Juno News - May 10, 2022


Election Season： Analyzing the vote in Ontario, Alberta and the CPC


Episode Stats

Length

29 minutes

Words per Minute

199.40266

Word Count

5,942

Sentence Count

287

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Ontario voters are heading to the poll next month. Who are the contenders and what are
00:00:04.700 the top issues? I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
00:00:20.120 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. So it is now election time in Ontario. The
00:00:24.700 roots are all drawn up. They were drawn up last week and the election hearing is officially
00:00:28.700 underway. We're hearing from the candidates. We have Doug Ford with the Conservatives looking to
00:00:34.000 regain or maintain their Conservative majority government and the NDP and the Liberals are sort
00:00:40.060 of neck and neck in trying to catch them. We're also just days away from learning the results
00:00:44.100 of the United Conservative Party Leadership Review in Alberta. We're going to find out whether Jason
00:00:49.060 Kenny will remain on as leader, remain on as Premier of that province. And we're also in the midst of a
00:00:53.460 very hotly contested leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada. So who better
00:00:59.040 than Hamish Marshall to join the show to talk about all of these various elections? Hamish is a
00:01:04.780 partner at One Persuades, which is a government relations and strategy firm based in Ontario in
00:01:09.260 2019. Hamish served as the Conservative Party's national campaign manager and he ran Andrew Scheer's
00:01:16.060 winning leadership campaign. Prior to that, Hamish worked for Stephen Harper as his manager of
00:01:20.820 strategic planning and a pollster during the successful 2008 federal election. And finally,
00:01:26.760 back in 2021 during the federal election, Hamish worked for us here at True North as our in-house
00:01:31.860 pollster. So Hamish, thank you so much for joining the show. It's great to have you back.
00:01:36.460 It's great to be here, Candace. It's fun.
00:01:38.680 Okay, so let's talk about Ontario. So, you know, we're now have this election underway. It seems like
00:01:44.020 Doug Ford is in a good position to maintain his election. If you look at the polls, it looks like
00:01:47.580 he's up by anywhere between three and eight percent in the polls, which is a pretty solid lead. So
00:01:52.840 what do you make of the election so far? What is the sort of main issue that is driving the vote in
00:01:58.660 Ontario?
00:01:59.460 Well, right now, it's a bit of a snoozer election. Not a lot's happened thus far. And I think that's
00:02:03.620 frankly the way the PCs like it. I mean, I think Doug Ford is running on his record. He's arguing it's not a time
00:02:11.120 for change. And having a very exciting election does not seem to work with that. So you want to
00:02:16.380 he wants to emphasize continuity and change and things are things are fine. And as you say, he's
00:02:21.240 got a lead, you're very pulling, pulling companies, but he's got a significant lead. And the consensus
00:02:26.240 is that he's on track for another majority government. Although as we've got the first debate
00:02:32.380 and things can change as well. We see over the time where and where we have been seeing is a little
00:02:38.820 bit of growth in people warming a little bit. Stephen Del Duca, the liberal leader, which is
00:02:44.720 which is makes things a little more interesting.
00:02:47.420 Right. Well, he's sort of relatively unknown in the province. And some of the things I've heard
00:02:53.380 from him have been, I think, a little alarming, a little offside. I know he made a pledge that he
00:02:58.000 would add COVID requirements for students in school, making it part of the mandatory
00:03:03.080 vaccine requirements for kids coming to public schools. And I think that's still a pretty divisive
00:03:10.120 polarizing issue, whether or not to vaccinate little kids, what the benefits are for that
00:03:15.740 outweighing whether they outweigh COVID, which doesn't really affect kids. Do you think COVID,
00:03:21.140 you know, COVID vaccines, the reaction to COVID, the way that Premier Ford has handled the COVID crisis
00:03:27.440 is that going to be sort of the major issue in the election or is it something else?
