We have no idea what our federal leaders stand for anymore
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Summary
Ginny Roth and Warren Kinsella join me to talk about what's going on in Canadian politics right now, and why we should all be worried about Donald Trump's new trade deal with Mexico and the United States.
Transcript
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Mark Carney doesn't know whether to put his elbows up or down.
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He's promising spending cuts and staffing cuts at the federal government level, though.
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And, well, griping about Pierre Polyev at the Calgary Stampede.
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Nothing is boring in Canadian politics these days.
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Today, a sit-down with two wise politicos, people who have worked on campaigns across the country,
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She is a former assistant at the Ontario Legislature, Queen's Park,
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and has worked at campaigns at the national level with the Federal Conservative Party
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Warren Kinsella is a pundit, a columnist with the Toronto Sun.
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He hosts the Kinsella cast and is founder of the Daisy Group.
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He also, once upon a time, worked for Jean Chrétien.
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And while he wasn't a fan of the Trudeau guys, still kind of a liberal.
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We sat down to have a discussion about where things are in Canadian politics,
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what the future looks like for Carney and for Polyev.
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Okay, Ginny, Warren, I guess we have to start with letters,
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because world leaders are getting letters, or they're at least seeing letters posted to Truth Social.
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Your reaction to Trump late on a Thursday night, I think it was after 8 p.m.
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It's not super late, but late in, you know, the world of diplomacy.
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you're not doing enough on fentanyl, you stink on dairy,
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don't dare retaliate to my 35% tariffs, or I'll hit you even harder.
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Well, I think this would have been surprising, you know, in January or something,
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but now we're all kind of used to this, like it's just par for the course.
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And I think it's all part of Trump's negotiation and his negotiating style.
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Like, he likes to play hardball and see how much he can get away with.
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I think in the early days of the to and fro, we did overreact.
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And I think all we can do now is continue the negotiations in the background.
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I'm hopeful that some of the stuff that I'm opposed to on domestic grounds,
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like the digital sales tax that we took off the table,
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that this might be some excuse to drop some, you know, supply management,
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And we have to accept that that market is 10 times the size of ours,
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You know, the impact of Canada's exports to the United States is about 19% of our GDP.
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The impact of American exports to Canada is 1.7% of theirs.
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So, Warren, you've had many thoughts online on X about Donald Trump's letters.
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I believe that Donald Trump is doing what he said he was going to do.
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Donald Trump, in his inaugural speech in January, said he was going to do this.
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And then 10 days later, he did it to Canada and Mexico with this bullshit fentanyl claim
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in order to, you know, step outside the terms of the USMCA.
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So, he's doing what he's always said he was going to do.
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I, you know, and I don't think any of us should be surprised by that.
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I don't understand why he believes that Donald Trump is going to change his position
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or change his behavior or change his strategy or approach.
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And Carney seems to be clinging to this belief that he can somehow magically transform Trump's
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approach, Trump's attitude, and craft a new deal that will be respected until the end of time.
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I think it's a waste of time to try and do a new deal.
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Do you say that we just shouldn't be negotiating with them at all?
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The Kuzma, USMCA, whatever you want to call it, has to be renegotiated.
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You're saying we shouldn't be talking to them for a deal at all?
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Because it came with a clause that says next year, it's up for review.
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We can send a junior assistant in there and to negotiate it.
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But, I mean, like in the middle of it, he, you know, he's screwing around again.
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If the only, you know, I've got to call him about this in post media this weekend, as you
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know, Brian, the only thing I'll allow for here is a slightly Machiavellian move by the
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prime minister to basically run out the clock and just basically do what you've described
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And meanwhile, devote himself to crafting deals with Europe and Asia and so on.
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He doesn't expect to have a deal with the Americans, but he's giving us every indication
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I was reporting before the G7 that we were close on having one and then things fell apart.
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And, you know, what I'm hearing is that Ambassador Hillman, who, you know, is widely regarded and
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well-respected, but that she's part of the problem because when the Americans want this
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50,000 foot level deal, she wants to negotiate the details.
