Full Comment - We have no idea what our federal leaders stand for anymore

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00:00:19.020 Donald Trump is threatening new tariffs.

00:00:21.200 Mark Carney doesn't know whether to put his elbows up or down.

00:00:23.960 He's promising spending cuts and staffing cuts at the federal government level, though.

00:00:28.440 And, well, griping about Pierre Polyev at the Calgary Stampede.

00:00:32.760 Nothing is boring in Canadian politics these days.

00:00:35.680 Hello. Welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:00:37.720 I'm Brian Lilly, your host.

00:00:39.340 Today, a sit-down with two wise politicos, people who have worked on campaigns across the country,

00:00:45.280 advised people at the highest levels.

00:00:47.600 Ginny Roth is a partner at Crestview Strategy.

00:00:50.640 She is a former assistant at the Ontario Legislature, Queen's Park,

00:00:54.680 and has worked at campaigns at the national level with the Federal Conservative Party

00:00:58.580 and a strong defender of Pierre Polyev.

00:01:01.400 Warren Kinsella is a pundit, a columnist with the Toronto Sun.

00:01:05.500 He hosts the Kinsella cast and is founder of the Daisy Group.

00:01:08.740 He also, once upon a time, worked for Jean Chrétien.

00:01:11.280 And while he wasn't a fan of the Trudeau guys, still kind of a liberal.

00:01:16.080 We sat down to have a discussion about where things are in Canadian politics,

00:01:19.620 what the future looks like for Carney and for Polyev.

00:01:23.520 Okay, Ginny, Warren, I guess we have to start with letters,

00:01:27.420 because world leaders are getting letters, or they're at least seeing letters posted to Truth Social.

00:01:33.200 We'll start with you, Ginny.

00:01:35.440 Your reaction to Trump late on a Thursday night, I think it was after 8 p.m.

00:01:40.560 It's not super late, but late in, you know, the world of diplomacy.

00:01:44.480 A letter released to Mark Carney saying,

00:01:47.940 you're not doing enough on fentanyl, you stink on dairy,

00:01:51.520 don't dare retaliate to my 35% tariffs, or I'll hit you even harder.

00:01:56.200 What do you even do with this?

00:01:59.120 Well, I think this would have been surprising, you know, in January or something,

00:02:03.420 but now we're all kind of used to this, like it's just par for the course.

00:02:07.660 And I think it's all part of Trump's negotiation and his negotiating style.

00:02:11.980 Like, he likes to play hardball and see how much he can get away with.

00:02:16.000 And this is his latest volley.

00:02:18.280 I hope we don't overreact to it.

00:02:20.040 I think in the early days of the to and fro, we did overreact.

00:02:25.300 And I think all we can do now is continue the negotiations in the background.

00:02:30.260 I'm hopeful that some of the stuff that I'm opposed to on domestic grounds,

00:02:34.800 like the digital sales tax that we took off the table,

00:02:38.380 that this might be some excuse to drop some, you know, supply management,

00:02:43.640 some of our ridiculous trade practices.

00:02:47.000 But the negotiators just have to stay focused.

00:02:50.460 And we have to accept that that market is 10 times the size of ours,

00:02:54.480 and we really can't do without it.

00:02:55.760 You know, the impact of Canada's exports to the United States is about 19% of our GDP.

00:03:03.800 The impact of American exports to Canada is 1.7% of theirs.

00:03:08.480 So, Warren, you've had many thoughts online on X about Donald Trump's letters.

00:03:16.980 Try and sum them up here.

00:03:18.380 Well, this will only take three hours.

00:03:23.080 I am going to surprise both of you, I think.

00:03:28.040 I'm not going to be critical of Donald Trump.

00:03:30.740 I believe that Donald Trump is doing what he said he was going to do.

00:03:34.900 Donald Trump has never been a free trader.

00:03:37.440 Donald Trump, in his inaugural speech in January, said he was going to do this. 0.98

00:03:44.000 And then 10 days later, he did it to Canada and Mexico with this bullshit fentanyl claim 0.92

00:03:49.440 in order to, you know, step outside the terms of the USMCA. 0.88

00:03:54.760 So, he's doing what he's always said he was going to do.

00:03:58.000 I, you know, and I don't think any of us should be surprised by that.

00:04:01.800 What I'm surprised by is Mark Carney.

00:04:05.040 I don't understand why he believes that Donald Trump is going to change his position

00:04:10.460 or change his behavior or change his strategy or approach.

00:04:15.060 This is what Trump has been doing for months.

00:04:17.900 And Carney seems to be clinging to this belief that he can somehow magically transform Trump's

00:04:25.360 approach, Trump's attitude, and craft a new deal that will be respected until the end of time.

00:04:32.080 I don't get it.

00:04:33.220 I think it's a waste of time to try and do a new deal.

00:04:36.720 But here we are doing it.

00:04:37.860 Do you say that we just shouldn't be negotiating with them at all?

00:04:41.240 The Kuzma, USMCA, whatever you want to call it, has to be renegotiated.

00:04:46.960 You're saying we shouldn't be talking to them for a deal at all?

00:04:49.460 Why does it have to be renegotiated?

00:04:50.960 Because it came with a clause that says next year, it's up for review.

00:04:55.860 Okay.

00:04:56.200 So, we're trying.

00:04:57.180 We can do a pro forma.

00:04:58.400 We can send a junior assistant in there and to negotiate it.

00:05:01.720 But, I mean, like in the middle of it, he, you know, he's screwing around again.

00:05:05.640 If the only, you know, I've got to call him about this in post media this weekend, as you

00:05:10.020 know, Brian, the only thing I'll allow for here is a slightly Machiavellian move by the

00:05:16.760 prime minister to basically run out the clock and just basically do what you've described

00:05:23.140 a minute ago.

00:05:24.000 And meanwhile, devote himself to crafting deals with Europe and Asia and so on. 0.99

00:05:29.520 And, you know, so this is all bullshit. 1.00

00:05:31.900 This is just bullshit theater. 1.00

00:05:33.600 He doesn't expect to have a deal with the Americans, but he's giving us every indication 0.99

00:05:38.040 that he thinks that he could.

00:05:40.040 Well, Ginny, the UK has a deal.

00:05:44.100 Yeah, it's a high level deal.

00:05:45.620 It's 12 pages.

00:05:46.780 China has a deal.

00:05:48.500 It's not very long either.

00:05:50.000 That's what the Americans want right now.

00:05:51.660 They don't want a full renegotiation.

00:05:54.140 I was reporting before the G7 that we were close on having one and then things fell apart.

00:06:00.420 And, you know, what I'm hearing is that Ambassador Hillman, who, you know, is widely regarded and

00:06:07.200 well-respected, but that she's part of the problem because when the Americans want this 1.00

00:06:11.700 50,000 foot level deal, she wants to negotiate the details.

