The Candice Malcolm Show - May 10, 2022


Election Season： Analyzing the vote in Ontario, Alberta and the CPC


Episode Stats

Length

30 minutes

Words per Minute

203.37634

Word Count

6,132

Sentence Count

291

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Ontario voters are heading to the poll next month. Who are the contenders and what are
00:00:04.740 the top issues? I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
00:00:20.160 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. So it is now election time in Ontario. The
00:00:24.740 rights are all drawn up. They were drawn up last week, and the election yearning is officially
00:00:28.740 underway. We're hearing from the candidates. We have Doug Ford with the Conservatives looking to
00:00:34.060 regain or maintain their Conservative majority government, and the NDP and the Liberals are
00:00:39.960 sort of neck and neck in trying to catch them. We're also just days away from learning the results
00:00:44.140 of the United Conservative Party Leadership Review in Alberta. We're going to find out whether Jason
00:00:49.100 Kenney will remain on as leader and remain on as Premier of that province. And we're also in the
00:00:53.140 midst of a very hotly contested leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada. So who
00:00:58.720 better than Hamish Marshall to join the show to talk about all of these various elections?
00:01:04.440 Hamish is a partner at One Persuades, which is a government relations and strategy firm
00:01:08.140 based in Ontario in 2019. Hamish served as the Conservative Party's national campaign manager,
00:01:13.500 and he ran Andrew Scheer's winning leadership campaign. Prior to that, Hamish worked for Stephen
00:01:19.540 Harper as his manager of strategic planning and a pollster during the successful 2008 federal
00:01:25.180 election. And finally, back in 2021 during the federal election, Hamish worked for us here at
00:01:30.560 True North as our in-house pollster. So Hamish, thank you so much for joining the show. It's great
00:01:35.520 to have you back. It's great to be here, Candice. It's fun. Okay, so let's talk about Ontario. So,
00:01:41.420 you know, we're now have this election underway. It seems like Doug Ford is in a good position to
00:01:45.560 maintain his election. If you look at the polls, it looks like he's up by anywhere between three and
00:01:49.740 eight percent in the polls, which is a pretty solid lead. So what do you make of the election
00:01:54.780 so far? What is the sort of main issue that is driving the vote in Ontario? Well, right now,
00:02:00.000 it's a bit of a snoozer election. Not a lot's happened thus far. And I think that's frankly,
00:02:03.920 the way the PCs like it. I mean, I think Doug Ford's running on his record. He's arguing it's not a time
00:02:11.160 for change. And having a very exciting election does not seem to work with that. So you want to
00:02:16.440 emphasize continuity and change and things are things are fine. And as you say, he's got a lead
00:02:21.740 your various polling companies, but he's got a significant lead. And the consensus is that he's
00:02:26.820 on track for another majority government. Although as we've got the first debate, and things can change
00:02:34.280 as well. We see over the time where and where we have been seeing is a little bit of growth in people
00:02:41.740 warming a little bit Stephen Del Duca, the liberal leader, which is which is makes things a little
00:02:45.760 more interesting. Right? Well, he's sort of relatively unknown in in the province. And some of the
00:02:52.940 things I've heard from him have been, I think, a little alarming, a little offside. I know he made a
00:02:57.540 pledge that he would add COVID requirements for students in school, making it part of the mandatory
00:03:02.980 vaccine requirements for kids coming to public schools. And I think that's still a pretty divisive,
00:03:10.160 polarizing issue whether or not to vaccinate little kids, what the benefits are for that outweighing
00:03:16.340 whether they outweigh COVID, which doesn't really affect kids. Do you think COVID, you know, COVID
00:03:22.040 vaccines, the reaction to COVID, the way that Premier Ford has handled the COVID crisis, is that going to
00:03:28.680 be sort of the major issue in the election? Or is it something else? You know, I think the liberals and
00:03:33.400 NDP are going to try to argue that that COVID was mishandled by Ford. I think one of the reasons why
00:03:39.580 Ford's still on track for majority government is that the general consensus, certainly amongst
00:03:43.980 conservative accessible voters, is that the handling of COVID was probably about it was probably fine.
