KINSELLACAST 375: Up at the lake with the dogs, plus Lilley, Pierson and more talking tariffs, drought and more! Plus Militarie Gun, Drug Church, Public Opinion, Joyce Manor & Spiritual Cramp
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per minute
156.24707
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
sentences flagged
Toxicity
54
sentences flagged
Hate speech
56
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of KinsellaCast, Warren talks about the drought that s hitting his home province of Prince Edward County, Alberta, and the importance of putting yourself in the shoes of others. Plus, some music and a political rant.
Transcript
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It's the Kinsella cast starring Warren Kinsella.
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Hey, it's Warren. Welcome to Kinsella cast. It's a summertime Kinsella cast. So
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slightly shorter show with me and Brian Lenny and Chloe and Alex Pearson, Mike Downey,
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some other folks talking about things political. If you listen carefully, you can hear some other
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contributors, which is Tommy and Joey asleep at my feet snoring because they've had a rough morning
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eating toast, bacon and running into the lake. It's really hard being a Kinsella lab and great
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music. Like it's got some, it's I'm in a hardcore mood this week. I'm sorry. So shoot me. I've got
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military gun with their newest bad idea just came in the past few days. Then I've got public opinion
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and drug church coming together for a new one that is heavy spiritual cramp, who's always a bit more
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poppy from San Francisco, but I love, and I've seen a million times and I love this band. And then
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Joyce Manor also with a brand new track that just came out in the past week. And, um, so some,
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some good music, um, kind of a political thing I wanted to start out with. Um, Barack Obama called
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it an empathy deficit, which he defined as being able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see the
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world through their eyes. And Obama didn't invent the concept. Of course, Jesus did, you know, do unto
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others that you would have them do unto you, but it's a really important one politically.
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Conservative leader, Pierre Polyev showed some overdue political empathy on the hustings in
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Alberta's Battle River Crowfoot by-election and paid dividends. He won in a landslide this week.
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And he said before the vote, I'm born and bred Albertan with strong Alberta values, and he's going
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to take the fight for farmers and oil and gas workers and so on to the national stage. So that's,
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that's all good. That's showing a bit of empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of others and the
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social scientists remind us that people develop empathy for other people when like Polyev or like
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people who travel a lot or like people move from one province to the other, they uproot themselves
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and develop something called neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity. That happens when the human brain
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literally reorganizes itself through new connections throughout life. My neuroplasticity moment happened
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a few years ago when I moved to rural Canada, which is Prince Edward County. After a lifetime in big
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cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Dallas, Ottawa, the pandemic was the impetus, but the payoff
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was almost immediate. And I said to Joey and, and Roxy at that point, why did I do this years ago?
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Prince Edward County is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place to live. It's an hour and a bit
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outside of Toronto, but in the past few months, no small amount of sadness and anxiety have crept in
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and drought is the reason. Jason Parks is a writer. He's a longtime local and he's the editor of the
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Picton Gazette, which is one of the fine papers published in the county, as it's called. And a few
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days ago, he started writing about the drought that has stricken my part of rural Canada and is made for
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some compelling but depressing reading. Like even if you're a newcomer and you know nothing about
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agriculture, like me, it's impossible not to feel empathy for your neighbors now. Let me read you
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just a little bit of what Jason wrote. Withered corn stalks resemble onion scrapes in the oppressive
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and apparently never-ending dry heat. Soybean plantings on marginal lands are in trouble. Some
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soybean fields on heavier clay have an emerald green glow and a decent ground cover, but the top flowers
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are aborting in the absence of moisture. Pods that have started to develop under the foliage
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could still produce some beans, but the timeline for a crop-saving rain is short.
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City slickers like me have even noticed it. Like perennials have started to wither away
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despite being watered with precious well water every day. Water trucks heading up and down the
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parkway at all hours heading to and from desperate farmers. Trees are shedding leaves like it's late
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fall because of what the experts call water stress. And Park told me about how he grew up on a dairy farm
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just south of Picton and how proud he was. He was a teenager and he planted all of his family's
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soybeans. It was a big thing he said for him. He was proud of it and he's always felt connected to the
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land, which they called the dirt beat, he said. The dirt beat agriculture. And agriculture is in
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trouble in Prince Edward County this summer, as in the prairies and British Columbia and parts of
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southwestern Quebec and southern New Brunswick, much Nova Scotia. It's just so damn dry. Like it's drier
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than ash. People in cities may not be seeing it yet, but they will be at the supermarket checkout.
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Corn is a write-off, basically. They're stunted, withered-looking cobs. They're going to be plowed
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under, used as livestock feed. And soybeans, which is used in food and feed and industrial products like
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biodiesel, are also in distress. Solid rain, which has really only happened a couple times in the county
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since May, is urgently needed. And none is presently forecast. And farms, family and otherwise,
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are getting hammered. It's been a really tough year. And, you know, as Park said to me,
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you got to put yourself in the booths of a farmer. And it's true. That's empathy. In tough times like
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these, as Obama said, and Christ and others, that's when we need to consider and actually feel
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the plight of our neighbors. That's when empathy comes in. Or, at least, when it should.
