John Bolton - January 29, 2026


Is Pierre Poilievre a lost cause？ I know someone who can beat Carney


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

183.78712

Word count

1,782

Sentence count

148

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Is Pierre Polyev a lost cause as the next Conservative Party Leader? Is he a candidate to lead the Tories in the next election, or is there someone else who can do the job better than Polyev.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 At 4 o'clock this morning, I got a calendar reminder, and it got me thinking, is Pierre Polyev a lost cause?
00:00:11.920 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel, 4.56 a.m. It is Thursday, January the 29th.
00:00:17.120 Hope you're having a great start to your Thursday morning with the big blue mug of coffee, of course.
00:00:21.440 And I did have a calendar reminder pop up this morning. It's at 4 o'clock.
00:00:25.160 It said, Pierre Polyev's leadership review. And some of you may remember I made a prediction that I thought another conservative would walk across the aisle just prior to the conservatives being in Calgary and Polyev's leadership review, which happens this weekend.
00:00:41.440 I said I would mention it on January 29th, whether I was right or wrong, and I guess I'm wrong.
00:00:46.520 But then again, folks, I mean, a day is a whole year in politics. We've still got 36 hours before Polyev does his speech on Friday night, so we'll just have to wait and see.
00:01:00.020 So I'm wondering, do you think Pierre Polyev is a lost cause as the leader of the Conservative Party?
00:01:07.840 I like Pierre Polyev. Don't get me wrong. I think he's a good family man. I think he's a great communicator.
00:01:12.460 I think he would be a great prime minister, but I think he may be the greatest prime minister Canada never has. I've said that before.
00:01:18.960 But is he a lost cause? And who, right now, in the Conservative Party, should he not get favorable support this weekend?
00:01:26.100 Who would lead the Conservatives in the next election, which might happen very quickly, who would lead them to victory? Is there anybody?
00:01:33.200 Think outside the Conservative Party. My wife was awake this morning, and I asked her, and she said, there's one man in the country that could beat Mark Carney.
00:01:44.940 She doesn't think Polyev can.
00:01:48.160 My wife is a very smart person, and she came up with one person. I'm going to reveal that person at the end. Think about it.
00:01:54.660 Who would you put your trust in to vote for, even if he was the interim leader of the Conservative Party?
00:02:02.300 There might be one after this weekend if Polyev doesn't get enough votes. Who would you trust?
00:02:07.760 It's fascinating. I don't think it would ever happen. I think it's highly unlikely, but I would vote for this guy.
00:02:15.000 Okay, so I say good luck to Pierre Polyev. I also think Polyev is a bit of a...
00:02:18.660 Well, he looks at Alberta as a place of convenience. Lost his seat. I've said this. Lost his seat in Carlton to Bruce Fanjoy, the Liberal.
00:02:26.660 Comes to Alberta. Wins a seat in Battle River Crowfoot. Now says he won't run here again because he'd rather run in Ontario.
00:02:33.700 And I think that's where he'll run again. He's not saying where he's running, but it won't be in Alberta.
00:02:37.580 I think Conservatives as well think that Alberta is a place of convenience for them because they have so many seats here.
00:02:44.080 Look at this. All these seats. And why are they a party of convenience? And why do I think that way?
00:02:49.680 First off, I do not think that if we had a Conservative government in Ottawa, we would do much better here in Alberta.
00:02:56.100 I believe that. But whenever an election is called, the Conservatives think of Alberta as an afterthought.
00:03:03.440 We're easy votes for them. So they have to strategize to get votes in Ontario and Quebec.
00:03:08.060 So they have to kowtow to what Ontario and Quebec want. And they forget about us out here.
00:03:13.180 I also think Polyev and the Conservatives will be a threat to the independence movement.
00:03:17.160 A big threat because they can't afford to lose 36, 37 seats out here that they get every election.
00:03:23.000 They'll never be in power again if Alberta leaves. 1.00
00:03:25.880 So you'll find pure Polyev coming out. He will have to come out strong against the independence movement.
00:03:30.660 He'll have to come out strong for Canada.
00:03:32.780 He'll probably have his MPs from Alberta on the ground with boots on the ground fighting tooth and nail to keep Alberta in.
00:03:38.920 And so I see Polyev and the Conservative Party of Canada as a threat to the Alberta independence movement.
00:03:45.200 And we have to look at it this way.
00:03:47.260 There are some good articles online, a couple of them here, from Brian Lilly, talking about his big speech, how important this speech is going to be.
00:03:54.300 There's this one here as well.
00:03:56.120 This is from Stephanie Taylor.
00:03:58.060 She makes a good point here.
00:03:59.000 Polyev will face two very different audiences at his leadership review.
00:04:02.220 The first will be the people who can vote to keep him around or make him go away.
00:04:06.840 And the other is voters, because right now the Liberals are leading in a big way in a recent Leger poll.
00:04:13.120 47% voter support after Carney's Davos China trip, according to a Leger poll.
00:04:19.100 Let me bring that back up.
00:04:20.540 Because I want to read that subheading, Carney's gains appear to be entirely at the cost of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
00:04:27.500 Now, here's where I start to think a little bit differently than the previous articles from the Toronto Sun and the National Post.
00:04:33.900 And I'm going to go through my notes here, because I jotted these things down this morning, because it will make the video a little bit shorter.
00:04:39.180 It could go on forever.
