Juno News - March 29, 2022


Should the Conservatives embrace populism？


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

202.97491

Word Count

9,220

Sentence Count

324

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The Conservative Party of Canada is at a crossroads. Will the party embrace populism and
00:00:05.080 capitalize on the broad frustrations that many Canadians have with the Trudeau government,
00:00:09.180 or will they go down the safe establishment path and formula of presenting themselves as a more
00:00:14.100 disciplined and more moderate version of the Liberal Party of Canada? I'm Candice Malcolm
00:00:18.240 and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:30.000 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. So there's a couple of things that we know
00:00:34.500 and that is that Canadians are feeling the effects of a big government led by the Liberal
00:00:39.900 Party and Justin Trudeau. They always think that they know best. This style of government
00:00:44.280 includes the astronomical debt that Trudeau has raked up, a bureaucratic busybody is constantly
00:00:49.820 getting in the way of jobs and growth, a growing nanny state where the government restricts our
00:00:54.480 rights and freedoms at every turn, and all the while it seems like Justin Trudeau is never really
00:00:58.940 held accountable. He always finds a way to get away and give himself more power, whether
00:01:03.580 it's through backroom deals like the one we saw with Jagmeet Singh, or just utilizing the
00:01:08.000 various tools of government to get away with his various scandals. So many Canadians are left
00:01:12.980 wondering what is the alternative? Could there be an opportunity here for the Conservative Party
00:01:18.140 of Canada? Do Conservatives embrace populism? Or do they look down their noses at it like so
00:01:23.660 many in the establishment class do? Well, my guest today on The Candice Malcolm Show is
00:01:28.580 Ben Woodfindan. Ben is a writer and contributor to The National Post. And to Hub, The Hub, his recent article,
00:01:35.140 he argues that it's time for the Conservatives to embrace populism. Ben is also working on a PhD over
00:01:41.700 at McGill University. And it is great to have you on the program, Ben. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:46.020 Good to be with you. So I've never had you on the show before, but I have been reading and enjoying
00:01:52.820 your work in various publications for a long time. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself
00:01:58.100 and how you got involved in sort of public policy and writing in various newspapers?
00:02:02.980 Sure. So yeah, so as you said, so I'm finishing a PhD right now at McGill. Doing a PhD is kind of,
00:02:10.340 I won't bore your listeners with the details, but basically on executive power in the Westminster
00:02:16.180 system is the really boring version of it. So I do that, you know, it's kind of like my day job,
00:02:20.660 so to speak. But I do a fair bit of, I never leave, I never really know what to describe myself as
00:02:25.300 exactly. I do some writing commentary on the side. I write pretty regularly placed like the National
00:02:31.380 Post. And what's, what's, people always assume I kind of have a kind of a hyper-partisan background.
00:02:37.540 And I really don't, I've actually never fully worked for the Conservative Party or anything like
00:02:42.100 that. I kind of see my role in, in the kind of the movement more broadly in that kind of more
00:02:47.460 small C sense. You know, I don't hide my political leanings. You know, people in the academic world
00:02:53.060 certainly are aware of my political leanings, unfortunately sometimes. But I, yeah, I kind of
00:02:58.740 see myself as a kind of, a kind of small C voice that tries to kind of, you know, offer nudges and
00:03:05.300 problems and kind of the way the part on directions I think the party should take.
00:03:09.700 You know, I don't really, I don't really know if there's a kind of, I would just call myself a
00:03:13.460 conservative. I don't know if there's a kind of type of conservative I would necessarily kind of
00:03:18.180 frame myself as. I do, I do kind of, you know, some of the, some of the kind of broader shifts we've
00:03:25.060 seen in the last couple of years, you know, not just in Canada, but you know, in the US and UK,
00:03:29.620 towards a kind of more, what I like to call kind of like a blue collar conservatism. I think I'm
00:03:34.180 very kind of sympathetic towards that. And I kind of think that's, I think that's happening,
00:03:38.500 whether people like it or not, that's the direction it's going anyway. But I also think that's,
00:03:43.380 it's a good thing that we're going in that direction and kind of some of the work conservatives
00:03:47.220 need to be doing over the next few years is kind of figuring out how to kind of,
00:03:50.900 how to put meat, meat on those bones and how to kind of really flesh and kind of good,
00:03:54.740 good policy ideas and kind of a good, a good substantive agenda around that kind of shift as
00:04:00.740 well. Well, it's interesting to hear you talk about the need to sort of embrace working class
00:04:06.900 values and populism. I don't really expect that talking to an academic from McGill University.
00:04:12.900 So I do wonder what, what brought you towards conservatism? You know, it's sort of rare,
00:04:18.660 like you mentioned in academia and in, in just sort of, you know, elite establishments,
00:04:25.460 like the one that you work at. So I'm just curious as to like, you were reluctant to say
00:04:31.140 what kind of conservative you are, but what, what, what brought you to this tradition of conservatism?
00:04:36.500 Oh, good question. You know, I was, I was a, so I, so I grew up, I was born in the UK,
00:04:41.380 and I grew up in the UK and we moved, my family moved to Canada when I was about 15.
00:04:45.060 It's moving, you know, moving, moving countries when you're 15 is, it's not an easy time necessarily
00:04:52.260 to move. So I had a kind of strange high school experience when I was here. And I basically,
00:04:57.460 you know, I wasn't, I wouldn't call myself kind of, I wasn't interested in politics or
00:05:01.700 anything like that when I was young. You know, I basically just kind of had more time on my
00:05:05.780 hands and doing a bit more reading, a bit more thinking when I was, when we moved here. And I just
00:05:10.100 kind of, I kind of, of course I would say this, you know, as someone doing a PhD,
00:05:13.700 I basically just kind of read my way into it. You know, I did, I did the kind of very,
00:05:18.500 the very unique, maybe strange thing of that. I became, I grew up in a fairly non-religious
00:05:24.260 family and I, I decided, I became a Catholic. I converted when I was about, I was about 21,
00:05:29.620 when I was an undergrad. So there was definitely, and some of that was definitely, you know,
00:05:33.300 well, it wasn't a political move, but it was definitely broader, you know, I'm fairly
00:05:38.500 traditionalist in many ways. And so there's definitely, you know, that's definitely something going on there.
