Full Comment - June 29, 2026


Is Mark Carney bringing ‘mean’ back？

Topics
Kuzma trade deal trade talks and uncertainty being mean in politics political hack Carney fundraising for PM residence donors' money GoFundMe for Mark Carney's residence union voters political hack
Hosted by
Brian Lilley Anthony Furey Tristin Hopper
Mentioned
Donald Trump Mark Carney Pierre Poilievre Justin Trudeau Brian Mulroney Doug Ford Abby Lewis Sussex Drive John Iveson Tasha Carradine Pierre Trudeau Ronald Reagan Mila Mulroney Althea Raj Cardi Tash Gregor Robertson Audrey McLaughlin Steven Guilbeault Political Hack and 28 more
Here comes the big U.S.-Israel split Canada waited too long to rein in dangerous Big Tech platforms

Episode Stats


Length

59 minutes

Words per minute

181.8

Word count

10,800

Sentence count

681

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Tasha Giridin and Stuart Thompson join us to talk about the Kuzma Review, the trade deal between Canada and the United States, and what it means for the rest of the world. They also talk about a potential replacement for Doug Ford, and the potential replacements for him.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 A Safer Ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my car doesn't get stolen.
00:00:05 It means building new jails to keep criminals behind bars.
00:00:09 And it means there's no need to worry when I play at the park.
00:00:12 We're making every corner of Ontario safer to make all of Ontario safer.
00:00:17 That's how we protect Ontario.
00:00:19 For all of us.
00:00:21 Learn how at Ontario.ca slash Safer Ontario. Paid for by the Government of Ontario.
00:00:30 We are officially into barbecue circuit season in the Canadian political landscape.
00:00:38 Hello, welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. I'm Brian Lilly, your host.
00:00:42 We are looking at the end of the parliamentary session this week.
00:00:46 Of course, we had competing news conferences just days ago.
00:00:50 Prime Minister Mark Carney explaining what he felt his government had accomplished over the last year.
00:00:55 And Pierre Polyev, the Conservative leader, saying what the government had done wrong.
00:01:00 One sticking point that's kind of important to Canada is the issue of Kuzma, our trade deal with the United States and Mexico.
00:01:08 Prime Minister Mark Carney saying that he didn't actually bring that up on a recent call with President Donald Trump.
00:01:15 Also, I mean, you spoke a lot about your call being about the Middle East.
00:01:18 How much did Kuzma play a role in your call?
00:01:22 We didn't discuss Kuzma yesterday.
00:01:25 Yeah, look, we also judge the possibility.
00:01:30 I mean, we could sign a bad deal this afternoon, right?
00:01:33 We could have signed a bad deal a year ago.
00:01:36 We're not going to sign a bad deal.
00:01:37 So it has to be a real deal.
00:01:39 And in response, Pierre Polyev saying Canada should be using what he calls positive leverage to get a deal.
00:01:45 What I would do is build up our leverage, and we have a lot, by committing to build a strategic reserve of the 10 most critical minerals, according to NATO, that you need to fight a war.
00:02:01 put those in a reserve, commit it to increasing oil production by another 2 million barrels,
00:02:07 and offer the Americans the prospect that those resources could be available for their purchase
00:02:15 in a tailored way if we get tariff-free access to their markets.
00:02:23 We need leverage, positive leverage.
00:02:26 That's what President Trump has said. It's what he's written in his own book.
00:02:29 We have that leverage.
00:02:31 The Kuzma Review is just days away, so let's start there with our panel today, the Political Hack Panel. Stuart Thompson is National Post-Parliamentary Bureau Chief, and Tasha Giridin is a National Political Columnist. They are the team behind Political Hack, Postmedia's exclusive VIP community for twice-weekly deep-dive political newsletters. Make sure you subscribe to the newsletter. You'll also get early access to John Ives and Columns, subscriber-only videos, and more.
00:03:01 welcome both of you how are you relieved the summer's here
00:03:06 you know i time for a nap brian time for a nap well as you guys know i i my perch is down at
00:03:15 queens park ontario's provincial legislature and i saw a piece by rob benzie in the toronto star
00:03:21 the other day talking about the potential replacements for doug ford and i texted benzie
00:03:27 And I said, oh, it's summer, I see.
00:03:31 Because that's the time of year that we all do those types of stories.
00:03:35 Ben, you had a good laugh at that.
00:03:38 You will see lots of silly stories over the next little while.
00:03:41 But Kuzma is still a serious story.
00:03:43 So, Stuart, let me start with you.
00:03:46 The fact is we're unlikely to get the deal that we want.
00:03:51 Canada's preferred option is the 16-year additional renewal.
00:03:56 What a bizarre number of years to put into a trade deal, but there it is.
00:04:01 Option number two, which Donald Trump has talked about, is just withdrawing from the deal,
00:04:06 which, if you listen to Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, is unlikely to happen.
00:04:11 But the most likely scenario is we're heading to, okay, we'll let the deal continue on for the next 10 years of its already agreed to like,
00:04:20 But we're going to hit annual renewals or annual reviews, which leads to uncertainty.
00:04:29 None of this is looking good.
00:04:31 And yet Carney didn't raise any of this with Donald Trump on the phone the other day.
00:04:36 What do you make of that?
00:04:39 Yeah, it was weird because the other thing he said was this is the kind of deal that it will come at a high level, meaning Trump and Carney will figure this out themselves.
00:04:50 which it kind of runs against everything else he's been saying about this because when we ask
00:04:54 him questions he'll talk about Dominic LeBlanc and you know all of our negotiators doing all
00:04:59 this hard work and then he says well actually probably it'll be me and Trump on a phone call
00:05:04 and sometimes you think you're really far away from a deal with Trump and then the next day you
00:05:07 get a deal but it is hard to see how that happens if they don't mention the topic that they're
00:05:14 supposed to be making a deal on um we had one of our call was about defense and the war with iran
00:05:21 and the upcoming nato meetings it sounded like a long call because carney talked about how many
00:05:27 people came in and out of the call and secretary of war pete hegg sat join and this person joined
00:05:33 that person joined and never did you think hey just before you go donald can i ask you about
00:05:39 trade talks. Yeah, it was ninth on my to do list. I forgot to get to it. But the way Carney spoke
00:05:47 about it, too, you're right. Seemed like a long call. And it seemed like one of those wild,
00:05:50 freewheeling Donald Trump calls where you're just talking about everything. So one of our
00:05:56 reporters asked Carney not too long ago about the prospect of the one year reviews happening with
00:06:00 Kuzma. The premise being that there's been a lot of uncertainty this year. And to do this every
00:06:07 year would be horrible, I think, for Canadians and for businesses. And Carney kind of shrugged
00:06:12 it off. He said, you know, if we have to do that, we'll do that. So maybe that's just his
00:06:17 negotiating tactics, not to look too stressed about these things. But I think Canadians are
00:06:22 probably a little more worried about it than Carney is right now.
