00:03:28.600Here are my top three reasons why I think Polyev could win.
00:03:32.340And then after that, I'm going to give you my top three reasons why I think Carney could win.
00:03:36.660So, the first one for Polyev is he's got more money than God.
00:03:39.280Like, in 2024, his Conservatives raised about $42 million.
00:03:45.500That's just about double what the Conservatives, the Liberals, and the New Democrats raised, put together.
00:03:51.200And the year before, in 2022, Polyev had another record-smashing year and raised $35 million, which more than doubled what the Liberals raised.
00:03:59.860Now, money does not always guarantee wins.
00:28:43.780Like, this is the duking – this is the – like, actually, boxing is a big theme of this week's show because we've got Patrick Brazeau on talking about his challenge to have a boxing match with Donald Trump Jr.
00:28:56.120Well, last night, there was a bit of an online boxing match starting – I don't know if it actually happened between Brian Lilly and Andrew Coyne.
00:29:04.600And Brian, my buddy from Hamilton, kind of threw it down with Andrew.
00:29:10.020And, like, so, Brian, tell us – tell us what happened with this contest between these two media giants.
00:29:17.820I just regularly take shots at Andrew Coyne because, you know, you were wondering why I called him a pompous ass.
00:29:35.280So, morning, noon, and night, I will look on X and just see this guy who, from the beginning of this tariff issue, has basically advocated for a trade war with the U.S.
00:29:49.020So, I know we're kind of in one, but he advocates things that would destroy our economy.
00:29:53.920And I think it's because living in Rosedale as he does, living a life of privilege as he has for a long time, I don't think he knows a single person that would lose a shift or be laid off due to the policies he advocates for dealing with Trump,
00:30:11.500which is, you know, shutting down trade with Trump and angering him constantly.
00:30:16.500I know people who have already lost work due to the tariff issue, and I know more people that if the auto tariffs go back on, will be laid off within the week.
00:30:25.800I know people who work on manufacturing lines.
00:30:30.360These are the Canadians that we have to worry about.
00:30:32.740It's why you've got to handle this properly and carefully and not emotionally, which some of my media colleagues are so detached from the lives of folks who work in the auto plants, work in the food manufacturing and processing plants,
00:30:51.380that they just don't understand how devastating the policies they advocate would be.
00:31:00.140Which is a beautiful segue for what I want to talk to you about, which is the frame, you know, the frame.
00:31:08.960I guess the liberals are going to try to argue they are the change or whatever.
00:31:18.720But in terms of, you know, the hell of a guy, the Hoag thing that I always do in campaigns, who's the guy I'd want to have a beer with?
00:31:26.720Who's the guy who understands my life?
00:31:28.800And, you know, so I put this to my buddy from The Hammer, who knows how to throw down the gloves when the circumstances require it, as we saw last night with you and Coyne.
00:31:39.380Like, it seems to me that some of the optics, some of the fundamentals about Mark Carney are unhelpful to the liberals.
00:31:48.860He's a multi, multi-million dollar guy who hangs out with billionaires and has clearly never had to worry about a hydro bill or a mortgage payment.
00:31:59.060But Polyev gives off, I think, you know, despite how prickly he is, gives off kind of a vibe where he understands your life a bit better.
00:32:08.860Do you think that's where this coming election is going to go?
00:32:11.480Because it's just days away, isn't it?
00:32:13.060Well, funny, on polling issues, and I've looked at both Leger and Abacus this past week, not the poll from the guy who says the liberals are leading with 40% in Alberta.
00:32:27.960So, you know, Polyev is leading on issues like who best understands people like me.
00:32:44.500I'm not sure if that's how most Canadians would see Polyev, but they do get a sense that he understands their life.
00:32:52.160And in the Abacus poll, I've got it up in front of me now, they asked the party best able to handle cost of living, conservatives ahead of the liberals by 17 points, health care, 30% for the conservatives, 29% for the liberals, housing, the conservatives lead by six.
00:33:10.940The economy, and this is a poll where it's all about asking about Mark Carney, on the economy, the conservatives are at 42%, the liberals are at 24%, immigration, it's 58% to 15%, 55% to 20%.
00:33:27.940The liberals only lead on two issues, climate change, and dealing with Trump, that are 42% say Carney's liberals can handle Trump better, versus 28% who think Pierre Polyev's conservatives can.
