out.

00:35:39.500 And I think they're also concentrated.

00:35:40.820 Like Atlanta, Canada, they're concentrated.

00:35:43.660 Older provinces, Quebec, older province demographically, they're going to vote liberal to protect

00:35:49.840 what they've got.

00:35:50.660 That is the same with Doug Ford, protecting Ontario.

00:35:53.460 It's the same theme that they're running on.

00:35:55.620 If you had told me 10 years ago that we'd be talking about an election campaign where

00:36:00.780 the liberals controlled those 55 and up and the conservatives led with voters 18 to

00:36:05.760 34, I would have said, are you smoking crack?

00:36:09.220 Maybe that's what we have to do to get through this election.

00:36:14.540 I don't know.

00:36:15.600 The liberals are leading 55 plus.

00:36:19.580 The conservatives are ahead, 18 to 34.

00:36:23.080 Their strongest support, though, is in the middle.

00:36:25.320 And that will be the interesting part.

00:36:26.780 35 to 54.

00:36:28.000 That's my age range.

00:36:28.980 That is both Gen X and elder millennial, like Stuart.

00:36:36.200 Are there enough people in that?

00:36:36.920 Are you an elder millennial, Stuart?

00:36:38.860 I love that.

00:36:39.340 It sounds worse than it is.

00:36:40.940 He's like Eliza Schlesinger.

00:36:42.920 I'm just going to make a little pop culture reference there.

00:36:45.680 And if you haven't watched her stand up, give it a shot.

00:36:47.740 So, you know, are there enough of them?

00:36:52.260 Well, you know, a little while ago I would have said definitely not.

00:36:56.200 But how to put this bluntly?

00:37:00.340 Baby boomers are dying. 1.00

00:37:02.760 It's, you know, it's a sad reality.

00:37:05.080 That's my parents' generation. 0.77

00:37:06.780 I'm very concerned about that.

00:37:08.680 But each year there are fewer of them.

00:37:11.900 This is a weird dynamic on all fronts.

00:37:14.720 Let's go back to the Trump angle for a minute.

00:37:17.700 Because I want to play a clip of Mark Carney.

00:37:22.980 And this is from last Thursday.

00:37:25.500 He repeated these comments in Montreal, at the Port of Montreal, after he had talked to Trump.

00:37:31.140 But he made comments about the Canada-U.S. relationship being over that I thought, wow, that might be going a little too far.

00:37:40.280 Here it is.

00:37:40.800 The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations, is over.

00:37:50.980 That clip got noticed in the United States.

00:37:54.760 There were people saying, what does that mean?

00:37:56.680 Does that mean that NORAD's over?

00:37:58.380 That NATO's over?

00:37:59.860 We're going to drop Nexus?

00:38:01.500 We're getting rid of free trade?

00:38:02.840 Look, I understand Trump is attacking free trade and NAFTA and all of that.

00:38:06.400 But that seemed like an over-the-top statement by Carney.

00:38:10.740 Then the next morning, the call happens.

00:38:13.340 And he puts out a statement saying, oh, we're going to start negotiating a new trade agreement.

00:38:18.000 And we're going to have renewed efforts between our respective cabinets.

00:38:22.900 And everything sounds great.

00:38:24.080 And I thought, oh, so he's trying to put the toothpaste pack in the tube.

00:38:27.340 And then he comes back out again on Friday and repeats those comments that the relationship is over.

00:38:34.060 That seems like a dangerous game to play.

00:38:39.560 While I believe we need to expand our trade options and actually take advantage of the, what, more than a dozen free trade agreements Stephen Harper signed while he was prime minister.

00:38:49.180 The U.S. is going to be our biggest trading partner for any reasonable person.

00:38:54.900 You would have to look at that.

00:38:56.400 But those comments to me, it sounded like he was trying to blow up the relationship just for partisan political gain.

00:39:07.000 Oh, I see you smiling, Tasha.

00:39:10.380 Well, it's like, okay, I said this election is like the Ontario election.

00:39:14.600 What did Doug Ford do?

00:39:16.220 Doug Ford ran.