00:06:25 You know, Tasha, we've been hearing so many of our colleagues in the media, in the punditry
00:06:31 world, and they go on TV and they say, oh, nothing changes on July 1st. And I was like,
00:06:36 what are you guys talking about?
00:06:38 And so I go in, I read the deal, you know,
00:06:40 hey, go to source material,
00:06:42 read what we're actually talking about,
00:06:44 see those three options that I laid out for you.
00:06:47 And I went, oh no, a lot can change on July 1st.
00:06:50 This is not the U2 song, nothing changes on New Year's Day.
00:06:53 A lot can change on July 1st.
00:06:56 Are we concerned enough about it?
00:06:59 Or is the government, as Stuart just said,
00:07:02 just trying to look cool as a cucumber,
00:07:04 shrug it off, don't worry.
00:07:06 I mean, there's jobs on the line, but, you know, not mine.
00:07:10 Yeah, I think I think that the government.
00:07:13 Well, let's let's rewind a little bit.
00:07:15 The government had been in a deep freeze for about six months with the Americans following the famous ads by Doug Ford last year with Ronald Reagan that upset Trump.
00:07:26 But at the same time, they also at the time had a framework agreement on aluminum and steel.
00:07:32 But autos was the sticking point.
00:07:33 Autos, they couldn't really find their way through.
00:07:35 and that's where Ford then decided to like blow things up and then they didn't talk for six months
00:07:40 and it wasn't just that they didn't talk for six months but Carney was seen as weak because he
00:07:45 couldn't rein in Ford around those ads and that was what I've heard from people in Washington
00:07:50 and that it it it set a bad tone so Carney's now trying to look like you know I'm the man I'm you
00:07:58 know I'm in charge it's fine it's fine he's trying to look he looks statesman like in the rest of the
00:08:03 world, doesn't have a problem, you know, inking deals in India and Qatar and going around. And
00:08:08 he's done a lot of his deals and he was talking about those at the press conference, too.
00:08:12 But with the Americans, he needs to regain face in a way. And we saw what happened just at the
00:08:20 G7. He didn't get a one-on-one with Trump. He cornered him and like, you know, was on a hot
00:08:25 mic at one point. Yeah, he spoke to him. But that's part of Kuzma. That is a piece of Kuzma
00:08:32 because that's trade, right?
00:08:33 The call he just had with him about NATO
00:08:35 and Hegseth was on that call and stuff,
00:08:37 you know, throwing, if Trump was rambling on
00:08:40 about who knows what on military issues,
00:08:42 I think it's probably wise that Carnage
00:08:44 just didn't throw in, by the way, Kuzma,
00:08:47 you know, fine.
00:08:49 But the point is that he hasn't- 0.97
00:08:51 Kuzma, yeah, we'll bomb it like we bombed Iran. 1.00
00:08:53 Sounds great. 1.00
00:08:53 Yeah, no, but on the trade piece,
00:08:56 he has to regain credibility because he's lost it.
00:09:00 And yes, they did delegate things to a sub level of Greer and LeBlanc. Both ambassadors also had their input. You know, Wiseman and Huckstra have been speaking on things. And the tone has been much better lately. Quite frankly, in the last few weeks, things have calmed down. Right. So I think Carney doesn't want to upset the apple cart, look stressed, whatever. He wants to look like we'll get a deal. We get a deal and we get a deal because with Trump, you know, Trump will have a deal one day and then it changes the next. And he's not wrong on that.
00:09:28 So the problem is, though, as you point out, there are options that kick in July 1st.
00:09:32 And if we think there won't be any tariffs, we're dreaming, the Americans are going to keep tariffs there.
00:09:37 They have said as much.
00:09:38 There are going to be tariffs on certain things, whether they are what they are currently or they drop.
00:09:42 But there are going to be some tariffs because their whole goal is to erase their trade deficit.
00:09:47 This is the overarching goal. And that explains a lot of their 19th century mercantilist or, you know, Gilded Age vision of like tariffs are the great equalizer. If we just tariff stuff, it means A, we'll collect money to compensate for the fact that, you know, we are being shortchanged by other economies that have lower labor costs or they have state subsidies.
00:10:10 So the only way to balance the playing field is up the cost of their stuff because it's artificially low. And that will then enable our manufacturers to produce more stuff because it'll be more competitive, even if it's expensive. The other stuff's more expensive. So this is their vision. So Carney is like sort of just he's bobbing along there. And so I'm not surprised that he didn't get into it with Trump on that call.
00:10:32 so i'm gonna go back to what you said about the ford ad and the evs because you know i don't doubt
00:10:43 that the ford ad irritated trump but if you remember on the tuesday of that week trump's
00:10:51 asked about it and he said oh i saw the ad from canada if i was canada i'd do the same ad and on
00:10:56 thursday he lost his mind and called off negotiations citing the ad and what happened
00:11:04 in between there so what i reported on at the end of october last year and what politico
00:11:10 recently reported on confirming a bunch of what i had um back in the fall is that what actually
00:11:18 set him off was related to autos and you said autos is a sticking point and this goes back to
00:11:23 that, is that because GM said that they were going to stop producing the Bright Drop electric
00:11:31 delivery vehicles that no one was buying, and even Canada Post wasn't buying, they need to
00:11:37 renew their fleet, and this is the perfect vehicle for short driving, lots of stops,
00:11:43 and Canada Post wouldn't buy it. So GM stops production of that at their Ingersoll Ontario
00:11:48 plant. Stellantis announces that they're going to produce the Jeep Compass in Indiana. And of
00:11:57 course, Canadians wanted the Brampton plant, which had never produced it, by the way. So
00:12:02 Carney had started the talks at the White House lunch on October 7th. They're going along well.
00:12:10 And Melanie Jolie, one of the most incompetent ministers I've ever seen in my life,
00:12:15 decides that she's going to sue both companies
00:12:18 and she's going to take away
00:12:20 the remittances on tariffs 1.00
00:12:22 that they were getting already,
00:12:24 but not on Ford
00:12:24 because Ford is not changing production. 0.99
00:12:27 And she's going to add extra tariffs to them.
00:12:30 It's like, so they went to the White House
00:12:33 and said, this is what Canada is doing to us.
00:12:36 And I'm told that that is what actually set Trump off.
00:12:40 He said, so two companies
00:12:42 that should be our biggest advocates
00:12:44 for getting rid of tariffs were being attacked.
00:12:48 It's one of those things that I keep pointing out. 1.00
00:12:51 Trump is a giant pain in our butt. 0.99
00:12:53 And then sometimes we're just our own worst enemies. 1.00
00:12:56 That was a dumb move. 1.00
00:12:58 Bringing in the 49,000 Chinese EVs, Stuart, 0.99
00:13:01 is also a dumb move. 0.99
00:13:03 We're trying to get a deal on autos. 0.95
00:13:06 As Tasha said, that was the sticking point.
