Juno News - January 24, 2025


Trump & Milei HUMILIATE the WEF, the latest polls and federal Liberal comeback？ (w⧸ Hamish Marshall)


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

193.74118

Word Count

11,443

Sentence Count

635

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

16


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candace Malcolm, and happy Friday.
00:00:15.960 Great to be with you here today. If you're anything like me, you are sitting on the edge
00:00:19.840 of your seat watching things unfold in the United States with the Trump presidency. It just seems
00:00:25.700 like every single day, there's just a new absolute piece of gold that has been delivered by the Trump
00:00:31.480 administration going through their agenda, implementing it. It is like a breath of fresh
00:00:36.120 air. So many times over my lifetime watching politics, you have a strong conservative politician
00:00:42.260 who excites you one minute and then just totally lets you down the next, and they don't follow
00:00:47.080 through and they don't do what they say they're going to do. So watching Trump get up there and
00:00:55.700 so exciting. And it really feels like there's been a vibe change out there that being a
00:01:00.560 conservative is on the right side of history. It's on the right side of the culture that people
00:01:05.180 agree they don't want the woke stuff anymore. They don't want the race stuff anymore. They just want
00:01:09.300 to go back to normal, to have common sense, lead the day. I hope it's contagious. I hope it spreads
00:01:14.160 throughout Canada as well. And I hope Pierre Polyev, if and when he gets elected as prime minister,
00:01:18.820 will follow through with a similar kind of agenda. So we've got a lot of news to get to today. We're
00:01:23.220 going to talk about the World Economic Forum and how the elites have just been absolutely humiliated
00:01:27.640 this year. It is so delicious. We're going to talk about some new polls come out. Are the
00:01:32.720 Liberals making a comeback? Is there any possibility that the Liberals might actually win the next
00:01:36.940 election? Some scary polls that we've seen. So we'll get to that. Plus talk of a possible Ontario
00:01:43.260 election. And joining me for the whole show today is Hamish Marshall. Hamish is a pollster. He's a
00:01:49.220 partner at One Persuades, which is a government relations and strategy firm in Ontario in 2019.
00:01:54.680 He led the Conservative Party's national campaign. He also was previously a strategic manager for
00:02:00.620 Stephen Harper when he was prime minister. And you know him very well because he worked for us
00:02:04.620 at True North as our in-house pollster back in 2021. So Hamish, it's always great to have you on
00:02:09.200 the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure.
00:02:12.200 So okay, let's go to Davos because we typically have Andrew Lawton, our journalist, that would go
00:02:21.620 to Davos and report. Sadly, Andrew's no longer with True North because he is running as a Conservative
00:02:27.800 candidate. A great win for Canada to have potentially a Member of Parliament of that
00:02:33.060 substance that Andrew has. But sad for True North. So we don't have anybody there. We played it on the
00:02:38.980 show yesterday. Ezra Levant is out there doing the thing that sort of, we love independent journalism
00:02:45.360 because they're so willing to go up into people's faces and demand answers. And he, Ezra's doing some
00:02:51.720 great reporting down there. To me, the most delicious part was Trump. Trump came out, he gave
00:02:57.020 a speech. He didn't fly to Davos. He went live via satellite, I guess, and sent a video. And I'm going
00:03:02.340 to play this for you, Hamish, because it was just, it was just so fun to see Klaus Schwab and his fellow
00:03:07.940 elite friends have to sit and listen to Donald Trump make a triumphant speech. So here's what
00:03:13.280 that looked like.
00:03:14.320 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
00:03:22.180 Well, thank you very much, Klaus. And hello to everyone in beautiful Davos. This has been a
00:03:36.580 truly historic week in the United States. Three days ago, I took the oath of office and we began the
00:03:43.680 golden age of America. The recent presidential election was won by millions of votes and all
00:03:51.300 seven, every one of them, all seven swing states. I imposed a federal hiring freeze, a federal
00:03:58.020 regulation freeze, a foreign aid freeze, and I created the new Department of Government
00:04:04.740 efficiency. I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal. I call it
00:04:12.260 the Green New Scam. Withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord and ended the insane and costly
00:04:19.760 electric vehicle mandate. We're going to let people buy the car they want to buy. I declared a national
00:04:26.940 energy emergency, and it's so important, national energy emergency to unlock the liquid gold under our
00:04:34.680 feet and pave the way for rapid approvals of new energy infrastructure. The United States has the
00:04:41.540 largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth, and we're going to use it. Not only will this
00:04:47.940 reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services, it will make the United States a manufacturing superpower
00:04:54.640 and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto. My administration has also begun the largest
00:05:03.320 deregulation campaign in history, far exceeding even the record-setting efforts of my last term.
00:05:10.540 In total, the Biden administration imposed $50,000 in additional regulatory costs on the average
00:05:18.440 American household over the last four years. I have promised to eliminate 10 old regulations for every
00:05:26.400 new regulation, which will soon put many thousands of dollars back in the pockets of American families.
00:05:32.980 To further unleash our economy, our majorities in the House and Senate, which we also took along with
00:05:40.740 the presidency, are going to pass the largest tax cut in American history, including massive tax cuts for
00:05:47.180 workers and families. And I'm pleased to report that America is also a free nation once again. On day one,
00:05:53.620 I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government label the speech of our
00:06:00.800 our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of censors and those who
00:06:08.260 wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress. We have saved free speech in America and we've
00:06:17.080 saved it strongly.
00:06:19.180 So Trump's style is just hilarious. I love that he's up there telling the elites, first of all, bragging about his
00:06:23.640 election still, like how many swing states he won and how they got the House and Senate. It's just so
00:06:27.820 typical Trump. But from a policy perspective, Hamish, like every single point he touched on was absolute
00:06:33.700 gold. And like I think a Canadian conservative would be jumping up and down if their government
00:06:38.020 introduced any one of those. But just just to go through them again, we you know, the statement that
00:06:44.040 censorship is over, that they're guaranteeing free speech, that America is a free nation, talking about
00:06:48.100 how he killed the Green Deal, how he withdrew from Paris, how he ended the EV mandate, how he declared a
00:06:53.020 national energy emergency to allow rapid resource development. He wants to become a manufacturing
00:06:58.020 superpower for AI and crypto, the largest deregulation efforts in the United States
00:07:02.480 history, just eliminating one for every eliminating 10 regs for every one new one passed, plus the
00:07:09.920 largest tax cuts in history. I mean, it's it's from a policy perspective, it's just fantastic.
00:07:15.100 And, you know, plus the fact that he's out there speaking a completely counter message to the
00:07:21.140 folks at Davos, what did you make of all that?
00:07:24.100 Well, I mean, look, there's a ton of great stuff, as you pointed out in there that we could spend an
00:07:28.420 hour on each one of those topics. It's very, very exciting. I just love the shattering of consensus,
00:07:35.000 right? And this is the problem is that, you know, whether it comes from Davos or the pointy heads of the
00:07:39.740 Liberal Party here in Canada, or the Democrats in the in the States, is you've seen the smothering
00:07:44.560 consensus on not just, you know, cultural war issues, but on economics on a whole variety,
00:07:51.620 environmental legislation, a whole variety of subjects, is sort of smothering consensus that
00:07:56.060 if you don't agree with us, you're somehow a bad person, you're somehow a barbarian.
00:08:00.520 And the it's bad for democracy, it's bad for debate. And the fact that he's going there and
00:08:06.860 sending that message of just saying, like, I'm doing everything you don't want me to do,
00:08:10.560 we can and but I'm also making things more free, I'm not going to impose my own consensus on top
00:08:15.240 of you, let's have the free speech, let's have the debates, I think is is is is very, very, very
00:08:20.400 exciting. And I think the change, like I said, any one of these policies is wonderful and exciting.
