Juno News - Are we witnessing the end of Trudeau？

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Rupa Subramania show. I'm Rupa Subramania.

00:00:21.160 Now, picture this. The conservatives are charging ahead, leading the pack by a whopping 10 points,

00:00:27.240 just as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is shuffling his cabinet. It's like a political roller coaster

00:00:33.880 that's leaving the liberals playing catch-up. But that's not the only twist in this tale.

00:00:39.460 What about Trudeau's approval ratings? Well, let's just say they're also taking a hit.

00:00:45.400 According to the latest national survey from Abacus Data, a mere 19% of Canadians polled are

00:00:52.360 giving him a nod for re-election. It's not exactly a standing ovation for the PM. If an election were

00:00:59.840 held today, the conservatives would be walking away with a solid 38% of the vote. That's a significant

00:01:07.280 jump of 4% since late June. And the liberals are trailing at 28%, down by a single percentage point

00:01:15.760 from the last poll. What about the NDP? Well, they seem to be holding their ground at 18%. But that's

00:01:22.700 a 2% dip from late June again. Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party are steady at 7% and 5%

00:01:31.420 respectively. And then there's the PPC, which is slightly dipping to 4%. But here's the plot twist

00:01:39.600 that's gotten everybody talking. The conservatives are basically rewriting the playbook, leading not

00:01:45.920 only among men, but also among women and younger voters. This is a seismic shift in political dynamics

00:01:54.380 that the liberals hadn't really anticipated. Would you believe that a whopping 32% of Canadian

00:02:01.080 women are now waving the conservative flag? That's more than those supporting the liberals 1.00

00:02:06.460 or the NDP. And of course, let's not forget the men. Their support for the conservatives remains

00:02:12.160 strong and steady. When it comes to younger voters, the numbers can be quite revealing.

00:02:18.760 According to the latest NANO's research poll, the conservatives are in the lead, and I mean

00:02:24.260 by a really wide margin. We're talking about a whopping 39.21% of voters aged 18 to 29. The liberals,

00:02:34.840 remember, used to be the cool kids on the block, but it looks like they're quickly losing popularity

00:02:40.840 points. They've dipped to a meager 15.97% with this crowd. And who's giving them a run for their

00:02:48.640 money? The NDP, of course, coming in second place with a strong 30.92% support. So there you have it,

00:02:56.240 a political drama unfolding before our eyes. The conservatives are seizing the moment,

00:03:01.360 Trudeau's facing some rough waters, and the numbers are painting a picture of change that's

00:03:07.480 rippling through the Canadian political landscape. Here to talk about the latest polls, I'm joined by

00:03:12.620 Brian Bruguay. He's an economics instructor at Langara College and the creator of the website

00:03:19.280 Too Close to Call, where he provides electoral analysis and projections. Brian, welcome to the show.

00:03:25.360 Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

00:03:27.360 Yeah, my pleasure. So let me start by asking you, Brian, you know, I've been looking at a bunch of

00:03:34.100 polls recently. The latest Abacus poll that I've seen indicates a significant lead for the

00:03:41.420 Conservative Party by 10 points over the liberals. How do you explain this notable shift in public

00:03:47.180 sentiment? Yeah, and so you mentioned Abacus, but you know, there is the Main Street one that had

00:03:52.800 essentially the same number. We've had nanos in the last few weeks where we had the liberals

00:03:58.440 trailing as well, right? I mean, so overall, you know, I prefer to use an average of polls than just

00:04:03.720 one because of margin of errors and, you know, sampling variations. But so we are in a situation

00:04:08.820 over the last four or five weeks where the Conservatives are clearly ahead of the liberals.

00:04:15.040 So I think, you know, it's always difficult to pin down one reason. And, you know, that's one of my

00:04:22.100 pet peeves where you see a lot of 20 seconds answer on CBC or CTV where they're like, this is it,

00:04:29.120 this is what happened. And sometimes pollster themselves, they will do so without having a

00:04:33.660 question. With that being said, I think we can still infer from the sporting, it's the cost of

00:04:40.740 living, really, that is like crushing Canadians or housing inflation. There is also the general

00:04:47.460 concept of, you know, we know that Canadians after eight, nine, 10 years, they tend to vote

00:04:53.640 out their government. So it's really difficult to last longer than this. And I think Trudeau is

00:04:59.140 approaching his expiry date or his past his expiry date. So, I mean, you know, when you look at

00:05:05.460 Francis Abacus has this long series of whether you have a favorable and unfavorable opinion of

00:05:10.640 of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the trend, you know, it's really, really clear. It

00:05:14.880 keeps like the gap for he is becoming more and more negative for for Justin Trudeau. And it goes

00:05:21.760 even beyond the last few weeks, right? It's a multi-year process where that might have been

00:05:27.880 stopped by COVID for a little bit. But overall, Canadians are just tired of this prime minister

00:05:33.580 this government. Yeah, that's, of course, bread and butter issues are what's dominating. That's my

00:05:41.020 sense as well. It is not the rise of the scary far right or the latest COVID variant that we're

00:05:47.720 constantly being told to be afraid of. It's also interesting, according to the same poll, that the

00:05:53.660 Conservative Party is now leading among women and, and all age groups, really, including those that who,

00:06:01.320 you know, found themselves traditionally aligned with the Liberals and the NDPs, such as younger

00:06:07.080 voters, for example. You know, what, what do you think is going on, you know, generally? I mean,

00:06:13.800 what, what messages do you think has resonated with, with these demographics, especially with younger

00:06:20.600 people? Yes. Okay. So, so before I insert just a small caveat, the Abacus poll was pretty clear,

00:06:28.040 you know, with a lead with women and a lead with young people and include, and boomers or 65 and

