Full Comment - Conservatives lived through this same party drama before and emerged victorious

00:00:00.000 As I've said before, well, Parliament Hill can be a bit like high school with salaries.

00:00:06.760 There's a lot of gossip, there's a lot of drama, and it's never ending, especially if

00:00:11.020 your name is Pierre Paulyevre and the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:00:14.440 Hello, welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:00:16.580 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:00:18.000 We've been talking about this issue for a couple of weeks now.

00:00:21.320 The floor crosser that happened on the day of the budget, Chris Dantremont, Matt Genreux

00:00:25.480 resigning or announcing that he would resign at a later date to be confirmed.

00:00:30.000 From the Conservative Party of Canada, lots of speculation about more floor crossers, 1.00

00:00:34.740 now speculation about whether Pierre Paulyevre can survive his leadership.

00:00:38.600 A headline in a column in the Toronto Sun by Amanda Galbraith says,

00:00:42.840 Pierre Paulyevre's Conservatives don't need a new leader, just a Valium.

00:00:48.420 Let's talk about this in depth with someone who knows what it's like to come close to winning

00:00:54.700 power, dealing with floor crossers, eventually getting power. 1.00

00:00:58.780 And that is Ian Brody.

00:01:00.260 He is the former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

00:01:03.560 He's been an academic at the University of Waterloo, the Calgary School of Public Policy.

00:01:08.600 He's now with U.S. Public Affairs and joins me now in studio in Toronto.

00:01:12.820 Ian, great to see you again.

00:01:14.360 Good to see you, Brian.

00:01:15.040 I couldn't think of somebody better to talk about this than you, because when you look

00:01:20.800 at what has happened to Pierre Paulyevre over the last little bit, I was like, well, you

00:01:26.860 kind of went through this with Stephen Harper.

00:01:28.740 I went through that, yes.

00:01:29.160 We went through this.

00:01:29.840 So give people a bit of background.

00:01:31.140 You were an academic who decided, well, let's go test these theories I've got, and went into

00:01:38.940 active politics with Stephen Harper when?

00:01:42.300 Was it 2003, 2004?

00:01:43.960 Spring of 2003.

00:01:45.780 So he was still leader of the Canadian Alliance at that point.

00:01:50.320 So you joined him post-leadership?

00:01:52.700 Post the first, yeah, that's right.

00:01:54.180 Yes, that's right.

00:01:54.800 I mean, I had known Mr. Harper for several years before that, but when I went, and you

00:02:01.260 know, you talk about motivation, at that point, the objective was just to hold the party together

00:02:07.360 to not fall apart until we could get to an election campaign.

00:02:12.760 Kretchen had won three big majorities in a row.

00:02:15.640 They were still division between the Canadian Alliance and the PC party.

00:02:19.360 I'd been working on the ground in by-election in Perth Middlesex, leading up to moving to

00:02:24.700 Ottawa.

00:02:25.560 The PC party came from behind and won that by-election after the Alliance had poured

00:02:30.880 a lot of money and a lot of effort into it.

00:02:33.240 And so at that point, the idea was really just, can we keep the place from falling apart

00:02:38.660 long enough to fight an election campaign?

00:02:40.980 And things turned out a little bit better than that, but that was the vibe that we had

00:02:46.000 at the time when I moved there in 2003.

00:02:47.680 So 2004, the Conservative Party and the PC party have merged.

00:02:55.600 That's right.

00:02:56.040 Stephen Harper is leader, runs for, in the 2004 election against Paul Martin, loses.

00:03:02.860 Some mistakes could have gone another way.

00:03:05.860 Yes, that's right.

00:03:06.700 And then you were facing issues about, you know, can the party stay together again?

00:03:13.040 Spring 2005, you thought you were going to defeat the government.

00:03:17.300 And then there was, ta-da, a floor crosser. 1.00

00:03:20.720 So what was it like back then dealing with, you know, both Belinda Stronick crossing the

00:03:26.560 floor, Chuck Cadman standing up to vote to save the government, all of those things?

00:03:32.480 Yeah.

00:03:32.920 I mean, it was...

00:03:34.940 You're rubbing your eyes.

00:03:36.680 And I'm guessing...

00:03:37.180 I have to take me back to your tough days of...

00:03:40.500 Bad headaches.

00:03:41.080 Tough days of...

00:03:41.800 Yeah, some days of some rough headaches.

00:03:46.460 You know, the 2004 campaign for the Conservatives was winnable.

00:03:49.740 I guess we consoled ourselves that going into that election, Martin's people sort of advertised

00:03:54.860 they were expecting to win 250 seats.

00:03:56.580 They wanted to win...

00:03:56.940 There's a whole book about it called Juggernaut.

00:03:58.580 Yeah.

00:03:58.820 I was like reminding everyone that they were going to win the biggest majority ever, is what

00:04:03.400 they said.

00:04:04.000 Yes.

00:04:04.500 And they got a minority.

00:04:05.960 Yes.

00:04:06.220 I have a remaindered copy of Juggernaut, and I left on the cover of the $1.99, you know,

00:04:11.700 price tag.

00:04:13.580 We won't name the author, but from time to time, when I ran into her, I reminded her that

00:04:17.360 I got the book on sale.

00:04:19.960 So we consoled ourselves with having reduced Martin to a minority.

00:04:24.620 I think that wasn't an accomplishment, but, you know, victories within reach, and it kind

00:04:29.660 of fell apart at the last minute.

00:04:32.420 But I would say it took Mr. Harper and the team probably a year to get over that.

00:04:38.360 It was really kind of losing an election that you think you have a good chance of winning

00:04:42.880 is tough.

00:04:44.780 Now, I'm going off memory.

00:04:45.920 I think the election was spring 2004, right?

00:04:48.780 Around May.

00:04:48.940 It was June of 2004.

00:04:50.000 June, okay.

00:04:50.580 Yeah, called in May for June.

00:04:52.200 And so we were just starting to kind of get our feet underneath ourselves again when,

00:04:57.460 as you say, you know, Harper had gone out of his way to court the NDP, had gone out of

00:05:03.540 his way to consolidate all the opposition parties against Martin, had deliberately not

00:05:09.160 polarized the electorate in order to drive, you know, keep New Democrats voting NDP instead

00:05:13.760 of driving them into the Liberal Party.

00:05:15.540 And we thought we'd put together the parliamentary coalition to defeat the government, the Martin

00:05:20.360 government, in June.

00:05:22.260 And as you say, Belinda Strana crossed the floor, and there were some other developments

00:05:25.560 we lost.

00:05:26.500 We lost the vote by the narrowest of margins.

00:05:28.740 And that was, I was at home that morning that she crossed the floor. 1.00

00:05:33.140 I was on paternity leave because our daughter had just been born.

00:05:35.540 And we were supposed to have, Mrs. Harper was supposed to come over that day to see the 0.99

00:05:40.360 baby.

00:05:41.380 And my wife came to my wife in the shower. 1.00

00:05:43.400 She said, Lorraine can't come.

00:05:45.360 She's got Peter McKay on the other phone.

00:05:48.000 Belinda's crossed the floor.

00:05:48.940 It's over.

00:05:50.040 You probably go downtown.

00:05:51.880 And I thought, this is terrible.

00:05:54.140 I pretty much concluded this was terrible news.

00:05:56.740 And then, you know, you walk into a caucus meeting and people are like, she's abandoned

00:06:01.480 us.

00:06:01.840 Why?

00:06:02.100 And the party, which had been a bit, you know, it was new, bolted together, kind of

00:06:08.560 Frankenstein's monster at a certain point, kind of congealed in hostility to her crossing

00:06:14.660 the floor.

