In the wake of the announcement that the deal between the Trudeau government and the opposition party is off the table, we talk to a couple of insiders who were in the inner circle for both Jack Layton and Tom Mulroney.
00:06:22.880I will look at any vote that comes before us,
00:06:25.580then we will make a decision in the best interest of Canadians as any minority government normally operates.
00:06:30.080Okay, so Carl, you're the former comms guy.
00:06:34.780You worked with Jack Layton and Tom Mulcair.
00:06:37.880You still advise through your company, Traction Strategies.
00:06:41.680You still advise people on communications.
00:06:43.880What's the comm strategy of not answering that question more than a dozen times when you know that that's coming?
00:06:51.280Because I don't think Jagmeet's press conference went quite the way they'd hoped it would.
00:06:56.780No, and they tried to control the press conference as much as they could, but at the end of the day, you could see that there was a very fine line that Jagmeet Singh was trying to walk on about the confidence into the Trudeau government.
00:07:11.480Because when you push the decision to its logic, the conclusion is you have lost confidence in your partner.
00:07:19.680Well, the agreement was called supply and confidence.
00:08:50.680So there will be a series of votes and you will be forced to make a decision based on that.
00:08:55.680Now, if every single time the NDP is the party that's propping up the Liberals without getting anything in return,
00:09:02.680well, you will get all the negative of being associated with the government and none of the positive that they had with the supply and confidence agreement,
00:09:09.680namely all the public policies they were able to push forward.
00:09:12.680That's the big downside for Jagmeet Singh.
00:09:33.680So I want to ask you a few things about the agreement.
00:09:37.680I don't think the NDP win or lose from it, but since you brought up the Bloc, Yves-Francois Blanchet was on Mario Dimancheau on TVA and was saying,
00:09:50.680no, we're not going to vote for the Liberals.
00:09:53.680Well, they're not going to vote for the Liberals per se, but if they are able to use that newfound balance of power that they have to make some gains for Quebec, they will.
00:10:04.680If they are able to put pressure to allow the federal government to make concessions to Quebec government on key issues,
00:10:11.680health care, financing, housing, immigration comes to mind.
00:10:51.680They were not really a player because you had the main opposition and the conservatives, and yet the NDP was using that balance of power to make some gains and campaign on it.
00:11:22.680There's the dental care program, but it's not what New Democrats wanted.
00:11:28.680There's the PharmaCare program, and it's not what New Democrats wanted.
00:11:33.680In fact, I would argue that on both of those, the government put forward the bare minimum, the least that they could to continue the agreement.
00:11:43.680And yeah, they're just hoping that that goes along.
00:11:47.680I mean, I know Singh came out with his announcement the other day and said this agreement was so good for Canadians because we got so much done, but now they're the worst government ever and we have to break up with them.
00:12:00.680Did they actually achieve what they wanted or did they just get token little gifts?
00:12:09.680And certainly, I think one of the reasons why I was surprised that they pulled the plug on the deal, because they could have bona fide these programs.
00:12:17.680They could have kept working to improve these programs, to add more drugs to the PharmaCare plan, to increase, expand services on the dental care program.
00:12:25.680And so they are not going to be able to do that now.
00:12:28.680And more to the point, these programs are not established well enough to make the conservatives see twice about removing them and dropping them once they're in power.
00:12:43.680So we are one step closer for all these achievements that the NEP has made over the past few years to disappear if an election happens and Pierre Poirier becomes prime minister.
00:12:53.680So it makes it very peculiar that the NEP would walk away from all of that after all this time that they've spent propping up the liberals.
00:13:00.680And so I think the basis of the problem is the way that this deal was negotiated and the wording in some of this deal that allowed the liberals to keep going and the NEP to keep voting for them.
00:13:12.680There was a lot of aspirational language.
00:13:15.680Right. We are working towards establishing this, establishing that.
00:13:19.680And the liberals are very good at aspirational language as opposed to delivering.
