The dirty fight shaping up between Carney and Freeland
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Summary
Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney launch their campaigns for the Liberal Party of Canada. Both candidates have been close to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for years, but are now trying to distance themselves from him and his policies.
Transcript
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And they're off to the races, or perhaps, as I've been describing it, a knife fight.
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We've got two contenders and several pretenders now declared to be running to become the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada,
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And today we're going to be breaking down the Liberal Leadership Race,
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mainly a contest between Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau's former finance minister,
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Despite both candidates being close to Trudeau for years,
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they're both busy trying to distance themselves from him now.
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Jon Stewart's Daily Show was not the place I would have expected Mark Carney to announce his entry into the Liberal Leadership Race,
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but there he was on an American late-night TV last week trying to make a pitch to Canadians.
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Let's say the candidate did have a lot of economic experience.
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Let's say the candidate had a plan to deal with the challenges in the here and now.
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Now, some have criticized Carney for using an American television appearance instead of speaking to a Canadian media outlet to launch his bid,
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In fact, I'll even praise him for this appearance because the knock against Mark Carney has always been that he's a very smart guy,
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a very accomplished guy, but he can't sound like a normal person when he's speaking.
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He had a bit more trouble at his campaign event in Edmonton with teleprompter problems
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and sounding like he was speaking at a funeral, but overall, Carney had a pretty good launch.
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It was an op-ed saying she's standing up for Canada in the Toronto Star on Friday.
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A video was released on Saturday and then a rally on Sunday.
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For all of us, I'm running to be leader of the Liberal Party and our next Prime Minister.
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I'm in this to fight for you, to fight for Canadians, to fight for Canada.
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Like Mark Carney, Freeland is also trying to distance herself from Trudeau,
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despite being at his side for, what, the last 10 years?
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One way she's doing that is reportedly walking away from Trudeau's signature policy, the carbon tax.
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On Friday, I had a chance to speak to two well-informed Liberal activists,
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neither of whom are currently active working on a leadership campaign.
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Karen McMurchie is a consultant at Navigator, a Toronto-based crisis communications firm
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and formerly worked as a journalist at CBC, writing for shows such as Power and Politics.
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Sharon Carr is a partner at Sovereign Advisory.
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She's worked in the energy field and politics at the municipal, provincial levels,
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and federally, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
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What did you make of Mark Carney's strange launch that seemed like he was doing it while sleeping?
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So, like, listen, I think that this is, we have to remember, this is his first official,
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And there is a bit of nervousness that comes with that.
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So, I know there was folks kind of sassing him about how quickly he was speaking or how slowly he was speaking.
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What I've heard from his team is that there was a teleprompter issue.
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And in all fairness, when there's a teleprompter issue, it throws you off your game.
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If you watched him after in the presser, I think he did great.
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And, you know, the three of us, anyway, have worked in TV.
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You lose your teleprompter, it does throw you for a bit.
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But, I mean, it was like two different Mark Carney's, Kieran, between his prepared remarks and then his Q&A.
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I was listening to his French during his speech and just thinking, this is absolutely horrible.
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And then he gets to the Q&A, and both in English and French, seemed to come alive again.
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You know, Brian, I think it's almost like three Mark Carney's.
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You have the Daily Show appearance, where I thought he was charming and he had a good pre-launch.
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And then as Sharon and you highlight, the prepared remarks were, I don't want to say low energy, but they were.
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They were not nearly as exciting as his presser availability.
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To Sharon's point about teleprompters, you know, when a teleprompter goes down, you're kind of floating without a life jacket.
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And you're hoping to just keep treading water, I guess.
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And I think also we're comparing it to Justin Trudeau, right, as liberal leader, who has, for all his flaws over the years, he's a great campaigner.
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And in all of his availabilities, it's high energy.
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One of Mark Carney's staffers tried to get a Mark, Mark, Mark chant going.
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But to both of your points, the presser afterwards was a much better content.
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See, people will poo-poo the idea that you need to plan these events out, that there needs to be a lot of production in them.
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We're talking about that they couldn't get a Mark, Mark, Mark going.
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The getting on and off stage portions for some people, like the elder that came up to do the land acknowledgement and say a prayer, that was really awkward.
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Word, just, you know, the passing by of people, the stagecraft in any of this is very important because it sends signals, doesn't it, Sharon?
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Okay, so this is something that I honestly care so deeply about, not because I think that it's like a, it's hard to do, but you know what?
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So in my background in politics, I spend a lot of my time in the ops world.
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So visuals matter, and I'm, when I say visuals, I am the queen of micromanaging visuals because that is what people see, that is what they take away.
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And I like to compare, uh, Krisha Freeland as Minister of Finance to when Bill Marno was the Minister of Finance because when I was with Bill, like, listen, I took the, I took the visuals and the optics so seriously because, think about it this way.
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I'm working with a, um, a minister who people criticize for being wealthy, people criticize for being white, uh, people criticize for not being your typical politician.
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So you're working with something and you want to make them seem approachable.
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You want to create an environment around them that the visuals are great.
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So if you look at any of his photo ops that I ever organized, their structure, people behind him are properly lined up.