00:33:43.660If the election is held about the issues that Canadians have been worried about for the past two years, that saw them turn on Justin Trudeau, such as the cost of living, the fact that the kids can't afford a home, the fact that crime has gone up dramatically in this country, including violent crime and gun crime, if they vote on any of those things, the conservatives win.
00:34:05.940If they vote on Donald Trump, if this becomes like the Ontario election we just had, and I think the liberals are furiously copying notes from Doug Ford's playbook, and Donald Trump's, I'll explain that.
00:34:17.600Yeah, we should talk about that, that's important.
00:34:20.140Then, if it's on Trump, then the conservatives could pull off what was unthinkable a couple of weeks ago, and that's a majority.
00:34:29.420But if they think about, oh yeah, life still sucks here without Trump, like we need to fix things, fundamental things, then they're going to vote for the conservatives.
00:34:42.080Let's talk about that important point you made, because it was part of the discussion on the CFRA this morning, which is, you know, Mark Carney doing, there he is doing an executive order, you know, practically getting his Sharpie out.
00:34:54.020And there he is off to the ancestral homelands of Britain and France and Nunavut, and not, you know, running down to Mar-a-Lago.
00:35:02.740You've got an important column about that this weekend.
00:35:07.580Maybe we should talk about that first, which is, you know, where did it go off the rails with the Americans and Trump?
00:35:14.020And you've got a column that kind of answers that question.
00:35:17.920Yeah, so Donald Trump issued his threats about terrorists before he was sworn in, it was a Truth Social post on November 25th, saying that, and this was to shock to everyone, we hadn't heard fentanyl and illegal immigration as issues for terrorists yet.
00:35:35.160He talked about terrorists all during the campaign, but he hadn't talked about them in the context of Canada, Mexico, the border.
00:35:45.920And he said, 25% terrorists, unless these issues are dealt with by the time I'm sworn in.
00:35:52.540Justin Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago on November 29th with a couple of his ministers, including Dominic LeBlanc, his fixer, his babysitter.
00:36:34.900So I doubted that it went the way he described it, which is that Trudeau went to him and said, you'll ruin our economy if you put these tariffs on.
00:36:46.000And he said, well, if you don't have an economy without us, then you should be a 51st state.
00:36:53.500It turns out that's exactly what happened.
00:36:55.460And not only that, Trudeau volunteered the information.
00:36:59.560And Trump wasn't overly engaged in the conversation until Trudeau volunteers that you will ruin our economy.
00:37:07.600Canada won't survive if you put these tariffs on.
00:37:11.560And so I've confirmed this five ways from Sunday, including people reaching out to me to say, yes, that is exactly how it happened after my initial column was published.
00:37:22.460So Trudeau volunteers this information and suddenly Trump's interested and starts talking about the state.
00:37:30.220Talk about leading with your chin, eh?
00:37:31.860Yeah, so he may have, it may have started as a joke with them.
00:39:18.520Editors hate it when you say a politician lied.
00:39:21.380But he told us that he ended the carbon tax and he had a little signing ceremony that looked like Donald Trump signing an executive order in the White House.
00:39:41.520It says, Her Excellency, the governor in council on the recommendation of the minister of finance makes the annex regulations amending schedule two of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:54.780He signed a document that said, I hereby instruct that the fuel charge be removed as of April 1st, 2025, and that the April 2025 carbon rebate be issued and signed it, Prime Minister Mark J. Carney.
00:40:09.260It was a fake document with a fake signing ceremony.
00:40:14.180And then, you know, the liberals and a lot of their pals in the media just keep saying, oh, conservatives should stop talking about the carbon tax.
00:40:21.340It's all they've talked about since Friday afternoon.
00:40:25.200It's all the liberals have talked about.
00:40:26.620They posted, as of last night, six times posters and videos of Carney doing this.
00:40:34.380Executive order from President Carney.
00:40:36.640Well, what did you think of the cabinet?
00:40:38.600Which was really weird because he highlighted the importance of our different history and our different political system.
00:41:27.840So, I've cast doubt on Starmer, and then I heard from friends in the U.K. that said, because Starmer refused to back up Canada when he was at the White House.