00:13:39.680You achieve all these things, you push for all these things, and then you have it in your record and you can campaign on it and say, you like these things we've worked on with the liberals.
00:13:50.680Just imagine how much better Canada could be if NEP was in power to establish fully these programs, but they have not been able to get credit for that.
00:14:01.680Certainly in the polls, they have not been able to make any gain.
00:14:04.680If anything, they've been stalled around the 20 percent bar for quite some time.
00:14:08.680And sadly for them, while their liberal ally has been dropping in the polls, the one party that benefited is the conservative party, not the NEP.
00:14:18.680Well, you know, I was pointing that out.
00:14:20.680I did a column a week or two before saying Jagmeet Singh is the boy who's cried wolf because I didn't believe him on the rail strike that he would do this.
00:14:29.680And as we've established, it wasn't due to the rail strike.
00:14:32.680But he had cried wolf so many times and said, oh, this is the horrible government, but I'm going to vote for you.
00:14:39.680The last Leger poll taken before the agreement was signed in March 2022 had the new Democrats at 22 percent.
00:14:50.680The latest Leger poll released last week has them at 15.
00:14:53.680I would argue that, you know, politically, the deal has damaged the NDP's fortunes with voters.
00:15:02.680Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, that Leger poll, and I think the Leger folks would acknowledge that it could be an outlier.
00:15:10.68015 percent is the lowest they've polled in quite some time in any polling firm.
00:15:15.680Nanos had them at 20 percent in their latest poll, which came out after the Leger.
00:15:21.680But they are overing between 15 and 20 percent since the deal was signed.
00:15:25.680So I don't think they've lost any support, but I don't think they've gained any support.
00:15:29.680And the ideal scenario for the NDP was we will move forward.
00:15:45.680And this is the problem because the people who are tired of Trudeau decided to go with the conservatives.
00:15:51.680I don't think these people are coming back.
00:15:53.680And so now the hope for the NDP is to establish itself as a strong opposition, not to the liberals, to the conservatives.
00:16:01.680So they're hoping to somehow leap in second place and then cannibalize somehow the remaining liberal voters to come over their side to face Pierre Poiliev.
00:16:14.680It's a big gamble because right now you're doing that from the third place position.
00:16:20.680Although Justin Trudeau did that in 2015.
00:16:23.680Much to your chagrin, you were on that campaign.
00:16:32.680That's why you could you could hear Jagmeet Singh basically in every response to every question during that press conference to say, you know, you have a choice to make.
00:16:41.680There will be a choice in the Canadian in the next election.
00:16:43.680It will be between the conservative who are siding with a big corporation who are ripping you off and the NDP who want to face up to corporate greed and put more money in your pockets.
00:16:54.680That's that's the binary combination that Jagmeet Singh is offering to Canadians trying to describe the liberals as weak and and trying to marginalize them.
00:17:04.680Will they be able to succeed? I don't know, but certainly it seems like that's the game plan.
00:17:08.680OK, I'd like to get deeper into that, but let me ask you about this.
00:17:12.680I'm going to put a scenario out and people will think I'm crazy because I don't think anybody believes the liberals can come back right now.
00:17:22.680Just look, Jeremy Broadhurst, their national campaign director, a well-respected guy around the hill, political pro.
00:17:29.680He's just left because he doesn't think they can win.
00:17:33.680But imagine this scenario. They don't prorogue, which the rumor around Ottawa is they might invoke prorogation.
00:17:40.680I think it would be a good idea, actually.
00:17:43.680So, you know, then the House would not come back on September 16th.
00:17:46.680But if the House came back on September 16th, you're probably have says I'm going to put forward a non-confidence vote as soon as I can.
00:17:55.680That likely would see within the first two weeks there would be an opposition day that would see a potentially a vote before the Americans go to the polls.
00:18:05.680And I actually think that could be in Justin Trudeau's favor because his only hope is, you know, like Princess Leia said, Obi Wan Kenobi, your only hope.
00:18:16.680Justin Trudeau's looking south of the border and saying, Donald Trump, you're my only hope.