00:06:16.000 It turned out to be the caucus meeting was quite, I don't want to say upbeat, but was

00:06:21.540 quite focused on the task ahead.

00:06:24.900 It wasn't doom and gloom.

00:06:27.020 Absolutely not.

00:06:27.760 As you probably expected going in.

00:06:28.760 No, that's right.

00:06:29.340 No, that's right.

00:06:29.980 And Mr. Harper had warned people that he thought that Belinda would cross the floor in advance.

00:06:34.940 So that helped, you know, he had sort of set the scene for this in advance.

00:06:39.900 But the people-

00:06:40.440 He had picked up on it or?

00:06:42.340 Yeah.

00:06:42.700 He sort of had this sense that something else was going on.

00:06:47.240 He could, I don't think he had a very, I don't think he had any definitive evidence

00:06:51.160 of that, but he had the idea-

00:06:52.340 He had a gut check.

00:06:53.360 Absolutely.

00:06:53.760 And so he told several people he thought she might go.

00:06:57.980 And so when she ended up going, the people that supported her during the previous leadership

00:07:01.880 race, you know, they'd supported her because they were opposed to Harper.

00:07:05.320 You know, I mean, there's a coalition around her, not particularly because of her, but to

00:07:08.900 stop him.

00:07:09.460 And they gave that up that day, pretty much.

00:07:13.880 It was quite a remarkable caucus meeting, I remember.

00:07:15.860 And then the summer was a summer of changes.

00:07:21.180 Negotiations with the PCs, big change in-

00:07:24.460 Overhaul in the office, overhaul of the campaign team, overhaul of the policy team.

00:07:34.660 Some older PC hands came in.

00:07:37.800 Some folks from provincial politics came in.

00:07:40.240 So by September, there was a new team.

00:07:42.760 And at the end of November of that year, we succeeded in toppling the government and pushed

00:07:47.880 for the Christmas election.

00:07:49.300 Before we get to that, I just want to ask you about something that I recall happening.

00:07:53.280 And that is that there was a confidence vote that the Martin government lost in the spring

00:07:59.660 of 2005, and they just ignored it.

00:08:03.580 Yeah.

00:08:04.440 Was that a legit confidence vote, or was it too cute by half?

00:08:09.180 At the time, I was upset because I thought it was pretty clear cut.

00:08:13.300 In retrospect, you look back and think, if you're going to precipitate an election campaign,

00:08:17.740 it really has to be on something that's pretty definitively a confidence vote.

00:08:21.540 So this was someone had moved an amendment to a committee report that was being voted on.

00:08:31.480 And so that wasn't clean enough.

00:08:33.820 So you won that vote, but then lost.

00:08:37.820 There was a straight up and down confidence motion that you lost because of Belinda crossing

00:08:42.340 the floor and Chuck Cadman standing up in his jeans.

00:08:45.080 And then by the fall, things were good, and Stephen Harper won.

00:08:54.300 So what's your advice looking at what Pierre Polyev's doing?

00:08:59.220 And we haven't actually talked about this.

00:09:01.800 I don't know how close you are with Pierre.

00:09:03.420 I know you know him.

00:09:04.920 I don't know if you chat with him and his team, but if you were chatting with them now,

00:09:11.060 what would you be saying in light of Chris Dantremont crossing the floor and Matt Jenneru

00:09:16.580 with this weird resignation thing happening?

00:09:20.680 It's advice I've given to a number of party leaders in similar types of situations.

00:09:26.200 There's two things that in the media circuit we want to comment on that, nonetheless, you

00:09:32.960 should not overreact to.

00:09:35.180 One is the string of by-election losses.

00:09:38.120 You know, you get into a party, you lose a couple of by-elections in a row, but it's

00:09:41.520 like, oh my God, we've lost two or three by-elections in a row, the sky's falling in.

00:09:46.300 Don't overreact to by-elections.

00:09:47.820 Whether you win them or lose them, they're sui generis.

00:09:50.400 There are particular cases that may have no bearing on the next election campaign.

00:09:54.220 And the other thing is a floor crossing.

00:09:56.880 One floor crossing, you never know.

00:10:00.260 It's a mix of personal animus, some enticements offered by the other side.

00:10:07.420 Somebody's in a weak situation and they're riding, maybe they're getting pressure from

00:10:10.520 family or whatever.

00:10:12.300 Look, I was sad to see Chris Dantremont cross the floor.

00:10:15.680 I know Chris and he's a decent guy.

00:10:17.580 I was sad to see him go, but again, like don't overreact to a single floor crossing.

00:10:20.580 Um, if there are others, uh, that's a more serious, uh, situation, but one I don't think

00:10:26.460 is, uh, you know, don't, don't make any rash decisions based on a single floor crossing.

00:10:32.160 I mean, if the liberals did when you recruited, uh, recruited Wajid Khan.

00:10:37.760 Yes.

00:10:38.240 Um, and, and right now there's an awful lot of people listening who are saying, who is

00:10:42.980 Wajid Khan?

00:10:44.100 Yes.

00:10:44.540 Yes.

00:10:45.140 Who was Wajid Khan?

00:10:46.100 And yet I remember, uh, well, uh, there was him, there was the gentleman from Thunder

00:10:51.280 Bay, Joe.

00:10:52.520 Joe Kamuzzi.

00:10:53.420 Joe Kamuzzi.

00:10:53.980 Yes.

00:10:54.360 I mean, I remember standing in the foyer, the house of commons is a very, um, you know,

00:11:00.740 happy Stephen Harper looking like the, the cat that ate the canary welcoming these people 1.00

00:11:05.900 into his party, but in the grand scheme of things, again, don't overreact.

00:11:09.660 It didn't amount to much, did it?

00:11:11.700 No, Joe Kamuzzi was a great guy, but, uh, don't, you know, uh, he was at the end of his

00:11:15.720 political career.

00:11:16.660 Uh, he was making a move just before the election campaign, you know, uh, a great guy.

00:11:21.200 I was happy to have him on the team, but, uh, again, I hope the liberals didn't, uh, overreact

00:11:26.220 to that.

00:11:26.440 David Emerson was a worse, uh, loss, uh, for them and a bigger pickup for, uh, for the conservatives.

00:11:32.500 We can go into that if you want.

00:11:33.320 But, um, well, let's talk about that because I was at Rideau Hall, uh, believe it was February

00:11:40.640 4th, 2006.

00:11:42.820 Yes.

00:11:43.200 The 20th anniversary is coming up.

00:11:44.660 February 6th.

00:11:45.160 I just got sent, uh, a notice that you guys are having a big party on that day.

00:11:50.560 Um, and so the, uh, we're all assembled, uh, at Rideau Hall as the media is to cover the

00:11:59.300 swearing in of the new cabinet.

00:12:00.640 And David Emerson shows up who has been the liberal trade minister.

00:12:04.620 Now I, I never looked at David Emerson as a particularly liberal guy or a particularly

00:12:09.400 conservative guy.

00:12:10.480 He was a bureaucrat for a time who just wanted to serve his country.

00:12:14.760 Yeah.

00:12:15.360 So, I mean, it was a good pickup for you, but most of these are not as significant as

00:12:19.920 that or as consequential as Belinda Strawn at crossing the floor to save the day in a vote. 0.99

00:12:25.440 So, Chris D'Entremont, you know, compared to those two, kind of small potatoes.

00:12:31.580 Uh, yeah.

00:12:32.140 I mean, David Emerson was a big deal because one, he's just a uber confident cabinet minister.

00:12:36.500 And, and as you recall, um, um, uh, was, was the liberal industry minister, went to trade

00:12:43.980 for us.

