Full Comment - Trudeau botched 2023. The Liberals won’t allow a repeat in 2024

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00:00:14.520 2023 has been an interesting year in canadian politics it started out with well the two main

00:00:23.160 federal parties tied now it looks like if an election were held today it would be a runaway

00:00:27.880 in alberta danielle smith won re-election at a time when it looked like she was destined for defeat

00:00:33.220 and doug ford well he got pummeled this year and he's still sitting on top how does all this work

00:00:39.720 hello my name is brian lily this is the full comment podcast welcome to the show and i hope

00:00:44.920 you enjoy this year in review i decided that in order to unpack all this i'd turn to two of the

00:00:52.280 smartest gents that i know in politics two men that i've known for a long time who are friends

00:00:56.400 cory tonight is a uh conservative strategist i guess you'd call yourself cory you've been in

00:01:02.560 politics a long time on winning campaigns on losing campaigns you've been up and you've been down um

00:01:08.860 and warren kinsella it used to run liberal campaigns now he's a homeless liberal

00:01:13.960 you're not actually homeless warren but uh you're joining us today from prince edward county cory

00:01:21.040 you're joining us from montreal and while people might think that uh well this is uh three middle

00:01:26.820 aged white guys from central canada all talking but all of us have worked in very or lived and worked

00:01:32.700 in various parts of the country and and know the political scene so gents thanks for joining me

00:01:38.160 glad to be here is that the right way to describe you warren you're a homeless liberal

00:01:43.060 yeah it is actually um i had the great fortune of having dinner with my former boss uh sean

00:01:53.760 cretia on sunday night in ottawa and get caught up and um that's kind of what i said to him i said you

00:02:01.240 know i don't i don't really belong anywhere these days but i said to him by the same token i get the

00:02:09.120 the sense that there's quite a few people voters regular folks who feel the same way that they're

00:02:16.040 they're kind of without any political moorings but you know that's all right in the united states

00:02:21.260 uh independent is considered a actual registrable political category so so i guess i've got company

00:02:29.120 all right cory you're you're not homeless no i'm i'm i'm pretty pretty comfortable in

00:02:35.980 it's constant in the conservative party but uh but there's always lots of room for uh differences

00:02:42.580 of opinion within whatever party you're in as as uh i think it was churchill said your opponents are

00:02:49.480 on the other side of the house your enemies are all in your own party um it's uh there's there's a

00:02:54.740 little bit of truth to that intramural always seems to be a little rougher than uh than uh than

00:02:59.580 the stuff with the guys across the floor let's talk about um we'll go through and we'll discuss how

00:03:05.620 various politicians have done this year and we'll start with the guy at the top prime minister

00:03:10.520 justin trudeau um you know it was uh just the other day pierre poly have told him to take a walk

00:03:16.300 in the snow everyone loves to use that that term from his father's time and he said it's time for you

00:03:21.900 to go uh it at the beginning of the year justin trudeau wasn't in bad shape what happened over the last

00:03:29.360 year cory in your view that brought him to where it's according to several polls now a 19 point gap

00:03:37.120 between him and polyevs conservatives well i think it's as it's as much things they didn't do as things

00:03:45.860 that they did do and i think it's it's chickens uh coming home to roost that uh that left the barn long

00:03:51.940 ago uh i you know the the carbon tax is really starting to bite and we're in a period of those

00:03:58.720 canadians uh feeling you know very very uh huge concerns about uh how they're going to pay their

00:04:04.780 mortgage you know uh cost pressures on their family budgets etc and uh you know at the same time this

00:04:10.500 has been coming uh you know becoming a reality in people's lives you're seeing you're seeing a carbon

00:04:16.260 tax sort of front and center as something that's making their life more difficult and uh and that

00:04:21.420 narrative is has been uh put out there i think extremely effectively by by uh peer polyev who

00:04:28.200 you know i i notice has continued to kind of innovate uh around how he presents his messages

00:04:34.320 on the internet in a way that's connecting with a lot of voters so you know i i think the conservatives

00:04:39.900 have a story and and the liberals have have lost the script is is kind of what i was saying there was a

00:04:45.960 time when the liberals would have easily just turned around and said well the carbon tax

00:04:51.400 is for the environment and you obviously don't care about the environment and that would have

00:04:55.660 worked with a lot of voters doesn't seem to be working now they're trying that but it doesn't seem

00:05:00.100 to be working yeah and it it relates to my my theory about politics it's never one thing that

00:05:08.740 kills you it's always a bunch of things and um for sure you know their reversal on the carbon tax

00:05:15.900 which you know to be fair to them was in you know a number of their platforms they said they were

00:05:21.640 going to do it they received a mandate from the people to do it and then they started to do it people

00:05:27.280 got mad and you know i i don't think it's just that i think it relates back to what the two of you

00:05:34.380 were saying just a minute ago people you know if you're there for a long time people just get sick

00:05:40.580 they get sick of your face and justin trudeau has been the liberal party leader for more than a

00:05:47.460 decade he has been the prime minister for more than eight years and like i think all of us know

00:05:53.620 whether you're team blue or orange or red like eight years is about all you get like that's it and

00:06:01.080 you know at that point you got to either start looking at the exits because like if you don't walk