00:18:20.680So if we're voting before the Americans, he would just campaign for 37 days against Donald Trump and try and scare every new Democrat voter and some who now say they'll back the conservatives to come into the warm embrace of the liberal fold.
00:18:37.680And maybe he squeaks out another 32% of the popular vote win.
00:18:46.680I don't think the election of Donald Trump is the liberals only hope, but it certainly would be helpful to them, for sure, because the scenario you laid out is absolutely right.
00:18:58.680They would campaign against Donald Trump and associate Pierre Poirier to Donald Trump.
00:19:01.680And they've already started doing that, even though, you know, Trump is not in office yet.
00:19:06.680You've seen some liberals mention Donald Trump regularly in comparison to Pierre Poirier and his team.
00:19:11.680But I want to talk about Justin Trudeau's capacity to come back from behind, because he's done it not once, not twice, but in three consecutive elections.
00:19:23.680He was trailing in the polls and he ended up prime minister.
00:19:28.680And so we may want to underestimate him, but he's done it.
00:19:33.680Now, of course, he didn't have the baggage that he has now and the fatigue of being in power.
00:19:38.680But, you know, it's not like Canadians are enamored with Pierre Poirier.
00:19:44.680When you look at his personal numbers, they're not that great.
00:19:49.680And I think that's partly why the NDP did what he did, because they think that Pierre Poirier is winning by default.
00:19:55.680And so they want to rise up as being something different than the liberals and try to convince people that they are a true alternative for government.
00:20:05.680And they could not do that as long as they were in that deal with the true government.
00:20:10.680So you've been part of the campaign team that delivered the best result the federal NDP have ever had.
00:20:18.680And I want to talk about that experience and how it can be applied to sing when we come back more after this.
00:20:25.680Carl, I still remember your NDP team coming into the old offices of Sun News Network and TVA in the Quebec court days in Ottawa.
00:20:37.680You were doing a dog and pony show for all the big networks trying to say this is why you should cover the NDP because there were there have been times in past elections where media outlets would say, oh, well, election campaigns are really expensive.
00:20:52.680And, you know, we can't afford to have somebody on all the planes and all the buses and you guys went around to all the big newspapers, all the big TV networks.
00:21:02.680And you said, here's why you need to be on our plane.
00:21:05.680And it worked. We we sent a reporter on your plane, I believe, for the duration of the campaign.
00:21:12.680But in that meeting, you guys laid out a very clear strategy as part of your sales pitch to the media.
00:21:20.680You said, here's what's going to happen in the campaign and here's what we're going to do.
00:21:25.680And you didn't give a, you know, in intricate detail, but enough that you said we're going to slice from the liberals and slice from the conservatives.
00:21:32.680And here's where we're going to win. And here's why you should pay attention.
00:21:35.680That that was a very well-planned campaign.
00:21:38.680A lot of good people like yourself, Brad Levine, Kathleen Monk, all working on that.
00:21:44.680Does Jagmeet have a team like that around him now that that can pull off the same sort of thing that that you guys did in 2011?
00:21:54.680It's an interesting comparison, and the answer is maybe there's some people that were there in 2011 that are there now.
00:22:03.680Anne McGrath come to mind. So she's been around and she played a key role in 2011.
00:22:09.680And there's some new people who have not, you know, been able to to do what we did in 2011 and certainly maybe not have the same kind of experience.
00:22:19.680But there are some conditions that are a little similar to what happened in 2011.
00:22:24.680And you didn't mention the block and during that dog and pony show, as he called it.
00:22:30.680We did say at the time that we had our sights on half a dozen seats in Quebec.
00:22:35.680We were saying we will make some games at the expense of the block and we will win half a dozen seats, which was met by mockery and laughter most of the time.
00:22:43.680But prove that we were underestimating ourselves.
00:22:47.680But the game plan was was was clear and we were able to pull that off.
00:22:52.680And there was one thing that happened.