00:03:32.360 You know, I think the liberals and the NDP are going to try to argue that COVID was mishandled
00:03:36.800 by Ford. I think one of the reasons why Ford's still on track for majority government is that
00:03:42.240 the general consensus, certainly amongst conservative accessible voters, is that the handling of COVID
00:03:47.600 was probably fine. And it doesn't mean they're okay with everything, every decision that was
00:03:53.520 made, but generally speaking, they're okay. So I think it's going to be very difficult in this
00:03:59.560 springtime election to make the case as COVID numbers continue to drop, to make the case that
00:04:05.640 handling of COVID is going to be the determining factor. And I think that it would be much easier
00:04:10.540 for liberals and NDP. If we were in an environment where COVID cases were rising, perhaps, you know,
00:04:17.400 if the election had been held last fall or something like that, when we were coming into
00:04:20.240 whichever wave it was then.
00:04:23.780 Right. Well, I think that there is still, there are still people in Ontario that are very concerned
00:04:28.800 with COVID, people that were very unhappy with the lifting of restrictions. Hamish, it seemed to me
00:04:33.960 that in the beginning part of Doug Ford's premiership, he faced a lot of criticism from the media.
00:04:39.040 There were a lot of protests, there was a lot of anger at sort of another conservative government,
00:04:43.640 and they were sort of making it out to be this really boogeyman that was going to like cut all
00:04:47.660 our services and get rid of all these unions. That didn't happen. And it seems that that kind of
00:04:53.000 criticism has really gone away. That the sort of centrist sort of base of the party and base of the
00:05:00.760 province is actually pretty happy with Ford and the way that he managed things. The sort of most
00:05:07.840 the biggest criticism that I see comes from the political right, people who are very unhappy with
00:05:14.740 the lockdowns, people who didn't like the fact that Doug Ford wouldn't engage in some of the
00:05:20.500 culture issues, like he was very quick to denounce the truckers, he didn't provide any support or any
00:05:25.400 compassion, any empathy, any understanding of them. We saw this really very ideologically left-wing
00:05:31.540 CRT, critical race theory proposal coming from the Department of Education, really pushing the sort
00:05:39.140 of worst of the worst of the woke ideology. Do you think that Ford faces the risk of sort of losing
00:05:46.780 the base of the Conservative Party and sort of not being able to motivate his Conservative base to show
00:05:53.160 up for him?
00:05:53.440 Yeah, I mean, I think that's always a concern when you're in government, you have to make compromises.
00:05:58.680 I think his approach to that is going to be to raise the threat of the Liberals and the NDP,
00:06:03.100 and he's going to say to these voters, you know, you might not be enthusiastic about every choice
00:06:06.920 that I made, but these guys are going to be a whole lot worse. And, you know, the point you made
00:06:10.800 about Del Duca talking about mandatory vaccines for all school-aged kids, well, anybody who thinks
00:06:16.320 that vaccine mandates have gone too far, Doug Ford simply has to say, I'm not for that. That is too far
00:06:21.540 for me. That's, you know, it's that Del Duca wants to do that. And what are people going to do? They're
00:06:26.200 going to, you know, vote for the, they're going to vote for, they'll rather see Ford in power than
00:06:30.240 Del Duca. I think it is, and the other interesting thing that's happened is that there's a whole bunch
00:06:34.960 of these sort of other small splinter parties on the right. You know, there's a bunch of MPPs that
00:06:40.540 have left his caucus for a variety of reasons, some of them related to this, and some of them started
00:06:45.820 new parties. There's the True Blue Party that Carrie Helios has started. There's a sort of a
00:06:51.120 provincial version of the PPC, but because they've all splintered and there's, there's multiple of
00:06:56.520 these parties, there isn't a single focus for that feeling. There's no leader who can get into the
00:07:01.940 debate. You know, if all those, those MPPs that sort of joined together and said, we're all together
00:07:06.520 in one caucus and we're running with one party that's going to have 120 candidates on a, on a
00:07:12.100 anti-vaccine mandate platform, they can make the case, well, we've got a couple of MPPs,
00:07:18.340 three or four MPPs, and therefore we should have our leader in the debate. And they could
00:07:22.120 really have been there to, to perhaps siphon off some of that support. But I think with
00:07:26.880 this splintered environment, we've got two or three of these little parties, plus some
00:07:30.380 independents. There's no singular focus for that, that, that, that, for that sentiment.
00:07:35.320 And Ford's the big winner because of that.