00:06:16.300 She wants to get into the weeds. 0.69

00:06:17.540 So, you know, I've described it as like sending in the accounting department to close a sale.

00:06:25.940 No, you send in your closer.

00:06:27.360 You send in a Dominic LeBlanc.

00:06:28.660 You don't send in the accounting team to get someone to sign that they're going to buy the

00:06:34.260 new car.

00:06:35.800 What's your view on how things are taking shape and how Carney is handling Trump?

00:06:41.840 Because, you know, the digital services tax, his handling of that, in my view, was just

00:06:46.500 a disaster.

00:06:48.000 Yeah.

00:06:48.320 You alluded to Starmer's deal, which I think they call a framework agreement or something

00:06:52.160 like that.

00:06:52.900 That, to my mind, is what Carney should be going for, both from both in terms of what

00:06:58.020 is good for Canada and also what he needs to do politically.

00:07:00.800 Like, let's not forget.

00:07:01.640 Because Starmer's not getting letters.

00:07:02.900 Yeah, and let's not forget this guy, like, Starmer was not elected with a mandate to deal

00:07:09.880 with Donald Trump.

00:07:10.900 Mark Carney was.

00:07:11.900 I mean, that became the question of our election.

00:07:13.600 That was the ballot question for every voter that voted for Carney, certainly in the Liberals.

00:07:17.720 So he has to deliver.

00:07:20.380 And a framework agreement seems way more viable and accessible to me than renegotiating, you

00:07:25.320 know, and dotting the I's and crossing the T's on a new Kuzma.

00:07:27.740 So I think that is the right approach.

00:07:30.300 I don't know if that's what they're doing.

00:07:32.020 I think Carney is a good dealmaker.

00:07:37.180 He's made a lot of deals in his life, which is why they got off on an OK foot, he and

00:07:41.480 Trump.

00:07:41.780 I think Trump sees that in him.

00:07:44.900 And he but he has to deliver.

00:07:47.220 And the other thing that I'm critical of when it comes to Carney and his politics is these

00:07:52.220 guys are really raising expectations.

00:07:53.760 They keep doing this.

00:07:54.660 Like, as you said, you reported at their at their based on their leaks and their sort

00:08:00.040 of proactive pushing, I think, for with with a lot of people in the media that they were

00:08:03.340 close to having a deal like they were telling people this and then it didn't work out.

00:08:06.420 And it really raised expectations.

00:08:07.780 I think people expected one.

00:08:09.200 And they're doing that on so many fronts, whether it's major projects, defense spending,

00:08:14.220 et cetera.

00:08:14.500 Like they they are not playing an expectation management game at all.

00:08:17.380 And I worry for their sake, politically, that they won't live up to some of the I'm sure

00:08:21.560 you're not too worried for them.

00:08:22.920 I'm, you know, given that might help the conservatives down the road if you can't deliver.

00:08:27.120 I'm a Canadian, too, though.

00:08:27.940 I want what's good for the country.

00:08:29.240 Yeah, we all want what's good for the country.

00:08:31.260 But Warren, let me ask you about the Carney's handling of the digital services tax.

00:08:36.220 I mean, this was the thing that liberals were telling me for weeks and weeks.

00:08:40.860 You know, you talk to most people and they say that thing's got to go.

00:08:44.720 It's a disaster.

00:08:47.160 Biden had threatened us on it.

00:08:50.280 Trump was threatening us on it.

00:08:52.140 And you talk to liberals and say, oh, we're holding on to that.

00:08:54.920 That's a that's a Trump card.

00:08:56.820 We're going to play that.

00:08:57.880 We're going to get something good for it.

00:08:59.460 And then the Friday before the tax is supposed to be implemented, the Americans say, can you

00:09:05.880 give us a 30 day pause on this tax while we're negotiating?

00:09:09.120 And we say, no, elbows up.

00:09:11.360 And then Sunday night at 10 p.m., we're going to rescind the tax and just walk away from

00:09:16.900 it completely.

00:09:17.480 We got nothing for it.

00:09:19.020 That was a disaster.

00:09:20.240 That was not a negotiation from someone of Carney's caliber.

00:09:25.080 He should know better.

00:09:25.780 I don't think it was a disaster because they hadn't started collecting revenue.

00:09:30.800 The you know, they pulled the plug on the thing, as you know, just days before they were going

00:09:36.720 to start collecting revenue.

00:09:38.100 I think it's significant for another reason, which is supply management, because in the same

00:09:44.980 post that the president attacked the digital tax, he also attacked again, supply management

00:09:53.500 and supply management is different than the digital tax.

00:09:56.300 Supply management is part of the Canadian political catechism and is wholly writ in the

00:10:01.620 province of Quebec.

00:10:03.000 And Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier can tell us all about that.

00:10:06.140 So I think it's a precursor of what is going to come.

00:10:09.960 It's easy to get rid of a digital tax when you haven't started collecting the revenue.

00:10:14.460 Supply management's very different, especially when the House of Commons just before it recessed,

00:10:19.500 unanimously just about passed a resolution from the block saying that the supply management

00:10:26.620 is not to be touched.

00:10:27.820 We'll see about that.

00:10:29.240 So I think that that is the bigger issue.

00:10:31.880 Do you think, because my intelligence is the Americans don't want us to get rid of supply 0.98

00:10:36.960 management, but they do want us to stop being jerks where we negotiate that, yes, you can 0.99

00:10:42.440 sell us this much milk or this much cheese, and then we block them. 0.98

00:10:45.860 I mean, you know, as much as I cheer for Canada, let's be honest, on the dairy front, we are 0.99

00:10:53.000 absolute jerks, and every country in the world will tell you that when they try and negotiate a trade 0.99

00:10:57.820 deal with Canada. 0.99

00:10:59.620 You know, I interviewed Martha Hall Finley, now at the School of Public Policy at the

00:11:04.960 University of Calgary, when I was out for Stampede.

00:11:07.020 She thinks, former Liberal MP, she thinks that we should get rid of supply management for

00:11:11.500 ourselves and that there's a way to do it and to make farmers whole.

00:11:14.540 My understanding is the Americans just want us to start living up to what we agree to in the

00:11:21.140 trade agreements and allow a bit more of their product into our market.

00:11:26.780 I don't think that's a bad thing, but if we, you know, to keep a few thousand Quebec dairy

00:11:32.060 farmers happy, screw over the auto industry, the steel industry, aluminum, farmers in every

00:11:39.700 other jurisdiction, that's bad for us. 0.86

00:11:41.440 Look, I know Conservatives, ideologically, philosophically, have problems with supply

00:11:49.460 management.

00:11:51.040 Well, I just cited the Liberal MP, and I've never called to get rid of it.

00:11:55.140 Let me finish.

00:11:56.480 But they've had multiple opportunities to get rid of it, and they've not done so.