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Like, even simple things like getting people to take their coats off and, like, not looking disheveled and, like, heights and, like, how people come in and prepping them.
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Like, all of that stuff matters so much and I'm pretty anal about it because I think the visual is, like, what people are seeing and, like, even things like teleprompters.
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Like, I know, I know for, like, Minister Freeland or Freeland's team, at least, it hasn't.
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I mean, think of Pierre Paglia's, uh, news conference when he came out, uh, just recently to respond to the Trump tariffs.
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That's sending a signal that you're not even thinking about just by viewing it.
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They're either impressed by it or they're turned off by it.
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Um, and the same with, with, um, I was about to call him, uh, Bill Morneau.
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Bill Morneau, not running for the liberal leadership.
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And it fell flat because the TV aesthetics weren't there, to Sharon's point about triple-checking everything.
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If you're not doing that, it's not going to be a good TV production.
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It sends signals to people who are looking at these little things, to your point, Brian, about subliminal messaging.
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You haven't seen Joe Oliver's old shoe events, have you?
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Where they do it in the back of the playlist, and it's like sitting on chairs looking really duddy.
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Like, between the Daily Show and this launch, criticisms we may have of it, we are all talking about Mark Carney.
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So, he has been sucking up most of the oxygen in the room.
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I was told that Christopher Freeland would launch on Friday.
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But Mark Carney has essentially owned the week.
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And we're only talking about him to the point that, I'm not sure if you guys heard about it,
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but the Whisper campaign that, oh, Christopher Freeland's not even going to get in.
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That's how much he dominated this first real week of liberal leadership campaign.
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And two weeks seems like a lifetime in politics, where, to your point of Trudeau resigning two Mondays ago,
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and now we're here and Mark Carney's owning the news cycle.
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And Freeland is soft launching this morning, official launch to come.
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He's out of the gates first and with, I think, a pretty good head start.
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Because it was just, I don't know, it wasn't that long ago that the Trudeau government said,
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if we don't have a carbon tax, the planet will die and you'll clearly hate people, Sharon.
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So, listen, I was around, I was working in government when we introduced, and we call it a price on pollution.
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But anyways, when the carbon tax was introduced, the time was different.
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And we were talking pre-pandemic, pre-inflation, pre-high interest rates, and pre-cost of living crisis.
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And at that time, it was meant to do something.
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And I think that the problem is that when you introduce policy, you have to be really willing to adapt when times change.
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And I think for Carney, who previously has also kind of been supportive of the carbon tax,
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very quickly has adjusted to his perspective on it, given the time we're in right now.
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And I think it's easier for him to walk away from it than it is for Freeland, because she was supporting it not too long ago.
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So, for her, it's a little less, I would say, natural for her to be able to move away from it.
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But Carney is on the record, including appearances before the Canadian House of Commons, speeches to international groups.
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He thought that Canada's carbon tax was a model to follow, but it just wasn't high enough.
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I don't think that that, maybe some people will accept that.
00:13:41.380
Well, I think that, and I don't know what year he said that in, and I think that does matter to a certain extent.
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If you want to be a politician, long gone are the days that you have to never reverse a position.
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We saw it when the government put small business tax cuts or tax increases into place before.
00:14:04.880
And I think when Pierre Polyev's major campaign pushes a carbon tax election and carbon tax Carney, carbon tax Freeland, all these things, like, if they take that away from him, then what is it?
00:14:16.940
So, I get people, I get that people will push back on it, but so what?
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And I think, to your point, Sharon, about Polyev, the conservatives have won the arms race on this.
00:14:29.740
The carbon tax is not popular in any province in this country.
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And anyone for the liberals running to replace prime minister have a shot in the general.
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They have to move away from the carbon tax because it's so unpopular.
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But will people believe, either Freeland or Carney, that they're not on board with the carbon tax?
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I mean, so, you know, I've heard the talking point that, oh, Polyev has had his two biggest assets and the two things he talks about the most taken away, Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax.
00:15:12.760
And you've got, you know, his former finance minister and his former shadow finance minister running to replace him.
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Either one of them in a general election is going, I mean, the point will constantly be made by the conservatives.
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And I think Freeland's going to have a harder time with that than Carney's because she's been Trudeau's minister of everything.
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She's stood in the House consistently and promoted the effects of a carbon tax, giving money back to Canadians through the rebate, price on carbon necessity, et cetera, et cetera.
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Carney, on the other hand, for as close as he has been to this liberal government, he's not been a part of it technically.
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There's a bit more legitimacy there on his end to be able to hold it out at arm's length and say, you know, to Sharon's point, we need to do something for the environment.
00:16:03.860
Whereas for Freeland, it'll be a much more difficult side to tread.
00:16:10.520
And this is something that I know a lot of conservatives are going to say, no, because he says he's an outsider and she's an insider.
00:16:20.240
When we say that Carney has kind of been there, he's been the guy who they've relied on.
00:16:26.740
I'm just going to say something that might not be obvious to folks, but something that this government has done from the very beginning is they like to use names as sparkly objects to get people's attention.
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His name brought them credibility when they needed it.