00:07:38.300 That's a, that's a really good point. And I'm just wondering, I don't know if this is too
00:07:41.200 into the weeds, but why is it that, that, that the sort of anti-establishment conservatives,
00:07:45.900 people who didn't like the lockdowns, people who didn't like the handling of COVID, why,
00:07:50.900 why do you think they're so disorganized? Why, why, why aren't they united with a singular
00:07:54.780 focus in, in the way that we see single issue parties on the left, like the green party?
00:07:58.820 What, why, why do you think that these parties don't do as well on the right?
00:08:02.460 Well, I think, I think typically if you're, if you're a libertarian party who, who wants to
00:08:08.520 engage in these sort of debates, there's the, the appeal of have a following and making compromises
00:08:13.900 with the other parties that maybe you agree with them on 98% of things. These are people who have
00:08:18.700 split away and they're, they have a sort of splittist mentality. They're going to do their
00:08:21.840 own thing. And if they were in favor of consolidation, they, many of them would have stayed
00:08:26.560 with inside the Ontario PC party. You know, same thing we saw federally with, you know,
00:08:30.900 Derek Sloan, not joining the DPC, but going and doing his own thing. And if you people have a sort
00:08:36.760 of a splittist individualist ideology, that's going to continue through how they, they, they
00:08:42.400 organize a party. And it's perhaps one of the reasons why the liberal part, the libertarian
00:08:45.800 party of Canada has never had a breakthrough and why there's no anarchist party. Anarchists
00:08:49.320 are very bad at organizing things. And while these people aren't anarchists, they generally
00:08:55.060 are, you know, they, they have, they have their own specific views on things and don't want
00:09:00.080 to compromise in any way, shape or form. Compromise is why they left the big parties.
00:09:06.060 Right. No, that makes total sense. Okay. Well, I just wondering, quick question. What, what
00:09:10.080 do you think Doug Ford has to do to maintain his majority? What, what, what is his strategy
00:09:15.580 in this campaign? What does he have to do for the last three, three or four weeks here to,
00:09:18.860 in order to win?
00:09:19.940 He's got to keep people who are broadly happy with his government on side. He's got to, and
00:09:25.180 most importantly, he has to try to keep the liberal and the people in split. You know, right
00:09:29.200 now the liberals, it depends on the polls, the liberals should be pulling away a little
00:09:33.300 bit from the NDP, but you know, the dream scenario for Ford is that, you know, he gets
00:09:38.420 sort of somewhere in the high thirties, 38, 39% of the vote and the liberals, the NDP each
00:09:43.420 get like 26, 27%, something like that, that kind of split produce a very nice, large, large
00:09:49.780 Ford majority. The, where it gets a little more difficult is there's consolidation on the
00:09:54.820 left. Whereas if, if either Horvath or Del Duca can become the anti Doug Ford candidate
00:10:00.540 and consolidate that vote. That's when it starts getting a lot of, of, of seats begin to start
00:10:08.880 falling at that point. And it comes a little more tight for, for Doug Ford. It's interesting
00:10:14.960 to note that Del Duca seems to be wise to this. He's already been campaigning in a whole bunch
00:10:19.080 of NDP held seats and is trying to pick up those seats on, on, on his road back. And
00:10:25.560 he seems to be pulling away a little bit. And I've noticed NDP strategists whining on
00:10:30.180 Twitter that how dare he can campaign in NDP seats. They should be focused on taking out
00:10:34.640 Doug Ford. And, and, you know, Del Duca is doing what's best for him as opposed to what's
00:10:39.420 best for the NDP. Not a surprise to really anybody, but NDP strategists.
00:10:43.580 It sort of kind of reminds me of the 2015 federal election where you had, Harper was sort of had
00:10:49.760 a pretty comfortable lead and, and the liberals in the NDP were sort of splitting the opposition
00:10:54.700 vote and neither Trudeau or Thomas Mulcair leader of the NDP at the time were, were really presenting
00:11:00.640 themselves as, as a sort of premier and wait or prime minister and waiting. And then all of a sudden
00:11:04.700 at some point, Thomas, Thomas Mulcair sort of misstepped. I think it was to do with hijabs and
00:11:10.380 niqabs in Quebec and, and, and just sort of his support caved all of a sudden, like midway
00:11:15.240 through the election, Quebecers sort of turned on him and Justin Trudeau was able to ride that
00:11:20.300 wave. Do you foresee anything like that happening? I know, I know Andrea Horvath is, this is what her
00:11:25.000 fourth time running for the NDP. She's pretty stable hand, but Del Duca is pretty new at this.
