Trudeau gazes upon a wasteland of Liberal leadership
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Summary
Who's going to replace Justin Trudeau if he decides to leave the Liberal Party? Warren Kinsella, former Liberal strategist and all-around good guy, joins me in studio here at Queen's Park to discuss.
Transcript
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for what you need. TD, ready for you. Is Justin Trudeau taking a walk in the sand? Is that his
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version of the walk in the snow? He's been out in Tofino for the last little while and lots of
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people still speculating about his future. Hello, I'm Brian Lilly. This is the Full Comment
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Podcast. And today we're going to talk about the future of the Liberal Party, the future of Justin
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Trudeau, but more so in terms of who's going to replace him. Now, interestingly, while he was on
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vacation in Tofino and was ambushed on the beach by independent Calgary-based journalist, Kian Bextie,
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he was asked if he was looking for a replacement for himself.
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Are you concerned at all about your poll numbers? No. I am not. What causes you to not be concerned?
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Because I spend a lot of time talking with Canadians. A lot of time, you know, focusing
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on the things that we're doing to actually deliver for people.
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So there you have it. Trudeau saying he's not going anywhere. Of course, that's what he has to say.
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But I believe him. Our guest this week on the Full Comment Podcast is not. And we have been
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debating the issue of whether Justin Trudeau is going to stay or go now, to reference The Clash,
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for months now. Warren Kinsella, Toronto Sun columnist, former Liberal strategist and all-around
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good guy joining me in studio here at Queen's Park. Hello, Warren.
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So you saw the clips from that interview that Trudeau gave. First off, I actually think he
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looked good. He looked sympathetic. And I'm not someone overly sympathetic to the PM. But
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he did kind of look sympathetic in that interview because he's on the beach with his 10-year-old
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son splashing in the water and he gets ambushed. But he said very clearly, one, he's not going
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anywhere. And two, he's not worried about the polls.
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Yeah. And it's like you said, you can't even give a hint, a scintilla of a hint, a sliver
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of a hint that you're going anywhere. You know, you've got to say you're staying until the very
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last moment. And you pick up the phone and you call Katie Telford and maybe two other people
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and say, book the press theater. We're going to take a walk down Wellington. I'm leaving.
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And that's how it happens. And, you know, look at Biden.
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Unless you're Joe Biden, in which case Barack Obama threatened you with Section 25 of the
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U.S. Constitution and you endorse Kamala Harris on the way out the door to piss him off.
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I think. But it was, you know, the polls, the really was apparently, according to the American
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media, was the determining factor with Biden. I think he will be with Trudeau too.
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But he did it in the last second. Only a couple of people knew until he was ready to announce.
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Right. We've seen that with other leaders. So let's talk about if and when he does that.
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Who replaces him? And our colleagues at National Post, Parliamentary Bureau, they put together
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an interesting little rundown of who this, you know, who it could be, what their strengths
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and weaknesses are. And you and I are just going to go through it and do what we do. And
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that's Kibitz. So Mark Carney, the banker, I think Mark Carney is Pierre Polyev's dream
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candidate replacement. Like if Trudeau leaves, that actually messes up the conservatives plan
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for the next election campaign against Trudeau. Not well liked. But if he does go, someone like
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Mark Carney is a lot more attractive to the conservatives than some of the others because
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Goldman Sachs banker, central banker in Canada and England, there's a lot to go on there.
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This would be, he didn't come back for you 2.0, wouldn't it?
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I firstly, hats off to our colleagues at the National Post. They have actually put more thought
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into this than the Liberal Party has. Because for the first time in its history, or certainly
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since I can remember, this is the first time the Liberal Party has not had an obvious successor
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in the wings, right? Somebody waiting. For Turner, it was Kretzian. For Kretzian, it was Martin.
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Well, they didn't really after Paul Martin because they were in disarray and they expected they
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would win under Martin. But, you know, had Martin won, he would have groomed somebody to be
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a successor. Trudeau hasn't done that. No. And, you know, that's revealed in what the Post has done
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here. The names that they put forward, I would say that probably half of these names that we're
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going to talk about, you could put them in a police lineup and the public couldn't figure out who's who.