00:12:44.700 And then when Maxime Bernier blew up his career as foreign minister, stepped into the foreign

00:12:49.780 minister job.

00:12:50.820 And it's hard to imagine somebody else who could have handled that situation better than

00:12:54.640 David.

00:12:55.080 So we were lucky to have him.

00:12:56.440 But at the same time, taking David, uh, from the liberal side, it was the end of the kind

00:13:01.580 of the business guy's wing of the BC federal liberal party.

00:13:04.820 And in fact, they've never recovered from that.

00:13:06.540 They kind of, that kind of liberal party connection to the Vancouver business community had never

00:13:11.720 recovered from David crossing the floor.

00:13:13.980 Um, at the time I knew that that was a possibility.

00:13:16.540 It was one of the reasons why I was eager to have David.

00:13:18.660 I found out later that he was a competent guy.

00:13:21.320 But at the time I thought, yes, if we, if we entice him across the floor, that leaves,

00:13:25.580 you know, Hedy Fry will be the senior liberal in British Columbia.

00:13:27.920 And I like that situation for the conservatives, uh, with all great respect to Dr. Fry.

00:13:32.500 Um, and, uh, so that was, but that was uniquely consequential.

00:13:36.720 Uh, I don't know whether Don Tamar is going to play, you never know, uh, whether this is

00:13:40.400 going to play a big, uh, uh, a big role in the future or not.

00:13:43.280 More difficult is when several people go to create kind of a dissident caucus, which has

00:13:47.780 happened a couple of times, uh, in, uh, politics.

00:13:50.960 My friend Monty Solberg was part of that against, uh, Stockwell Day.

00:13:54.660 I don't really think of that as a floor crossing so much as going to, uh, create a new political

00:13:59.160 party or a new, uh, Monty Solberg and Chuck Strahl and several, I think there were a dozen

00:14:06.480 of them that formed what they call them that Democratic representative caucus.

00:14:11.300 Yeah.

00:14:11.580 And, and they, they, they sat on their own.

00:14:14.300 Um, do you, you know, I'm having some people whisper to me that they think that's going to

00:14:20.040 happen with, uh, Polly Eve and the conservatives.

00:14:22.620 I haven't seen any evidence of that.

00:14:25.180 Um, but maybe people are only the people who are talking to me are only the ones who are

00:14:30.200 loyal to the leader.

00:14:32.100 Um, but I've spoken to conservative MPs in the past couple of weeks that I don't normally

00:14:37.360 speak to.

00:14:38.180 Uh, and I'm not picking up that there's going to be another bunch crossing or a, a group

00:14:46.140 go sit as their own rump and, and leave the party.

00:14:49.980 The closest I've heard, and it's all from liberals, uh, is that they will feed you names

00:14:54.400 like Michael Chon is crossing the floor.

00:14:56.280 Michael Chon is not going to be a liberal.

00:14:58.480 It's not going to happen.

00:15:00.240 Um, or, you know, one name that they floated to me, I talked to the MP, he said, I don't

00:15:04.580 know why my name keeps coming up in the mix.

00:15:06.820 I haven't even talked to any of them.

00:15:08.480 Right.

00:15:09.000 Uh, and, and, you know, you can get a sense when someone is telling you the truth or BSing

00:15:13.700 you and appears to be telling me the truth.

00:15:16.200 But have you heard about any of this?

00:15:18.820 Um, you know, one liberal was saying, well, there's a group of conservatives that won't

00:15:22.560 cross the floor, but we'll vote for the budget.

00:15:25.660 Are you picking up any of this chatter?

00:15:28.060 Yes, but let's put this, let me take a step back and put this into a slightly bigger picture

00:15:33.020 here.

00:15:33.240 Cause I think there's a context here that a lot of different strands going on at the

00:15:37.820 same time.

00:15:38.700 Mr.

00:15:39.120 Carney's a little bit short of a majority and he's introduced a budget without doing much

00:15:42.820 of the groundwork to ensure that one of the opposition parties is okay with it.

00:15:46.940 He's taken, I think, a strong hand.

00:15:48.820 If I were in his position, I would have done the same thing, by the way.

00:15:51.440 So I'm not, that's not a criticism of Carney, just an observation that he didn't go through

00:15:55.220 the normal process of sitting down with all the opposition leaders and giving them each,

00:15:58.360 you know, a bone in the budget to earn their support.

00:16:01.900 So there are, there are smaller bones for individual ridings, individual ridings, but not

00:16:06.760 that might attract individual MPs.

00:16:09.080 Yes.

00:16:10.180 So, you know, that's a tough, that's a tough hand.

00:16:12.560 On the other hand, we're in a tough situation.

00:16:13.940 He's very close to a majority and none of the parties can really afford an election right

00:16:16.900 now.

00:16:17.160 So I think that was the right, uh, uh, chance, chance to take.

00:16:21.520 And now he's in sort of a stare down with the opposition parties to see whether someone

00:16:25.360 of them is going to trigger an election campaign.

00:16:27.040 That's on the one side.

00:16:28.380 On the other side, we forget, but it's, uh, easy to forget a year ago, Mr.

00:16:33.360 Polley was 25 points ahead, 26 points ahead in the polls and lost the election.

00:16:36.840 Again, that creates unhappiness, discontent, confusion inside the conservative caucus.

00:16:43.340 Some people are unhappy about that.

00:16:45.320 Uh, whether they think Mr. Polley has taken full responsibility or has made all the changes

00:16:49.080 that are needed to make sure that doesn't happen again.

00:16:51.040 There's a whole variety of different opinions there.

00:16:53.360 That's normal in opposition caucus, by the way, I've been through many opposition caucuses

00:16:56.920 that are like this, that that is normal, especially after you use the election.

00:16:59.820 And I assume it's normal after you blow a 25 point lead, uh, which doesn't happen too

00:17:04.420 often.

00:17:04.920 So, you know, we're going through some political bends on that.

00:17:07.540 As a old professor of mine used to say, you go up and down as you do when you're scuba

00:17:11.260 diving, you can go through the bends.

00:17:12.480 That's what the party's doing at the moment.

00:17:14.860 And so I don't think anybody's going to see anybody else cross the floor or sit in some

00:17:18.400 kind of rump, but there's obviously a debate going on inside.

00:17:22.100 Mr.

00:17:22.260 Polley faces a leadership review at the convention in January in Calgary.

00:17:26.000 And you can never take those sorts of things for granted.

00:17:29.800 Uh, I know he's got a campaign going on to secure the leadership review for him, which

00:17:33.800 is good.

00:17:35.160 Uh, in the end, I think the question will be, you know, uh, a year ago, Pollyev's personal

00:17:41.080 support outstripped the conservative party support.

00:17:43.120 And so he pulled the conservative party up in the polls as it were.

00:17:46.940 Now he's not.

00:17:47.600 Now he's not.

00:17:48.280 Now he's a drag on the party's support in the polls.

00:17:51.320 I think that's fairly clear across all the polls.

00:17:53.020 The polls are still good.

00:17:53.980 If there was an election, you don't know who'd win.

00:17:56.420 The conservatives are within striking distance in most of the polling.

00:17:59.200 So I, I'd agree with you on, on personal popularity.

00:18:01.840 He is not as popular as Mark Carney.

00:18:04.200 So what's he going to do about that?

00:18:06.180 Uh, but, but on, but on the party support, you know, there is a narrative among some in

00:18:11.200 the media that, well, you know, the, no one wants to vote for the conservatives.

00:18:15.820 They've fallen off the cliff.

00:18:17.160 That's not, that's, that's not accurate at all.

