Join Candice as she is joined by Dan Knight, founder of the Opposition News Network and host of the podcast Bringing Down the Liberals, to talk about the upcoming election and what to look out for in the polls. Candice is also joined by Hamish Marshall, a pollster and frequent guest on The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:18:15.780They're, you know, he said that, you know, we need to be in Parliament and that we need to, you know, be active.
00:18:24.580And that, you know, he rightfully pointed out that the Liberal Party has handcuffed us to the U.S.
00:18:32.220They canceled Energy East, Northern Gateway. They made us dependent on the U.S. and it's based on their ideology of coal is bad.
00:18:45.380And one thing that really bugs me about the ideology, the liberal ideology, is that we don't put carbon tax on imports into Canada.
00:18:55.380There is no carbon tax import. So what does that mean for Canadians?
00:18:59.820well it just means that we're not really we're not really net zero and what we're doing is it's
00:19:05.100kind of a shell game we have carb we have three cups our carbons right here and this is canada
00:19:11.420that's our center cup and all we do is we shell it over to china and so all of our manufacturing is
00:19:17.100now dependent on china they don't have our our um our labor laws they don't have our
00:19:25.500our economic or excuse me our environmental standards so we have we really brought down
00:19:31.780our net zero and absolutely not you know they have we export coals by the millions of tons
00:19:38.640per month to china so that they can make steel so you know peer polyab is right to to call that out
00:19:46.400that you know the liberals have crippled us but in my opinion i think a lot a lot of the problem
00:19:52.360with what the conservatives are saying is that they're coming off a little too soft and and
00:19:58.360they're being a little bit too kind of they're playing a little bit too much defense they're
00:20:03.560letting the liberals control the narrative and what do i mean by that well we had this hot hot
00:20:08.840mic moment with justin trudeau at this u.s canada economic summit where his mic was uh on and
00:20:15.880And somehow this, this, this audio, it was a fake hot mic. Cause he was on stage. Right. And then
00:20:22.980he told the media to leave the room. Everyone plug your ears. I'm going to say something
00:20:25.860right now to a room full of like 500 people. And then the media kind of jumped right into it
00:20:30.920because first of all, it's a, it's good clickbait. Uh, but second of all, you know, that's what they
00:20:36.200really want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the economy. They don't want to talk
00:20:38.500about Trudeau's record. What they really want to talk about is orange man, bad Trump's going to come
00:20:43.000conquer us and we need to like give it our all and fight for canada so you know let's let's talk
00:20:49.480about that a little bit and what the bad messaging is is is he rightfully called that out but what's
00:20:54.440his plan let's be clear it's it's i think i think what canadians want right now candace candace is
00:20:58.680that they they don't want talking points they want an impassioned leader you know why why is daniel
00:21:03.320smith so popular well she she's authentic you know why is donald trump so popular i mean in my opinion
00:21:11.480he comes off is authentic like a lot of his what the mainstream media comes off and they regurgitate
00:21:17.240to the um the public is his like his his his authenticity and i think that that's what what
00:21:24.040people really do appreciate whether you like him or not he's authentic he's he's shooting off the
00:21:28.040cuff this is what i think and there's no there's no peer groups there's no polling groups behind
00:21:35.560it this is just how he feels and i think what most people believe is that they feel that too
00:21:40.440And I think that the problem with the Conservative Party right now is that they're coming too much off of these polling groups.
00:21:46.400They're not, you know, you look at Pierre Polyev about, you know, glasses, Pierre Polyev, Pierre, excuse me, Pierre Polyev pre-bronzer.
00:21:58.580He was a little bit more feisty. He was a little bit more of a pit bull.
00:22:01.800And then they rebranded him. I think it was last summer they rebranded him.
00:22:05.400And now he's got bronzer on. He doesn't wear his glasses. His hairdo looks good.