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Like, they really have not shone. They have not, like when Mulroney left, he had all these rock stars
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behind him and Kretzian, people you knew, people you still think about. And Trudeau hasn't had that
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because his party has become the Trudeau party. It's become a cult of personality and he's not
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cultivated a successor or a successor or two or three. And so, you know, the Liberal Party is
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scrambling, not just because of their terrible position in the polls, but because they don't
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know where to turn. They don't know what story to tell. And you can see that with Carney. It's like,
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okay, well, you know, he looks good in a suit and he's from the outside and he runs something
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important in Britain. So maybe we get him. But I think he would be a disaster as you and I have
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talked about before, because he's Michael Ignatieff with a pocket calculator. Like he is incapable of
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talking like a normal, regular person, which is part of the job. And, you know, he's got the
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Ignatieff problem. As you know, during a very brief, blessedly short period, I advised Michael Ignatieff.
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And I remember saying to him, the Tories are coming after you with a $4 million ad campaign.
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And he's like, what is it going to say? And I said, they're going to say, you're just visiting
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Canada. He said, that's preposterous. Nobody cares about that. And I said to him, Mr. Ignatieff,
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you've lived outside of Canada for decades. How can you say you care about the country? How can you
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say you love the country when you've lived outside of the country for such a long time? And Carney has got
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a bit of the same problem. But compared to him, Ignatieff is practically a, you know, a regular
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guy. Like Carney, I think he's one of those people, if he has a choice between a $30 word and a $3
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word, he's always going to use the $30 word. Doesn't work. I was at an event with a bunch of
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politicos, mostly liberals, a little while ago. And we were talking about that photo of Carney
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holding a beer awkwardly while wearing his, uh, Oilers jersey. And this old time liberal said,
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Yeah. And how did Harper win in 2004? I wrote, um, for the national post at the time, I finally
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light went off my head. What are they doing? What is the Harper campaign? Harper was Tim Hortons.
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Liberals were Starbucks, right? Yeah. And it's just, there's more people going to Tim Hortons.
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So it's the same thing here. Do you really want to repeat the mistake liberal party that you made
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with Mike Liknative? And it looks like some of them are prepared to do that. You, before we move on to
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the next name, I'll come back to this poll, uh, a few times throughout our discussion here, but, um,
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you said you could put them in a police lineup. People wouldn't notice them, know who they were. Uh,
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abacus data in mid July released a poll and, uh, liberals were giddy saying, ha ha ha. Only 66%
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can name Pierre Polyev when they show a photo, a third of Canadians don't know who he is.
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Well, they also asked the potential liberal leadership contenders. Only 7% knew who Mark
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Carney was when they showed a photo 93%. No clue. I mean, my joke has been that they probably thought
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it was a character for mad men, or it was one of the two guys that played Darren and bewitched.
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So, uh, that's where they're at. Okay. Let's move along.
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Christia Freeland, a woman that more people knew in that poll, but only 39% could name her.
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61% could not, even though she's been deputy PM and the finance minister for the last four years,
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since they axed the old finance minister, Bill Morneau, four years ago.
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I actually feel sorry for her, you know, uh, because of the guy we were just talking about,
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because of Carney, Trudeau strung out this suggestion that he's talking to Carney to come
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into cabinet and he wouldn't be coming into cabinet, become minister of veterans affairs.
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He'd be coming in to be in the minister of finance. That would be the deal. And, you know,
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Trudeau when asked, well, what happens to Freeland? And he, he, what was the phrase he used?
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I have full confidence in her abilities, which is exactly what he said about Bill Morneau. So
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probably made her blood run cold. So it'd be yet another, you know, prominent liberal woman being
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thrown under the bus by, by Trudeau and his PMO. But, you know, my big problem with her has always
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been twofold. Number one, she was, she's too close to the blast radius, right? Now on SNC-Lavalin,
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she looked the other way. The Aga Khan, she looked the other way. She doesn't seem to have a moral
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center. That's number one. And number two, she talks to me like I'm an idiot and maybe I am an
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idiot, but in fairness, she talks to all of us like we're idiots, which is the point.