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So, you know, I've described it as like sending in the accounting department to close a sale.
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You don't send in the accounting team to get someone to sign that they're going to buy the
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What's your view on how things are taking shape and how Carney is handling Trump?
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Because, you know, the digital services tax, his handling of that, in my view, was just
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You alluded to Starmer's deal, which I think they call a framework agreement or something
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That, to my mind, is what Carney should be going for, both from both in terms of what
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is good for Canada and also what he needs to do politically.
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Yeah, and let's not forget this guy, like, Starmer was not elected with a mandate to deal
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I mean, that became the question of our election.
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That was the ballot question for every voter that voted for Carney, certainly in the Liberals.
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And a framework agreement seems way more viable and accessible to me than renegotiating, you
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know, and dotting the I's and crossing the T's on a new Kuzma.
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He's made a lot of deals in his life, which is why they got off on an OK foot, he and
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And the other thing that I'm critical of when it comes to Carney and his politics is these
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Like, as you said, you reported at their at their based on their leaks and their sort
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of proactive pushing, I think, for with with a lot of people in the media that they were
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close to having a deal like they were telling people this and then it didn't work out.
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And they're doing that on so many fronts, whether it's major projects, defense spending,
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Like they they are not playing an expectation management game at all.
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And I worry for their sake, politically, that they won't live up to some of the I'm sure
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I'm, you know, given that might help the conservatives down the road if you can't deliver.
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But Warren, let me ask you about the Carney's handling of the digital services tax.
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I mean, this was the thing that liberals were telling me for weeks and weeks.
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You know, you talk to most people and they say that thing's got to go.
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And you talk to liberals and say, oh, we're holding on to that.
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And then the Friday before the tax is supposed to be implemented, the Americans say, can you
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give us a 30 day pause on this tax while we're negotiating?
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And then Sunday night at 10 p.m., we're going to rescind the tax and just walk away from
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That was not a negotiation from someone of Carney's caliber.
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I don't think it was a disaster because they hadn't started collecting revenue.
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The you know, they pulled the plug on the thing, as you know, just days before they were going
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I think it's significant for another reason, which is supply management, because in the same
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post that the president attacked the digital tax, he also attacked again, supply management
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and supply management is different than the digital tax.
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Supply management is part of the Canadian political catechism and is wholly writ in the
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And Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier can tell us all about that.
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So I think it's a precursor of what is going to come.
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It's easy to get rid of a digital tax when you haven't started collecting the revenue.
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Supply management's very different, especially when the House of Commons just before it recessed,
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unanimously just about passed a resolution from the block saying that the supply management
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Do you think, because my intelligence is the Americans don't want us to get rid of supply
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management, but they do want us to stop being jerks where we negotiate that, yes, you can
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sell us this much milk or this much cheese, and then we block them.
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I mean, you know, as much as I cheer for Canada, let's be honest, on the dairy front, we are
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absolute jerks, and every country in the world will tell you that when they try and negotiate a trade
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You know, I interviewed Martha Hall Finley, now at the School of Public Policy at the
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University of Calgary, when I was out for Stampede.
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She thinks, former Liberal MP, she thinks that we should get rid of supply management for
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ourselves and that there's a way to do it and to make farmers whole.
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My understanding is the Americans just want us to start living up to what we agree to in the
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trade agreements and allow a bit more of their product into our market.
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I don't think that's a bad thing, but if we, you know, to keep a few thousand Quebec dairy
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farmers happy, screw over the auto industry, the steel industry, aluminum, farmers in every
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Look, I know Conservatives, ideologically, philosophically, have problems with supply
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Well, I just cited the Liberal MP, and I've never called to get rid of it.
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But they've had multiple opportunities to get rid of it, and they've not done so.