00:22:09.320you know he's a little bit more palpable for the canadian public but at the same point time
00:22:14.120a lot of his grit that i really that really brought me towards him has been kind of
00:22:19.540a little less so you know is he is he still challenged the media absolutely i love you know
00:22:24.040i think most canadians appreciate that but i think the problem is is that what canadians want
00:22:29.180and especially those people that are that jobs are threatened in ottawa is that they want a little
00:22:34.140bit more of a a plan you know what what what what should Pierre Polyev's plan be well you know if I
00:22:40.920was in that position I mean and I'm unfiltered unfortunately so maybe I wouldn't be the best
00:22:44.840politician but I think that what Canadians want is they want to hear someone say like look you know
00:22:49.060if Stellantis which had an 18 billion dollar tax break by the the BC liberal or not the BC liberals
00:22:55.680the federal liberals they just pulled out their their plan they're going back to Detroit or Utah
00:23:00.920wherever um to appease trump if i was the opposition leader i'd be saying good let them go
00:23:07.640because you know what lng japan wants or japan wants our gas let's let them take our gas we'll
00:23:15.160make a business case but i want auto plants made in canada i'd be starts i'd start like that rough
00:23:20.280that rough conversation or that rough gritty bombastic not bombastic but i think that that's
00:23:27.080what canadians want is they want to hear that we that their leaders have their back they don't want
00:23:31.480slogans they want to hear that hey you know raw logs are being made in bc and we're shipping them
00:23:37.320out to we're shipping them out to china well enough of that we have log manufacturers we have planers
00:23:43.240we have um uh you know high production logging facilities out in bc we're going to start cutting
00:23:50.440we're going to make a higher percentage of that those logs to be cut in bc we're going to bring
00:23:55.240those jobs back to bc and the same can be said for the auto manufacturing out in ottawa if jeep
00:24:02.840ford chevy does not want to do business here in canada then let them leave but guess what you're
00:24:07.640not able to sell cars here there is no business case to be made for those companies that want to
00:24:12.440leave their auto manufacturing for canada we're going to bring in mercedes we're going to bring
00:24:17.400in a honda hyundai we're going to bring in these audio manufacturers and we're going to subsidize
00:24:21.960them because we're going to bring in those jobs and i know there's going to be a few people out
00:24:25.560there that say they hear me say subsidize and they're like why are we going to be subsidizing
00:24:30.600let's be clear there candace we have to because on a global market everyone is subsidizing some
00:24:36.600sort of industry and we've looked at like what the liberal track record is they had to prompt they had
00:24:40.840to give um stellantis the kitchen sink to build a battery plan here so we have to be a little
00:24:47.000realistic when it comes to that that we actually have to be competitive on the world stage
00:24:51.720so in my opinion i think that what what canadians want to hear is they want to hear a message but
00:24:55.960they also want to hear a hard message i i don't know if i'm i'm i'm wrong on that but based on
00:25:01.240the feedback from that that article i think a lot of canadians agree with me well you just have a
00:25:06.040comprehensive plan that i think you've thought it through at a lot more depth in detail than many
00:25:10.680others so i recommend that everyone go over to dan knight's subject check out his piece because
00:25:14.600every word of it i i was nodding along and like getting fired up listening to it reading it i want
00:25:19.400I want to get through the news because there's some news developing today that we like to get to on the show.
00:25:24.380So we learned, first of all, that Trump has promised 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, including from Canada.
00:25:32.500So this is not just for Canada. It's for all imports into the United States on those products, kind of tied to what you were talking about there, Dan.
00:25:39.040So here is a clip from him heading home from the Super Bowl from New Orleans, explaining his new tariff.
00:25:46.860We'll also be announcing steel tariffs on Monday.
00:28:02.400all of the proceeds of which will be given back
00:28:04.980to our steel and aluminum industry, and any surplus will be given in tax relief for our people.