00:11:30.460 What do you think about that?
00:11:32.260 Well, I think, I think, I think the big difference is this isn't a change election. There isn't an
00:11:35.420 overwhelming desire for change. And, you know, in 2015, I think the election came out of sort
00:11:40.020 of an audition between Trudeau and Mulcair about who most looked like change. And Mulcair
00:11:46.260 ran a bit to the center to try to soften some of those NDP hard edges and looked not different
00:11:51.620 enough. And, you know, Trudeau young and vibrant with a platform that was really throwing some
00:11:57.060 hand grenades and doing things that were quite bold, looked like change and captured that vote.
00:12:01.780 You know, and I think we're starting to see that with Del Duca now. Del Duca has, you know,
00:12:06.580 not a lot is punching through. I haven't seen a lot of policy punched through in the last
00:12:10.260 week, last 10 days of the campaign. It's not, it's not getting into the public. The only thing
00:12:15.220 that I've seen really punched through has been Del Duca's promise to make all transit fares,
00:12:21.060 $1 everywhere in Ontario for, I think it's two years, which is a bold policy. I mean,
00:12:26.180 it's going to cost an arm and a leg and it's, I mean, this includes even go train fares. So it's
00:12:31.380 a huge, massive increase in subsidy, but it is, it has punched through a little bit. So he's trying
00:12:36.980 to do that. But again, they're fighting against a problem where they're still having to make the
00:12:40.900 case for change. You know, after governments in power eight or 10 years, you don't really have to
00:12:45.460 convince people it's time for a change. People just believe that you're fighting over who's going to be
00:12:48.900 the change agent. Right now, both the liberals and the NDP are trying to say we have to change and
00:12:55.940 we're the best method for that, which is, which is just a tougher argument to make.
00:12:59.860 And forward really profits for most people saying, yeah, things are, things are, things are pretty
00:13:03.220 good. These are fun. Good enough. Right. All right, let's move on to Alberta. So we're about a week
00:13:08.420 away here from, I think, I think we're about a week away from, from learning the results of the
00:13:13.060 leadership review. I know they've changed it a few times, but I believe it's coming down next week. So
00:13:17.940 interesting. I was in Calgary last week and I didn't really hear a lot of people grumbling
00:13:22.820 about Kenya. I heard a lot of people who were pretty happy with Kenya and pretty supportive. I
00:13:26.420 think it perhaps correlates with a stronger economy, higher price of oil. But I wanted to get your
00:13:32.260 thoughts on the leadership review and what you expect from that, from that vote. Sure. I mean,
00:13:38.260 I think, I think there's been, if you compare this to say six months ago, I think two fundamental
00:13:42.340 things have happened for Kenya. Number one is that overall UCP's polling against the NDP,
00:13:48.580 has situations dramatically improved. Six months ago, it looked like a Kenya-led UCP
00:13:54.100 would be defeated by the NDP. And that was driving a lot of desire for change, as you can imagine.
