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

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 1.00

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.

Juno News - May 10, 2022

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

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