00:03:50.860 And I mean, they're okay with everything, every decision that was made, but generally speaking,
00:03:54.700 they're okay. So I think it's going to be very difficult in this springtime election to make the
00:04:02.000 case as COVID numbers continue to drop, to make the case that handling COVID is going to be the
00:04:07.020 determining factor. And I think that it would be much easier for liberals and NDP if we were in
00:04:13.840 an environment where COVID cases were rising, perhaps, you know, if the election would be held
00:04:18.260 last fall or something like that, when we're coming into whichever wave it was then.
00:04:23.780 Right. Well, I think that there is still, there are still people in Ontario that are very
00:04:28.280 concerned with COVID, people that were very unhappy with the lifting of restrictions.
00:04:33.300 Hamish, it seemed to me that in the beginning part of Doug Ford's premiership, he faced a lot
00:04:37.960 of criticism from the media, there were a lot of protests, there was a lot of anger at sort of
00:04:42.500 another conservative government, and they were sort of making it out to be this really boogeyman that
00:04:46.560 was going to like cut all our services and get rid of all these unions. That didn't happen. And it
00:04:51.920 seems that that kind of criticism has really gone away, that the sort of centrist sort of base of
00:04:59.680 the party and base of the province is actually pretty happy with Ford and the way that he managed
00:05:04.880 things. The sort of most, the biggest criticism that I see comes from the political right, people who
00:05:13.940 are very unhappy with the lockdowns, people who didn't like the fact that Doug Ford wouldn't engage in some
00:05:20.380 of the culture issues, like he was very quick to denounce the truckers, he didn't provide any
00:05:24.620 support or any compassion, any empathy, any understanding of them. We saw this really very
00:05:30.120 ideologically left-wing CRT, critical race theory proposal coming from the Department of Education,
00:05:37.920 really pushing the sort of worst of the worst of the woke ideology. Do you think that Ford faces the
00:05:45.060 risk of sort of losing the base of the Conservative Party and sort of not being able to motivate his
00:05:52.100 Conservative base to show up for him? Yeah, I mean, I think that's always a concern when you're in
00:05:56.660 government, you have to make compromises. I think his approach to that is going to be to raise the
00:06:01.640 threat of the Liberals and the NDP. And he's going to say to these voters, you know, you might not be
00:06:05.680 enthusiastic about every choice that I made, but these guys are going to be a whole lot worse. And you know,
00:06:10.280 the point you made about Del Duca talking about mandatory vaccines for all school-aged kids,
00:06:15.240 well, anybody who thinks that the vaccine mandates have gone too far, Doug Ford simply has to say,
00:06:19.940 I'm not for that. That is too far for me. That's, you know, it's that Del Duca wants to do that.
00:06:24.540 And what are people going to do? They're going to, you know, vote for the, they're going to vote for,
00:06:28.320 they'll rather see Ford in power than Del Duca. I think it is, and the other interesting thing that's
00:06:34.040 happened is that there's a whole bunch of these sort of other small splinter parties
00:06:37.280 on the right. You know, there's a bunch of MPPs that have left his caucus for a variety of reasons,
00:06:42.840 some of them related to this, and some of them started new parties. There's the True Blue Party
00:06:48.060 that Carrie Helly also started. There's a sort of a provincial version of the PPC, but because
00:06:54.300 they've all splintered and there's, there's multiple of these parties, there isn't a single focus
00:06:58.280 for that feeling. There's no leader who can get into the debate. You know, if all those,
00:07:03.400 those MPPs that sort of joined together and said, we're all together in one caucus and we're running
00:07:08.300 with one party that's going to have 120 candidates on a, on a anti-vaccine mandate platform, they can
00:07:16.300 make the case, well, we've got a couple of MPPs or three or four MPPs, and therefore we should have
00:07:20.660 our leader in the debate. And they could really have been there to perhaps siphon off some of that
00:07:25.120 support. And I think with the splintered environment, we've got two or three of these little
00:07:29.580 parties plus some independents. There's no singular focus for that, that, that, that, for that
00:07:34.420 sentiment. And Ford's the big winner because of that.
00:07:38.300 That's a, that's a really good point. And I'm just wondering, I don't know if this is too into the
00:07:41.580 weeds, but why is it that the, that the sort of anti-establishment conservatives, people who didn't
00:07:46.900 like the lockdowns, people who didn't like the handling of COVID, why, why do you think they're so
00:07:51.700 disorganized? Why, why aren't they united with a singular focus in, in the way that we see
00:07:56.840 single issue parties on the left, like the green party? Why do you think that these parties don't
00:08:01.500 do as well on the right? Well, I think, I think typically if you're a libertarian party who,
00:08:06.200 who wants to engage in these sort of debates, there's the, the appeal of have a following and
00:08:13.280 making compromises with other parties that maybe you agree with them on 98% of things.