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And I think that the issue he's having now is kind of pushing away and kind of being that outsider type of voice.
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I actually don't think he is the insider that everyone is claiming him to be because I know how these guys operate.
00:17:04.160
I've seen how they establish these panels and chairs and whatever.
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They use them for credibility, but they don't actually involve them.
00:17:24.980
Well, and the one thing that Carney will have that Freeland will not is that as much as we all know Mark Carney's name,
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and I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast knows Mark Carney's name.
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We're political junkies, and there's going to be an awful lot of voters.
00:17:41.300
I mean, think of how few people know any cabinet ministers' names.
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And then you get down to, you know, Treasury Board President, Labor Minister, Immigration Minister.
00:18:01.580
So there's going to be a lot of people who have never heard of Mark Carney before.
00:18:10.760
As you know, I've been writing a lot about the liberal leadership race, but also talking to a lot of liberals.
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It's been amusing that some of the best inside coverage of the liberal leadership race has been in the Toronto Sun.
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That's probably as unexpected to me as it is to those who have been reading it.
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But what I found fascinating is that both sides are trying to make the other sound like the insider, and they're the outsider.
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They don't want to be seen as too close to them.
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And as one MP said to me, though, oh, we're all liberals.
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We've all been part of this for the last while.
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Talk to me a bit about your view on that dynamic.
00:19:01.580
Of nobody wanting to be too close to the current leader.
00:19:06.580
Okay, so I'm just going to jump in here, having lived this very closely.
00:19:11.260
And I'll start by saying, it's not verbatim, but in Carney's remarks yesterday, he did say something that kind of stood out to me.
00:19:19.560
That he pointed out, and I think this was his way to distance himself from the current PM and PMO.
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He said something along the lines of, everyone knows that the PM and his office have lost sight of the economy or whatever.
00:19:33.260
And like, he was being very clearly, it wasn't like shade, but it kind of was, right?
00:19:38.740
And as somebody who has been a liberal for, like, the entirety of my life, I started off as a teenager.
00:19:44.600
But for anyone who knows me, and many will call it a flaw, is that I've never shied from being outspoken about where I think we have failed on things.
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And I think specifically in the feds, like, when I left government, and the shackles were taken off and I could have an opinion, I've always called the government out when I've heard them say things, do things that I thought were not aligned with what the mainstream population of, like, centrist liberals believe.
00:20:13.520
Like, I can't even use the word centrist around a lot of people in Ottawa, because I get yelled at and say, we don't like that word, we like the term progressive.
00:20:19.680
The problem is, is that this Liberal Party, which is not the Liberal Party of Canada, it's the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau, has shifted away from what the fundamentals of the Liberal Party of Canada used to be.
00:20:30.140
And people are trying to move away from that, so even now, like, MPs or staff or whoever it is you're talking to, I think there's, like, an identity crisis of people trying to rebrand and kind of rebuild what the party is.
00:20:45.120
And I think for someone like Carney, who I actually think is a really, really smart person and could be really great in the role of Prime Minister, he's going to have to also kind of, like, bring the party back to the party of economics, bring the party back to the party of centrism and balance versus virtue signaling.
00:21:02.780
And I hate the term woke, but everyone's talking about how woke it's gone.
00:21:06.320
So I think people do have to kind of speak out and say where the flaws are in a bit.
00:21:17.480
I think there's been a recognition that the Liberal Party went too far on that progressive side.
00:21:22.660
Some call woke progressive, you know, pick your poison, whatever it is.
00:21:27.520
So the leadership candidates, Freeland, Carney, whoever else throws their hand in the air for this job, they have to move it to a more moderate, centrist, to Sharon's word, place.
00:21:41.520
Because otherwise, you know, Polyev and the Conservatives are going to eat their lunch because Canadians, they're just not there.
00:21:48.640
Well, you know, let's just talk about this progressive versus centrist thing for a moment because I've been hearing so many MPs and liberal supporters and pundits in the TV appearances saying, well, we have to get back to the center.
00:22:04.240
Well, excuse me, Judy Scrooge, you've been part of this Liberal Party.
00:22:10.620
You've been part of this government the whole time.
00:22:19.060
But Trudeau really did believe in moving the party in the progressive direction.
00:22:24.780
And if you listen to how we would speak about that, especially if we was referencing the NDP, he talked about them as if they were part of the same party.
00:22:35.480
And I always found that odd because I remember when liberals would fight with new Democrats and saw them as being too far to the left.
00:22:50.840
I think that they saw very clearly that the, I would say, the right, the Conservatives' tent has, like, listen, most people would say I'm a blue liberal or a red Tory.
00:23:01.440
But for me, to be honest, the current federal Conservative Party has a whole wackadoo of people on the far right, which kind of freak me out and make me uncomfortable.
00:23:12.660
And I think for Trudeau, he tried to do this whole thing where their strategy was let's pull from the left.
00:23:18.720
So this whole progressive stuff has been purely a vote catch to get people from the NDP.