00:23:31.680He doesn't have the statue of Tom Mulcair, but I think the Democrats are hoping that making that game in Quebec could establish them again as a potential winner in Quebec and across the country.
00:23:50.680He's running in a in a riding that is a liberal stronghold like Tom Mulcair did in the Tramont.
00:23:55.680But he's able to push both into the liberal and the bloc support, which makes it a very interesting race.
00:24:02.680So that's kind of the background for everything that happened this week with Jagmeet Singh pulling out of the agreement,
00:24:07.680because it feels like the NDP needed that contrast now to win that seat and keep the seat in Elmoun Transcona in Winnipeg.
00:24:16.680Because if you are able to win seats, you can demonstrate that you can win seats elsewhere.
00:24:22.680And that's the one comparison I would make with 2011 is that if they are able to win that Quebec seats, perhaps they've shown Canadians that they are back into serious contention.
00:24:35.680And that's key for the electorate, because you never vote for the also-ran.
00:24:39.680So let me ask, though, I mean, Jack Layton was a popular leader.
00:24:45.680I'm not sure that Jagmeet Singh is right now, and it's not just the polling.
00:24:52.680A reader out in Winnipeg sent me the campaign literature that's being dropped off.
00:24:58.680The conservative campaign literature and the conservatives, they're downplaying expectations in there, but they desperately would love to win that seat back.
00:25:05.680They've held it. In fact, it's a very swingy riding. Elmwood Transcona has been held by all three parties in the last 20 years.
00:25:14.680So they'd like to win it. But the NDP literature, sorry, the conservative literature has Pierre Polyev all over it, along with the local candidate.
00:25:23.680But the NDP literature features Daniel Blakey. It features Wab Kanu. It does not mention or show a photo of Jagmeet Singh.
00:25:33.680That's normally a sign of, you know, parties like to play up their leader.
00:25:38.680Yeah. And nobody would argue that Jagmeet Singh is Jack Layton. I don't think anyone, I don't think he would make that comparison himself.
00:25:45.680I think he's quite aware of the differences and the personalities are different and the way that the political landscape evolved, you know, is also very different.
00:25:55.680But it is certainly a sign that he is not necessarily seen as an asset across the country.
00:26:02.680And so they're going to need to work on that because for better or for worse in this country, even though we have 338 ridings and thousands of candidates,
00:26:13.680most people vote for the leader in the party. And that's a big challenge for the NDP.
00:26:18.680And I think they're gambling that by showing strength in pulling out of that agreement and standing up to the conservative and describing the liberals as weak,
00:26:29.680we'll be able to lift Singh up and make him, you know, a better, a more liked leader.
00:26:38.680What's interesting in the Muntrescona, I just want to make sure that, for the record, in the 11 elections that happened, the 11 last elections that happened,
00:26:48.680the NDP won that seat and the conservative ran second except once in 2011.
00:26:52.680Oh, I thought the liberals had held it at one point as well.
00:26:55.680Not for the past 11 elections. Since Bill Blakey won it, actually since the writing was created after a redistribution,
00:27:02.680the liberals have been disinterred place. They're not a factor in that writing.
00:27:06.680So when we were talking earlier about that blue-orange switch voter, that's the kind of swing writing we're talking about.
00:27:15.680So the NDP must retain that seat. If they lose to the conservative, their narrative that they are standing up to the conservatives,
00:27:23.680that they can defeat conservatives, will fall apart.
00:27:25.680So I think that's one of the reasons why the decision was made to pull the plug on the deal with the liberals,
00:27:32.680because it was hurting them in Elmwood Transcona and they cannot afford to lose an NDP stronghold like that.
00:27:38.680Well, if they win in La Salle-Marge Verdun and then lose Elmwood Transcona,
00:27:45.680that would effectively take all of the wind out of the sails of winning the Montreal writing.
00:27:50.680It certainly would dampen the expectation.
00:27:53.680There would be a hurray and then a crying fit.
00:27:57.680Yeah, because the Blakey family has held that writing forever,
00:28:01.680except for a couple of elections where Jim Malloway was the MP there.