00:28:12.300And at the same time as Poliev was announcing his own intention to impose tariffs on steel
00:28:18.680and aluminum, he also dug up this clip of Mark Carney just two weeks ago, or less than two weeks
00:28:24.100ago, January 31st. Mark Carney saying the opposite thing, which is that he wants to put a price on
00:28:31.420pollution for steel makers, he wants to tax them even more. So Polyev talking about tariffing,
00:28:38.560so taxing imports, so taxing other people's steel, whereas Karnia is talking about taxing
00:28:44.580our own steel made in Canada. Let's play that clip.
00:28:48.120Then secondly, what we're going to do is make sure not that the government pays,
00:28:53.060not that we as taxpayers pay, but the large polluters pay. And so what happens...
00:28:58.740Does that not ultimately trickle down?
00:29:00.660No, because what the big companies are producing, by and large, are not products that we are consuming.
00:29:07.760There's some element of that, but by and large, you know, a steel company, how much steel are you using these days, Todd?
00:29:14.020I mean, not as much, not as much of a use.
00:29:17.120So kind of a bumbling answer there, but you can see that he's saying that, oh, the big polluters will pay, right, and then the consumers won't see that at all.
00:29:24.240uh you know for a guy that's run the uh central banks there he doesn't really seem to understand
00:29:28.640some basic economics um so you know here we see another trade war unfolding we had justin trudeau
00:29:34.720out in paris frolicking around with emmanuel macron he was asked about these tariffs and he
00:29:39.360says they are unacceptable and that canada's response will be firm and clear let's play that
00:29:44.000clip we will be working with the american administration over the coming weeks to
00:29:49.360to highlight the negative impacts on Americans and Canadians of these unacceptable tariffs.
00:29:56.980We will also be working with our international partners and friends.
00:30:01.700And if it comes to that, our response, of course, will be firm and clear.
00:30:08.400So, Dan, if you could just give me a quick response there to the latest tariff back and forth that we're seeing.
00:30:14.060i think mark carney is uh is quite funny for saying that he's going to tax uh our industry
00:30:22.060especially when he's built his company berkshire has built pipelines in brazil so it's i could
00:30:29.540probably talk about it for about half an hour i think that it's uh it's incredible that we have
00:30:33.340a prime minister in paris when we have an economic trade war uh it's funny to me that we have uh a
00:30:40.940banker, an unelected banker talking about carbon taxes when our parliamentary budget officer has
00:30:46.720already gone and reported. This is a nonpartisan entity there, Candace, has said that it adds
00:30:55.900inflation to, or the carbon tax adds inflation. It's passed down to the consumer. Tiff Macklin
00:31:03.060has gone on BOC, the Bank of Canada, when he was doing his press releases and said, yes, it adds
00:31:10.160to, um, the consumer price index. So it's, it's funny to me that we have, uh, two, uh, out of
00:31:18.100touch politicians, uh, talking about, uh, about something that it's just, it's such a grift.
00:31:25.720It's, it's, it's unbelievable to me, Candace. I have no words for it. It's, I think most people
00:31:30.320here would agree with me that, that the government is very out of touch. Um, we, you know, the reason
00:31:38.040that Mark Carney doesn't. I think we're done with the carbon taxes. I don't think that that's
00:31:42.100going to be a debate in Canada anymore. We're so done with it that the Liberals aren't even going
00:31:45.400to defend it. I don't think the Conservatives are going to be able to run on that as a campaign
00:31:49.980issue because Canadians are basically in agreement. So we hear people like Mark Carney. It's like the
00:31:54.600exact wrong approach. Dan, I got to leave it at that because we've got a lot more to get on the
00:31:59.040show, but I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining the program. I'll have to have
00:32:01.820you back on again in the future. Candace, thank you so much for having me. You guys do great work
00:32:07.300at True North. And thanks for having me. All right. Okay. Have a great day, Dan. All right.