00:05:43.700 In terms of my kind of political evolution, I think, so like I said, I grew up in the UK.
00:05:48.820 And I think prior to that, my politics were kind of quite, I was, you know, I was always kind of
00:05:54.820 conservative, but I was never, I was never super comfortable with maybe some of the more like free
00:06:00.660 market-y kind of conservatism. But I kind of just went, you know, I kind of, I didn't really think
00:06:05.700 about there being other ways to think about conservatism until Brexit. And Brexit really
00:06:11.860 kind of changed, but really opened my eyes to certain things. So the kinds of, you know, I come
00:06:18.180 from a fairly working class background in the UK. So, so much of the kind of the discourse,
00:06:25.780 the kind of discussion around Brexit that, you know, before and then after, after the referendum,
00:06:29.860 certain things really change, some things really changed for me and sort of opened my eyes.
00:06:36.900 And the kind of, I guess if there's one kind of broad, broad thing that I changed my mind on that
00:06:43.140 really does shape my politics now, it's the kind of the way that the way that, you know, the traditional
00:06:50.180 defenders of the working class, people on the left, the way that they now think about politics and the
00:06:54.340 way that they now think about defending the interest of working class people. It's just,
00:06:58.100 just totally divorced from the real lives of these people. You know, I, I sometimes get
00:07:06.420 fairly or unfairly, I think fairly kind of labeled as kind of a pro union conservative.
00:07:11.540 And I always like to clarify to people that I'm very pro kind of labor unions and
00:07:16.340 actual like trade unions. But I'm not particularly pro public sector unions, which are a totally different
00:07:22.740 animal, just in terms of the incentives that motivate them, the kinds of people that are actually
00:07:27.460 members of the other, if you're in a, you know, a public sector union, you're basically a member of
00:07:31.860 like the professional class, right. And so I think like, like the Labour Party in the UK now, it's still,
00:07:37.380 you know, a union party, but it's dominated by like public sector unions. So the kind of labor
00:07:43.380 politics that they're into now is very much that kind of like, professional managerial kind of urban
00:07:48.820 London based kind of politics. And also, you know, while all these kind of bigger shifts were going
00:07:55.780 on around Brexit and stuff like that, it just kind of so many of these doors, so many new things just
00:08:00.740 kind of became clear to me that I don't, I don't want to say that I kind of found my own consciousness.
00:08:05.860 That's a, I really like that kind of language, but I think kind of over these last couple of years,
00:08:10.340 I've kind of come into my own kind of sense of, you know, where I'm from, how it, how it fits into
00:08:14.660 the world. And, you know, so when I say I'm sympathetic, it's kind of like blue collar
00:08:19.700 conservative shifts, you know, as partially kind of like, self motivated, that's kind of
00:08:24.100 broadly speaking, how I kind of see my background and see where I'm from. So,
00:08:29.060 yeah, and, you know, there's a, some of this is economic stuff, some of this obviously overlaps with
00:08:33.060 like, deeper kind of cultural questions, questions about respect and dignity for people.
00:08:39.380 But yeah, I think so I, yeah, it's a long way of kind of explaining how I got here. But
00:08:44.660 if there was a single kind of catalyst from that kind of shift in politics, it was probably
00:08:48.820 Brexit and what happened in the years following that.
00:08:51.380 It's so interesting. I could, I could do a whole show and I probably should one day on
00:08:56.020 the number of conservatives that I know have, who have converted to Catholicism, just personally,
00:09:00.340 either from, from like an atheist background, or, you know, maybe just like a Anglican Christian
00:09:06.260 sort of background, where they, they've sort of feel the need to go towards something even more
00:09:11.460 traditional and more steeped in the, in the actual teachings of the Bible and not just
00:09:16.580 sort of the latest politics around them all. But we'll save that for another day. It's interesting
00:09:20.420 that you mentioned that the distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions,
00:09:25.140 because I feel like this is a conflict for the NDP. I mean, we saw the big merger or the agreement
00:09:31.700 into the coalition of the pack between Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. And, you know,
00:09:37.300 right in their priorities, it talked about unions. But you could tell that they were talking about
00:09:43.940 public sector unions, because they're talking about sick days and perks, like it wasn't,
00:09:47.380 it wasn't so much, we're going to fight for the interest of the working man. It was more like,
00:09:51.700 we're going to fight for the entitlements of the government class and the manager class. And
00:09:56.500 it's a good segue because I know you wrote this great essay over in The Hub, where you talked about
00:10:02.180 how Pierre Polyev or whoever is going to lead the next conservative party. There's a sort of winning
00:10:09.140 strategy baked into a speech that Pierre Polyev gave about the elite gatekeepers. And so I'm hoping
00:10:14.980 you can sort of expand on that a little bit. What do you mean by elite gatekeepers? Or what did Pierre
00:10:20.020 Polyev mean by them? And how is this a winning strategy for conservatives? Sure. So yes, when I read
00:10:25.620 that essay, I had in mind, so Polyev gave a speech on the floor of the House of Commons sometime,
00:10:31.860 I think, I think it was last spring, I'll have to go look, but he called the speech the gatekeepers.
00:10:36.740 And, you know, Polyev has this kind of, he has a sort of kind of, he has a very distinct kind of
00:10:42.420 style, right? He's kind of mastered his own, his own approach. It was a very kind of Polyev-ish
00:10:47.940 speech where he, he went after basically, you know, he starts going after kind of NIMBYs that basically
00:10:53.940 blocked an expansion of Billy Bishop to the airport downtown Toronto. And he basically uses it to show
00:11:01.140 basically how kind of all sorts of different, these elite, elite gatekeepers are basically kind of,
00:11:08.020 you know, holding back ordinary Canadians. And it's not, you know, the, it's a perfect,
00:11:14.260 it's a very kind of, in many ways, it's a very kind of, it's not a very dangerous or like dark speech,
00:11:20.100 I think like, you know, everyone, some people, you know, they hear the word, the word populism,
00:11:24.100 they think, you know, this kind of evil, scary, you know, demonizing rhetoric. But the kind of
00:11:29.300 populism he was kind of channeling there, I think is a very kind of healthy, healthy populism. And his
00:11:35.060 argument is, you know, he's making essentially kind of an economic argument, right? You have these
00:11:38.340 ordinary Canadians, who are being held back by these various kind of bureaucratic, not always
00:11:44.340 bureaucratic, you know, whether it's kind of big corporate interests, or big government interests,
00:11:48.820 or like, well, the wedding of the two, which happens so often. It's how these kinds of people
00:11:53.780 are, you know, preventing, he looks at things like, like housing is the most obvious one.