00:39:17.160 Doug Ford never made it personal, though.

00:39:19.940 No, no, no, no.

00:39:20.800 Doug Ford.

00:39:21.960 Oh, he threatened to cut off their hydro.

00:39:25.180 He made it very personal.

00:39:26.220 I totally disagree.

00:39:27.220 Doug Ford talked aggressive, talked tough.

00:39:30.160 But he ran the election early.

00:39:32.120 He called it early so that it would be over.

00:39:35.260 And, you know, before the real stuff happened, before any chances could be fixed, in other words, the threat was there of a sword of Damocles hanging over your head.

00:39:44.460 And this is the same thing, that the liberals need to keep that sword hanging.

00:39:47.740 Because the minute the sword drops and things are all of a sudden okay, well, then all of a sudden all the other issues you mentioned matter, right?

00:39:55.100 The housing, the cost of living, the record of the liberals, all that stuff.

00:39:59.940 Like, you don't want that to come up.

00:40:01.460 So is this partisan?

00:40:02.600 Well, partly.

00:40:03.600 Possibly.

00:40:04.200 It is.

00:40:04.880 Because they're saying, oh, the relationship is over.

00:40:07.500 But then we had this call with Trump, you know, after Carney made the first set of those inflammatory statements.

00:40:13.480 And Trump was very respectful of Carney, called him an actual prime minister, as opposed to a governor.

00:40:17.840 So maybe that's working.

00:40:19.240 Same with Ford.

00:40:20.000 Ford, like, you know, blue is top there.

00:40:22.760 And he got a meeting with Lutnik and this and that.

00:40:24.640 So the tough talking, I think the liberals is both self-serving, 100%.

00:40:29.440 But I think that with Trump, you have to be aggressive because it's a negotiation with him.

00:40:34.200 This is what it all is.

00:40:35.120 It's a negotiation.

00:40:35.980 And you have to come in like a bull in a china shop, just like he is. 0.96

00:40:39.080 And he butt heads and come out, hopefully, somewhere on the other side.

00:40:41.940 Well, but to point out the personal side, and I think this is why it took Carney two weeks to get a call, because as much as he said, I'm not talking to Donald Trump until he shows us some respect, the Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, all these outlets confirmed that on his first day as prime minister, they tried to set up a call and it took Carney two weeks to get a call because Trump wasn't returning the call.

00:41:09.240 Maybe calling him Voldemort during your leadership campaign and Orange Man bad, you know, those are the things that Doug Ford never did.

00:41:19.320 Doug Ford talked tough about Trump and the tariffs, but he never made it personal.

00:41:25.380 And the liberals have made it personal from the beginning.

00:41:27.820 And it's like, well, you guys will do anything to hold on to power.

00:41:33.260 Stuart, your thoughts on that angle?

00:41:34.880 Yeah, I mean, I was talking to a conservative, like, I think before Christmas, when we were talking about the Trump stuff, and they told me they were trying really hard not to say anything too bad about Trump, because they at that point, they expected to be governing at that point.

00:41:49.140 And they didn't want to sour the relationship unnecessarily.

00:41:52.640 And maybe that's the way you can think when you still think you're 20 points ahead, and it's going to be a cakewalk in the election.

00:41:58.640 But they were thinking that way.

00:42:00.320 And I think you're right that the liberal leadership race didn't quite go that way.

00:42:03.840 Trump was the punching bag, and it was the best way to get elected.

00:42:07.960 Christia Freeland based her whole campaign around disliking Trump. 1.00

00:42:12.380 And it got her 8%.

00:42:14.000 Yeah, it led her right to second place from a distant second place.

00:42:19.540 But I do, I struggle with the Trump thing, though, because I'll admit, when Doug Ford did his thing with the electricity surcharge, as a Canadian, I was a little distressed, because I didn't know where that would go.

00:42:31.460 It struck me as a volatile thing to do.

00:42:33.220 I didn't know how Trump would react.

00:42:35.160 I was worried about potential consequences, tariffs, whatever.

00:42:38.500 So that kind of rhetoric does concern me.

00:42:42.240 Trump's reaction, though, was interesting.