00:06:33.320 over. We're not in the situation yet where all the polls agree on this, right? For instance,

00:06:39.640 the recent Main Street still had, I think, the Liberals slightly ahead with women or tied, 1.00

00:06:45.080 and they were still leading with the 65 and over. So we have some, you know, different polls,

00:06:50.120 different methodologies. So we're not in a, I wouldn't go out and scream victory for probably ever

00:06:55.880 with those two groups yet. With that being said, if we go back to overall, we see a trend,

00:07:02.280 especially with young people, right? And this is a trend that we've seen. I don't want to say

00:07:07.480 partially in 2021, but as soon during the leadership race of the conservative, it, there was a really

00:07:13.400 big age gradient where Shari had the older voters and probably was much more popular with the younger

00:07:20.440 voters. There as well. I mean, you know, we kind of need to, polls are really bad at trying to tell

00:07:26.680 us why their numbers are the way they are, but I think we can guess relatively fairly that housing,

00:07:33.160 probably has been talking about housing and he almost has a de facto monopoly on this. If you think

00:07:38.600 about this in Kenyan politics, I mean, who else is talking about housing? Jackmeet Singh will mention it

00:07:44.760 once in a while with stupid ideas, such as we should, you know, subsidize mortgage holders. 0.99

00:07:50.920 Justin Trudeau two weeks ago said, I will be blunt. That's not my problem. You know, I mean, 1.00

00:07:56.280 in front of everybody. So yeah, we're in a world where probably have, has enjoyed a quasi-monopoly on

00:08:02.360 this issue and it doesn't matter. You know, I'm pretty sure most people don't even know his actual

00:08:07.480 policies, but they're like, this guy at least gets it. He understands that this is truly a crisis,

00:08:13.880 right? For, and there's an entire generation that is priced out and not only priced out,

00:08:19.160 I don't even think they have a dream of having a house anymore. They don't even think it will

00:08:23.640 ever be possible. So, so that's most likely the reason. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been,

00:08:29.560 even before Pierre Polly ever became a leader of the conservative party, when in fact it was when the

00:08:36.440 leader was Aaron O'Toole, I remember him talking about inflation, talking about affordability and,

00:08:43.480 and he was mocked. He was derided and he was told that he was, you know, just that this was

00:08:49.320 misinformation. Very few people actually believed him, but you know, those of us who have been

00:08:54.520 following him and have been following these issues knew that this was going to hit at some point.

00:09:00.360 And, and it, and lo and behold, that's exactly what ended up happening. Just to shift gears a little

00:09:07.240 bit, Brian, some, some people, including yours truly, you know, I've been critical of the Tories

00:09:12.440 for not, for basically remaining silent on, on the culture war issues, the social issues that animate

00:09:21.400 many, many conservatives, for example, the gender ideology stuff. That's, that's, it's a very important

00:09:27.880 aspect of the culture war right now. And Polly ever is really only strictly focused on the economics of,

00:09:38.760 on the economy and the affordability crisis and pointing to the ineptitude of the Trudeau government.

00:09:44.600 Do you think this strategy is working for him? Like, you know, do you think at some point he's gonna also

00:09:51.800 wade into the culture stuff? Because there's a sense that there's a sizable support for such,

00:10:00.200 you know, that, that, that, that the conservative party needs to step up to the plate and take a

00:10:04.840 position on these issues. Yeah, so we have seen even recently, right, where he did touch, for instance,

00:10:11.240 on the changing gender and pronouns in school, he didn't go too far, right, but basically saying,

00:10:17.400 you know, I believe parents should be involved or should be the one deciding. So, he's kind of like

00:10:22.120 trying to, I would say, you know, I will use the term that the left loves, like dog whistle, but he's

00:10:27.160 dog whistling, you know, to, to, to, to, to at least try to send us a message that he's with them, right,

00:10:32.680 but he doesn't want to be known or to campaign just on this. And, I mean, it makes, it makes sense to

00:10:39.080 some extent, right? I mean, the swing voters that parties are after, they usually don't care about, or they

00:10:44.920 don't care only about this, uh, cultural stuff. They, and especially nowadays with interest rate

00:10:49.400 at seven percent, you know, this is the main crisis, right? And so, I would point out to

00:10:54.280 Daniel Smith in Alberta, which, you know, was known for this cultural stuff where, uh, all the time,

00:11:01.800 and then she just spent four weeks campaigning in Calgary on bread and butter issues. And it worked. I

00:11:07.240 mean, it almost didn't work, but it did work. And if you look where she was a year ago, what that,

00:11:13.080 that's a pretty good success. So I think this is essentially the, the strategy they're trying to

00:11:18.440 do. So I do think that at some point they need to remember who the base is. And as much as you

00:11:25.160 want to swing voters, you also don't want to upset your base, right? You don't want to do every no tool

00:11:30.200 where you're literally telling some Albertans or people in Saskatchewan, oh, I literally don't want

00:11:35.480 your vote. You know, we want you to go down there. So it's going to be interesting. My theory about

00:11:41.320 quality has been that the one issue you will keep to satisfy the base on this would be

00:11:48.520 defending the CBC, which I think it's one of those issues where the people more motivated by culture

00:11:53.720 war stuff will be very happy. And polling shows that it might not upset other people that much.