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It sounds like a kindergarten teacher reading to you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, she, you don't need to
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talk down to people. No. And she does. And I'm sure she doesn't intend to. And I'm, you know,
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perhaps she's a very nice person. I don't really know her, but she's been soiled. And I use that
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deliberately by her proximity to the Trudeau regime. And she just, the, the fundamentals of
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it, the fundamentals of politicians, I always feel really are important. That's why I like guys like
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Doug Ford and Jean Chrétien and Ralph Klein and Rennie Levesque, you know, the people that are kind
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of hell of a guy. She just does not say hell of a gal to me. She just seems like somebody who's,
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you know, come down from the faculty club and she's going to tell me what to think.
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And that just doesn't work as a leader, but she knows what all the best wines at
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Taroni's are on Price street in Rosedale. Yeah, she does. That's a very inside Toronto
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joke. Uh, but it, it, it's a, you know, it is literally the restaurant that Andrew
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Coyne at the Globe and Mail writes his columns at and, uh, all the smart and fancy people
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go to in Rosedale. It's a great restaurant, by the way, great pasta, but it is a little
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hoity-toity and, uh, and she comes across that way. So I, I, you know, I, I look at her
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from the perspective of, uh, her beliefs in what she's done and I'm sitting right next
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to her book here, Plutocrats. She actually embraces economists like Thomas Piketty who want
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75 to 90% marginal tax rates. And I think, how is that a liberal? She's another example
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of the far left wing of the party trying to take over the NDP space. And in some ways,
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I guess they've been successful at that, but they're not, uh, they're not, uh, willing
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to admit that they embrace full on socialism. Whereas the liberal party you worked for was
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actually centrist. Next candidate who in my view is not centrist. And if she were to take
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over the liberal party, uh, would only be able to do so by radically remaking it in her own
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image. And that's Melanie Jolie, the current foreign affairs minister. Warren is speaking
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to, uh, uh, uh, an old liberal, more of, of your vintage and, uh, Ontario based liberal
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said, there's no way that Melanie Jolie can win. She doesn't have support of the, the people I'm
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talking to and her views on Israel and Hamas would make her, uh, unpalatable. And when I told
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them what I'm about to tell you was shocked and hadn't thought of that. I said, if Melanie
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Jolie takes over, it is because she will appeal to the people who oppose Israel and tacitly support
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Hamas and remake the party in that fashion. That is how she will win. Your thoughts.
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Melanie Jolie. I've said this before and I'll say it again. And when she heard me say this,
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she blocked me on Twitter for a number of years. Uh, maybe she's unblocked me. I don't know. And I
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don't care. She is the worst cabinet minister in the history of confederation. You look at her
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milestones, the things she's achieved in her career early on building a hockey rink on
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Parliament Hill at a cost of millions. The cost per skate would be in the thousands. And
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she built that hockey rink using taxpayers' money, mere feet from the biggest hockey rink
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in the world, which is the Rideau Canal. Okay. Which did freeze that, that winter. It was not
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a great skating season the past year, but I was living in Ottawa at the time. I skated on the
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hockey rink. Not easy to get in. And, uh, but you know, it was, it was a disaster. It was millions
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and millions over budget. So that's early on in her career. Now look at it. You know, we have this
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terrible, horrific tragedy from the weekend where 12 children, 12 Arab Israeli children are killed by
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a deliberate attack by Hezbollah on Saturday evening, children killed playing soccer. And she can't even
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bring herself to properly identify who did it. And that has been consistent of her behavior and her
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approach since October the 7th. You know, if you have the impression that she doesn't like Israel
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and doesn't favor Israel, you'd be right. She doesn't. And as a consequence, it is further
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marginalized Canada in the world. Like getting back to Freeland for a second, at least when she was
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there because she was previously at global affairs, you know, I didn't mind her. She
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renegotiated the free trade agreement with Donald Trump. That's pretty hard to do. Right. She pulled
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that off. That is actually a success. Name me one thing that Melanie Jolie has achieved in the time
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that she's been minister. Well, she was summoned to China to be called out on the rug in Beijing
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and came out saying good things. You know, that's about it. She's terrible. She's terrible. And if
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the liberal party picks her to be their leader, because I know they've got this. They talk to
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Quebec liberals and there's two people that they recognize in the province of Quebec.