00:11:59.460 And I think, and so my arguments in the piece, but there's, there's some real potential for this
00:12:03.140 kind of message, for him to build a kind of, for him to kind of simultaneously kind of be,
00:12:08.100 be authentically himself, he doesn't have to pretend to be something he isn't, which,
00:12:12.020 you know, I think that was the, as I said in the essay, that if there was one lesson to take from,
00:12:17.220 from Aaron O'Toole's leadership, it's that you can't run, you know, you can, you can try that
00:12:22.900 pivot, you know, that run is one thing for leader and then try and pivot towards something else.
00:12:27.940 It's unlikely to work, right, because you kind of stuck caught between a rock and a hard place
00:12:32.100 once you do. O'Toole did this, O'Toole was still kind of, you know, during the election was still
00:12:38.340 attacked, as being kind of like, far right, which is, you know, farcical to think about, but
00:12:43.060 he simultaneously, some of those attacks would stick precisely because, you know, there were
00:12:48.740 clips of him that they could use to try and, that the liberals could use to try and make him
00:12:52.820 out to be one thing, but then precisely because he wasn't like that, and then precisely because
00:12:57.780 he pivoted to this completely, you know, to a complete 180, O'Toole, you know, he, he lost,
00:13:03.300 he basically lost trust with, with the base, right, with, with the people that elected him.
00:13:07.460 And so he had, and so he had what was, you could basically describe as an authenticity problem
00:13:12.260 by the end of it. If Polly was to run on this kind of thing, I don't think he has that problem
00:13:17.860 precisely because he can, I think this kind of message is appealing to enough of the kind of
00:13:22.420 conservative base that will still, you know, resonate with the base. But where I really think
00:13:27.940 there's kind of potential for this kind of message is it really has growth potential beyond just kind of
00:13:32.900 traditional, traditional Tory voters. One thing that I don't want to tease it too much in here,
00:13:39.060 I'm working on another piece right now that I'm hoping to expand on this point a bit. But the kinds
00:13:44.740 of, so the, if, if, if he goes for this kind of this anti gatekeepers coalition, I'm kind of suggesting
00:13:50.580 he should, you know, it's in some sense, it's a, it's a populist movement, a populist coalition. But the
00:13:58.740 people I think he should target aren't necessarily what you might think of as kind of the traditional,
00:14:03.300 populist voters, right? You know, when we think about places like the UK and the US,
00:14:07.300 you know, we're thinking about kind of like Rust Belt, you know, maybe rural, like older
00:14:13.140 people, that these are the kind of prime populist voters. And I'm actually not so sure that that's
00:14:18.420 the people he should be targeting with this message so much. I think the kind of people that will be
00:14:23.860 most open to what he's saying are quite likely to be younger Canadians, it's quite likely to be a fairly
00:14:29.700 kind of diverse, like ethnically quite a diverse set of people. I'm thinking kind of like the
00:14:36.820 four nation kind of coalition. These are the good, like, these are people, you know, they're,
00:14:41.380 they're younger.
00:14:42.100 You know, they're struggling, you know, the cost of living is kind of, you know,
00:14:46.500 threatening to swamp them. They can't afford, they can't buy a house, they've been priced out
00:14:50.580 of the housing market. You know, they get told by, by boomers that, you know, kind of wealthy to do
00:14:56.340 boomers that, you know, if you can't afford gas on your car, just go, oh, just, just, just buy an
00:15:00.740 electric vehicle as if it's that easy. These, so these are the kind of people I think Polio could
00:15:07.300 really resonate with. And so it's not necessarily, it's a kind of, it's a fairly, you might want to
00:15:11.860 call it like an unorthodox coalition. But I think it's one that has real potential, kind of real
00:15:20.100 formidable electoral potential for him. And one that, especially when you think about some of these
00:15:24.820 voters live, places like the GTA and the 905, if he could find a way to successfully kind of
00:15:30.500 mobilize his coalition, it could, it could propel him to government, you know, a big kind of resounding
00:15:36.020 government. So, you know, it's not, it's, it would be easier, it's going to be, if, if Polio wins,
00:15:42.420 he's going to get painted as, you know, the next Trump, the next Johnson. And so many of these
00:15:46.900 comparisons are so silly when they're made by, you know, like media and people like that. But
00:15:51.220 in many ways, I think if, when people, if people try and do that to him, they're really going to
00:15:58.500 kind of miss the, miss what's going on. They might be quite shocked. You know, they might wake up in
00:16:03.620 2025, whenever the next election is going to be now, and discover that kind of a coalition of
00:16:09.060 people that they really weren't expecting might propel them to victory.
00:16:12.660 One of the interesting things that came out of the trucker convoy, I saw a poll
00:16:17.700 that showed that the people who were the most sympathetic to the cause of the truckers were
00:16:22.740 young Canadians, people under the age of 30, which, which, which seems a little counterintuitive.
00:16:27.700 But I think that the way that you draw out that, that sort of coalition of people who,
00:16:32.020 I mean, if you think about the last two years, and what we've lost, you know, it's, it's hard for
00:16:36.420 all of us. But I think that the people that were hit the hardest are those who are in school,
00:16:40.980 who are young, who are out there, you know, looking to live a life and get experiences and
00:16:46.100 make friends and date and all this kind of stuff. And so much of that was restricted that I don't
00:16:51.060 think we've really properly calibrated just how much anger and resentment there is among
00:16:56.980 that group of people. I want to chat a little bit more about this aspect that you're talking about
00:17:01.460 with Aaron O'Toole and the authenticity issue. I completely agree with your analysis. And I think
00:17:07.540 that that was certainly one of his many, many problems. It seems like this sort of tried and
00:17:14.500 true strategy for conservatives is to appeal to the base that, you know, provide the red meat during the
00:17:21.860 selection period where they're picking a new leader, and then sort of moderate and appeal more to centrist
00:17:27.140 voters during the general election. It didn't work for Andrew Scheer, it didn't work for Aaron O'Toole.