00:12:00.680 And in fact, Mr. Scheer won the leadership of the Conservative Party by saying that he would

00:12:06.360 protect it. So I presume he did that for a reason. Like, I agree, I agree, it is interference

00:12:13.240 in the marketplace. But, you know, you have to also agree that no agricultural sector is

00:12:19.420 more interfered with in the world, well, except for the exception of China and Russia, than in

00:12:24.720 the United States. The United States has protectionist policies with respect to farmers and agriculture

00:12:30.580 that dwarfs ours. So, you know, it's, it's, we're not the only ones who have messed around

00:12:37.840 with the marketplace here. The Americans, in my view, have always been worse. So it's like 1.00

00:12:43.020 physician heal thyself. But anyway, I could be wrong. He may, he may look the other way on

00:12:48.800 supply management. But based upon the way he's, you know, firing off these letters that are like

00:12:54.860 mob shakedowns, I think that it's coming. I think it's going to hit. And I don't think

00:12:59.720 that Kearney is necessarily ready for it.

00:13:02.260 Yeah. I will also just add, like, on the DST thing, I think a lot of what was going on is,

00:13:07.060 my sense is, Kearney wanted to be Prime Minister. And in the election period, he said to his political

00:13:13.040 advisors, tell me what I have to do to win this thing. And he just said what he told them to say.

00:13:17.860 And that was elbows up, that was fighting Donald Trump, concede nothing, end the relationship

00:13:23.940 with the US, maybe join the EU, you know, he said what he had to say. I don't think he ever believed

00:13:30.540 any of that. I think he always was pragmatic about how he thought he ultimately would deal

00:13:35.120 with Trump, which is try to get a deal, negotiate, be willing to give some stuff up. Don't go too far.

00:13:40.440 But, you know, and, and I think what he realized when he formed his cabinet is a lot of those MPs and

00:13:46.300 those cabinet ministers believed what he said in the election. And they wanted that too, right? Like,

00:13:51.220 Chrystia Freeland staked a lot of her career on the DST and fought for it, you know, to no end. 0.69

00:13:56.820 And she's in his cabinet right now.

00:13:59.500 Stephen Gilboa.

00:14:01.200 Stephen Gilboa, like on, on supply management. Sure. Yeah. And it played a big role in the

00:14:06.220 leadership race for Andrew Scheer, but that's ancient history. Carney's government runs through Quebec.

00:14:12.340 Um, uh, and, and a lot of his senior advisors are now very politically sensitive Quebec political

00:14:18.420 leaders. Um, and so where, how Carney's like pragmatic run this thing, like a business runs

00:14:24.160 up against the politics, uh, and the political ramifications, even within his own caucus.

00:14:29.500 I think he's grappling with that every day and it remains to be seen what, what side he's

00:14:34.740 going to fall on. Okay. Let me, uh, use this as a good point to pivot and say overall, how do each

00:14:42.580 of you think Carney's doing so far? I, you know, Warren and I talk regularly and he's said a few

00:14:49.440 times that Carney's looking like he governs like a conservative and Jenny, I've been saying, no,

00:14:54.340 that's not the case. And then, uh, yesterday or the other day had to have a column in the sun

00:15:00.200 saying, well, look, he's saying he's going to cut program spending by 7.5, then 10%, then 15%.

00:15:07.280 That's pretty massive. He's talking about cutting regulations in a very positive way, saying this

00:15:12.920 will help the economy. He's talking about, uh, cutting staffing levels saying, Hmm, the conservatives

00:15:19.620 didn't even go that far in the last campaign. Uh, you know, so maybe, maybe he is in some respects,

00:15:26.500 I'll say that, uh, governing like a conservative. How do you rate how Carney's been doing himself?

00:15:33.340 Just, just him so far. And then we'll talk about his advisors and the PMO and all that. Is he doing

00:15:38.080 okay? Is he doing badly? Is he just saying the right things, but not delivering yet?

00:15:42.840 Um, I think he's doing well. I don't think you can argue with that. He's sort of on a bunch of

00:15:47.660 objective metrics. He's, he's doing well. Um, part of that is what we have to compare him to is such a

00:15:54.480 low bar. Um, just the level of functioning of the previous government was so low, their ability to

00:16:00.020 just do basic things, forget even what those things were, just their ability to do them,

00:16:04.280 um, was so low that to just show up to the office and get things done feels like this massive

00:16:10.420 accomplishment for Canadians because it's been 10 years of them getting used to worse and worse

00:16:14.900 and worse outcomes and less and less and less action. Um, he also has the appearance of someone

00:16:19.700 who's getting things done. He speaks relatively plainly. He seems very serious. He seems decisive.

00:16:27.140 Um, he's got the things he's announcing. He, yes, he, he also, from a positioning perspective on a

00:16:32.540 number of issues is taking this, you know, call it business liberal, call it red Tory centrist approach,

00:16:38.920 moderate approach to, um, uh, certain versions of smaller government and much, much more than that.

00:16:45.480 Um, uh, growth, like supply side growth, um, particularly when it comes to major projects

00:16:51.700 and infrastructure and, and he's paying a lot of lip service to that. There are lots of ways in

00:16:55.980 which he is not a conservative. I saw a poll on a bunch of issues. Like he's not, he paid a bit of

00:17:00.740 lip service to, to crime, um, and immigration and that sort of, some of those more culturally conservative

00:17:05.360 issues early on. And he, they've totally fallen by the wayside. Like, I think they're just of no

00:17:08.620 interest to him. Um, and, and for me, that's a big part of why he's not, I'm not a conservative.

00:17:13.300 He also, I think his view is that debt is cheap. Our debt to GDP ratio is okay. And he will run

00:17:20.700 massive, massive, massive death deficits that I think most conservatives would be really

00:17:25.060 uncomfortable with, even if he finds some program savings just because of how he's much he's adding

00:17:28.720 on defense and in other areas. Um, but you know, politically he's, he's doing pretty well.

00:17:35.400 It's got a nice honeymoon period that, that, that, that built into that though, um, there's

00:17:40.620 going to be some chickens that come home to roost. Like, uh, how much is he upsetting the

00:17:45.660 left wing of his caucus? Like left wing MPs, progressive liberal MPs. Um, I think we're

00:17:51.240 going to start to hear from them even before we hear from the NDP about how he's betrayed

00:17:55.620 them in many ways. And then I think also regular Canadians who are still upset about crime and

00:18:00.740 immigration and some of these other issues he doesn't seem to care about are going to

00:18:03.480 start to have a bit of a voice as his honeymoon fits. Uh, Warren, you were a Kretchen liberal.