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Justin Trudeau, Melanie Jolie, and she pulls well. Now, the liberals have to get over their fixation
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on Quebec, just like the conservatives do. Quebec is important. But if you put all your attention
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into Quebec, when you're not going to win the majority of seats, then you are, you know,
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potentially losing seats in places like Ontario. Melanie Jolie would not do well in Ontario,
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I don't think. She would not do well in Western Canada, including British Columbia,
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but she would do well in Quebec. I don't think they're picking her or those people you're speaking
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to are thinking about her because she's a Quebecer because that's actually a deficit
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because Trudeau himself represents a Quebec riding. Liberal party has a long tradition that's worked for
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them on not picking two Quebecers in a row. The reason why they're thinking about her is,
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you know, she's telegenic, she's an attractive person, but also because she's a female. The
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Liberal party has had internally, since 1993, an internal thing about, we need a female leader.
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Like hell, the conservatives, the PCs actually had a female leader, albeit just for a summer job.
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It was, but they had, they, you know, the conservatives, the conservatives, all people did
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at first. And they've had interim leaders who were women like Ronna Ambrose.
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That's right. I forgot about that. And so, you know, it bugs liberals that they've been kind of
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out-progressived, not sure that's a word, but I'll use it, then by the conservatives. Like it drives
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them bananas. So they're thinking, quite a few of them right now, whoever it is, whether it's Freeland
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or Jolie or Anand, we need to have a woman in there. But, and you know, I have some sympathy for that
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argument, but it can't be Jolie because she's a terrible minister. She's terrible.
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One thing that I've talked about with some conservatives, not people that are around
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Polyev, but who have run campaigns, they've said that Jolie, possibly Freeland, well, Jolie especially
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would be a nightmare if Trudeau left and they installed her as leader. Because the way they put
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it to me is, you can't punch Justin Trudeau hard enough right now. The public is fed up with him
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and it doesn't matter how hard you hit the guy. People aren't going to say, that's unfair. They're
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going to say, hit him again. You can't punch a woman. Even in this day and age, we are all equal.
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We've got to show full respect. You can't treat a woman in politics the same way that you treat a man
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in politics in terms of doing battle with them because the public will recoil. Many women will
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get upset and say that's sexist. And a lot of guys will be like, you're being mean to a woman. You
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can't do that. So some conservatives think she is their nightmare candidate. Carney's their dream.
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I don't believe that anymore. I used to believe it. I don't believe it.
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And the proof of it is 2016, Donald Trump following Hillary Clinton around a stage,
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looking like he was going to actually throttle her, not just punch her. I'm sorry, Brian,
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that is no longer the case because Donald Trump won that election. So I don't think that that is
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true. I think Poliev, if it's unlikely. I mean, Hillary was a well-known figure in politics. She was not
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well-liked by a good portion of the public, loved by another portion, disliked by the other. I'm not
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Well, it doesn't matter. I don't think she's going to be the pick because at the end of the day,
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All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some
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more. I hope you're enjoying this conversation. Grab a beer, grab a coffee. More with Warren Kinsella
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When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering,
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Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
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So Justin Trudeau still has not left, but we are speculating.
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Who could beat Pierre Polyev in a battle of the network stars?
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Dominic LeBlanc, the National Post article that prompted our conversation more,
00:20:48.760
He apparently is looking to organize for whenever Trudeau does leave.
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I can't see that happening without the blessing of the boss.
