The Candice Malcolm Show - Election Season： Analyzing the vote in Ontario, Alberta and the CPC

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 0.53

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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.

The Candice Malcolm Show - May 10, 2022

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

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