00:32:12.640I want to talk about Pierre Polyev because one of the things we had Stockwell, or sorry, we had
00:32:17.460Preston Manning on the show on Friday and, you know, talking about Canada can be a little bit
00:32:22.140depressing these days, especially if you're more on the conservative side, because you see so many
00:32:26.860of the great things about our country have collapsed and fallen apart. One of the things
00:32:30.500that was really, I thought was so optimistic in talking to Preston was his call for action at the
00:32:36.600end. He said, you know, I said, what can Canadians do? He said, fly the flag, fly the flag, show pride
00:32:42.260in your Canadian country and heritage. You know, go buy a flag and go fly the flag. He said one of
00:32:48.480the things he admires about Americans is that they do fly the flag. Even, you know, I have family
00:32:53.260members that live in very liberal California, and they fly the American flag, even though they're
00:32:58.480liberals on the left. They still love America, right? And they fly the flag, and Canadians don't
00:33:02.840do that as much. So I was, I was heartwarmed to hear Preston Manning talking about that. I think
00:33:08.040it's a great message. And lo and behold, it opened my X this morning and I saw a conservative leader
00:33:13.000Pierre Polyev making a similar plea, encouraging Canadians to go out, purchase a flag and fly the
00:33:19.820Maple Leaf. Let's play that clip. This Saturday is in fact flag day. So I'm encouraging everyone,
00:33:26.560regardless of your political allegiance to go out, get yourself a flag, big or small,
00:33:31.540Put it on a flagpole in front of your home or through your window or in any other way that you can show our colors.
00:33:39.500We're very proud of this country. We'll never be the 51st state.
00:33:43.440We will always be a strong, self-reliant, sovereign country.
00:33:48.120So let's show that message by raising the flag.
00:34:01.540Beautiful, beautiful video there. Canada first. Gotta love that. And here is Pierre
00:34:08.080Pagliau's post on X this morning. And he simply says, raise the flag. What a great message.
00:34:15.460Okay. And I want to bring in Hamish Marshall to the conversation. The audience knows Hamish.
00:34:20.540Hamish is a partner at One Persuades, which is a government relations and strategy firm
00:34:24.280in Ontario, but we all know him as a pollster. So he served as Andrew Scheer's campaign manager
00:34:30.120for the Conservatives in 2019. Prior to that, he was manager of strategic planning in Stephen
00:34:36.200Harper's successful 2008 election. And of course, he worked with us at True North during the 2021
00:34:42.280election as our in-house pollster. So Hamish, welcome to the program. Great to be here, Candace.
00:34:47.840Okay, so I've been dying to talk to you about this, Hamish, because we've been seeing so much
00:34:51.640of it, and I don't know if it's real or not. But what we are seeing is that the Liberals are making
00:34:56.460a comeback federally. And that, you know, if an election happens this spring, the Liberals might
00:35:02.620do a lot better than we once thought. So let's just start with Ontario. So according to recent
00:35:09.200polling in Ontario, it shows that the Liberals are actually up, if we can show this graphic.
00:35:15.240The Liberals are at 43% versus 39% for the Conservatives. Let's just start right there,
00:35:21.460Hamish, how can this be possible? How can people in Ontario still have faith in the Liberals after
00:35:27.020the last nine years? And is this accurate? Is this going to hold for an election?
00:35:31.820Well, it turns out Justin Trudeau was really, really unpopular. And people really didn't like
00:35:36.940him. And he was dragging down the Liberal numbers. I think we all intuitively knew that.
00:35:41.820And the relief of Justin Trudeau being gone is certainly opening people's eyes to the possibility
00:35:48.580of voting liberal again i i think these numbers are probably a bit high um especially in ontario
00:35:54.500uh we've seen other pollsters come in with certainly a liberal uh increase but i don't
00:35:58.900i don't know if it's quite as much as that um the thing that's happening is that we often see this
00:36:04.100in leadership races that when um somebody's being unpopular is being replaced with somebody new
00:36:10.900when people ask who are you voting for they then imagine when it hasn't been decided they then
00:36:17.060imagine their dream liberal leader. So right now, if you ask someone who you're voting for,
00:36:21.900they're thinking of liberals, especially someone who wants to vote liberal, they're thinking of
00:36:26.000their dream liberal leader. The problem is, whether it's Mark Carney or Christopher Freeland
00:36:29.680or any of the other people running, none of them are these ideal candidates in reality.