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I've been super-to, super-to, super-to, super-to.
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My eyes are baggy and my face is fucked up.
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You can ask again, but I don't got the money.
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You got a one-five chance to never see him again.
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I'm dying to make you bitch, head in the wrong way.
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I just give it an, give it an, give it an, give it an.
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Missed by a mob, could have sworn it was an edge.
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God damn man, you've been heading the wrong way.
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God damn man, you've been heading the wrong way.
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I'm sitting on my fat ass on my deck in the cab,
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and I've had a bacon sandwich and espresso,
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And Brian is doing something much more healthy.
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but there's one clear spot I could look through
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You and I have had very different reactions to this.
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And I think we can have a nice, respectful chat,
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And so I've been of the mind for a little while
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No other country other than China did what we did.
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And not just because of the terrorists, by the way.
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You know, I've heard this from people in private
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We were just being jerks in the negotiations.
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Let me tell you about God knows I know how to be one.
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to me, he reminded me of a junior level accountant
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He's like, so let me explain why American tariffs are good.
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So, like, my point is, my criticism isn't of him that he did retaliatory tariffs
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or didn't, because God knows with Donald Trump,
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you don't know what's going to work, if anything.
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and I should have explained myself better, I guess,
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is he did the opposite of what he said he was going to do.
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I'm not saying he hasn't ended up in the right position.
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but it's the total opposite of what he said he was going to do
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I may have shared the clip of him and his wife dancing with their elbows up.
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I went up on the roof with you when I saw that one.
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And, you know, I think what he did during the election campaign
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We're doing this to everyone because we think the trading system
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and we're going to adjust it, and we're in trade negotiations.
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and I understand why Canadians would, especially with the 51st state stuff,
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We have, and Karner leaned into that and whipped up anti-American rhetoric,
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Now he's gone from saying they're trying to break us with these moves
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to saying, I mean, look, we've got the best deal of any country in the world.
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And someone asked him about Mexico and said, well, but Mexico got a reprieve.
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He's like, oh, no, our calculations show our deal's better than Mexico's even.
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Are they trying to break us and take us over economically,
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or is this just a change in trade policies you're now saying?
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I have to ask you, like, did you hear his hockey analogy?
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Like, it sounded like instead of Scotty Bowman coaching the Habs,
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He had, like, three of them, and one of them wasn't bad,
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and the rest, I'm like, hey, I don't know where you're going with this.
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Well, to me, that's the issue is this is a reversal,
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and he can pretty it up with any kind of fancy words that he likes
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and sound like the Bank of Canada governor again and all that.
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Like, he used to be wearing one of those neck braces
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because of the whiplash that happened, you know, this week.
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Or, to use the elbows up analogy, well, they've been up, they've been down.
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A lot of people saying it's looking like the chicken dance,
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the way the elbows are flapping up and down so much.
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And it's funny, just the day before he had his call, or the day he had his call with Trump,
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I published a piece on my newsletter saying the more he fights with Trump, the better it is for him.
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Like, his voter coalition, the people that coalesced around him,
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including former conservatives who went to him in this last election,
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And I say emails because it is an older crowd that is just, no, we need to do this.
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And, you know, the mango Mussolini, you know, one of your favorite phrases to describe Trump.
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He can't be trusted, and so we have to fight with them.
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Like, how's that working out for people that are losing their jobs or whose businesses are hurting?
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Like, let's think, you know, my view is, and I take Trump for what he is.
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You have to deal with them, so you just take him for what he is.
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Um, so, you know, I just, how do we get to where we need to be?
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And so I've been saying for some time that we needed to change course,
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But his people who were all for fight more with Trump will now just say,
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And anyone that criticizes them is an idiot.
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So I guess we'll see if he pays the price or not.
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Won his seat with a million percent of the vote out in Alberta in the by-election.
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And I see it on CBC that this woman almost won it.
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But the one thing that, you know, I've just, I pay attention to the optics of politicians
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Polyev looks like, I don't know, to me, it looks like he hasn't learned any lessons from
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It's, you know, still the, you know, the kind of angry dude and stuff.
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I know it works with his base, but does it get him where he needs to get?
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We're going to have to wait and see until the House resumes.
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I think he's got to take a different tack when the House resumes to how he tackles Carney
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You couldn't punch Trudeau hard enough at the end.
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People, people just, I mean, the whole country was cheering on Polyev when he was punching
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Trudeau at the end, even if they weren't going to vote for him because they were fed up
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He's, you know, valid critiques of Carney, just like you and I have been making.