00:42:44.180 And I do remember, you know, Justin Trudeau going to Mar-a-Lago and saying,

00:42:49.540 if you tariff us, you'll destroy Canada, and showing weakness to Trump in a way that I think caused a lot of what we're dealing with right now.

00:42:57.940 Did you see my column a couple of weeks ago where I confirmed that, because I had always thought that was just Trump hyperbole, that Trudeau made such weak statements.

00:43:08.360 And then I heard from someone, no, he actually did that.

00:43:13.320 And I made several more calls, confirmed, you know, do what you do.

00:43:18.180 You confirm with people that don't like each other.

00:43:20.700 And you get the sense that, yes, he actually went down and was like the dog that's laying on its back, belly up to show that you're going to be submissive.

00:43:31.160 He actually said, you will destroy our country if you tariff us like this.

00:43:36.940 And that, I applauded him for going to Mar-a-Lago.

00:43:41.040 I thought it was a bold and brassy move.

00:43:43.400 And I was like, okay, good on you.

00:43:45.640 You know, this is what we need to do.

00:43:47.180 But he delivered the wrong message.

00:43:50.000 And he'd probably still be prime minister right now, Tasha, if he hadn't gone down.

00:43:56.380 You know, he was right to take the meeting, but he botched the meeting.

00:44:01.160 Yeah, I mean, we don't know everything that was said, but that piece you reported exactly that is showing any kind of weakness.

00:44:07.800 And who knows what else was said?

00:44:09.260 But showing weakness to Trump does not work.

00:44:12.680 It is not.

00:44:13.760 Two things he doesn't like.

00:44:15.040 He doesn't like you to correct him, like what happened to Zelensky.

00:44:17.780 You actually tell him facts that are actually, you know, real or other things he doesn't agree with in his universe, then he will lose it.

00:44:24.240 And he will not listen to you.

00:44:25.480 And he will berate you.

00:44:26.440 He has to win and be right.

00:44:28.800 And the other thing is weakness.

00:44:29.940 He doesn't respect weakness.

00:44:31.240 He respects strong leaders, strongmen, dictators.

00:44:33.800 He likes that.

00:44:34.540 He respects that.

00:44:36.020 Like Putin, for example.

00:44:37.620 So, you know, knowing that, showing any kind of weakness, that's not a good idea.

00:44:42.020 So for Carney to keep going on and saying, you know what, the relationship's over, pal.

00:44:46.020 Like, you could be nice.

00:44:47.140 You could say nice things to me.

00:44:48.180 I don't see much of a risk in that.

00:44:52.520 Because, honestly, I think if Carney came back and said, oh, everything's fine now, then Trump, they would say something else.

00:44:59.040 I'm sure they would say, see, we pulled a bull over the Canadians' eyes or something.

00:45:02.160 No.

00:45:02.620 So you just keep going, right?

00:45:04.560 What Polly F's problem is, is that he is not going full throttle anti-MAGA, because part of his base is MAGA.

00:45:12.160 And we know this from polling, which shows 40% of conservatives wanted Trump to win the election.

00:45:16.260 Would have voted for him.

00:45:17.440 One in five think 51st state is a good idea.

00:45:20.300 Okay, but one of those was Doug Ford, and he turned around and fought back.

00:45:27.340 I know, but it's not like the people who wanted Trump to win were not all, you know, raving, anti-WEF, whatever, like really hardcore people on all the issues that Trump stood for.

00:45:40.160 Many of them saw and said, we really don't like the Democrats.

00:45:42.300 Like, oh, this is going to go sideways fast.

00:45:45.100 So Trump would be better.

00:45:46.200 We can, you know, handle him.

00:45:47.680 He's a business person.

00:45:48.460 No one saw the 51st state thing coming.

00:45:49.960 We didn't, right?

00:45:50.860 No.

00:45:51.620 So I think a lot of people were like, you know what, picking up between the two of them?

00:45:55.300 Okay.

00:45:55.800 But conservatives were much more than the other parties.

00:45:58.280 Much, much more.

00:45:59.440 So you see this.