00:12:00.520 They might not care, you know, that much, especially when they're paying 7% interest. So

00:12:04.680 that might be a good compromise without spending all your time talking about, you know, it's, it's,

00:12:09.880 it's tricky, right? I get it. Therefore, especially a Tory leader to go, you don't want to start

00:12:15.400 campaigning on LGBTQ rights and whatnot. That opens the door to a lot of kind of worms, really. 0.99

00:12:24.600 Let's turn to the Prime Minister's approval ratings, approval rating, and it's faced quite a considerable

00:12:32.760 decline, I believe. And I think according, again, according to the abacus data, 19% of Canadians

00:12:40.440 poll believe that he should be reelected. What exactly happened here? You know, I've written about

00:12:47.480 Justin Trudeau's popularity about a year and a half ago in the National Post, I looked at how

00:12:53.560 his popularity was actually declining before the pandemic. And then it really just shot up

00:13:02.040 in the middle of the pandemic, because I believe like he was seen as this leader who's going to take

00:13:07.480 us out of the pandemic and that sort of thing. What do you think has happened since then?

00:13:12.600 So, I do believe, and you rightly pointed out that his popularity was decreasing before COVID. And I

00:13:19.960 truly believe if you look at from 2015, if you look at the graph, it's really, it's going down. And

00:13:25.480 then COVID happened and it gave him a second life. But I think we're just essentially back to the,

00:13:31.960 you know, trend we would have been on if COVID never happened. I mean, that was always my,

00:13:36.920 you know, my personal theory as early as 2019, that he's going to go down the way of Kathleen Wynne,

00:13:42.760 maybe not as bad, but, you know, definitely going below 30%. And so COVID happened, there is the

00:13:49.000 rally around the flag, you know, we rally around the prime minister when there is a war or this type

00:13:54.760 of thing. So it gave him a second life. It cemented his support and approval with very specific

00:14:00.840 demographics, boomers or other people, very urban liberals, highly educated people who, you know,

00:14:08.920 talking about people who still nowadays think that we should still be wearing a mask. So I think, you

00:14:13.400 know, it has, that has increased its popularity among them, but it's just going away, right? I mean, and,

00:14:19.640 and, you know, we see, I really believe that to understand what is happening to Trudeau, we need to go back

00:14:24.920 to 2015 to 2019. 2015, he wins with almost 40% of the vote, so anyways, right, as he said it, he was

00:14:33.560 hugely popular, young, good looking, he was respectful, right? He was, remember when Trudeau was the one

00:14:39.800 saying, you know, don't insult conservative, they're your neighbors, we need, you know, they are our

00:14:44.120 fellow citizens. And then it quickly changed. And I think by 2019, we can already tell, we went from,

00:14:52.280 what, 30 to 30, 39 to 32. And then all of a sudden, his coalition changed. And his electoral

00:14:57.720 strategy changed to, I'm not trying to win a majority by seducing everybody from Alberta to,

00:15:03.960 you know, Vancouver, I'm just going to focus on the 30, 32% of people who are in the right

00:15:09.720 ridings. And it allows me to remain a prime minister. And then I think from there, it's just

00:15:15.800 a war of attrition, right? I mean, after this, you know, when you win one, two elections, like you did

00:15:20.680 based almost entirely on incredible vote efficiency. Well, it's a double edged sword,

00:15:26.200 right? And so now if you lose even one crisis at a time, if you lose one person, another one,

00:15:31.240 another one, then you end up where you are now, where you are 27, 28, 29%. And in terms of your

00:15:38.920 personal popularity, it's even worse than this, right? We now have, what we have a good about 10% of the

00:15:45.640 population that doesn't like Justin Trudeau, but they would vote for him either because they're

00:15:52.280 diehard liberals and it's partisanship, or they don't like the alternative. And I think over the

00:15:58.680 last few months, it has accelerated that he's losing these people because they just had enough.

00:16:04.200 And, and so this, and so now it's really back down to what I always called the true Anon core,

00:16:09.720 right? Where those diehard rabid partisans that will always love him. And you said 19%. Yeah,

00:16:16.680 that's essentially my estimate of true Anon or true deep Trudeau fans has always been between 12 and 15.

00:16:23.320 So 19, we're not that far from it. Yeah. And, and the conservative party has,

00:16:29.720 their support has increased by 4%, according to the same abacus data.

00:16:35.400 Um, what has led to their, uh, the increase in support you think? I mean, I know you've

00:16:42.360 mentioned bread and butter issues, but has there been any specific, um, uh, campaign or messaging

00:16:49.080 that might have led to this, uh, boost and support in, in practically in a very, very short period of

00:16:54.520 time? Yeah. So this is where, you know, this is where I would, you know, use some caution because

00:16:59.880 the, the, the late boost we've seen over the last six weeks, it's a little bit difficult to explain

00:17:05.240 why this would happen now and not three months ago or a year ago. Right. So, I mean, but you know,

00:17:11.080 I think sometimes people or pandits, they expect cause and effects to happen really, really quickly.

00:17:16.440 Right. He said this, that happens the next day, but we need to realize that, you know, you and I,

00:17:21.640 you know, we're not normies, right? We spend our days on Twitter. We follow the news, so we might react

00:17:27.240 quickly, but the average suburban family who only realizes is renewing their mortgage now,

00:17:34.440 and they're realizing that they're paying three times more than they were before. Well, maybe now

00:17:38.440 they're paying attention. So there might be a delay effect on those things. So I wouldn't,

00:17:42.920 I really would not put that, you know, whether the idea that it's just the cost of living finally

00:17:49.160 adding up. I mean, you can last a few months and then all of a sudden you're like, I really cannot,

00:17:53.640 I'm underwater. I cannot pay my mortgage. I cannot buy a new car. And it just adds up this way beyond

00:18:00.280 this. I mean, we have to look where Poiliev and the conservative are getting increased support,

00:18:06.280 right? They're essentially getting half of the PPC. And we know, I've talked many times about this,

00:18:12.760 that I thought that was a valid strategy from Poiliev. The first step should be to reunite the right and go 0.97

00:18:18.840 get at least half of the PPC so that they're not costing you 10, 15, 20 ridings. And then after

00:18:25.480 this, you need to go find another demographic. So I think he has been quite successful in Atlantic Canada.