00:06:06.160 out on your own feet you're gonna be carried out in a pine box and i think to you know trudeau i

00:06:12.260 don't i don't like his style of leadership but you don't get to be prime minister by being a dummy

00:06:17.820 and he's not stupid and i too many conservatives i find fall into the trap of not the two of you but

00:06:24.800 you guys know what i'm talking about believe he's stupid he's not it's that thing where people um and i i

00:06:31.060 think the liberals are doing this with polyev you believe that the public hates your opponent as

00:06:37.480 much as you do and that's kind of exactly in your own spin you know there's a lot of uh you know

00:06:44.380 there's a lot of confirmation bias that you see in politics amongst people who are working in it

00:06:49.860 it was that you saw this in a similar way to what i think uh you're talking about warren with with

00:06:56.220 george bush you know a lot of a lot of progressives and liberals in the states you know used to kind of

00:07:01.760 mock him like he was a dummy he's not a dummy um uh yeah but he it's it's the flip side of the same

00:07:09.640 coin when you're a very charismatic sort of celebrity figure which is is how he came into office you you

00:07:15.540 get the pluses of that persona and and that charisma but you also get the negatives that come with it

00:07:20.960 you know what was the the uh uh the old joke about how uh politics was uh for uh was famed for for

00:07:28.660 ugly people and then the retort was that uh that hollywood is uh uh is politics for stupid people

00:07:34.940 um but uh you know there's a plus minus that you know he both benefits from in terms of that

00:07:41.040 celebrity aspect of his personality and and comes with some downsides and one of them is that people

00:07:45.700 don't uh treat you like uh uh the guy with the most intellectual horsepower on this stage

00:07:50.560 but warren has a point you don't get to be prime minister by being stupid he's not dumb he's he's

00:07:55.780 not dumb at all you know i i we've all talked to him uh he may not be um you know a candidate for

00:08:03.140 mensa but i i i i just i disagree with him profoundly on a number of things but you know that's that's

00:08:09.320 different than than than thinking that he's dumb so warren you said it's um a bunch of little

00:08:16.800 things that that do you and not normally one big thing cory last time you and i spoke i think you

00:08:21.420 described it as pebbles in your backpack every day you're in power there's another pebble in your

00:08:25.960 backpack uh is this just eight years of of things wearing down it's more than that like i i think

00:08:35.420 they made some pretty big strategic errors um and and they're maybe driven out of out of you know

00:08:42.020 things that are you know not entirely within their control like i think they made a big mistake not

00:08:47.600 framing uh poly of as soon as he came into office and allowing him to to roll out a multi-million

00:08:53.960 dollar ad campaign uh and to introduce himself to to canadians in a positive way as opposed to

00:09:01.380 introducing them in a negative way through their advertising i think that was a huge strategic error

00:09:06.260 and i talked about it at the time last september when he when poly of one we said you know where

00:09:12.860 where are the ads and i said to him we you and i could write the attack ads against pierre uh and i

00:09:19.080 know and i like the guy but you still know where his weak points are they didn't do any of that

00:09:24.520 you know and what i do you know i it's nice of you to say i run campaigns uh i didn't i just ran

00:09:32.560 parts of campaigns and i did uh had the great fortune of having a great candidate and team to

00:09:38.940 support kretzian 93 so i did the first war room and and in 2000 i did it and i did them for mcginty

00:09:45.420 and what are they and it's really just you know telling a war room you know political people try to

00:09:51.080 make it into this great you know mysticism and you know special science and it's not all we did

00:09:56.920 is just kind of defend our guy and our team and highlight the weaknesses of the other side

00:10:03.680 and you know there with pierre polyev guys like it is a target rich environment and i too am mystified

00:10:12.840 why they did not go after him on his many obvious uh weaknesses i do believe that you know the

00:10:21.120 stratospheric heights that he's reaching in the polls right now um i think he's going to drop because

00:10:26.680 i think he's probably peaking a little bit too soon i don't think the liberal party uh is going

00:10:32.240 to just remain on the mat and let him walk to you know one of the biggest majorities in canadian

00:10:37.860 political history he's got some vulnerabilities but for sure what cory is saying is absolutely right

00:10:43.580 as a war room guy i am just mystified by the fact that they let him define himself that's the job of a

00:10:50.480 war room define or be defined and they let him define himself i suspect money is is part of the

00:10:57.760 answer as to why uh when you look at the the latest fundraising results they they look a lot like

00:11:03.820 the previous fundraising results that we've seen uh which is uh very anemic fundraising uh for an

00:11:11.820 incumbent and i don't know if you saw the um uh the story out um we'll give credit to cbc and raffi at

00:11:18.540 their uh parliamentary bureau uh a large group of muslim donors just uh wrote to the party president

00:11:26.860 and said we're leaving the laurier club because of your your refusal or the prime minister's refusal

00:11:32.420 to call for an absolute ceasefire in gaza uh these guys have apparently raised uh you know just you know

00:11:40.280 a small group of them raised uh over a million dollars for the liberals over the past few years

00:11:44.400 so their fundraising's about to take a hit yeah yeah it's uh i think i think the israel gaza conflict

00:11:53.720 has has been a problem for them i think it's been challenging for progressive parties around the