00:21:02.180
Um, while I think he is probably Trudeau's most politically astute minister and a guy
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who does go in and clean up stuff, I'm not sure that the public has a clue who he is.
00:21:14.780
And in fact, that abacus poll, just 4% could name him.
00:21:22.500
Well, um, I know him very well, uh, full disclosure.
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His dad, Romeo LeBlanc, who was governor general, was my daughter's godfather.
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When I was Kretzian's special assistant, writing his speeches and getting him ready for a question period and stuff like that,
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the guy in the very next office was Dominic LeBlanc.
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So, I, I know Dominic LeBlanc better than a lot of people.
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Um, he is truly the fixer, as the Post had said.
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So, he has that hog factor you're talking about.
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He's one of the funniest people I've ever met in politics.
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So, the way I've described him to people who don't know him at all is he makes you want to like him.
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Even if you go in saying, I hate the Trudeau government.
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I don't want anything to do with the Trudeau government.
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While you're talking about serious stuff, unimportant stuff,
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But is that enough for him to win the Liberal Party?
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His big problem, because he is the fixer, as the Post has said.
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You know, when Trudeau has a mistake or a mess, and he has plenty,
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the guy, the person who gets sent in is not Freeland.
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Because Dominic has the political chops and the smarts to clean up the messes
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When Marco Mendicino made a mess at public safety,
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and Mendicino, I am sure, had leadership ambitions at one point.
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Now he's out of cabinet and worried about keeping his,
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what was a safe Toronto seat, because of the seat change against Trudeau.
00:23:41.480
So, but LeBlanc took that over, you don't hear about public safety anymore.
00:23:50.680
The problem is something that he can't control.
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and you saw how real this can become with Biden in the past few weeks.
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the ability to get to the other end of the job.
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Because that is a concern that a lot of liberals would have.
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Is, you know, Jack Layton, you know, for the NDP, you know, they won.
00:24:41.800
They did better under Jack Layton than they ever had.
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And they had this almost Shakespearean tragedy where the poor guy got cancer and died.
00:25:00.140
Or maybe I'd been too, you know, seeing him too often and seeing him go down.
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I thought people were being unfair to him and bringing up his health in the 2011 election.
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Justin Trudeau has tried to win elections by, you know, running far to the left of the NDP.
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The liberals used to win by taking a bit from the NDP, a bit from the conservatives.
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That has been the tradition in the Liberal Party.
00:25:59.500
It's why, you know, the Liberal Party has been, as impressively, the most successful political machine in Western democracy.
00:26:10.060
The Trudeau guys have doubled down on policies that are highly unpopular.
00:26:14.200
They've doubled down on things they know the public is upset about, believing, no, we just have to explain it better.
00:26:21.220
Or, you know, like cod liver oil, it's good for you.
00:26:24.940
He would just, you know, say, all right, forget it.
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We're changing the immigration system back to the way it was.
00:26:31.800
Or we're, you know, we're cutting down on international students or what have you.
00:26:36.380
I think everybody's looking at all of these candidates you and I are talking about and assuming they are going to take the Liberal Party back to the center.
00:26:45.680
And I don't think they should make that assumption for two reasons.
00:26:48.900
Number one, doing a deal with Jagmeet Singh to turn a minority into a majority, that was a smart thing to do.
00:26:59.840
They turn a minority into a majority, number one.
00:27:02.880
Number two, if Pierre Polyev does not get a majority, I believe he will, but let's say he doesn't, he's in big trouble.
00:27:10.660
Because I believe that these guys, whoever wins, is going to do what Dion attempted to do, which is craft a deal with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to push Polyev out.
00:27:22.380
Polyev has to get a majority or I believe he's going to be back on the opposition benches.
00:27:27.100
Next candidate, they, what does the Post call him?
00:27:46.160
He, Francois Philippe Champagne, in case people don't know who I'm talking about with Frankie Bubbles.
00:27:56.560
Him and Vic Fidelli from Ontario have been going around the world bringing in these EV manufacturing plants, which some people like, pisses off others.