00:18:32.040 And you're asking for specific policies. I think Atlantic Canada, we've seen the introduction and

00:18:36.760 the rise of the carbon tax, which is not going well. And so obviously this is linked to the cost of

00:18:43.320 living in general, but this is very specific. And so I think we're seeing this realignment as well

00:18:48.760 in Atlantic Canada, where, you know, realistically, that shouldn't be people voting liberals,

00:18:53.800 there should be voting conservative or the, you know, if you tell somebody that doesn't know anybody,

00:18:58.280 anything about Canada, and you show them a map with density, and you tell them, what do you think

00:19:03.880 in Prince Edward Island, who they vote for, they would tell you conservative. So it's almost an anomaly

00:19:09.320 that they were not voting. So I think we're seeing this realignment happening really fast

00:19:13.480 in Atlantic Canada, Northern BC, Northern Ontario. And so those are partially NDP voters who are

00:19:21.640 switching to Poitiers because of common sense issues. And, you know, it's just blue collar voters who,

00:19:28.600 why would they be voting for Jack Mitzing? Jack Mitzing is not interested in their vote. He's interested in

00:19:34.360 winning Davenport in Toronto. And so all his campaign, everything he does is aimed at urban

00:19:40.440 progressives. So that, that opens a massive door for the Tories, a door that, let's be honest with

00:19:46.280 Erino too, he tried to, to use it and to, to open it. It just wasn't, it was partially successful, but not enough.

00:19:54.680 Yeah. Well, and what do you, what do you make of the, the fact that women voters are now turning to

00:20:02.680 the Conservatives? I mean, I remember like when Pierre Polyevre was elected leader of the Conservative

00:20:09.720 Party, there were these slew of opinion pieces in the Toronto Star and a whole bunch of other places

00:20:17.320 that how women, you know, you know, he was not resonating with women. And, and so that's,

00:20:24.040 that was going to be a huge stumbling block for him. And so I, I wonder like how,

00:20:29.480 how, what has bred, brought about this change among women voters? 1.00

00:20:34.360 Yeah. So again, right. With the caveat that we, it's not definitive that he's doing better

00:20:39.320 and he's winning with women, but yeah, I think there is a small trend that we can all agree that

00:20:43.320 he's doing better. Might just be, you know, at some points when things are going really bad for the

00:20:48.600 incumbent, I mean, you just win almost by default. And I think I almost want to switch the question around,

00:20:54.600 right? Why is it the case that there is such a large gender gap, right? I mean,

00:20:59.080 on many issues and in politics and in Canada in particular. And so maybe we're seeing, you know,

00:21:04.360 when people are all in the same mess of, you don't find housing, you cannot pay your mortgage and whatnot,

00:21:10.600 all of a sudden, you know, then that's what you think about and your gender doesn't really matter

00:21:15.400 at this point anymore. So more generally, if I want to try to go more specific, I think

00:21:22.920 we've seen over the last few weeks, a change, a rebranding of Pierre Poiliev, right? I mean,

00:21:28.120 and I'm not only referring to dropping the glasses, but he's, he speaks differently. I mean,

00:21:33.080 it's very obvious if you have called on him before, the way he answers questions or he speaks in a,

00:21:38.440 during a press conference is more neutral, is slower, less aggressive, less the pit bull,

00:21:45.480 right? That he was known to be. And we know for a fact, and I don't, you know, I'm not being sexist

00:21:50.040 here. We know for a fact from data, from survey that women tend to not like politicians who are mean. 0.98

00:21:56.120 I mean, they're more sensitive to this than men, for instance. So I think this rebranding into a more

00:22:01.800 consensual, nicer guy can go a long way. And I'm not saying, you know, that they should be

00:22:07.880 win this demographic and they might win women last time, but they don't need to, right? They 0.99

00:22:12.280 just need to not do as bad as they used to be to do, right? I mean, it's a little bit the same as

00:22:17.640 Trump and the Latino vote or Hispanic vote. He doesn't need to win it, but if he can just, you

00:22:23.080 know, not lose it by 50 points and all of a sudden he wins Florida and Miami, you know, by much more.

00:22:29.800 So I think that's the same idea out there. And so Abacus again, had very good insight on the video

00:22:37.080 that the conservative have posted about, you know, I'm referring to the one where it's

00:22:41.080 his wife narrating and saying why she likes, you know, she loves Pierre Poiliev and why he would be

00:22:45.960 a good comment. So I do think that those type of ads can be quite successful. It's not, you know,

00:22:52.200 again, pundits and people who spend all their time on Twitter, they're obsessed with issues. They're

00:22:57.400 like, oh, but you know, he has this policy on this. And so that's gonna win or lose voters. And I'm like,

00:23:03.160 political science has shown that for most voters, it's much more about vibes and general feelings.

00:23:09.480 And so, so this is, this is where I think if I had to guess the rebranding most like this is paying

00:23:15.400 off. Yeah, I, I was gonna talk about that with you as, as well. I mean, I cannot, you know, I mean,

00:23:22.600 this change we're looking at is from June to now. And, and that's roughly when, you know, he

00:23:29.160 underwent this, uh, makeover. Um, uh, I mean, he looks, uh, you know, more normal now, uh, more

00:23:38.040 relatable. And of course his wife, I think is a huge asset, um, uh, to, to, uh, him and to the

00:23:45.080 campaign. I heard her speak, uh, uh, you know, when you won the leadership, uh, race last year

00:23:51.000 here in Ottawa, I heard her speak and she's, she's a pretty powerful speaker herself. I mean, you know,

00:23:56.920 uh, and I think that's really helped. I mean, you see this young couple, they're roughly like,

00:24:02.440 you know, around my age and they're, um, you know, and they're relatable. They have two young kids and

00:24:09.320 yeah, you know, I think, I think that's made a huge difference.