00:18:08.700 I'm, I'm, I'm thinking. I still am. I think most people would, uh, acknowledge that you were

00:18:14.900 not a Trudeau liberal. How are you feeling about the Carney liberals? Uh, you know, well,

00:18:23.100 listen to what Jenny just said, you know, like he's reaching across the aisle, you know,

00:18:28.500 I'm hearing all the time. And I know the two of you are too conservative saying, wow,

00:18:34.040 you know, this is not bad, man. Is this ever different than Trudeau? You know, you go through

00:18:38.840 the list, um, capital gains. Uh, so he threw that one out carbon tax. First thing he did

00:18:46.200 defense spending program, spending cuts to programs, the staff hires, he's doing, he's hiring serious

00:18:54.200 people. Um, like all of it, you know, his positioning on everything from defense to budgets

00:19:02.260 is that of a progressive conservative, you know, he, this is a guy who you could very easily seeing

00:19:09.540 being comfortable within a Brian Moroney cabinet and maybe even a Stephen Harper cabinet. Maybe

00:19:15.220 that's why Harper kept him around as governor of the bank of Canada and had him play such a central

00:19:20.140 role in the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009. I think he's a progressive conservative. He's a blue,

00:19:27.360 blue, uh, grid. He does do this pro forma stuff about the environment and social programs. Um,

00:19:36.860 but you know, really at the end of the day, if you look at C5, C5 is a dramatic historic piece of

00:19:43.620 legislation that basically says, you know, I'm, I'm reducing this to its base elements. We kind of

00:19:50.800 don't give a shit about the environment anymore. We want to do resource extraction and we're going 0.98

00:19:55.940 to get our resources to market. That's what C5 says. And that's why environmental groups across the

00:20:02.580 country are as pissed off as they are. So, um, he, are they really though? Because, and I'd like to get

00:20:09.920 comments from, well, okay. If this was Doug Ford, um, here in Ontario or Pierre Polyev, if he'd won

00:20:18.260 the election, there'd be court challenges already. Yeah. Um, but I think there still will be Brian.

00:20:23.500 You think there will be? There will be. Because they made zero noise. They made zero noise when the

00:20:28.200 carbon tax was killed. Because the NDP is so weak right now, there's no voice for the activist left in

00:20:33.960 parliament. Um, but they're, they're, they're, they're getting louder. And like, you know, we've

00:20:40.120 given, I've given a lot of credit to Carney. So now I will make the counterpoint, which is he can say all

00:20:45.660 he wants about the fact that he'll probably have a pipeline in his list of major projects and how much

00:20:51.860 C5 is going to do to get things done quickly. But he has to actually do it. And, you know, in our

00:20:58.580 country, if, if David Emead does not want a pipeline going through BC, there ain't going to be one. Um,

00:21:04.880 if First Nations, even though Confederation should actually take care of that. Yeah. But I guess my

00:21:11.180 point is like, politics is hard. Federalism is hard. Um, and, and because he's in this honeymoon

00:21:16.180 period, he really hasn't had to run up against, there will be court challenges and he will probably

00:21:20.000 lose. Um, so whether it's First Nations, environmental groups, um, premiers that oppose, uh, that,

00:21:27.080 that like love interprovincial trade and major projects when it's not in their backyard, but hate

00:21:31.180 it when it's one of their protected industries or runs through their province, all these, all these

00:21:36.400 problems are sort of delayed right now because of the halo effect of Carney's honeymoon popularity.

00:21:42.560 And I think those will run up against, um, he's going to run up against the cold hard reality of,

00:21:47.660 um, the fact that he can't legislate past those first of all, and then the political reality that

00:21:53.220 Nader's Ken Smith and Karina Gould and a whole bunch of other, frankly, members of his cabinet,

00:21:59.080 not just caucus are going to feel really, really, really uncomfortable with his attempts to fight

00:22:03.100 those things. And they're going to start to get louder about it. So let, let me throw this at you

00:22:06.840 on, on that file is that at Stampede, I was told of a meeting that he had with energy industry executives

00:22:15.820 and they were asking him questions about C5 and how far he will go. And at some point he just said

00:22:21.420 to them and Warren, you'll appreciate this as a Calgarian of, of some sort. Um, you know, he looks

00:22:29.000 at the oil executives in the room and he says, well, hold on, I still have a cabinet and a caucus to

00:22:34.120 manage and they don't like this. And Stephen Guibo is not going to like some of what he's going to be

00:22:38.900 doing. For sure. For sure. I think he's going to have issues with liberal MPs. No, I don't.

00:22:46.080 Nader's Ken Smith is leaving. He's wants to be leader of the Ontario liberal party. He is busily

00:22:51.600 at work undermining Bonnie Crombie as we speak. Why on earth? Karina Gould. I know who wants that job? 1.00

00:22:59.580 Karina Gould is out of cabinet. Like this guy signaled from the earliest moment, once he won the 0.77

00:23:06.240 leadership, if you are on, you know, if you have an ideological disposition, like Justin Trudeau's,

00:23:12.740 I don't want you around. Like, you know, where's Katie Telford? Where's, where's Brian Clow? All

00:23:18.200 these people have disappeared and I don't think they've disappeared for no reason. I think he wanted

00:23:23.600 to send a signal by bringing in Sabia and bringing in Blanchard and these other people is this is a

00:23:30.460 different government. You know, he said it repeatedly during the election campaign. I am not Justin Trudeau.

00:23:35.520 And, you know, Poliev had that ridiculous line at the start, just like Justin. It could not have been 0.60

00:23:42.820 less true. And it's become less true with each passing day. This guy is not like Justin Trudeau in

00:23:49.880 the way he structured his government, the decisions he's making, the legislation that he's jammed through.

00:23:55.280 He is decidedly different. And like on the point about the court challenges, just putting on my lawyer's

00:24:01.660 hat, I don't agree that he's going to be unsuccessful in the inevitable court challenges.

00:24:08.120 You know, this is parliament speaking immediately after an election campaign. The one thing I know

00:24:14.240 about judges is they will, you know, they'll do an analysis under the charter and they'll overturn

00:24:19.480 legislation if they have to, but overturning legislation that was specifically mandated during

00:24:25.000 an election campaign, but this guy won. That's something judges will think twice about overturning.

00:24:31.020 So I think he, I think he's going to be good. Yes. Or Brian Hartford.

00:24:36.460 No, you're, you're, you're, you're talking about, you're saying this as just as Paul Shabbos

00:24:41.780 is still mulling over his ruling on why the Ford government, which ran on getting rid of bike

00:24:47.600 lanes, can't get rid of bike lanes despite a clear promise in the election to do so. And then 0.87

00:24:53.180 legislation passed by the legislature. Um, if you, if you get a good, we can't help ourselves.

00:24:58.760 If you get a good activist judge, uh, like Paul Shabbos, um, then yeah, you're, you're going

00:25:05.360 to get the right, uh, the right outcome or the left outcome. Um, I, I'm willing to bet the

00:25:10.960 both of you right now that Bill C-5 is not going to be overturned by the courts that count.

00:25:16.520 All right. There's another lunch at the patrician. Um, let's, let's take a pause now. And when

00:25:22.300 we come back, I want to pick up on something that you mentioned earlier, Jenny, and that's

00:25:26.560 about, uh, the Quebec centric nature of the government and the PMO. Back in moments.