00:08:17.860 These are people who have split away and they're, they have a sort of split us mentality. They're
00:08:21.480 going to do their own thing. And if they were in favor of consolidation, they, many of them would have
00:08:26.420 stayed with inside the Ontario PC party. Um, you know, same thing we saw federally with, you know,
00:08:30.900 Derek Sloan, not joining the DPC, but going and doing his own thing. Um, and if you, people have a,
00:08:36.340 a sort of a splittist individualist ideology, that's going to continue through and how they,
00:08:41.320 they, um, they organize a party. And it's perhaps one of the reasons why the libertarian party of
00:08:46.240 Canada has never had a breakthrough and why there's no anarchist party. Anarchists are very bad at
00:08:49.920 organizing things. And while these people aren't anarchists, they, um, generally are, uh, you know,
00:08:56.780 they, they have, they have their own specific views on things and don't want to, um, compromise
00:09:01.540 in any way, shape or form. Compromise is why they left the big parties. Right. No, that makes total
00:09:07.160 sense. Okay. Well, I, I just wondering, quick question. What, what, what do you think Doug Ford
00:09:11.500 has to do to maintain his majority? What, what, what is his strategy in this campaign? What does he have
00:09:16.640 to do for the last three, three or four weeks here to, in order to win? He's got to keep, um,
00:09:21.380 people who are broadly happy with his government on side. He's got to, and most importantly,
00:09:25.960 he has to try to keep the liberal and NDP vote split. You know, right now the liberals, it depends
00:09:31.560 on the polls for liberals to be pulling away a little bit from the NDP, but you know, the dream
00:09:35.720 scenario for Ford is that, you know, he gets sort of somewhere in the high thirties, 38, 39% of the vote
00:09:41.220 and the liberals and NDP each get like 26, 27%, something like that. That kind of split
00:09:47.200 produce a very nice, large, large, uh, Ford majority. Um, the, where it gets a little more
00:09:53.220 difficult is there's a consolidation on the left. Whereas if, if, if either, uh, Horvath or, uh,
00:09:57.960 Del Duca can become the anti Doug Ford candidate and, um, consolidate that vote. Um, that's when it
00:10:05.420 starts getting a lot of, uh, uh, of seats begin to start falling at that point. And it comes a little
00:10:10.400 more tight, um, for, uh, for Doug Ford. It's interesting to note that Del Duca seems to be
00:10:16.940 wise to this. He's already been campaigning in a whole bunch of liberal of NDP held seats,
00:10:20.660 uh, and is trying to, uh, pick up those seats on, on, on his road back. And he seems to be pulling
00:10:26.360 away a little bit. And I've noticed NDP strategists whining on Twitter that how dare he can campaign
00:10:32.640 in NDP seats. They should be focused on taking out Doug Ford and, and, you know, Del Duca is doing
00:10:37.700 what's best for him as opposed to what's best for the NDP. Um, not a surprise to really anybody,
00:10:42.560 but NDP strategists.