00:24:13.240 And I don't like going there, but you know, this is a sort of the same time we discovered that,

00:24:18.760 well, we learned that Justin Trudeau was getting a divorce and we don't like talking about this,

00:24:24.120 why we all agree we're not going to dunk on this and why not. But, you know, I mean, I followed

00:24:29.000 the news on Google trends and that was a massive event. Again, that's, that's one of the rare times

00:24:34.120 where normies like non-political online people were Googling his name. And I don't know, you know,

00:24:41.240 there is very little research. I didn't find any about the consequences of getting a divorce,

00:24:46.920 when you're in power, but I cannot completely rule out that it does play a little bit of a role

00:24:51.880 in some ways. I mean, it's all of a sudden you realize it. And then, you know, I mentioned it

00:24:56.760 before, but the, the week where we discovered this and he was like, everybody was Googling his name

00:25:02.040 and he was in the news, the number, the second query, the words associated with looking for Trudeau

00:25:08.040 was Trudeau cheating. And so, you know, I mean, people, you know, so I cannot believe that's such a

00:25:14.600 massive event that is to put things in perspective. This is bigger than blackface on Google trends.

00:25:20.120 I cannot imagine that something that massive would not have consequences one way or another. I don't

00:25:25.880 know. It could be sympathy and we vote for him or we don't like him anymore, but it should have

00:25:31.240 some sort of consequences. And, you know, maybe this is what we're seeing partially right now.

00:25:36.120 Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's like the Ancien regime, right? It's they're just looking very tired.

00:25:42.040 You're right. It's a good point about the news of his divorce.

00:25:46.280 Um, and, and, and the events following his divorce, you know, like there was, uh, this photo of his

00:25:52.680 wife, um, enjoying, um, sure they're separated now, but she's at a spa or something in British Columbia.

00:25:59.880 It just seems so out of touch with everything that is happening in the country. Um, and, um,

00:26:06.200 you know, I'm just, I'm just not seeing the kind of energy that he once used to have.

00:26:10.840 Um, you know, you can certainly see that, uh, what, eight years has finally caught up with,

00:26:16.840 with him and, uh, his party and, um, yeah, and they're doubling down and all of these issues that

00:26:23.000 very few people actually care about, uh, like the gender ideology stuff, you know, and, um,

00:26:27.960 um, they're very bankrupt intellectually right now. They don't really know what to do. Um,

00:26:33.160 it's not recent, but it's really getting worse. It seems like, do you even want to be prime minister

00:26:37.960 at this point? I don't think he wants to be prime minister. I believe he only stayed because

00:26:42.520 Poitiers won the leadership and he really, really, Trudeau hates Poitiers. But I, I, I remember

00:26:48.280 Joshua saying that he thought that if he won the leadership, Trudeau would just resign. And I,

00:26:53.960 I, I don't know if it's completely true, but I can see some truth to it. I could, I could see

00:26:58.200 Justin Trudeau saying, you know, I've been in politics since 2008, in power since 2015.

00:27:04.360 I'm tired, disgusting me, my family. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna leave. It's fine. Because even if I,

00:27:09.560 if we lose, it's not the end of the world, but now it's like, if we lose, Pierre Poitier is prime

00:27:14.760 minister. And he knows that all he thinks, at least that he's still the best hope of the liberals. So I,

00:27:20.120 I'm thinking there might be a little bit of, of this. Yeah. Uh, let's, let's, uh, talk about this

00:27:25.720 current, um, coalition, the liberals and the NDP. Uh, some analysts have pointed to this doomsday

00:27:32.440 scenario for the conservatives where the liberals and the NDP are in a perpetual de facto de jure, um,

00:27:40.600 coalition, uh, post-election. Um, this would mean that the Tories probably need to get around 40% or so

00:27:48.440 of the popular vote to win a majority, um, and, and, and, uh, and, uh, forestall such a, um,

00:27:55.880 a coalition of, uh, convince, convenience. Do you, do you think the scenario is plausible? What do you

00:28:01.800 think of it? So, and I've always been less pessimistic about the chances of a minority for

00:28:08.280 the conservative to be, uh, workable with the Bloc Quebecois. I think to me, the, the, the main

00:28:15.640 outcome really that matters is, is the, are the conservatives ahead of the son of the NDP

00:28:22.360 and liberals? And for this to happen, it doesn't need to be, you don't need 40% there. You, you

00:28:27.960 pray 36, 37 with a good lead. That's enough. I'm thinking of like probably of getting 150 seats,

00:28:35.080 the liberals at 120 and the NDP at 24. So at this point, the only way that, you know,

00:28:40.520 Trudeau remains is if the Bloc Quebecois is behind him. And my reading of multiple years now,

00:28:47.080 but even more recently is that I don't think the Bloc Quebecois would come and save Justin Trudeau.

00:28:51.720 I don't think they would want to, they love Pierre Poiliev, but they're not gonna go and

00:28:55.880 do a coalition or save. So I don't think we need to worry about such a coalition happening all the time,

00:29:01.640 because the math shows that it won't happen all the time. It's difficult for the conservative to win

00:29:08.200 an outright majority. This I agree. I mean, just because we're now seeing polls that put them in

00:29:13.960 clear majority territory doesn't change the fact that the, the electoral math is, is very difficult,

00:29:18.840 especially because of the Quebec, right? It's difficult to win a majority when you barely exist in

00:29:23.880 the Sagan province. But as long as the conservative win 150, 155, as long as they finish first in seats,

00:29:31.640 I honestly don't think that Trudeau would even try to remain at this point. I think it would get the

00:29:35.960 memo and just move on. And, and let's flip things around. I actually think this coalition would,

00:29:42.440 well, they don't call it a coalition, but I agree we should use the term coalition. When it happened,

00:29:48.440 I was very excited for the conservative because that means that the next election, when there is

00:29:53.320 finally a desire for change, the NDP cannot get this vote. It literally cannot, because how could

00:29:59.240 you get this vote when you've been supporting this government for years? So, so I think that was,

00:30:03.320 uh, if they, if quality of wins a majority next time, I think we should thanks this coalition.