00:18:19.180 But the, the political coalition that brought Pierre Pauli up to 43%, or 42% in the last

00:18:24.960 election is still there.

00:18:26.180 It's the people who don't own anything, would like to get ahead in life, are going to have

00:18:30.180 to take some chances to do that.

00:18:31.560 And the people who supported Carney and made him prime minister at 44%, 45% or whatever

00:18:36.940 it was, the people who own a house and want to protect what they have from Trump and

00:18:41.620 everything else are still there.

00:18:42.900 Not much has changed since April.

00:18:45.760 This is still within striking distance.

00:18:47.220 My, my read of the polls and I've been at this a long time like you, uh, is that if an

00:18:53.900 election were held, we're in the same position that we were April 28th.

00:19:00.380 That's right.

00:19:00.880 And depending on what the ballot question is, either side could win most likely a minority

00:19:06.540 for either side.

00:19:07.720 Yeah, other side.

00:19:08.000 Um, and so all this chatter in my view, and I, I, I agree that there is a real dissension

00:19:15.400 within some parts of the party, but I'll say this, um, it's not a red Tory, it's not

00:19:22.800 the old, well, the PC and the Alliance are pulling apart.

00:19:25.400 Those, those divides don't exist in this modern day party.

00:19:29.240 As far as I can tell, um, I have talked to folks in the party, both MPs and activists

00:19:36.240 from various factions, cause every party has factions and you know what they're all upset

00:19:41.240 about?

00:19:41.900 They didn't win.

00:19:43.480 There's no, oh, he's too harsh.

00:19:45.820 He's too, no, we didn't win.

00:19:48.460 And that's what it comes down to.

00:19:50.240 Yeah.

00:19:50.700 I mean, uh, in particular, cause for three years there are two years, it looked like it

00:19:54.620 was a sure lock we were going to win.

00:19:56.060 And so there's some disappointment on that.

00:19:58.140 And I think between here and the leadership review in January, we're kind of waiting for

00:20:02.600 Mr. Polly have to say, okay, we get, you know, cost of living, good issue, uh, debt

00:20:07.660 out of control, good issue, immigration.

00:20:10.120 Yep.

00:20:10.460 Border control, drugs, so on and so forth.

00:20:12.400 Great.

00:20:13.500 Um, he's going to have to put together the, the picture of, of, of how he wins, how he takes

00:20:19.280 the party to victory.

00:20:20.160 Well, if those are the ballot questions, I think he wins.

00:20:22.560 Yes.

00:20:22.800 I'll be at a minority.

00:20:23.680 But if it's Trump, then Carney wins again.

00:20:26.980 Yeah.

00:20:27.540 Uh, we're kind of in a bit of stasis here.

00:20:30.340 Yeah.

00:20:30.760 This is why I think, you know, all the kerfuffle about an election campaign, it's not in anybody's

00:20:35.220 interest right now.

00:20:36.400 It's not in anybody's interest right now to have an election because it's not clear enough

00:20:39.800 has changed.

00:20:41.840 What did Stephen Harper have to do?

00:20:43.920 Did he have to do anything after that loss and the floor crossing?

00:20:47.840 I mean, I'm sure there was some reflection.

00:20:50.060 Yes.

00:20:50.260 We've all heard that he's deep and dark and brooding and goes off, you know, I'm sure those

00:20:56.060 stories drove you nuts.

00:20:57.200 Yes.

00:20:57.460 Um, but did, what kind of reflection did he do and, and did he make changes internally?

00:21:04.540 Was there a change in how we manage caucus or how we approach the media, how we dealt with

00:21:10.200 candidates?

00:21:11.500 Um, I don't think there was a big change in the way he handled caucus because at this point

00:21:15.460 the caucus was, was pretty united after blowing across the floor, very united.

00:21:19.980 And so in a sense, he always had a good ear for what individual caucus members were saying

00:21:25.720 about his leadership in the direction of the party.

00:21:27.660 Actually, he's a pretty good listener in that.

00:21:28.840 I know he doesn't get credit for it, but he's a very good listener.

00:21:31.200 I've heard the stories from inside.

00:21:32.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:33.080 No, no, he, he paid close attention to what people were saying and tried to make sure that

00:21:36.740 he had 80% support in caucus for everything he did and by and large exceeded that.

00:21:40.960 The difference was if I'm going to go back into an election campaign, I need a team that

00:21:47.200 cannot just win an election campaign that can govern.

00:21:49.980 Having a campaign team, having a team that can govern and having preparations to govern

00:21:56.280 takes the pressure off of you while you're campaigning of doubt about what if this ends

00:22:00.340 up in my lap, what am I going to do?

00:22:01.740 No, it's under control.

00:22:02.600 So he brought people on board to help with that.

00:22:04.600 Absolutely.

00:22:05.820 Um, I need a better, uh, marketing team.

00:22:10.040 I need somebody to help.

00:22:11.140 I can't do all the speech writing and political marketing myself.

00:22:15.420 I need some people to help out with that.

00:22:16.920 So Patrick Muttard and a bunch of other Patrick's folks came, uh, on board and overhauled that

00:22:22.520 part of the campaign.

00:22:23.220 And then I need a campaign manager who can bring together a broader group of people, uh, across

00:22:30.160 a broader part of the country.

00:22:31.840 That's Doug, Doug filling came on board as the campaign.

00:22:33.920 So did Doug not run the O4 campaign?

00:22:36.180 No, Tom Flanagan did.

00:22:37.380 Oh, okay.

00:22:37.880 I, you know, Tom's a friend of mine.

00:22:39.000 I've forgotten about that.

00:22:40.040 Yeah, I know Tom's a, Tom's a friend of mine, but, uh, Tom, Tom left, uh, Doug moved up

00:22:46.280 into the campaign manager's job.

00:22:47.800 Uh, Phil Murphy was chief of staff left and I stepped into the chief of staff's job.

00:22:52.180 Uh, there were several, you know, uh, Jim Armour left and a number of, you know, a couple

00:22:57.460 of others left.

00:22:57.960 And then, uh, uh, Patrick came on board on the kind of the big picture marketing stuff.

00:23:03.040 Just decided he needed a different group of, and Marjorie LeBreton came on as a kind of 0.72

00:23:07.400 a very close advisor.

00:23:08.680 I can't leave out Marjorie who played a huge role and just.

00:23:12.300 And I remember when she was wearing a black armband because Stephen Harper had taken over

00:23:17.220 her party.

00:23:17.860 Yeah.

00:23:18.060 Yes.

00:23:18.800 And she came around.

00:23:20.260 I think I put it on the record before, uh, before the merger, I might've said some unkind

00:23:24.740 things about Marjorie LeBreton myself, but it turns out we got along great and, uh, she's

00:23:28.840 one of my favorite people in the party.

00:23:30.100 And so, um, uh, you know, he just decided I needed, I need a different team here.

00:23:36.000 I need to cover some blind spots.

00:23:38.000 I need a higher level of aggression.

00:23:40.440 And look, um, maybe this is advice that so much you give to Pierre Polyev that he needs

00:23:47.420 a team that can help him win, that he can't do all of this himself, but that that's an

00:23:53.340 important part of governing too.

00:23:55.120 If you want to be prime minister, you can't do it all yourself.

00:23:57.160 Uh, Mr.

00:23:57.980 Carnegie making a good effort at it, but that, but that runs out.

00:24:01.780 Um, pick up the phone and talk to Doug Ford.

00:24:04.360 Oh yeah.

00:24:05.340 Let's pause there.

00:24:06.500 Let's pause there.

00:24:07.200 We need to take a quick break.