00:17:32.420 Do you think conservatives will learn this lesson? Do you think that they will select a leader
00:17:39.060 based on this? Or do you think that they're doomed to continue to make this mistake?
00:17:43.300 I think they're going to, I don't know if they're going to learn all the right lessons,
00:17:48.500 but I think, you know, I would, you know, it's still, you know, we're recording this in March. So,
00:17:53.620 you know, who knows what's going to happen in the next six months. But I still think this race is very
00:17:58.340 much polly ads to lose, I'd still be quite surprised if anyone else wins. I do have to,
00:18:03.540 I, you know, it's, it is quite, it's, it's quite funny watching some of the new kind of the race from
00:18:10.260 non-conservatives. The people who they think, you know, there's, there's, there's nothing more,
00:18:17.860 I mean, I find amusing, but also quite frustrating to get kind of, you know, this is who the conservative
00:18:21.940 should, should pick from people that are never, ever, ever going to vote conservative, right?
00:18:27.060 And I always think it's kind of like, it's the kind of, it's atheists giving advice to the church,
00:18:31.620 right? Like, well, I'm never ever, you know, I don't believe in God, and I'm never, ever,
00:18:34.420 ever going to go to church. But if only the Catholic church would become a bit more liberal
00:18:38.260 on all these things. Well, you know, I'd never become Catholic, but maybe I would just, you know,
00:18:42.340 maybe I respect the church a bit more. And so much of that advice feels like that to me,
00:18:46.580 you're getting, it doesn't mean you shouldn't, it just doesn't mean the conservative should only
00:18:50.420 listen to, to, to conservatives. I'm not saying they shouldn't take outside advice,
00:18:56.420 but they should be very careful in some senses, who they take that advice from.
00:19:01.140 People that, you know, people that want a conservative party, lots of these people that
00:19:04.900 want the kind of, you know, the kind of liberal light candidate, they might, you know, they, they think
00:19:09.700 that that is the kind of, you know, they'll frame their arguments as like, this is what the
00:19:14.260 conservatives need to do to win. But what they really mean is, this is what the conservatives
00:19:18.260 need to do so that they can be an opposition that I like a bit more, right. And I, I think they have
00:19:24.340 to avoid that kind of, be very wary of that kind of advice. And I do, I do think this time around,
00:19:30.500 I get the sense that the base in general is quite sick of, is quite wary of that, they're quite sick of
00:19:36.100 that. Where I do think the conservatives need to learn, where I think they need to do some real
00:19:42.660 thinking, where I think they need to kind of, you know, do some serious kind of work and thinking
00:19:48.260 for themselves is, you know, we try, we treat, which we treat, which, you know, we treat, we treat
00:19:55.860 people in different parts of the country as kind of the same. If you're in Alberta, you must be this
00:19:59.300 way. If you're a Quebec, you must be this way. If you're rural, you must be this way. If you're urban,
00:20:03.780 you must be this way. And I don't think I think it's such a kind of simplistic way of looking at it.
00:20:09.460 But one of the things I kind of think the conservatives would benefit, could do well,
00:20:16.020 would benefit from, and something where I think Polyev especially has potential to resonate,
00:20:21.940 is think about the kinds of people that, that live in these kind of suburban writings in Toronto,
00:20:27.700 where, like realistically, they're going to have to do have some breakthroughs if they're ever going
00:20:30.900 to form government again. You know, there's, the suburbs of Toronto are the most kind of diverse
00:20:37.140 place probably, maybe one of the most diverse places in the world. And I don't just mean in
00:20:41.300 terms of kind of like different immigrant communities, I mean, in terms of kind of in terms
00:20:44.500 of like, like class background as well, right? The idea that there's a single kind of suburban voter
00:20:51.300 is silly, right? There are rich suburban people, there are poor suburban people, there are younger
00:20:54.980 suburban people, there are older suburban people. And the idea that all these people will have the exact
00:20:59.780 same kind of like, there's a, there's a, there's a way to kind of please all those people as if they
00:21:03.780 have kind of the same priorities and preferences. It's kind of, you know, it's never going to happen.
00:21:09.940 And the conservatives are never, you know, the, too often, it feels like conservatives, they either,
00:21:16.260 they either don't want to expand the base at all, or they want to be liked by everyone.
00:21:21.140 They don't need to be liked by everyone, right? You're never going to please everyone. So what I think
00:21:26.340 they need to do is be looking at the kinds of people I'm talking about, this kind of younger,
00:21:33.300 more millennial, not entirely millennial, but more millennial, younger group of people that,
00:21:40.580 you know, live in places like the GTA, figure out the kinds of things that motivate those kind of
00:21:45.380 kinds of voters and tap into that. And I think what people will be shocked to learn is that, you know,
00:21:51.700 people might kind of, if, whenever I go to places like, I was in, I was in Toronto a couple weeks
00:21:58.020 ago, and I was in a place called, I was in Vaughn, so like Northern, Northern GTA. And something that
00:22:03.060 amazes me when you live somewhere like that, you know, I live in, so I live in Ottawa, and I live in
00:22:08.180 a fairly, I live downtown Ottawa, so I live in a fairly kind of bougie, urban kind of area. And I can,
00:22:14.340 I can walk basically most, I can walk to the grocery store, I can walk to the gym.
00:22:18.580 So I have a car, but I don't use all that much. If you live somewhere like Vaughn,
00:22:23.220 you drive everywhere, right? That's just kind of how those places are built.
00:22:28.180 So if you're going to appeal to people like that, it's funny how as much as kind of urban
00:22:31.940 trendy people think that, you know, suburbs are full of people like them. In many ways, like,
00:22:38.180 people that live in kind of car, car, car oriented suburbs, places like that,
00:22:43.860 they are, they live different lives to kind of urban, urban people, urban progressives,
00:22:49.540 especially, right? And I think conservatives, if they actually tried to kind of figure out
00:22:55.300 a message that can resonate specifically with those kinds of people, I don't actually think that,
00:23:00.500 I don't actually think that should be that difficult. I think kind of conservative,
00:23:03.380 small C conservative values should appeal to those people quite easily. It's just a matter of kind of
00:23:08.340 selling that, getting through to those people and actually selling them that.