00:08:25.560 But the change in attitude that we can break free of this smothering consensus we've had for probably
00:08:30.700 the last 10 years, at least maybe longer, is I think the most exciting thing that's happened.
00:08:35.760 Well, it reminds me a little bit of Stephen Harper, because he used to have very fierce
00:08:39.800 criticisms specifically for the United Nations, he used to show up there and kind of lecture
00:08:43.920 the crowd about how he didn't have to take them seriously, like the whole concept of having
00:08:48.220 despots and dictators side by side with democracies, trying to come up with an order for the world,
00:08:55.180 it is kind of ridiculous. And there was that notion, I remember going to a Stephen Harper
00:09:00.480 barbecue in Calgary, I think maybe it was 2011 or 2012. And the crowd would just break into
00:09:06.320 the chance of defund the UN. And like, they wanted like, the base wanted Canada out of
00:09:12.560 these multilateral institutions and groups. Harper spoke a good game, but he didn't, he
00:09:19.400 didn't follow through. I think he defunded UNRWA, which was good. And then, and then Trudeau turned
00:09:24.960 around and refunded it. But, you know, I, what do you think from, from perspective in Canada? Like,
00:09:31.880 do you think Pierre will go down this path as well?
00:09:34.200 I think Pierre will go down that path, even more dramatically than Harper did. I think Harper had a lot
00:09:40.560 of frustration and impatience with international institutions for whom consensus was more important
00:09:45.960 than action. I remember he got into a fight in the Francophonie in the first six months of him being
00:09:51.280 prime minister, where he ended up refusing to sign off on some prearranged consensus statement,
00:09:56.800 and ended up getting a better result, because they wanted, they, they valued consensus so much,
00:10:01.640 he was able to say, well, if you want me to sign off, you've got to move on all these things.
00:10:05.580 He famously told, you know, Vladimir Putin to his face to get out of Ukraine,
00:10:09.820 which people, it was very much against diplomatic protocol, people didn't like that.
00:10:15.040 I think Mr. Polio is going to be even more dramatic. I think the patience amongst conservatives
00:10:20.260 for these kind of slow-moving, smothering, consensus-based institutions is, is, is even
00:10:28.220 shorter than it was 10 or 15 years ago. And we're going to see dramatic action from Mr. Polio,
00:10:34.000 because I don't think his patience for these sort of institutions that aren't delivering for Canada
00:10:38.480 and Canadians is going to be very long at all. Well, one thing that I hope he picks up is,
00:10:43.420 Trump mentioned there, the end of foreign aid. This is an issue that's near and dear to me,
00:10:47.540 Hamish, when I was in grad school, I wrote my thesis about how useless aid is, and how it does
00:10:52.420 more harm and good in most of these countries, because you're propping up, like, horrible regimes
00:10:56.760 with bad human rights records, and you're allowing them to have more money. Like, it doesn't even make
00:11:00.460 any sense. If you want to help people in the developing world, like, fund their businesses,
00:11:04.240 don't fund their governments. Do you think that there is any possibility, Pierre, will do something
00:11:08.640 like that?
00:11:09.500 I think the foreign aid budget, or the foreign aid funding, he's certainly being quiet around that,
00:11:14.620 but I would be shocked if there wasn't some reform then. If you remember, in the 2019 election,
00:11:19.100 the Conservative platform said, we're going to take the foreign aid budget, and we're going to focus
00:11:22.400 on countries that are actually in need, and not send money to Iran, and China, and a whole bunch
00:11:29.080 of other places that are actually quite developed, and in many cases, very hostile to us, and that if
00:11:33.460 we're going to send money to overseas, we should send it to places that are genuinely in need,
00:11:39.500 and I agree, there's a ton that can be done on the delivery side of it, whether it's in microloans,
00:11:43.720 a whole bunch of things, that doesn't just sort of give money to, you know, corrupt international
00:11:48.060 do-gooders who often don't deliver what they say they are.
00:11:53.040 Absolutely. Okay, well, you mentioned that there's a cultural shift, and it's not just, you know,
00:11:56.840 Trump talked a lot about the policy. We had Argentinian Prime Minister, Javier Mele, the guy is
00:12:02.420 so hilarious, and he did the exact same thing. He showed up and just told these elites right to
00:12:09.120 their face how much people see through them and are onto them, and their behavior is not exemplary.
00:12:15.620 They're not our moral betters, and in many cases, they are despicable. So here is Javier Mele
00:12:21.280 talking a little bit, well, just lecturing the crowd in a colorful fashion at Davos.
00:12:27.420 Is it not true that right now as we speak in the UK, citizens are being imprisoned for exposing
00:12:32.360 horrifying crimes committed by Muslim migrants, crimes that the government seeks to conceal?
00:12:38.580 Or didn't the bureaucrats in Brussels suspend Romania's elections simply because they didn't
00:12:43.520 like the party that had won? Faced with each of these discussions, wokeism's first strategies
00:12:51.980 to discredit those of us who challenge these things, first by labeling us, and then by silencing us.
00:12:57.620 If you're white, you must be racist. If you're a man, you must be a misogynist or part of the
00:13:02.260 patriarchy. If you're rich, you must be a cruel capitalist. If you're heterosexual, you must
00:13:06.880 be heteronormative, homophobic, or transphobic. For every challenge, they have a label. And
00:13:14.020 then they try to suppress you by force or through legal means. Because beneath the rhetoric of
00:13:19.020 diversity, democracy, and tolerance that they so often preach, what truly lies is their blatant
00:13:26.300 desire to eliminate dissent, criticism, and ultimately freedom. And these forums promote
00:13:32.100 the LGBT agenda, attempting to impose the idea that women are men and men are women simply
00:13:36.840 based on self-perception. And they say nothing about when a man dresses as a woman and kills
00:13:43.180 his opponent in a boxing ring, or when a male prison inmate claims to be a woman and ends
00:13:48.920 up sexually assaulting women in prison. In fact, just a few weeks ago, there were headlines
00:13:54.760 around the world regarding the case of two gay Americans who championed the banners of sexual
00:13:59.280 diversity and were sentenced to 100 years in prison for abusing and filming their adopted
00:14:04.220 children for more than two years. I want to be clear, when I say abuse, this is no euphemism,
00:14:10.060 because in its most extreme forms, gender ideology is outright child abuse. They are pedophiles.
00:14:17.960 So I want to know who would support that kind of behavior.
00:14:21.480 I would love to see a pan shot of the faces of the people there because he was just absolutely
00:14:27.420 devastating. I mean, that last story that he mentioned was just so sad. It's just so despicable.