00:28:06.160
But they're also bringing in other manufacturers.
00:28:17.560
I've dealt with him in several different ministries over the years.
00:28:22.260
Would they go for a Quebecer, specifically a Quebecer dude?
00:28:26.360
You were saying there's a lot of people want a woman in there.
00:28:33.440
And it's too bad because he is an impressive guy.
00:28:36.520
And let me say, let me say, just as Alan Fotheringham invented Brian Mulroney, Brian Lilly invented Frankie Bubbles.
00:28:49.420
Actually, it was you who drew my attention to the guy and how impressive he was.
00:28:54.100
Even before Kretzian did, because Kretzian, who I talk to somewhat regularly, he also says, you've got to check this guy out.
00:29:10.700
Now, the funny thing is, a lot of Canadians believe that Justin Trudeau is a Francophone Quebecer.
00:29:16.360
Have you ever heard the complaints from Francophone Quebecers that he's an Anglo from Ontario?
00:29:23.020
But the second reason why, the second reason why you can't pick him is he does actually have a mistake on his resume.
00:29:31.660
This is the guy who promised to bring grocery prices down.
00:29:37.200
He promised to bring the big grocery trains like Loblaws to heal.
00:29:44.700
He also equally promised that he would get Canadians more sane prices on cell phone service.
00:29:55.700
So I think he is vulnerable on those two fronts.
00:29:59.260
As the minister of industry, he has responsibility for bringing these big companies down to earth and getting them to treat consumers properly.
00:30:08.220
And in fairness to him, that was always a hard assignment, but he hasn't done it.
00:30:16.300
It's not just, you know, liberals or new Democrats who think, well, the government needs to do something about the price of cell phones.
00:30:25.380
Everybody is annoyed at the price of cell phones.
00:30:28.820
Anita Anand is on everyone's list, and I'm not sure why.
00:30:34.900
And maybe that, I think that's an accurate description.
00:30:42.120
She actually does better than Mark Carney and Dominic LeBlanc.
00:30:47.080
19% of people could name her when they saw her.
00:30:49.840
But Bill Morneau recruited her to politics, I believe, from academia.
00:30:59.820
And you will forget her five minutes after she leaves the room.
00:31:09.820
Champagne's going to get re-elected, even if the liberals get in big trouble.
00:31:27.300
If you're going to have a massive conservative majority, she is going to be a footnote of history.
00:31:32.320
She's not going to be a leadership contender when she can't even keep her own seat.
00:31:38.520
From Warren Kinsella, Oakville is full of swingers.
00:31:52.040
You know, the conservatives got into Toronto St. Paul's.
00:31:54.960
I can't see them winning Toronto, what's her, Rosedale?
00:32:03.860
The only way that's potentially changing is if it goes NDP, which possibility.
00:32:12.880
As we scroll down through the list, Sean Fraser, they call the millennial.
00:32:17.960
He is the guy who broke the immigration system.
00:32:25.880
And part of the reason that we have a housing crisis or that it is as acute as it is, is because he broke the immigration system.
00:32:37.880
He's the guy that started letting in what we have last year, 900,000 or a million temporary foreign students coming in.
00:32:44.360
I mean, you can't get housing near any of the campuses that these people are living in.
00:32:52.040
Drove up the immigration, annual immigration numbers for permanent residents to 500,000 from roughly 250 to 300,000.
00:33:01.800
So, buying a home in Toronto, you know, they're talking about maybe we'll bring in an annual tax on your home if it's worth more than $1 million.
00:33:08.700
Well, that's every home in the greater Toronto area, every single family home.
00:33:15.220
This guy, I can't see how he could possibly be a leader.
00:33:18.940
Maybe if the Liberals were out of power for a while, he could come in down the road and do it.
00:33:24.720
But to me, I just see the guy that broke the immigration system, the one that used to have lots of public support.
00:33:31.780
And according to polling and focus groups from the Privy Council office, no longer does.
