KINSELLACAST 354： Campaign 2025 starts! Ben Mulroney on campaign secrets! Plus Lilley, Kheiriddin, Belanger, Bergen and lotsa political stuff! Plus angry punk - Wire, Wyldlife, Ecca Vandal, Soft Play, BOIDS
00:00:00.000It's the KinsellaCast starring Warren Kinsella.
00:00:17.800Hey, it's Warren. Welcome to the KinsellaCast and welcome to election 2025.
00:00:23.680I love elections. I just love elections. So we're going to be talking all about elections on this episode of the KinsellaCast with Brian Lilly, Ken Bergen, Tasha Carradine, Carl Belanger, and starting things off, Ben Moroney.
00:00:44.680Ben Moroney talking about behind the scenes, son of a prime minister talking about what it's like for families dealing with all this crazy political stuff that we're going to be dealing with the next 37 days.
00:00:56.760And I've got some great music, wildlife, kick-ass punk band from New York City with song Bystander, Eka Vandal.
00:01:03.180She's a South African, lives in Australia, bleed but never die. Lots of punk rock on this week's show.
00:01:10.560Softplay with their song Punk's Dead, which just like has meat hanging off of it.
00:01:15.320Come and get a load of these PC babies.
00:01:19.460You've got to listen. The lyrics of this song are just amazing.
00:04:50.620And they cannot credibly depict themselves as representing the change the Canadians have clearly said they want.
00:04:57.400And in all that time, they've presided over a long list of scandals and missteps.
00:05:01.660And until Carney arrived, they looked super tired, super old.
00:05:05.740Carney is clearly vulnerable on conflicts of interest.
00:05:09.060Like, check out his appalling treatment of reporters who asked him about his holdings this week.
00:05:13.820And his record as a corporate multinational titan didn't exactly radiate this made-in-Canada vibe that we all want these days.
00:05:22.280So Justin Trudeau, now gone, was the main grit weakness, obviously.
00:05:25.680His predecessor may now just be another Joe Front Porch, shopping in Canadian Tire, but his name still stirs up anger with many voters, guys in particular.
00:05:36.580So he is still a liability for Carney.
00:05:39.240Pierre Polyev's main weaknesses, internally, are multiple and all Trump-centric.
00:05:45.200His style and his persona attract comparisons to Trump.
00:05:48.760He calls Canada broken, which is essentially what Trump regularly says, too.
00:05:52.720And his caucus and party contain plenty of crypto-mega types.
00:05:57.520So get ready to see lots of liberal campaign ads featuring Team Polyev in Make America Great Again ball caps.
00:06:04.340Trump is killing Polyev's chances, period.
00:06:08.440And too many Canadians now suspect that Team Polyev are mega-north.
00:06:12.800And as of today, I think it's too late to change that perception.
00:06:16.000Jagmeet Singh, he sold off his party and his credibility to Justin Trudeau.
00:06:21.220And in 37 days, he will be regretting that transaction big time.
00:07:12.400The biggest external threat that Mark Carney faces are the Trump tariffs as well, which are slated to land in the first week of April and in the middle of the election campaign.
00:07:22.000If he fumbles his government's response, as Justin Trudeau did, flying down cap-in-hand to Mar-a-Lago, he will have no time to recover.
00:07:33.460The U.S. president is the destroyer of Canadian conservative fortunes everywhere except Alberta and Saskatchewan, where idiots like Danielle Smith talk about how happy she is that Donald Trump is there.
00:07:46.600If Trump keeps attacking Canada, Polyev is doomed.
00:07:50.180If he turns his attention to some other chew toy, Polyev has a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
00:12:34.080Well, listen, what I wanted to do, as I told you, is not talk about policy stuff and all the other stuff that you and I are going to be talking about with other people for the next 37 days.
00:12:44.860But, you know, like the behind the scenes, the family stuff, the things that people don't know.
00:12:50.880So, like, you've been through this with your dad at least twice.
00:12:56.280What is it like for families when a national election campaign kicks off?
00:13:04.040Well, I think, look, I think when you've got, I think it's a tale of two experiences, right?
00:13:08.520You've got Pierre, who has been in office or has been in politics for so long that that's the only world his kids know.
00:13:15.800And people would always ask me, they'd say, what was it like growing up with a father that had such a unique life?