00:13:59.300 Now it looks like a fight and some polls actually have them ahead. So we're looking like it's a very
00:14:04.820 tight fight, but there's clearly a path to victory for a Kenya-led UCP. The other thing that's happened is
00:14:10.020 that, you know, with various people announcing that they will run for leader, if Kenya is defeated in
00:14:15.940 this, it's no longer Kenny versus anybody's sort of dream perfect leader. You know, it's, you don't
00:14:21.460 like Kenny and who's the person after it. You can be anybody you want. You can imagine the ghost of
00:14:26.100 Ralph Klein or whoever it is to come back and they will be the dream candidate. Now with Brian Jean
00:14:33.380 saying he's going to run and Daniel Smith saying she's going to run. You know, look, Brian and
00:14:40.020 Danielle both have many things that are positive about them, but they're not perfect people. They have
00:14:44.580 negatives. And now it's Kenny versus somebody else who is not a perfect dream candidate. Those things are
00:14:49.620 working. The other thing that's happened, I think, for Kenny with a chunk is that some of the anti-Kenny
00:14:54.900 forces really overplayed their hand. And there's a group of people now who are saying if those types of
00:15:00.500 people are attacking Kenny, maybe I'm more for him now. So I think the situation has radically evolved and
00:15:08.340 his decision to put off this vote until the spring is looking like a very, very good one. Moving to the
00:15:14.500 mail-in ballot, I think, was the right one to do. The in-person convention would have had so many
00:15:20.500 people, it would have been absolute pandemonium. And a mail-in ballot, I think, seems like the best
00:15:27.460 option. So I think what he's done is done very reasonably well. And as to your point, the economy
00:15:32.420 has improved a lot, putting him in a better position. So I have heard criticism sort of from
00:15:38.340 both sides. Some people say that, Kenny, part of the problem is that there is these few dissenting
00:15:44.500 MLAs who are very unhappy with Kenny, and Kenny's kind of given them too long of a rope to voice
00:15:50.340 their complaints and to, you know, voice their dissatisfaction, kind of giving them too much
00:15:55.060 freedom. You know, he should have had more party discipline and booted those. Others say that,
00:16:00.260 you know, he's muzzling his back bench and that he's not providing them the right opportunities to
00:16:05.220 have their input. Do you think there's a bigger problem, you know, even if Kenny does survive this
00:16:10.340 leadership race, which it looks like he will handily. But do you think that he has a problem
00:16:16.340 just in terms of keeping this united Conservative Party united, ensuring that sort of the back bench
00:16:21.940 or rural MLAs or rural Albertans who don't feel that Kenny's done a good enough job with the pandemic
00:16:28.500 and, you know, he's made a lot of mistakes that aren't being addressed. How do you think Kenny can
00:16:34.580 keep this big tent, big party together? Well, number one, I think kicking MLAs out of caucus
00:16:41.060 is a very serious thing and should be done only in extreme circumstances. And I think Kenny was right
00:16:46.980 not to kick them all out. Kicking them all out could have formed a wrong caucus, could have given the
00:16:51.300 reborn Wildrose, I think it's now the Wildrose Independence Party, you know, maybe they could have
00:16:56.820 joined that, they could have created something new that would have been a focus for anti-Kenny opposition.
00:17:01.940 By putting everything through this leadership vote, he can now say to the caucus members,
00:17:07.300 put up or shut up. You know, if after, you know, assuming he wins the leadership vote,
00:17:13.140 he can say to any caucus members, you had your choice, you went and signed up people, the membership
00:17:17.540 voted, the membership decided, I'm still the leader, I'm still the premier, I'm giving you one last
00:17:23.220 chance. If you're on board now, fantastic, you can be a candidate next year, let's move forward. But if
00:17:28.340 you're not right now, it's time, the time's coming for the parting of the ways. And I think he will
00:17:34.100 be able to position anybody who still wants him gone after successful leadership review is not
00:17:41.300 respecting the will of the membership, and therefore removing them as an MLA, as a candidate for the next
00:17:46.340 election is entirely justified. So I think, yeah, he's given them some ropes, he certainly enhanced their
00:17:52.100 criticisms. But, you know, if he pulls off a significant win in this leadership, it gives
00:17:57.300 them a much, much more leadership review, much, much stronger hand, and he'll be in a very good
00:18:01.780 position to tell them to get on board or to leave.
00:18:05.060 Interesting. Yeah, I think that's a very good strategy, and probably very likely how it will
00:18:10.180 play out, Hamish. I want to, while I have you online, I want to ask you about the conservative
00:18:14.660 race, because as you know, I moderated the debate last Thursday, it was really fun,
00:18:18.820 great opportunity to sort of get to know each of the candidates a little better. Unfortunately,
00:18:23.060 Patrick Brown was a no show, but we did get to know some of the other candidates. So I'm just
00:18:29.220 wondering, I'm, you know, what's your take on the leadership race? How do you think it's going so far?