00:13:07 And we keep doing moves to just, not just irritate,
00:13:12 but actually anger the Americans.
00:13:14 Are you our partners in the auto industry or are you not?
00:13:18 Because you seem to be our antagonists in the auto industry is their view.
00:13:22 Yeah, and this is the problem with the annual reviews is that you're going to have these little disputes that get bigger and bigger and bigger.
00:13:31 And then, you know, I take your point. But the other argument there, which I think is also valid, is that Canada can't be running everything it does through this filter of like tiptoeing around Donald Trump and hoping he doesn't get mad.
00:13:44 And I've also heard, too, from, you know, administration, people around the administration, that there is some kind of Doug Ford derangement syndrome going on there.
00:13:54 And it's not just the ads, it's also his appearances on TV.
00:13:56 going on work there is the last thing ford should be doing and he keeps you know his last appearance
00:14:03 i sat down to watch it live you know the his office always sends out the advisories and i was
00:14:09 like oh what's he gonna blow up this time um but he wasn't antagonistic he i remember talking to
00:14:17 republicans in washington who said oh no ford's good he just criticizes the policy not the president
00:14:21 and it's about a year ago he started making it personal against trump and that's when they said
00:14:26 they want nothing to do with Ford. And to what gain? You could always ask about that. And,
00:14:31 you know, for the Chinese EV deal, you know, I think Tash has been one of the most effective
00:14:36 and insightful critics of that deal, like in our newsletter, whenever we talk about it. But
00:14:40 if you're a canola farmer, you might have an entirely different view of that. And I think
00:14:45 that is the problem when right now is that every single thing we do in Canadian politics on an
00:14:51 international level is run through this filter of don't upset trump don't make a tweet happen
00:14:56 tomorrow that then brings more tariffs or makes the deal harder and it's just untenable my message
00:15:02 to canola farmers which would include uh relatives of mine is you guys should not be relying on china 0.99
00:15:09 because every three years they hit us with something on canola because they know it's a
00:15:14 a big thing it's not that they're not the biggest export market we could replace them or not rely
00:15:21 on them as much but uh you know it was 2013-14 2017-2021 and now last year so this is only a
00:15:32 one-year deal this is a one-year exemption right well as michael kovrig pointed out on tv the other
00:15:37 day he said china gets five years of ev evs and one year of canola we get one year of canola yeah
00:15:44 Well, I want to I want to address some of the points that Stuart made, because I think the Chinese piece, I don't the only silver lining, if there is such a thing in Donald Trump's presidency, is that it is forcing our country to confront some realities it should have done way before. 0.92
00:15:59 And one is the infiltration of China into our politics. And the EVs should be rejected on that basis alone. It's not even about, you know, yes, it will upset the Americans. And that's a reason not to do it. But it's also because we have allowed ourselves to be infiltrated and, you know, have China do elite capture on so many of our institutions and individuals and business leaders. And it goes on and on and on. 0.85
00:16:26 And so we have we're 20 years behind. And Washington has been complaining about that for years, by the way. This is not like just a Trump thing. Years. The Biden administration was the one who brought in the EV mandate. And we just we followed that. So we've got to get our act together on the military. It's the same thing. You know, we've been we have been riding the Americans coattails. Well, OK, because we could. And I guess as a country, it's like, well, why not?
00:16:48 But the point is, the assumption was always that they would always be there. And we just assumed to our peril and did not. And we've neglected our military. We've treated them, you know, poorly. Both our veterans and both our combatants. We do not. I mean, they have to buy their own boots, our soldiers. And, you know, we have the stories.
00:17:08 Bring your own helmet to Latvia. 0.98
00:17:10 It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's shameful. And we have not done. So we've got to step up. So finally, we are because we've got to. And it's because he's, you know, poked a stick at us. So that's that's the only good thing about him is he's forcing us to be the country we should be in the first place and make these decisions. 0.99
00:17:26 But with regard to Ford, yeah, too, Ford, the issue is that Carney can't rein Ford in. And the way our federalist system is set up, I mean, it's also a clash of personalities, I suppose. But the point is that Carney can't rein anyone in, right? E.B., you know, Smith, like anyone.
00:17:44 So he's got all these free radical atoms floating around making noise at the United States. And that does not help us in negotiations. We don't look like we're a united team. We don't look like we're, you know, we look like a collection of special interests in different places. And that's a problem. And the Americans exploit weakness. And they look at this and they go, huh.
00:18:00 And I think that that is one of Carney's big challenges, actually, is the domestic peace.
00:18:06 He's, like I said, great on the international stage, great with world leaders, you know, excellent spokesperson.
00:18:11 But at home, it's herding cats.
00:18:14 It's what McDonald did in the Constitution, and Brian Mulroney, too.
00:18:18 It's like getting people together.
00:18:20 And even Mulroney couldn't get, you know, Meech Lake and Charlottetown through.
00:18:26 Carney's challenge is national unity and keeping people singing from the same songbook.
00:18:30 vis-a-vis the U.S.,
00:18:30 and he has not done that.
00:18:32 Norman Spector would tell you
00:18:33 that Brian Mulroney did a great job
00:18:36 when it comes to herding the cats
00:18:39 on the free trade talks
00:18:41 with the Americans.
00:18:42 Yes, well, he was,
00:18:42 and his personal relationship, too,
00:18:44 and this is where Carney's not wrong.
00:18:45 It's a high-level thing.
00:18:46 It's like if you,
00:18:48 Trump does business with people he likes.
00:18:50 That was the message
00:18:51 that Howard Lutnick delivered last year
00:18:54 at a conference I was at
00:18:55 in Toronto, the Eurasia Forum,
00:18:57 and he said Trump does deals
00:18:59 with people he likes.
00:19:00 If he doesn't like you,
00:19:00 he's not going to do a deal with you.
00:19:01 So that's where Carney's not wrong.
00:19:03 It's like a personality thing.
00:19:05 And, you know, Mulroney and Reagan
00:19:07 was the same thing.
00:19:08 I think Trump likes Carney.
00:19:10 Appears to.
00:19:11 I hope he does,
00:19:12 because otherwise we're not going to get a deal by him.
00:19:15 Certainly more than Trudeau.
00:19:16 You mentioned the military.
00:19:18 Yeah, he likes everyone better than Trudeau.
00:19:23 You mentioned the military
00:19:25 and that we're being grownups on that.
00:19:28 I did hear Avi Lewis on TV the other day, the newly minted NDP leader, talking like he was a spokesperson for Project Plowshares and calling for us to stop the militarization of Canadian society.
00:19:41 But we'll talk about Avi mania and whether you're catching it in a minute.
00:19:45 But let's talk about whether politicians are mean.
00:19:51 When Justin Trudeau was still in and people were just fed up with him, voters parked their votes with Pierre Polyev.