00:24:08.320 When we come back, we'll get into that.

00:24:10.160 What does Pierre need to do based on your lessons that you learned that Stephen Harper

00:24:15.320 learned?

00:24:15.740 What does Pierre Polyev need to do to win?

00:24:18.540 Because I think we could be heading for a spring election.

00:24:21.400 Back in moments.

00:24:22.480 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?

00:24:25.240 Where we unpack the biggest, weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history

00:24:29.920 you thought you knew and tell you what really happened.

00:24:33.560 Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes.

00:24:37.980 If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?

00:24:42.440 everywhere you get podcasts.

00:24:43.840 So just before we broke, you said, uh, Pierre Polyev should pick up the phone and call Doug

00:24:48.340 Ford.

00:24:49.320 I'm not sure that's happened yet.

00:24:52.060 And the election was April 28th.

00:24:55.260 Um, I have said since before the election, he should have been dealing with Doug Ford.

00:25:02.540 He should have been dealing with Tim Houston.

00:25:05.320 There's no relationship there.

00:25:07.100 He should be, uh, should have worked with Jean Charest, you know?

00:25:11.140 Oh, okay.

00:25:11.760 Well, look, you beat him soundly in the leadership, bring him in, you know, have him help you in

00:25:17.520 Quebec.

00:25:18.760 There really was a, it's all about this guy, uh, even candidates and MPs were not showcased

00:25:26.860 during the election.

00:25:27.780 I, and I'm sure you, you've heard from some of them about that, how big is important is

00:25:33.320 it to show you've got a team?

00:25:34.340 Because I remember Steven Harper bringing in, you know, after Oh four was on a radio panel,

00:25:39.460 uh, with Michael Harris, the journalist from down east.

00:25:42.660 And he said, their biggest problem is they don't have bench strength.

00:25:46.160 Well, suddenly you recruited Jim Flaherty.

00:25:48.200 You recruited John Baird.

00:25:49.540 You recruited Tony Clement.

00:25:50.720 You recruited, uh, Jim Prentice.

00:25:52.940 You've recruited people with solid experience.

00:25:56.080 Lawrence Cannon.

00:25:56.880 And so you could say, here's my team.

00:25:59.520 And I think Pierre's got to show that he's got a team and it's not just him.

00:26:03.700 Well, there's two different things here.

00:26:04.880 I mean, certainly I think the team will come to the floor now because in defense of the

00:26:09.800 campaign strategy at the time, uh, as I said, Pierre's, uh, support was ahead of the parties.

00:26:15.820 So you lead with what the strong point is.

00:26:17.940 The strong point is Pierre.

00:26:18.800 Okay.

00:26:18.940 We're building this campaign around Pierre.

00:26:20.260 Now that that's not the case anymore, it would be, uh, uh, an odd election, uh, strategy

00:26:26.640 not to feature the team rather than the leader who's now a net drag, uh, on the party support.

00:26:32.360 But above and beyond that, he's campaigning to be prime minister of the country, right?

00:26:35.720 Not to be opposition leader.

00:26:36.820 He's not trying to be opposition leader again.

00:26:38.440 And why go back to the same job?

00:26:39.660 If there's a campaign in the spring, you get the job you auditioned for, you get the job

00:26:42.600 you auditioned for.

00:26:43.300 And you know what, you know what, who the prime minister of Canada has to deal with the

00:26:45.940 premier of Ontario.

00:26:46.720 It doesn't matter who it is.

00:26:47.900 Uh, the premier of Nova Scotia doesn't matter who it is.

00:26:49.920 So I'll tell you something that, that I was told, and this was not by someone on Ford's

00:26:55.120 team.

00:26:55.340 This was from someone on, uh, Polioff's team is that someone went to him and said, shouldn't

00:27:02.760 you establish a relationship with Doug Ford?

00:27:05.220 Because when you become prime minister, at this point, they're still in the, it's a

00:27:10.420 foregone conclusion.

00:27:11.260 This was before January 6th.

00:27:13.480 I like to say Canada and the U S each had January 6th.

00:27:16.660 They were just very different.

00:27:18.240 Um, that someone said, when you become prime minister, you're going to need to have a good

00:27:22.780 relationship with Doug Ford.

00:27:24.700 And his response was, no, when I'm prime minister, he'll need to have a good relationship with

00:27:28.400 me.

00:27:29.580 Um, like those two need to sit down.

00:27:34.560 Um, break bread, go fishing, something, whatever it is.

00:27:39.000 Look, uh, uh, I don't live in Ontario anymore, so I don't pay, you know, day to day close

00:27:44.720 attention to Ontario politics.

00:27:46.620 So one thing I know is that, uh, Doug Ford's won three majority governments in a row and

00:27:51.620 that's not an accomplishment that's easy to achieve in Ontario hasn't since whatever the

00:27:55.440 1960s.

00:27:56.260 Um, so obviously there's something there, there's some skill there, there's personal

00:28:00.360 connections back and forth between the two teams.

00:28:02.920 I would just get on with it.

00:28:04.260 It doesn't have to be, look, uh, Mr. Harper had dealings with provincial premiers, not all

00:28:09.900 of whom he got along with personally.

00:28:11.920 Uh, but, uh, it's a big complicated country.

00:28:15.040 The premiers have important roles to play.

00:28:17.260 Um, it turns out some of those relationships worked out pretty darn well.

00:28:21.080 Uh, uh, one of them, not a conservative, uh, ended up as Mr. Harper's, uh, ambassador

00:28:26.220 in Washington and another one, not a conservative, ended up as a side commissioner in London.

00:28:30.080 Um, those are people he didn't know, uh, at the time, but made an effort to get to know

00:28:35.260 before he ran and then, uh, after he'd run.

00:28:37.780 So, you know, you're going to have to have like, we're all adults here.

00:28:41.080 It's a big country to run.

00:28:42.440 I know out West Doug Ford is not popular and there'd be a lot of conservatives in the West

00:28:46.500 saying, well, well, he's just a liberal anyway and ignore him.

00:28:51.000 I think that's bad strategy.

00:28:52.440 I think that you've got to work with people that are at least partly on your team.

00:28:56.400 The old someone you agree with 80% of the time isn't your 20% enemy.

00:29:00.920 Look, I know there's people here in Ontario who think that Daniel Smith, my premier is

00:29:04.260 some kind of crazy severist, which she's not, uh, I've said so.

00:29:08.020 Yeah, that's not, that's not true, but you know, guess what?

00:29:10.980 The prime minister has got to have a relationship with the, with the premier of Alberta as well,

00:29:14.460 regardless of who it is, regardless of what party it is.

00:29:16.940 So just get on with that.

00:29:18.240 Uh, you don't need those stories anyway, uh, during an election campaign.

00:29:21.820 So make the phone call and that's, that's the end of the story that you never taught,

00:29:25.480 you know, I've never, I spoke to Pierre Polyev on the Thursday before the election was called

00:29:29.080 or whatever Ford said during the election campaign.

00:29:31.160 Nobody needs any of that stuff.

00:29:32.700 Yeah.

00:29:32.920 Just, you know, be adults and move on.

00:29:36.060 So in terms of where Mark Carney's going, I'd like your assessment of that as someone

00:29:41.340 who's been at the center of these big decisions.

00:29:43.640 Right.

00:29:44.440 Um, he does appear to be running a near solo government.

00:29:50.920 Right.

00:29:51.280 Uh, there's a couple of ministers out there, you know, uh, Frankie Bubbles with the budget. 1.00

00:29:55.960 Um, you've got, uh, Tim Hodgson, but beyond that, do you get a sense he trusts his cabinet?