00:13:20.940And I said, well, when you don't know any different, when you don't have a point of reference to tell you that that's not normal, it's normal.
00:13:27.680And so I suspect that for his family, this is par for the course.
00:13:38.720I'm sure they've been discussing these sorts of things around the dining room table for years, even if, so as the kids have been growing up, and I'm not quite sure how old they are.
00:13:51.480This is, if I had to guess, nothing's going to surprise them.
00:13:56.420And on the other side of the equation, you've got a family that has most decidedly not had this experience before.
00:14:02.180And there's going to be, I mean, I honestly don't know.
00:14:07.060I wouldn't even know if all of a sudden you went from living a very particular life to living in a very public arena.
00:14:17.560I'm not quite sure what that does to somebody, especially because Mark Carney chose this, and the rest of his family, I'm sure, support him, but this is not necessarily their choice.
00:14:28.820Yeah, and you learn things about people and yourself when this stuff's going.
00:14:34.200Well, what did your folks do when these things would kick off?
00:14:38.020Did you guys sit down around the kitchen table and your dad would say, get ready for the scrutiny or the criticism or the mean things?
00:14:46.700It's like, how did you guys handle it as a family?
00:14:51.000Like, you know, the team around my dad, they became like family to us as well.
00:14:55.200So there were a whole lot of people, even if my dad wasn't around or my mom wasn't around, you know, we had members of the staff that had been with us since we were kids that we could turn to.
00:15:06.160And I don't remember being on a campaign trail with them all the time.
00:15:11.280I certainly remember being there at certain key events, and I remember being there, obviously, in the final days of any campaign.
00:15:19.540But, you know, that was their work, and so, you know, we went about our lives.
00:15:26.740And it was only in the waning days of 84 and 88 that we, I think we came on board to go back to, you know, my dad's riding and to be there for what we hoped would be a victory.
00:15:57.080And, you know, we'd routinely travel around the country for what others would, you know, I remember sitting through, you know, five hours, a series of five-hour speeches.
00:16:07.440In 1993, I flew down to Brazil for the World Environmental Summit, and I had to sit through a three-hour speech by Fidel Castro.
00:16:30.880I didn't understand everything, but I'm pretty sure he was mad at George Bush.
00:16:34.400So, when you were sitting there at that, or on stage, or whatever, you know, you knew, or did you, that you had all these pairs of eyes on you, and you had journalists watching you, and, you know, would be prepared to write or broadcast something about how you've reacted or whatever.
00:16:59.980Well, I guess it's how we were raised.
00:17:02.380My mom comes from old Serbian stock, and she could be on stage 50 feet away from us in the front row, and if we weren't on our best behavior, with a look, she could tell us that the rest of our day was going to be terrible.
00:17:22.780Yeah, I had a mom like that, but I had a Catholic mom.
00:17:26.360So, staff would come and suggest things to you guys, I suppose, diplomatically or whatever?
00:17:33.840No, no, we would just straighten up, and we would just hope to God that enough time would pass that Mom would forget that we – because if we didn't – if she remembered, there would be a talk – we'd have a talk.
00:17:52.520Give me a war story of something you particularly remember, either from 84 or 88, that was noteworthy about what we're talking about, the behind-the-scenes family stuff.
00:18:03.580Well, I remember – I'll tell you the thing I remember most clearly, Warren, was not 84 or 88.
00:18:28.200What I don't ever remember, Warren, was anybody telling me that if Dad won that, we would actually have to leave – move from Montreal to Ottawa permanently.
00:18:37.780I thought we were just going for a visit.
00:18:40.060And it turns out it was a lot longer than that.
00:18:41.800One thing you said to me a few weeks ago, we were on your show, and it really stayed with me because, you know, I'd work for Kretzian, as you know, but not as a member of his family.
00:18:54.440Some people suggest that I am, but I'm not.
00:18:56.580And, you know, you talked about how it's everything.
00:19:03.120You're the center of everything, you know, during the campaign or when you're prime minister, like Carney presently is.
00:19:08.920And then when it's over, it is just decidedly over.
00:19:14.540Talk about that a little bit, you know, the being in it and then the suddenly not being in it.