00:46:38.520And Ukraine had been a huge issue in the media around the time of Vladimir Zelensky's visit, ill-fated visit to the Oval Office.
00:46:49.820It's faded a little bit from view, but the war rages on with many, many lives being lost in the interim.
00:46:58.240John Mraz, what are you hearing about what is taking place in Ukraine at the present time?
00:47:03.720I think that the population of Ukraine, let's just get out of the details of the war, I want to start by saying that innocent civilians have been hit by both sides regularly, whether deliberately or not, through this horrible war.
00:47:19.640But Russia has a particular knack for hitting nurseries and seniors' apartment buildings and hospitals.
00:47:29.000Anyway, what's happening on the ground in Ukraine is they're having an existential moment.
00:47:32.880Do they, in the name of peace, as a population, support Zelensky, giving away 20% of their territory, Crimea in the ports, and the demand for an election never to join NATO or really even become part of the EU?
00:47:52.500And they have to decide, and I don't think anybody, whether it's Trump or Starmer in Britain or Vladimir Putin or the Saudis, who are somehow hosting this for no particularly good reason.
00:48:04.800Saudis are certainly not a neutral country anyway.
00:48:06.960It will be the Ukrainian people who decide whether there will be an intifada after any armistice or truce or ceasefire that may or may not be declared.
00:48:40.280They feel abandoned, not only by the U.S., but they feel that the European Union, at the best of the U.S., never gave them what they really needed to win.
00:48:50.780They're running out of soldiers that want to fight.
00:48:54.140Young people are being conscripted against their will.
00:48:56.960And that's certainly not in keeping with Ukraine's commitments to democracy.
00:49:01.200They may not have an opportunity to vote.
00:49:04.700And even Great Britain had an election in the middle of the Second World War.
00:49:10.180Well, what you say is reflected in the polling.
00:49:12.540You know, to the extent that you can poll in a war zone, there does seem to be a split, a weariness about the war among the Ukrainian people.
00:49:20.920Okay, so then my next question is, what do you think Putin's going to do?
00:49:25.660You know, though the Americans have at least said for now, the ball is in your court.
00:49:31.500I think those are the words of Secretary of State Rubio directly.
00:50:22.980I think Biden's great failure, which set the stage for all of this, was that he did not follow Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, the junior, and Obama's advice,
00:50:34.080which was to talk frankly and brutally to Putin in the back room and give him grace in the theater of the absurd in the front.
00:50:44.940And it would be nice to think that that's what Trump's doing when he sounds like a Russian plant agent, you know, or sympathizer at the very least.
00:50:52.940It'd be nice to think that he is talking tough to Putin in the back room and Putin knows that there is a limit to how far he can push this.
00:50:59.940But I have no idea what they talk about in person and privately.
00:51:03.140Because as you write on your, you know, in your scripts on all sorts of mediums, he sure does look like a Russian agent.
00:51:19.020Whether those are effective or not is, right?
00:51:22.100The Europeans you touched on have been making noises since the ill-fated meeting in the Oval Office with Zelensky about filling in the void and stepping in.
00:51:33.380And, you know, it's a new Western alliance and yada, yada, yada.
00:51:41.560Or is it just rhetoric coming from the Europeans at this point?
00:51:44.420If the Russians continue to pose an existential threat to Europe's freedoms, because they believe that parts of Estonia should be theirs because of the Russian populations, Georgia certainly, because Stalin and Putin's mother came from there, should be part of the Russian Union, et cetera.
00:51:59.240Rather than Europe, whether Trump exists or not, with America as an undependable ally who may or may not intervene or supply, has to arm itself as a group, probably led by Britain and Germany, the two biggest economies over there, and the two best purveyors, creators, and distributors of weapons.
00:52:21.720And what you're doing, what Trump and Putin are doing, is forcing Europe, a European Union, to be no longer a political material fact, but a military material fact.
00:52:31.360So you're talking about an entire continent.
00:52:34.360And if you put all those economies together, they can certainly compete with the U.S. and they can provide for themselves, but they are coming up to speed very late to the game.
00:52:42.220And it will take even, you know, as effective as the British and the Germans and the French can be, they're building factories as we speak.
00:52:50.140Because they cannot depend on the U.S. as an ally anymore.