00:10:44.240 It sort of kind of reminds me of the 2015 federal election where you had, Harper was sort of had
00:10:49.800 a pretty comfortable lead in, and the liberals in the NDP were sort of splitting the opposition
00:10:54.740 vote and neither Trudeau or Thomas Mulcair, leader of the NDP at the time were, were really
00:10:59.500 presenting themselves as, as a sort of premier in way or prime minister in waiting. And then
00:11:03.940 all of a sudden, at some point, Thomas, uh, Thomas Mulcair sort of misstepped. I think
00:11:08.560 it was to do with, uh, hijabs and niqabs in Quebec and, and, and just sort of his support
00:11:13.600 caved all of a sudden, like midway through the election, uh, Quebecers sort of turned on
00:11:17.620 him and Justin Trudeau was able to ride that wave. Do you foresee anything like that, uh,
00:11:22.700 happening? I know, I know Andrea Horvath is, this is what her fourth time running for, uh,
00:11:26.720 the NDP. She's pretty, uh, stable hand, but Del Duca is pretty new at this. Uh, what, what,
00:11:31.180 what do you think about that? Well, I think, I think, I think the big difference is this
00:11:34.000 isn't a change election. There isn't an overwhelming desire for change. And, you know,
00:11:37.780 in 2015, I think the election came out as sort of an audition between Trudeau and Mulcair
00:11:43.040 about who most looked like change. And Mulcair ran a bit to the center to try to soften some
00:11:48.160 of those NDP hard edges and looked, um, not different enough. And, you know, Trudeau, young
00:11:53.840 and vibrant with, uh, the platform that was really throwing some hand grenades and doing
00:11:57.960 things that were quite bold, looked like change and captured that vote. You know, and I think
00:12:02.660 we're starting to see that with Del Duca now. Del Duca has, um, you know, not a lot is punching
00:12:07.520 through. I haven't seen a lot of policy punched through in the last week, last 10 days of the
00:12:11.420 campaign. Um, it's not, it's not getting into the public. The only thing that I've seen really
00:12:16.100 punched through has been a Del Duca's promise to make, uh, all transit fares, $1 everywhere in
00:12:22.360 Ontario for, I think it's two years, um, which is a bold policy. I mean, it's going to cost an arm
00:12:27.460 and a leg and it's, it's, uh, I mean, this includes even go train fares. So it's, it's a huge,
00:12:32.020 massive increase in subsidy, but it is, it has punched through a little bit. So he's trying to do
00:12:37.360 that. But again, they're fighting against a problem where they're still having to make the
00:12:41.080 case for change. You know, after governments in power eight or 10 years, you don't really have to
00:12:45.620 convince people it's time for a change. People just believe that you're fighting over who's going to be
00:12:49.000 the change agent. Right now, both the liberals and the NDP are trying to say we have to change
00:12:53.820 and, um, we're the best method for that, which is, which is just a tougher argument to make.
00:12:59.880 And Ford really profits for most people saying, yeah, things are, things are, things are pretty
00:13:03.280 good. These are fun. Good enough. Right. All right, let's move on to Alberta. So we're about a week
00:13:08.520 away here from, I think, I think we're about a week away from, from learning the results of the
00:13:13.260 leadership review. I know they've changed it a few times, but I believe it's coming down next week. So
00:13:17.740 interesting. I was in Calgary last week and I didn't really hear a lot of people grumbling
00:13:22.880 about Kenya. I heard a lot of people who were pretty happy with Kenya and pretty supportive. I
00:13:26.580 think it perhaps correlates with a stronger economy, higher price of oil, but I wanted to
00:13:31.980 get your thoughts on the leadership review and what you expect from that, uh, from that vote.
00:13:37.780 Sure. I mean, I, I think, I think there's been, if you compare this to say six months ago, I think
00:13:41.700 two fundamental things have happened for Kenya. Number one is that overall UCPs, um, polling against
00:13:47.600 the NDP has situations dramatically improved six months ago. It looked like, uh, uh, Kenya led UCP
00:13:54.080 would be defeated by the NDP. And that was driving a lot of desire for change. As you can imagine,
00:13:58.540 um, now it looks like a fight at, uh, and some polls actually have them ahead. So we're looking
00:14:04.440 like it's a very tight fight, but there's clearly a path to victory for a Kenya led UCP. The other
00:14:09.360 thing that's happened is that, um, you know, with various people announcing that they will run for
00:14:13.800 leader, uh, if Kenny is defeated in this, it's no longer Kenny versus anybody's sort of dream,
00:14:20.000 perfect leader. You know, it's, you don't like Kenny and who's the person after it. You can be
00:14:23.680 anybody you want. You can imagine the ghost of Ralph Klein or whoever it is, um, to come back and
00:14:29.140 they will be the dream candidate. Um, now with, uh, Brian Dean saying he's going to run and, and, um,
00:14:35.580 uh, Daniel Smith saying she's going to run, you know, like Brian and Danielle both have many things
00:14:41.780 that are positive about them, but they're not perfect people. They have negatives. And now
00:14:45.440 it's Kenny versus somebody else who is not a perfect dream candidate. Those things are working.