00:36:35.060So what we often see in this situation is that when a leader actually gets chosen,
00:36:40.320people say, hold on, that person? He's not as good as the person I was imagining in my mind.
00:36:46.060and we see the numbers drift down a bit as well.
00:36:49.040But I think we shouldn't expect them to go back down to as far as they were
00:36:51.880because Trudeau was very, very, very unpopular.
00:36:54.820Well, it kind of reminds me, I mean, there are some parallels to the states, right?
00:36:58.000Like we had Joe Biden, very, very unpopular president,
00:37:01.520not just because of his advanced age, but his policies.
00:37:06.920and they created a very unaffordable standard of living in the United States.
00:37:10.980And even when he got replaced, you know, at the end of the day,
00:37:14.200I think Americans were voting no to the woke agenda, to inflation, to the left-wing policies
00:37:19.120that got them into that mess. I imagine the same thing will happen in Canada, but I'm worried when
00:37:25.740I see numbers like this, especially in Ontario, I really don't understand how 43% of people in
00:37:32.460Ontario can still be willing to vote for the Liberals, given the reality that we live in,
00:37:38.640And, you know, how bad and dangerous their policies have been, you know, not just in terms of how hard left and woke they are, but the actual pocketbook issues, how expensive things is, the cost of groceries, the cost of gas, all of that kind of thing.
00:37:53.000Do you think that's factoring in or do you think people are just saying, you know, hopefully the next person's better than Trudeau, so we'll give them a shot?
00:38:01.420I think there's some of the Trump tariff war sneaking in.
00:38:06.440But I think that realistically, whomever the new leader is, once Canadians figure out that they're not going to govern in a way that's been infinitely different from Trudeau, and that will be the Conservatives' job during the campaign and in the time leading up to it, is to persuade, remind, show Canadians that these people are not going to be different in a meaningful way.
00:38:24.200I think we're going to see their numbers drag back down again.
00:38:28.620Well, OK, so here is another recent seat count from 338 Canada, which is a polling aggregator on X.
00:38:36.580Let's show this seat projection. So this still shows the Conservatives way ahead.
00:38:40.760It has the Conservatives getting anywhere between 170 all the way up to 237 seats,
00:38:46.720where the Liberals sort of max out at 116 and can get as low as 53.
00:38:51.720So just the trend, right? The trend is going up for the Libs and down for the Conservatives,
00:38:57.160which, you know, I think that height, that peak, like you said, Justin Trudeau was so unpopular,
00:39:03.640but it can't feel good for Conservatives to see, you know, Canadians potentially abandoning them
00:39:09.720and losing that really strong majority that it seemed like they were headed towards.