00:52:54.880So, I mean, the one guy who seems to have a semi-decent relationship with Trump is Starmer in the U.K.
00:53:00.920The one guy who walks away from the table with the least number and percentages of sanctions of any country in the G20.
00:53:11.420And Trump seems to have some fetish with Britain.
00:53:13.880He's getting a second state visit with the king, which makes me think poorly of the king, by the way.
00:53:20.140So the rest of Europe, like our man Carney here, who is suspected of being soft on a variety of countries, he shouldn't be already, being very tough on Trump.
00:53:31.340The rest of the world are aligning themselves, but it's convenient for the Europeans.
00:53:35.820We are floating over here with that safe ocean, as Trump called it, in between them.
00:53:57.760He's now the prime minister of Canada, without a seat in the House of Commons.
00:54:01.520I think we're just days away from an election campaign, and I think you agree with that, too.
00:54:06.960What do we know about Mark Carney's position on foreign affairs?
00:54:12.740Because foreign affairs, I think, now in the year 2025 is a bigger issue than it has been in any election, Canadian federal election in my lifetime.
00:54:21.540Where do you think he stands on all these different issues, on joining the EU, supporting Ukraine, dealing with Americans on a long-term basis?
00:54:31.480What can you tell us what you know about the guy?
00:54:34.200It's funny you should ask him that, because I did the reading on him this week when it comes to his history as a banker and a politician, and as a businessman before being a banker, with all of these countries, a bunch of them.
00:54:47.180I think he realistically understands that he and Mr. Trump will never get along, and he's firing very hard because it's helping his polling.
00:54:53.820Oh, yeah, but it's losing points to Trump, not to Carney.
00:54:56.960On Israel, he is accused of being part of the cartel that many Canadians feel were far too soft on the Moss and the protesters and the anti-Semitism that's rife.
00:55:06.740We're the number one anti-Semitic country, according to data now, in the G7.
00:55:12.760Number three, Taiwan is begging for his attention, because Carney historically has done a lot of business, whether working in Canada or as a governor of the bank in Britain with China, and has generally been soft and nuanced and a conciliatory kind of guy with them.
00:55:27.960And I think everybody understands, if China wants to take Taiwan, that the Trump era might be the best time to do it.
00:55:59.740Well, I think that's more of an understanding of Mark Carney's globalist, to use the conservative's word, perspective, than anybody's been able to give in the Canadian media to date.
01:26:31.280Well, that was it. With that announcement, Mark Carney replaced Justin Trudeau as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Prime Minister-designate.
01:26:55.020Okay, so what number should we be paying attention to?
01:26:57.860The 85.9% of the vote on the first ballot, which is a crushing victory, or the 131,674 votes, which, you know, given how many registered voters there are in Canada,
01:27:11.960that's a small pond relative to the larger fight that is before him in a general election.
01:27:18.500I'm going to be a contrarian, as usual, and say neither number matters.
01:27:21.940They're both in the rearview mirror at this point.
01:27:24.100The number that matters is the one we haven't seen yet, which is what kind of honeymoon bump is Mark Carney going to get out of that huge victory that he got last night?
01:27:37.240Like, everybody gets a honeymoon bump.
01:27:46.000The question I've got is how much, and it really matters because all the polling showing that Polyev and Carney are largely tied or Polyev's slightly ahead.
01:28:16.140I was shocked, I think, with a lot of other folks.
01:28:20.300You know, I think the early indicator was that she wasn't traveling the country.
01:28:25.560She was doing meetings by Zoom, and that would maybe make sense if you were still a cabinet minister, but she wasn't even a cabinet minister anymore.
01:28:34.360So, I think that was an indication that they knew that they were in some trouble.
01:28:38.860But, like you point out, like, to get, that is just a pounding.
01:28:45.040But it, you know, it fits with my traditional rule, is that, you know, Brutus may have taken out Caesar, but Brutus was never rewarded for it.
01:28:52.620You know, if you're the one who takes out the leader, you rarely become the leader yourself.
01:28:59.060And that's certainly the case with Chrystia Freeland.
01:29:01.680I think a lot of liberals were grateful that she belled the cat, and she was the one who mainly took out Justin Trudeau, but they didn't want to reward her for doing that interesting dynamic.