00:23:23.280
And what people forget, and I used to harp about this all the time to the powers that be in Ottawa, is that NDPers, for the most part, like I'm talking the mainstream NDPers who are, like, hardcore, bleeding hearts activists, are so ideological that it doesn't matter what you do.
00:23:42.580
So they get that 16% to 20% every time, and they're not trading in their Birkenstocks for a pair of comfy liberal loafers, are they, Karen?
00:23:54.640
There is no center in global geopolitics anymore.
00:23:59.620
The liberals abandoned it and allowed Pierre Paulyev to walk in and say, hey, welcome home.
00:24:05.340
And I think, you know, look at the 2015 to 19 mandate and everything that's come since.
00:24:09.960
And the two minority parliaments that Trudeau's had to run, he's had to rely on the bloc.
00:24:14.220
But for a majority on the left with the NDP, to Sharon's point, he needed votes.
00:24:18.920
And so that meant he had to cede to the left, to what they wanted, to the, you know, air
00:24:24.300
quotes, progressive, woke policies that they really pushed for, or else his government was
00:24:32.980
When we come back, I guess we should talk about some of the other candidates, because
00:24:36.240
apparently there are other folks in the race, or so I've heard.
00:24:41.920
I am here to inform you that I am not running for the Liberal Party, but we'll talk about who
00:24:48.920
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00:25:02.240
As much as I've described the Liberal leadership race as a knife fight between
00:25:06.440
Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney, and let's point out, this could get really nasty between
00:25:11.680
the two of them, and Mark Carney is godfather to one of Chrystia Freeland's kids.
00:25:16.260
That's how well they know each other, so it'll be interesting to see if it does get nasty.
00:25:21.080
There are other people in this race, and one of the campaigns, when I did a big write-up
00:25:26.820
of who's in, who's out the other day, wrote to me to inform me that I should really be
00:25:36.240
And please don't turn off the podcast and go searching for who Frank Bayless is, because
00:25:42.040
we'll explain it, because most people won't know, will they, Kieran?
00:25:53.000
And I think that's what we're seeing with this other tranche of candidates.
00:26:07.940
Chandra Aria, who, you know, so Frank Bayless was a Montreal area MP, never made it to cabinet.
00:26:15.420
Most people who are going to have heard his name outside of his riding and his family will
00:26:21.160
have heard about it because of controversy related to contracts during COVID for ventilators.
00:26:29.760
Chandra Aria, Ottawa area MP, who again, not known outside of his riding, maybe not even
00:26:39.440
Jamie Batiste out of Nova Scotia saying he's going to run.
00:26:44.640
Karina Gould, we'll talk about her in a moment.
00:26:47.720
Burlington MP, cabinet minister of several portfolios, who I think is a stalking horse.
00:26:51.980
And Ruby Dalla, making calls, former Liberal MP who left politics in 2011, making calls
00:27:03.360
Are any of them serious beyond Karina Gould possibly being used as a stalking horse for
00:27:17.140
This lovely former MP from a Montreal region who has a very, or had a very successful ventilator
00:27:24.680
business post-COVID and now has more money than God, I think is a lovely human, but not
00:27:35.140
I think it's, I don't know what the thought process was there, but it's great that he's
00:27:41.380
But, uh, Jamie Batiste, um, you know what, I think it's wonderful that we have an Indigenous
00:27:46.460
candidate who, um, is, his platform is to be the first Indigenous potential Prime Minister.
00:27:51.980
Uh, now Karina Gould, listen, she is a, uh, a very...
00:27:57.540
She's smart, she's partisan, she's well-spoken, but I don't see her as a, as a leadership candidate
00:28:05.680
No, she, you know what, she's such a nice, uh, and her demeanor, like, to me, she'd be
00:28:10.600
like the perfect Prime Minister in, like, a Nordic country.
00:28:13.480
Like, she's just so, like, lovely, but I say, like, she's actually someone to watch.
00:28:18.020
She is a, and I say that with, like, so much respect.
00:28:20.780
Um, she is someone to watch, and I think she is kind of a bit of a, like, I'm not going
00:28:25.400
to say a kingmaker in this situation, but this is a profile-building exercise.
00:28:29.020
Like, we've seen other candidates do this in previous times.
00:28:32.180
But if she jumps in, do you, do either of you buy the idea that she is in there with
00:28:40.420
backing from people who really want Carney to win to draw votes away from Freeland?
00:28:48.080
I've heard some weird things come out of this leadership campaign, like, rumors that are,
00:28:55.000
There was this big rumor, uh, around that the entire PMO was backing Carney's team, and
00:29:01.380
I have been told from very senior people on the Carney team who were livid about that,
00:29:05.700
saying that was a rumor Freeland's team started, just to piss people off and get them away.
00:29:09.780
So the Karina thing, it's possible, but I've also heard she's got ambitions, and this is
00:29:16.340
Um, is there backroom conversations happening for her to pull votes away?
00:29:21.640
Um, is, is it also possible she's just doing this to build her name?
00:29:28.960
To that point about, about not knowing, I think it, it is very likely that it could be
00:29:36.600
She's held a number of smaller ministerial portfolios, but she's done a good job in them.