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And in fact, Mr. Scheer won the leadership of the Conservative Party by saying that he would
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protect it. So I presume he did that for a reason. Like, I agree, I agree, it is interference
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in the marketplace. But, you know, you have to also agree that no agricultural sector is
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more interfered with in the world, well, except for the exception of China and Russia, than in
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the United States. The United States has protectionist policies with respect to farmers and agriculture
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that dwarfs ours. So, you know, it's, it's, we're not the only ones who have messed around
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with the marketplace here. The Americans, in my view, have always been worse. So it's like
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physician heal thyself. But anyway, I could be wrong. He may, he may look the other way on
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supply management. But based upon the way he's, you know, firing off these letters that are like
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mob shakedowns, I think that it's coming. I think it's going to hit. And I don't think
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Yeah. I will also just add, like, on the DST thing, I think a lot of what was going on is,
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my sense is, Kearney wanted to be Prime Minister. And in the election period, he said to his political
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advisors, tell me what I have to do to win this thing. And he just said what he told them to say.
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And that was elbows up, that was fighting Donald Trump, concede nothing, end the relationship
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with the US, maybe join the EU, you know, he said what he had to say. I don't think he ever believed
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any of that. I think he always was pragmatic about how he thought he ultimately would deal
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with Trump, which is try to get a deal, negotiate, be willing to give some stuff up. Don't go too far.
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But, you know, and, and I think what he realized when he formed his cabinet is a lot of those MPs and
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those cabinet ministers believed what he said in the election. And they wanted that too, right? Like,
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Chrystia Freeland staked a lot of her career on the DST and fought for it, you know, to no end.
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Stephen Gilboa, like on, on supply management. Sure. Yeah. And it played a big role in the
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leadership race for Andrew Scheer, but that's ancient history. Carney's government runs through Quebec.
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Um, uh, and, and a lot of his senior advisors are now very politically sensitive Quebec political
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leaders. Um, and so where, how Carney's like pragmatic run this thing, like a business runs
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up against the politics, uh, and the political ramifications, even within his own caucus.
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I think he's grappling with that every day and it remains to be seen what, what side he's
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going to fall on. Okay. Let me, uh, use this as a good point to pivot and say overall, how do each
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of you think Carney's doing so far? I, you know, Warren and I talk regularly and he's said a few
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times that Carney's looking like he governs like a conservative and Jenny, I've been saying, no,
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that's not the case. And then, uh, yesterday or the other day had to have a column in the sun
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saying, well, look, he's saying he's going to cut program spending by 7.5, then 10%, then 15%.
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That's pretty massive. He's talking about cutting regulations in a very positive way, saying this
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will help the economy. He's talking about, uh, cutting staffing levels saying, Hmm, the conservatives
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didn't even go that far in the last campaign. Uh, you know, so maybe, maybe he is in some respects,
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I'll say that, uh, governing like a conservative. How do you rate how Carney's been doing himself?
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Just, just him so far. And then we'll talk about his advisors and the PMO and all that. Is he doing
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okay? Is he doing badly? Is he just saying the right things, but not delivering yet?
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Um, I think he's doing well. I don't think you can argue with that. He's sort of on a bunch of
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objective metrics. He's, he's doing well. Um, part of that is what we have to compare him to is such a
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low bar. Um, just the level of functioning of the previous government was so low, their ability to
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just do basic things, forget even what those things were, just their ability to do them,
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um, was so low that to just show up to the office and get things done feels like this massive
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accomplishment for Canadians because it's been 10 years of them getting used to worse and worse
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and worse outcomes and less and less and less action. Um, he also has the appearance of someone
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who's getting things done. He speaks relatively plainly. He seems very serious. He seems decisive.
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Um, he's got the things he's announcing. He, yes, he, he also, from a positioning perspective on a
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number of issues is taking this, you know, call it business liberal, call it red Tory centrist approach,
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moderate approach to, um, uh, certain versions of smaller government and much, much more than that.