00:23:12.100 Well, and getting in front of the message so that you're presenting yourself to the Canadian public
00:23:16.180 and not letting the liberals define you. And, you know, it's interesting because the type of
00:23:21.220 coalition that you talked about, you look back at the 2011 electoral map and you'll see that Stephen
00:23:26.980 Harper, like the GTA is all blue. It's really remarkable how many of those seats went to the
00:23:34.020 conservatives in 2011. So I know so many people say, look, the Harper coalition's dead,
00:23:40.820 and you can't rerun on something that you used a decade ago, but you're clearly channeling something
00:23:46.980 that was in that platform. The idea of, you know, simplistic policies that appeal and actually help
00:23:53.700 people in those parts of the country, I think is great advice. Ben, I want to sort of switch gears
00:23:59.300 here because you mentioned that you're doing your PhD and you're studying the Westminster system of
00:24:04.020 government. I get so many people emailing me and messaging me asking how it's possible for the type
00:24:10.900 of sort of power grab or solidification coalition, whatever you want to call it, that we saw between
00:24:17.220 the NDP and the Trudeau liberals. People ask, you know, isn't our system set up to sort of protect
00:24:23.860 against these post-election jockeying of coalitions? But you're sort of the expert on this topic. So
00:24:31.380 I want to get your thoughts on that and maybe just more broadly, what do you think is a good strategy,
00:24:36.420 what Trudeau and Singh have done here?
00:24:38.900 Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be the kind of the pet end here that kind of pleases no one with an answer.
00:24:44.580 But yeah, like, you know, there's so much of the kind of silly online discussion over this is,
00:24:51.220 you know, someone's calling it a coalition and then, you know, the Aaron worries of the world
00:24:55.380 saying, well, that's not, that's not the correct word. And then that kind of like back and forth over
00:24:59.620 terms. You know, I think this is probably very, if, you know, the conservatives, you know, will be
00:25:05.780 are publicly, as they should criticising the agreement, you know, that, you know, they probably
00:25:10.820 stand to benefit from this agreement in a couple years, given just given, you know, who they can
00:25:15.300 now run against. Technically, what's so what's what's actually being what's been agreed here is
00:25:22.340 what's called a confidence and supply agreement, which is a fairly kind of common practice in
00:25:26.900 Westminster systems. There's nothing technically kind of so both parties have signed agreed to this
00:25:33.940 confidence and supply agreement. It's not formal legislation or anything like that. So, you know,
00:25:40.260 if one of the parties chooses to break it, they're not breaking the law or anything like that. And
00:25:44.420 there's no legislation doesn't have to be repealed to remove it. So it's more of a kind of a gentleman
00:25:50.340 agreement that they'll both promise to keep. But it could be that the NDP could withdraw support at
00:25:56.260 any time if they wanted to. And more likely, the liberals could, you know, if they see an opportunity,
00:26:01.860 they could just break the agreement that happened a couple of years ago in British Columbia when the
00:26:08.020 the NDP, the the then the then minority NDP government that was backed by the Greens,
00:26:14.020 but had basically all of these agreements with with the Green Party and just basically,
00:26:19.860 I might be getting some of the details on this slightly wrong, but that they basically, you know,
00:26:23.700 broke the agreement, kind of betrayed the Greens almost, and then they won a majority. So,
00:26:28.180 you know, this doesn't guarantee that the government lasts till 2025. But I have to say,
00:26:37.060 the people I'm most surprised, but the move makes sense for the liberals because it, you know,
00:26:41.860 it basically just gives them a close to a free hand as they're going to get in this parliament,
00:26:45.940 right? It allows them to minimize, to avoid scrutiny. The place to really watch where this,
00:26:51.220 how this is going to shake out is going to be in the committees.
00:26:53.380 So if you go and read the actual agreement that they published publicly, they have a,
00:27:00.740 they have a mention of the, how this is going to work in terms of committee work. And there's some
00:27:06.180 very kind of vague language in there about both parties will agree to not have any kind of unnecessary
00:27:11.940 obstructions in committees. But, you know, the liberals are not going to get track record of
00:27:16.820 respect to committee work. So, you know, they'll probably just use this as an excuse to kind of
00:27:22.100 sideswipe any kind of like serious scrutiny in committees, which, which worries me a bit.
00:27:28.740 But in terms of what the NDP gained from this, I just don't, you know, technically they'll gain some,
00:27:34.420 some of their policy priorities, you know, pharma care, dental care, all this kind of stuff.
00:27:39.380 But, you know, there's nothing to actually force the liberals to do this.
00:27:41.860 And, you know, if I was betting, I don't think we'll actually have, you know, dental care or
00:27:46.740 pharma care two years from now, just based on how the liberal government tends to operate,
00:27:50.900 we'll have some sort of, you know, promise to have it down the road, like a white paper or something.
00:27:58.100 But the NDP of the party that I just don't understand, you know, that the traditional,
00:28:02.420 the traditional kind of self understanding of the NDP has been, you know, the conscience of parliament.
00:28:07.060 So, you know, whether you, you know, I'm not a member of the NDP, but, you know, they were
00:28:12.340 traditionally thought to themselves as kind of the principled conscience in parliament that held
00:28:16.500 the government to account.
00:28:18.660 You know, this is just kind of the betrayal of that almost, right?
00:28:23.700 You know, Singh, I don't know if Singh, I confess, I think Singh is kind of a,
00:28:28.500 quite far from the, his politics seem quite different from the politics that, you know,
00:28:34.100 used to define that party 30, 40 years ago, if you ask me.
00:28:38.260 He seems more interested in kind of being, you know, you know, more interested in being
00:28:43.540 recognized by people like AOC in the US and kind of, you know, playing, playing, playing
00:28:49.780 online games and stuff with American progressives than he actually seems in kind of defending the
00:28:54.740 interest of kind of working class Canadians.
00:28:57.540 So again, I think there's a real, you know, traditionally the conservatives have done well when,
00:29:02.420 when the, when the NDP are stronger, right?
00:29:05.300 When it splits the kind of left-wing vote.