00:29:40.760
And I mean, on the day this, this all started, back when Freeland resigned, when the government
00:29:45.500
had no clue if it could table the fall economic statement, Gould was the one who had to stand
00:29:51.060
up and take the punches and deliver the speech.
00:29:53.680
So it shows she has support of, of PMO, of the caucus.
00:29:56.720
And I think she could, I don't want to say play kingmaker, but, but her support for whichever
00:30:01.920
candidate she ends up throwing her weight behind could bring votes that, that could tip
00:30:06.760
Uh, I'll tell you one quick story about, uh, uh, Karina Gould, uh, and it's only because
00:30:13.260
you say she's so nice, uh, Sharon, um, and, and, and she does appear very nice.
00:30:18.780
She, she, she seems like, um, the kindergarten teacher that, uh, looks after your kids and
00:30:24.300
you want to talk to her and, you know, she has that kind of demeanor.
00:30:26.880
She is also incredibly partisan and ruthless when it comes to playing politics.
00:30:32.080
So before the 2021 election, the, uh, the federal government was trying to get deals with all
00:30:39.220
the provinces and Ontario was one of the last to sign.
00:30:43.620
The then chief of staff was my former boss, Jamie Wallace.
00:30:47.000
And I remember talking and I was keeping in touch with Jamie.
00:30:49.440
And as you do in politics, you, you talk to the senior people to find out what's going
00:30:54.560
And, um, I'd been tracking where are they with the, uh, deal on, on, um, uh, on childcare
00:31:02.840
And, and what I kept hearing when minister Hussain was in office was, oh, we're really
00:31:08.700
Then the election happened and everything had to be put on hold.
00:31:10.900
And so I, I, you know, the last thing I was told is, oh, this will be done very quickly
00:31:17.140
Cause we just have to finalize things, but now we can't talk to them.
00:31:20.620
Gould was put into the portfolio and they wanted to pick fights with Doug Ford.
00:31:26.600
She does what the PMO asks, comes out, says they haven't even sent us paperwork.
00:31:34.120
They're, they're, they're causing problems, uh, for, for parents.
00:31:37.480
None of it was true, but it helped them pick the fight they wanted with Doug Ford, who was
00:31:48.860
Um, so in terms of, um, where the race goes from, from here, I think most of those candidates
00:31:58.280
that we talked about won't make the, the $350,000 connection.
00:32:02.400
I think that, uh, you know, you've got to have 50,000 in by next week.
00:32:07.220
And then it, you know, goes up to the full amount being in by February 17th.
00:32:15.660
Do you think that, that these two people who have known each other and been friends for
00:32:19.620
so long will take punches or do they just throw shade at Trudeau and, and the past record
00:32:28.580
Well, either way, it's going to be really awkward for the God child.
00:32:35.900
Uh, you know, it's weird because they, these are two people who, um, are probably friendly
00:32:40.860
and friends, like friendly enough to give your gift, like, again, be the Godfather to
00:32:49.540
I have on, like, if I used like X as a barometer, um, I've been seeing some shade, um, like for
00:32:56.220
example, Freeland posted that photo at her kitchen table, um, drinking tea and making phone calls.
00:33:03.580
And, uh, like, I was just joking and saying, like, take a better photo op guys.
00:33:09.680
And like, I had a couple Freeland people like send me messages saying, well, at least it's
00:33:14.500
not a Rolls Royce or it's at least it's like, not like at the world economic forum.
00:33:22.080
Um, so I think it will get a little, it will get a little nasty, but politics, like life
00:33:28.600
So, um, I think we'll see more shade come out of the Freeland team than we will from
00:33:35.420
And I think, you know, on the point of nastiness, I'm sure it will, but they both have to be
00:33:40.920
careful about it because this isn't a general election.
00:33:45.980
They're running against each other on the same team.
00:33:48.220
And so you can't piss supporters off, but you really can't piss organizers off.
00:33:52.260
To an extent that they don't want to work for you.
00:33:56.580
Well, I've seen that happen in liberal leadership campaigns before, but I'm old and I go back
00:34:00.920
to the, uh, the, the race to replace Sean Kretchen and, um, it was nasty before, uh,
00:34:06.540
Kretchen said he'd stepped down and it was nasty during the, uh, the leadership race where
00:34:10.700
Paul Martin didn't have to beat up on John Manley.
00:34:17.020
Um, look, there's been, I wrote up the story about, uh, Carney being,
00:34:22.060
photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell, uh, Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice and girlfriend, uh,
00:34:29.820
And I've had several people, including liberals say to me that they think it was the Freeland
00:34:34.520
I've spoken to the conservatives who assure me it was not them.
00:34:38.220
They wanted to use that later on because they knew about it, but apparently a lot of
00:34:42.700
And for, for background, if people haven't heard, just so that Carney's team isn't screaming
00:34:46.600
at me, um, these were photos taken in 2013, appeared in the daily mail and elsewhere,
00:34:52.460
but long before Maxwell was ever charged, uh, she was friends with his, um, uh, with Carney's
00:35:04.640
Uh, and so that, you know, when, when I reached out to Carney's team, one, they said, well, we
00:35:09.720
were expecting someone would do a story and someone would call and two, they were straight
00:35:15.560
They, he met her several times, didn't know anything about what was going on until, uh,
00:35:20.100
news break and broken charges came, but that was kind of a dirty whisper campaign going
00:35:25.120
against Carney, which is part of why I did the story.