00:39:15.240Yeah, but I don't, when we saw polls, the Conservatives are up to 47, 48 percent of the
00:39:18.840votes. I don't, most people I talk to in Conservative land never really believed that
00:39:25.400those numbers were really realistic so you know settling moving down and settling into something
00:39:30.280in the low 40s which is still be a massive accomplishment right justin trudeau didn't
00:39:34.840even get 40 in 2015 with his majority stephen harper didn't get 40 with his majority in
00:39:40.4402011 ending up at 42 or something would still be the largest majority we've seen in this country
00:39:45.960since uh probably actually almost certainly this century wow okay so this is what the latest ipsos
00:39:51.480poll had this was from thursday february 6th and it shows an eight point swing but to your point
00:39:57.720conservatives are still at 45 down five points libs up to 28 um up eight points but like you said
00:40:04.640still in solid um drury territory so i think pierre polyev would take that it's just that the
00:40:10.300trend is happening the wrong direction and you're talking you mentioned that now that trump is
00:40:14.660entering into the question of whether or not um you know pierre polyev has set it up that he thinks
00:40:20.520that this election will be fought on carbon taxes and on cost of living and on pocketbook issues,
00:40:25.180I think that the media and the press and certainly the liberals would much rather be talking about
00:40:29.040Donald Trump and turning it into a referendum on Trump, turning it into kind of an existential
00:40:33.700crisis for Canada, like this next prime minister's sole job is going to be negotiating tariffs and
00:40:38.940not just tariffs, because Trump actually is serious about annexing us, according to Justin
00:40:43.000Trudeau. That's what he said at a closed door event on Friday, that Trump is serious about
00:40:48.160annex in Canada, that he wants our minerals. And when that is the ballot box question facing
00:40:53.540Canadians, it actually looks even worse for Pierre Polyev. So here is another nanos poll
00:40:59.220that was conducted at the end of January. And it found that 40% of Canadians believe that Mark
00:41:05.000Carney was the most qualified leader to negotiate with Donald Trump and his administration. 26%
00:41:12.620said that they consider Mr. Poliev to be the best qualified for that role.
00:42:31.080which reflects so badly on them and how they've been running the country.
00:42:34.180They're desperate to change it to something about Trump.
00:42:36.700And I think this is more evidence of that.
00:42:38.080I mean, Mr. Yannis' comment at the end of saying, well, people might vote for somebody they don't like because they care about this more.
00:42:44.300Or they, you know, they're not going to vote based on their actual, you know, experience with life getting more expensive because this issue is more important to them.
00:42:55.140You know, I find that very, very hard to believe.
00:42:58.040I mean, of course, there'll be somebody in Canada who falls into that category.
00:43:01.260We've got, you know, 30 million people eligible to vote.
00:43:03.340But the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, people in very few cases, you know, one of the things that people say, oh, the economy matters.
00:43:10.200When people vote in the economy, it's rarely the economy as a big sort of amorphous blob.
00:43:16.000When they think about the economy, think of their own situation, right?
00:43:18.940And whether this policy or this leader is going to make their lives better.
00:43:22.980It's actually a deeply personal thing.
00:43:24.680And I think this is going to be the same again.
00:43:28.180You know, they can try to change the channel away from people being worried about the cost of living.
00:43:33.340but the numbers out there thus far when you look at what issues people are worried about it is
00:43:39.180overwhelmingly it is still people worry about health care but they're also still worried an
00:43:43.340awful lot about cost of living uh and inflation and they are um there's a rising number of people
00:43:49.740who are worried about the trump tariffs but it's not the dominant issue the way these people every
00:43:53.180all these you know elite commentators seem to want to uh project it to be uh so i'm not convinced
00:44:00.140that what they all might all wish it to be,
00:44:03.120I'm not convinced it's coming true yet.
00:44:24.460I mean, I think it's a way of framing this debate.
00:44:29.600I think it's an effective way of framing this debate.
00:44:32.300And if the vote comes down to, you know, if the Liberals, the campaign the Liberals want to run is, we will keep Canada as an independent country and Pierre Polio supports being Canada the 51st state.
00:54:16.260who were talking about potentially an October, 2026 election. Well, a lot has changed in the
00:54:20.780last few weeks since you were on Hamish, because now I'm hearing the exact opposite. I posted this
00:54:24.920on X over the weekend, that there's a rumor circulating that Mark Carney is going to call
00:54:29.160an election himself after he wins the liberal leadership race. And I said, I'm guessing polls
00:54:34.580like this are a motivating factor. And it linked to a poll that showed that he was actually gaining
00:54:39.080and ahead. There's been other people who apparently have heard this. So I want to play a clip.
00:54:44.080This is CTV's Vassie Capellos and Stephanie Levitz, also both suggesting that Carney himself may pull the plug and we may be going straight into an election.