00:19:59 And then Mark Carney came in and all I kept hearing was, well, I'm going to Carney because Polyev's mean.
00:20:05 I don't like him.
00:20:06 Now we're hearing stories that Mark Carney is mean.
00:20:10 He yells at people.
00:20:11 He doesn't listen to caucus members.
00:20:13 he's dismissive of staff
00:20:15 and of course we all know how he treats
00:20:17 reporters in particular
00:20:19 women reporters
00:20:20 so is Canadian politics
00:20:24 all about mean
00:20:25 is it bad to be mean in Canadian politics
00:20:27 because I believe this 0.78
00:20:29 I think Althea Raj was the first one
00:20:32 at the Star was the first one to write about
00:20:33 how mean Carney is to his caucus
00:20:35 and his cabinet and I thought
00:20:37 alright well his polling numbers
00:20:40 are going to go up 5%
00:20:41 what's your take on being mean in politics this is like if you were running one of those glamorous
00:20:47 magazines you would do is mean back and there's carny bringing mean back um i so i think of this
00:20:55 a couple of ways one i think of this in terms of my own work life where i've had bosses i won't
00:21:01 name any names who were sometimes seen as especially early in my career bosses who were seen as mean
00:21:07 or yelly or gruff. And I actually really loved them because they told me exactly what they
00:21:14 thought and there was no BS and you just knew exactly where you stood. But there were people
00:21:20 who, you know, they weren't lying. They were just interpreting it differently than I did.
00:21:24 They'd hated that and thought that it was, you know, borderline abusive. And I think that's
00:21:30 exactly what's going on in the liberal caucus, because if you talk to some liberal MPs, they'll
00:21:33 say, this is great. In caucus meetings, you say something and Carney actually engages with what
00:21:40 you said and he will actually talk to you. And sometimes he will crap on your idea, but he's
00:21:46 engaging with it. Um, so I, the difference between him and Trudeau is that Trudeau would sort of
00:21:51 politely listen and just nod his head and then not say anything and move on to the next person.
00:21:55 Or scroll through Instagram. Oh yeah, look at his, look at the gram. Um, so yeah, I think
00:22:01 And this is a similar thing with Pierre Paliyev, too, where, you know, some people see him as gruff or mean or he doesn't respond to their ideas.
00:22:09 And some people have a totally different perspective.
00:22:12 And I think in politics where it matters is how do voters perceive you and is that coming through?
00:22:19 And I think for Carney, this would become a problem if I think arrogance is probably the thing that will get him down the road if something does get him, where voters start to think this guy thinks he knows everything.
00:22:31 This is like the if we're if we want something as a populace, he's not going to listen to us.
00:22:37 He thinks he knows best. So if liberal MPs are an early indicator of that as a political problem, then, yeah.
00:22:43 But I think so far, Canadians don't feel that way. 0.98
00:22:45 Mark Carney, arrogant liberals, arrogant. I don't know what you're talking about. 0.98
00:22:49 I've never met an arrogant politician.
00:22:53 Tasha, you know, to Stuart's point about different types of bosses, I've worked with bosses who can be gruff, who can yell, who can be demanding.
00:23:01 and those are okay that's different than abusive i mean i remember one guy who used to try and rally
00:23:08 the newsroom at about 4 30 in the afternoon on a friday by telling us all we'd be fired next week
00:23:14 if we didn't improve just as everyone's heading home i mean that's that's not a good way to manage
00:23:20 people what's your take on on carny um you know i i sometimes bristle at these i've got a mean
00:23:29 boss stories because i think well the person just doesn't want to perform so i i'm cutting
00:23:34 carny slack on this mean thing you harper yelled he was famous yelled i think once he threw a chair
00:23:41 uh martin yelled uh people yell christian tried to strangle a protester like a b there's mean in
00:23:48 all of us right when when you get pushed to the wall or you don't get your way or you're like
00:23:51 That protester, like I did.
00:23:53 I did you?
00:23:54 You would do the same thing.
00:23:57 Well, that's my point, all right?
00:23:59 I think Cardi's issue is you got to perform, you got to do your job, or else you're in trouble, right?
00:24:06 Which is, it's not mean.
00:24:07 It's a performance expectation that a lot of people weren't used to.
00:24:10 Trudeau, to Stuart's point, nod and smile, nod and smile.
00:24:14 Well, Trudeau didn't have that same expectation.
00:24:17 He just expected syncophancy, if I'm pronouncing it right.
00:24:20 expected a bunch of sycophants, like they loved him. But this is the point I actually want to get
00:24:24 to. Cardi can get away with being as mean as he wants, as long as he's popular. And so did Trudeau,
00:24:29 right? If you're popular, and so did Polyev. When did people start griping Polyev? Oh, gee,
00:24:34 when his poll numbers dropped, right? Lost the election, lost his seat. Now his numbers are in
00:24:40 the tank. People are like, we don't like your you're mean, you were mean to me last election,
00:24:46 you were mean, and now I'm going to let you have it for that. I shut up at the time because, well,
00:24:50 everyone, you know, voters liked you. So what am I going to say? You get away with a lot if you're
00:24:55 popular. So Carney's issue is if his stock drops and voters turn against him, then the meanness
00:25:02 will matter because he doesn't have the team hanging together. Some politicians are really
00:25:06 good at doing the hanging together. Mulroney was a master at it, right? Even when his poll numbers
00:25:11 dropped he was at like what seven percent i think before he left like it was crazy low um but his
00:25:17 team loved him and they still people still speak of those days you know he's he's he's no longer
00:25:21 with us but people remember and they were loyal there was a loyalty factor like you dance with
00:25:27 the woman with the lady that brung ya or something i'm i think it was another yeah right but that's
00:25:33 how he was right so he was that kind of politician but since then we've had a lot of angry mean 0.59
00:25:38 yelly people. And it works as long as you're winning. And then people just they just go along 0.88
00:25:43 because they're like, OK, what am I going to do? That's what surprises me about this. And I'd like
00:25:47 a quick comment from both of you on this. Carney is still popular. His polling numbers are high.
00:25:53 And that's why it surprised me that this leaks out to the Star and then other media outlets follow
00:25:57 up on it. And they're getting liberal MPs talking and going, oh, yeah, he's really mean. On camera,
00:26:03 they're all oh no he's wonderful when the tv guys get you he's wonderful when you're talking to a
00:26:10 ink-stained wretch like the three of us um it's uh whoa man he can be tough he can be bitter
00:26:17 is that surprising given that he's so popular i don't know maybe that maybe that it is a bit
00:26:22 bizarre i agree um but maybe they're trying to to effect change i don't know i mean i think i think
00:26:27 they're still unhappy like even when they're smiling at you it's like yeah it's your point
00:26:30 They didn't say anything. But now, yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe Althea gave them like a cookie or something.
00:26:35 There is like a small core and I don't think I know how big it is or how small it is.
00:26:42 But there is a group of liberals who are freaked out by the direction of the government.