00:11:59.060 world um uh because it splits uh some of their voter coalition and some of their you know high-end

00:12:05.260 supporter base but i know sorry i but you know the money thing guys we all know it like you're limited

00:12:14.140 statutorily to how much you can spend in a campaign um not so much before the campaign and you know if

00:12:22.360 money was everything um you know ross perot would have been president of the united states in 92 right

00:12:29.040 like it it's it's it's not just money pete dupont whatever what it is is you know having a great

00:12:36.300 candidate and having a great message and a and a good team and all of those elements you know cory

00:12:42.620 has stitched those together for doug ford twice in circumstances where people said oh doug ford's a

00:12:48.560 dummy he couldn't possibly win well you know he did and he won big he won big the second bigger the

00:12:54.380 second time than he did the first time so i think um you know the the the thing that pierre polyev has

00:13:02.040 been most assisted by is what christian said to me on sunday night governments defeat themselves

00:13:08.120 and you know conservatives who are you know patting themselves on the back at the moment

00:13:14.120 i don't think should because really their biggest asset is is justin trudeau like if justin trudeau

00:13:21.280 leaves guys and i've seen this before a million times before i know a lot of tories who convince

00:13:26.840 themselves well they're just walking to victory whoever is there i do not believe that is the case

00:13:32.300 if this guy leaves if he takes a walk in the snow you know this christmas let's say he really can't go

00:13:39.040 beyond february i don't think um like it's a whole new ball game uh whoever is there let's talk about

00:13:45.800 is he going to step down i spent part of this week talking to uh half a dozen liberals about what's

00:13:55.060 going on put it in a column and it was a a matter of three different strains of thought one he's going

00:14:06.500 and he's been told even by close family members your time's up you got to go two nope another one said

00:14:12.720 uh spoke to people who had dinner with him just a couple of weeks ago and he's going to stick around

00:14:17.720 he thinks it's 2015 and that he'll come from behind and surprise everyone again and then a third saying

00:14:23.900 i can't read him he's putting up mixed signals so cory we'll start with you what do you think he does

00:14:30.060 uh i think he stays i think it's a mistake to stay but uh i think he stays uh so i think there's a

00:14:39.180 certain amount of arrogance when you're in that when you're in that role and more people overstay

00:14:44.900 their welcome uh than walk out that's that's sort of what the tradition has been or the the norm has

00:14:52.300 been and uh and i also think the things he's saying you know are you know you got to take it to a certain

00:14:59.660 extent at face value you know i guess you know if i were to argue against myself on it you know you

00:15:05.600 also have to say you're going to be there until the moment you say you're resigning or you have

00:15:09.040 no ability to govern but you know he's he's going out and he's you know projecting forward what he

00:15:13.880 wants to talk about going into the next election it's a little muddled but like he's you know they're

00:15:17.860 they're making attempts to do it so you know i would say from where we're sitting today it looks

00:15:23.480 like he's staying what could make that change uh you know a caucus revolt um uh more people coming

00:15:31.800 out who start positioning for leadership you know uh in in a more aggressive manner than uh than we've

00:15:37.680 seen today those things could affect it a continued slide in the polls could continue to to affect it

00:15:43.700 but you know where we're sitting today he's staying so so if he goes to ignatiev levels maybe yeah yeah

00:15:49.860 well they're getting close they're getting close you know like what what what is you know what what

00:15:55.880 is the threshold that i'm looking at when you see the ndp ahead of them in the polls i think that's

00:16:00.240 when they get into very very serious trouble and uh where i think that the pressure inside

00:16:05.380 caucus and elsewhere would increase you know dramatically warren i don't know um i don't

00:16:12.520 know you know i um i i can't figure out the psychology of this guy on the one hand he's probably saying to

00:16:20.860 himself well you know they said i wouldn't beat harper o'toole and sheer and i did and he did um they

00:16:29.180 always underestimate me before every campaign and we do um i'm a pretty good campaigner they may not

00:16:36.960 love me as prime minister but i'm pretty good campaigner that is also true but the the the on

00:16:43.980 the other side of the equation if he's smart and i as i say he's not a dummy like it's turning

00:16:50.660 structural right it's becoming since the month of may he has been behind by double digits it's now

00:16:58.420 orbiting towards you know 15 16 points and as cory just pointed out you know it's now moving into a

00:17:05.100 save the furniture operation but he's either tied or behind the ndp in the rest of canada

00:17:12.140 yeah so who talks to him right you know every prime minister every premier every leader they have their

00:17:18.660 circle they talk to people and brian i think i know some of the people that he's referring to

00:17:24.280 people have spoken to him and said you know you're going to lose you're going to get humiliated but it

00:17:30.740 is not a lot of people saying that because the one thing the characteristic of the trudeau government

00:17:35.840 that's different than all of its predecessor liberal governments besides from the fact that it's an ndp

00:17:41.600 government is that it is a cult it truly is a cult of personality he took those people who are all now

00:17:49.920 pensioned out by the way from third place to first that's something that doesn't happen very often

00:17:57.740 they owe everything to this guy and this is why i don't think you see for the first time in the

00:18:02.560 liberal party's history an obvious successor sitting in the wings because you know trudeau is is it right