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Um, uh, growth, like supply side growth, um, particularly when it comes to major projects
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and infrastructure and, and he's paying a lot of lip service to that. There are lots of ways in
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which he is not a conservative. I saw a poll on a bunch of issues. Like he's not, he paid a bit of
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lip service to, to crime, um, and immigration and that sort of, some of those more culturally conservative
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issues early on. And he, they've totally fallen by the wayside. Like, I think they're just of no
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interest to him. Um, and, and for me, that's a big part of why he's not, I'm not a conservative.
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He also, I think his view is that debt is cheap. Our debt to GDP ratio is okay. And he will run
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massive, massive, massive death deficits that I think most conservatives would be really
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uncomfortable with, even if he finds some program savings just because of how he's much he's adding
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on defense and in other areas. Um, but you know, politically he's, he's doing pretty well.
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It's got a nice honeymoon period that, that, that, that built into that though, um, there's
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going to be some chickens that come home to roost. Like, uh, how much is he upsetting the
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left wing of his caucus? Like left wing MPs, progressive liberal MPs. Um, I think we're
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going to start to hear from them even before we hear from the NDP about how he's betrayed
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them in many ways. And then I think also regular Canadians who are still upset about crime and
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immigration and some of these other issues he doesn't seem to care about are going to
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start to have a bit of a voice as his honeymoon fits. Uh, Warren, you were a Kretchen liberal.
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I'm, I'm, I'm thinking. I still am. I think most people would, uh, acknowledge that you were
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not a Trudeau liberal. How are you feeling about the Carney liberals? Uh, you know, well,
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listen to what Jenny just said, you know, like he's reaching across the aisle, you know,
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I'm hearing all the time. And I know the two of you are too conservative saying, wow,
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you know, this is not bad, man. Is this ever different than Trudeau? You know, you go through
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the list, um, capital gains. Uh, so he threw that one out carbon tax. First thing he did
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defense spending program, spending cuts to programs, the staff hires, he's doing, he's hiring serious
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people. Um, like all of it, you know, his positioning on everything from defense to budgets
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is that of a progressive conservative, you know, he, this is a guy who you could very easily seeing
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being comfortable within a Brian Moroney cabinet and maybe even a Stephen Harper cabinet. Maybe
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that's why Harper kept him around as governor of the bank of Canada and had him play such a central
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role in the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009. I think he's a progressive conservative. He's a blue,
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blue, uh, grid. He does do this pro forma stuff about the environment and social programs. Um,
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but you know, really at the end of the day, if you look at C5, C5 is a dramatic historic piece of
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legislation that basically says, you know, I'm, I'm reducing this to its base elements. We kind of
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don't give a shit about the environment anymore. We want to do resource extraction and we're going
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to get our resources to market. That's what C5 says. And that's why environmental groups across the
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country are as pissed off as they are. So, um, he, are they really though? Because, and I'd like to get
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comments from, well, okay. If this was Doug Ford, um, here in Ontario or Pierre Polyev, if he'd won
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the election, there'd be court challenges already. Yeah. Um, but I think there still will be Brian.
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You think there will be? There will be. Because they made zero noise. They made zero noise when the
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carbon tax was killed. Because the NDP is so weak right now, there's no voice for the activist left in
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parliament. Um, but they're, they're, they're, they're getting louder. And like, you know, we've
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given, I've given a lot of credit to Carney. So now I will make the counterpoint, which is he can say all
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he wants about the fact that he'll probably have a pipeline in his list of major projects and how much
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C5 is going to do to get things done quickly. But he has to actually do it. And, you know, in our
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country, if, if David Emead does not want a pipeline going through BC, there ain't going to be one. Um,
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if First Nations, even though Confederation should actually take care of that. Yeah. But I guess my
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point is like, politics is hard. Federalism is hard. Um, and, and because he's in this honeymoon
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period, he really hasn't had to run up against, there will be court challenges and he will probably
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lose. Um, so whether it's First Nations, environmental groups, um, premiers that oppose, uh, that,
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that like love interprovincial trade and major projects when it's not in their backyard, but hate
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it when it's one of their protected industries or runs through their province, all these, all these
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problems are sort of delayed right now because of the halo effect of Carney's honeymoon popularity.
