The Candice Malcolm Show - Trump & Milei HUMILIATE the WEF, the latest polls and federal Liberal comeback？ (with Hamish Marshall)

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to the Candace Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candace Malcolm, and happy Friday.

00:00:16.020 Great to be with you here today. If you're anything like me, you are sitting on the edge

00:00:19.900 of your seat watching things unfold in the United States with the Trump presidency. It just seems

00:00:25.760 like every single day, there's just a new absolute piece of gold that has been delivered by the Trump

00:00:31.540 administration going through their agenda, implementing it. It is like a breath of fresh

00:00:36.180 air. So many times over my lifetime watching politics, you have a strong conservative

00:00:41.780 politician who excites you one minute and then just totally lets you down the next, and they

00:00:46.740 don't follow through and they don't do what they say they're going to do. So watching Trump get up

00:00:55.760 so exciting. And it really feels like there's been a vibe change out there that being a conservative

00:01:01.040 is on the right side of history. It's on the right side of the culture that people agree they don't

00:01:06.300 want the woke stuff anymore. They don't want the race stuff anymore. They just want to go back to

00:01:10.060 normal, to have common sense, lead the day. I hope it's contagious. I hope it spreads throughout Canada

00:01:14.860 as well. And I hope Pierre Polyev, if and when he gets elected as prime minister, will follow through

00:01:19.860 with a similar kind of agenda. So we've got a lot of news to get to today. We're going to talk about

00:01:23.760 the World Economic Forum and how the elites have just been absolutely humiliated this year. It is

00:01:28.880 so delicious. We're going to talk about some new polls come out. Are the Liberals making a comeback?

00:01:33.900 Is there any possibility that the Liberals might actually win the next election? Some scary polls

00:01:39.060 that we've seen, so we'll get to that. Plus, talk of a possible Ontario election. And joining me for

00:01:45.020 the whole show today is Hamish Marshall. Hamish is a pollster. He's a partner at One Persuades,

00:01:50.420 which is a government relations and strategy firm in Ontario in 2019. He led the Conservative

00:01:55.780 Party's national campaign. He also was previously a strategic manager for Stephen Harper when he was

00:02:01.780 prime minister. And you know him very well because he worked for us at True North as our in-house

00:02:06.240 pollster back in 2021. So Hamish, it's always great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for

00:02:10.300 joining us today. My pleasure. So, okay, let's go to Davos because, like, we typically have Andrew

00:02:19.840 Lawton, our journalist, that would go to Davos and report. Sadly, Andrew's no longer with True North

00:02:25.700 because he is running as a Conservative candidate. A great win for Canada to have potentially a member

00:02:32.020 of Parliament of that substance that Andrew has. But sad for True North. So we don't have anybody there.

00:02:37.660 We played it on the show yesterday. Ezra Levant is out there doing the thing that sort of,

00:02:44.100 we love independent journalism because they're so willing to go up into people's faces and demand

00:02:48.900 answers. And Ezra's doing some great reporting down there. To me, the most delicious part was

00:02:55.420 Trump. Trump came out, he gave a speech. He didn't fly to Davos. He went live via satellite, I guess,

00:03:00.400 and sent a video. And I'm going to play this for you, Hamish, because it was just so fun to see

00:03:06.240 Klaus Schwab and his fellow elite friends have to sit and listen to Donald Trump make a triumphant

00:03:12.360 speech. So here's what that looked like. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States,

00:03:20.400 Donald J. Trump.

00:03:22.240 Well, thank you very much, Klaus, and hello to everyone in beautiful Davos. This has been a truly

00:03:36.920 historic week in the United States. Three days ago, I took the oath of office and we began the

00:03:43.740 golden age of America. The recent presidential election was won by millions of votes and all

00:03:51.360 seven, every one of them, all seven swing states. I imposed a federal hiring freeze,

00:03:57.560 a federal regulation freeze, a foreign aid freeze, and I created the new Department of Government

00:04:04.800 Efficiency. I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal. I call it

00:04:12.320 the Green New Scam. Withdrew from the one-sided first climate accord and ended the insane and costly

00:04:19.840 electric vehicle mandate. We're going to let people buy the car they want to buy.

00:04:25.240 I declared a national energy emergency, and it's so important, national energy emergency to unlock

00:04:32.800 the liquid gold under our feet and pave the way for rapid approvals of new energy infrastructure.