00:26:47 And these were Trudeau people. And I don't think it's hard to imagine it turning into some kind of internal problem for Mark Carney anytime in the near future anyways.
00:26:58 But it's just people who are like Stephen Guilbeau, but don't have the pension, you know, in the bag to quit.
00:27:05 And they're just a little bit disaffected.
00:27:08 I didn't notice that Guilbeau got his pension last October.
00:27:11 I didn't notice that.
00:27:13 We've got to take a quick break.
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00:27:46 Back in moments.
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00:29:59 Mark Carney is going to ask you for donations to rebuild 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister's residence.
00:30:05 No, you did not hear that incorrectly.
00:30:07 In fact, he made the announcement on Friday.
00:30:09 Today, we're launching a national design and build competition to restore 24 Sussex Drive.
00:30:16 to become, once again, a secure, accessible, and sustainable official residence
00:30:22 and a working venue for Canada's future prime ministers.
00:30:27 When I first heard about this, guys, I thought, that has to be a joke.
00:30:30 And, you know, the person that told me was looking at X,
00:30:35 and I said, that's not true.
00:30:37 And then I go online and I look, and it's an official leak to Ashley Burke at CBC.
00:30:42 Not a knock against her.
00:30:43 We all get official leaks from time to time.
00:30:45 But I was like, wow, that's detailed.
00:30:48 This is crazy.
00:30:49 But then again, Pierre Trudeau did put in the pool
00:30:52 using liberal donor money at 24 Sussex Drive
00:30:55 back in the 70s.
00:30:56 What do you make of this idea?
00:30:58 I am all in favor.
00:30:59 We should have an absolutely beautiful
00:31:01 official residence for the PM.
00:31:03 I have no problem with taxpayer money paying for it.
00:31:08 But I'm wondering how many people in this country
00:31:12 that will defend Carney saying,
00:31:13 let's do this via fundraising,
00:31:15 have been critical of Donald Trump building the ballroom on the east wing of the White House
00:31:21 using donor money. Is is there a problem here, Tasha? I don't think that's the same thing at
00:31:26 all. I think it's not the same. It's not the same. He's not he's not building a monument to himself
00:31:32 because that's what the ballroom is, quite frankly. It's like the arch. It's like it's not
00:31:37 the same. This is 24 Sussex is a historic residence. It was not always the residence
00:31:42 of prime ministers. We know that. But in our lifetimes, it's been the residents of prime
00:31:46 ministers. And I think it is, you know, it fell into decay. And it was it was embarrassing. And
00:31:52 the reason it did is nobody wanted to spend money on it because of the public outcry every time you
00:31:56 did. I mean, Mila Mulroney got outcry for like changing the drapes, you know, so it it just it
00:32:03 crumbled away. And it's it's a sort of sad statement. And I think symbolism, it's funny
00:32:08 because we are in an age of symbolism and, you know, Trump wants to build new stuff as symbols
00:32:12 of himself to remember him by, whereas Carney wants to restore something previous. But both
00:32:18 are symbolic. And I think, look, let's have a giant candidate concert with a fundraising concert
00:32:23 with all our greatest artists and raise money. Like, why not? I think that as long as the public
00:32:28 doesn't feel it's being soaked for this thing or if they're voluntarily giving money to it,
00:32:32 or if you can get big philanthropists to pony up and save it as, you know, an architectural and a
00:32:37 symbolic place where Canadian prime ministers can actually host events and host world leaders in
00:32:41 style. Nothing wrong with that. We should have a place. We don't need a ballroom, but we do need a
00:32:45 house. I'm just not sure about the whole idea of donor money, Stuart. Taxpayer money, I'm 100%
00:32:56 against rebuilding this. We should have a place. The idea of donors, you could get into sticky
00:33:04 situations there. I like Tasha's idea of like live aid for 24 Sussex with Bob Geldof.
00:33:12 I could get behind that. But I agree. Like what is more embarrassing, a rundown,
00:33:18 rat infested prime minister's residence or a GoFundMe to restore it? It's both of those things
00:33:25 are a little disappointing if you're a Canadian, I think. But it is reminiscent of I was reading
00:33:31 a Pierre Trudeau biography and I was surprised to learn that he put a pool into 24 Sussex and
00:33:37 that was funded by sort of a shady donor scheme too. He called Keith Davies, his bag man in the
00:33:43 Senate, the guy that was the rainmaker for the liberals in those days. And the reason he wanted
00:33:50 the pool at 24 Sussex is he liked swimming. That was his exercise. He liked swimming and he would
00:33:56 go to different pools quite often the pool at the chateau laurier and the rcmp would have to clear
00:34:02 everyone out so the prime minister could swim and he didn't like that it annoyed him and so he just
00:34:09 called up davy said i want a pool get me money for a pool nobody knows who paid for it you can
00:34:16 guess some of them but nobody knows and just suddenly uh i believe the figure back in mid
00:34:21 70s was $200,000, which would be about $850,000 now. And that's the pool went in with liberal
00:34:29 donor money. This isn't the same. And by the time this is done, Mark Carney's likely not going to
00:34:35 be prime minister. So I'm not saying he's enriching himself, but this just seems odd.
00:34:44 I so I'm not totally we we will have to get more details on this, of course, but we'll have to see how this is designed, because if it's Canadians putting in 10 bucks a pop, people who really care about this doing it and building up that fund, great.
00:34:58 But if this is like liberal-friendly foundations or rich people doing it, and you can imagine that if you are some rich developer, somebody who has an interest, and you are ponying up money for the prime minister's pet project, whether he lives in it or not, it's still a legacy project for Carney, that could be seen as a conflict.
00:35:21 You're looking to do something nice for the prime minister, and maybe you're hoping to get something in return.
00:35:25 So I will wait to see the details of how this fund works.
00:35:30 But I would definitely keep your radar up for something like that, where things can get sketchy.
00:35:35 They can have a Bombardier wing.
00:35:41 Everyone can claim there to be plaques all over the house.
00:35:45 Look, I take Stewart's point.
00:35:47 I think it's true.
00:35:47 But I do think that engaging the public in supporting this project is key to actually doing it. And involuntary contributions through tax dollars will be slammed immediately. Asking for voluntary contributions, I think people will get on board. Maybe kids will bring their penny jars to school and say, look, I'm going to give this. Do we still have pennies? I don't even know. But to donations or whatnot. I think that's actually creative. I think that's a good idea.