00:46:01.260 It was 10% of the other parties that were like, yeah, okay, Trump better.

00:46:06.000 So when you see that, Pierre has to balance this.

00:46:09.100 He has to balance the base, and he has to balance people who think Trump is the antichrist.

00:46:13.420 How do you do that?

00:46:14.440 It's a very hard thing to do.

00:46:17.480 And so he's stuck.

00:46:19.300 I really feel that's why the wheels are coming off the conservative bus, because they're being pulled in directions that you cannot please everybody.

00:46:26.560 So someone's going to leave you, right?

00:46:29.000 Yeah, we started off, Tasha.

00:46:30.540 You were talking about this being an election of symbolism.

00:46:33.160 I'll finish with symbolism.

00:46:35.340 The respective slogans.

00:46:36.520 The liberals are Canada strong.

00:46:39.820 Polyev is Canada first.

00:46:41.120 Now, he's been running on that for a little while, and he started out by saying, Donald Trump says he wants to put America first.

00:46:47.440 I'll put Canada first.

00:46:48.820 And I thought, oh, that's pretty good.

00:46:51.660 It appears that it may be turning people off.

00:46:53.620 Quite frankly, I think I'd like both slogans together.

00:46:57.300 Canada strong, Canada first.

00:46:59.000 I think it's a fantastic slogan.

00:47:00.780 I think it's the best slogan.

00:47:02.680 You know, sound like Donald Trump there.

00:47:05.000 But do you think that the Canada first thing is turning people off, Stuart?

00:47:11.780 Yeah, well, that's another thing that Corey Tanike said, is that Polyev sounds like Trump.

00:47:17.240 He kind of looks like Trump sometimes.

00:47:18.780 His slogans are like Trump.

00:47:20.400 And I do think that Canadians are very sensitive to anything that even reminds them of Trump right now.

00:47:27.080 And I mean, even just seeing Teslas on the road, I think we're seeing a lot of people getting annoyed about that.

00:47:33.200 Oh, grow up.

00:47:35.100 Grow up.

00:47:36.160 I didn't say I was.

00:47:37.180 I saw a Cybertruck today.

00:47:38.620 It was pretty cool.

00:47:40.220 But I think that's how people are feeling.

00:47:41.820 I hate those.

00:47:42.780 I'm fine with the sedans.

00:47:44.360 Yeah, I'm pro-Cybertruck, actually.

00:47:47.180 But I think that's the mood, right?

00:47:48.980 Is most people just don't want to even think about Trump.

00:47:53.160 And I think Polyev, the trouble he has, and it's, I think, unfortunate for him,

00:47:57.720 because this persona suited him so well in the previous era of Canadian politics.

00:48:02.460 He was the fighter, the guy who was going to take down Trudeau's bad policies.

00:48:05.860 He was fighting all of the disapproval.

00:48:09.040 He was against all the things that people disapproved of in the government.

00:48:13.440 So I think that's a tough swing to make.

00:48:16.340 And I know they've had this Canada First thing,

00:48:18.780 and I know that it hasn't quite performed as well as they hoped it did.

00:48:21.380 I think it might be partly the Trump thing.

00:48:23.700 They may just have to eat some crow and find a new slogan or pivot right away.

00:48:28.640 Tasha?

00:48:29.040 Well, they added a piece to it, which is for a change, right?

00:48:33.700 Trying to remind people that they want people to change from the Liberals to something new.

00:48:38.240 Trying to bring that back is the ballot question.

00:48:40.500 I don't think it's going to work.

00:48:41.940 Canada First, Canada Last, Canada Always is a quote from Wilfrid Laurier.

00:48:45.940 And I am sure that Pierre Polyev thought it up himself because he quotes Wilfrid Laurier.

00:48:50.940 He knows Wilfrid Laurier.

00:48:52.100 He's read this stuff.

00:48:53.400 He is as much a political geek as the rest of us on this panel.

00:48:56.000 But the average voter has no clue what Wilfrid Laurier said,

00:48:59.240 or even probably who he is, which is really sad.

00:49:01.900 But there you have it.

00:49:02.720 I'd say he's on your $5 bill, but how does that work in the tap era?