00:14:50.080 The other thing that's happened, I think for Kenny with a chunk, uh, is that some of the anti Kenny
00:14:54.900 forces really overplayed their hand. And there's a group of people now who are saying if those types
00:15:00.500 of people are attacking Kenny, maybe I'm more for him now. Um, so I think the situation is,
00:15:06.580 it has radically evolved and his decision to put off, um, this vote until the spring is looking
00:15:12.080 like a very, very good one moving to the mail-in ballot, uh, I think was the right one to do. Uh,
00:15:18.240 the, the in-person convention would have had so many people, it would have been absolute pandemonium,
00:15:22.460 um, and a mail-in ballot, I think seems like the best, uh, the best option. So I think what he's
00:15:29.160 done is better very reasonably well. And, and as to your point, the economy has improved a lot,
00:15:33.720 putting him in a better position. So I, I, I have heard criticism sort of from both sides.
00:15:38.940 Some people say that, uh, Kenny, part of the problem is that there is these few dissenting
00:15:44.420 MLAs who, who are very unhappy with Kenny and Kenny's kind of given them too long of a rope to
00:15:49.900 voice their complaints and, and to, you know, voice their dissatisfaction, kind of giving them too
00:15:55.080 much freedom. Um, you know, he should have had more party discipline and booted those, uh,
00:15:58.900 others say that, you know, he's muzzling his, his back bench and that he's not providing them the
00:16:03.560 right opportunities, uh, to have their input. Do you think there's a bigger problem? Uh, you know,
00:16:09.080 even if Kenny does survive this leadership race, which it looks like he will, uh, handily, but do
00:16:13.420 you think that, uh, he, he, he has a problem just in terms of keeping this united conservative party
00:16:19.040 united, um, ensuring that sort of the back bench or rural MLAs or, or, or rural Albertans who, who don't
00:16:25.660 feel that Kenny's done a good enough job with the pandemic and, and, you know, the, the, the,
00:16:30.400 he's made a lot of mistakes that aren't being addressed. Uh, how do you think, uh, Kenny can
00:16:34.700 keep this big, big tent, big party together? Well, number one, I think, uh, MLAs out of caucus is a
00:16:41.400 very serious thing and should be done only in extreme circumstances. And I think Kenny was right
00:16:46.600 not to kick them all out, kicking them all out could have formed a wrong caucus, could have given the
00:16:51.340 reborn, uh, Wild Rose, I think it's now the Wild Rose independence party. Um, you know, maybe they
00:16:56.780 could have joined that. It could have created something new, um, that would have been a focus
00:17:00.400 for anti-canning opposition by putting everything through this leadership vote. He can now say to
00:17:06.080 the caucus members, put up or shut up. You know, if after, you know, assuming he wins the leadership
00:17:12.300 vote, he can say to any caucus members, you had your choice. You went and signed up people,
00:17:17.240 the membership voted, the membership decided I'm still the leader. I'm still the premier.
00:17:21.080 I'm giving you one last chance. If you're on board now, fantastic. You can be a candidate next
00:17:26.440 year. Let's move forward. But if you're not right now, it's time, the times, time's come for the
00:17:31.860 parting of the ways. And I think he will be able to position anybody who, um, what still wants him
00:17:38.160 gone after a successful leadership review is not respecting the will of the membership and therefore
00:17:43.580 removing them as an MLA, as a candidate for the next election is entirely justified. So I think,
00:17:49.260 yeah, he's given them some rope. He's, he certainly enhanced their criticisms. Um, but you know,
00:17:54.380 if he pulls off a significant win, uh, in this leadership, it gives them a much, much leadership
00:17:58.500 review, much, much stronger, uh, hand and he'll be in a very good position to tell them to get on
00:18:03.480 board or to leave. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's a very good strategy and, uh, probably very likely
00:18:09.920 how it will play out, Hamish. I want to, while I have you on the line, I want to ask you about
00:18:13.660 the conservative race because as you know, I moderated the debate last Thursday. It was really
00:18:18.400 fun, great opportunity to sort of get to know each of the candidates a little better. Unfortunately,
00:18:23.260 Patrick Brown, uh, was a no show, but we did get to know, uh, some of the other candidates. Uh, so I'm
00:18:29.220 just wondering, I, um, you know, what, what, what's your take on the leadership race? Uh, how do you
00:18:33.420 think it's going so far? Well, full disclosure, I'm, I'm supporting, um, uh, pure poly. I've been
00:18:37.580 actively, uh, helping him on his campaign. So, and these remarks represent my, my views, not the
00:18:43.420 campaigns. Um, so take them all. If you're not, if you're not a pure fan, take this all as perhaps
00:18:48.680 a biased perspective, but that's, uh, that's where I am. Um, yeah, I agree. I think the debate was a
00:18:53.560 lot of fun. I think we got to see who everybody was, um, what was important to them. And, and, uh,