00:36:14 we'll have the atkins realis wing uh because that's what snc lavalin is called now and of
00:36:20 course they'll get the contract to build it uh it's like it is sad that we don't have an official
00:36:27 residency so yeah i don't know if you guys have have been there i've been there several times um
00:36:34 it was built in the 1860s and before louis saint laurent who was the first prime minister that
00:36:40 moved in, got there. The federal government expropriated the building from the family that
00:36:47 owned it and said, we're going to take this. And the historic part, the reason that, you know,
00:36:54 we should just gut it on the inside, I hope they keep the exterior, is that in the early 50s,
00:37:00 they took out everything. They took it down to stud. So all the Victorian accoutrements that
00:37:06 were in there were just ripped out because, like, oh, who needs this old stuff? And then they made
00:37:11 it very 1950s, and then it stayed that way because, as you said, Mila Mulroney got harangued for
00:37:17 changing the drapes. We are too cheap in this country in terms of how we treat politicians.
00:37:24 We believe there should be none of them, but they should do everything. They should get paid nothing,
00:37:28 and like Doug Ford, you should sit and coach and wait for two hours for your flight at the airport
00:37:34 instead of, you know, being efficient.
00:37:39 He couldn't even land those planes,
00:37:40 90% of the airports in Ontario.
00:37:43 It's just nuts how we are.
00:37:45 So let's talk about Pierre Polyev.
00:37:47 He's headed off to the barbecue circuit.
00:37:51 My advice to him would be that
00:37:55 he should stop doing press conferences all the time.
00:37:59 He should stop doing videos with kettlebells.
00:38:02 he should just be quiet and go on a listening tour look i i get it he's got to go to stampede
00:38:09 next week he'll probably ride his horse in the parade like he did last year like he has done
00:38:15 often uh but after stampede just go to ground go on a listening tour god gave us two ears and one
00:38:23 mouth so you should you know listen twice as much as you speak talk to the eda presidents talk to
00:38:29 big donors, talk to people who used to support you, but then voted for Carney and find out
00:38:34 what to do and then come back in the fall. But make people miss you is kind of what I'm saying.
00:38:42 Because unless he does something like that, I'm not sure how continuing to do what he
00:38:46 is doing is going to turn things around. What are your thoughts on what Polyev should do to 0.53
00:38:53 try and turn things around or if he even can? Yeah, I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago
00:38:57 And I spoke to a couple of strategists who said exactly what you said, Brian, which is that there's really nothing for Polyev in this environment.
00:39:07 Mark Carney is in a world where he's kind of defying the laws of political gravity.
00:39:11 His approval numbers are sky high.
00:39:14 The liberals are at 50 percent in the polls, according to the post-media legate polls we've been doing.
00:39:19 And everybody else has them around that area, at least 10 points out of the conservatives.
00:39:24 And as long as Mark Carney is dealing with Donald Trump, there's very little avenue for
00:39:29 Polyev to get back on that. So the trouble for Polyev is that his key issue, which has always
00:39:36 been affordability, is actually owned by the liberals right now. Carney is actually pulling
00:39:40 better on that issue than a conservative party. And if you talk to any conservative strategist
00:39:45 in the world, they'll tell you that is a recipe for an election loss for them. If they're not
00:39:49 winning on that issue. They're basically doomed. I think for Polyev, the only danger is, is that
00:39:55 if the numbers slip too low, then he has MPs that are going to start to worry about their seats.
00:40:01 And that is the real way that you encourage a revolt against your leadership is you start to
00:40:06 put people's careers under threat. Tasha? Yeah, I think Polyev's problem is that
00:40:12 Carney had stolen all the oxygen in the room and Polyev is reduced to saying kind of the same
00:40:18 things over and over again. He's tried to go off on different, you know, different tangents. He went
00:40:22 on his woke tangent this week as well, going on about, you know, sort of the woke-ism and
00:40:31 woke decisions and this kind of thing. And I think he's looking for, he's looking to shore up that
00:40:37 base that responds to that sort of language. But I think that it's not going to win him new friends.
00:40:43 And I think the problem is he has to win new friends. But can he in this environment get
00:40:47 people back who've left the conservatives for Carnegie because they think, like the boomers, 0.65
00:40:51 voters in particular, who think, oh, he's the guy to handle this. Look at him. He's trotting 0.86
00:40:55 around in G7 and he looks good. And, you know, no one can, Trump whisper, he's doing the best
00:41:02 anyone could. Would Polyev do a better job? I think that's the question Polyev can answer.
00:41:07 Would Polyev do a better job with all this stuff? It's hard to see how. Like for Trump,
00:41:11 I don't see how he would do a better job with Trump. I don't know. Anyone can really do a good
00:41:15 job with trump but i think um i think that going to ground um going to ground and being humble
00:41:22 about it because i think that you were talking about the arrogance carney has and pauliev has
00:41:26 arrogance too and it comes out is that you know his hectoring lecturing kind of thing yeah no i
00:41:32 think people that stand up and say you should vote for me and let me lead the country are
00:41:37 no they're never the way he says it it's the way he says it and i think that he's it's it's um
00:41:43 And it's kind of like I said, it's like a broken record. And I think Polyev's great hope, great, and we're going to get to him. The great savior for Polyev could be Avi Lewis. Polyev is to let Avi Lewis rise like a floating balloon, right? And that will depress liberal numbers. And then Polyev can maybe find a way in.
00:42:00 But I agree with you being quiet until that happens, taking a time to meet people one on one, reassure them that he is not a jerk who's going to like, you know, yell at them like, oh, Carney, like he's going to be the listening leader, the unifier of the party, blah, blah, that sort of stuff. 0.75
00:42:16 He think he should do that. I agree. But he won't get that opening, I think, until there's a game change with the NDP. And that could come. We'll see. 0.90
00:42:24 So my discussions with caucus members, Stuart, is that, and you can see it in what they're doing, is that they're all in their own rowboat and they're all going in different directions and sometimes bumping into each other.
00:42:40 you guys were writing on Bill C-22 about how they couldn't come up with a position because
00:42:46 there's different factions within the party there's the libertarian leaning folks that say
00:42:52 oh no no no you can't you can't give the cops anything and then you've got the let's back the
00:42:57 cops faction that says give the cops everything yeah this is the trouble for them too is there's
00:43:04 there's something of a realignment happening in Canadian politics that's affecting the
00:43:07 conservatives. And the dynamic that Tasha laid out there is still almost completely true, which is
00:43:14 that if the NDP does well, it's better for the conservatives. They split the vote with the
00:43:18 liberals. But there is something increasingly happening, which is that the NDP is taking votes
00:43:23 from the conservatives and vice versa, the sort of working class vote. And I spoke to the pollster
00:43:29 David Coletto about this, and I hadn't fully internalized how difficult this is for Polyev
00:43:35 until Coletta laid it out for me,
00:43:36 which is that Polyev has to take
00:43:38 from both the Liberals and the NDP now,
00:43:41 which is strange,
00:43:42 or he has to generate new voters
00:43:44 from somewhere, probably on the far right,
00:43:47 but more likely from those two parties.
00:43:49 But the people who are voting Liberal
00:43:51 are generally older and they want stability
00:43:53 and they want the status quo.