00:04:40.520 So, the Liberals have got a big lead in the polls, as you see.
00:04:43.640 The baby boomers, according to the polls, still supporting the Liberals with their elbows up stuff. 1.00
00:04:49.040 Carney's Davos speech, very, very popular, because he was critical of Trump.
00:04:53.660 So, that was a big hit.
00:04:54.580 Trump's reaction, 100% tariffs on Canada, welcomed by Liberals. 1.00
00:04:59.060 The Liberals masterfully using Trump to their advantage.
00:05:02.740 And even some Conservative voters, according to the polls, say that they think Carney is doing a good job.
00:05:08.120 I do not, and you probably don't either.
00:05:10.180 Still thinking about the person who could run the Conservative Party?
00:05:13.020 I want to bring that up again.
00:05:14.160 You still thinking about that?
00:05:16.080 Keep thinking.
00:05:16.600 People seem to forget, and it wasn't mentioned in those two previous articles, in the Sun and in the National Post, that the NDP is without a leader right now and won't have one until the end of March.
00:05:30.500 So, they're vulnerable right now.
00:05:32.940 The Liberals are just, you know, shy of a majority.
00:05:35.620 They desperately want one, and there's talk of an election right now.
00:05:38.980 The Conservatives would destroy themselves if they urged Polyev to step down as leader, with a possible election looming.
00:05:45.560 So, they may limp into an election with a weakened leader, just as they need someone strong.
00:05:50.040 It all depends on this weekend's vote.
00:05:51.880 Now, Polyev isn't catching on with the people who voted Liberal on April the 28th.
00:05:56.320 This is what my wife said this morning, and she kind of looks at this from the outside.
00:06:00.220 His message has changed a bit, but I don't think they trust him to run the country.
00:06:05.040 Are you still thinking about the person they might trust?
00:06:08.480 I don't think boomers think he has solutions to problems and only complains. 0.99
00:06:12.740 He does have solutions, but they're not listening as the country spirals down.
00:06:16.600 Now, my wife said she thinks he's a little bit flippant.
00:06:19.640 She used the word crispy, and she was thinking of this.
00:06:24.020 On the topic, I mean, in terms of your sort of strategy currently, you're obviously taking the populist pathway.
00:06:33.920 What does that mean?
00:06:36.020 Well, appealing to people's more emotional levels, I would guess.
00:06:42.040 I mean, certainly you tap very strong ideological language quite frequently.
00:06:48.360 Like what?
00:06:48.720 You're sitting there thinking, we loved that.
00:06:52.080 It was fantastic.
00:06:53.200 I loved it too.
00:06:54.760 He's sticking it to the legacy media.
00:06:56.880 I used to work in the legacy media.
00:06:58.880 I loved this.
00:07:00.060 Joe Rogan talked about it.
00:07:01.400 This was talked about in Australia, around the world.
00:07:04.300 Look at the way this conservative leader is treating the mainstream media.
00:07:08.520 But is that the guy that baby boomers want to vote for? 0.90
00:07:13.440 I voted for him.
00:07:14.820 My wife voted for him.
00:07:16.280 We laughed and loved when he did that.
00:07:18.140 He took off his glasses.
00:07:19.740 He put on a t-shirt.
00:07:21.000 He looks like he works out.
00:07:22.520 But is he the guy that baby boomers want to vote for? 0.99
00:07:26.160 Or is this the guy, the central banker?
00:07:28.660 This is who they voted for.
00:07:32.440 Mark Carney.
00:07:33.880 He's not doing the job, but that's who they trust.
00:07:39.820 Is Pierre Pauly of a lost cause?
00:07:41.860 Are you still thinking about the person that could possibly lead the country?
00:07:45.040 Which I think is highly unlikely.
00:07:46.320 But my wife brought it up this morning.
00:07:48.320 And my wife has a different perspective. 1.00
00:07:50.140 She doesn't follow this all the time.
00:07:52.420 But she knows who she trusts.
00:07:54.920 Maybe they should recruit a guy like this.
00:07:58.300 Again, highly unlikely.
00:08:00.100 But would you vote for this guy again?
00:08:01.760 Can you imagine this guy going head-to-head with this guy?
00:08:11.040 I could.
00:08:12.400 Particularly when Carney took credit for bringing Canada out of the economic downturn in 2008.
00:08:20.140 When it was actually Stephen Harper and the late, great Jim Flaherty, who was finance minister at this time.
00:08:26.740 But don't you think that somebody like Stephen Harper of his stature could beat Mark Carney?
00:08:33.080 And I think he could do it even if he was the interim leader.
00:08:36.180 That's what my wife said this morning.
00:08:37.620 That's the kind of guy they need.
00:08:40.180 Highly unlikely.
00:08:41.120 But does the Conservative Party have anybody like that right now?
00:08:46.780 Is Polyev a lost cause? 0.99
00:08:49.580 It's going to be interesting to see what happens this weekend.
00:08:51.980 It really is.
00:08:53.080 Will he survive?
00:08:54.720 And will he get enough votes so that the mainstream media doesn't try to destroy him?
00:08:59.720 Look, he only got 75%.
00:09:01.480 He only got 70%.
00:09:03.080 Even his own caucus doesn't support him 100%.
00:09:06.120 He's got to get an overwhelming majority of the people to support him this weekend.
00:09:11.200 But can he win the next election?
00:09:14.320 I seem to think that we'll have another Liberal majority before the Conservatives are ever in power again.
00:09:20.760 That's just the way I'm seeing it.
00:09:22.000 They would win right now if an election were held.
00:09:25.680 I think that's obvious.
00:09:27.640 Let me know what you think in the comments.
00:09:29.760 Would you support Stephen Harper?
00:09:31.560 I would vote for him again.
00:09:33.520 Have yourself a great day.
00:09:34.560 If you liked the video, give it a thumbs up.
00:09:36.280 Subscribe to the channel.
00:09:37.240 Ring the bell for notifications.
00:09:38.960 I'll see you in the next one.
00:09:40.620 Recruit Stephen Harper.