00:18:58.920 you know, what I look for in debates is surprises, you know, people performing about
00:19:03.020 what the way I expect or the way they've performed in the past isn't news. It's what's different,
00:19:08.000 what new things do we learn? Um, and, you know, I think, uh, I think we, you know, the thing that
00:19:14.460 struck me that was really new was that was, um, that how angry John Shrey was. I was surprised by
00:19:19.680 that. I didn't expect him to be angry, but he seemed, um, really maddened to have to share the
00:19:24.660 stage with some of the candidates. And, you know, that was, I think, very disappointing from my
00:19:29.000 perspective. I, I, I didn't see it as anger. I saw it as passion. I heard
00:19:32.960 him make some very passionate pleas that he, you know, he loves Canada and he supports
00:19:36.100 it. I know that there were a couple of things that he said that did not go over well in
00:19:39.620 the room. At one point he said that he thought that the trucker convoy was illegal and that
00:19:43.000 got him a whole room full of booze. It was interesting to me because Roman Babber, who
00:19:48.460 he's a provincial, uh, MPP in Ontario. He was one of the ones that we were just talking about
00:19:52.900 that got, uh, kicked out of Doug Ford's caucus and, uh, went, went as an independent. Uh, he
00:19:59.160 was really resonating with a room full of conservative sort of activists and insiders.
00:20:05.300 And I, I, I, you know, obviously the, a lot of people support Pierre because he's got the
00:20:09.960 momentum and he's charismatic and he's been on the ground sort of fighting against the
00:20:14.580 Trudeau government all every step of the way since Trudeau was elected. Um, but, but I, I
00:20:19.420 was, I was a little bit surprised by how much, uh, Babber's message resonated with, um,
00:20:24.820 conservatives. Um, do you think that, that, that, that, that this, this issue, the trucker
00:20:29.740 convoy, the mandates, uh, the sort of pro-feedom voice, do you think that's going to be one of
00:20:34.720 the defining issues of the campaign or do you think that there's something else that's more
00:20:37.780 important? Yeah, no, I think, I think it's a big litmus test. I think, I think conservatives
00:20:41.600 are looked, I think at core conservatives are looking for someone to make them feel good
00:20:45.620 about being conservative. And I don't know anybody who agrees with everything that was said
00:20:49.060 by everybody at the trucker convoy. I don't think that's physically possible. There's lots
00:20:52.160 of people saying all sorts of different things, but at core, there was a message. There was
00:20:56.220 a, in the freedom convoy, it was, it was a message of frustration. There was a message
00:21:00.560 that was a huge chunk of Canadians. They're not being hurt by this government. Um, and,
00:21:05.240 uh, respecting that as, you know, as, as, uh, as Pierre Polyhev has done and, and as Roman
00:21:11.220 Babber has done, um, is very, very important. And I think conservatives want to feel good about
00:21:16.160 being conservative again. They don't want to be lectured. They don't want to be told that
00:21:18.680 they're bad Canadians. They don't want to hear their, their views are somehow out of date
00:21:22.800 and awful. Uh, which is what we, you know, while he may not have said that, sometimes he
00:21:27.600 did in so many words, but certainly what was the overall theme of the Aaron O'Toole leadership.
00:21:32.000 And, you know, that's why I think one of the main reasons why I think, uh, Pierre Polyhev
00:21:35.980 is winning is he's making conservatives, he's speaking to their hearts, he's making them
00:21:39.300 good about themselves and showing a positive vision about how, um, uh, how we can be pro-freedom,
00:21:45.560 uh, and be popular. Um, look, I think, I think Mr. Babber did very well. I, I, I didn't have
00:21:50.300 very strong impressions of Roman Babber before, uh, the leadership, uh, debate. Uh, and I think
00:21:55.680 he, he proved himself to be likable, uh, and interesting. And I think, you know, for someone
00:21:59.700 like him, who's, you know, definitely playing catch up compared to the other big contenders,
00:22:03.720 I think he did very, very well. It's sort of, one of the other thing that struck me is that
00:22:08.740 there sort of appears to be, uh, a fault line of the old split of the party. Like when, when I look
00:22:14.180 at the six candidates, I see Jean Charest, Scott Aitchison, and Patrick Brown, which very much
00:22:19.560 fall in line with this sort of the old school PC progressive or liberal light brand of conservatism
00:22:25.160 that's popular in places like Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. Um, and then, and then you have
00:22:29.620 more of the sort of grassroots populism, uh, I don't want to say reactionary, but, but sort
00:22:36.080 of really in touch with the concerns of everyday Canadians and conservatives, which would be
00:22:41.180 Pierre, uh, Polyev, uh, Dr. Lesson Lewis and Roman Baber. And it sort of worries me a little
00:22:47.980 bit that, that whichever way this party goes, the other faction of the party won't be satisfied.