00:29:07.940 I kind of think there's an opportunity, there might be an opportunity here for the conservatives
00:29:11.140 to really try and go after some of those kind of working class votes that, that might feel kind
00:29:17.700 of increasingly kind of adrift and betrayed by the modern NDP, right?
00:29:21.620 It's kind of this working class party that's more of a kind of urban progressive public sector
00:29:26.740 union party.
00:29:27.380 Now there's opportunities for the conservatives there.
00:29:30.740 I think if they, if they're smart, that they can exploit.
00:29:33.860 And just, just one more quick thing before I, just to go back to something for a second.
00:29:39.220 I think the, so there's something to this, this idea that, you know, you,
00:29:44.980 the Harper coalition, the Harper, the Harper recipe can't just be redone, right?
00:29:48.980 At times of change.
00:29:49.540 And I think that's definitely true.
00:29:51.540 My point about kind of say, thinking about the suburbs themselves, very diverse places in all sorts of
00:29:56.420 ways is that you could still rebuild that kind of Harper coalition, so to speak, in terms of kind
00:30:01.700 of the seats that you're winning.
00:30:03.940 But you might be able to, I think the kind of the path for the conservatives to do that,
00:30:07.540 especially under someone like Polyev, it might be with different people, right?
00:30:13.140 It doesn't, you can win those ridings and win them in very different ways.
00:30:16.820 And that's, that's so instead of thinking of kind of a book, because if I had a, if I have a criticism
00:30:22.500 of maybe someone like Scheer, Scheer's, Scheer's the 20, was it in the 2019 election?
00:30:29.780 That really did feel like a kind of rehash of Harperism, right?
00:30:33.540 Didn't really feel like it had been kind of much new thinking or fresh ideas plugged in there.
00:30:39.540 What's you, I think you can still kind of keep the broad kind of template for where you need to win
00:30:44.820 and then infuse it with kind of new ideas, new, new efforts to reach different people,
00:30:49.860 people that might not have been persuadable, reachable 10, 15 years ago, that, you know,
00:30:55.140 the world's changed a lot in the last 10 years, five years, less than 10 years, right?
00:30:59.380 So, yeah, I think that to bring it back to the, the question of the NDP and liberal agreement,
00:31:09.060 no, it's, I think there's some, I think if the conservatives play their hand right here,
00:31:13.700 there might be some real opportunities for them. But they, but, you know, it requires
00:31:17.940 them playing their hand right to do that. So we'll see.
00:31:20.420 Yeah, I tend to agree with you that the pact or the agreement is a good thing for the conservatives
00:31:26.900 in a number of ways. It also gives them more time because I knew during the 2021 election,
00:31:31.540 Justin Trudeau said that in minority governments only tend to last 18 months or so. And so there was
00:31:36.900 sort of this imperative, okay, we need to be ready for the next election. It could happen as soon
00:31:41.380 as late 2022. Well, this sort of says, okay, we can, conservatives, you can take your time in
00:31:47.380 selecting the right leader, giving that leader time to sort of set the stage with, with your agenda.
00:31:52.660 Just final question for you, because I don't mean to pick on Aaron O'Toole. I think he had a tough
00:31:57.700 job that, that he was tasked with. One of the things early on he said was that he really did want to
00:32:03.780 appeal to those working class voters and that he wanted that to be like, I remember in an early
00:32:09.220 interview, he was asked if, what, what do you thought about the comparisons with him to Trump?
00:32:13.780 Because obviously, like you said, they're kind of lazy, but they're always going to come for any
00:32:17.780 conservative leader. And, and, and he, he didn't like, he didn't push that away. He actually said,
00:32:23.380 look, there's a lot of things that Trump did that I want to replicate, something along those lines.
00:32:29.220 Whereas with his, with his, the way that he ran and his policies and his set of priorities,
00:32:35.540 I didn't see much that, that really did appeal to, to the working class. So I, I'm wondering if you
00:32:40.660 could provide some like suggestions in terms of ideas, policies, uh, things that conservatives can
00:32:47.700 do or say to, uh, attract and keep more, um, of these people that are disaffected by Jagmeet Singh and
00:32:55.700 the NDP who don't feel like they have a home in the modern, I don't, I don't even know, just as
00:33:00.740 as, I don't know if the NDP is really going to survive. I mean, at this point, it seems like so
00:33:05.060 many of the priorities that they have are mirrored with the liberals. It seems almost redundant to
00:33:08.980 have two parties. Now I see this as an outsider, so I don't, I don't know if there's, you know, I,
00:33:14.100 I, I'm not speaking as an NDP member or voter, I've never been part of that party, but I can't
00:33:19.060 imagine really what, what, what the purpose of having to, but yeah, if you, if you could, uh, maybe
00:33:24.100 comment on the future of the NDP and then also comment on what you think conservatives can do to capture this
00:33:28.580 voting block. Yeah. Um, yeah, sure. Um, yeah, I, I agree. I don't, I don't, um, you know, I'm not,
00:33:34.180 like I said, I'm not a member of the NDP. I, I don't understand what they're kind of the reason for
00:33:38.980 their existence anymore. Um, um, sooner or later, you would think that that's, uh, you know, things
00:33:45.620 that cannot go on forever don't go on forever. And so I won't suspect sooner or later that, um,
00:33:51.940 that will, something will, something will happen there with them that will force them to kind of
00:33:55.300 figure out who they are. Um, I don't think it's true that they don't have a constituency anymore.
00:34:00.500 I think they do. The problem is that constituency is just not, um, you know, the, the NDP are more
00:34:05.540 than anything else now a kind of party of kind of very urban, very progressive, um, you know, culturally
00:34:12.420 very radical, uh, people, right. And there, you know, there's, there's, there's a constituency for
00:34:16.660 that in certain places. Um, those are the kinds of people I think that the NDP that dominate kind of,
00:34:22.820 you know, how the NDP think, um, and you know, who tends to vote for them now. Um,
00:34:28.340 so I suspect they can survive as kind of a kind of whatever, whatever you want to call that kind
00:34:32.980 of party now. Um, but like you say, you know, what, in many ways that makes them not all that
00:34:37.620 different from the kind of modern liberal party, um, in terms of kind of how I think the conservatives
00:34:42.580 can kind of, you know, capitalize on some of this. Um, I think there's a couple of things. So I,
00:34:47.220 you know, I'll, I'll, I'll put in a word, a defense here for, for Aaron Atul for a second.