00:33:37.380
If you say, there you go again, you're concerned about policy, and I never care about policy.
00:33:43.940
Like, and on the housing thing, there isn't a politician in the country that anybody would give any credit to.
00:33:50.260
Because they're mad at all the politicians on housing because it's such a mess.
00:34:02.000
No, he, I don't think they put the blame for that one at his feet alone.
00:34:08.460
What I'm saying is they put the blame at the level of, at the feet of every politician in Canada, from municipal on up.
00:34:18.760
He hasn't been close to the blast radius on a lot of the scandals.
00:34:28.680
It's worthwhile for him to run, to get his name up, and so on.
00:34:31.360
But it would be a run for next time, not for this time.
00:34:34.300
I do like that the article The Post put out did quote the Full Comment podcast from a few weeks ago when I had Andrew Perez on.
00:34:42.420
And he described Sean Fraser as the future of the federal liberal party, a potential future party leader.
00:34:58.740
Justin Trudeau won the leadership when he was in his 40s, but he's a different beast.
00:35:09.460
Which, you know, you got to remember, I was the ringside announcer for it.
00:35:15.860
If you've never heard me call a boxing match and you want to know what that's like, it's on the YouTube.
00:35:21.140
And I said to Gerald Butts before that thing, I think I told you, too, are you guys crazy?
00:35:34.860
Made him a household name even more than he was.
00:35:39.460
For people who haven't heard how that boxing match came together.
00:35:45.440
And the woman that does Trudeau's hair used to cut my hair, used to cut Harper's hair, Jim Flaherty, Stefania Capavia.
00:35:55.820
Basically, she had a salon that looked after a lot of people that worked on the hill.
00:35:59.820
And Brazzo was going into a charity boxing match.
00:36:04.800
And this boxing match had been going on for a while.
00:36:20.580
I got out of the makeup chair, made a beeline to Corey Tonight's office, and said, Trudeau's going to box Brazzo.
00:36:27.880
And he said, we'll broadcast it like it's the fucking moon landing.
00:36:36.240
And so I'm to blame for Justin Trudeau becoming prime minister.
00:36:44.040
He is current immigration minister, former minister of indigenous affairs, went to McGill.
00:36:54.060
He was part of that McGill mafia that surrounds Trudeau, was in Trudeau's wedding party.
00:37:03.360
Maybe, but I have trouble seeing Mark Miller as a serious leadership contender.
00:37:09.880
You know, he's the type of guy that you could say, all right, smart guy, put him in charge of a ministry, do a good job.
00:37:17.060
You know, the jury's out on whether he's done a good job or not.
00:37:24.080
He's up for best supporting actor in a movie one day.
00:37:29.420
No, he, you know, when Trudeau goes, he's going to go.
00:37:37.900
The way it was described to me is he was one of the guys counting $20 bills in the back of the room when Trudeau first started running the leadership.
00:37:48.500
And, but it just, you know, they've tried to turn him into an attack dog lately.
00:37:57.560
So, and I, and honestly, I was actually surprised to see him name on this list.
00:38:02.460
I have never heard anybody talk about Miller being a leadership candidate until I read this thing in the National Post.
00:38:08.820
Yeah, not, neither have I, and it may surprise people, but you do know, I talk to liberals.
00:38:18.200
They actually will take my calls or meet me or, or respond to text messages.
00:38:26.900
And, you know, there's probably a lot of people who supported Pierre Polyev in the conservative leadership race saying, yeah, well, he was a liberal the whole time.
00:38:48.880
I mean, that was my take when the last time I spoke to him.
00:38:52.020
Yeah, this one, it was, I interpreted it as the post having a bit of fun, a bit of mischief, a bit of mischief.
00:39:05.800
He's not a Paul, Pierre Polyev style of conservative.
00:39:08.580
The leadership race made that clear, but he is a conservative.
00:39:12.900
His policy, if people took a look at it, was much more conservative than people would have thought.
00:39:19.500
He did not get a look from people who were supporting Polyev or the other candidates because they just said old red Tory, really a liberal, a tourist in the party to coin or steal a phrase, not coining it.
