Is the media afraid of Pierre Poilievre？
Episode Stats
Words per minute
207.00525
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Hamish Pritchard and discuss the impact Pierre Trudeau has had on the ground campaign so far, and why the media should be paying attention to it. We talk about the difference between the way the media covered the Trudeau campaign back in 2013, and the way it's been handled in this campaign.
Transcript
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I want to ask you, Hamish, because throughout the campaign, we've seen huge rallies, huge,
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huge numbers of people lining up to go out and see Pierre. It really seems like there's an
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electricity and excitement around that campaign. And we saw the media sort of try to downplay it
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and say that, okay, well, you know, he's just picking up the momentum from the trucker convoy
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and these aren't really voters and it's not going to convert into memberships. It's sort of
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people being skeptical, I would say, of the ground campaign that Pierre might be able to run. Well,
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if these numbers are accurate and they turn out to be, I think that Pierre has really proven those
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pundits and those journalists wrong. What do you take about the difference between the way that the
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media covered Trudeau back in 2013 and the so-called Trudeau mania, signing up free members versus how
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Pierre has been treated in this race? Look, what Pierre is doing is he's changing the paradigm.
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He's connecting with groups of people, Canadians who have never been involved in politics.
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Overwhelming thing you find if you go to one of Pierre's rallies, and I know, you know,
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you've had your team there and you're asking people, have you ever been to a political event
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before? It's no, it's my first one. You hear that again and again and again. And what's happening
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is that that Pierre is connected with a group of people who are not traditionally being super
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involved in Canadian politics. And the traditional people in Canadian politics, whether that's the
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insiders in Ottawa or the media, don't understand that. It's not people like them. It's not their
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friends going down to a Pierre rally. As a result, they keep coming up with excuses about why it can't
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be real. Sure, you get big rallies, but it's only in Calgary or in Alberta or a conservative area. Oh,
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now you're getting big numbers in Windsor and Ottawa and Toronto and places that conservatives don't do
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well, but those people won't sign up. Oh, now they've signed up, but then we want to actually vote. We
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keep hearing all these excuses. The reality on the ground is that people are engaged, they're fired up,
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they're looking for something different. And that's something that's what Pierre is providing.