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00:27:30.940 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What? Where we unpack the biggest, weirdest,

00:27:36.400 and wildest political moments in Canadian history you thought you knew and tell you what really

00:27:41.240 happened. Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favourite episodes.

00:27:46.820 If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? Everywhere you get

00:27:52.080 podcasts. So we've got a Prime Minister originally from Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories,

00:27:59.080 grew up in Edmonton, an Albertan of sorts, lived out of the country for a long time,

00:28:04.140 centred in Ottawa. But Jenny, you mentioned this earlier. This is a strong Quebec contingent

00:28:08.940 surrounding Mark Carney. Blanchard is part of it. Cabinet ministers like Melanie Jolie and Stephen

00:28:17.340 Guilbeault leaned upon heavily. You know, even Michael Sabia, who's not originally from Quebec,

00:28:23.340 has a lot of ties to Quebec Inc. and the Ottawa establishment. So is this a government by Quebec

00:28:30.740 once again? And how does that play out over the next little while?

00:28:36.460 I mean, I think it's a government by Laurentian elite, many of whom are Quebecers in this case.

00:28:44.300 Carney, I think, rightly understands some of his blind spots here in Quebec. Like, he was really

00:28:49.260 lucky to get the Quebec boats he got. And I think a big part of why he did is because of Donald Trump.

00:28:55.100 You know, Quebecers only hate one more thing than they hate other Canadians, and that's Americans.

00:28:59.820 And Trump brought that out in them. And that is why they voted for Mark Carney.

00:29:03.600 I think Champagne was one of the first MPs to endorse him, wasn't he? He was an early one.

00:29:08.520 Yeah, but they all did, really. Like, he won over caucus. And that was like, you know,

00:29:14.940 he became the front runner. He won the leadership for a bunch of reasons. But he won a lot of Quebec

00:29:19.420 voters because of Donald Trump, I think. And he, I think, is savvy enough to understand that if he

00:29:24.860 wants to win a majority, he has to hold that in Quebec and maybe even grow it. And Quebec is unique.

00:29:31.980 They're, like, much more economically nationalist. They're oddly culturally conservative in a lot of

00:29:37.680 ways. And that is not his natural instinct at all. And so having Quebecers around him to kind of 0.83

00:29:44.140 go maybe get, like, push back against some of his instincts sometimes is probably politically

00:29:48.940 useful for him. And they represent a type of Canadian business that Carney is the most sympathetic

00:29:57.200 to, I think. And so it's not surprising. As I understand it, he's trying to recruit way more

00:30:03.140 people from Bay Street, and he's just not having a lot of success for a bunch of reasons that aren't

00:30:07.820 necessarily his fault. But I think he's trying to recruit from business, and that means from Bay

00:30:12.540 Street and from Montreal. Warren, the initial chief of staff was Marco Mendicino. He'll be

00:30:20.180 stepping down within days. Blanchard will be taking over. You know, as someone that's been in those

00:30:25.960 offices, has Carney even had enough of a handle on what's going on with a temporary chief of staff

00:30:33.080 that everyone knows is leaving, that everyone used to sit in caucus with? You know, the chief can

00:30:37.780 wield an awful lot of power and keep things on track. Has Mendicino done a good job? Is that

00:30:45.460 hobbled, Carney? What's your take?

00:30:48.300 I think, I mean, one of the principal reasons he had Marco at the outset is he needed somebody with

00:30:55.860 a security clearance. And Marco had been a cabinet minister, so he had top secret. It's hard to get

00:31:02.640 that designation overnight. So that was part of it. He had some experience in government. He was liked

00:31:08.280 by a lot of people in caucus. A lot of people felt he'd been treated unfairly by Trudeau. That

00:31:15.400 probably didn't hurt. So there was kind of a myriad number of reasons why Marco was there. But Marco

00:31:20.600 wants to be mayor of Toronto, along with a whole bunch of other people. So, you know, he is disappearing,

00:31:26.740 as you pointed out. The people that, you know, Carney is bringing in, I don't think they're

00:31:34.440 noteworthy for being Quebecers. The Post will be critical of our own news organization. The Post had 1.00

00:31:40.080 this piece about Champagne and Blanchard and Sabia, Lamedy and Jolie being, you know, Jolie is not,

00:31:48.480 Jolie got demoted by Carney. So she doesn't have the clout that she did under Trudeau. I think the

00:31:54.640 reason why Blanchard and Sabia would have been brought in, in particular, is because they know

00:32:00.160 how to run big things. They know how to run government and they are respected. I think he

00:32:05.740 brought in Lamedy because Lamedy is a good lawyer and somebody that he knows. Champagne is a capable

00:32:13.400 minister of finance and a capable politician. So I think that their Quebecerness is, that's not a word,

00:32:20.840 is incidental. I think the real reason is he was looking for people with experience that he could

00:32:27.260 rely upon. What I've been surprised by is he's surrounding himself by a bunch of guys and he

00:32:32.200 has kind of gotten away with that. At some point, I think somebody is going to say, hey, from the,

00:32:37.440 you know, the balance perspective, gender balance perspective, you're not doing very well, Mark.

00:32:43.180 Oh, I think the star, the star has already done a piece on that.

00:32:46.280 Oh, there you go. Okay. So I don't read the star.

00:32:49.160 But let me, someone sent it to me. Let me ask you both about this quickly before we move on to

00:32:54.980 talking about Pierre Paliyev. Marco Mendocino is very open in his support for Israel. I'm having a

00:33:01.940 hard time getting a grasp on Carney, but, you know, he seems to be, well, open to moving Canada's

00:33:12.320 position to a degree. I'm not saying he's on Team Hamas like Melanie Jolie clearly is. And thankfully, 0.53

00:33:18.500 she's not at Foreign Affairs, but she was replaced by Anita Anand, who, you know, isn't that much

00:33:24.080 different from Melanie Jolie on this issue. Do you get a sense on where Carney sits on Israel,

00:33:30.020 on the Middle East, on Hamas? Ginny?

00:33:32.560 I think Warren would know better than I. My sense is that he doesn't feel strongly enough

00:33:40.220 about a pro-Israel or even anti-anti-Israel position to fight for it in caucus or cabinet.

00:33:51.840 And so in the politics of building a coalition and a foreign policy that is in line with your

00:34:00.340 electoral coalition, he is totally beholden to that which dominates his coalition, which is an

00:34:05.840 anti-Israel view. And from my perspective, as someone who's really pro-Israel, to me, that's the

00:34:11.760 same thing as being part of the Hamas caucus, because you end up with the same result. And I 0.75

00:34:15.680 think our foreign policy will change. It already is changing. So it's really disappointing. And I

00:34:21.220 think Carney's a principled guy on a lot of issues. I'm not sure why he's not principled on this one.