00:43:55 And the NDP voters that the Conservatives
00:43:57 are sharing with Abby Lewis
00:43:59 are people who are disaffected
00:44:01 with the whole system
00:44:02 and they want to blow it up.
00:44:03 And Polyev now has to somehow appeal to both those factions of people. And I can't imagine even how you do that. You put that to a strategist. I don't think they have great ideas.
00:44:13 I think that I haven't seen those that that polling and I will look at it. But the voters, the NDP that the conservatives recording the NDP had were union voters. Right. They were not the environmental hard left leap manifesto types that Avi Lewis appeals to. Right. He wrote the leap manifesto. He is he definitely you know, he's like Mr. Plowshares, leave the oil in the ground, like the whole bit. Right. Union voters are not down with that.
00:44:40 they want those jobs, getting the oil out of the ground. He's not appealing to the union
00:44:47 syndicaliste vote, as you would say in Quebec. Paulievre was appealing to the union vote on
00:44:53 the basis of, you know, good jobs, good workers, good, good, you know, solid, solid, the welder
00:44:59 and the, you know, the tradesperson, all this stuff. So I think that to me, the NDP where Avi
00:45:05 would take it is the sort of, yes, there's the bit of a socialist mom-dommie, you know,
00:45:09 workers, the world unite kind of thing, but it's more the environmental, like where Carney is
00:45:15 weak because Carney has abandoned all those people. Gilbo quit. There's people who are
00:45:20 disgruntled in the caucus. They signed that letter, you know, it's like they wouldn't say
00:45:24 who they were. They were unhappy with the environmental direction with Alberta and the
00:45:28 MOU. So there's definitely an opening for that. And in Quebec too, interestingly enough, I mean,
00:45:34 Quebec and BC are both very environmentally conscious provinces. So the NDP, look, they have
00:45:39 the by-election that's coming up where Bull Reese's seat is up for grabs, right? I don't think the NDP
00:45:44 is going to hold it, but I'm curious to see how much they'll get in that race, right? Or is the
00:45:48 Bloc Québécois going to win that by-election? Do the liberals have a chance there? It's like
00:45:54 it's anyone's game because there are people who are now unhappy with this government in a very
00:45:59 specific space. If the NDP can capture that space, then their numbers go up, but that won't hurt the
00:46:04 conservatives. If they still fight over the union voters, you know, if the NDP steal them back,
00:46:09 yeah. But I don't necessarily see that happening with Lewis. He's pretty radical, and I don't
00:46:12 think that's his game. I would imagine that the conservatives would hold some of the union vote,
00:46:19 but I can see some of it going over to Carney if he gets things done. But so far, he's still just
00:46:27 promising and not delivering, but it's not hurting him. And we go back to the quote that he gave
00:46:33 just after the election when it was one of your reporters, Stuart, who asked him,
00:46:38 how will voters hold you to account? And he said, oh, you'll hold me to account by the price at the
00:46:42 grocery stores. And Canada still has the top food inflation in the G7 month after month after month.
00:46:49 And people are like, well, yeah, it's not his fault. It's Trump's. And so he's Teflon still
00:46:56 at the moment. So not delivering doesn't seem to be hurting them.
00:47:02 Yeah, it is remarkable how much benefit of the doubt voters are giving Mark Carney right now.
00:47:07 And if you're a conservative, it's frustrating because, as we said before, there's not much you
00:47:12 can do. It's an environment where whatever you say just goes into the wind and gets mostly ignored.
00:47:18 But if there were anything to take as a silver lining from that, it's that it has to end.
00:47:24 At some point, you know, we saw just at the end of the sitting, this condo bailout policy that the liberals rolled out that the rollout of that and the policy of that felt like late Trudeau type policymaking, because not only was it a dumb policy, but it was rolled out really, really, really poorly.
00:47:44 And you should check the stories from when that came out.
00:47:48 Almost every media outlet has a correction on that story.
00:47:51 And if one media outlet has a correction, then they screwed up.
00:47:54 But if we all do, then the government really screwed it up because they got details wrong and they didn't tell us everything about it right away.
00:48:02 So you want to laugh on that point?
00:48:04 Stuart, I wrote a column a year ago saying they should actually do what they're doing.
00:48:09 Seriously, you can dig it up.
00:48:11 I wrote, I said, why are you building new houses when there is existing stuff that can't be sold?
00:48:16 If you want to just stick people in spaces and give them temporary homes, it's out there.
00:48:22 If you build more, you're just going to depress prices further. 1.00
00:48:24 That is stupid. 0.99
00:48:25 And no one's going to build more because there's no incentive because you can't sell anything. 1.00
00:48:28 So existing stock, scoop it up at bargain prices and sell it to other people and make some money.
00:48:34 Literally, you can find it online.
00:48:36 So I was laughing really hard when I saw that announcement.
00:48:39 Well, never underestimate government's ability to take a good idea and screw it up royally.
00:48:43 Carney admitted that they rolled it out badly.
00:48:46 So Gregor Robertson was in Toronto last week with Premier Ford announcing a different thing.
00:48:52 They're just doing – they're not doing the condo bailout in Ontario.
00:48:56 They're just doing the development charge thing, which everyone confused with the price of the condos in B.C.
00:49:02 I think that's the correction you're talking about, the $3.2 billion.
00:49:05 um and so gregor robertson had to correct the record and then a couple days later mark carney
00:49:10 has to correct the record and admit that they're not rolling it out properly and he says but it's
00:49:16 going to be rent to buy that's what we're going to do with this and then the bc government comes
00:49:21 out and says no we're just going to be landlords so i mean they can't get this straight at all this
00:49:27 you know i disagree with the policy you think it's good tasha we'll all agree that it's horrible
00:49:33 rollout because no one knows what they're doing. But the concept was, you know, don't don't don't
00:49:40 put more stock in the market when the market's already depressed. As an investor, that's stupid. 1.00
00:49:44 Can I quickly give you my explanation for this, Brian, which is purely based on speculation. But 0.99
00:49:49 that night that they rolled out the policy, Carney had flown to B.C. for the soccer game.
00:49:55 And I do wonder if maybe he was like, well, I'm going to B.C. for the soccer game and you guys
00:49:59 they're not going to tell me no. But we may as well roll something out while we're there. And
00:50:03 that's what happens when you do it off the side of your desk.
00:50:07 Let's ask about Avimania, because Stuart, you mentioned the Leger poll that they do for Post
00:50:13 Media. That latest poll from Leger out just a few days ago has the Liberals at 48 nationally,
00:50:19 the Conservatives at 34, and the NDP at six. Big problem for the Conservatives in the last
00:50:26 election was that here in Ontario, sure, here, Paulieff and the Conservatives got 41% of the
00:50:32 vote, but the NDP went to 4.9% and the Liberals were at almost 50 and took the vast majority of
00:50:41 seats. 6% nationally isn't exactly Avi mania. Nanos has the NDP at 11, Abacus at nine, Liaison
00:50:50 at 14 main street at 12 uh is avi lewis turning things around or is he doing what i told you guys
00:50:59 months ago he would do which is bring audrey mclaughlin energy to the ndp once again
00:51:05 i don't know i i think um avi is avi i've known avi a long time um you know full disclosure i
00:51:14 I produced his first show when he was at CBC, like in 1997, 98. And he is very, he hasn't changed his stripes in terms of being very, very hard left. And he comes by that, by his family, as we all know, his father, his grandfather. So it's like dyed in the wool socialism here.
