00:00:00.000But respectfully, Mr. Majumdar, my question was about your party, what you did wrong, why you couldn't win the election, not what they're doing wrong.
00:00:09.060Pierre Polyev and his MPs are in Calgary for the Conservative Leadership Convention.
00:00:13.760Nobody knows that Polyev is going to ace his leadership review and remain on as leader.
00:00:18.280But a lot of people are wondering, can Polyev actually become Prime Minister?
00:00:22.200One year ago, in late January 25, 46% of Canadians were prepared to vote Conservative, and only 20% of Canadians were prepared to vote Liberal, according to a study by Abacus Data.
00:00:32.960However, only a few months later, the tables had turned.
00:00:36.040With a new leader, the Liberal Party was able to win the federal election, securing a minority government.
00:00:41.660On top of that, Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyev lost his longtime seat in Carleton, Ottawa.
00:00:47.040Polyev didn't challenge the results, and he accepted his defeat.
00:00:49.960This was obviously a huge loss for Conservatives, and a big win for the left.
00:00:54.980Polyev decided to stay on as leader, and will likely one day run again in a federal election.
00:01:00.520The question everyone's asking, does he actually have a chance at winning?
00:01:03.900The infamous Vashti Capello has put this question to a Conservative MP based out of Calgary.
00:01:08.100Before we get into this, I want to remind you of being heavily censored on YouTube.
00:01:12.040If you see this part of the video, let me know in the comment section, tell me what city you're coming from, give me a quick like, and make sure you're still subscribed.
00:01:18.740All right. All right, let's check this out.
00:01:21.020Whatever fell short in that message that you just delivered?
00:01:23.580This was a narrowly contested election.
00:01:26.760This is a very narrowly contested election with a narrow outcome, even if the prime minister acts like he's got a big mandate that he's trying to steal through his different adventures.
00:01:35.440We're talking about a country in which over 8 million people who typically would not have connected with politics or their democracy, whether they're young people, whether they're workers, whether they're newcomers.
00:01:45.960The coalition that Pierre Polyev has built is a coalition of people in this country that represents the generational decisions we need to make for the next half century.
00:01:53.960That message is something that I think we're very proud of and will continue litigating at every turn like we have in the fall and we will continue to into this year.
00:02:01.880And I wouldn't take away from the point, right?
00:02:03.660Like, it's, you know, 400,000 plus people who essentially decided the election.
00:02:08.880But I think it's not also fair to say that that's the whole picture.
00:02:12.340Like, again, it's sort of a message of, well, we almost won, so we should just stay on the same track.
00:02:17.240But that neglects to take into account the fact that two people have crossed the floor to the Liberals since, that you were a few months before that election 27 points ahead in the polls, that the leader of the party who will face that vote tomorrow night could not even secure a riding he had held for two decades.
00:02:33.720Are you reckoning with anything, or is it just status quo?
00:02:36.560We've had almost a year of Mark Carney's government to see him make the big decisions that Pierre Polyev has proposed all along.
00:02:44.580You'll recall that during the campaign that Mark Carney took from the Conservatives' script as much as he could.
00:02:53.980Now it's time to deliver the decisions that all of those things require for Canada, whether it's on taxes, on immigration, on getting our resources to market.
00:03:01.420It's been almost a year, and we still haven't seen any of that.
00:03:03.820Instead, we see gaslighting from Mark Carney's ministers on issues that we've been proactive on, whether it's bail reform, getting our resources to market with our Sovereignty Act and the motion we proposed yesterday.
00:03:13.900They keep voting against the very things they ran on.
00:03:16.880They've said one thing during the campaign, undo another as a government.
00:03:20.000So delivering a government that's actually on the basis of hope, on results, on the things that Canadians expect, is, I think, a great thing for us to go forward with.
00:03:29.300I'd be the last person to argue that the government doesn't deserve hard questions of accountability on what they have and haven't delivered on.
00:03:35.980But respectfully, Mr. Majumdar, my question was about your party, what you did wrong, why you couldn't win the election, not what they're doing wrong.
00:03:45.560Well, listen, I think that our party performed extraordinarily.
00:03:48.440We've achieved a thing in this country that no Conservative leader has in its history.
00:03:52.540And when you think about the people that we represent, the voices that we animate in Parliament, and the consensus that we have achieved in this country, that despite even with the support of Conservatives for the last year, the Carney Liberals aren't able to move forward the major things that we have proposed and will continue to propose.
00:04:09.360So the difference between us and them is that they have nice rhetoric but don't deliver any results.
00:04:14.620We actually have the plan to get the thing done.
00:04:16.380The other difference with respect, though, is that they're in government, and Mr. Carney's personal popularity, according to every single public opinion poll I can find, is nearly double that of Mr. Polyev.
00:04:26.540What does Mr. Polyev need to secure in the form of a vote tomorrow in order to remain on as leader?
00:04:33.160And I know nobody wants to say a number, but does it have to be something in the neighborhood of what Stephen Harper was able to get in a similar situation when he had lost an election but wanted to fight another one back in 2005?
00:04:45.440That number was closer to 84, 85 percent.
00:04:48.380Isn't it amazing that despite the backing of the press and all the support that Mr. Carney has enjoyed, that while he's been out doing his thing, his numbers as a party have not moved much.
00:04:59.560Our numbers as a party have remained solid.
00:05:01.840Canadians are telling us that they want to see results on the issues that we've been campaigning on.
00:05:05.840And Pierre Polyev has been touring the entire country, talking to Conservatives coast to coast, with massive receptions of support.
00:05:12.520I'm, you're right, I'm not going to get into a number here today, but I will talk about a party that is united, that is focused, that supports its leader with strength.
00:05:21.700I'm excited to see what numbers we do get over the course of the weekend and energized with Pierre Polyev as the next prime minister of this country.
00:05:29.460That was a great answer by this MP and he touched on a lot of great points.
00:05:32.900However, I want to elaborate on this a little bit more.
00:05:35.040Politicians have a lot of constraints, to say the least, so they can't always say things as directly as people like I can.
00:05:42.200And I'll be the first to point out that Polyev did a fantastic job last election, turned some writings blue, and had a record turnout.
00:05:49.220However, politics isn't really about doing a good job.
00:05:52.120It's about winning, and unfortunately, Polyev's Conservatives lost.
00:05:55.600My analysis is that Polyev was on track to becoming the next prime minister of Canada,
00:05:58.960and he would have won and maintained his lead, except for one thing he couldn't control.
00:06:04.000And that was that guy down south, Donald Trump.
00:06:06.780Donald Trump's second presidency threw a curveball at Polyev and his team that they simply couldn't pivot to deal with.
00:06:13.340Nobody could have expected Donald Trump threatening to annex Canada or start a trade war with us.
00:06:18.060That was completely unexpected, and Polyev had a hard time dealing with that.
00:06:21.640The Liberals' new leader, Mark Carney, whether you like it or not,
00:06:24.680was effectively able to position himself as the right person to deal with Donald Trump.
00:06:28.460Now, the tricky thing is that a lot of Polyev supporters really like Trump.
00:06:32.180So if Polyev took a stronger stance against Trump, he would have alienated a large part of his base.
00:06:37.740Sure, he could have won over more centrist voters, but he would have alienated a lot of people,
00:06:42.220and that put him in a really hard position.
00:06:44.400Now, other political commentators on my side really dumb it down, and they blame it all on the media.
00:06:50.000And there might be some truth to this, in the sense that we don't have a right-wing news network
00:06:54.600broadcasting on television, sort of like Fox News in the United States.
00:06:58.460And a lot of media outlets in Canada are very left-wing and biased against conservatives.