00:35:27.780
It's like, okay, let's, instead of just whispering about this on X and floating these photos around,
00:35:34.620
Dirty whisper campaigns can really hurt people.
00:35:37.700
So listen, I like, this one was one that I found a bit irritating from like, cause I
00:35:42.280
heard the same thing that you did, that it was not the conservatives and all of my, all
00:35:45.640
my friends on the conservative side was like, we were going to hold onto this.
00:35:48.440
Um, and then we were hearing whispers that, yeah, it was actually the Freeland team.
00:35:56.720
So when they go low, you go underground, but it's like, we cannot control the actions of
00:36:05.140
It did was Mark Carney hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein.
00:36:10.160
And the fact that there's, but I, I did have to ask him that given the photos and you know
00:36:14.400
You'd probably have to ask every major business person in North America and Europe, if they
00:36:18.140
have given how wide his network was, did everyone know what kind of creep he was?
00:36:26.760
Um, and like having been in his orbit and having been around him enough, uh, during my
00:36:32.380
time in politics, he is like, it's just, it's a bit like, it's malicious that people are
00:36:40.520
Can you imagine what would be said about the media of which I am still a part if he gets
00:36:47.980
elected prime minister and then photos come up about Mark Carney, you guys can't be trusted.
00:36:57.260
And I think that if you got the picture, you have to ask about it, but you've got the
00:37:01.820
There are people online who have been spiraling and spiraling about this picture, making it
00:37:06.820
seem as if he was hanging out with the guy having breakfast on a Thursday.
00:37:12.340
Um, they were moving around really big networks.
00:37:14.980
Is, is he associated with the nonsense that happened to them?
00:37:18.880
And I think that like, this is like the implication or trying to suggest he was by whoever leaked
00:37:30.440
Uh, in terms of, uh, policy, how do either of you see, I mean, these are two financially
00:37:37.740
focused people, even before government Freeland was in, um, you know, business journalism.
00:37:43.100
Uh, she wrote a book that's sitting right next to me here called Plutocrats, uh, that was
00:37:49.920
How do they go about putting together a message that resonates with Canadians on issues like
00:37:58.920
affordability when so much of the blame rightly or wrongly is going to the current government?
00:38:07.440
Um, how much, you know, so we've talked about the carbon tax issue already, but how much
00:38:15.160
Uh, what kind of policies do they need to come up with to attract people?
00:38:19.200
Because it is very good chance that, you know, within a month of one of them winning the
00:38:24.460
leadership, we're going to be in a, in a general election.
00:38:27.380
So Karen, uh, what do you do, uh, what, what would your advice be if you were, uh, you
00:38:35.940
I think you have to focus on affordability because that's what everyone in the country
00:38:39.960
And so you saw Mark Carney yesterday signal that the Trudeau government took its eye off
00:38:45.060
the ball, so to speak, and that they have to keep an eye on the economy, on economic
00:38:49.980
growth, on ensuring that Keynes across the country aren't facing the same affordability
00:38:56.400
And so I think that message will have to be driven home time and time again over the
00:39:04.600
And then as much as they can in the three weeks before the government potentially falls
00:39:10.080
and we're into a general election, I think anything else, you know, with Trump's tariffs
00:39:13.940
coming in on, on Tuesday and, and all the hurt that that's going to bring to the Canadian
00:39:18.700
economy, to Canadian workers, I think it's going to be an election about affordability and
00:39:24.520
whoever is the leadership, um, is the leader for the liberals is going to have to take that
00:39:29.640
fight to Pierre Paulyevre and the conservatives who have owned that message for the last two,
00:39:35.180
almost three years since he was elected leader.
00:39:37.440
Uh, to add to that, um, I guess we're going to have to cancel our Disney plus, but no,
00:39:50.980
Listen, it's a, it's going to be a lot of harder.
00:39:53.140
Um, I think it's, it's going to be easier for someone like Mark Carney to come in.
00:39:57.040
Like he comes from a serious economic background and, um, uh, it's, uh, like, I think that'll
00:40:03.360
It's a bit more challenging for Freeland having kind of like, she didn't really table the fez
00:40:10.520
And like you saw, uh, Brian, like what the real deficit numbers were.
00:40:14.540
So it's, it's going to be really hard for her to hammer home the message around, um, affordability
00:40:20.840
given that the deficit and spending was skyrocketed under her watch.
00:40:26.440
And like, I know it was driven by PMO and not necessarily her, but you have to care about
00:40:31.000
something enough if it's a fiscal anchor and how you're going to do it.
00:40:33.420
So I think she will push on the affordability, but I actually think what Freeland's main, um,
00:40:37.800
push is going to be is on the U S and, and, and Trump.
00:40:40.300
We've already seen her come out and say that, or at least speculate that she would, uh, announce
00:40:48.580
And I think her, um, she's big on foreign policy.