00:18:10.000 and so there's nobody who can really get up on their hind legs and say to them hey big guy you know

00:18:15.800 you're going to get your ass kicked so are we you got to go nobody's doing that there's a very small

00:18:21.140 group who have tried and as i said at the start i don't know if he's listening or not let's uh let's

00:18:28.040 talk about pierre polyev how did he go from uh geeky policy wonk nerd to uh you know jacked up apple

00:18:37.860 munching slayer of journalists well i think he's honed his trade uh over the course of a number of

00:18:48.180 years in politics uh i think particularly in terms of his personal communications like i i think he's

00:18:56.360 you know revealing himself to be a bit of a master of the internet in terms of how he uh uses new media

00:19:03.480 platforms uh to to get clear uh messaging out uh i i these sorts of uh uh you know mini documentary

00:19:13.660 style videos where he's taking you through a public policy problem and and and demonstrating that he

00:19:21.260 has ideas and and potential solutions you know how did we get into this trouble and how are we going to

00:19:25.980 get out and i look at you know the one that he he did on uh on homelessness in vancouver and these sort

00:19:33.180 of 10 cities that we see cropping up across our our country uh you know and and in addition to that

00:19:40.120 zombie apocalypse it seems to be spreading through every downtown of people dealing with you know

00:19:45.140 very serious addiction and mental health issues uh and saying like look the consensus around this

00:19:50.320 from the so-called clever people isn't working and i have some other ideas and you know he got a lot

00:19:56.020 of criticism from the mainstream media about it but you know the videos that he did uh performed

00:20:00.940 extremely well and now you've seen him you know doing the same thing with carbon tax doing the

00:20:05.220 same thing with the housing crisis um you know i think it's very important in in this atomized media

00:20:12.440 environment that we're living in right now to be able to have a mastery of of the youtube explainer

00:20:18.900 and he's demonstrated that he can do that better than anyone else in the field right now

00:20:22.960 warren you've you've changed your view on him because you were not a fan and i don't know that you

00:20:28.940 are a fan now but you seem to have softened on him yeah um well i like you two guys but i don't like

00:20:37.660 anybody else and um and i am an old man and and you know so i'm going to tell you a war story um in 96

00:20:46.140 when i was moving to bc because i'd gotten fed up with the paul martin people quiet insurrection

00:20:51.960 and um you know i was going to help out and help run gord campbell's campaign and before i got there

00:20:59.720 some of the tall foreheads decided well you know he's being associated with house street and too

00:21:05.220 corporate and too successful even though he personally wasn't and um we're going to put him

00:21:11.200 in lumberjack shirts and stuff and i was just like guys when i got and it didn't work of course it blew up

00:21:16.060 in their faces they got mocked and the point i made to them when they bothered to listen is you know

00:21:21.800 at a certain age in politics as in life how you are is how you are and voters in their wisdom can sense

00:21:31.040 that right and the thing about polyev that i i've been kind of surprised and impressed by is i really

00:21:39.140 do think he is a bit of a dick a lot of the time like he really is he's not lovable in the way that

00:21:46.180 ralph klein or rennie levesque or jean crancien or you know he's kind of a mean guy and so how you

00:21:54.880 know i've tried to figure out because i'm supposed to think about these things how has he gotten away

00:21:59.240 with that and i think he's gotten away with that because he matches the mood of the country as cory

00:22:03.700 just pointed out people are seriously grumpy they're pissed off they're angry even though

00:22:10.220 proportionate let's say in terms of the g7 our economy is functioning actually not badly

00:22:15.340 but nobody thinks that you see this in the united states too biden's got full employment he's got the

00:22:21.840 economic definition of full employment and people are still pissed off at him so i think polyev has

00:22:27.520 really benefited from that he's a very lucky guy he's got a government that's busily defeating

00:22:32.500 themselves and you know he matches the mood of the country however god help him you know if rates

00:22:40.500 start to drop and people start to feel better about things and whatnot the grumpy persona really isn't

00:22:47.700 going to work i i don't find him grumpy i i never have i know when he was a pit bull and everyone has

00:22:54.300 that role to play in different parties um but i haven't found him grumpy well yeah because he's winning

00:23:02.020 no because he's what no he's winning right you know it's easy to feel like you know happy when

00:23:08.400 you're kicking ass but when caucuses start sniping at you and you got the media you can't pick up a

00:23:14.060 paper without somebody pissing on your shoes and you know fundraising's down and the numbers are not

00:23:19.940 looking good well then your mood tends to change and so yeah for sure he can eat apples and make fun of

00:23:26.340 unprepared journalists and look like he's really smart but like there comes a point in politics

00:23:32.140 where you know people really get kind of unhappy with you and i think he's he's been quite lucky

00:23:39.940 right now that's why i say to my tory friends for sure yes you're kicking ass measure the drapes and

00:23:46.060 large red bloc do all of that stuff but if trudeau leaves there is going to be a seismic shift

00:23:54.080 and it it's it's going to change kind of the fundamentals it always does that's why parties

00:24:00.360 change leaders and i don't think i don't think i think pierre polev is going to be prime minister

00:24:05.800 i you know i just don't think it's going to be juggernaut because we've all heard about juggernauts