00:30:09.880 Yeah. It's, I mean, it's basically killing two birds with one stone. So yeah, no, I, I, I remember

00:30:15.480 being horrified at that when that happened, but, but yeah, I mean, I, I, I see, see now, uh, you know,

00:30:22.760 hindsight is always 20, 20, they say, but I see that now. Um, I want to use, you mentioned something

00:30:29.000 about electoral math. I want to ask you about, uh, you know, in our, in the, in our first pass,

00:30:33.960 the post system, like, like ours, you have two competitive parties, um, and the vote to seat

00:30:40.120 multiplier can be very unstable, making it, uh, difficult to translate, um, vote shares into seat,

00:30:47.640 uh, predictions. Uh, this is, yeah, this is more relevant now, uh, that we're not just in a de facto

00:30:53.960 two-party system, but the NDP can certainly play spoiler in some seats. Uh, how does one deal with,

00:31:00.520 uh, with, with this, you know, while you're, uh, while you're polling, while you're in the modeling of

00:31:06.280 polls, uh, especially when you're trying to convert, um, vote predictions to seat predictions?

00:31:12.840 Yeah, no, uh, and I love this question because, you know, that's what I've been doing for years,

00:31:18.040 right? And, and most of the time, I mean, uh, myself and other people who do this type of

00:31:23.080 projections, we're relatively successful. We do have elections where it doesn't work, right? 2015,

00:31:28.840 2019, we're not particularly good. Sometimes it's because the polls are wrong. Sometimes it's because

00:31:34.440 there was a deep underlying change, right? I would say 2019 is a good example of,

00:31:39.400 even if you had the right numbers with the polls, there, there were so many changes within a province,

00:31:45.880 right? Uh, around the GT and the Vancouver area that it, it was difficult to, to predict. But

00:31:51.640 at the end of the day, I mean, usually this type of projection models, they do pretty well,

00:31:56.920 as long as polls are not completely off. And as long as you really keep track, I always tell people,

00:32:01.800 they always think that, you know, my spreadsheet or my models, it's, it's a question of like having

00:32:06.360 really complicated formula and, and, and variables, but honestly, I would say the majority of the work

00:32:13.480 is to just keep track of all the data. I just want to make sure I see all the polls. And so you see a

00:32:19.800 poll just for the GT, you use it, you see polls in specific writings, you use it. And so as long as you

00:32:25.240 keep track of, it's a mountain of information, but as long as you, you're on top of this, you usually do

00:32:30.920 pretty well, and you will be able to see when a party is in the, you know, the touchdown zone,

00:32:37.400 or, you know, the paying zone where the multiplier really happens. So, so, and I'm saying this, you

00:32:45.080 know, we, once in a while, we have an election, as I was saying, where there is a true realignment

00:32:50.360 and then, and, and, and then we're wrong. We could see it next time, right? Where we could see maybe

00:32:55.880 projection models like myself would underestimate the, the Tories in Atlantic Canada or in Northern

00:33:01.800 Ontario, because it's such a massive shift that we don't see without more granular polling. The

00:33:09.160 one thing I would say, if you ask me, the one variable we really don't get, and I really wish

00:33:13.880 we were getting much better information about this, is the vote of immigrants and minorities.

00:33:19.720 Very few polls ever give us this information. Main Street might be the closest, but even there,

00:33:25.080 they're going to group, you know, Southeast Asian all together. And I'm like, it's not necessarily

00:33:31.400 super useful. And their sampling size would be sample size would be, you know, 65. So can you

00:33:36.520 really take this, you know, at face value? But we have now, we have many writings in around Vancouver

00:33:43.320 and Toronto, where the demographic composition of the, of those writings have changed massively over the

00:33:49.640 last 10 years. And depending on if this group of, you know, I'm thinking of East Asians in particular,

00:33:57.400 South Asian, if they change, we might completely miss it. We might completely be oblivious to it. 0.98

00:34:03.720 The same way that last time, we didn't see the switch of the Chinese vote. Nobody did. I mean,

00:34:09.640 if somebody says they did, they're lying or they were, you know, it's just a question of, you keep

00:34:14.520 saying something at some point, you will be right. But nobody saw Richmond Center flipping. Nobody saw

00:34:19.960 the Chinese vote flipping by 20 points to the Liberals. And why is that? Well, because I don't 0.97

00:34:26.440 follow Chinese media, even though my wife is Chinese. I don't, we don't have polling data about this.

00:34:33.080 And so that, I would say that's a big unknown right now. And we, and to relate this to Pierre Poiliev,

00:34:39.800 he's been doing an incredible job reaching out to minorities. I mean, every other day, is it an

00:34:46.280 event, it's on the, you know, those private medias out there. And it's, it's difficult, you know,

00:34:52.280 if it pays off, then my models would clearly underestimate how many GTA seats they will win.