00:18:34.180 Well, full disclosure, I'm supporting pure poly. I've been actively helping him on his campaign. So
00:18:40.180 and these remarks represent my views, not the campaigns. So take them all. If you're not,
00:18:46.100 if you're not a peer fan, take this all as perhaps a biased perspective, but that's,
00:18:50.580 that's where I am. Yeah, I agree. I think the debate was a lot of fun. I think we got to see
00:18:54.580 who everybody was, what was important to them. And, and, you know, what I look for in debates
00:18:59.940 is surprises, you know, people performing about what the way I expect or the way they've performed in
00:19:05.380 the past isn't news. It's what's different, what new things do we learn? And, you know, I think,
00:19:10.900 I think we, you know, the thing that struck me that was really new was that was how angry
00:19:17.620 Jean Chouret was. I was surprised by that. I didn't expect him to be angry, but he seemed
00:19:22.660 really maddened to have to share the stage with some of the candidates. And, you know,
00:19:26.900 that was, I think, very disappointing from my perspective.
00:19:29.940 I, I, I didn't see it as anger. I saw it as passionate. I heard him make some very passionate
00:19:33.940 pleas that he, you know, he loves Canada and he supports it. I know that there were a couple of
00:19:37.700 things that he said that did not go over well in the room. At one point, he said that he thought
00:19:41.060 that the trucker convoy was illegal and that got him a whole room full of booze. It was interesting
00:19:46.260 to me because Roman Babber, who, he's a provincial MPP in Ontario. He was one of the ones that we were
00:19:52.100 just talking about that got kicked out of Doug Ford's caucus and went as an independent. He was
00:19:59.380 really resonating with a room full of conservative sort of activists and insiders. And I, you know,
00:20:06.500 obviously a lot of people support Pierre because he's got the momentum and he's charismatic and he's
00:20:11.540 been on the ground sort of fighting against the Trudeau government every step of the way since Trudeau
00:20:17.300 was elected. But, but I, I was, I was a little bit surprised by how much Babber's message resonated
00:20:23.860 with conservatives. Do you think that the, that the, that this, this issue, the trucker convoy,
00:20:30.340 the mandates, the sort of pro-feetum voice, do you think that's going to be one of the defining
00:20:35.140 issues of the campaign or do you think that there's something else that's more important?
00:20:38.020 Yeah, no, I think, I think it's a big litmus test. I think, I think conservatives are looked,
00:20:42.020 I think at core conservatives are looking for someone to make them feel good about being conservative.
00:20:46.740 And I don't know anybody who agrees with everything that was said by everybody in
00:20:49.540 the trucker convoy. I don't think that's physically possible. There's lots of people
00:20:52.260 saying all sorts of different things, but at core, there was a message. There was,
00:20:56.740 in the freedom convoy, it was, it was a message of frustration. There was a message that was a huge
00:21:01.060 chunk of Canadians. They're not being hurt by this government. And respecting that as, you know,
00:21:07.860 as, as, as Pierre Polyhev has done and, and as Roman Babber has done is very, very important.
00:21:14.340 And I think conservatives want to feel good about being conservative again. They don't want to be
00:21:17.140 lectured. They don't want to be told that they're bad Canadians. They don't want to hear that their
00:21:20.420 views are somehow out of date and awful, which is what we, you know, while he may not have said that,
00:21:27.060 sometimes he did in so many words, but certainly what was the overall theme of the Aaron O'Toole
00:21:30.900 leadership. And, you know, that's why I think one of the main reasons why I think
00:21:35.300 Pierre Polyhev is winning is he's making conservatives, he's speaking to their hearts, he's making them good about
00:21:39.620 themselves and showing a positive vision about how, how we can be pro-freedom and be popular.
00:21:47.540 Look, I think, I think Mr. Babber did very well. I, I didn't have very strong impressions of Roman
00:21:51.620 Babber before the leadership debate. And I think he, he proved himself to be likable and interesting.
00:21:58.580 And I think, you know, for someone like him, who's, you know, definitely playing catch up
00:22:02.100 compared to the other big contenders, I think he did very, very well.