00:04:40.000 The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth,

00:04:44.600 and we're going to use it. Not only will this reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services,

00:04:51.300 it'll make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial

00:04:57.880 intelligence and crypto. My administration has also begun the largest deregulation campaign in

00:05:05.380 history, far exceeding even the record-setting efforts of my last term. In total, the Biden

00:05:12.440 administration imposed $50,000 in additional regulatory costs on the average American household

00:05:19.760 over the last four years. I have promised to eliminate 10 old regulations for every new regulation,

00:05:28.080 which will soon put many thousands of dollars back in the pockets of American families.

00:05:33.440 To further unleash our economy, our majorities in the House and Senate, which we also took along with

00:05:40.820 the presidency, are going to pass the largest tax cut in American history, including massive tax cuts for

00:05:47.240 workers and families. And I'm pleased to report that America is also a free nation once again.

00:05:53.020 On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government

00:05:59.020 label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of

00:06:06.840 censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress.

00:06:13.220 We have saved free speech in America, and we've saved it strongly.

00:06:18.840 So Trump's style is just hilarious. I love that he's up there telling the elites, first of all, bragging about

00:06:23.520 his election still, like how many swing states he won and how they got the House and Senate. It's just so

00:06:27.900 typical Trump. But from a policy perspective, Hamish, like every single point he touched on was absolute

00:06:33.760 gold. And I think a Canadian conservative would be jumping up and down if their government introduced

00:06:38.580 any one of those. But just to go through them again, the statement that censorship is over,

00:06:45.120 that they're guaranteeing free speech, that America is a free nation, talking about how he killed the

00:06:48.820 Green Deal, how he withdrew from Paris, how he ended the EV mandate, how he declared a national energy

00:06:53.660 emergency to allow rapid resource development. He wants to become a manufacturing superpower for AI and

00:06:59.880 crypto, the largest deregulation efforts in the United States history, just eliminating one for

00:07:05.280 every, eliminating 10 regs for every one new one passed, plus the largest tax cuts in history.

00:07:11.660 I mean, it's, it's from a policy perspective, it's just fantastic. And, you know, plus the fact that

00:07:17.540 he's out there speaking a completely counter message to the folks at Davos. What did you make of all that?

00:07:24.180 Well, I mean, look, there's a ton of great stuff, as you pointed out in there, that we could spend an

00:07:28.500 hour in each one of those topics. It's very, very exciting. I just love the shattering of consensus,

00:07:35.060 right? And this is the problem is that, you know, whether it comes from Davos, or the pointy heads

00:07:39.600 of the Liberal Party here in Canada, or the Democrats in the in the States, is you've seen

00:07:43.740 the smothering consensus on not just, you know, cultural war issues, but on economics on a whole

00:07:50.640 variety, environmental legislation, a whole variety of subjects, is sort of smothering consensus that if you

00:07:56.640 don't agree with us, you're somehow a bad person, you're somehow a barbarian. And the it's bad for

00:08:03.300 democracy, it's bad for debate. And the fact that he's going there and sending that message of just

00:08:08.120 saying, like, I'm doing everything you don't want me to do, we can end but I'm also making things more

00:08:12.900 free, I'm not going to impose my own consensus on top of you, let's have the free speech, let's have

00:08:16.760 the debates, I think is very, very, very exciting. And I think the change, like I said, any one of

00:08:24.020 these policies is wonderful and exciting. But the change in attitude that we can break free of this

00:08:29.040 smothering consensus we've had for probably the last 10 years, at least maybe longer, is I think

00:08:33.720 the most exciting thing that's happened. Well, it reminds me a little bit of Stephen Harper, because

00:08:38.000 he used to have very fierce criticism, specifically for the United Nations, he used to show up there

00:08:43.040 and kind of lecture the crowd about how he didn't have to take them seriously, like the whole concept

00:08:47.660 of having despots and dictators side by side with democracies, trying to come up with an order for

00:08:54.600 the world, it is kind of ridiculous. And there was that notion, I remember going to a Stephen Harper

00:09:00.520 barbecue in Calgary, I think maybe it was 2011 or 2012. And the crowd would just break into chants of

00:09:07.020 defund the UN. And like, they wanted like, the base wanted Canada out of these multilateral

00:09:13.960 institutions and groups. Harper spoke a good game, but he didn't, he didn't follow through.

00:09:20.980 I think he defunded UNRWA, which was good. And then, and then Trudeau turned around and refunded it.