00:30:04.620 Um, look, there are part of Mr. Carney's challenge here is that he didn't come up through the party,

00:30:10.500 right?

00:30:10.780 I mean, he's dallied in and out of the party, knows people inside the party, but it's not

00:30:14.820 like he has a long career inside the liberal party.

00:30:17.080 He was a public servant.

00:30:18.220 He was at the central bank.

00:30:19.300 He didn't live in Canada for many of those years.

00:30:21.800 And so he doesn't have the normal political team that you come to that job with, even

00:30:25.680 if you've never been in government before, you know, Mr. Harper had a team of people,

00:30:29.620 like a press secretary, you know, speechwriters, uh, uh, an executive assistant.

00:30:34.580 Um, Mr. Carney's team is, uh, Tim Hodgson, the natural resources minister with whom he has

00:30:39.060 this longstanding relationship.

00:30:40.700 Going back to Goldman Sachs.

00:30:41.980 And not really much else.

00:30:45.120 So he's, he's apparently got a 30 year friendship with Jonathan Wilkinson, but he's trying to

00:30:49.880 get rid of them.

00:30:50.860 Yeah.

00:30:51.280 So, uh, I think he's trying to find his way.

00:30:55.180 Yeah.

00:30:55.480 He brought, uh, uh, Krista Friedland into his cabinet and then that didn't work out.

00:31:00.180 And so now she's off to some job with Ukraine or something.

00:31:03.380 So sort of a slow motion separation from the liberal party.

00:31:05.980 And we're led to believe there may be other, uh, cabinet, uh, uh, departures coming.

00:31:11.480 I think he's putting together a government as he goes along here because he doesn't have

00:31:15.400 a big, long political tale of, uh, of, uh, friends and allies that he can depend on.

00:31:19.820 He's trying to figure it out.

00:31:21.120 I think that's part of the problem of this government is that it really is, uh, three or

00:31:25.980 four guys at the center who all sort of think like Carney and, uh, come from Carney like

00:31:31.040 backgrounds.

00:31:31.660 And they don't really have much of a sense of what the country looks like from, uh, you

00:31:37.280 know, blue collar, Hamilton, uh, Saskatchewan, uh, New Brunswick perspective.

00:31:42.500 Uh, and the, and the, and the, and the haven't encountered that in their careers for quite

00:31:47.160 some time.

00:31:47.700 You know, Mark starts with humble origins, but that's an awfully long time ago.

00:31:52.020 And, uh, it's not like he's got some trusted folks around him who have a very good sense of

00:31:55.900 how the country as a whole works.

00:31:57.340 They have a very narrow view.

00:31:58.880 So you have a budget that looks like, um, you know, it was written by the IMF for the

00:32:05.520 IMF governing council.

00:32:07.780 Uh, you know, the, the text is a little hard to parse.

00:32:10.760 It's huge.

00:32:11.440 It's technically complicated budget.

00:32:13.560 Uh, what's the storyline for the public?

00:32:15.740 Not clear to me that anybody stopped, you know, hold the presses.

00:32:19.000 What are we going to, what are we going to tell people at the sun and at the national

00:32:22.560 post about what this budget is about?

00:32:24.560 It's not clear that anybody sort of pressed stop and said, what's the retail part of this?

00:32:28.420 I was listening to Scott Reed who spent years on, on the other side with the liberals saying

00:32:34.140 he's never seen such a bad budget rollout in terms of pre positioning, in terms of having

00:32:39.640 a storyline, you know, the, the Martin guys perfected it.

00:32:42.760 You guys picked it up and ran with it when, when you were in yet a couple of stinker budgets.

00:32:47.100 I was sure for them.

00:32:48.320 Um, but you know, there was generally some kind of a storyline.

00:32:52.320 And in this one, if Chris Dantremont hadn't come along and crossed the floor, well, it,

00:32:58.540 all we'd be talking about is $78.3 billion deficit.

00:33:03.940 Assuming for a moment that the Dantremont thing didn't just unfold to the last minute

00:33:07.820 because, you know, part of the story was out and once part of the story is out, the whole

00:33:12.360 story is going to come out.

00:33:13.220 So you might as well move.

00:33:13.840 So he actually, I wrote my first piece about this is that the Dantremont floor crossing story

00:33:20.840 not only shocked the conservative party and the gallery, it shocked Dantremont because

00:33:26.220 he didn't realize that he was telling someone on the record.

00:33:29.040 And so it broke before he, before it was supposed to.

00:33:33.020 Yep.

00:33:33.820 Planning a floor crossing to occur on the day of the budget, after you've presumably put

00:33:38.560 some time and effort into designing the budget, rolling out the budget, pre-announcing parts

00:33:42.260 of the budget.

00:33:42.580 I think that was supposed to happen the next day.

00:33:44.160 The next day.

00:33:44.620 The next day.

00:33:45.300 No, I, uh, so it's, so all we've talked about or all the people have talked about instead

00:33:49.640 of what's in the budget is the Chris Dantremont crossing and problems inside the conservative

00:33:53.320 party.

00:33:53.540 It has saved Carney from having to talk in human terms to actual main street Canadians 0.95

00:33:59.880 about what's in this budget.

00:34:01.280 And, you know, it's, it's a, it's a earth changing budget with generational decisions

00:34:05.700 and it, okay, tell me more.

00:34:08.240 It's actually hard to tell you the next, what's the next sentence in that story.

00:34:11.640 There's, there's nothing that's generational transformation that I found in this budget.

00:34:15.480 There's a lot of money set aside for future commitments.

00:34:18.380 Like, I mean, an extraordinary amount, like an almost obscene amount of money, all of which

00:34:22.200 is going to be borrowed.

00:34:22.940 And there's a lot of claims that they will cut spending in the future.

00:34:27.580 And I'm sorry, I don't believe any of you when you say that.

00:34:31.040 No, cutting spending requires some decisions that is difficult.

00:34:34.980 Uh, it's just hard to not only to make the decisions, but to sell them to people and to

00:34:39.380 implement them.

00:34:40.080 So that's a challenge of governing.

00:34:42.500 The problem is that we all believe because he looks competent and we're told he's competent,

00:34:48.120 that Mark Carney has a plan for dealing with Trump and for rebuilding Canada for the

00:34:51.680 future.

00:34:52.940 When is the speech coming in which he fleshes that out?

00:34:58.100 Usually he did one and he said, you're all going to have to sacrifice.

00:35:00.780 You're all going to have to say, okay.

00:35:01.880 That was Jimmy Carter malaise moment.

00:35:03.860 Um, how does the budget fit into that plan for the rebuilding of Canada of the future where

00:35:08.340 we can depend on the United States?

00:35:09.720 Uh, is he, is he, is he able to put together a half hour discussion, uh, sit down with the

00:35:17.560 editorial board at one of the newspapers or do it with some YouTube host or, or come to

00:35:22.580 your podcast and explain it.

00:35:24.580 Uh, we haven't seen that part of Carney's skillset yet.

00:35:27.380 And I'm, I'm not entirely convinced that it's, that it's there.

00:35:31.140 He's done better at retail politics than I expected.

00:35:34.140 Absolutely.

00:35:34.420 He's did better at campaigning than I expected.

00:35:36.360 But you said, you know, will he be able to, um, explain this and sell it to the average

00:35:42.540 Canadian?

00:35:42.980 And well, my time covering him as bank governor, you really have to poke and prod him to get

00:35:47.420 him to do that.

00:35:48.160 It doesn't come to him.

00:35:50.120 And it should to a central bank governor, you know, a retail touch for a central bank governor

00:35:55.660 is usually there's a problem.