00:22:05.460 It's sort of one of the other things that struck me is that there sort of appears to be a fault
00:22:11.300 line of the old split of the party. Like when I look at the six candidates, I see Jean Charest,
00:22:16.980 Scott Aitchison and Patrick Brown, which very much fall in line with this sort of the old school PC,
00:22:21.860 progressive, liberal light brand of conservatism as popular in places like Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
00:22:27.620 And then, and then, and then you have more of the sort of grassroots populism. I don't want to say
00:22:34.260 reactionary, but, but sort of really in touch with the concerns of everyday Canadians and conservatives,
00:22:40.180 which would be Pierre Polyev, Dr. Lesson Lewis and Roman Babber. And it sort of worries me a little
00:22:47.860 bit that, that whichever way this party goes, the other faction of the party won't be satisfied. Like,
00:22:52.260 I can't, I can't imagine that Jean Charest and Patrick Brown will line up behind Pierre Polyev if he
00:22:57.700 wins. And likewise, I can't imagine people in Western Canada and people who are very dissatisfied
00:23:03.380 with the status quo and with lockdowns saying, okay, I'll, I'll support a Patrick Brown or Jean Charest,
00:23:11.060 given, given their, given their records. Is this something that concerns you? Or do you think I'm,
00:23:15.620 I'm sort of being oversensitive to that split?
00:23:18.340 Oh no, I mean, I think, I think there's always, there's always a danger of splits. And I think
00:23:21.460 what we've seen, you know, the, the, the, I always like to say the conservative movement is sort of
00:23:26.420 deeply Protestant in character. It's not to say there aren't just Protestants in the conservative
00:23:29.780 movement, but there's sort of a splittist tendency that, you know, when things aren't going the way we
00:23:34.020 want, certain factions will break off. And I think that, so I think, I always think there's a danger of
00:23:42.420 it. I generally think that, however, though, that we're going into an election where Trudeau will be
00:23:46.980 empowered for a decade, liberals empowered for a decade, and the tendency for unity in the face of
00:23:51.140 that kind of a environment is much, much, much greater. And I think there'll be a strong push
00:23:56.900 for unity, whoever wins afterwards. And, and the conservative party has a fairly good record of
00:24:00.900 pulling that together. You know, especially if we, if we have a leader who is sensitive to some of the
00:24:08.180 mandates concerns, I think even what we'll see is a greater unity with the chunk of, of PPC voters
00:24:15.620 coming back to the conservatives as well. I, I think that's right. It's, it was interesting because
00:24:21.940 I think it was Warren Kinsella started calling Pierre Paglia of People's Party Pierre, which,
00:24:27.220 which I don't think is as big of an insult as, as he thinks it is. But, but I did find it amusing that I
00:24:33.860 think both, uh, Roman Babber and Lesley Lewis took, uh, shots at Pierre and the federal conservatives
00:24:39.940 for not doing enough to defend the trucker convoy and the, uh, and, and, and being anti sort of
00:24:45.780 lockdown mandate enough. So that was an interesting, I didn't, I didn't, uh, I didn't agree with much
00:24:51.780 that the media said about the debate afterwards, but there was one, um, thing that I did, I did agree
00:24:56.660 with. It was written in the hub, which, which is a policy sort of, uh, more of a wonkish publication,
00:25:02.020 but, um, there's sort of complaints that the debate didn't feature enough big ideas and it
00:25:07.060 wasn't policy oriented enough. And then they didn't really put down anything in terms of what
00:25:12.180 they believed in and what their vision for Canada was in specific ways. Um, do you think that's just
00:25:17.220 because it's too early in, in this race? I know we're not going to determine the leader until
00:25:20.660 September. So it's, it's so early. There's so much time. Um, but, but do you think that the debate and,
00:25:25.940 and the conversation so far has been lacking when it comes to public policy?