00:34:51.220 Um, I think some of the moves he made, especially early on, uh, in his, uh, so just after he got
00:34:56.500 elected, um, um, were, were in those kinds of directions we're talking about here. And I think
00:35:02.180 they were good. Um, I think the problem with the tool was that by the end of it, he tried,
00:35:06.740 um, he tried to put on so many different masks and faces and costumes to see if any of them would
00:35:11.700 stick. Right. Um, cause he tried that one. He tried a couple of other ones. Um, I think he,
00:35:17.460 yeah, that, again, it goes back to that kind of authenticity problem. Uh, but I do think he was
00:35:21.220 onto something with that. Um, and I would, you know, I would, and I would still, um, you know,
00:35:25.700 when the, during the election, I wrote pretty, I wrote a, uh, positively about, um, the conservative
00:35:31.540 party's platform they put out. Um, you know, I didn't like everything in it and there was plenty
00:35:35.700 of stuff I would have changed with it. Um, but I thought, I actually thought there was some quite,
00:35:39.300 there was an attempt to do some kind of original, um, new stuff in that platform. Um, especially
00:35:46.020 around kind of working class, uh, labor stuff. Um, some of the stuff that they championed around,
00:35:52.020 um, uh, some of the stuff to do with, uh, uh, you, some of the stuff around unions, not all of it,
00:35:58.500 some of the stuff around unions, I think was quite interesting. Um, certainly wouldn't have pleased
00:36:02.260 everyone in the party. Um, he didn't, um, but I think there was stuff to work with there. Um,
00:36:07.940 one place where I think, uh, federal conservatives could look, um, is that,
00:36:11.620 and there is a, there would be a role for the feds on some of this, uh, is to go and look at some of
00:36:15.780 the work that, uh, Ontario, the minister of, um, I forget his exact title, but the minister of labor
00:36:20.340 in Ontario, Monty McNaughton, um, he's really managing to cut, he's carving out a space right
00:36:25.380 now on some of the stuff. Um, he's putting, you know, it's obviously there's jurisdictional issues
00:36:29.700 here. So the feds, you know, they don't control kind of skills training and stuff like that. Um, uh, all that
00:36:34.980 much, uh, but, you know, McNaughton's done a lot of really, really good stuff around, uh, skilled
00:36:40.500 trades around, uh, reforming colleges, you know, make them more kind of suited for that kind of stuff.
00:36:46.340 Uh, they've done some good stuff recently on kind of like big work, you know, the future of work and
00:36:50.260 the gig economy. Um, and I think that is exactly the kind of, when I say that the conservatives need
00:36:55.140 to be reaching kind of new people, younger people, um, you know, get big work, so to speak,
00:37:00.980 I think is for lots of people, that is the future. Uh, and there's, there's bad, there's downsides to
00:37:05.380 that and there's good sides to that. Right. Um, I don't think it's all bad. Um, you know, it means
00:37:09.460 you get to some people really like it because, you know, they can, uh, jobs where they kind of get to
00:37:13.540 choose their own hours, you know, they can work a hundred hours one week and then, you know, 10 hours
00:37:17.860 the next, if they need to do something else. Um, so I think, you know, some people kind of like the
00:37:22.420 kind of flexibility that comes with that kind of work. Um, but the biggest challenge for big work,
00:37:27.460 I think is the kind of precarity of it, right. Um, you know, there's no kind of, um, it's harder to
00:37:32.020 have kind of stability in that kind of work. It's harder to build kind of like long-term plans.
00:37:36.580 Um, so some of the stuff that, uh, McNaughton has been doing around, uh, just kind of tweaking
00:37:40.660 kind of, uh, social security and stuff like that to make it a bit more kind of welcoming to
00:37:45.300 gig work. Uh, I think there's good stuff to be done there. Um, obviously there's, again,
00:37:49.940 there's jurisdictional issues here about what the feds can do, uh, but there's definitely,
00:37:53.700 there's, there's definitely opportunities down there. And so federally, I think, uh, looking
00:37:57.780 to kind of the work that North is doing it would be, uh, uh, it would be one good thing they could
00:38:02.500 do. Uh, but if there's a, if there's a bigger kind of, and this goes back to what I was saying
00:38:06.820 earlier about, um, some of the Brexit stuff, um, you know, parts of what this is going to take is
00:38:11.780 going to be, uh, putting kind of, like I say, flesh on the bones, like a substantive policy agenda
00:38:17.700 that actually helps the kinds of people that you're trying to target in real, real material ways.
00:38:22.180 Um, but a bigger picture, part of this picture is a broader kind of cultural questions and cultural
00:38:28.660 shifts. Um, so much, so much of the kind of, uh, so much of what I think is actually driving some
00:38:34.500 of these shifts is there's a kind of, there's an economic and kind of like a material story you
00:38:38.260 can tell yourself about it, but there's also the other side to the story is a kind of cultural story
00:38:43.220 about the kinds of the changing values of kind of cultural elites versus kind of ordinary people.
00:38:48.820 Um, and so there's, and that is where I actually think there are some real, real opportunities for
00:38:55.460 the conservatives. Um, uh, you know, we've seen the liberals and the NDP have both gone this
00:39:01.780 direction, right? But there's a, there's a real, there's a real kind of vacuum right now, uh, that
00:39:05.460 the conservative should fill, um, on kind of what you might, what I would, you know, it, it would get
00:39:10.900 painted by kind of like mainstream media as kind of like culture wall, culture warrior, um, cultural
00:39:16.180 conservatism, but what I would actually say is like a very moderate kind of mainstream
00:39:20.180 cultural conservatism that I think actually is a kind of the kind of, the kinds of cultural values
00:39:24.580 that are shared by most like majority of Canadians, at least. Um, you know, I, I, I think about the kind
00:39:31.620 of, um, you know, the, what happened with the flag last year, right? We had the flag at half mass for
00:39:36.020 like what, six months, just, just ludicrous. Right. Um, and, you know, we basically got into that mess
00:39:42.340 because the, you know, the liberals did like what was a, you know, initially like a nice gesture.
