10 observations about the Canadian election campaign, from a distance in Tel Aviv, Israel. 1. Why did the Conservatives wait until after voting had started to release their platform? 2. Why was it so bad? 3. What was the worst thing about the campaign? 4. How did the Liberals do?
00:01:01.180She is a professional traveler. We just went out to a nice Israeli restaurant and had some really good food and went for a walk.
00:01:08.720And so I'm glad she's here. She's here for a week to have some fun and discover Israeli cuisine and chefs and all that.
00:01:18.380And I'm here because of our documentary. We're shooting a documentary called The Campaign.
00:01:23.200It's an international film crew that's doing it, and it's about my next book.
00:01:30.800It's about what I've been writing about for the past two years.
00:01:34.320And I think that, you know, I think that you're going to like it.
00:01:39.340I think you're going to find it interesting, but I'm biased.
00:01:42.160So that's why I'm here, but I am aware that there is, I think, an election campaign taking place in Canada.
00:01:53.460In fact, I was talking to a former prime minister just this afternoon, and we were having a good laugh and talking about all kinds of fun stuff.
00:03:56.520So, number one, after every campaign concludes, journalists always say something along the lines of, that was the ugliest election campaign ever.
00:06:52.520Um, I don't necessarily think it was a mistake because I don't, I think he's too, well, potentially too smart to have made a mistake of simply an omission.
00:07:35.980I really do feel, and you know what my feeling is on this, that his position on Israel and anti-Semitism is pretty shameful.
00:07:44.880I like, throughout the campaign, every single day, I kept hoping that this would be the day that he would say something meaningful or adopt the position that every single previous liberal leader, including the one I was speaking to today, with the exception of Justin Trudeau, has had.
00:08:02.620Namely, number one, Israel is our ally.
00:08:30.680I think he's been a bit banal on the topic since he's been fluted with the questions about it.
00:08:37.260But, um, I think I had mentioned this to you perhaps last week, is that my feeling was that if we were to catch him on a hot mic in discussion, he would have very much the same sentiments about it that...
00:08:52.260...that Prime Minister Kretzian has had, and even Polyev has had.
00:08:56.560Um, and I think in that same conversation, I suggested that it's particularly, it could be particularly strategic, that he is trying to induce some of the, um, suspected NDP votes that might come his way, should he not.
00:09:30.560And it's one that is important to a lot of people, us included.
00:09:34.560Um, but, you know, we have discussions about a multitude of things politically related, culturally related, world events.
00:09:44.560Most Canadians aren't necessarily, this isn't the topic of conversation for them day in and day out.
00:09:49.560And perhaps he is leaving that as a somewhat side issue, a bit in the peripheral, while he talks about more prevalent things to the kind of bigger scope of Canadians.
00:10:00.560Okay, let's talk about something that you have strong feelings about as well.
00:10:20.560But I really think a lot of people who should have known better have been exceptionally shitty to her.
00:10:28.560Saying so, you know, I won't bore you with the details, but they've really taken a lot of shots at her, but not at the liberal, the man running the liberal campaign.
00:10:36.560And so, is there a lot of sexism in the mix?
00:11:50.560Honestly, at the end of the day, it's just because, in my opinion, the majority of the men and some women in that capacity, it's just, I guess for lack of a better attitude, it's just fear.
00:12:07.560It's just you're afraid of strong female capabilities, even if they're not being aggressive.
00:12:12.560It's if they're equally smart or slightly smarter or the fact that they just aren't interested in sitting back and being in the background or just taking the notes or letting the other person take credit for their work.
00:12:28.560I've seen some change, but certainly not enough to, you know, think that things are on a particularly expedient path towards something totally different.
00:12:38.560She has taken an exceptional amount of crack and crap and, yeah, sexism is certainly at the top of it, but I think it's just more of a power struggle.
00:12:54.560So speaking of political, Andrew Bevin, you haven't met him, but you will.
00:12:59.560He is one of the smart people who ran the Carney campaign.
00:13:03.560I've known Andrew for years and I think he's done an exceptional job, obviously, with a total newbie.
00:13:10.560Like, you know, Carney has never been in politics before.
00:13:15.560And we'll talk about that in just a minute.