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It takes a while, as you know, in politics for people to get dented.
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The Jenny Byrne, there was Shannon Proudfoot in the Globe, did what I didn't do.
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Which is pay close attention to the stuff that Jenny Byrne had been saying.
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And then Jim Armour, who's a funny Ottawa lobbyist, chimed in.
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And basically the criticism of Proudfoot and Armour seemed to be Jenny and, by extension,
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Pierre are saying, well, the house we built was perfect.
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The problem was we had this unforeseen storm and we, you know, we should have kept the
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Well, I looked up in critical of the campaign that they ran on many fronts.
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If you saw Doug Ford in Ottawa on Monday when he was up with Mark Carney, which, by the way,
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People like to listen to you and I because we always have background stuff that others
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Doug Ford did not fly to Ottawa to meet with Mark Carney.
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Doug Ford flew to Ottawa for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the most important
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meeting that you go to other than the tractor pull in Ontario politics.
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So he was up for that and to have a fundraiser slash volunteer thank you in the afternoon.
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He's like, if it seemed like the meeting meant nothing and was about nothing, it's because
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It was slapped together at the last minute, but he's coming out of that meeting and he's
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asked a bunch of questions and one of them was about Polly Ed and he said, oh, I should
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It's clear that those two haven't patched up and Polly needs to find a way to break through
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And if he can't make nice with Doug Ford in Ontario, and if he can't make, they've apparently
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They need to go in a boat and go fishing out on your lake or, you know, have a big long pasta
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These things need to happen or he's going to have trouble in these areas, though, because
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he needs the ground game that these guys can bring to them.
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And, yeah, so, look, they did run a good campaign.
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And in most instances, it would have given them a massive majority, but they didn't win
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And so, you know, figure out where the seats you need to win are and work with the people
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that will get you there and stop having this shibboleth contest where it's like, no, you're
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If they're part of your tribe, work with them.
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That is like the best Scrabble word of all time.
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Well, just final question, then, as you continue your walk with Chloe, do you think either
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one of these, does Doug Ford want to make peace with Pierre Polyev?
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And does Pierre Polyev have it in him to make peace with Doug Ford?
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Although for the last week or two, I've been feeling like Ford's annoyed at everyone and
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And, you know, I am not a big proponent of Doug Ford wants to be a conservative leader.
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He's saying too many nice things about Mark Carney to be able to run against him.
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But if they don't figure it out, and it's got to be up to Pierre, not Ford.
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And if he doesn't, that's going to come long term.
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Before things went out, there were people that went to him and said, you need to work
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When you become prime minister, you're going to want to have a good relationship with the
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premier of the biggest province in the country.
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And his response was, he's going to want to have a good relationship with me when I'm
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You've got to change your attitude if you want to win going forward.
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And that's what you and me, good Irish Catholic boys, we're taught.
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So enjoy yourself in Niagara Falls with family and friends.
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No call, can't talk, can't guide, not enough, the right start.
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Define, find, like, try not to fuck it all.
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Break, break, break in my own path with all the patience I've been given.
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Pretending that only time would tell is over now.
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I'm feeling, I'm feeling, I'm feeling overwhelmed.
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It reminds me of what I've lost and what I've got here
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It reminds me of what I've lost and what I've got here
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And in comes Mr. Warren Kinsella, former special advisor to Jean Chrétien, CEO of The Daisy Group
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And Mr. Chris Chapin, political commentator, managing principal of Upstream Strategy
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Look, I don't know what this day is going to look like
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Look, you know, Mark Carney seems to be getting kind of an extended honeymoon
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In the sense that he made some very specific promises
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As to, you know, interprovincial trade barriers coming down
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And then, of course, he was going to deliver a trade deal
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And they discussed things like security yesterday
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And he's not really communicating with Canadians
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And, you know, where do you put this, you know, for him?
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How much longer can he tread water without saying anything tangible?
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He would tell you he can tread water for a while
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You know, the numbers that have been coming out over the past few weeks
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Suggest that Canadians have a lot of confidence in him
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But, you know, that could be just put down to the honeymoon period
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And the fact that his opponents have been effectively leaderless
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You know, it feels to me like a lot of lunchbag letdown
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And eventually, you know, there's a price to pay for that
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Dealing, you know, with Donald Trump on tariffs
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But, I mean, that's why people elected Mark Carney
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Because now these tariffs are hitting multiple sectors
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And so he's the one who's already missed his deadlines
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I mean, I think he thinks it's going to last longer
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So I'm very interested to see how things shape up
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That Pierre Polyev's going to be back in the legislature
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Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from the city where the sun never shines
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There's no better place, everything will be just fine
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United States reaffirmed a core commitment to our free trade agreement, CUSMA
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By reinforcing that those Canadian exports to the United States that are compliant with that agreement