00:09:26.860 But, you know, I, what do you think from, from perspective in Canada? Like, do you think Pierre

00:09:32.580 will go down this path as well? I think Pierre will go down that path even more dramatically than

00:09:38.600 Harper did. I think Harper had a lot of frustration and impatience with international institutions for

00:09:44.300 whom consensus was more important than action. I remember he got into a fight in the francophonie

00:09:49.220 in the first six months of him being prime minister, where he ended up refusing to sign off on some

00:09:54.580 prearranged consensus statement, and ended up getting a better result because they wanted, they,

00:10:00.100 they valued consensus so much, he was able to say, well, if you want me to sign off,

00:10:03.840 you've got to move on all these things. He famously told, you know, Vladimir Putin to his face to get

00:10:08.620 out of Ukraine, which people, it was very much against diplomatic protocol, people didn't like

00:10:14.480 that. I think Mr. Polio is going to be even more dramatic. I think the patience amongst conservatives

00:10:20.320 for these kind of slow moving, smothering consensus based institutions is, is, is even shorter than it

00:10:28.900 was 10 or 15 years ago. And we're going to see dramatic action from Mr. Polio, because I don't

00:10:35.460 think his patience for these sort of institutions that aren't delivering for Canada and Canadians

00:10:39.120 is going to be very long at all. Well, one thing that I hope he picks up is,

00:10:43.340 Trump mentioned there, the end of foreign aid. This is an issue near and dear to me, Hamish. When I was in

00:10:48.500 grad school, I wrote my thesis about how useless aid is, and how it does more harm and good in most of

00:10:53.540 these countries, because you're propping up like horrible regimes with bad human rights records,

00:10:58.100 and you're allowing them to have more money. Like it doesn't even make any sense. If you want to help

00:11:01.880 people in the developing world, like fund their businesses, don't fund their governments. Do you

00:11:06.460 think that there's any possibility Pierre will do something like that? I think I, the foreign aid

00:11:11.680 budget or the foreign aid funding, he's certainly being quiet around that. But I would be shocked if

00:11:15.720 there wasn't some reform then. If you remember in the 2019 election, the Conservative platform said,

00:11:20.180 we're going to take the foreign aid budget, and we're going to focus on countries that are actually

00:11:23.620 in need, and not send money to Iran, and China, and a whole bunch of other places that are actually

00:11:30.140 quite developed, and in many cases, very hostile to us. And then if we're going to send money to

00:11:34.740 overseas, we should send it to places that are genuinely in need. And I agree, there's a ton that

00:11:40.700 can be done on the delivery side of it, whether it's in microloans, a whole bunch of things that

00:11:45.300 doesn't just sort of give money to, you know, corrupt international do-gooders who often don't

00:11:50.660 deliver what they say they are. Absolutely. Okay, well, you mentioned that there's a cultural shift,

00:11:55.740 and it's not just, you know, Trump talked a lot about the policy. We had Argentinian Prime Minister,

00:12:01.200 Javier Mele, the guy is so hilarious, and he did the exact same thing. He showed up and just told

00:12:07.460 these elites right to their face how much people see through them and are onto them,

00:12:13.380 and their behavior is not exemplary. They're not our moral betters, and in many cases, they are

00:12:18.760 despicable. So here is Javier Mele talking a little bit, well, just lecturing the crowd in

00:12:24.720 a colorful fashion at Davos. Is it not true that right now as we speak in the UK, citizens are being

00:12:31.260 imprisoned for exposing horrifying crimes committed by Muslim migrants, crimes that the government seeks

00:12:37.660 to conceal? Or didn't the bureaucrats in Brussels suspend Romania's elections simply because they

00:12:43.360 didn't like the party that had won? Faced with each of these discussions, wokeism's first

00:12:51.440 strategies to discredit those of us who challenge these things, first by labeling us, and then by

00:12:57.000 silencing us. If you're white, you must be racist. If you're a man, you must be a misogynist or part of

00:13:02.200 the patriarchy. If you're rich, you must be a cruel capitalist. If you're heterosexual, you must be

00:13:07.180 heteronormative, homophobic, or transphobic. For every challenge, they have a label. And then they try to

00:13:15.060 suppress you by force or through legal means. Because beneath the rhetoric of diversity, democracy, and

00:13:20.760 tolerance that they so often preach, what truly lies is their blatant desire to eliminate dissent,