00:24:10.120 before and they never seem to work out well you know i that that you know two two data points to

00:24:15.740 reinforce what what uh warren's saying because i i agree completely with with that assessment if we

00:24:22.200 look back to you know the last juggernaut you know when it was two years out from the campaign

00:24:27.700 um after the the uh massive landslide victory paul martin uh in the leadership contest you know

00:24:36.880 see projections were like 220 seats and two years later they they you know won by the skin of their

00:24:43.380 teeth with a with a slim minority government so uh and likewise if we look at the leadership change

00:24:49.540 you know you know history reads like a hockey stick uh graph when you when you know when you look back

00:24:55.220 on it but but let's remember that going into the 93 campaign um uh kim campbell was was leading

00:25:02.500 and you know and that happened like overnight you know the conservatives under mulrooney were kind

00:25:09.000 of between nine and eleven points like nine and eleven points think of what that what that looks

00:25:13.600 like that's that's like more than cutting in half what the liberal numbers are right now and and the

00:25:19.380 liberal numbers are terrible think of just how low they were and they got up to 40 like they almost

00:25:23.940 quadrupled their numbers through a leadership change now they ended up getting wiped out but that

00:25:29.860 wasn't wasn't a guarantee that it was going to happen and if i can jump on that war story because

00:25:35.260 i'm older than the two of you both of you are kids and i'm the old guy like cory you know the kim

00:25:41.840 campbell i know it's easy to dismiss her now but on the canada weekend in 1993 kim campbell was the

00:25:51.840 most popular prime minister in the history of polling and she did that it was it was brilliant she did that

00:25:59.040 you know starting the day in newfoundland ending the day in vancouver and like she could do no wrong

00:26:06.660 and you know kretzian had people going bananas and caucus that's the famous phrase you know he's

00:26:13.280 talked about the nervous nellies that was about that and like a leadership change can really occasion

00:26:20.480 big shifts in the numbers so that's why you know if trudeau for the first time in his life

00:26:27.060 you know uh kind of minimizes his ego and says you know what is best for the liberal party and

00:26:32.920 what is frankly best for the country i'm going to leave i think it it will cause a change and it'll

00:26:39.300 make uh paliev work harder for the job but that's good that's good for the country and that's good for

00:26:43.960 the conservative party all right we're running out of time on on this segment but i gotta ask you

00:26:49.400 uh pierce had a couple of run-ins with the media we mentioned the apple munching

00:26:52.940 before and then he had a pushback against the cp reporter and his his voters love this his base

00:27:00.320 loves that does he have to be careful about not doing that too often uh less he turn off the the

00:27:07.460 swing voters by being too assertive well i like i like the first embodiment of that and less so the

00:27:14.320 second one like so you know while there's some obviously some similarities there's some very important

00:27:19.300 differences uh the first one the apple leading one the the reporter was almost a you know central

00:27:25.920 casting stooge for uh agenda journalism um like just you know loaded question after loaded question

00:27:33.160 you know cheap cheap shot after cheap shot and he just wasn't having any of it in the second one

00:27:39.620 it was you know him being defensive about what was you know a small error but an error you know he said

00:27:45.740 that uh that uh you know something that was a terror attack you know turned out not to be and like

00:27:52.980 he got that wrong lots other people got it wrong too but uh the way he talked about getting it wrong

00:27:59.000 wasn't you know quite accurate but uh and it was also you know uh you know a more defensive i think

00:28:07.120 surely pushback against a young female journalist on something where you know he was the one who was a

00:28:12.140 bit off with the facts so you know i don't think they're the same i don't think it hurt them at all

00:28:16.880 like uh but you know it wasn't wasn't his finest hour either uh yeah i feel the same way and like

00:28:24.480 you know does it work for sure it works you know i wrote about in one of my books you know george w bush

00:28:29.460 george herbert walker bush was losing right and uh dan rather brought him on to tv to beat him up over

00:28:37.580 iran contra and uh bush just summoned up the the courage and the strength to just like go at dan

00:28:45.820 rather and the journalistic establishment was appalled and shocked and all the rest of it but man it

00:28:51.700 worked like gangbusters for for george bush and it eliminated the wimp image that he'd acquired up

00:28:58.620 until that point so yes it does work periodically you know i work for a guy who strangled somebody on

00:29:04.380 the lawn of parliament hill and people people dig that periodically but you can't do it every day

00:29:10.100 and this relates back to the point i was making earlier like pauliev you know why is it that all

00:29:15.840 the christian people dislike pierre pauliev because you know most of us do or we dislike one thing

00:29:22.320 when jean peltier who was our chief of staff was literally dying of cancer was dragged before a

00:29:28.020 parliamentary committee he was dying and pierre pauliev just treated him with such contempt called

00:29:37.180 him a liar to his face and like that kind of behavior for sure the base digs it you know and

00:29:44.940 they like it when you know angry pierre comes out and so on but you know i i point to the example of

00:29:51.680 tom mocare you know the you know people loved it in his base when he would be angry in the house of

00:29:58.480 commons and effective in committee but like people don't want to see that all the time and you know

00:30:04.800 they want to see a different side of you and pauliev has to be very careful about you know you know