00:19:19.620Well, yeah, I can't imagine – I have to imagine that every world leader who's been in power for a significant amount of time experiences a disorienting moment when they leave office.
00:19:33.620And there's no way – I can't imagine a world where you could just transition easily because the business of running a country must go on.
00:19:44.140And so you go from the center of all those decisions, you're the nexus point, everything goes through you, to all of a sudden being on the outside as a new team has to do all those things that you had to do.
00:19:54.980And I remember a story of my dad, we had to spend a little time, we rented a cottage outside of Montreal for the summer as our house, as their house was being refurbished.
00:20:08.960And I remember my dad looking into the kitchen and my sister was in there with me and my dad sort of looked at it and said, Caroline, tell them I'll have my coffee outside.
00:42:04.740And I do want to get back to Pierre Polyev.
00:42:07.820We will here eventually, looking at his week that he's had, too.
00:42:11.360Tasha, just to get back on Mark Carney here.
00:42:13.320As I mentioned, it looked like, you know, a pretty solid week of trying to look the part, right, acting as prime minister, meeting with the premiers, as Warren mentioned, overseas trips, going to the Arctic, defense spending, all of this stuff, kind of hitting the right notes.
00:42:24.880There could be some issues here with finances and even just presenting himself, right, to the media seemed a little bit rough this week in some ways with those questionings from Rosemary Barton and Stephanie Levitz.
00:42:36.420But overall, Tasha, what did you think of Mark Carney's nine days as prime minister?
00:42:43.880He showed his strengths, which is that he does, you know, know people in foreign countries and he can negotiate potentially trade deals down the road.
00:42:52.940That's actually a plus, not a minus, as the conservatives, you know, try and paint it with the WEF spooks in the background and this kind of thing.
00:43:01.340No, it's actually good to have a footprint on the global stage.
00:43:06.000He did, though, come off as arrogant, as you said, when he was dealing with reporters.
00:43:10.620It's not even so much, what's he hiding?
00:43:12.420It's, I mean, the conservatives are trying to make something out of that.
00:43:14.940It's more the tone he took with the press, ironically, reminded me of Polyev and his, you know, apple munching in the orchard.
00:43:20.800It's like, no, OK, if you don't want to look like Trump and if you don't want to look like Polyev, don't do that, because that's one of their weaknesses is that now people see that as Trumpian.
00:43:29.440I think the likelihood of being Trumpian with Carney is like next to zero, but he's got to watch that.
00:43:34.160And he has to put that finance issue to bed.
00:43:36.900But overall, no, he does look the part in the sense that, you know, he's not a career politician, but he looks like he could definitely do the job.
00:43:50.100And so the question will really be what the ballot question is.
00:43:52.940The conservatives are trying to turn it back to the liberal record, the economy, the bad things done.
00:43:58.500And to Warren's point, they haven't pivoted to the new question of Trump because it's not a winner for them.
00:44:13.900That's going to be part of the whole issue of this campaign for Carney and for them.
00:44:17.500And, Carl, it almost seems impossible to keep up with the momentum in the polls that the liberals have at some point.
00:44:22.160And you've got to think that the liberals are going to plateau out at some point here.
00:44:25.340But has Carney done, I guess, the best that he could in his nine days as prime minister to try to keep the party in contention during this election?
00:44:34.200Well, the key thing is that he's trying to serve that wave into an election and he's not, you know, taking time to govern.
00:44:42.600That's that's something that most often prime ministers do for a couple of months when they replace a nonpopular leader.
00:45:05.980He's campaigning and he's taking that momentum from the liberal leadership into the federal election.
00:45:11.660And that's going to help him for sure.
00:45:14.340But the thing about polls is that, you know, they go up, they go down.
00:45:17.740So the key is, when will they go down and how will they go down?
00:45:21.160And the weak spot is exactly this arrogance that could come off him.
00:45:25.520So he needs to learn to deal with that.
00:45:27.880Years being, you know, dealing with with financial reporters did not prepare him for the political reporters that will be traveling with him.
00:49:00.520But as Warren kind of mentioned, too, you know, the adjoining riding here is Pierre Polly Evans.
00:49:04.160We're talking about the week that he's had.
00:49:05.820I think off the start of the week we were going with the industrial carbon tax, and I was kind of laughing at that a little bit.