00:34:25.180 Um, but it's, it's upsetting.

00:34:28.400 Gorn?

00:34:30.180 Uh, I do spend a lot of time, as you guys know, um, pondering this question, um, cause it's

00:34:36.880 important to me as an Irish Catholic Zionist. Um, he says a lot of the right things, you know,

00:34:43.300 on hostages. He's made clear that the hostages need to come home. He has said that Hamas may,

00:34:50.260 needs to be out of power. He has said that Gaza needs to be demilitarized. That's all good. 1.00

00:34:57.740 He has not yet recognized a Palestinian state, despite, you know, the movement of other countries

00:35:03.880 in the world, Ireland and so on to do so. He has not embraced an arms embargo against Israel to the

00:35:10.820 degree that people like Jolie would like him to. So, you know, it's not bad, you know, but

00:35:17.000 Izzy is fulsome a supporter of the state of Israel as let's say Donald Trump is. He is not.

00:35:24.180 My suspicion is, you know, and we've all seen it in the polling as the war has gone on, as wars

00:35:31.000 always do, they become unpopular. They're easier to get into than they are to get out of. And Netanyahu

00:35:37.340 is a terrible communicator. I think he has been in power too long and he turns off people, not just in

00:35:43.800 Israel, but around the world. So he creates a dilemma for guys like Carney. I think if there

00:35:49.640 was a different prime minister in Israel, you know, he would be more fulsome in his support for

00:35:57.180 the state of Israel, but it's problematic. The one thing I think that is important that he does 1.00

00:36:01.900 as a personal and political statement that he's not yet done. And when I was in Israel just a few

00:36:08.500 weeks ago, this got mentioned to me many times, he has not been to Israel since October 7th. Trudeau

00:36:14.160 was the only world leader of significance, the only G7 leader who did not go to Israel after October

00:36:20.540 7th. The only one. Carney is now the second. And I think Carney needs to pack up his little kit bag,

00:36:28.140 get on his plane and get over to Israel and indicate his position on those things that I've outlined.

00:36:34.100 And he hasn't done that yet. I got some good restaurant recommendations for him in Tel Aviv,

00:36:39.040 if he goes. Let's, uh, let's shift to, uh, Pierre Polyev. Um, you know, some conservatives

00:36:47.240 nodding in agreement with me, some upset at me after writing from Stampede about what I was hearing,

00:36:54.420 which was a lot of griping. Um, and the griping had changed immediately after the election. I was hearing

00:37:01.560 griping about Doug Ford, about Corey tonight, about Jenny Byrne. Uh, what surprised me was hearing

00:37:07.560 from Western Canadian conservatives, people who've sat on EDA boards, who have been fundraisers for

00:37:13.560 the party organizers, you know, done the hard work that both of, you know, needs to be done in a

00:37:19.820 campaign. Um, these aren't keyboard warriors. And they were griping about Pierre this time,

00:37:26.720 not about the others. Um, that came as a bit of a shock to me. And I think they saw it on my face,

00:37:33.020 uh, the various people that were, were saying it to me. And so the message that I was hearing,

00:37:38.600 Jenny, is that either the leader needs to change what he's doing or the leader needs to be changed.

00:37:44.500 There, there wasn't a consensus. Uh, you know, uh, I spoke to Pierre briefly about this during the

00:37:51.320 week, as I noted in my columns, but, you know, are you hearing that same sort of griping and are you

00:37:58.420 seeing the kind of changes that need to happen from the leader's office? Um, so I think I would say,

00:38:06.680 yes, people are griping because we lost and you gripe when you lose. Um,

00:38:14.740 but the, you know, there are two big tests for Paliyev, his by-election and his leadership

00:38:22.120 review. I think the fundamentals and effects on the ground are such that he will do well in both.

00:38:28.340 That doesn't mean, um, he's, it's smooth sailing. Like, I think the much harder job comes after,

00:38:33.040 um, those two things, which is he has to find a way to drive contrast with Mark Carney. And that's

00:38:40.060 really challenging because of what we talked about earlier. Um, so I, I've said this to, um,

00:38:48.100 Mr. Paliyev and, and I'll say it here. My, I think he has to focus on winning those two,

00:38:52.940 the by-election and the leadership review. And then I think he has to take what is his greatest

00:38:56.320 asset relative to Mark Carney. And he needs to spend time talking to regular Canadians across the

00:39:01.860 country. He needs to go on a tour. Um, and it needs to be a listening tour. And I don't mean a party

00:39:08.080 members, like an activists and the type of people that you talk to. I mean, I'm just like regular

00:39:11.760 people. Um, because I can tell you during the leadership campaign and then the sort of six

00:39:17.160 to eight months following when he was sort of rising in the polls and at his best, he had this

00:39:23.060 mechanism and it was this built in focus group, um, where he would do these rallies and then he

00:39:28.580 would do a photo line afterward. And it was hours of talking to people in these photo lines.

00:39:31.700 And he had the closest touch point to how people were struggling and about what, when car thefts

00:39:39.560 were going up, he knew it before anyone else was. When the carbon tax was hitting gas prices,

00:39:44.240 uh, a few summers ago, he knew it before it was being reported in the news. And it gave him a

00:39:49.080 massive advantage over Trudeau who was sort of stuck in the Ottawa bubble and totally out of touch with

00:39:53.380 how people were struggling or feeling. And, um, we're not, things are not as dire as they were when

00:39:59.320 when inflation was really high, but they're not great. Like people are not okay. And I think if

00:40:04.500 he can get back on that circuit and be in listening mode, like really be in, in sort of like, um, I

00:40:10.240 want to hear from you and I want to hear what's, what's up and what you're struggling with. That is

00:40:14.740 how he will figure out what are the issues I can drive contrast with against Carney. Um, and then he's

00:40:20.240 a politically skilled guy. Um, you know, once you have the substance, you can kind of get back to

00:40:25.280 building the narrative that he built a couple of years ago on a new issue set in a way that's

00:40:30.000 compelling. Uh, and that gets people excited again. Warren, one thing that, uh, probably have

00:40:34.840 said to me on the phone on Tuesday was that, um, he admitted that there's difficulty in going up

00:40:41.680 against Mark Carney, um, with how things are playing out right now. And, and then he made a good pop

00:40:47.740 culture reference. I know you always like those. Uh, he said, um, it's a bit like the Eminem song.

00:40:53.480 And will the real Slim Shady please stand up? He said, we don't know who the real Mark Carney

00:40:57.840 is. Cause the guy we're seeing now is very different than who we saw for years, who we

00:41:01.880 saw in his book values. And, and, and so that's, that's hard for him to go up against, but it

00:41:08.040 doesn't mean that the griping and the, the anger isn't there.