00:51:35 But he's been very heavy on the environmental piece, like I mentioned earlier, in the last decade. And that is the Achilles heel of Carney, if you will, if you want to strip away voters because of what's happening with Alberta, with the pipeline, and with the major projects in general. I think, you know, the approval process, let's speed it up.
00:51:52 um so i think that is the best opening now is that gonna is that gonna soar his popularity to
00:51:58 like 20 percent where the ndp needs to be if the conservatives are gonna um they're gonna form
00:52:04 government right that's ideally around that sort of late high teens if that's happening then it's
00:52:08 much easier for the conservatives to get in i don't know i mean it really i think it depends
00:52:12 on how things go with carney too and how it goes with this you know we'll see with the alberta
00:52:17 referendum with the mou with the approval which is slated for the same time for the pipeline in
00:52:21 October, the major projects office has to make a decision. I think all that stuff may start to
00:52:27 come to a head. The election is three years away. So really, at this point, you know, what Avi is
00:52:32 today doesn't really matter for that. It's where he can go. So we'll see where he can go.
00:52:37 Stuart? Yeah, I think Tash is right that it's probably the environment and maybe some kind of,
00:52:44 you know, blow it all up affordability so bad sentiment from young voters that Avi can focus on.
00:52:50 I personally can't wait for those government grocery stores.
00:52:55 Just as a journalistic enterprise to go and see them and write a story about it, right?
00:52:59 But I would point to recent polling on climate change.
00:53:05 And it's a funny issue because Canadians will tell you they care a lot about climate change.
00:53:11 They're very concerned.
00:53:13 But then you get them to rank those issues and it's like 13th on their priority list.
00:53:17 And I do think that sometimes you have to look at these latent issues, the ones that are kind of under the surface and not really a part of our politics, and just imagine what it would be like if that was a big issue, because it would definitely benefit Abby Lewis.
00:53:33 The last latent issue that we had that rose to prominence was immigration.
00:53:37 And, you know, for 15 years, political scientists would say people have thoughts about immigration, but they don't care that much about the issue itself.
00:53:46 At some point, they might care about climate change in the same way.
00:53:49 It might be a big wildfire or some natural disaster or some other event.
00:53:54 But I think that's what Abby Lewis has to be looking at is, sure, Mark Carney is disaffecting environmental voters.
00:54:02 but they care more about affordability
00:54:04 in Donald Trump right now.
00:54:06 Daryl Bricker, the head of polling for Ipsos,
00:54:09 told me years ago,
00:54:11 the environment and climate change
00:54:14 becomes the number one issue
00:54:15 when everything else is going really well.
00:54:17 And it falls off a cliff
00:54:19 as soon as people are worried about their jobs,
00:54:22 the economy, housing affordability, et cetera.
00:54:27 So I'll ask you one final question.
00:54:29 and, Tasha, you said the election's three years away.
00:54:34 And that's generally my thinking.
00:54:36 But, handicap this.
00:54:40 Does Carney go early while Donald Trump is still in office
00:54:44 to secure another majority, an electoral majority,
00:54:48 instead of a manufactured one?
00:54:50 Does he run against Donald Trump one last time?
00:54:54 Good point. I think he'd be smart, too.
00:54:56 I mean, it also depends what's happened by then.
00:54:58 Does he have a deal? Are we in this year over year Kuzma renegotiation situation? You know, has what else has Trump done? Is there another war somewhere already started? Who knows? Like, it's impossible to really predict what Trump will do, obviously. And in consequence, you know, running against Trump sounds is fantastic right now. I agree. Who knows? It probably would be a wise thing, though, I think, to have him as the foil.
00:55:24 You know, unless Trump, you know, has a heart attack, dies and J.D. Vance is there.
00:55:28 But I guess then it's the same length of mandate, so it wouldn't matter. Right.
00:55:31 But, you know, people that Canadians don't like, American leader, people that Canadians don't like, put that person there and run against them.
00:55:40 I mean, Doug Ford won his election as well in Ontario running against Trump, you know, and ignoring his actual opponents.
00:55:48 So I think Carney probably would be wise to follow that advice. Yeah.
00:55:52 Yeah, Ford's still doing that. And the latest Apex poll shows he would get a majority again.
00:55:57 He has no one right now. There's literally no leader for the liberals.
00:56:00 I mean, the official opposition does have a leader, but nobody knows who she is.
00:56:05 And just for the record, her name is Merritt Stiles. Stuart, your thoughts.
00:56:10 Does Carney go early to use Trump as the boogeyman?
00:56:14 yeah i i think strategically it's probably smart um but i do you know i think reporters are still
00:56:22 wrapping their heads around mark harney um like what is he as a person and what are his tendencies
00:56:26 the one thing i do know for sure about him and i wrote about this during the campaign is that he
00:56:31 hates the campaign and it's just not what he wants to be doing i watched him try to use a table saw
00:56:38 and it went very poorly
00:56:39 and he just
00:56:41 he just can't
00:56:43 get himself into that
00:56:44 and he's actually
00:56:44 pretty good at like
00:56:45 working a room
00:56:46 but it's the
00:56:46 it's the play acting
00:56:47 I think that he doesn't like
00:56:48 and the
00:56:49 I think he sees it as
00:56:50 wasted time
00:56:51 he could be governing
00:56:52 beneath him Stuart
00:56:53 to use that table saw
00:56:54 come on
00:56:55 I was there with Stuart
00:56:56 to watch that awkward
00:56:57 that's right
00:56:58 you were there that day
00:56:58 it was very awkward
00:57:01 he did
00:57:01 in fairness
00:57:02 he did better
00:57:03 than people expected
00:57:03 I thought he'd be
00:57:05 you know
00:57:05 he did better on the campaign
00:57:06 and he grinned and bare it
00:57:08 So Trudeau loved campaigning.
00:57:13 Polyev loves campaigning.
00:57:15 Carney hates it.
00:57:17 But maybe he goes early.
00:57:19 All right.
00:57:19 We'll leave it there, guys.
00:57:20 That's been a great talk.
00:57:21 Make sure you get your merch at postmedia.store, of course.
00:57:24 We'll talk again soon.
00:57:26 Full comment is a Postmedia podcast.
00:57:28 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.
00:57:30 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx.
00:57:32 Theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:57:33 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.
00:57:35 make sure you hit subscribe and share this on social media.
00:57:39 Thanks for listening.
00:57:40 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.
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