00:13:28.540 criticism, and ultimately freedom. And these forums promote the LGBT agenda, attempting to impose the idea

00:13:34.980 that women are men and men are women simply based on self-perception. And they say nothing about when a man

00:13:40.880 dresses as a woman and kills his opponent in a boxing ring, or when a male prison inmate claims to be a

00:13:48.420 woman and ends up sexually assaulting women in prison. In fact, just a few weeks ago, there were headlines

00:13:54.760 around the world regarding the case of two gay Americans who championed the banners of sexual

00:13:59.340 diversity and were sentenced to 100 years in prison for abusing and filming their adopted children for

00:14:04.800 more than two years. I want to be clear, when I say abuse, this is no euphemism, because in its most

00:14:10.700 extreme forms, gender ideology is outright child abuse. They are pedophiles. So I want to know who would

00:14:20.020 support that kind of behavior. I would love to see a pan shot of the faces of the people there,

00:14:26.360 because he was just absolutely devastating. I mean, that last story that he mentioned was just so sad.

00:14:31.100 It's just so despicable. We've seen some movement in Canada, as you recall, last year, Danielle Smith

00:14:35.840 came out and said, no surgeries for kids, you cannot transform your body when you are a minor,

00:14:40.660 like you can't even consent to a tattoo. How can you consent to having your biology attempted to change

00:14:47.460 and having body parts chopped off? No. And then just recently, a couple of days ago, we had Pierre

00:14:52.020 Polyev, well, go on TV and just insist that there's, you know, what other gender is there? If you think

00:14:58.220 that there's more than two genders, please start naming them. And the dumbfounded host just sort of

00:15:02.240 couldn't help but repeat his woke talking points. But, you know, in the past, we've seen him say,

00:15:07.260 no two men in women's prisons, no two men in women's sports, and no two sex change hormones for kids.

00:15:13.900 So what do you make of all this, Amish? Well, I think you're right. I think there's been a movement.

00:15:18.640 I think there was, especially during the pandemic, there was a swing on all these issues that I don't

00:15:24.300 know if it's when people are cooped up or something, but there was definitely a moment going on where

00:15:29.620 people were more and more extreme ideas were being normalized and immediately being told if you

00:15:35.560 didn't agree with something that, you know, 10 minutes ago was heresy, you're now in, you know,

00:15:43.220 you're now some sort of terrible person. So I think the pendulum swinging back, you know, I think,

00:15:47.380 I think the Daniel Smith example is very interesting. People said, Oh, she's going to bring in these laws

00:15:53.420 and all these terrible, awful things are going to happen in Alberta, and the world is going to end

00:15:57.700 and, and, you know, there would be terribly, you know, gay people will be hurt, and there were all

00:16:02.960 these awful things would happen. And Alberta is doing just fine. There isn't large scale problems in the

00:16:11.040 streets or whatever, all the different predictions fell apart. And she's remained, she's maintained

00:16:16.920 her popularity. And the fact of the matter is, is that this set of issues is something that's very,

00:16:22.700 very passionate for a very small chunk of the population, who care deeply about changing the

00:16:27.880 way we all feel about these things. But the vast majority of people care far more about, you know,

00:16:33.860 their job, how to deal with inflation, being worried about the safety of their kids and the safety

00:16:40.320 of themselves, you know, if crimes on the rise of the neighborhood, or something like that. So I

00:16:45.940 think what we're seeing is that the, the energy that fueled the sort of extreme change from a small

00:16:52.680 number of people is beginning to run out, and running into, you know, a wall of common sense,

00:16:59.640 that is really, we're really ending up where people just saying, No, I'm not buying into that

00:17:05.580 anymore. And they're discovering there isn't consequences, they're not being cancelled,

00:17:08.640 the world's not coming to an end, their businesses and being shut down. And that you can stand up and

00:17:13.800 say no. And that's, it's going to be okay. Right. And it's such a breath of fresh air. And I hope that

00:17:20.920 our Canadian politicians follow down that path. I want to get your reaction to this clip, because,

00:17:26.120 you know, from a Canadian perspective, I love when Trump is talking about the policies that he wants

00:17:30.120 to implement, because I hope that we get those ourselves. But then, you know, Trump's ire switched,

00:17:35.160 and he took another shot at Canada. So it's interesting to see him use this platform of the

00:17:40.760 WEF to, to, to again, reiterate his tariff threats, and discuss his, his criticism and complaint

00:17:48.040 about Canada. So let's play that clip.

