00:00:00.000Canadians are desperate for change and polls are showing that if there were an election this winter, Justin Trudeau would lose in an historic landslide defeat.
00:00:08.500So the only real question that remains is when will the election finally take place?
00:00:12.680Everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. Don't forget to like this video. Subscribe to our True North channel if you're new around here. Don't forget to leave us a five star review if you're listening to this podcast and you enjoy the show. And head on over to our website tnc.news to sign up for a newsletter. So you never miss a story. If you want to support our journalism, please consider hitting that donate button.
00:00:42.100And becoming a True North insider. So we all know that Canadians have had enough of Justin Trudeau. After nine long years of woke, virtue signaling, endless embarrassing scandals, ruinous economic policies, Canadians are telling us they want change. Poll after poll after poll show us that the overwhelming majority of Canadians want Trudeau to go. And like I said, if there was an election held today, Trudeau's main opponent, opposition leader Pierre Polyev, would win a sweeping historical landslide in an election.
00:01:10.820But the only question is, is there going to be an election anytime soon? We know that there is a minority government situation. So the government could fall at any time, but it could also remain intact for another almost two years.
00:01:22.560So to help us gain some insight on this topic, I'm joined by my guest today, Hamish Marshall. You remember Hamish, he's contributed to True North in the past. He was our in-house pollster during the 2021 election.
00:01:34.220He's also a partner over at One Persuades, which is a government relations and strategy firm based in Ontario. Hamish is well known in conservative circles. He ran the national campaign for the Conservative Party in 2019.
00:01:44.960In 2017, he ran Andrew Scheer's winning leadership campaign. And previously, prior to that, he worked for Stephen Harper and was his pollster during the successful 2008 federal election.
00:01:59.900Okay, so basically in this situation, the balance of power is held by the NDP. The NDP is one that gets to decide whether or not we have an election, whether they're going to continue to prop up the Trudeau Liberals.
00:02:10.760So, let's start with the NDP. Do you think that they are ready for an election? And how much longer do you think they're going to prop up the Trudeau government?
00:02:17.840I don't think they're ready for an election right now. Their fundraising hasn't been that great, which is always a good indicator of how ready they are.
00:02:24.580Elections cost an awful lot of money. I mean, the spending limit will be a little over $30 million whenever the election happens.
00:02:32.480And the NDP don't have anything like that amount of money or have really the capacity to get there in the short term.
00:02:38.720But more to the point, they're also not doing particularly well in the polls.
00:02:43.500They're not doing particularly badly either.
00:02:45.380But in order for them, right now, things are going okay for them.
00:02:48.900They're more or less maintaining where they've been in the polls.
00:02:51.760And they like being in the catbird seat and making the Liberals jump up and down.
00:02:57.180One of the things, of course, is the Liberal government is kind of out of ideas.
00:03:00.160And as a result, the NDP is actually probably gaining, have more influence today than they did, say, a year ago or when the, back when the deal was first signed in 2022.
00:03:12.780Because with the Liberals running out of ideas, the NDP can now just sort of suggest ideas and they're more likely to be taken and implemented.
00:03:20.120So I think the NDP feels they're in a pretty good position and they're not going to rock the boat in the short term.
00:03:26.160Well, it's interesting you say that because I did notice some news, first of all, that the NDP is starting to hire digital organizers, regional organizers out in British Columbia.
00:03:35.860Say about that what you will, but to your point, the party's broke.
00:03:38.200Why are they hiring for jobs for an election unless there's something coming?
00:03:41.040A party treasurer recently said that the NDP expects to be debt-free in 2024.
00:03:48.180So, you know, do you think any of those are point of signs that maybe an election might be coming maybe later in 2024?
00:03:54.940Well, I mean, look, there's always a possibility.
00:03:57.720But, you know, if they're trying to be debt-free in 2024, that means then they have to start saving their nest egg for the next election before they take on another ton of debt for the next election, right?
00:04:06.800So that, to me, sounds more like they want to get clear in 2024 so that they can, you know, save a few million bucks and go into 2025.
00:04:16.960The other thing that they, you know, right now, despite the best efforts of the conservatives, they have not been terribly tagged with the sort of association with the liberals, right?