00:34:57.800 Because I would, I will assume when I see the conservative, it's mostly white people,

00:35:05.880 you know, in Southwest Ontario that are switching, but it might not be, it might be

00:35:10.040 Indians, immigrants in, in the GTA. Well, that's a very interesting point, 0.99

00:35:15.320 because it reminds me of something that is happening in the US. Asian Americans, especially

00:35:21.320 Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans. There's been a trend now over the last couple of years

00:35:29.560 or so, where they're increasingly voting Republican or aligning with the Republican Party. Some of the

00:35:37.400 issues that animate them, which, and they were traditional Democrat voters, Democrats, what some

00:35:45.320 of the issues are the cultural issues, and things like affirmative action, where, you know, Asian

00:35:51.560 American students were, were being penalized for working hard and doing well in school, but, you know,

00:35:59.400 they couldn't get into the, the Harvard's and, and, and Princeton's, you know, Princeton University and so on. So

00:36:08.600 that has really affected, these issues have really affected that community that they're actually like

00:36:14.360 shifting to, moving towards the Republicans. Now, a lot of what happens in the US affects us. Now,

00:36:20.440 I wonder, like, I mean, if, you know, if, if there's a, of course, I mean, polling would help us understand

00:36:25.720 if this is in fact even happening here. To what extent are these cultural wars having an impact on

00:36:31.560 immigrant communities? We, we've seen with the gender ideology stuff, we've seen, like, for example,

00:36:37.400 conservative Muslim groups coming out against it. Surely these things are playing a role in people's

00:36:46.760 intentions of how they're going to vote. I would imagine so, right? I mean, it's difficult, and I

00:36:52.520 don't know if you, if you saw my work recently, but I, I used the data of the 2021 electoral study,

00:36:59.720 you know, there's always one in Canada, and the data is public, and I tried to put people in,

00:37:04.680 you know, the so-called quadrants, right? Social conservative, social progressive,

00:37:08.760 economic conservative. And I started really looking through this because the more I was,

00:37:13.720 when I started looking at this data, I was really shocked at how well the Liberals were doing

00:37:19.240 with the economic left, but socially conservative folks and our crowd. And, and, you know, it's a group

00:37:27.160 that you wouldn't think would vote for Justin Trudeau. And I'm not saying that Trudeau is winning this,

00:37:31.000 this demographic, but he's doing remarkably well. And the conservatives are not winning

00:37:35.240 this demographic as much as we thought. And so I want to look more into this. And I do think,

00:37:40.040 you know, the general theory is this demographic are immigrants from some Asian countries who are

00:37:47.160 more socially conservative. And until now, they didn't have a reason, you know, economically,

00:37:52.040 there might be more left wing, they don't mind interventions of the government. But until now,

00:37:56.280 and very recently, when the right and kind of finally decided to fight this culture war,

00:38:01.160 well, they had no reason to vote for the right, right? I mean, because Trudeau, they preyed on

00:38:06.520 like when he's talking about, you know, LGBTQ all the time, but it's still, you know, the other guys

00:38:11.720 are doing the same anyway. So that might be changing. And we're back to one of those really systemic,

00:38:18.360 really systemic change of our voters and our coalition. So I'm not saying it would work,

00:38:24.200 I'm not saying it would make a big difference. But if it does, or if we see a big change in

00:38:28.920 how the GTA vote, I do think we should look into this. And so we're seeing a lot of unrest,

00:38:35.160 right? We see parents in the suburbs, where they're Muslim or Indians or, you know, Asian parents, and

00:38:41.560 they hate this gender ideology push onto their kids. And so if we finally have somebody who's 0.98

00:38:49.160 listening to them, and trying to get their vote, that could be a big difference. I mean, we know,

00:38:55.640 we have people, right? I mean, like Rahim Mohammed on Twitter, who has said that his parents are

00:39:02.520 super socially conservative, they vote for Justin Trudeau, mostly because of the name. So the name

00:39:07.640 will not change, right? And the decade of, oh, Trudeau and the Liberals are nice to us, and they're

00:39:13.240 pro-immigration. That will not change. But if you can start getting into those communities by

00:39:19.960 other issues, it's not just going to be bread and butter for them, I fully agree. So that could be

00:39:25.320 life-changing for the conservative. And we've been expecting this for a decade now, right? That's not

00:39:30.280 a new idea, right? I mean, Daryl Bricker and John Ibidson of the blue shift, right? I mean,

00:39:36.120 that was, what, 2012. This idea that new immigrants in Canada are more naturally conservative because

00:39:42.360 now they don't come from Western Europe, they come from Asia. So long-term, the dominance of the 0.89

00:39:47.000 Liberals of this demographic might change. It hasn't. And I think it hasn't mostly because of Trudeau

00:39:53.800 and the reluctance of the right to touch on socially conservative issues to some extent.

00:39:59.880 Yeah. Yeah. I'm reminded of all of these polls that we've been talking about. I'm reminded of what

00:40:05.480 happened to Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand earlier this year, right? She announced that she wasn't,

00:40:12.520 she was quitting politics altogether. And when that happened, you know, all of the events that

00:40:20.360 led to her eventually resigning was the fact that she was tanking in all of these polls. So, you know,

00:40:28.520 I'm kind of seeing the same thing happening here. And I want, you know, do you think that

00:40:33.720 it will be enough for Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party to make that decision that it's time for him

00:40:40.520 to go? I don't see Justin Trudeau leaving. Yeah. Partially because of what I said before,

00:40:48.920 I think he hates Pierre Poirier with a passion and he really, really wants to fight him during an

00:40:53.320 election. So, and he wants to fight him himself, not saying Christian Freeland or somebody else.