01:29:12.600You know, I think for a lot of people, the bloom was off the rose with Justin Trudeau.
01:29:50.460You know, I said to my colleague at Post Media, Tasha Karen, and I was like, oh, my God, it's like watching a bowl of tapioca with this guy.
01:29:58.420And she said, and she's right, you know, maybe that's what the country wants.
01:30:04.960You know, Donald Trump is like this, you know, Tasmanian devil on Benzedrine, and it just never stops.
01:30:11.440So maybe people are looking for somebody who's a little dull and plodding and a lot like a banker.
01:30:17.360So, you know, that works to Carney's advantage.
01:30:20.880But I still think, and as you and I have talked about this before, I think Polly Eve and Blanchett are going to absolutely razor him in the leaders debates, which will be happening in, I suspect, the next few weeks.
01:30:33.600Well, that was going to be my next question, because you've got Jagmeet Singh and his NDP support cratering around the country.
01:30:40.400A lot of those votes up for grabs, most probably from the liberals.
01:30:45.240How soon do you think he needs to call an election or wants to call an election?
01:30:52.800You know, getting back to what I was saying a minute ago, he's got momentum from Trudeau leaving.
01:30:56.800He's got momentum from a leadership race that took place and they got lots of uncritical coverage.
01:31:03.320You know, Polly Eve disappeared and now he's going to get some momentum from his leadership bump.
01:31:08.080They would be nuts not to go right away because, you know, Donald Trump may go off and chase some new chew toy and start focusing on Panama or Greenland or something like that.
01:31:18.280And then the panic, you know, the anxiety in the country diminishes and that hurts the Liberal Party.
01:31:23.620So I think they've got to go right away.
01:31:25.380I suspect we're going to be looking at him walking over to see the governor general, Ben, sometime in the next few days.
01:32:15.460And Pierre Poliev secretly loves, you know, has a picture inside his locker of Donald Trump.
01:32:20.740I think that's going to be the campaign that we're looking at.
01:32:24.500And Poliev, that means that he has got to do everything he possibly can to make sure that none of his staff or his caucus or his candidates get photographed in a MAGA hat or say anything that is remotely MAGA.
01:32:39.160They cannot provide evidence of the criticism that Carney is going to be bringing to bear against them.
01:32:45.040And look, it is a criticism that that can I mean, they can find traction with that.
01:32:51.080There are certain people who I guess they're more disposed to predisposed to believing something like that.
01:32:56.420But, you know, as as much as I, you know better than I how important campaigns are.
01:33:01.220And given the fact that this this liberal leadership campaign was, I believe, a campaign in name only is is Carney ready for the buzzsaw that he is going to encounter,
01:33:13.060not just from the conservative party, but the fact that he is going to have a cortege of media following him wherever he goes, demanding answers to every and all questions.
01:33:23.900This there's going to be a level of scrutiny of demanded of him that he he has not lived up to yet.
01:34:06.360You know, we want somebody to just show passion and and vigor.
01:34:10.000And like, this is why last night after my former boss, Kretchen, spoke, I got hundreds of notes from people across the country, including from conservatives saying, man, we need some of that.
01:34:32.000And Mark Carney, I haven't seen him do that once.
01:34:36.080And I think, you know, it's it's going to be a challenge for him against a couple very accomplished performers like Polly Ed and Blachette.
01:34:43.000He also hasn't been as full throated in sort of the building of pipelines as a lot of people would want him to be.
01:34:49.520I mean, he said some things, but he's also hedged a lot.
01:34:52.580Your former boss made quite a compelling case for exactly that yesterday.
01:34:58.960No. And I it was it was wonderful that he did that.
01:35:02.820You know, in full disclosure, I'm a Calgarian and I worked in the oil patch and I believe we are an energy country and we should not be leaving energy in the ground.
01:35:11.740Right. And particularly now that we're facing this existential threat, we need to bring our energy, our resources to other markets other than the United States.
01:35:22.700So, you know, Polly is on the right track and Carney, I just can't figure out where he stands.
01:35:28.480And so I thought Crencian, what he did, it's really important what you just brought up, what Crencian, without disclosing any of the conversations I've had with him, what he does, he always does it very deliberately.
01:35:40.880Warren, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much, my friend. We'll talk to you soon.