00:56:32.020What are the policies we can run on? Very, very, very quickly, they're going to be running into that House of Commons coming back on the 24th of March and the possibility of a non-confidence vote.
00:56:49.420And it'll come down to the NDP again. But I still think the most likely date for an election is the 12th of May and that the government will be defeated at some point in the last four or five days of March.
00:56:58.000Okay, well, Jagmeet Singh himself chimed in. So he was speaking at a press conference yesterday in Windsor, Ontario, and he told reporters that he would work with the Liberals to fight back against Trump's tariffs threats. So implying that he wouldn't pull the plug right away. And that also, he may end up pulling the plug. Let's play that clip.
00:57:20.700Bringing down the Trudeau government to get to an election sooner or finding a way to work together to fight against Donald Trump with some real meaningful measures?
00:57:32.040Well, I mean, we could do that right now.
00:57:36.060And we've called for Parliament to be recalled because it can happen right now.
00:57:41.460We could have Parliament back in session right now.
00:57:44.120And then the government prioritizes which bills come forward.
00:57:47.640So if they're serious about a package of supports to help us fight back against Donald Trump
00:57:53.400and to support workers, they could prioritize that and put that before the House as the first
00:57:57.320thing we vote on. And of course, at a time when we're threatened by a trade war, a war that we
00:58:02.280did not want to start, but one that we have to fight back, then we will, I can't imagine any
00:58:07.160opposition leader opposing measures to fight back against Donald Trump and to support workers.
00:58:13.400So that's not what he said in December when he said he would pull the plug no matter what, whoever's leading the party. Obviously, we've had a change from Jagmeet Singh. Can't be trusted. He will change his position over and over and over again for whatever suits him. But I just I wonder about like whether Mark Carney would be better off taking the lead and calling the election himself as opposed to leaving it to Jagmeet Singh to decide his fate.
00:58:36.420yeah i mean he could do that but as i said i he the timing is such that there will be confidence
00:58:43.860votes before the end of march and i don't think that you know the only scenario i can see is that
00:58:52.780carney would come back with a throne speech on the 24th of march have a budget that would be
00:58:58.220introduced on the 25th or 26th and then instantly drop the writ in which case we're going to be in
00:59:03.380the same scenario, whether he was defeated, you know, in a vote around that time or a day or two
00:59:07.880later anyway. So I don't think we're going to be in an election substantially earlier than we'd
00:59:12.020been talking about. But maybe there's a deal with Singh. I mean, Singh seems to specialize in making
00:59:17.420deals that are bad for Singh. The NDP are down in the polls as well. They seem to have drifted
00:59:21.980from 20-ish percent down to 16, I think we saw in that Ipsos poll. So that certainly would be a
00:59:29.420decrease for them that they were not going to be happy about. So maybe the answer for them is
00:59:33.340they're going to see if they can wait longer and see if the bloom comes off Carney. But, you know,
00:59:37.700the NDP to do a deal with an international banker like Carney, you think it would go against
00:59:42.640everything they stand for. But as I said, Singh's specialty is making deals that are terrible for
00:59:47.540Singh. So we'll see where we end up. Well, it is very interesting because I can't imagine Jagmeet
00:59:54.000Singh triggering an election when he's that down in the polls. It's a good observation that a lot
00:59:58.300of the bounce that we've seen from the Liberals have actually been at the expense of the NDP
01:00:01.540and not the Conservatives. But I really do think that the parallel to the United States was that
01:00:08.460they kind of kept Kamala Harris hidden from view for the first month. She was the nominee. I remember
01:00:14.600Ben Shapiro had a clock every day of how long she'd been the nominee without doing a national
01:00:18.580interview. And I think it was over 30 days that she went without talking to anyone. And it wasn't
01:00:23.500until people really started to hear her and see her that they decided that they didn't like her
01:00:27.440and that they didn't want her to be candidate, might be better off for Mark Carney to remain hidden
01:00:31.500and remain just sort of, you know, he looks like a prime minister and he looks like he's got a lot
01:00:36.100of experience and he seems like he's capable without actually hearing from him. So I guess
01:00:40.960we'll have to have you on again next month and we can go through the next scenario as well.