00:04:29.400Like this liberal NDP deal has not really dragged their poll numbers down.
00:04:36.000You know, Trudeau's lack of popularity and increasing lack of popularity hasn't dragged the NDP down yet.
00:04:41.980The closer they get to an election, the greater the chance of that happening and the more chance I think they'll have of pulling the plug.
00:04:49.020It's interesting. Some polls that you see show the liberals quite a bit ahead of the NDP.
00:04:54.680Others, I've seen some polls that show them neck and neck and even some showing that Jagmeet Singh could become the leader of an opposition.
00:05:01.340You never know what could happen in an election.
00:05:02.800But given Trudeau's negatives and given Canadians' fatigue with Justin Trudeau, it's possible that he could get wiped out.
00:05:09.480Let's talk about Trudeau a little bit.
00:05:10.840He's made it clear that he intends to stay on as leader and to fight.
00:05:13.940But so many of these polls are saying that even among liberal voters, they don't like Trudeau.
00:05:18.160And if there were a new leader, not Trudeau, that they would be more likely to show up and vote.
00:05:23.220So what do you think is the future for our prime minister?
00:05:28.360I think he believes he's got a mission to save Canada from Pierre Polyev.
00:05:33.180He cannot. He's a good campaigner. Give him full credit. He's good at campaigning.
00:05:37.300But fundamentally, his view of the country is that a candidate like Pierre Polyev can't possibly win a majority government.
00:05:47.500And therefore, if he sticks around and runs a good campaign, he'll be able to beat him.
00:05:52.140But I think the polls are increasingly showing that that's not true.
00:05:55.380And the really big thing that matters more than the ballot question of, you know, who you're voting for is those personal numbers.
00:06:03.540And what we've seen is over the last few months, Pierre Polyev's numbers have just kept going up and up.
00:06:07.920And Justin Trudeau's numbers have kept going down and down.
00:06:11.000And that's a real problem for the prime minister.
00:06:13.520So as far as the liberals go, do you think that the liberals would be better off with Justin Trudeau, given Canadians tired view of him?
00:06:22.540Or do you be better off starting fresh?
00:06:24.600I mean, there are some other names being bounced around, like Mark Carney, who is a former governor of the Bank of Canada, and perhaps Chrystia Freeland, who's a deputy prime minister.
00:06:32.580Do you think either of those names would would give the liberals more hope or give them a boost in the polls?
00:06:37.600Look, I think change is always a risk with change, right?
00:06:41.780I think the desire for change is so great in Canada right now that a new leader would be interesting to Canadians.
00:06:49.660There'd be a lot of focus on that leadership race.
00:06:51.360And whether we ended up with either the people you mentioned or, you know, Melanie Jolie or Champagne or somebody else, that would be a way of the liberals trying to change the channel.
00:07:02.560And I think at least for a few months, it probably would quite successfully change the channel because the liberal party would be electing a prime minister.
00:07:10.280And that would drive everyone's interest in politics.
00:07:13.240And the focus would be on that leadership race.
00:07:16.720Whether that new prime minister would be able to persuade Canadians after that that they're fundamentally different from the Trudeau government that they probably were deeply connected with is another story entirely.
00:07:26.540But I think in the short term it would work.
00:07:28.980But there's really no mechanism for it.
00:07:30.660You know, Trudeau himself, I don't believe he's going anywhere.
00:07:33.360And the liberal caucus isn't going to throw him out.
00:07:35.900We're not going to see a revolt the same way that Aron O'Toole in the liberal caucus.
00:07:41.680The liberal caucus is overwhelmingly made up of people who were elected after Trudeau became leader, whose entire experience in politics is with Trudeau as leader.
00:07:52.740And many of whom don't have sort of deep institutional roots in the liberal party and activism that predates him as leader.
00:08:01.140You know, I went and looked at it the other day.
00:08:03.260Of the 150, I think, 655 liberal MPs there are right now, there's only 19 that were elected before Trudeau as leader.
00:09:46.440No, and my understanding is that that was a very deliberate tactic, that they called for a ceasefire in order to deal with the pressure they're getting internally from constituencies with vocal Muslim populations.