00:49:07.700 Well, no, but Viola Desmond's on the $5 bill now, my friend.

00:49:11.420 No, she's on the $10.

00:49:12.840 Is she on the $10?

00:49:13.600 Okay.

00:49:13.900 I don't use a ton of cash.

00:49:15.340 In the tap era, no one knows.

00:49:17.880 All right.

00:49:18.420 Now I'm out of touch, too, apparently.

00:49:20.260 But the point is, the average person is not running around quoting Wilfrid Laurier.

00:49:23.780 So to explain this even takes five minutes.

00:49:26.120 It's no good.

00:49:27.400 Canada first sounds like America first. 0.60

00:49:29.700 And some genius should have thought of that.

00:49:32.000 Because right now, when the average person is going to the grocery store and looking at the fruit

00:49:37.400 and not buying the stuff that comes from Kentucky or Ohio or wherever,

00:49:41.720 and they're buying the stuff from Canada or Mexico because they're mad at the U.S.,

00:49:45.940 when the average person is canceling their vacations, and this is 70% down in travel to the U.S.,

00:49:51.720 when the average person is thinking of these things every day, anything that reminds them of Trump,

00:49:56.680 it also, they need someone to reinforce their choices, right?

00:50:00.320 So you're telling them you're making the wrong choice.

00:50:02.340 No, they're like, my choice is right.

00:50:04.140 I'm anti-U.S. and don't tell me that I shouldn't be.

00:50:07.200 It doesn't work.

00:50:08.760 You have, there's the zeitgeist right now is we're mad at the U.S.

00:50:12.360 and we should be mad at the U.S.

00:50:13.780 So anyone who's not mad at the U.S., I don't quite trust you.

00:50:17.380 And that's the problem the conservatives are having.

00:50:19.360 If people weren't doing these things, it'd be a different story, but they are.

00:50:22.820 I want to know what fruit you're buying from Ohio.

00:50:26.840 Giving a random state.

00:50:28.320 I honestly, I don't know.

00:50:30.180 Okay, you know what?

00:50:31.500 I'm just having fun with you.

00:50:33.940 We went to the grocery store, we specifically, and I specifically, also, I request when I buy fruit,

00:50:38.860 and I have a fruit service that comes to me with misshapen fruit, okay?

00:50:43.440 It's like random fruit.

00:50:45.380 It's called Odd Bunch, and it's like the fruit pity would throw away.

00:50:48.220 I get one of those boxes, and they have said they will not have fruit from the states,

00:50:53.300 and I have requested on my thing, I do not want any fruit from the states.

00:50:56.000 Like, hey, that's my choice, and so I'm a lot of including that.

00:51:00.560 I'm seeing it everywhere.

00:51:04.400 Loblaws and shoppers, you know, pronouncing that they are Canadian companies.

00:51:08.400 I thought we were supposed to hate the Westons just a little while ago, 1.00

00:51:11.000 and for people that know Toronto, you will know this reference.

00:51:14.780 There is a bar called the Zanzibar Tavern that is advertising terror-free lap dances

00:51:19.540 on their sign on Yonge Street in Toronto.

00:51:22.380 No, it's awful.

00:51:25.020 Look, I'm just saying everyone's leaning into the nationalism,

00:51:29.740 even those types of establishments.

00:51:33.080 Stuart, Tasha, thanks so much for the time today,

00:51:35.360 and we'll talk again soon.

00:51:37.660 Thanks, Brian.

00:51:38.120 Yeah.

00:51:38.700 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:51:41.120 I'm Brian Lilly, your host.

00:51:42.260 This episode was produced by Andre Pruth,

00:51:44.220 theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:51:45.880 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:51:47.900 Please hit subscribe, whether you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever.

00:51:51.480 Help us out by giving us a rating, leaving us a review,

00:51:54.800 and tell your friends about us.

00:51:55.880 Thanks for listening.

00:51:56.760 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:51:58.380 We'll see you next time.

Full Comment - March 31, 2025

Conservatives are caught in a perfect electoral storm, but aren’t blown away yet

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