00:14:32.420 We've seen some movement in Canada, as you recall last year, Danielle Smith came out and said,
00:14:36.800 no surgeries for kids. You cannot transform your body when you are a minor. Like you can't even
00:14:41.380 consent to a tattoo. How can you consent to having your biology attempted to change and having body
00:14:48.040 parts chopped off? No. And then just recently, a couple of days ago, we had Pierre Polyev go on TV
00:14:54.240 and just insist that there's, you know, what other gender is there? If you think that there's more than
00:14:58.720 two genders, please start naming them. And the dumbfounded host just sort of couldn't help but
00:15:03.120 repeat his woke talking points. But, you know, in the past, we've seen him say, no two men in women's
00:15:08.180 prisons, no two men in women's sports, and no two sex change hormones for kids. So what do you
00:15:15.060 make of all this, Amish? Well, I think you're right. I think there's been a movement. I think
00:15:18.860 there was, especially during the pandemic, there was a swing on all these issues that, I don't know
00:15:24.320 if it's when people are cooped up or something, but there was definitely a moment going on where
00:15:29.560 people were more and more extreme ideas were being normalized and immediately being told, if you
00:15:35.500 didn't agree with something that, you know, 10 minutes ago was heresy, you're now some sort of
00:15:43.800 terrible person. So I think the pendulum swinging back, you know, I think the Daniel Smith example
00:15:50.100 is very interesting. People said, oh, she's going to bring in these laws, and all these terrible,
00:15:54.380 awful things are going to happen in Alberta, and the world is going to end, and, you know,
00:15:59.500 there would be terrible, you know, gay people would be hurt, and there were all these awful things
00:16:03.780 would happen. And Alberta is doing just fine. There isn't large scale problems in the streets
00:16:11.320 or whatever, all the different predictions fell apart. And she's remained, she's maintained her
00:16:17.000 popularity. And the fact of the matter is, is that this set of issues is something that's very,
00:16:22.620 very passionate for a very small chunk of the population, who care deeply about changing the way
00:16:27.940 we all feel about these things. But the vast majority of people care far more about, you know,
00:16:33.800 their job, how to deal with inflation, being worried about the safety of their kids and the safety of
00:16:40.740 themselves, you know, if crimes on the rise in their neighborhood, or something like that. So I think
00:16:46.060 what we're seeing is that the energy that fueled the sort of extreme change from a small number of
00:16:53.200 people is beginning to run out, and running into, you know, a wall of common sense, that is really,
00:17:00.400 we're really ending up where people just saying, no, I'm not buying into that anymore. And they're
00:17:06.060 discovering there isn't consequences, they're not being cancelled, the world's not coming to an end,
00:17:09.720 their business isn't being shut down. And that you can stand up and say no. And that's, it's going to be
00:17:16.220 okay. Right. And it's such a breath of fresh air. And I hope that our Canadian politicians follow down
00:17:22.600 that path. I want to get your reaction to this clip, because, you know, from a Canadian perspective,
00:17:27.400 I love when Trump is talking about the policies that he wants to implement, because I hope that
00:17:31.360 we get those ourselves. But then, you know, Trump's ire switched, and he took another shot at Canada. So
00:17:37.500 it's interesting to see him use this platform of the WEF to, again, reiterate his tariff threats,
00:17:44.880 and discuss his criticism and complaint about Canada. So let's play that clip.
00:17:50.980 One thing we're going to be demanding is we're going to be demanding respect from
00:17:54.800 other nations. Canada, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada, we're not going to have
00:18:00.540 that anymore, we can't do it. It's, I don't know if it's good for them. As you probably know,
00:18:06.060 I say you can always become a state. And if you're a state, we won't have a deficit, we won't have to
00:18:11.100 tariff you, etc, etc. But Canada has been very tough to deal with over the years. And it's not
00:18:16.920 fair that we should have a $200 billion or $250 billion deficit. We don't need them to make our
00:18:23.440 cars, and they make a lot of them. We don't need their lumber, because we have our own forests,
00:18:28.000 etc, etc. We don't need their oil and gas. We have our, we have more than anybody.
00:18:32.260 So what do you what do you make of that, Hamish? Well, I think there's two very important things.
00:18:37.540 One is that one of the things that Trump's extraordinarily good at is, is sniffing out
00:18:42.440 weakness. And whether it was the Trudeau government before the Freeland explosion ended up pushing
00:18:48.820 Trudeau out. There's no question that Canada's in the back foot right now that the federal
00:18:53.720 government's in disarray, and will be until we have an election. No matter who the liberals elect as
00:18:59.520 their new leader. And Trump knows that's a point of weakness. And so he can, he's going to push and
00:19:03.980 push and push, while we're particularly weak and disorganized, because he's a dealmaker, he's always
00:19:09.120 trying to get a better deal with everybody. So if you see his weakness, he's going to go and try to
00:19:13.420 get something out of that. And that's what he's doing right now. And all these shots, these comments,
00:19:16.900 which send a huge amount of Canadians, it gets Canadians upset and get the Canadian elite,
00:19:21.600 all freaking out, is very much designed to exploit that weakness. The other thing he's doing
00:19:26.140 is by picking on Canada, the United States' longest and closest ally and closest economic
00:19:32.200 partner. When he's sending a message to the Europeans, to the Japanese, and to other countries
00:19:40.200 around the world, if this is how I'm going to stand up and treat the part of the country we're
00:19:44.040 closest to, you'd better get in line. Because when it comes to negotiations with you on the issues that
00:19:50.820 we have with America and our trade, it's going to be even tougher. So I think he's using Canada,
00:19:55.580 he's exploiting the weakness, and he's using Canada as an example.
00:19:58.540 It's so interesting. There's some stats from The Hub this morning in their daily newsletter.
00:20:04.020 And I just show them because it shows kind of Canadians' reactions. So it says here,
00:20:08.080 these are their stats of the day. New Ipsos poll finds 55% of Canadians think that Trump's tariff
00:20:13.260 threats are just a bluff to get Canada to act on other issues. So maybe that means that they don't
00:20:17.260 think they'll actually fall through, that Trump would actually fall through. 82% of Canadians agree
00:20:21.720 that Canada should retaliate with its own tariffs if Trump follows through. So that's what Daniel
00:20:27.620 Smith is resisting. But it seems like almost all of the other premiers are in consensus that that is
00:20:32.240 a good idea. And then it says 77% of Canadians want an immediate federal election so we can have a new
00:20:38.780 government with a strong mandate to deal with Donald Trump. The top one is, I think, most of interest
00:20:46.160 there that 55% of Canadians think it's a bluff. I guess we'll find out on February 1st. I don't
00:20:51.320 think it's a bluff. I think this is going to happen and it's going to be devastating. What do you think?
00:20:55.920 Well, look, I'm not here to try to predict what Donald Trump thinks or does because I don't think
00:21:00.560 anybody's ever successfully going to be able to do that. Certainly not me. But I will say this.
00:21:06.220 He said the tariffs are coming in on day one. It's day three. There's no tariffs. Now it's February 1st.
00:21:11.000 I think he's looking for room for negotiation. I think more time plays in Canada's favour.
00:21:17.220 I don't know what's going to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised
00:21:21.240 if we get 25% tariffs on February 1st, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got something different.
00:21:25.180 It could be 25% for Mexico, 15% for Canada. Him announcing he's going to wait until there's
00:21:30.600 an election to see what happens. There's going to be a whole bunch of different things that will
00:21:33.880 happen. The saying that got thrown around a lot with Trump back when he won the first time was that
00:21:43.180 too many people took him literally but not seriously, whereas his supporters took him
00:21:48.160 seriously but not literally. Will he impose some sort of trade restrictions on Canada?
00:21:54.440 I absolutely believe that will happen depending on the time of negotiations. The time and amount,
00:21:59.460 I don't know. I think when you listen to Trump on these things, the message, the core motivation is
00:22:05.820 very, very, very true. The specific details are often very much up for negotiation. I think there's
00:22:13.860 a chance we won't have 25% on February 1st, but we could have something else. His desire to get a better
00:22:21.700 trade deal with Canada is absolutely there. It absolutely should be taken seriously. I think
00:22:28.080 that's what Canadians should be focused on.
00:22:30.960 So I want to get your thoughts on this a little more. I had J.J. McCullough on the show the other day,
00:22:35.080 and he sort of discussed how he doesn't like that Canada attaches its wagon to Mexico and that we have
00:22:41.880 this sort of like team approach dealing with the United States. He thinks that the Canadian-US
00:22:45.640 relationship is totally different and that we should just ditch Mexico and go in on our own.