00:13:17.560And like, I think that that's pretty good, you know, taking somebody who's never run for high public office before and getting him elected with a majority government.
00:13:28.560So, Andrew, I don't expect you to comment on this because you don't know him, but like, Andrew's one of those people in politics who's a good guy.
00:13:37.560And we need more good guys from politics.
00:15:59.560However, I think he's just done an okay job with the circumstances that were laid out in front of him.
00:16:06.560I don't think he's excelled in any one way.
00:16:08.560I don't think that he's blown anybody away with like, look at this guy who came out of nowhere and just completely, I think things were already starting to shift.
00:16:37.560So that's become very true since Trump came back is he's a maniac.
00:16:43.560He's a fucking monkey with a machine gun.
00:16:46.560And in those circumstances, Canadians, I think, logically aren't looking for somebody who's like equally manic and crazy and unpredictable.
00:17:25.560So I think there was a few things on his side that limited his need to really be as, you know, fine tuned, strategized, charming, on point on everything.
00:17:39.560I think he was able to scale back a little bit because of the way things were shifting.
00:17:46.560And also, you know, maybe one of the, one of my Kinsellian rules is, you know, when somebody, when a politician reaches the age of 40 and they're a certain way, that's it, that you're not going to change them.
00:17:56.560The fundamentals aren't going to change.
00:17:58.560You know, maybe you can teach them how to speak French, but like who they are is who they are.
00:18:03.560So, you know, maybe that's why Carney's just being who is.
00:18:06.560Number eight, we in the media, uh, had a Tory leader, Mr. Polyev who would not let us travel with him.
00:18:19.560We had a grit leader who would get condescending when we asked basic questions, particularly about his personal financial holdings, which is not an unacceptable or unreasonable question.
00:18:34.560But I think notwithstanding all of that, the media did a pretty good job of covering this election.
00:18:40.560So I give some kudos to the, to the media.
00:19:01.560Um, but the point is, I've had this discussion with, you know, people in my own social sphere, um, to where they don't even consume news the same way that I do.
00:19:12.560So it's a complex question because I think traditional media, um, you know, has had a tough, a tough road, particularly with campaigns where there's so many other ways that people access quote unquote journalism.
00:19:28.560Um, and they charge us for those seats, they charge us thousands of dollars.
00:19:32.560It's not like they're letting us travel for free.
00:19:34.560Again, I'm a bit stodgy and kind of old foggy-ish, I suppose.
00:20:57.560He could be forced to walk the plank too, if the block's little surge in the past few days turns out to be an illusion.
00:21:05.560Polyev, as I've written elsewhere on my must-read substat during this election campaign, if Carney gets a majority, I think Polyev is a goner.
00:21:18.560If it's a minority, he may live to fight another day.
00:21:22.560So I'm interested in your thoughts on that.
00:21:24.560If he'd been the one winning majority, Carney wouldn't have stuck around.
00:22:03.560I'm quite assured that he will lose his seat.
00:22:07.560And I think the NDP needs to do a bit of an overhaul, much like I had suggested the Democratic Party to the south of us needed to take a long, hard look at themselves and the things they were willing, or the hills they were willing to die on.
00:51:15.900And the police have not released a lot of details.
00:51:17.700So there's really not much more to say except that it's a tragedy and everyone wants to understand what happened and feels very horrible.
00:51:23.200But in any event, I think with regards to your question on the platforms, I think that the platforms really, when you look at the polls, I don't think it shifted much of anything.
00:51:36.040I think that they came too late, really, to really make an impact.
00:51:39.540And which is unfortunate because there's been speculation that the conservative platform had come out earlier.
00:51:44.120There's a stashy curl, did a whole rundown on X about how that might have actually helped the conservatives.
00:51:49.540Apparently, some liberal voters said that they wish they'd seen that platform before they voted in the last, you know, last at the advanced polls.
00:51:57.920Then with regards to the liberal platform, I got to say, I was fairly disappointed in some of the big numbers there because the deficit and debt are just going to accumulate continuously.
00:52:08.880And I, you know, worse than the other parties.
00:52:11.480And with the accounting issues that Mark Carney's putting forward to try and split the two out,
00:52:17.020I do worry about the impact that's going to have also on the GDP ratio.