00:10:01.900And then they went to the MPs that represent areas of substantial Jewish populations and say, say what you need to say.
00:10:09.720If you go and disagree with it, that's fine.
00:10:11.200And it was very much a deliberate way.
00:10:13.960It was their way of squaring the circle.
00:10:16.040So I don't think it's emblematic of nothing more than issues management.
00:10:21.320Well, it sounds like very traditional liberal transactional vote banking politics.
00:10:26.280Let's tack back and talk about Pierre Polyev.
00:10:28.560You mentioned that Trudeau believes that it's impossible for a conservative government led by someone like Pierre Polyev to win a majority government.
00:10:36.620What do you think is the path for victory for conservatives?
00:10:40.180Do you think that it is possible for Pierre Polyev to win a majority government?
00:10:44.460There's absolutely no question that conservatives can win the next election.
00:10:49.080The number of seats that are necessary isn't, you know, it's really only winning 50 more seats effectively.
00:10:58.980And the numbers in Ontario are such that the conservatives should be on track for that for across the country.
00:11:05.240So, you know, basically the conservatives have to do better in the suburbs.
00:11:10.400And the desire for change in the suburbs is very, very high.
00:11:14.060Pierre Polyev's message has been resonating.
00:11:16.480The affordability, the incredible thing about the affordability issue is as much as people sort of say, well, maybe inflation will go down or things will change or whatever it is.
00:11:26.240The affordability is bigger today as an issue than it was a year ago or two years ago when Pierre Polyev was really first sounding, I guess, two and a half years ago.
00:11:35.640He was still sounding the alarm and even bigger than it was when he was running for leader.
00:11:39.140It's a bigger, stronger issue and it's dominating things.
00:11:43.040And the fact of the matter is, is that the government has had basically, has done nothing that has given them any credit on this issue.
00:11:50.020People are not feeling that, people are feeling things are getting worse, not better.
00:11:54.080And the people holding the bag are the federal government.
00:11:57.060Well, to Pierre Polyev's credit, he's been sounding the alarm about inflation for a very long time.
00:12:01.380Before it was really, you know, an issue that was affecting Canadians every day at the grocery store and the gas pumps and everything like that.
00:12:06.740Like he's one of the most knowledgeable people that I've spoken to and I've had him on the show to explain it when it comes to these topics.
00:12:12.260So he knows, he knows his file and he's really carved out a niche for himself.
00:12:17.620I'm wondering if you, so if you were advising Pierre Polyev, you know, you, you have the legacy media say that his tone is nasty and that he's unelectable and that Canadians won't like his combative nature.
00:12:28.680We've seen him push back against some reporters sometimes and not necessarily take the most, you know, friendly relationship with the legacy media.
00:12:37.960Do you think that would, that's going to hurt him?
00:12:39.760If you were advising him, what would you tell him with regards to media relations?
00:12:44.320No, I don't think it's hurting him at all.
00:12:45.900I think that he's realized that the vast majority of Canadians don't get really get their news from their legacy media in a normal, in the way that they would have 10 or 15 years ago.
00:12:55.600People might watch a little bit of the news, see the odd article in the newspaper, see a whole bunch of different things or clips online.
00:13:03.680And, you know, Pierre Polyev is the first politician in Canada to really, truly understand how to deliver messages built for social media.
00:13:14.080I mean, you know, the number of shares he gets on videos on Instagram or YouTube are remarkable, the number of views he gets.
00:13:22.140He's getting far more views for most of his videos than nightly newscasts would be.
00:13:30.480He's already really gone around them and doesn't need them in the traditional sense.
00:13:35.920And frankly, the, you know, things like the Liberal Bill C-18, you know, killing the sharing of news links on Facebook has actually helped someone like Pierre because his videos aren't getting blocked on social media.
00:13:52.560But, you know, news stories about him from CTV or CBC or whatever are getting blocked.
00:13:58.160And it's only accelerating the decline of the traditional media.
00:14:04.180I'm sure that the legacy media are unhappy with Trudeau about that, although I'm sure they're happy about all the money that they are getting from the Liberal government.