00:22:51.000 Interestingly, you know, we've seen because the federal government is so weak and Justin Trudeau isn't
00:22:55.040 really the prime minister anymore. I mean, he technically is, but he said he was going to
00:22:57.880 resign. So everyone knows he's on his way out. We've had premiers step in, like people like
00:23:02.480 Danielle Smith, who has gone down and met face to face with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. She was there
00:23:06.540 again for the inauguration. What do you think about that strategy? What do you think about the sort of
00:23:11.560 lack of any liberal government official being there? Like, I didn't see any of them down at the
00:23:16.140 inauguration. Aside from Justin Trudeau's one visit down to Mar-a-Lago at the end of December,
00:23:21.880 we haven't really seen a lot of Canadian federal people involved in these negotiations. What do
00:23:29.140 you think about the strategy there? Well, I mean, I think their strategy is terrible. I think it
00:23:33.100 speaks to the weakness of Canada. It speaks to the fact that they're focused on their own internal
00:23:36.620 drama. First, the fight of whether Trudeau would stay or go. And now that he's gone, the fight over
00:23:40.740 who's going to be the next liberal leader and prime minister. So they're very much focused on their
00:23:45.520 own drama and they just don't have that much time for other things, you know. So I think it's
00:23:50.580 natural for the premiers to step up. Premiers are very powerful in this country. We've got
00:23:54.020 a strong federation that the premiers have more say than in most countries in the world.
00:24:00.440 So I'm not surprised they've stepped up. And, you know, in a country like ours, it's not a surprise
00:24:05.680 that a lot of premiers would have relationships with people in the United States, both parties,
00:24:10.640 often with senators or governors from nearby states, some of whom are now going to be in Trump's
00:24:14.760 cabinet. And I think that it would be very odd if the premiers weren't trying to. I can't think of
00:24:21.520 a premier, especially not from a large economically powerful state, a province like Ontario or Alberta,
00:24:27.480 who would just say, I'm happy to let the prime minister do whatever. We'll just let Ottawa figure
00:24:32.480 it out. It's a foreign thing. We're not going to be involved. I think it's too important to get
00:24:36.600 wrong for the livelihoods of too many Canadians that the premiers aren't going to get involved in some
00:24:41.720 significant way. Absolutely. All right, Hamish, I wanted to talk about polling because, I mean,
00:24:46.440 you're a pollster. You understand how these things work. I want to get your thoughts on it because
00:24:50.120 this was making headlines this week. A new Ecos poll from Frank Graves, a pollster, showed that
00:24:56.720 the liberals have gained 30 points following Trump's inauguration. So according to his poll,
00:25:02.860 which came out on January 22nd, it still has the conservatives up at 38.5 percent. But it has the
00:25:10.480 Liberal Party right there, right behind it. You can see the bottom of that bar at 31.7 percent.
00:25:17.140 How could it be possible? Are the liberals all of a sudden polling at 32 percent? What's your take
00:25:23.300 on this poll? Well, that's certainly not the consensus from other public polls that we've been
00:25:26.760 seeing. And I think there's a couple of different things happening. One, I'm not surprised that the
00:25:31.780 Liberal vote is trending up a little bit with Trudeau gone. But also leadership races often tend
00:25:39.280 to produce slight bumps for parties having a leadership race, especially if they're in
00:25:43.900 government. Because what happens is when somebody says, well, you consider voting for the Liberal
00:25:47.600 Party, instead of imagining Justin Trudeau, who they might not like, or Carney or Friedland
00:25:52.340 or whomever they might have strong feelings about, they imagine a leaderless party with
00:25:57.040 their own perfect leader. And suddenly they'll go, oh, well, but then when there is a leadership,
00:26:01.560 whomever wins ends up disappointing a chunk of those people and they end up moving away.
00:26:05.280 So I'm not surprised they're moving up a little bit. The Seacoast poll, I think, should be taken
00:26:11.120 with a grain of salt. It's conducted largely using demon dial IVR technology. What IVR technology
00:26:18.160 is often very, very good at, in my experience, is detecting the movement of the parties, but
00:26:23.260 it gets the amount of movement wrong. So if IVR shows a big 10-point swing for a party,
00:26:28.940 it probably means they're up two or three points, which I think is entirely reasonable,
00:26:32.700 but not to the extent they are. And we've seen that time and time again with IVR as a
00:26:38.540 methodology. This poll has been getting some criticism online because when people dug into
00:26:43.760 the results, they found that close to, I think, close to 60% of the respondents have university
00:26:49.260 degrees, whereas the actual number in Canada is under 30, and those people are more likely to be voting
00:26:54.780 liberal. So we're seeing a large skew of highly educated people in this poll. That's certainly
00:27:03.020 what I've seen, and some people have dug into it.
00:27:05.340 Why is it that people with university degrees tend to vote more liberal? I mean, you and I both have
00:27:09.280 several degrees, and that makes me not ever want to vote for liberal. So why generally speaking? I know
00:27:14.620 it's a tangent, but I'm just curious about your thoughts on that.
00:27:16.800 I think that there is a preference amongst people who are highly educated for parties that declare
00:27:28.240 themselves to be open-minded, that say things like we saw the Trudeau government talk a lot about how
00:27:35.200 they were using evidence-based decisions, and also that essentially say the world is more complicated
00:27:45.640 than it appears, and that we can't be too reliant on, you know, sort of old black and white view of
00:27:55.160 the world. And I think that sort of message appeals to people who are more highly educated,
00:28:02.760 broadly speaking. Everything I just said there, everyone can point, I'm sure, to 100 exceptions to
00:28:07.640 that. But I think that's broadly what happens, whereas a conservative message that says, you know,
00:28:15.640 like for a great example would be sort of like, as I say, a tough on crime message to say, well,
00:28:19.320 no, you know, you've killed someone, you should get life in jail. And suddenly someone who's more
00:28:24.840 highly educated, maybe someone with a law degree, starts saying, well, there's exceptions, you know,
00:28:29.240 why, you know, what were the circumstances around this, and start reading into it and avoid some of
00:28:34.600 those more sort of almost gut decisions. The things that we as conservatives and others really know in
00:28:41.560 your heart is true, that you don't, but that some people try to rationalize away.
00:28:47.240 Yeah, wasn't it Justin Trudeau that said that it was society's fault, that the Boston marathon
00:28:51.400 bombers decide to blow up innocent people running in a marathon? I mean, you have to have a university
00:28:56.120 degree to be that ignorant. I would just say that universities brainwash people, but it's just like
00:29:01.000 a mass indoctrination program, and that they should probably be defunded as well. I don't know if this
00:29:06.040 is a fair comparison, but when I saw that Frank Graves Ecos poll showing the Liberals were up 30
00:29:11.720 points following Trump's inauguration, it reminded me of the Ann Seltzer Iowa poll that happened during
00:29:17.720 the race election. I don't know if you're following this, but a couple of days before the election,
00:29:21.400 just in 2024 here in November, Ann Seltzer, who is a very famous, very storied, very trustworthy and
00:29:27.560 reliable pollster, predicted that Kamala Harris would win. And she, well, her poll did. She had a poll in
00:29:34.680 Iowa, she's from Iowa, that showed Kamala Harris up three points. So she had Harris at 47, Trump at 44,
00:29:42.600 which would be the Dems up three. It kind of caused everyone to stop for pause because,
00:29:47.400 you know, I saw that poll a week before I would have said Trump's going to win a landslide just
00:29:50.680 based on what I was seeing and what I was hearing, and my perception of everything post even the
00:29:55.320 assassination attempt. And then when I saw that poll, because obviously Iowa is a deep red state,
00:30:01.080 I thought, hmm, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe Roe versus Wade is going to be the biggest
00:30:05.400 ballot question again in this election. I don't know. Anyway, it had me questioning myself.