00:30:12.500 kicking people when they're down too often because at a certain point it tells a story about you as a

00:30:18.200 person and as a leader all right we've talked out the clock on federal stuff we got to take a break

00:30:23.740 we haven't talked about jadmeet singh maybe that's because he doesn't matter but he does because he's

00:30:28.860 keeping the government in power but we'll take a break we'll come back we'll get into provincial

00:30:33.280 stuff uh what was the year like for danielle smith for doug ford is francois lago gonna flame out in

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00:32:41.400 have a great year but you wouldn't know it from the polling um because doug ford according to the

00:32:47.100 last couple of abacus polls is somewhere between 39 and 41 although he's got a new leader now uh cory

00:32:54.800 you are intimately involved in the doug ford campaign you helped run or did run you i guess

00:33:01.020 you were the campaign manager in the 2022 campaign and and you're still involved with uh advising the

00:33:06.620 government now how the hell did he go from losing multiple cabinet ministers screaming headlines in in

00:33:14.560 the papers denouncing them story after story looking like he was well he was following in the polls both

00:33:20.320 your the public polls in your own internals from what i've been told and now he's back on top what

00:33:25.880 the hell happened uh he apologized and reversed course on some things that that uh the public

00:33:33.860 wasn't with him on and um uh that's not something that you see happen a lot in politics but uh and it's

00:33:42.180 not something that i think every political leader can can pull off the way that that that ford does and

00:33:47.240 i think there's you know one other politician that comes to mind uh who's who had a track record of

00:33:53.100 being able to do the same and that and that would be ralph klein and i i think they share a bit of a

00:33:58.200 political persona in a way um they're kind of populist conservative guys who who um you know while

00:34:06.180 everyone in politics has an ego don't have an ego so large as to not be able to say oops i got it wrong

00:34:11.760 and and course correct so i i think that's you know why is he back why was he down well he did

00:34:18.620 something that he said you know he promised electorate he wasn't going to do and he didn't

00:34:22.880 you know lay the groundwork for that change uh and uh and people were upset people people don't like

00:34:30.480 it when you when you reverse course on something you know that they voted for uh you on the assumption

00:34:36.580 that you were going to keep your promise and uh you know and you didn't so that's that gets people

00:34:42.020 offside with you pretty quickly i think i'm the only person complaining that he reversed course because

00:34:47.080 i actually thought it was a good plan and i wrote about that extensively but of course we're talking

00:34:53.240 about the green belt issue uh where uh the ford government uh said that they would allow housing

00:34:59.400 development because of the housing crisis to go on what is currently protected land uh warren

00:35:05.440 you've been around a lot of politicians over the years how many of them like to apologize

00:35:10.140 well he didn't just apologize and you know brian as you and i were talking about

00:35:16.660 on my podcast a few days ago like he didn't just apologize he went on tv and said i broke a promise

00:35:25.620 and i remember when he said that i like i actually audibly had an intake of breath it was like holy

00:35:34.000 shit like you know you see politicians kind of prevaricating and dissembling all the time on

00:35:39.720 getting things wrong or walking something back this was a full-on i broke a promise to you

00:35:45.940 and i can't think of many examples of politicians doing that in my lifetime and i think the reason why

00:35:54.820 not only did he benefit from that because he did you know the polling afterwards showed that

00:35:59.920 you know he was nearly double where his his opponents were in the legislature is because

00:36:05.560 of his persona and you know at the start when i first met doug i didn't particularly like him i

00:36:11.840 didn't like his brother and the way his brother behaved and um you know i got to know him on panels

00:36:18.560 like this one you know you get to know people you chat during the commercial break and and stuff like

00:36:23.040 that and when we were all on you know the sun news network i got to know him even better there

00:36:28.320 and he's he's got a good heart you know my mom was a montreal liberal irish catholic liberal like

00:36:35.480 you know being liberal is in your dna that's as hard as you get and she loved him and i said to her

00:36:43.200 why do you love him and she said there's a genuineness about him he wears his heart on his sleeve

00:36:49.100 and he's a lot like kretchen you know like his diction and his grammar is not perfect and he's

00:36:54.760 you know sometimes a funny looking guy and you know he doesn't say the right thing and but people

00:37:00.600 like that about politicians like you know klein who you just mentioned or levesque or you know

00:37:06.520 somebody mel lastman people like that they feel closer to those people because they seem more human

00:37:13.900 correct yeah like the candidates i i don't like working for are the ones who look like you know

00:37:20.100 quarterbacks who always got the girl in high school like they're harder to work for because people have

00:37:26.360 far less tolerance for them making mistakes whereas these guys the regular schmoes you know the hell of a

00:37:32.300 guy guys then you know i think ford has got that and i think bonnie crombie who i know and i like

00:37:38.440 is grossly underestimating doug ford's strength you know because of his connection with regular people

00:37:45.720 let's talk about bonnie crombie um met her back when she was first elected around 06 i think she was

00:37:54.800 was when she came to to the hill and a backbench liberal mp and the opposition side uh she has really

00:38:04.160 moved up you know mayor of mississauga one of the country's biggest cities now the ontario liberal

00:38:09.280 leader she can raise money in ways that the previous uh you know liberal leader couldn't