00:22:52.200 Like I can't imagine that Jean Charest and Patrick Brown, uh, will line up behind Pierre
00:22:57.060 Polyev if he wins. Um, and likewise, I can't imagine people in Western Canada and people who
00:23:01.400 are very dissatisfied with the status quo, uh, and with lockdowns, uh, saying, okay, I'll,
00:23:08.200 I'll, I'll support a Patrick Brown or Jean Charest given, given their, given their records. Um,
00:23:13.640 is this something that concerns you, or do you think I'm, I'm sort of being oversensitive to that
00:23:18.120 split? Oh, no. I mean, I think, I think there's always, there's always a danger of splits. And I
00:23:21.460 think what we've seen, you know, the, the, the, I always like to say the conservative movement is sort
00:23:26.460 of deeply Protestant in character. It's not to say there aren't just Protestants in the conservative
00:23:29.800 movement, but there's sort of a splittist tendency that, you know, when things aren't going the way
00:23:34.000 we want, a certain factions will break off. And, um, I think that, um, so I think, I always think
00:23:41.920 there's a danger of it. I generally think that, however, though, that we're going into an election
00:23:46.140 where Trudeau will be empowered for a decade, liberals in power for a decade, and the tendency
00:23:49.980 for unity in the face of that kind of a environment is much, much, much greater. Um, and I think
00:23:56.200 there'll be a strong push for unity, whoever wins afterwards. And, and the conservative party has a
00:24:00.280 fairly good record of pulling that together. Um, you know, uh, and especially if we, if we have a
00:24:05.980 leader who is sensitive to some of the, the, um, mandates concerns, uh, I think even what we'll see
00:24:11.940 is a greater unity with, with a chunk of, um, of PPC voters coming back to the conservatives as well.
00:24:18.540 I, I, I think that's right. It's, it was interesting because, uh, I think it was Warren Kinsella,
00:24:23.260 uh, uh, started calling Pierre Paglia of People's Party Pierre, uh, which, which I don't think is
00:24:28.400 that as big of an insult as, as he thinks it is. Um, but, but I, I did find it amusing that I think
00:24:34.200 both, uh, Roman Babber and Lesley Lewis took, uh, shots at, at Pierre and the federal conservatives for
00:24:40.260 not doing enough to defend the trucker convoy and the, uh, and, and, and being anti sort of
00:24:45.540 locked down a mandate enough. So that was an interesting, I didn't, I didn't, uh, I didn't
00:24:51.100 agree with much that the media said about the debate afterwards, but there was one, um, thing
00:24:55.720 that I did, I did agree with. It was written in the hub, which, which is a policy sort of, uh, more
00:25:00.780 of a wonkish publication, but, um, there's sort of complaints that the debate didn't feature enough
00:25:06.380 big ideas and it wasn't policy oriented enough. And then they didn't really put down anything in
00:25:11.940 terms of what they believed in and what their vision for Canada was in, in specific ways. Um,
00:25:16.560 do you think that's just because it's too early in, in this race? I know we're not going to
00:25:19.840 determine the leader until September. So it's, it's so early. There's so much time. Um, but,
00:25:24.000 but do you think that the debate and the conversation so far has been lacking when it comes to public
00:25:29.460 policy? Um, no, I disagree. I think, I think we've seen some interesting public policy proposals
00:25:34.460 around housing prices, around cryptocurrency. Um, Mr. Shreit put on a big, um, uh, healthcare piece
00:25:41.380 recently. There's been, there's been a fair bit, but it's, it's, it's, they're all subservient,
00:25:46.300 they're all subservient to the overall narrative, which is, you know, um, the Shreit Brown approach,
00:25:52.580 which says conservatives shouldn't be conservative and they should feel bad about being
00:25:56.720 conservatives. And if only we were just liberals who were good at math, um, everything would be
00:26:01.060 fine. Uh, and then there's, um, what Mr. Polyev, uh, is showing, which is that, you know,
00:26:07.500 it's okay to be conservative. It's not just okay. It's great to be conservative, to feel
00:26:10.740 and to fight for freedom and to, um, make people feel that they're part of something that is growing.