00:35:56.980 They're all used to dealing with like Theo from Bloomberg and Paul from the wall street

00:36:01.480 journal.

00:36:01.760 And then I show up and like, can you tell me something basic for the news talk 10, 10 crowd?

00:36:08.860 Uh, but yeah, your quick assessment, and then I'll switch back to asking you about Pierre,

00:36:14.460 your quick assessment of this major projects office and, and how it's going.

00:36:19.540 Like my, my big complaint I keep saying is that I want Mark Carney to live up to his own

00:36:24.520 words of think big, act bigger, move at speeds, not seen in generations.

00:36:28.860 I'm just still waiting.

00:36:32.000 Yeah.

00:36:32.580 Look, there's a series of projects in that window that looked like they were surefire bets

00:36:36.860 anyway, and some projects that are years away from having a proposal.

00:36:40.080 Well, the Sisson-Tungsten mine in New Brunswick, they made a big deal about approving it in

00:36:43.920 2017.

00:36:44.580 Yeah, yeah, no, we're now eight years into the not constructing it, uh, phase, phase of

00:36:48.720 that project.

00:36:49.860 Um, look, uh, Bill C-5 and the major projects office was designed to unlock some of the petrochemical

00:36:56.280 wealth of the country for international markets.

00:36:58.620 And so far, none of that's moved.

00:37:00.460 Um, I think, uh, the, the, the legislation was rushed through the legislative process,

00:37:07.300 which is unfortunate, a good way of making a lot of mistakes on a big senior piece like

00:37:12.720 this.

00:37:13.060 And now major project proponents are sitting back just to see how it goes.

00:37:16.640 Nobody wants to be the first, the first one through that loop.

00:37:20.080 And, uh, uh, uh, Carney has said he wants to hear from project proponents first and then

00:37:27.680 sit back and make decisions.

00:37:28.840 I like this one.

00:37:29.560 I don't like this one.

00:37:30.540 I think if those big projects are going to get done, he has to lean into that more.

00:37:34.820 Uh, or change the regulatory environment.

00:37:37.120 I mean, he, he came to Toronto, told the Canadian club that there's no problems with the regulation

00:37:42.580 that same day.

00:37:44.280 Enbridge and TC energy were holding calls, uh, on their third quarter results talking about

00:37:50.060 the problems with the regulatory, uh, situation in Canada.

00:37:53.580 Yeah.

00:37:54.220 They're investing billions in the U S look the, the emissions cap, uh, the fuel regulations,

00:38:00.160 the tanker ban and the environmental impact assessment legislation as a combination is a

00:38:07.160 bullet aimed at the heart of private sector investment in Canada.

00:38:10.420 We may not like to admit that, but it's true. 0.98

00:38:12.960 And if there's going to be anything moved, so that legislation is going to have to be repealed

00:38:17.200 and replaced with something that's a lot easier for investors to deal with.

00:38:20.060 Well, I'm glad you said repeal and replace, because when I spoke to premier Smith a couple

00:38:23.720 of months ago, people just kept saying, well, she wants to repeal the law. 1.00

00:38:27.180 And she said, no, there are valid parts within it.

00:38:30.140 But as a whole, C 69 is makes life inoperable for an awful lot of businesses and not just oil.

00:38:38.120 I mean, why is that tungsten mind that's been approved since 2017, not move forward?

00:38:45.240 Because there are so many regulations that make it difficult, if not impossible to go forward.

00:38:52.700 Does all of this give Shere Poliev an opening?

00:38:57.760 Um, you know, in, in terms of, you know, it's one thing if it's just me saying Carney doesn't

00:39:03.780 live up to his own hype, but if Susan Delacorte at the Toronto Star is saying that if Andrew

00:39:07.940 Coyne at the Globe and Mail saying that if people on the street are talking to me about

00:39:12.000 that, that's starting to, to resonate.

00:39:15.540 I used to call it when my kids were little, I'd called it like what breaks through with

00:39:19.220 the other parents at the school bus while you're waiting.

00:39:21.820 And this appears to be breaking through a little bit that he promises a lot, but doesn't deliver.

00:39:28.140 Um, I think a six month, two pieces here, a six month effort on what's he delivered, what's

00:39:35.300 he delivered, what's he delivered, what's he delivered.

00:39:36.900 It's a nice slogan, uh, that you want to push through enough that kids start chanting it

00:39:42.240 in the back of the minivan while mom's driving them to school or while dad's driving them

00:39:45.860 to school.

00:39:46.420 I think it's easy enough to understand and people can read the stories themselves about

00:39:50.920 all the things, you know, generational investments, blah, blah, blah.

00:39:53.140 How has it affected your life?

00:39:54.740 Nothing so far.

00:39:56.260 And then on the other piece, has he fixed the immigration issue that the Trudeau government

00:40:00.940 bought so badly?

00:40:01.880 Not clear to me yet that that, that the effect of that has been felt.

00:40:04.980 That there's still, uh, people trying to get established in the labor market, including

00:40:09.840 especially here in Southern Ontario, uh, facing, you know, major employers that want to advertise

00:40:15.660 for, uh, temporary foreign workers to take their jobs, to, to fill their, their need for

00:40:20.840 labor instead of Canadian kids or Canadians are getting started in, uh, in life.

00:40:25.420 Uh, Mr. Pahliv was on that in September and then kind of backed away from that issue.

00:40:29.140 I'm not exactly sure why.

00:40:30.500 I think that's an evergreen issue as well and could come back.

00:40:32.960 Those two are in effect, the two potential very weak points that are easy to explain

00:40:38.320 to somebody in Oshawa.

00:40:39.600 They're easy to explain to somebody, um, in Milton, Ontario, uh, of what's going on and

00:40:45.680 a certain amount of, uh, patience for the public opinion to follow up to what I think

00:40:50.320 Mr. Pahliv's right to point out here.

00:40:52.260 I think that's an order.

00:40:53.440 Yeah.

00:40:53.560 If you were part of Mark Carney's team, I'm hearing the chatter of spring election.

00:40:59.920 Yes.

00:41:00.580 Replace some of his Trudeau holdovers, bring in his own team, run an election in the spring.

00:41:07.040 Is that advice that you'd say?

00:41:08.580 Yeah.

00:41:08.780 Sounds good, boss.

00:41:09.560 I think you want, I think at this stage, he wants to have the option of doing that.

00:41:14.140 Uh, the economic situation could be, look, if we lose, um, a big Southern Ontario auto

00:41:20.200 plant, you know, one a month from now until April, do you want to have an April election

00:41:24.140 after that?

00:41:25.040 No.

00:41:25.920 Uh, if there's God forbid, uh, you know, a hundred thousand unemployed auto workers

00:41:30.580 floating around Southern Ontario.

00:41:31.720 I mean, I hope this does not happen, but that's a possibility that we have to confront.

00:41:35.160 And then all the upstream and downstream jobs from parts manufacturers and service providers

00:41:39.780 and so forth that go along with that.

00:41:41.200 I mean, I lived in London for six years, you know, um, yeah, I know what the impact of that

00:41:46.420 industry is in that part of the world.

00:41:48.900 If that's the future that we have to confront between here and April, hard to see an election

00:41:53.840 campaign, uh, based on that in particular, because it's hard for, for me to imagine in

00:41:58.840 April, Carney comes out and says, here are five pages from my budget in November that deal

00:42:04.140 with the economic pain that we just went through.

00:42:06.000 I don't see that, you know, there's not an election campaign advertising, uh, uh, program

00:42:10.880 that's built around that.