00:30:08.840 It turned out to be totally wrong. Trump ended up winning Iowa by 13%. The poll went so bad for Ann
00:30:15.560 Seltzer that she literally had to quit polling. She literally retired in disgrace after getting the
00:30:22.200 Iowa survey wrong by 16 points, missing it so badly. And not just that, Hamish, Trump is now
00:30:29.720 suing her for what he alleged to be consumer fraud. So let me just read a little bit from this news
00:30:36.120 story at ABC News. It says, Donald Trump is suing Ann Seltzer, her polling firm, the Des Moines Register,
00:30:40.920 and the newspaper's parent company, accusing them of consumer fraud, according to a copy of the filing.
00:30:47.160 And basically, they were almost saying this is something like election interference by trying
00:30:52.920 to, I don't know, cook a poll to give the Dems energy and to make Republicans maybe want to stay
00:31:00.280 at home. I don't know if that's what Frank Grave is doing. I'm not saying it is. Probably not. But
00:31:05.800 just kind of interesting that that happened with Ann Seltzer in that poll. What's your take on all that?
00:31:12.200 Well, I mean, you know, the business of polling has changed a lot, right? And you know, in the old
00:31:17.400 days, the media used to pay for polls, but quite a lot of polls, like a lot of polls, you know, back in
00:31:22.680 you know, the late 80s, the Globe and Mail would have a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars
00:31:27.080 for polling in a federal election. Now, the vast majority of media pay very little for polls,
00:31:33.960 maybe in an election they do, when they need something consistently. But a lot of them are given
00:31:39.160 away, the polls are given away for free, especially these things that are posted online. And like
00:31:44.200 anything, you get what you pay for, you know, a company, a lot of companies are gonna put more
00:31:48.040 effort into the work they have, where there's a paying client who's, who requires, you know,
00:31:55.160 a certain degree of accuracy. Whereas free polls, and that also means that the way the industry's
00:32:00.520 worked is now easier to set, a lot easier now to set up because the internet set up a polling company
00:32:04.120 now than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago. And as a result, more and more people are getting in
00:32:08.360 who perhaps don't have as much experience. It obviously doesn't apply to Ann Seltzer or
00:32:12.680 ECOS, to be honest, but we are seeing a lot more garbage polls turn up because it's easier to do
00:32:18.040 it and people are doing it for free. That said, I mean, look, I think polling and elections,
00:32:23.800 I have some sympathy for Ann Seltzer. Polling elections is very tricky. I've done it a lot.
00:32:28.600 It's very, very hard to be right all of the time and to understand why you're wrong. I think that the
00:32:34.200 real mistake that she made was afterwards, she said, I'm actually, actually, our data was still
00:32:40.200 good. It was just misinterpreted slightly. And she kind of came with this excuse explaining why
00:32:44.440 she was still right, sort of. And I think it would have been much better to say, you know,
00:32:48.200 you know, in Canada, the polling all says, you know, is within this margin of error 19 times out of
00:32:52.360 20. Sometimes you're just kind of outside of the margin of error. And if she stood up and said, look,
00:32:56.920 I got this one really wrong. I'm gonna go back and try to figure out why. I think she would be in a
00:33:01.240 better place than sort of saying, well, no, actually, our data collection was good. But
00:33:04.520 this and she tried to make excuses. Sometimes, when you screw up, you just got to, you know,
00:33:08.920 take take take the heat. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I followed Nate Silver in the States as well.
00:33:14.600 And he was, I think, one of the only pollsters that got Trump right the first time, or at least
00:33:18.680 allowed that possibility. On election night in the US, he was saying that his gut was saying that Kamala
00:33:23.960 Harris was going to win. And then she didn't. And then he just kind of disappeared for a few days.
00:33:27.800 And I was expecting him to come out and like, say, to his readers, like, hey, sorry, I got it
00:33:32.360 wrong. But he just he just didn't. I think some people have a hard time admitting when they're
00:33:36.440 wrong. Okay, so that that that Ecos poll is quite an outlier. Abacus poll also and also had to pull out
00:33:44.040 in the field at the same time. And they still show the conservative at 46 and the libs at 20. No,
00:33:51.560 no, that's, that's wrong. Let's go to the next one. There it is. Yeah, the conservatives at 46
00:33:57.240 and the libs at 20. And then if you go to the poll aggregator, 338 Canada, you see that the
00:34:04.440 average of polls still has the conservatives way, way up ahead at 45 and 21. So I don't think that
00:34:10.920 these polls are catching that same shift, Hamish. So do you think the shift is certainly happening?
00:34:18.120 Or do you think maybe, again, that poll was just such an outlier that it must be an error?
00:34:23.640 As I said, I wouldn't be surprised to see the liberals drift up to maybe 23%. If that that
00:34:29.320 polling aggregator shifts over the next couple of weeks, I can definitely see it at 23. With Trudeau
00:34:34.520 gone, I think that's a bit of a just a lot, you know, I think people are done with the liberal party,
00:34:39.080 but they were very, very, very much done with Justin Trudeau. So I think him being gone
00:34:44.440 that will help the liberals a bit, not dramatically, but I think they could go from 20 to 23.
00:34:50.680 But frankly, I think once they get a new leader, whom some people like and a whole bunch of people
00:34:54.920 dislike, I think we can see that number begin to drift back down again.
00:34:58.760 I am curious to hear your thoughts. Let's talk about Mark Carney for a few minutes,
00:35:02.920 because he sort of came out with his triumphant campaign announcement last week. Kind of oddly,
00:35:08.440 he didn't let any independent journalists into the room, even the ones that were local, like our own
00:35:12.920 True North's own Isaac Lamoureux is an Edmonton boy. He was up there and they just wouldn't let him
00:35:16.920 into the room. Obviously, Kian Bextie as well. And then he kind of disappeared, Hamish. I haven't
00:35:22.120 really seen much from him. I don't know that he's even come out. And maybe he came out yesterday and
00:35:26.200 made a short speech, but he's kind of gone dark. But I do think that he's sort of the dream liberal
00:35:31.560 candidate because he's kind of like Justin Trudeau, except for he's obviously much smarter. Like,
00:35:36.920 I think that ideologically, he's exactly, you know, the net zero, the Green New Deal, the whole
00:35:42.440 like a carbon tax that they had that they shared the same core political beliefs and ideology.
00:35:47.880 But Mark Carney is a very accomplished person. He's very smooth talking. His appearance is much more
00:35:56.120 sort of traditional and establishment. I could see I don't think that that appeals to Canadians. I
00:36:01.880 don't think Canadians like electing bankers to positions of power. We've seen a couple bankers
00:36:07.000 try to run in various positions, and they don't seem to do very well. But I could see the liberals,
00:36:11.960 you know, he's got the, he's got the Harvard Oxford pedigree, he saw success in London, and
00:36:17.720 Canadians love it when sorry, liberal Canadians love people who have been successful elsewhere,
00:36:22.920 especially in Europe, come back home. So I see Mark Carney walking away with this race.
00:36:29.480 What what's your perception? Absolutely. I think Mark Carney is going to win this race reasonably
00:36:34.120 easily. Once they release some of the numbers around the membership or the sort of registered
00:36:38.520 liberals that we're going to, we'll secure that in the coming days. That'll give us a little more
00:36:43.480 clarity, but I think it'll be pretty easy for him to win. I think he's the sort of messiah
00:36:47.240 candidate. Liberals love a messiah. They don't actually, if you look back at the history of the
00:36:51.560 Liberal Party, it's very rarely a candidate who comes in and slowly builds and fixes problems.