00:41:13.200 No, that's there. And, um, you know, like I, I put together in preparation for a discussion,

00:41:20.920 I love top 10 lists, you know, the reasons why I think the conservative party has to dump

00:41:28.520 their leader. Um, liberals desperately don't want that to happen. Um, and I know that there's

00:41:36.240 historical precedent, whether it's with Dalton McGinty, who I worked with or Stephen Harper,

00:41:41.860 you know, both those guys lost an election, but both those guys were qualitatively different

00:41:47.280 than Pierre Pollyann. And, you know, what happened here was Polly have lost his seat to a political

00:41:53.840 newbie. He got clobbered. He lost an election where he had nearly a 30 point lead for a long,

00:42:01.200 long time. Um, he alienated proven conservative winners like Doug Ford and Tim Houston. Um, and like,

00:42:11.460 so since the election, he hasn't acknowledged his errors, like with, you know, I read what you, um,

00:42:18.120 uh, wrote about him, Brian, with interest, like a lot of people did. He hasn't said, I screwed up.

00:42:24.140 You know, it took him days to phone the guy who beat him in, in hid the writing he'd held for 20

00:42:31.300 years, you know, and his numbers have gotten worse dramatically since the election, but the numbers

00:42:37.080 of the conservative party have not. Nanos has them down. Abacus has everything the same. And those

00:42:43.840 are the only two guys polling right now. The numbers of the conservative party are competitive

00:42:48.360 still, but Polly has numbers, even though he, he hasn't done anything that's meaningful or significant,

00:42:54.860 you know, gotten worse and women voters still don't like him. You know, he still got the Trump problem. 0.84

00:43:01.080 He's got people like Danielle Smith singing his praises and Smith is the most unpopular premier in the

00:43:06.240 country. Like he just has a whole ton of problems, but the most fundamental problem that he's gone

00:43:12.480 as somebody like, you know, like Jenny, you know, we advise politicians, we advise leaders. He is who he

00:43:20.600 is. The fundamentals of that man are not going to change how his stylistics and his manner and the way he

00:43:28.680 expresses themselves, all the things that lost him the election, they're not going to change before the

00:43:34.740 next election. He is who he is. And I think, um, conservatives are deluding themselves. And if

00:43:43.080 they think that there's some magic solution to this problem, there is not, their problem is Pierre

00:43:49.100 Polly. Warren and I haven't disagreed enough yet. So I'm going to jump in there. Um, I agree with

00:43:57.480 I disagree vociferously. So, um, first of all, Polly did better, um, than in terms of the number of Canadians

00:44:06.800 who voted for him than conservatives have done since, um, our 2011 majority government. We live in the first

00:44:13.040 past the post system and you have to win more seats. So that's why we lost and we did lose. Um, and, and I think

00:44:21.660 that's because of a lot, a lot of the characteristics that I agree, he probably won't change that much.

00:44:27.240 Um, a lot of those characteristics really, really worked for him. Um, he won a lot of votes from a

00:44:33.140 lot of voters and a lot of those voters. Um, I think there's a misapprehension on the part of the

00:44:39.100 general public that like there are, you know, a few thousand liberal conservative switchers and that's

00:44:43.840 what elections are fought over. Actually, they're not. Voting coalitions change all the time. A huge part of

00:44:49.640 the growth of Polyev's number, the conservative numbers came from non-voters, historic non-voters

00:44:54.480 and PPC voters. Like I think over a million people voted PPC in the previous election and basically all

00:45:01.720 those voters went to Polyev in this election. Um, so when you think about- And those had been a lot of

00:45:06.600 non-voters previously. That's right. That's right. Um, and, and you need to do that. The conservative

00:45:12.700 party cannot be successful in an election if it bleeds from the right. Um, or if it bleeds populist voters

00:45:18.020 or non-voters or however you want to describe them. Um, that is a huge consolidating that right

00:45:22.840 and pushing into the middle and getting the numbers poly of God is a huge accomplishment

00:45:26.880 that he now needs to build on. Now, are there some stylistic pieces that he can think about

00:45:31.980 that make him more appealing to some of those voters on the edge who might've gone to Kearney,

00:45:35.980 um, uh, in those sort of like six weeks of the election that might've been sitting with him before?

00:45:40.500 Sure. I think there was a lot of evidence in the English language debate that he's capable of that

00:45:44.980 kind of like personal moderation, by the way. Um, which I think he's sort of like handily won

00:45:50.560 in terms of the stylistic challenge of, of, um, presenting a more serious prime ministerial,

00:45:56.700 uh, demeanor. Um, and, and there's a lot of mistakes that were made that can be fixed.

00:46:02.540 Uh, we could nominate more candidates faster. Um, we could put more caucus members in the window.

00:46:07.840 Um, you know, we really only heard from him. We didn't hear from him some of his star caucus

00:46:10.760 members. He didn't really give people an impression of what kind of cabinet he'd form if he became

00:46:14.320 prime minister. There are a lot of things that I would critique with the election and that I think

00:46:18.200 he's doing a self critique on as we speak. Um, but his, like his drive, his ability to connect with

00:46:25.200 young men, um, many of whom have never voted before and get them out, um, make them conservatives,

00:46:31.240 uh, for the first time in their life. All of this is just such a strong endorsement of why she needs

00:46:35.680 to stick around. Let me ask you about this part. And that is the, the part that saw

00:46:42.520 Polyev and those around him freeze out Doug Ford, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Tim Houston,

00:46:51.020 Peter McKay, anyone that wasn't their team. There was that, no, we don't need to, to talk to you or

00:46:56.540 deal with you. And when I wrote about the griping that I was hearing in Calgary, and by the way,

00:47:01.680 some of these people worked on, you know, for the conservatives in the last election campaign,

00:47:05.980 but are really angry about how it happened. I'd get, well, they're not real conservatives.

00:47:10.220 They're Doug Ford conservatives while you're in Calgary. So the Calgarians are not real 0.98

00:47:14.280 conservatives. You've got this, you're not a real conservative test happening within the party.

00:47:19.720 And I love to say it. Politics is about addition, not subtraction. They added a lot of votes. That's

00:47:25.140 great. But if you start saying. You probably have one more votes, voters in Ontario that Doug Ford did.

00:47:30.320 Yeah. But fewer seats. But you know, if you've, if you constantly try and push people away,

00:47:35.900 not going to win. Like they've got to open up the tent in a way, and to some degree did, but also

00:47:42.980 excluded people. And I think that hadn't excluded a lot of people that it may have been a different

00:47:48.140 outcome. Can, can they fix that part? Yeah, I think, I think you're, yeah, look, he, he opened up

00:47:54.360 the tent to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new voters and grew the party in that way. There are a

00:48:00.100 lot of establishment fingers who felt left out. And I think, I think there's something to that

00:48:05.620 critique that, look, when you get to this level of test, and a federal election and a national

00:48:13.020 election that's going to make you prime minister, you suck it up and pick up the phone, and you try

00:48:16.800 to make more friends and fewer enemies. And there's something to be said for that. And it's probably

00:48:21.980 something that Polyev, who thrives in opposition, who is a fighter, who is the kind of guy who wants

00:48:29.300 to step on his opponent's neck and take no prisoners, needs to moderate in himself. And, you know, you saw

00:48:37.140 that he'd be called, he called Ford in the weeks following the election. And I think, I think that is

00:48:44.120 something that he needs to sort of take, take to heart and take under consideration.