00:38:15.840 they they haven't been in the liberals have been in such bad state in ontario that the last time they

00:38:23.200 were the uh the leader in fundraising was 2015 cory and they were in government for three years after that

00:38:31.820 so what do you make about crombie i you know obviously you're going to be uh working to keep

00:38:39.420 your guy in power but how big of a threat is she well i guess we're going to find out um she's not

00:38:47.120 particularly well known she's she has a following in in particular in the western gta and a little bit

00:38:53.700 more in the gta as a whole but the rest of the province when you do a focus group and you show her

00:38:59.060 picture and say who's this people you know have a puzzled look on their face and guess things like

00:39:04.220 real estate agent um you know like she's so i think she's she's you know going to have a period

00:39:10.860 of having to introduce herself to the public and and unlike the situation we were talking about with

00:39:16.440 uh with trudeau and pauliev uh as a campaign manager i'm not going to make that mistake uh we're

00:39:23.440 going to introduce her in a very thorough and systematic way uh with paid advertising and and

00:39:28.640 we'll see what what things look like at the end of that but you know i i think there's some inherent

00:39:33.840 weaknesses and i think uh uh warren sort of put his finger on a number of them you know we're in a

00:39:41.640 cost of living crisis right now we're in a in a crisis where of affordability and housing and all the

00:39:47.460 rest and um she does not present as somebody who understands those things or is concerned about

00:39:53.920 those things and when it comes to to some of the larger yeah and when it comes to some of the larger

00:39:59.800 issues like carbon tax she's on the wrong side of them before i go to to you warren i want to hear

00:40:04.220 from cory quickly on this i've been saying you know since it became apparent she was going to win

00:40:10.000 that she's at first she's going to be a bigger threat to merit styles the leader of the ndp and

00:40:17.120 the official opposition then she will be to ford maybe one day she'll get to the point where she's

00:40:22.520 you know threatening the ford government but she's going to take away all the oxygen

00:40:26.900 in my view cory what's your take on that because i mean one of the things you've benefited from or

00:40:33.440 ford has just like chretchen did very ineffective opposition i mean the the ontario ndp is perhaps the

00:40:39.540 worst official opposition i've ever seen in 20 years of covering politics across the country

00:40:44.700 yeah um you know it's it's a it's a perfect situation right now of two parties at about 25

00:40:51.980 each in terms of the opposition and when you have that then you start winning a lot of seats so you

00:40:57.320 probably in a normal election have no business winning but you know i would say this the liberals

00:41:02.480 are always a bigger threat even when even when the even when the dp are in second place by by a bit

00:41:08.380 which is you know what we've seen in the last two provincial election campaigns it's uh the liberals

00:41:14.340 have a higher voter ceiling uh i believe that the the voter ceiling for the ndp in ontario is probably

00:41:21.320 around 35 which is you know five or six percent short of what you need to ever form a government

00:41:26.620 and that is a quite a hard cap you know we've seen you know horvath especially in 2018 was bumping

00:41:33.500 her head against the top of that voter ceiling that they have but she could not get past it and

00:41:38.400 and uh i think that exists for merit styles as well i think it's it's almost you know baked into

00:41:44.800 to the you know current ontario electorate that uh there's just too many people who are unwilling to go

00:41:50.700 uh go with ndp so you know you need to focus more on the liberals because they are inherently your

00:41:57.400 bigger threat uh warren your thoughts on bonnie crombie as a threat to styles in the ndp and then

00:42:04.260 ford uh well i agree brian with what you said earlier um like you know politics it it can be really

00:42:12.960 hard and when you have nine seats it's particularly hard you know the ontario liberal party for those of

00:42:20.080 us uh who are blessedly listening to this podcast from outside ontario just to emphasize the point the

00:42:26.860 once mighty ontario liberal party and i full disclosure ran their three war rooms for mcginty

00:42:33.460 like you know we were always starting from a base of several dozen seats or dozens of seats

00:42:40.180 and um bonnie is not she's got nine seats i cannot recall an instance in canadian history

00:42:50.000 where somebody went from nine seats to being a majority government you can't in a single election

00:42:56.680 cycle like i don't think that can be done even if everything goes right for her and everything

00:43:03.500 goes wrong for doug ford that's really really hard so i think she's looking you know she's smart and

00:43:11.720 she's not a dummy at two election cycles like it's going to take her a while to get to that point

00:43:17.500 maybe doug won't be there anymore who knows but you know is she going to displace the ndp

00:43:24.020 yes i believe she's going to do that is she going to form government that's pretty hard to do all

00:43:29.980 right uh so 2024 in ontario politics we'll be watching ford versus crombie all year uh notley

00:43:37.560 versus smith you know earlier this year cory uh it looked like danielle smith was not going to win

00:43:45.220 the alberta election she was in my view relitigating the pandemic at a time when voters just you know as

00:43:53.380 you've as you guys rightly did in the 2022 election voters were done with the pandemic

00:43:58.400 they didn't want to hear about it anymore and maybe there's a small base that did but

00:44:02.340 um then she started talking about issues that mattered and and she ended up winning uh what

00:44:08.580 does she need to do to you know keep things going in 2024 other than fighting with ottawa