00:36:57.800 Maybe the last one might have done that would have been Mike Pearson. But then it was, you know,
00:37:01.720 Pierre Trudeau will fix all our problems. John Turner will fix it. You know, people are fed up
00:37:05.640 with the Pierre Trudeau. John Turner will come in and change the channel and be completely different
00:37:09.320 and change everything. And then, you know, he didn't work. Clayton has a little bit of an exception to
00:37:14.280 that. But Paul Martin, Clayton is not popular anymore. People are getting fed up with him. Paul
00:37:18.200 Martin will fix everything. It didn't work for them. Michael Ignatius will fix everything. You
00:37:22.040 know, Justin Trudeau, he did win. He did change things for them. But they have a very much of
00:37:26.680 this messiah complex when it comes to their leadership. And I think that's what we're
00:37:29.800 going to see here. We need somebody different, somebody not too associated with Trudeau,
00:37:33.720 you know, and they're going to choose Carney. You know, Carney's got obviously an impressive
00:37:38.840 resume. There's not a lot of people have been a central banker in multiple events to economies.
00:37:46.760 But I don't think he gets politics. I think the political advice he's getting feels very
00:37:53.080 sort of 20 years ago. I think of the fact that he's, you know, his launch at this,
00:37:59.800 his launch was weird and awkward, frankly. I didn't think it showed him at its best foot.
00:38:04.840 But, and you know, now, and you're right, keeping the independent media out, very,
00:38:09.800 very focused on the traditional media in a way that they don't matter the way they did
00:38:14.760 five years ago, much less 15 or 20. I really feel that he's running this, this sort of,
00:38:20.680 sort of the last gasp of the old liberal establishment. And this is going to be their
00:38:24.920 last best chance to do something. And I don't think he is going to, I think he's going to run into a
00:38:30.680 buzzsaw of the, you know, the Pierre Polyev campaign machine. I think the campaign machine
00:38:37.800 that Pierre has built is, is very, you know, 2020, it's a 2025 campaign, and we're going to see it
00:38:44.840 in a way that is that people that people who are used to campaigning the old way, don't know how to
00:38:49.800 deal with. And I think that Carney's going to have a lot of trouble with that. He's used to getting
00:38:56.600 instant respect as being this banker, as being officially nonpartisan, of being the smartest
00:39:01.880 or the most influential person in the room. And he's going to find that, I think, to your point,
00:39:06.120 that a great number of Canadians don't, not even don't care about that, but see that as a problem,
00:39:12.520 not as a advantage for him. Right, like the zeitgeist. I mean, we, we have had a turn against
00:39:18.760 institutions and experts and elites, like we don't want to listen to them anymore. They're not right.
00:39:22.840 The things that they're advocating for us are anti-human many of the time. It kind of reminded
00:39:28.520 me when he talked about how they thought that Michael Ignatieff was going to be the savior.
00:39:32.520 I remember I was on college campus at that time and the liberals were trying to make like
00:39:36.280 Iggy mania happen. And, you know, I went and watched him give a speech and I'm like,
00:39:41.320 I don't understand how people can call it Iggy mania. This guy is so boring and so uninspiring.
00:39:46.280 I mean, he's an interesting professor, but as a leader of the party, no, I feel that same way
00:39:50.360 about Mark Carney. Like I watched his speech and I, I just couldn't get over how low energy he was.
00:39:55.000 It just reminded me of low energy Jeb running for the Republicans in 2015 and 2016. Interestingly,
00:40:01.560 you know, Carney's trying to distance himself from Trudeau, trying to distance himself from
00:40:06.200 specifically the carbon tax. I thought it was interesting that Gilbeau, Stephen Gilbeau, the
00:40:12.040 environmental minister, starts environmentalist. He came out and backed Mark Carney as leader.
00:40:19.400 Um, you know, in the past he had said that he was willing to leave cabinet if there were
00:40:24.600 exemptions and carve outs to the carbon tax. Like this is the most staunchly environmentalist
00:40:29.320 uh, person in Trudeau's cabinet. Uh, he called himself a socialist in the house of commons,
00:40:33.960 which was a little weird. I almost wondered if he misspoke when he said that, but
00:40:37.800 the fact that he's out there endorsing, um, Mark Carney, what do you make of that? And then secondly,
00:40:44.280 I want to ask you, Hamish, do you think carbon taxes will be the ballot issue? Because
00:40:48.040 it seems like all of the liberal candidates are running away from this record. Like everyone
00:40:51.960 kind of agrees and admits at this point, the policy is a disaster and it's harming Canadians,
00:40:57.000 uh, at a very difficult time for when it comes to cost of living. Uh, nobody wants it anymore. I know
00:41:02.520 the conservatives want to make this a central issue of the campaign. Um, but will it still be if all of
00:41:07.720 the other candidates also walk away from it? I don't think they are walking away from it. I think they've
00:41:12.360 made noises, but I haven't seen a single definitive proposal to replace it or get rid of it. And I
00:41:17.640 think, you know, when you, when you look closely at Jibo's comments, he says some, one of the reporters
00:41:22.520 asked him, you know, you said you will not, a carbon tax is necessary. You know, you know,
00:41:28.280 have you, has you, have you gotten assurances from, uh, Carney that there will still be a carbon tax?
00:41:32.840 And he, he didn't, he basically said yes without quite saying yes in a very politician kind of way.
00:41:37.240 Uh, I believe that, you know, both, uh, Carney and Freeland will roll out some sort of rebranded
00:41:43.640 carbon tax that we'll try to, we'll try to explain away as actually being better, uh, for consumers.
00:41:49.720 Uh, and I, and I actually don't think, um, that it will be persuasive because what they, what they
00:41:54.520 don't realize is that the liberal party of Canada has lost a massive amount of credibility in the minds
00:41:59.240 of voters and will be seen as simply lying, uh, about this. And I think it'll be very easy, uh, for
00:42:06.520 Polyev to be able to say, this is a lie. Of course he still, his alternative plan is actually going to
00:42:11.800 cause you even more, uh, with whatever it is that they roll out. Because at the end of the day,
00:42:16.120 there's absolutely no way they can put, um, a massive tax on carbon and it not impact, uh, the,
00:42:22.760 the take home pay or the out of pocket expenses of every single Canadian. It's just fundamentally
00:42:28.440 mathematically impossible. Um, so even if they say, well, we'll put it all on polluters. Well, you know,
00:42:33.960 then watch the price of gas go through the roof. If suddenly every, uh, oil and gas company has to,
00:42:38.760 uh, put a huge target, uh, uh, tax on. So we will see that they're not going to run away from it.
00:42:46.280 Um, uh, because they still need it for some part of their base. They're going to call it something
00:42:50.840 different. They're going to dress it up, but I don't think it'll be different enough. And I think
00:42:54.120 that, um, Polyev and the conservatives will be able to act to be able to point it as a, as the scan that it is.
00:43:00.120 And that further reason why it shouldn't be, uh, trusted. So we have a clip of Pierre Polyev
00:43:06.600 saying that this proof, Gilbo's endorsement proves that Carney is still committed and is
00:43:11.400 still radical. Let's play that clip. Make no mistake. This guy is just as, if not more radical
00:43:18.920 than Justin Trudeau. And today we got the proof. You'll never guess who's announced. He's supporting
00:43:24.760 Carney. The most crazy self-described socialist in the government, Steven Gilbo, the crazy carbon tax
00:43:33.000 minister. This is a guy who has been arrested twice. Once for climbing on the roof of the premier
00:43:39.320 of Alberta to protest against the energy sector. A second time for climbing the CN tower. He's wants to
00:43:47.320 ban road building, nuclear power, wants to shut down the forestry sector because he says that's the only way
00:43:53.720 to save the caribou. He's against hydroelectric dams. And most important of all, he said he would
00:44:02.040 resign from the Trudeau cabinet. If there was even one more exemption from the carbon tax, he wants the
00:44:07.240 carbon tax to apply on all fossil fuel energy and has said he would end his career if it did not go
00:44:14.840 ahead. Now, this is important because it means that if Carney were not privately committing to him
00:44:21.560 behind the scenes, that he will keep the carbon tax, that Gilbo would not be supporting him.