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And I think those will run up against, um, he's going to run up against the cold hard reality of,
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um, the fact that he can't legislate past those first of all, and then the political reality that
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Nader's Ken Smith and Karina Gould and a whole bunch of other, frankly, members of his cabinet,
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not just caucus are going to feel really, really, really uncomfortable with his attempts to fight
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those things. And they're going to start to get louder about it. So let, let me throw this at you
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on, on that file is that at Stampede, I was told of a meeting that he had with energy industry executives
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and they were asking him questions about C5 and how far he will go. And at some point he just said
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to them and Warren, you'll appreciate this as a Calgarian of, of some sort. Um, you know, he looks
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at the oil executives in the room and he says, well, hold on, I still have a cabinet and a caucus to
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manage and they don't like this. And Stephen Guibo is not going to like some of what he's going to be
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doing. For sure. For sure. I think he's going to have issues with liberal MPs. No, I don't.
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Nader's Ken Smith is leaving. He's wants to be leader of the Ontario liberal party. He is busily
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at work undermining Bonnie Crombie as we speak. Why on earth? Karina Gould. I know who wants that job?
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Karina Gould is out of cabinet. Like this guy signaled from the earliest moment, once he won the
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leadership, if you are on, you know, if you have an ideological disposition, like Justin Trudeau's,
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I don't want you around. Like, you know, where's Katie Telford? Where's, where's Brian Clow? All
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these people have disappeared and I don't think they've disappeared for no reason. I think he wanted
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to send a signal by bringing in Sabia and bringing in Blanchard and these other people is this is a
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different government. You know, he said it repeatedly during the election campaign. I am not Justin Trudeau.
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And, you know, Poliev had that ridiculous line at the start, just like Justin. It could not have been
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less true. And it's become less true with each passing day. This guy is not like Justin Trudeau in
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the way he structured his government, the decisions he's making, the legislation that he's jammed through.
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He is decidedly different. And like on the point about the court challenges, just putting on my lawyer's
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hat, I don't agree that he's going to be unsuccessful in the inevitable court challenges.
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You know, this is parliament speaking immediately after an election campaign. The one thing I know
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about judges is they will, you know, they'll do an analysis under the charter and they'll overturn
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legislation if they have to, but overturning legislation that was specifically mandated during
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an election campaign, but this guy won. That's something judges will think twice about overturning.
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So I think he, I think he's going to be good. Yes. Or Brian Hartford.
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No, you're, you're, you're, you're talking about, you're saying this as just as Paul Shabbos
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is still mulling over his ruling on why the Ford government, which ran on getting rid of bike
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lanes, can't get rid of bike lanes despite a clear promise in the election to do so. And then
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legislation passed by the legislature. Um, if you, if you get a good, we can't help ourselves.
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If you get a good activist judge, uh, like Paul Shabbos, um, then yeah, you're, you're going
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to get the right, uh, the right outcome or the left outcome. Um, I, I'm willing to bet the
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both of you right now that Bill C-5 is not going to be overturned by the courts that count.
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All right. There's another lunch at the patrician. Um, let's, let's take a pause now. And when
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we come back, I want to pick up on something that you mentioned earlier, Jenny, and that's
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about, uh, the Quebec centric nature of the government and the PMO. Back in moments.
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Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?
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And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous
00:25:47.600
monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it.
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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
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
00:30:48.300
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
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,
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,
00:33:32.560
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
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.
00:34:30.180
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.
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
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.
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
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,
00:49:09.900
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
00:50:56.620
Poliev is a loser and he's not going to win next time against Mark Carney.
00:51:01.000
Okay. Some final disagreement from Jenny. Um, I think Poliev will be the leader going into the
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,
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,
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wherever you get your podcasts. Help us out by leaving us a rating or a review. Thanks for
00:53:10.420
Here's that clip from Canada did what? I promised you.
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?