00:26:17.260 And, and so I've seen very, two very different narratives and all the policy gets assumed by
00:26:22.360 that. You know, we're not, it's very different race than it was say in 2017. We had 13 candidates
00:26:27.060 on the stage where people needed, um, individual policies to stand out from one another.
00:26:32.240 And it came about that here. It's really a campaign of big mirrors.
00:26:37.660 Do you think that at this point that any of the campaigns are really using a strategy of like,
00:26:43.380 okay, my goal is to get second round votes and I'm going to try to appeal to this person's base.
00:26:49.420 Do you think that's part of the strategy game has, has really started to play in yet? Or do you think
00:26:53.400 it's too early? And then also on that, what do you think about Patrick Brown's strategy to not debate,
00:26:59.680 not talk to media, not really engage, uh, kind of stand, stand back and, and, and lob grenades while
00:27:05.500 also sort of working, uh, with, uh, diaspora communities and, and immigrant communities to
00:27:11.700 try to shore up support amongst people who probably have never voted conservative before.
00:27:16.580 Yeah. Look, I mean, I think both the Shrey and Brown campaigns have a similar strategy, which is,
00:27:23.320 you know, do well enough for the first ballot to keep, um, uh, peer under a 50% and then get most
00:27:30.440 of the seconds of the other, right. They're both assuming that they will be ahead of, of each other
00:27:35.480 and that they can profit from that. And that's their path to victory. Um, so I think that that
00:27:39.640 very much exists, uh, on that side of things. Um, you know, Mr. Brown has been, has been described as,
00:27:45.980 he's running a, uh, submarine campaign, um, which I think is good. I think he's, I think you're right.
00:27:51.340 He's sort of firing the odd torpedo, but he's generally keeping under the, under the, uh,
00:27:55.420 under the radar. Um, and he, he's running a campaign very much about signing up people
00:28:00.060 in very specific, um, communities. You know, he came out and said that he was in favor of,
00:28:04.460 um, taking the Tamil Tigers off the terrorist list. Um, you know, which is an explicit appeal
00:28:11.060 to people who are supporters of Tamil Tigers. Um, he's a, he's come out and said, you know,
00:28:17.580 his reporter came out and said that he's, uh, against moving the Canadian embassy, uh, in,
00:28:23.680 uh, in Israel to Jerusalem. Um, he's very much targeting very specific communities and has
00:28:29.580 explicitly said many times that he's not interested in appealing to the traditional,
00:28:32.600 to the traditional membership. Um, and, uh, he's going to do, he's going to assign up enough
00:28:38.400 people to go around them and win that way. Um, you know, it's a bold strategy, a risky strategy.
00:28:42.660 It creates all sorts of trouble. Um, you know, should he be successful with caucus and the party
00:28:47.780 establishment and the party as it exists? Um, so I, I, you know, we'll see, we'll see how we get
00:28:52.860 far he gets with that. Um, but I think, I think actually the most, uh, dangerous is that if he wins
00:28:59.640 is keeping the party together, having, uh, one, if you, if that strategy is successful, keeping the
00:29:05.080 party together is going to be very, very difficult by signing up an entirely new group of people
00:29:09.080 who've never had any, uh, connection with the conservative party. I mean, I, I, I can't
00:29:15.120 fathom that happening. Um, but yeah, certainly an interesting strategy, one that we haven't seen,
00:29:19.540 and it will be interesting to keep an eye on that. Well, Hamish, I really appreciate all your
00:29:23.400 insights on all these various campaigns and, uh, we appreciate you having on your show. We'll have
00:29:27.600 to have you back on later to, uh, give an update on these topics. My pleasure. Hey, thank you so
00:29:33.240 much. That's Hamish Marshall. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm Show.
00:29:39.080 Thank you.