00:44:26.840 So, I mean, you could just see Pierre is so worked up on this issue and really effective. It makes you
00:44:35.160 wonder, like, why did Gilbo come out and support Carney? Because I think that kind of hurts Carney. So that
00:44:41.480 kind of brings me to my next question, Hamish. Like, usually we see this happening a lot on the
00:44:45.480 conservative side. When you're running for leader of the conservative party, you have an incentive
00:44:49.960 to lean, like, hard right on policy and show, like, you're the truest blue. You're going to go down
00:44:55.560 with, you know, your policies are going to be based on what the base wants. And then in a general
00:44:59.720 election, you pivot because you have to appeal to all Canadians. I don't like this. I don't endorse
00:45:03.960 it. It drove me crazy when Aaron O'Toole did this and kind of abandoned all the things that he said that
00:45:08.760 he was going to do. But it's a typical pattern on the Canadian right. So far, Pierre Polyev seems to be
00:45:15.560 bucking that trend a little bit and not doing that. But now I kind of see that that could
00:45:19.800 potentially be a problem for the Liberals. So the Liberals have to run a leadership race where
00:45:24.520 their base is still pretty left wing and pretty woke. And they want, like, I would like to hear
00:45:30.200 all the candidates what their position is on gender ideology and trans and kids and all kinds of, like,
00:45:37.080 social policies that have turned out to be really unpopular because they're deeply wrong. What do you,
00:45:44.040 what do you think about the idea that whoever wins a Liberal race has to first appeal to the
00:45:49.400 left wing base of the Liberal Party and then turn around almost immediately? Because it looks like
00:45:53.800 we'll trigger an election almost immediately. And like the next day, try to craft a message that
00:45:59.000 appeals broadly to Canadians. Do you think that's going to harm the Liberals? Or what do you think
00:46:02.680 is going to happen there? So because of the way the Liberal race is structured with these free
00:46:07.240 memberships, the fact of the matter is this race is going to be determined by mass signups of people,
00:46:13.160 which are generally non-ideological. You know, the Conservative race is determined by Conservative
00:46:19.000 supporters paying $15. The people doing that are overwhelmingly the most Conservative and the most
00:46:23.160 committed and movement Conservatives. This Liberal race is going to be determined by people just
00:46:29.720 signing up hundreds and hundreds of people online who may or may not know their members and then
00:46:34.600 figuring out a way to help those people vote for the candidate you want.
00:46:37.160 I think there's been almost no ideology in this whatsoever. And the deals that are being struck
00:46:46.840 to sign up 100 people or 1000 people by different power brokers are all around access. They're around
00:46:55.000 connections as opposed to around ideology and sets of issues. The one exception, I would say perhaps,
00:47:01.400 is the Hamas activists, the anti-Israel activists, who apparently I'm told are lining up behind Kearney.
00:47:09.320 I'm not sure. I don't have proof of that, but that's what I've been told. And I'll be interesting
00:47:14.120 to see if they sort of require him to come out and make some sort of statement in the days and weeks
00:47:19.160 ahead. We'll see about that. But I think, you know, the fact of the matter is I think they've, you know,
00:47:24.520 Kearney and Freeland have both discussed, you know, some change to the carbon tax or something like this.
00:47:28.840 They've already fumbled it. If they wanted to take the carbon tax to the earlier point,
00:47:33.080 if they want to take the carbon tax off the table in this election, both of them at their launch
00:47:37.400 should have said, I will eliminate the carbon tax as prime minister and being clear and definitive
00:47:43.320 about it and made it a central plank of their campaign so that Canadians know that's the person
00:47:48.200 who stands with it. And then they can very clearly say when Pierre brings it up, they say, well,
00:47:54.680 it was there, but I'm the one who got rid of it. I promise you can renew it. I'm getting rid of it.
00:47:58.040 The first vote in the House of Commons is going to be to get rid of the carbon tax and dare the
00:48:01.880 Conservatives to vote against that. That would be the smart thing to do. The fact that they haven't
00:48:05.880 done that, they've got this sort of middled, well, we're going to tweak, tweak it, stay tuned,
00:48:10.120 see what happens. It's not a key part of their message. And we're going to end up with simply a
00:48:14.920 rebranded carbon tax, which does not give them the electoral bump that they're looking for.
00:48:20.440 Well, Hamish, I don't know if you remember, I had you on my show just over a year ago,
00:48:24.840 and I asked you in that interview, will there be an election in 2024? At the time, I really believed
00:48:31.720 there would. It just seemed to me that the Liberal consensus was falling apart, that Canadians were
00:48:35.400 very angry, and that there would be enough pressure on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to pull the plug and call
00:48:41.080 an election. You predicted, much to my dismay and dismay of my viewers, that there would not be an election in
00:48:46.920 2024, and it turned out to be right. So I know pollsters, a lot of time, you know, if you make
00:48:50.680 predictions and you get them wrong, you get your name dragged through the mud. Yeah, you got that
00:48:54.840 one right. I don't know if you get credit for getting things right. But I could believe it. I
00:48:58.920 still can't believe it. I still can't believe that Jagmeet Singh can look people in the eyes,
00:49:02.120 can look his constituents and his party in the eyes, saying that he's doing what's best for them
00:49:06.440 by propping up this horrible Liberal government. I think it's so shameful, so disgraceful. I hope he
00:49:10.280 leaves public life very soon and never comes back. A recent poll shows that 77% of Canadians
00:49:16.280 want an immediate election. They want a government that has a strong mandate to deal with Donald
00:49:21.480 Trump and his threats. Two-thirds of Canadians say they're confident in Canada's ability to respond
00:49:26.360 to Trump, rising to 75% among older Canadians. 77% said that we should have an immediate election.
00:49:33.160 This is kind of interesting as well. Six and ten think that Justin Trudeau should be leading the
00:49:38.120 response over Canada's provincial premiers. If six and ten believe it should be Trudeau, that means
00:49:43.240 that four in ten don't think it should be Trudeau. Four in ten don't think that the prime minister of
00:49:49.080 this country should be the one taking the lead in negotiating bilaterally with the president of the
00:49:54.360 United States. I read much more into that, that four in ten Canadians have such little faith in
00:50:01.320 Justin Trudeau that they don't even believe that our system of government represents them and that they
00:50:05.320 would rather just the premiers ad hoc going out and getting them. So if you could look into your crystal ball,
00:50:10.200 Hamish, and tell me when will the election be? Okay, so gun to my head, I would say the 12th of May.
00:50:18.200 This is a highly specific prediction that will almost certainly be wrong to your earlier point, but
00:50:24.360 looking at the parliamentary calendar, I think the 12th of May is the most likely outcome.