00:48:47.640 Oh, yeah. I'll, I'll start with you, Warren, then to Jenny, and this is the last point,

00:48:51.340 a path forward for the conservatives. If Mark Carney keeps stealing their ideas and their rhetoric,

00:48:56.580 even if he only goes halfway, a lot of voters will look at it and say, oh, well, he's doing something.

00:49:01.560 So if Carney stays on this path that he's talked about over the last week or so,

00:49:07.280 is there a path forward for the conservatives?

00:49:09.900 It crowds out this space. No, you're absolutely right. You know, it, it just steals a lot of

00:49:16.500 Pierre Poliev's oxygen and that, uh, for his party. And, uh, I presume that's part of the

00:49:22.900 reason why he's doing it. Part of the reason why he's doing it is he believes it's right for the

00:49:26.300 country. You know, I happened to work for a guy who did the same thing. You know, we got, uh,

00:49:32.480 when I worked for Mr. Kretzian, we got accused of being communists and, you know, Kim Campbell ran ads

00:49:38.620 showing money being dumped out of a dump truck and so on. And then we got into government and people saw

00:49:44.480 what we believed, which is we needed to rein in spending and we need to cut back on program spending

00:49:50.160 and we needed to make some very tough decisions. And we, you know, released a year in the toughest

00:49:56.000 budget in Canadian history in our lifetimes. So I think Carney learned from that experience and that

00:50:03.220 creates precious little room for a guy like Pierre Poliev or Carolyn Mulroney, if she's the successor

00:50:09.040 or Jason Kenney or whoever is coming next. Cause I think, you know, I don't see that there is a

00:50:15.060 tenable way forward for Poliev. And the proof of that, by the way, it's just, I was thinking about

00:50:20.600 this when, uh, Ginny was speaking, if the conservative party and Poliev staff really believed

00:50:27.180 that he was a winner and he could pull this off in a second round, they would not have sent him out

00:50:32.840 to an Alberta riding where a blue fence post could win. They would have sent him in to an Ontario

00:50:39.520 riding to say to the party and say to the country, he can win, right? He can win in the center of the

00:50:45.260 country where it counts. And they didn't do that. They chickened out. And I think that's them showing

00:50:50.620 with their own behavior, uh, perhaps inadvertently that they know at the end of the day, Pierre 0.78

00:50:56.620 Poliev is a loser and he's not going to win next time against Mark Carney. 0.87

00:51:01.000 Okay. Some final disagreement from Jenny. Um, I think Poliev will be the leader going into the 0.99

00:51:06.880 next election. Um, and I think a few things will happen. Um, Carney won't be able to deliver on a lot

00:51:13.840 of the high expectations he set, whether it's on Canada, U S relations, getting major projects

00:51:18.040 built, getting shovels in the ground, um, uh, affordability. Uh, people are really still struggling

00:51:23.940 like inflation's down, but prices are still up. Um, I think I didn't, we're going to struggle with

00:51:28.640 unemployment, um, starting with young people. And I think that could get worse, uh, if the trade

00:51:32.980 fight continues. So just the, the, the situation in the economy will get worse and there'll be a

00:51:37.340 lot of room to critique him on the things he's trying to do. And perhaps more importantly than

00:51:41.480 that, there are some areas that he paid lift service to in the election and the one or two weeks

00:51:47.020 following because he knew voters cared about them that he could give a fig about now. It's just obvious

00:51:52.680 they have no, no interest to him. I think one is immigration. Um, Canadians are still really, 1.00

00:51:59.100 really, really pissed off about immigration to the point that they want like net, net negative

00:52:03.240 migration. Um, and I think Polly, or I think Carney is weak on that because he's so pro-business that

00:52:08.700 he wants just like an endless supply of, of new labor for them. Um, so that's one area. I think crime

00:52:14.240 is another huge area, Brian. I know you focus on this a lot and you see it the same way that I do.

00:52:18.280 The disorder stuff is still really bad and people like live it every day. Um, it's something that

00:52:23.760 he paid liver lip service to it, bail reform in the election. And he's not, we have not heard a

00:52:27.680 peep from him since. Um, there, so there's some, there's some really big categorical policy areas that

00:52:33.380 he has no interest in and that his political masters will have to force him to talk about. And

00:52:37.540 Polly of needs to focus on those areas as, as he waits for Carney to screw up on some of the other

00:52:43.400 big stuff. Jenny Roth, Warren Kinsella. Thanks for the great conversation.

00:52:47.360 Thank you. Thanks guys. Full comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly,

00:52:52.500 your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru. Theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the

00:52:58.380 executive producer. Please remember to hit the subscribe button on Amazon, Apple, Spotify,

00:53:03.180 wherever you get your podcasts. Help us out by leaving us a rating or a review. Thanks for

00:53:08.360 listening. Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:53:10.420 Here's that clip from Canada did what? I promised you. 0.67

00:53:21.940 Imagine yourself inside a Boeing 767 operated by Air Canada. It's July, 1983. You're traveling

00:53:30.460 between Montreal and Edmonton and a couple hours into the flight, the comforting roar of its two jet

00:53:36.100 engines suddenly stop and most of the power cuts out. Good evening. It was a metric mix-up. Air Canada

00:53:43.560 has confirmed the plane that landed at Gimli, Manitoba last Saturday ran out of gas because of

00:53:49.660 an error in metric conversion. I regret to inform you that you're inside the Gimli glider, one of

00:53:55.980 history's only incidents of a civilian airliner running out of gas in the middle of the sky.

00:54:01.740 And this happened because someone didn't know how to properly measure out enough jet fuel.

00:54:07.940 Now, I mentioned the Gimli glider only to note that systems of measure are not just numbers on a

00:54:13.100 page. They're cultural objects. They might not be on par with language or religion, but they're ways

00:54:19.920 of understanding the world around us. And if you screw with them, even with the best of intentions,

00:54:25.920 you might get the occasional airliner falling out of the sky.

00:54:28.940 Fortunately, in this instance, it miraculously worked out fine. The pilots in control of this

00:54:35.920 particular Air Canada flight just happened to be two of the only people on earth perfectly suited

00:54:41.660 to safely bring down a crippled full-size airliner in the middle of Manitoba. One of them was an

00:54:48.500 experienced glider pilot. The other one was a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who just happened

00:54:54.720 to have served at a Manitoba airbase that was now directly underneath them.

00:55:01.100 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?

00:55:06.380 Everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - July 14, 2025

We have no idea what our federal leaders stand for anymore

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