00:42:12.320 But, um, if there's a pretty good deal with Mr. Trump, better than expected, uh, if the

00:42:19.100 economy is starting to recover at that point, if some of the major projects are starting

00:42:22.240 to drive some investment in Canada, sure.

00:42:23.780 Yeah.

00:42:23.920 You want to go at that point, um, uh, to catch a new NDP leader, you know, the liberals did

00:42:29.600 well because of, in part because of the collapse of the NDP vote.

00:42:32.420 You want to get the NDP before they have a chance to come back and chew a few more points

00:42:36.740 out of the liberal party support and, uh, catch Mr. Polyev before his, uh, uh, you know,

00:42:45.060 show me the beef, uh, on the major projects catches, catches wind.

00:42:51.960 Polyev, uh, faces leadership review in January until the drama, uh, of late.

00:43:00.360 I assumed it would be a slam dunk.

00:43:02.480 Now I think, well, still pretty good, but it depends on how he deals with the next month.

00:43:08.340 Um, do you see him winning it and should he get another shot at an election, whether it's

00:43:13.540 in the spring or later?

00:43:15.220 Um, I think that's always a good idea to let a party leader learn something from an election

00:43:19.460 loss, uh, and to let them, uh, try again, see what, see what they've learned.

00:43:24.120 I mean, it's a risk, but, um, uh, your first election campaign as a national party leader

00:43:28.380 is always a surprise.

00:43:29.600 It's always tougher than you think it's going to be.

00:43:31.520 And so the second time around, at least he'll be prepared for that.

00:43:33.820 So I think that's worth it.

00:43:35.340 Um, a leadership review and I was involved in a leadership review myself for Mr. Harper

00:43:40.460 in 2005.

00:43:41.880 Um, you could never take a leadership review for granted.

00:43:44.880 Uh, there's always surprises.

00:43:46.120 There's always somebody out there campaigning against you, no matter how implausible the

00:43:49.280 case is, there's some people out there working against Mr. Polyev.

00:43:52.300 And I know Mr. Polyev's team is taking that possibility seriously.

00:43:55.580 The question is, how does he motivate people to get to Calgary in the third week of, unless

00:43:59.080 you're planning to go to Lake Louise afterwards for ski?

00:44:01.120 It's a bit of a hard sell.

00:44:02.420 I just assumed that they picked Calgary at the end of January to make sure that nobody

00:44:06.120 came.

00:44:06.340 Well, yeah, the locals will be there.

00:44:08.920 Um, uh, the locals will be there.

00:44:10.540 And of course, Doug Ford's having his convention at the same time.

00:44:12.900 So there's a counter-programming here in Ontario.

00:44:15.360 But you've got to get enough people there that, uh, that he secures that.

00:44:19.720 And that's leadership campaigns and leadership reviews are always full of plots and counter

00:44:24.920 plots and surprises and people come out of the woodwork and so forth.

00:44:28.020 I don't think they're taking any of that for granted.

00:44:29.720 And I don't think they should.

00:44:31.360 Um, I think, uh, at the, yes, we come to the year end interviews and then into the pre-convention

00:44:37.420 interviews, a picture of what, uh, Polyev takes from the spring election campaign and

00:44:42.440 what's going to be different about the next election campaign to put the party on

00:44:45.240 track to win.

00:44:46.780 That's the piece that I don't, I haven't quite seen yet.

00:44:49.180 It is coming to be time for him to put some of that on the record.

00:44:52.800 Okay.

00:44:53.020 So we'll, we'll end there.

00:44:54.520 Um, what does he need to do in terms of building that team?

00:44:58.120 Does, you know, the leader is going to be the same as campaign manager, going to be the

00:45:02.900 same.

00:45:03.120 A lot of fingers pointing at Jenny Burns.

00:45:04.940 Some, I think fairly and some unfairly.

00:45:08.000 I think some of the criticism is, yeah, warranted.

00:45:10.920 You're, you're the campaign manager.

00:45:12.820 You're going to wear it.

00:45:13.580 But I think some of it is over the top, but does she get another shot?

00:45:18.300 Well, I think she's already announced she wants to step back. 0.58

00:45:20.140 And I think that's probably a good idea.

00:45:22.160 The party has quite a bit of talent.

00:45:23.680 So, uh, look, uh, Jenny Burnham, Pierre, probably over in effect, sort of a box set.

00:45:29.040 So she's never going to be that far from him.

00:45:30.660 I expect she'll be around and involved in the mix, but, uh, uh, uh, a bigger, broader

00:45:37.580 election team, I think is, is part of the, the, the formula for turning, uh, uh, a disappointing

00:45:43.440 loss into a win in the next election campaign.

00:45:45.680 And there's lots of people around that can help with that.

00:45:48.480 All right.

00:45:48.780 Ian Brody.

00:45:49.640 Thanks so much.

00:45:50.740 Enlightening.

00:45:51.440 Good to talk to you, Brian.

00:45:52.900 Full comment is a post media podcast.

00:45:54.820 My name's Brian Lilley, your host.

00:45:56.320 This episode was produced by Andre Pru.

00:45:58.200 Theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:46:00.020 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:46:02.060 Please help us out by giving us a rating, leaving us a review and hitting that subscribe

00:46:06.720 button.

00:46:07.300 Thanks for listening until next time.

00:46:09.040 I'm Brian Lilley.

00:46:09.820 Here's that clip from Canada did what?

00:46:16.080 I promised you.

00:46:20.380 Castro would end up occupying a space in the Trudeau family, similar to that of a beloved

00:46:25.380 uncle.

00:46:26.480 They went diving.

00:46:27.780 They smoked cigars together.

00:46:29.420 They gathered sea urchins for beach cookouts.

00:46:32.920 Informal talks at an island hideaway intensified their respect for each other and their mutual

00:46:38.980 enjoyment of skin diving added to the rapport.

00:46:42.120 In addition to a well-publicized 1976 summit meeting, Trudeau took three separate vacations

00:46:48.140 to visit Castro after his time in politics had ended.

00:46:51.180 I can make, you know, just one reference to Pierre Trudeau's sons to show the closeness

00:47:01.300 of the relationship.

00:47:02.660 The nickname that the Trudeau sons had for Fidel Castro was Papa Fidel.

00:47:07.040 So that gives you an indication of the closeness of the bond that existed between a communist

00:47:14.840 dictator, you know, thorn in the side of every American administration for the past 50 years

00:47:21.980 and Pierre Trudeau.

00:47:23.100 When Trudeau's youngest son, Michel, died in an avalanche in 1998, Castro called the family

00:47:29.160 in tears to express his condolences.

00:47:31.300 As an eight-year-old, Michel had referred to Fidel Castro as his best friend.

00:47:37.140 When Pierre died, Fidel declared three days of mourning in Cuba and flew to Montreal to

00:47:42.300 act as an honorary pallbearer.

00:47:43.940 Every time Trudeau went down to Cuba, all the people in South Florida, the exiles were thinking,

00:47:52.320 why is this Western leader giving comfort to a murderous dictator, you know, who is oppressing

00:47:59.680 their people in Cuba and saying, you know, good things about Fidel Castro?

00:48:03.800 And as I've mentioned, to have him in the pew at Trudeau's funeral in the front row as a dignified

00:48:13.500 person when he had been such a brutal leader says more about Pierre Trudeau than it does

00:48:22.940 about Fidel Castro.

00:48:24.040 Here's where we should probably touch on what Castro had done and what he was continuing

00:48:28.420 to do while going on beach vacations with the Trudeau family.

00:48:31.340 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What

00:48:38.000 everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - November 17, 2025

Conservatives lived through this same party drama before and emerged victorious

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