00:50:27.960 Can you walk us through why? Like what would happen? Sure. You know, the government, there will be,
00:50:32.760 there has to be a vote of no confidence on something called supply, which is continuing
00:50:38.680 funding for about 40% of the federal government's commitments. That has to happen before the 31st of
00:50:44.520 March. Has to, or on April 1st, that money stops flowing. Parliament comes back on the 24th,
00:50:51.080 vote has to go to the 31st, I don't know what to be, 27th, 28th, something like that. I'm not sure exactly,
00:50:56.520 but at some point there'll be a vote. If there's a vote of confidence and if the NDP keep their word
00:51:02.280 and vote against the Liberals, the parliament will be resolved. The election has to be held within
00:51:09.640 53 days, I think, 54 days, something like that. The 12th of May would be 40 something days going,
00:51:19.640 election has to be on a Monday, so it could be the 5th of May. I think the 5th of May is the earliest,
00:51:23.640 it could be the 12th of May, it seems more likely to me. In theory, it can't be the 19th because the
00:51:29.800 19th is the Victoria Day holiday, and so therefore it would move to Tuesday the 20th. I think people
00:51:36.440 are not going to want to have an election on the Tuesday after a long weekend, and maybe that's what
00:51:40.360 they choose, we'll see. But I think the 12th of the way is the most likely. This all depends on whoever
00:51:45.160 the Liberal leader is not doing a deal with Jagmeet Singh. And my controversial and terrifying
00:51:50.760 statement is that if they do a deal with Jagmeet Singh, it's not going to be to extend Parliament
00:51:56.440 for another few months. The NDP, I think, are smart enough to say an election in May versus an
00:52:04.040 election in October doesn't make a difference. If their NDP is going to go back on their word,
00:52:07.720 they're going to want something good for it, and that means they would support the Liberals in
00:52:12.200 exchange for getting rid of the Fixed Election Date Act, because by the Constitution, the election can go
00:52:16.760 five full years and push it into 2026. So my view is that I think the 12th of the way is the most
00:52:24.360 likely, but if there's a deal between the NDP and the Liberals, we're going to see an election in 26,
00:52:28.760 not 25, which is horrifying. I just say, can I get over that? I've seen conspiracies and people
00:52:34.440 writing posts like that on X, and I can't fathom that happening, given the mood in the country right
00:52:41.160 now. If they try to do that, Hamish, I see something 10 times bigger than the trucker convoy
00:52:49.160 coming to Ottawa and putting pressure on maybe the Prime Minister or maybe the Governor General,
00:52:53.880 maybe even the King. You cannot allow these people to govern our country anymore. They don't have a
00:52:58.360 mandate. Get them out. I don't even want to allow my brain to go there, because I find that so
00:53:03.960 terrifying. But okay, well, we'll definitely have to have you on again in the future to follow up.
00:53:11.320 Hopefully, it's May. Hopefully, it's not 2026. Before we wrap up, I thought we would do a fun
00:53:17.000 segment at the end of the show here. So this got a lot of play online. A lot of people were noticing
00:53:23.080 this. President Donald Trump was at the National Prayer Service. So they went and did a religious
00:53:28.680 ceremony the day after his inauguration. And you probably saw this. The Episcopal Bishop in
00:53:34.600 Washington, the Right Reverend, Marianne Boode, sort of went off track. She deviated from scripture
00:53:43.080 to take a moment to lecture the incoming president and his administration, and then just started
00:53:49.960 saying a whole bunch of woke, crazy stuff. So I want to play this clip for you here.
00:53:53.960 In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.
00:54:07.080 There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in democratic, republican, and independent families,
00:54:15.320 some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office
00:54:26.520 buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat
00:54:32.520 in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper
00:54:39.880 documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.
00:54:48.200 So it was a little strange and very off-putting to hear that. I want to just give a personal
00:54:52.680 anecdote because my husband and I lived in California for a few years. I'm an Anglican
00:54:57.320 Church of England in Canada, but they don't have the equivalent of that in the United States. So when we
00:55:02.120 were looking for a church to attend, we were looking at the Episcopal Church because I thought that
00:55:06.520 that was kind of like the equivalent. That's sort of what you're told. It is the American equivalent
00:55:10.760 of the Anglican Church. And I think that my husband and I went to like six or seven different
00:55:15.800 Episcopal churches in the Bay Area looking for one that was suitable. And the reason that we had to
00:55:19.800 go to so many, Hamish, is because of this. We would get this wherever we went. Now, this was,
00:55:25.240 granted, it was 2017. It was sort of the height of Trump derangement. But I heard those kind of
00:55:30.520 speeches. I heard them over and over again. Interestingly, a lot of the Episcopalian churches in the United
00:55:35.160 States, you look at the prayer book they have, and it's the same one as the United Church in Canada.
00:55:40.040 So not the equivalent of the Anglican. Although I will say that many Anglican churches in Canada,
00:55:45.880 sadly, have gone very, very well. But you don't go to church on Sunday wanting to hear political
00:55:51.560 screed lecturing you about immigration and trans and kids. I'm sorry. That's not the place of the church.
00:55:58.280 And those are not the correct stances for someone in the church. So, you know,
00:56:03.480 kind of amusing to see that happen. Looking at the faces of the Trump family, just kind of like,
00:56:08.760 what is happening? Why is this happening? And then in hearing this woke lecture, I just want to get
00:56:14.440 your reaction. Like, what did you think about all of that? My favorite is to watch J.D. Vance in that,
00:56:19.000 because right when she starts, he's sort of looking down. He's looking at the program. He's not
00:56:23.720 closely paying attention. And she says a couple of words and he looks up like, oh boy, here we go. And
00:56:28.520 then 20 seconds later, he's kind of like, oh, he's rolling eyes. But Trump sort of kept his composure
00:56:34.120 and his face didn't move. But J.D. Vance, you could read him like a book. And it was fantastic.
00:56:39.400 Look, I mean, there is obviously a long tradition of trying to keep politics out of churches in many
00:56:46.120 ways, originally for the good of the churches, because you start making them political and then
00:56:50.680 political actors can come and will start to want to start interfering with churches. So in order for faith
00:56:55.880 communities to protect themselves, they kept out of politics. And I don't think that's,
00:57:00.760 you know, I think that's not a bad instinct that's served many faith communities well for
00:57:03.960 hundreds and hundreds of years. You know, I'm not surprised if you, if you, to be honest,
00:57:10.040 the state of the, you know, mainline Protestant churches these days, you know, if you put a bishop
00:57:14.920 up there for a mainline Protestant church, I'm not surprised you get something like this. I think
00:57:18.440 you might get something different from a Catholic bishop or a leader in an evangelical community.
00:57:23.240 But, you know, if you put up the moderator of the United Church in Canada, you would get exactly
00:57:28.200 this. And frankly, the leader of the Anglican Church in Canada probably wouldn't be that vastly
00:57:34.680 different either. So I think it says more about the state of mainline Protestant churches these days,
00:57:40.440 and the sad state on an Anglican myself. And, you know, I find it all, all disappointing. And it's,
00:57:47.400 you know, this sort of political politicization and jumping on bandwagons, I think is one of the
00:57:53.320 reasons why, you know, the mainline Protestant churches are continuing to decline and see lower
00:57:58.120 membership. And I think it's, I think it's sad more than anything else.
00:58:00.440 Well, I just feel that way. Like, I want to go to church. I like the community. I like the way that
00:58:05.240 I feel after going to church. But I just, I can't, I can't handle hearing bad political opinions in,
00:58:11.320 when I'm in that state, when I'm trying to be focused on God. And I want my kids to be involved,
00:58:15.320 and I want my family to be able to go. But that, but that wouldn't be the kind of thing that would
00:58:18.920 make me walk away. I give them credit for not getting up and walking away. Although,
00:58:23.960 Vance's face was a tell. So if you go back and watch that clip, so are the faces of all the Trump
00:58:28.600 children, you can see them all in the background. And Ivanka is just kind of like,
00:58:33.400 what is going on? Like horrified. So it was it was it was it was kind of amusing. Of course,
00:58:38.840 Trump shot back and just saying that it wasn't a very good service and that it was very ungracious,
00:58:43.560 which I will agree with. Okay, well, we'll wrap it up that Hamish Marshall, such a pleasure. Always
00:58:47.560 great to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. Have a great weekend. My pleasure.
00:58:52.040 Right. Thank you so much, everyone. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful weekend with your family.
00:58:56.040 And we will be back on Monday with all the news. Thank you so much. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is
00:59:00.200 the Candace Malcolm Show. God bless.