00:40:58.520 The other thing is, as much as the Liberals are not as professional and as ruthless as they were,

00:41:04.440 I mean, I think most of the talent has left, honestly, whether it's policy or electoral math,

00:41:10.280 most of the really smart people in the room have left to do better things. They're still pretty good,

00:41:15.480 right? They still have good data and good insight. And they must be aware that Trudeau is the only

00:41:20.440 thing saving the Liberals at this point. You remove Trudeau, I think the Liberals, they tank in Quebec

00:41:26.440 right away. And they probably tank with cultural minorities because of the name and the, you know, 1.00

00:41:32.040 the history. So that's also, you know, the few groups that are still with them. So do you take this

00:41:37.240 risk? Yeah. And who are you getting back? The center-right,

00:41:42.360 Sharer voters who don't like Poiliev? Maybe. I don't think there's enough for, of them to compensate. And

00:41:48.120 most of them, we still, or at least half of them would still vote for the conservative anyway. So

00:41:52.680 that's most likely the reason. He knows his chances are not good, but nobody else. I really

00:41:58.520 don't think anybody else of the Liberals would do better. They would do worse nowadays.

00:42:02.840 Yeah. Final question for you, Brian. I mean, this has been a very insightful conversation and I'm so

00:42:08.440 glad that we made it happen. Final question for you. What do you think is going to happen? I know

00:42:15.640 the elections are, what, two years away. But if you had a crystal ball and you were gazing into it,

00:42:23.960 you know, what do you think would happen? Do you think Pierre Poiliev is going to be the next

00:42:29.320 Prime Minister of Canada? Yeah. So I've been pretty clear for a while that my personal belief is that

00:42:35.240 the next election, Poiliev will win. Whether he wins a majority or minority, that's what I'm not sure.

00:42:40.840 But I really cannot see Poiliev and the conservative dropping below 140 in terms of 140, even 150.

00:42:48.840 So that pretty much guarantees them a minority. Minus, you know, with the caveat that maybe

00:42:55.480 Liberals plus NDP would be slightly higher and we might have like some coalition. So that's my guess.

00:43:01.160 I mean, looking at how the situation is on the underlying, you know, variables of our economy and

00:43:08.040 our situation right now, like housing, cost of living, those things will not go away. They will

00:43:13.400 get worse because housing will not get better anytime soon, for sure, and not by 2025. Cost of

00:43:19.880 living, a bit of inflation might be controlled, but, you know, it will increase unemployment. So now you

00:43:25.720 have people who still have, you know, grocery will not go down, but now you're unemployed. So I really

00:43:31.000 don't think things could improve for the Liberals. I think we will see, I'm not saying that all polls will

00:43:36.840 show the conservative with like 12 points lead for the next like two years. I think, you know,

00:43:40.840 we're going to see fluctuations, but overall, it's looking more and more like the next section

00:43:45.640 will be a clear change one. And I think as long as the conservative, they just do their thing,

00:43:50.280 they reach out to minorities, they don't make giant mistakes here and there, they should be cruising

00:43:56.520 to a victory or at the very least a large minority. I would be quite surprised. I would be really,

00:44:02.680 really shocked if Trudeau wins the next election. I mean, it would require, I would be very disappointed

00:44:08.520 as well, right? Clearly, but it would require some sort of event, right? I mean, I was talking to

00:44:13.960 somebody and sorry to expand maybe too long here, but it's not the first time that Trudeau has been

00:44:19.560 trailing. He started 2015 in third. He was behind in 2019 for a while before the election. And in 2021,

00:44:27.160 he was behind at the end of August. But every time that has happened, it felt wrong. If you know what

00:44:33.880 I mean, the conservative were not supposed to be ahead. Harper winning 2015, we're like, really? I

00:44:39.640 mean, his popularity is pretty bad. He has been there for nine years. 2019 as well, you're like,

00:44:45.000 why would people switch so fast, you know, when they love this guy four years ago? 2021,

00:44:50.040 you had COVID and all these things where you're like, ah, most likely, you know,

00:44:53.720 if we go back to fundamentals, it's good for the liberals. I think this has completely changed.

00:44:59.080 Right now, if the fundamentals are bad for the liberals, and they're not going to get better.

00:45:03.560 So that's why I'm pretty bullish on on betting on peer quality over there.

00:45:09.080 Well, yeah, no, I think I think you're you're possibly you're probably right. And I'm, you know,

00:45:14.360 I tend to agree with your analysis. And, and for sure, the next two years are going to be

00:45:21.240 very interesting to watch. And I'm really grateful that you came on the show to share

00:45:27.480 your insights. And yeah, did you want to say something?

00:45:31.640 I would just like to add maybe one thing. If there was one province where I'm not sure

00:45:37.080 what will happen is Quebec. And if there was one place where I could see the liberals making gain,

00:45:42.760 would be Quebec because Quebec, they do genuinely love or still like Justin Trudeau is much more

00:45:47.560 popular than anywhere else. And they do really not like peer quality of so far. I mean, for multiple

00:45:54.040 reasons. So if there was one place where maybe we would see some strategic voting and people being

00:45:58.920 like, oh, no, we don't want these guys prime minister, and we prefer Trudeau, that would be

00:46:03.240 there. And so as long as the block holds, that's fine. But if the block were to collapse, and then

00:46:09.400 that could give so many seats to the liberals that if that would be the only way I see Trudeau remaining

00:46:14.280 in power. I don't think it's likely. But if I'm wrong in my code, I'm going to blame Quebec.

00:46:21.560 I think we should blame Quebec regardless for everything. On that note, Brian, thank you so 0.88

00:46:28.680 much for joining me. And I hope you'll be back again to talk about more election stuff or electoral

00:46:37.160 analysis. You have a great way of explaining things, and I really appreciate you coming on the show.

00:46:42.840 Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. I always love those chances to explain and to talk

00:46:48.120 to a wider audience, right? You have a really wide audience that I don't necessarily reach,

00:46:52.600 right? And then different people who might not follow this thing as much as I do. So always a

00:46:57.640 pleasure. Okay. Well, thank you, my friend. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Juno News - September 09, 2023

Are we witnessing the end of Trudeau？

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