00:28:06.680But Bill Blakey was there for the longest time.
00:31:01.680But at this point, I would say there is the potential to at least step over the liberals and replace them again like you did in 2011 and make the liberals the third party.
00:31:12.680The key for that to happen is Ontario.
00:31:14.680And because I think in B.C. and Western provinces, I think the liberals are have lost too much ground and the NDP will beat them.
00:31:24.680You know, the conservatives will win a lot of seats, obviously, probably the most seats.
00:31:28.680But the NDP will probably come in a strong second in in the B.C. and the three Prairie provinces.
00:31:35.680I mean, we'll see what happens in La Salle de Marse Verdun in a couple of weeks.
00:31:40.680The Maritimes, the NDP has never been able to really grow from the breakthrough that Alexa McDonough had in 1997 by winning in seats in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
00:32:28.680It's possible because it's happened in the past.
00:32:30.680And Jagmeet Singh has had some success himself in Ontario.
00:32:33.680But if you look at what's happening on the provincial scene where where the Ontario Liberals, even though they are the third party and they don't have official status in at Queen's Park, they are still neck and neck with the NDP for second place.
00:32:48.680And and so you need the NDP to step up in Ontario for the scenario that you mentioned to unfold.
00:32:54.680Realistic shot at them winning the next election?
00:33:56.680And so they can change their mind very quickly.
00:33:59.680And that's why you've seen these spectacular shifts during campaigns over the past decades.
00:34:05.680It was September 15th, I believe, was the date that everything changed for you guys being out in front in the 2015 campaign and Trudeau taking over.
00:34:19.680So, you know, that was more than halfway through the campaign when that happened.
00:34:25.680Yeah, it was a very long campaign, but you're right.
00:34:28.680It was a few days after Labor Day, mid-September, that everything shifted.
00:34:32.680Because before that, the NEP was either ahead or right behind the Conservatives.
00:34:39.680But the Liberals were crawling back and, you know, a lot of things happened.
00:34:43.680But then the thing at the time in 2015 that is not there now is that the government in power was Stephen Harper and the fatigue was on the Conservatives.
00:34:52.680And so I think the Conservatives knew that for them to win, they needed to have the NEP and the Liberals remain relatively stable.
00:35:04.680They could not afford one of them to take over.
00:35:07.680And this is what happened because we and the Liberals knew that either we would form government or the Liberals would form government because Canadians were tired of Harper.
00:35:15.680And so the Liberals ended up winning the day.
00:35:19.680In the current scenario, I think the fact that the FEDSIG is on Trudeau and the Liberals is creating a different set of conditions, which the Conservatives are benefiting from right now, despite the misgivings that some people might have in Pierre Poirier's personally.
00:35:34.680They are seen as the government in waiting and, you know, unless the NEP can somehow step up its game and showcase how they would govern differently than the Liberals and create that contrast with the Liberals, the path to power for the NEP is tenuous.
00:35:54.680The Liberals, however, you know, they have to deal with that fatigue.
00:35:58.680They have to deal with the speculation about Justin Trudeau's future.
00:36:01.680It's coming every other week, every other month.
00:36:03.680There's always a scenario about, is he going to go?
00:36:06.680Is he going to take that famous walk in the snow like his father did?
00:36:09.680And those are not helpful for the Liberals because people like to have some stability and all these questions are not helping the Liberal cause for sure.
00:36:18.680Instability, uncertainty, that's what we've got from this.
00:36:23.680You worked through several minority governments.
00:36:26.680I covered several minority governments.
00:36:28.680People are saying to me, oh, the Jagmeet pulling out of this is a nothing burger.
00:37:00.680You don't know how many MPs are showing up for a vote.
00:37:02.680And all of a sudden we're off to the polls.
00:37:05.680So it creates a very, I mean, as a party staffer, as a political staffer, being on Parliament Hill during those moments where you don't know what's going to happen from one moment to the next is very exhilarating because everything that you do can matter.