00:40:52.780
And in this case, I think she wants to be seen as the fighter, um, the fighter against
00:40:57.420
So while Mark, I think we'll take a bit more of a domestic, let me, we want to make life
00:41:02.860
While I fight for you with Donald Trump in a more, I would say, uh, diplomatic way, we're
00:41:08.540
going to see Freeland a way more kind of in his face and focused on tariffs.
00:41:13.320
Uh, just quickly, I think that'll play well for a large segment of the population who isn't
00:41:18.740
I think they're going to like seeing someone like Chrystia Freeland take swings and not
00:41:23.000
back down from the rampage of tweets that I'm sure he'll put out if she were to be leader
00:41:33.540
I had to join truth social so that I could follow the guy and nobody's saying my morning
00:41:39.720
now consists of waking up at around 6am and seeing what he posted in the middle of the
00:41:46.080
And it used to be, look at the itineraries of the politicians and see what I have to
00:41:51.940
Um, the, the going hard on, on Trump and the tariffs, you're right, could absolutely work
00:41:59.600
Uh, she's sounding as tough as, if not tougher than Doug Ford and he and his hat have been
00:42:07.640
Uh, and, and, and Ford is actually taking a stronger stand on the dollar for dollar tariff issue
00:42:13.200
than the prime minister has, who's trying to come up the middle and believe it or not,
00:42:18.460
not annoy Alberta as much as he probably wants to.
00:42:25.420
Um, having kind of been part of the original team that was kind of handling NAFTA and Ismika,
00:42:31.540
whatever, Kizma, whatever we're calling it these days, there's a difference here.
00:42:35.640
You, with like, if we talk about the current context of what happened at the first minister's
00:42:40.780
meeting and the approach of what's going to happen, I, I loved seeing everyone with the
00:42:45.860
exception of Danielle Smith kind of come together collectively and take a strong stance towards
00:42:50.900
the U S um, on that note of Danielle Smith, I don't think she's wrong with saying we should
00:42:56.400
not be putting oil on the table, but I think her blase, I don't care about being at the
00:43:00.800
meeting with you guys and taking a stance together is not appropriate.
00:43:03.960
It'll play well in Alberta and you know, she has a very different, uh, domestic political
00:43:08.720
context and I can understand where she's coming from.
00:43:11.240
She's not playing well in the rest of the country though.
00:43:13.800
And I, I, again, I agree with her on oil having to be the last thing that anyone even puts on
00:43:19.400
the tables, you got to be a bit cautious, but when it comes to Donald Trump and Freeland
00:43:24.440
and Carney, you have to look at it from this perspective.
00:43:30.080
Like, listen, I, I can respect Freeland a lot for kind of being able to put up and, and,
00:43:35.940
and push back on it, but Donald Trump does not respect her.
00:43:41.500
And like, there should always be mutual respect in these discussions, but he was not a fan of
00:43:47.140
Like she was always poking the bear that made conversations difficult and Doug Ford might
00:43:52.040
be poking the bear, but Doug Ford's doing it in a way that I think like, he's, he's like
00:43:58.720
He's like, he's talking person to person, but coming off as like kind of not Donald Trump
00:44:04.060
esque, but like he's speaking his language, right?
00:44:15.820
When he put that hat on, I just wanted to give him the biggest hug and say, thank you for
00:44:23.840
Your thoughts, Karen, on the, uh, on the back and forth across the border.
00:44:27.240
Does either one of them come out ahead in, in dealing with the, with Trump?
00:44:32.380
Some, some Canadians will look at the fact that Donald Trump doesn't like Christian Freeland
00:44:36.340
and say, not only do I want her to be liberal leader, she should be prime minister.
00:44:41.100
And I think, you know, you, you look last month or whenever it was when, when Trudeau
00:44:45.840
and LeBlanc went down to Mar-a-Lago to talk tariffs and the finance minister at that time
00:44:50.420
was Christian Freeland and she didn't go because Donald Trump does not like her.
00:44:54.600
And I think as much as many Canadians might like someone who stands up to the bully, I
00:45:00.160
think in terms of diplomacy, it's, it's not going to be good for Canada.
00:45:03.060
If we have a prime minister who the president of the United States cannot stand.
00:45:07.180
And I think to Sharon's point, you know, to your point, Brian, about if Doug Ford could
00:45:11.380
go negotiate with Trump, we, we'd all be a lot better.
00:45:14.220
There's an interesting sort of context going around where we seem to have 10 to 13 foreign
00:45:19.660
ministers right now trying to negotiate with the U S on, on their province's behalf.
00:45:24.540
And now from a national unity standpoint, I think it's going to raise some challenges
00:45:32.700
Cause we've talked a lot about the liberal leadership race, but let's talk about why we're
00:45:40.080
I have vented my spleen about this more than once that I am angry that we're in the position
00:45:45.900
we're in without solid federal leadership at this moment when we could get hit really hard.
00:45:55.640
And quite frankly, we may not have a fully functioning government until June.