00:44:14.940 well fighting with ottawa for sure but it's it's on on a carefully selected set of issues like i i think

00:44:24.780 where she turned things around brian is uh when she brought out some new campaign management and they

00:44:32.480 they turned from fighting on uh the sovereignty act which which you know one in four albertans supported

00:44:38.280 and started you know fighting on issues where they had three quarters of people supporting them

00:44:43.120 um are namely around the just transition uh initiative which was basically a plan to put

00:44:50.380 everyone with a job on on on employment insurance and and wind down the largest sector in the ontario

00:44:56.760 or sorry in the alberta economy so like i i think she made some good choices and i think she's made some

00:45:02.420 good choices on pushing back uh against uh the electricity uh regulations that the the federal

00:45:09.480 government has brought forward i think she's been winning the the you know the media spin war on that

00:45:14.500 uh and looking like she's you know standing up for the alberta economy and standing up for

00:45:19.660 uh regular folks who need to pay their their home heating bills so but but she's she's pushing on the

00:45:24.920 pension which doesn't appear to be popular and she appears to have to do that to keep groups like

00:45:31.520 take back alberta happy i would say she's half pushing on it like you know you're not seeing

00:45:36.920 that in the window to the same extent and i and i agree i assume that the part of that is is uh keeping

00:45:43.540 a very uh volatile base within her own party uh at bay uh but you know she's not she's not been going

00:45:51.460 out and doing press conferences on that you know she's basically handed it off to jim denning and has

00:45:56.380 it on a you know on a spur line going down a different set of tracks than than what she's out there

00:46:01.060 messaging on herself warren your take on on smith i mean you know that fighting against ottawa can be

00:46:08.100 popular in certain parts of the country and as a calgarian you know it works in alberta uh

00:46:13.620 is she as cory said selecting the right issues on things like the electricity grid the just

00:46:20.360 transition and so on yeah for sure but you know taking a swing in ottawa like it's a time-honored

00:46:26.540 canadian tradition like everybody does it and it and it works so it's not some special act of genius

00:46:33.220 that she's she's doing that i really i i just don't like her because i am an albertan and i don't like

00:46:40.280 the shorthand that people in the rest of canada always perform on us that you know we're we're kind

00:46:46.060 of kooky and extremists and so on and because she she actually fulfilled that role you know initially

00:46:53.820 siding with vladimir putin and all of the nonsense she was saying about covid and vaccines and like

00:47:00.960 she she was going to lose if jason kenny hadn't saved her jason kenny saved her he united the two

00:47:10.540 warring factions of the right in the province of alberta he did that he didn't get credit for it

00:47:17.440 but she derived the benefit for it had the jason been unsuccessful in bringing together the pcs

00:47:24.920 and wild rose she daniel smith would not be premier of alberta period so like it's not as i say something

00:47:34.220 some great strategic sense that she had it's jason kenny you know created the road for her and she

00:47:40.560 drove it but she in my view she's uh toned down some of the the bits that were making her look

00:47:47.460 kooky to people outside alberta and she's coming across in these fights with guibo and trudeau as

00:47:54.400 very very tame very moderate no i don't think she's very moderate i mean it it's like she's always

00:48:02.420 refighting the old war right it's like honey you know you're you're premier now and we get it you

00:48:10.040 know everybody you know in your caucus hates hates trudeau and he's a useful foil for you but you

00:48:16.480 know we do want you to focus on the stuff that cory was talking about earlier which is you know the

00:48:20.200 pocketbook stuff and so on like i've worked in the oil patch i've represented the oil patch you know i

00:48:26.000 believe it is an integral and key and critical part of the canadian economic structure um but i just

00:48:32.780 think the way she goes about doing it is all wrong and um you know like for example the problem is

00:48:39.800 also alberta when peter lockheed was there was not considered anathema in the province of quebec

00:48:45.280 which you know whether we like it or not has 70 plus seats and some considerable constitutional clout

00:48:50.740 within this you know the way this country is put together and like it's just successive kind of

00:48:57.560 kooky policy stuff has completely alienated the province of quebec from alberta and i think

00:49:05.800 warren is currently alienating part of our listening audience yeah well you know they can come and kiss

00:49:11.820 my ass because it's what i think like i don't give a shit but but but this is why i wanted to have both

00:49:17.540 of you on look we we're three guys that can talk all day uh but we are up against the clock for uh for

00:49:23.780 cory having to go somewhere else so i appreciate both of you coming on thank you both so much and uh

00:49:29.860 enjoy the holiday season enjoy the the new year and uh and we'll talk more politics in 2024

00:49:35.740 merry christmas and happy hanukkah merry christmas uh have have a great holiday season you guys all the

00:49:42.080 best well hopefully that was uh an entertaining uh 45 minutes or so of talking canadian politics we

00:49:49.880 hope you enjoyed it and we hope that you spread the word about full comment full comment is a post

00:49:55.720 media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was produced by andre pru with theme music

00:50:00.940 by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full comment and we encourage

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00:50:18.220 and telling your friends about us thanks for listening until next time i'm brian lily

00:50:25.720 you

Full Comment - December 11, 2023

Trudeau botched 2023. The Liberals won’t allow a repeat in 2024

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