00:37:42.680I mean, it was a vote of non-confidence and he just chose to ignore it and kept governing for several more months.
00:37:49.680And so it's always, you know, it's always unpredictable in this situation.
00:37:53.680And this is why if the Conservatives are serious in trying to bring down the government, they need to move forward with a motion that is very simple and very clear that this house has lost confidence in the government.
00:38:47.680But if if the other parties don't vote with them to bring down the government, he wins because he gets to attack them for supporting Justin Trudeau's liberals,
00:38:57.680least, you know, most unpopular government in forever.
00:39:00.680And if they vote with them, well, he gets the election that he wants.
00:39:04.680So he's got a win win scenario here. Yeah.
00:39:07.680So it depends what the objective is. Right.
00:39:09.680Right. Because you're right that he will be able to see see what I said about the NDP liberal costly coalition who love the carbon tax.
00:39:16.680I was right. But people don't vote if there's no election.
00:39:20.680And so, you know, at some point, everything that goes up will come down.
00:39:25.680Is it possible that the quality of conservatives speak too soon?
00:39:46.680Do we want it now or do we want to keep playing with with the liberals and the NDP for for some time?
00:39:52.680Because if they want to keep playing, it's in their power.
00:39:55.680But if they want to bring down the government, they need to put that to the test with a very simple motion.
00:40:01.680And then if the NDP prop up the liberals and get nothing in return, they still win because they can they can even point out that the NDP was not serious by pulling out of the agreement in that for all for all effect.
00:40:17.680The the the coalition is still in place.
00:40:20.680I want to ask you about the pension issue with Jagmeet, you know, because for years I've been hearing people say, well, he just won't vote them down because he wants to get his pension.
00:40:30.680And for a long time, I was dismissive of that because I thought, no, like, you know, people are around and do things for greater reasons than that.
00:40:38.680And then I one day I called up the Taxpayers Federation and every time an MP retires, they've got an estimate of what their pension is.
00:40:44.680So I said, you guys do that. What would Jagmeet's pension be if he just got the six years?
00:40:49.680And they said, I believe the estimate was two point two or two point three million dollars over the course of his lifetime.
00:40:55.680And I said, well, that's a lot of money for anybody not to, you know, to give up.
00:41:02.680Do you think that plays a factor in any of this?
00:41:08.680I mean, if you want to talk about the pension, I guess it's easy for Pierre Poiliev to make that accusation because his pension is secured at age 31.
00:41:20.680Yeah, it's going to be much bigger than Jagmeet Singh.
00:41:22.680So, you know, of course, it's easy to say, oh, he's doing it for the pension when your pension is secured.
00:41:26.680But I don't think it's it's part of the calculation.
00:41:29.680Frankly, I think it was part of the Liberals calculation when they changed the election date, however.
00:41:34.680I certainly think it was when they moved to October 25th.
00:41:39.680Exactly. Because then then a bunch of MPs, including Liberals, New Democrats, and I think some conservatives and some blockists, too, will get their pension.
00:41:47.680I think that was part of the calculation.
00:41:49.680But but for Jagmeet Singh at this time, I don't think it's I mean, I don't think he believes he will lose his seat.
00:42:08.680I don't think it will be this fall for one of many reasons.
00:42:11.680But the following one is really important.
00:42:13.680There's a series of provincial election happening this fall, including in British Columbia, where the NEP is in power right now.
00:42:19.680And if anybody knows anything about New Democrats is that there's a lot of resources sharing.
00:42:24.680There's a lot of human resources sharing.
00:42:26.680There's a lot of the same election workers working from one part of the country to the other.
00:42:30.680So if there's a federal election happening at the same time as one or two provincial elections, it creates a problem for the for the NEP machine.
00:42:37.680So I think they will want to wait if there's a window that really opens up.
00:42:41.680I think it's the next federal budget when the liberals don't deliver on X, Y, Z demand that the NEP will make.
00:42:47.680Of course, the liberals will not negotiate in good faith with the NEP because they cannot trust them anymore.