00:46:00.840
And if we have an election right after, I mean, I'm, I'm sorry, being elected as party leader,
00:46:06.640
uh, and, and then showing up three weeks later with the throne speech, that's not exactly a really
00:46:15.960
Are you angry that Trudeau didn't leave earlier?
00:46:22.540
Oh, you know, this is a tough one because, uh, I hear a lot of people frustrated and angry,
00:46:31.860
mainly from the conservative pool saying that like the, the voters need to be able to vote the,
00:46:40.980
But the way our system works is that there's nothing wrong with what's happening.
00:46:48.340
Um, I, I think we have to let it play out and I think we have to, and this is going to sound
00:46:55.180
like whatever, we have to give it a chance because parties, like if this happened to the,
00:47:00.420
Like we've seen Kim Campbell, we've seen all these things and we've seen how they play out.
00:47:04.280
John Turner was, um, named prime minister and he didn't have a seat in the house of commons.
00:47:12.260
And, and I'm looking forward to seeing where like Carney decides that he will run from.
00:47:16.160
But I mean, do you wish that Trudeau had, you know, had a better plan in terms of succession?
00:47:22.080
Well, let's, okay, let's just talk about the elephant in the room.
00:47:25.220
I think there was a level of arrogance from his office thinking that they could tell their
00:47:28.460
finance minister on a Friday before the Fez that she's no longer going to be finance minister.
00:47:35.740
This is the level of arrogance that we have come to.
00:47:41.100
Um, so no, I think that, I think the planning was horrible.
00:47:45.420
I think that they did not think this would happen, which is why we are in this ridiculous
00:47:52.720
Um, it's just, it's just a wild scenario that I think it's actually quite sad.
00:47:59.960
We're in this really weird, crazy position now where we have no real federal leadership,
00:48:07.940
We've got an outsider who is trying to run to be the prime minister and then we'll have
00:48:13.440
We've got Freeland who is now on this revenge campaign.
00:48:20.700
The Westminster system might be one of the messiest one.
00:48:23.520
And it's very much confidence and vibes based and like a vibe session, like a vibe session.
00:48:30.740
Some would say, um, you know, it, it's not a good spot for the country.
00:48:34.560
You're facing significant economic threats from a country that's supposed to be our closest
00:48:39.900
And you've got a vacuum of leadership at the top with a prime minister who's sitting, who
00:48:45.840
is a lame duck because he's dipping in a couple of weeks on March 9th.
00:48:50.780
And you've got two people, well, more people, but two real front runners vying to replace
00:48:56.440
One of them, to your guys' point, doesn't have a seat in the House of Commons.
00:48:59.900
So when they table the throne speech, he'll, I don't know, be waving from the gallery.
00:49:03.620
And then you have a finance minister, or a former finance minister, I should say, who
00:49:08.680
the president of the United States isn't a fan of.
00:49:10.640
And all of this is happening at a time when Canadians are looking to their elected officials
00:49:18.920
I think that, um, after this leadership race, um, whenever we do have a functioning government
00:49:24.140
again, I, I'm going to back something I never would have a couple of years ago.
00:49:28.480
And that is that every party need, if you want to contest in a federal election, your party
00:49:35.100
needs to follow the same rules as a general election for leadership races and nominations,
00:49:40.580
because it is, you know, we didn't think about it before, but now we've got foreign interference.
00:49:47.280
And we're having our next prime minister selected by 14 year old Chinese exchange students.
00:49:57.060
And there's nothing the party can do about it right now.
00:50:00.040
Would, would both of you back that everyone just saying, all right, inside the party, we're
00:50:04.460
following the same rules as, uh, elections Canada has.
00:50:08.560
To be fair, they did change the leadership rules for, for, um, not members of what do they
00:50:18.100
But they also admitted, or they did during the foreign interference inquiry, that they
00:50:23.340
had no way of telling who was a citizen, a, a permanent resident or the 14 year old Chinese
00:50:32.460
Um, so yeah, I think that's where we've got to go, Sharon.
00:50:37.080
Like as much as I want to sign my, my two little adorable cats up to vote for the next leader.
00:50:44.800
Like the times are very different and this is something that there's some liberals, it's
00:50:48.320
There's some, there's a liberal on the Freeland team or was on the Freeland team.
00:50:51.560
I don't even know who was pissed off by the rule changes because the way they've handled
00:50:55.340
nominations in the past predominantly has been by pulling in, um, of like we, we like
00:51:01.760
non-citizens or non-PR residents, uh, in masses in buses and getting them to vote because
00:51:06.980
like it's all about, it's a numbers game, right?
00:51:18.040
I think there needs to be some consistent, um, clear standard practices that everyone
00:51:22.400
has to follow so we don't run into this weird nonsense that we're in right now.
00:51:26.660
Well, uh, thank you for taking the time with me today.
00:51:28.880
Uh, great to get, uh, insights from, uh, from two well-known and, uh, well-respected liberals.
00:51:34.560
And I'm sure we'll chat again, uh, after we know who the leader is, who the prime minister
00:51:38.720
And when we come around to election, thanks so much.
00:51:46.400
This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:51:52.520
Remember, you can subscribe to full comment on Apple podcasts, YouTube podcasts, Amazon,
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