00:49:10.500But it looked like we did see Polly Evans kind of make that pivot this week to start talking about, you know, shovel-ready projects and other things.
00:49:17.340Tasha, is he starting to get the message in terms of where he needs to pivot right now in this particular moment?
00:49:26.220He's doubling down on his base, on the working-class base in particular, you know, boots, not suits.
00:49:30.860He's doubling down against Carney as the symbol of the elite, right, that you're fighting against.
00:49:35.640So this goes to what we said earlier is that they're trying to make Carney's strengths into weaknesses, and for some people it's going to work.
00:49:44.640I think for the base it's going to work, but the problem is he can't just hold on to the base.
00:49:48.700He has to keep those people who are now switching back, as the polls show, perhaps from conservatives to liberals, those centrist voters.
00:49:58.440I mean, I think he has to address the elephant in the room, which is Donald Trump, and the hard part about that is that, you know, one in five conservative voters would be happy to be the 51st state, according to polling.
00:50:10.460When you look at the other two parties, it's 3% of the NDP and 2% of the liberals.
00:50:15.040So, you know, it's a stark differential.
00:50:18.440He's got to shed the suspicion that he's, you know, happy with MAGA.
00:50:23.660That Daniel Smith raised, as Warren said in an interview, she said it, oh, he's more aligned with the way Americans think.
00:50:29.760Well, that's not what Canadians want right now.
00:50:31.800So he's got to address that elephant in the room.
00:50:33.800I don't think that trying to change the channel only to the economic stuff, which he's doing, is going to work.
00:50:40.560He's got to do both, or else he's going to be in trouble.
00:50:44.400Yeah, I'm sure the Polly Have Campaign is thanking Daniel Smith this morning.
00:50:48.340Just a quick one on that, Tasha, is that idea of it looked like there was a lot of centrist voters that at least parked their vote with Pierpolio for a while here.
00:50:56.960So why do you think there has been this hesitation to try to mine those voters in the center as opposed to maybe perhaps cutting off that kind of Trump cord on the right side of them?
00:51:07.080Because it's cutting off a cord, like you said.
00:51:09.780And the People's Party is still there.
00:51:46.360And so he's trying to figure that out.
00:51:48.620How do you, how do you get more, keep those middle people in your camp that are leaving, but don't make people think you sell out, literally, on the other side of it.
00:51:58.860The energized base that does exist there is very interesting.
00:52:02.000Warren, I guess, from Polly's perspective, I'd say, you know, a pivot in a sense of, you know, I was actually, you know, we were hearing about projects and plans ahead of time instead of some of the old slogans type thing.
00:52:10.740But has he pivoted far enough in your mind to make this, or to make Carney sweat a little bit?
00:52:18.060And I actually thought this industrial carbon tax thing that he did was really, really dumb.
00:52:24.820You know, like Trudeau was elected in successive elections promising a carbon tax, and people came to dislike it only because they realized it would apply to them personally.
00:52:35.640But the one thing that they do still support is penalizing major industrial polluters.
00:52:43.240And, you know, all of these large emitters have factored in the cost of the carbon tax to their businesses like they were ready for it.
00:52:53.520And, like, we're, you know, every democracy in the world has done the same thing.
00:52:57.800If you're a big company and you pollute, there's got to be a consequence for that.
00:53:02.460So, you know, it's just like he's always fighting the last war.
00:53:08.160You know, he's always auditioning for the job he's already got.
00:53:12.060It's like, you know, give us some good ideas, not stuff, this retrograde stuff that just appeals to your base who you've already got.
00:53:22.260And, you know, the majority of Canadians support penalizing polluters, big polluters.
00:53:28.320And there he was this week, you know, creating an opportunity for the Liberal War Room to say, Pierre Polyev wants to give a tax cut to big polluters.
00:53:40.480Even the polling shows many conservatives, obviously, supportive of the industrial part of this, that they think emitters should be paying, not consumers in many ways.
00:53:47.700So I thought that was strange from a strategy point of view as well.
00:53:50.180But, Carl, as you mentioned, I said yesterday, it's kind of like watching an oil tanker turn around in the Rideau Canal.
00:53:56.000It's not, we haven't quite made it there yet, but he looks like he's at least trying to kind of get there, I guess.