00:39:46.420 Sure. Um, you know, it was just a performative gesture in the end, right? And then they get
00:39:51.140 themselves into this mess of, well, we can't raise the flag because that means, uh, you know,
00:39:55.140 we don't care about racism anymore. It was basically kind of like what it seemed like they,
00:39:58.740 the kind of trap they got themselves into. Um, I think there's a real opportunity for conservatives
00:40:04.100 to kind of reclaim, uh, become the kind of the patriotic party, um, become the party of kind of,
00:40:10.500 you know, uh, the party that says, you know, Canada might not be a perfect country,
00:40:13.780 but Canada is a good country and we should be proud of this country. Be proud, you know,
00:40:18.180 the fact that, um, people want to come here, the fact that, you know, this is the kind of
00:40:22.660 country where people, uh, want to, and, you know, should be able to lead and can lead free,
00:40:26.740 good and free lives. Um, that kind of, you know, it used to be, you know, the, the party of the flag
00:40:32.980 in some ways used to be the liberals, right? In so many ways they owned that they owned the flag,
00:40:36.980 they owned all the kind of hallmarks or national identity, the charter, um, constitution, healthcare,
00:40:42.900 you name it, right? Like the liberals kind of own these kind of symbols of, you know,
00:40:46.420 what it meant to be Canadian, but it's kind of, it's the kind of, it's kind of culturally,
00:40:50.180 as elites kind of move in this kind of increasingly kind of, uh, more radical kind of culture,
00:40:54.820 direction culturally, whether they, you know, they reject, um, you know, Canada become,
00:40:59.940 you know, it's hard. Some of these people think of Canada as kind of illegitimate,
00:41:03.300 um, you know, settle a colonial estate, um, that leaves so much kind of cultural space,
00:41:10.340 right? For, uh, for normal people, um, that fits kind of what most normal people kind of think about.
00:41:16.980 Um, and that is something I think the conservatives really need to kind of figure out how to, um,
00:41:21.700 how to take advantage of. Uh, I don't think they do. I don't think they need to become like radical
00:41:26.260 culture warriors. Um, even though that's how they'll get painted. If they, if they do anything like this,
00:41:31.540 um, I think they just need to become kind of the unabashed party of kind of, uh, Canadian values,
00:41:36.740 so to speak. Um, and 20 years ago, I don't know if they necessarily would have been able to get away
00:41:40.980 with doing that because I think the liberal party of 20 years ago was much more kind of culturally
00:41:45.620 moderate in that sense. Uh, now I'm not so sure. Um, and so if the conservative, so, um, you know,
00:41:52.100 it's sounds kind of maybe counterintuitive, but I think one way to reach some of these new voters
00:41:56.500 is precisely to become that new, um, I wrote in a recent national post column that, um,
00:42:01.940 there's something to this kind of this, this, uh, this classic kind of, you know,
00:42:06.100 the conservatives need to moderate in order to win. Um, I think that's true. The problem is they
00:42:11.220 let all the wrong people define what it means for them to moderate and become moderate. They need to,
00:42:15.460 they need to define for themselves what it means to be moderate. And something like this is a classic,
00:42:20.660 perfect example of what it would mean to be a kind of define we're the moderate party in,
00:42:25.620 in your own image, right? You know, we are the party of Canadian values. We're the party of the
00:42:29.860 flag. We're the party that believes in this country. Um, there, there's so much ground for them to kind
00:42:34.820 of carve out there. And, you know, so I'm not, I'm not a strategist, right? I don't understand the
00:42:39.300 kind of the nitty gritties of exactly how you would, you know, create messaging and, um, how you,
00:42:44.420 how exactly you would go about doing that. But, um, I think that if there was one way to kind of
00:42:48.820 really kind of accelerate some of these shifts, uh, and really try and take advantage of them,
00:42:53.300 uh, that's, that would be the route to go down for them. Well, we, we have a prime minister who
00:42:58.340 says not, not just that Canada is a country that was formed on genocide. Um, but he says that Canada
00:43:03.380 is actively committing genocide. He, he agreed with the 2017 recommendations of the missing and murdered
00:43:09.220 aboriginal, uh, women report, which was a report that was necessary. However, the people who, who put it
00:43:15.300 together radically left-wing, um, part of their recommendations, was it admit, admitting that a
00:43:21.060 genocide is still going on today. And, uh, Trudeau said that he agreed with that. Um, so, so, so talk
00:43:26.580 about the need for a moderate, uh, just to counter our crazy, insane, woke, uh, leftist sort of mindset.
00:43:34.660 And I, I think that's right. Anecdotally, uh, last year at Canada Day, you know, amidst all of the
00:43:40.020 sort of consternation about Canada and this, this sort of horrible, irreconcilable past, uh,
00:43:45.860 cancel Canada Day movements, uh, toppling statues, uh, you know, the, the, the number of people who
00:43:51.380 were out on the streets on Canada Day celebrating unabashedly, uh, you know, the, the, the, the
00:43:57.540 horns honking all night, the fireworks going on. Um, I don't know what it was like in Ottawa, but in
00:44:03.700 Toronto, it was like an absolute party. And, uh, part of that might've been just that people were cooped up
00:44:09.140 from COVID for too long and they were finally able to go out at that time. But
00:44:12.980 really I, I saw a big outpouring of, uh, sort of Canadian national nationalistic or patriotic,
00:44:18.740 uh, impulse there. And then we saw it again during the freedom convoy. So I think, I think
00:44:24.020 definitely right. I think there's something to that, that the liberals have sort of abandoned
00:44:28.420 their traditional kind of base as being the party of Canada and all these symbols that they themselves
00:44:32.820 brought in, um, that they're now apparently ashamed of and don't want anything to do with and,
00:44:36.660 and can't bring themselves to, uh, promote. So I, I, I think that's great. I think, um,
00:44:42.260 uh, hopefully Ben, the, uh, sort of listened to the advice that you're giving and, uh, appreciate
00:44:48.820 your time today. Appreciate your, um, writing that we can find, uh, in the hub and the national posts.
00:44:54.020 So thank you so much for joining us. That's, uh, Ben Woodviden and, uh, I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm Show.
00:45:06.660 This is how I can identify.
00:45:12.260 Hmm?
00:45:12.500 Thanks.
00:45:24.900 Thank you.