00:25:29.860 Um, no, I disagree. I think, I think we've seen some interesting public policy proposals
00:25:34.820 around housing prices, around cryptocurrency. Um, Mr. Shray put on a big, um, uh, healthcare piece
00:25:41.780 recently. There's been, there's been a fair bit, but it's, it's, it's, they're all subs,
00:25:46.180 they're all subservient to the overall narrative, which is, you know, um, the Shray Brown approach,
00:25:52.420 which says conservatives shouldn't be conservative and they should feel bad about being
00:25:56.580 conservatives. And if only we were just liberals who were good at math, um, everything would be
00:26:00.980 fine. Uh, and then there's, um, what Mr. Polyev, uh, is showing, which is that, you know, it's okay
00:26:07.700 to be conservative. It's not just okay. It's great to be conservative to feel and to fight for freedom
00:26:12.420 and to, um, make people feel that they're part of something that is growing. And, and so I've seen
00:26:19.220 very, two very different narratives and all the policy gets assumed by that. You know, we're not,
00:26:23.780 it's very different race than it was say in 2017 where we had 13 candidates on the stage
00:26:27.780 where people needed, um, individual policies to stand out from one another. And it came about that
00:26:33.460 here. It's really a, a, a campaign of big narratives. Do you think that at this point
00:26:39.140 that any of the campaigns are really using a strategy of like, okay, my goal is to get second
00:26:45.060 round votes and I'm going to try to appeal to this person's base. Do you think that's part of the
00:26:50.340 strategy game has, has really started to play in yet, or do you think it's too early? And then
00:26:54.580 also on that, what do you think about Patrick Brown's strategy to not debate, not talk to media,
00:27:00.900 not really engage, uh, kind of stand, stand back and, and, and lob grenades while also
00:27:06.020 sort of working, uh, with, uh, diaspora communities and, and immigrant communities to try to
00:27:12.260 shore up support amongst people who probably have never voted conservative before.
00:27:16.340 Yeah. Look, I mean, I think both the Shrey and Brown campaigns have a similar strategy, which is,
00:27:23.460 you know, do well enough on the first ballot to keep, um, uh, peer under a 50% and then get most
00:27:30.340 of the seconds of the other, right. They're both assuming that, that they will be ahead of, of each
00:27:35.140 other and that they can profit from that. And that's their path to victory. Um, so I think that that very
00:27:39.700 much exists, uh, on, on that side of things, um, you know, Mr. Brown has been, it's been described as
00:27:46.260 he's running a, uh, submarine campaign, um, which I think is good. I think he's, you know,
00:27:50.740 I think you're right. He's sort of firing the odd torpedo, but he's generally keeping under the,
00:27:54.580 under the, uh, under the radar. Um, and he, he's running a campaign very much about signing up
00:27:59.700 people in very specific, um, communities. You know, he came out and said that he was in favor of, um,
00:28:05.380 taking the Tamil Tigers off the terrorist list. Um, you know, which is an explicit appeal to
00:28:11.620 people who are supporters of Tamil Tigers. Um, he's a, he's come out and said, you know,
00:28:17.460 his reporting came out and said that he's against moving the Canadian embassy, uh, in, uh, in Israel to
00:28:24.740 Jerusalem. Um, he's very much targeting very specific communities and has
00:28:29.460 explicitly said many times that he's not interested in appealing to the traditional,
00:28:32.580 to the traditional membership. Um, and, uh, he's going to do, he's going to assign up
00:28:38.100 enough people to go around them and win that way. Um, you know, it's a bold strategy, a risky
00:28:42.180 strategy. It creates all sorts of trouble. Um, you know, should he be successful with caucus
00:28:46.900 and with the party establishment and the party as it exists? Um, so I, I, you know, we'll see,
00:28:52.020 we'll see how we get far he gets with that. Um, but I think, I think actually the most, uh, dangerous
00:28:58.660 is that if he wins is keeping the party together, having, uh, one, if you, if you,
00:29:03.060 that strategy is successful, keeping the party together is going to be very, very difficult
00:29:06.820 by signing up an entirely new group of people who've never had any connection with the conservative
00:29:11.380 party. I mean, I, I can't fathom that happening. Um, but yeah, certainly an interesting strategy,
00:29:18.580 one that we haven't seen, and it will be interesting to keep an eye on that. Well, Hamish,
00:29:22.260 I really appreciate all your insights on all these various campaigns and, uh, we appreciate
00:29:26.580 you having on your show. We'll have to have you back on later to give an update on these topics.
00:29:30.900 My pleasure. Hey, thank you so much. That's Hamish Marshall.
00:29:34.100 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.