00:54:01.100Is there any kind of, what messages should he be hitting on here to try to at least get back into this conversation?
00:54:06.420Well, the problem is that if the tanker tried to turn, he'll get stuck eventually in the Rideau Canal.
00:54:13.180It won't be able to complete the turn.
00:54:14.780And that's the problem with Pierre Polyev.
00:54:16.800Because, as Warren said, he is finding the last war and they're clinging on the carbon tax because it's worked for them for two years.
00:54:29.580And on that front, you know, he was given a lifeline this week by Donald Trump himself when Trump said that he'd rather deal with a liberal government.
00:54:37.700That's an opportunity for him to step up and become Captain Canada, that seized a moment that he has not been able to seize until now.
00:54:44.780But, unfortunately, Daniel Smith reminded people that, yeah, no, their views are more aligned.
00:54:49.000And Donald Trump himself said as much in the interview in January.
00:54:52.440So I think Polyev needs to find a way, as Warren said, to expand the base because, you know, the conservatives, and it started under Stephen Harper, their strategy has been to mobilize their base, to get their base angry and motivated to go to vote and to try to depress the liberal base.
00:55:17.140Liberal voters are back and they're bringing along a bunch of new Democrats with them.
00:55:21.560So for Polyev, if the strategy is to protect the right flank by, you know, not standing up to Donald Trump properly and not standing up to the separatist statement that Alberta Premier Daniel Smith is saying, well, you're just proving the point the liberals are making, that this guy is not the right guy for the moment.
00:55:45.760And just while we've got a few minutes left, you mentioned the NDP voters that the liberals are kind of courting over as well with Mark Carney here.
00:55:51.020Carl, I have to talk about the NDP heading into this election.
00:55:55.020It's been obviously a heck of a time for them.
00:55:57.480They are cratering in the polls in terms of their support right now.
00:56:01.340In some polls, they might be even losing party status.
00:56:03.840What is the goal, I guess, for Jagmeet Singh in this election campaign as it looks like, you know, his political future could be on the line here?
00:56:54.900And now they're stuck outside of the main political narrative in a race that seems to be shaping as a two-way race.
00:57:02.780And, frankly, I am not sure they're going to be able to turn it around because there's no single issues that they're going to talk about that they are owning or that people care about as much as the relationship with the United States right now and not to stand up to Trump.
00:57:18.560So it will be very difficult for them.
00:57:20.860It almost feels like the NDP is wearing more of Justin Trudeau than the liberals are at this very moment.
00:57:26.280But, Warren, obviously the NDP not doing great right now in the polls.
00:57:29.360What do they need to do to try to at least, you know, stand up and pay attention to me to try to get some attention from voters here to keep their party status?
00:57:37.340Well, David Coleto at Abacus just this morning put out a number of charts about what's happened with the NDP.
00:57:43.580They've got us, according to Abacus, they've got a smaller accessible voter pool than they've had in years.
00:57:50.260More than half, more than half of their current supporters are going to flip, obviously, towards the liberals in the most case.
00:58:00.280Singh is the least popular leader, and they don't own a single issue.
00:58:05.380Like, across the board, it is an unmitigated disaster.
00:58:08.840So, you know, I said earlier this week to some people, this is Singh's last campaign as leader.
00:58:17.320Like, unless he, you know, he's a good debater, so maybe he'll retrieve something there.
00:58:23.300You know, he usually does a little bit of pickup around that time.
00:58:26.200But right now, on the issues front, they're just getting murdered.
00:58:30.280I thought it was interesting yesterday, too, the federal government announcing it was expanding the dental care program, which is largely brought about by the NDP.
00:58:38.080We're going to, and you're going to pay for it, I guess.
00:58:40.460But just kind of interesting optics there.
00:58:42.560Tasha, just a last minute to you, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP, just your takeaways of watching them kind of crater over the past several months.
00:58:50.340Yeah, this is a worse squeeze play than they've been the party faced in the 1988 free trade election, to which this election is going to resemble a lot.
00:58:57.440It's going to be all about, you know, Canada, keeping Canada together against the U.S.
00:59:01.840And the thing is, Singh has not found his footing.
00:59:05.360You know, he propped up a government for so long, and then now he's, you know, trying to wrap himself, too, in a Canada flag.