01:00:46.180Hamish, before we go, I did want to talk to you quickly about Ontario because there's also an
01:00:50.300election going on in Ontario and it seems like the progressive Conservatives are looking like
01:00:55.880they're going to win very easily. So the latest polls have them up at 45% and the Liberals down
01:01:02.360at 26%. It doesn't look like it's going to be particularly close. Although interestingly,
01:01:07.620according to Nano's poll, 52% of Ontarians disagree with Doug Ford's decision to call an
01:01:13.380early election. So people aren't happy that they have to go to the polls, but I don't think that
01:01:19.060they're necessarily going to take it out on Doug Ford. So what do you make of that?
01:01:23.300Well, I think it's a perfect example of the difference between what people think about something and whether it's an issue they care about.
01:01:30.300Yeah, people don't like the idea of an early election, but in this case, they don't really care about it.
01:01:34.040You know, it doesn't matter. The fact that they don't like it seems to have no impact on their likelihood to vote for Premier Ford and his team.
01:01:42.080They're up effectively four points from the last election.
01:01:46.140The Liberals stayed about the same, the NDP are down.
01:01:49.880That's the other thing, by the way, that we'll be weighing on Mr. Singh's mind is the NDP part.
01:01:56.120The NDP is very, very, very federally and provincially integrated.
01:02:00.600And all their activists, you know, the NDP is desperately right now trying to hold on to their official opposition status in Ontario.
01:02:07.120They're spending a lot of time and money and burning people out.
01:02:09.520And then the idea of wanting to have another federal election, you know, almost immediately thereafter is going to be something that they're not too excited about.
01:02:18.880I would think. But, you know, the forward PCs certainly look like they're on track.
01:02:24.800Nothing seems to have changed. We're now a good couple of weeks into the campaign.
01:02:28.280Nothing seems to be moving at the moment. The interesting thing is that, you know,
01:02:33.620the NDP are dropping a bunch and what that does, how that plays to the seat count can be very
01:02:37.920interesting. If the Liberal votes are reasonably concentrated in certain places, if Crombie has
01:02:43.600personal popularity in Mississauga, she could actually win, even though she gets the same
01:02:47.880percentage of the vote as the Liberals did in the last provincial election. She could win a bunch
01:02:51.140more seats, perhaps mainly at the expense of the NDP. But on the whole, if the PCs are up four or
01:02:57.540five points, we could expect them to win a bigger majority. And what do you think the ballot box
01:03:02.640question is in Ontario? Like what is the motivating thing that people, is it a referendum on Doug
01:03:06.960Ford in his time in office? Is it something to do with Trump? Is it a broader question of
01:03:11.300Conservatives versus Liberals? Or what do you think is motivating people? I think it's very,
01:03:15.320very very it's a very broad and very boring uh is it time for a change and the answer from
01:03:22.600more than enough people to re-elect the government is yeah things are pretty good things are fine
01:03:28.200and i think there's some convention that whatever people vote for in ontario they'll vote opposite
01:03:33.000for the opposite uh federally so when there's a strong conservative leader in in queens park in
01:03:37.880ontario uh more likely to vote liberal federally do you think there's anything to that for this
01:03:42.200i mean it never it doesn't always line up perfectly um a variety of reasons it is it
01:03:49.160has lined up at various points in the past i think it's one of those things that that that
01:03:53.960it's one of those patterns that doesn't actually really mean anything um you know people in ontario
01:03:58.600uh still want a change at the federal level from everything i've been seeing uh and i think that's
01:04:03.320what we can expect uh whenever the federal election rolls around interesting all right
01:04:08.200well hamish i really appreciate your time today thank you for all your insights and
01:04:11.240and I look forward to having you back on the program again soon.