00:39:36.100
But the last name on the list is one that I actually think is interesting.
00:39:39.960
And that's Christy Clark, the former BC Premier.
00:39:49.360
BC Liberals used to be where the federal liberals and federal conservatives came together at the provincial level to take on the NDP hordes and stop them from conquering everything.
00:40:03.820
I don't know if you've seen this, but there have been a bunch of federal liberals now running for the BC NDP.
00:40:11.200
So, like, the BC liberals out there aren't the same.
00:40:14.660
I think she'd be an interesting pick because she is a centrist, as the Post calls her.
00:40:20.580
She's not near the blast radius, which is your big concern.
00:40:24.240
She is someone who knows how politics works but isn't an insider.
00:40:35.440
Do you think she has the interest, the ability to take over the party, the support within the party?
00:40:40.880
Or are they more like, you know, the guys running to join the provincial NDP of David Eby?
00:40:46.120
I think she's a contender, and for a couple of reasons.
00:40:49.720
Firstly, she was one of the few people who have the guts to actually say Trudeau should go and put her name to it, and that needed to happen.
00:40:56.660
But secondly, you know, I helped run Gord Campbell's campaign for the BC Liberals, and I was a federal liberal, in 1996, and that was the election that Christy won first.
00:41:07.460
And she is, you know, a lot like people like me.
00:41:10.540
She's fiscally conservative and socially progressive.
00:41:13.380
That really is the majority of Canadian voters.
00:41:19.660
The question is, can she come from that loss she had against John Horgan in BC?
00:41:29.960
Well, I remember, was it 2013, being in the Sheraton Ballroom on Burrard Street in Vancouver?
00:41:40.880
You were there because you were advising the BC Liberals, and it was—
00:41:49.420
There were—maybe the Sheraton was where I was staying.
00:41:54.140
There were federal conservatives there, like Demetri Pansatopoulos.
00:41:57.500
There was Warren Kinsella and other federal liberals.
00:42:18.020
She does, and I think she's what the Liberal Party needs.
00:42:23.000
She—you know, the perfect candidate is a fusion of Dominic LeBlanc's chops and skills
00:42:28.820
and smarts and somebody like Christy Clark, because I think having a strong, female, smart
00:42:35.340
candidate like her would change the outcome for the Liberal Party.
00:42:39.220
But the outcome, whoever they pick, any of these people, they're still looking at losing
00:42:44.080
because the bottom line is Liberal Party of Canada has been behind Pierre Polyev by 15
00:42:59.540
So they've got to be thinking about picking somebody who can rebuild the party because
00:43:03.840
the party—like, Brian, the party doesn't exist.
00:43:06.740
Liberal Party does not exist in many parts of the country.
00:43:10.300
Unlike the conservatives, even unlike the NDP, the Liberal Party doesn't exist.
00:43:16.200
We've got to wrap soon, but I want you to explain why that matters, because a lot of
00:43:20.500
people just think, well, you get a good leader, and the leader's popular, but you need that
00:43:31.080
The majority of the Liberal wins in the caucus presently are people who came within 1,500 votes
00:43:39.800
So having an organization on the ground to get out the vote when the margins are that
00:43:47.000
And the Liberal Party just doesn't exist in a lot of parts of the country.
00:43:49.800
And it's—well, they've turned it into a movement based around one guy.
00:43:57.760
But I've been saying for a long time that the similarities between Trump and Trudeau are
00:44:03.980
And one of them is they both run movements that are centered around them.
00:44:10.360
Well, we'll see what happens over the next little while.
00:44:12.680
Warren is still firmly in the camp that Justin Trudeau is leaving.
00:44:16.380
I am still firmly in the camp that he is staying.
00:44:21.900
And this list of contenders will still be contenders, regardless of when Trudeau leaves.
00:44:25.860
Because if he doesn't leave on his own, the voters will send him packing.
00:44:35.780
This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:44:41.740
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00:44:50.460
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