00:17:51.040 One thing we're going to be demanding is we're going to be demanding respect from other nations.

00:17:57.120 Canada, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada, we're not going to have that anymore,

00:18:01.100 we can't do it. It's, it's, I don't know if it's good for them. As you probably know, I say,

00:18:06.480 you can always become a state. And if you're a state, we won't have a deficit, we won't have to

00:18:11.160 tariff you, et cetera, et cetera. But Canada has been very tough to deal with over the years. And

00:18:16.580 it's not fair that we should have a 200 billion or $250 billion deficit. We don't need them to make

00:18:23.320 our cars and they make a lot of them. We don't need their lumber because we have our own forests,

00:18:27.920 et cetera, et cetera. We don't need their oil and gas. We have our, we have more than anybody.

00:18:33.820 So what do you, what do you make of that, Hamish?

00:18:35.800 Well, I think there's two very important things. One is that one of the things that Trump's

00:18:39.900 extraordinarily good at is, is sniffing out weakness. And whether it was the Trudeau government

00:18:45.020 before the Freeland explosion ended up pushing Trudeau out, there's no question that Canada's in the

00:18:51.880 back foot right now, that the federal government's in disarray and will be until we have an election.

00:18:56.860 No matter who the liberals elect as their new leader. And Trump knows that's a point of weakness.

00:19:02.720 And so he can, he's going to push and push and push while we're particularly weak and disorganized

00:19:07.000 because he's a dealmaker. He's always trying to get a better deal with everybody. So if you see

00:19:11.340 his weakness, he's going to go and try to get something out of that. And that's what he's doing

00:19:14.920 right now. And all these shots, these comments, which send a huge amount of Canadians, it gets Canadians

00:19:20.040 upset and get the Canadian elite all freaking out is very much designed to exploit that weakness.

00:19:24.840 The other thing he's doing is by picking on Canada, you know, the United States is longest

00:19:29.580 and closest ally and closest economic partner. When he's sending a message to the Europeans,

00:19:38.200 Japanese, and to other countries around the world, if this is how I'm going to stand up and treat

00:19:42.980 the part of the country we're closest to, you'd better get in line because when it comes to

00:19:47.680 negotiations for you with you on the issues that you we have with America and our trade,

00:19:52.620 it's going to be even tougher. So I think he's using Canada. He's exploiting the weakness and

00:19:56.720 he's using Canada as an example. It's so interesting. There's some stats from the Hub

00:20:01.620 this morning in their daily newsletter. And I just show them because it shows kind of Canadians

00:20:06.340 reactions. So it says here, these are their stats of the day. New Ipsos poll finds 55% of Canadians

00:20:11.740 think that Trump's tariff threats are just a bluff to get Canada to act on other issues. So maybe that

00:20:16.800 means that they don't think they'll actually fall through, that Trump would actually fall

00:20:19.280 through. 82% of Canadians agree that Canada should retaliate with its own tariffs if Trump

00:20:25.380 follows through. So that's what Daniel Smith is resisting. But it seems like almost all of the

00:20:30.500 other premiers are in consensus that that is a good idea. And then it says 77% of Canadians want an

00:20:36.120 immediate federal election so we can have a new government with a strong mandate to deal with

00:20:41.940 Donald Trump. That top one is I think most of interest there that 55% of Canadians think it's

00:20:48.560 a bluff. I guess we'll find out on February 1st. I don't think it's a bluff. I think this is going

00:20:52.800 to happen and it's going to be devastating. What do you think? Well, look, I'm not here to try to

00:20:58.080 predict what Donald Trump thinks or does because I don't think anybody's ever successfully going to

00:21:02.040 be able to do that. Certainly not me. But I will say this. He said the tariffs are coming in on day

00:21:07.820 one. It's day three. It's no tariffs. Now it's February 1st. I think he's looking for room for

00:21:12.780 negotiation. I think more time plays in Canada's favor. I don't know what's going to happen, but I

00:21:18.760 wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if we get 25% tariffs on February 1st, but I wouldn't

00:21:23.580 be surprised if we got something different. It could be 25% for Mexico, 15% for Canada, him announcing

00:21:29.720 he's going to wait until there's an election to see what happens. There could be a whole bunch of

00:21:33.260 different things that will happen. The saying that got thrown around a lot with Trump back when he

00:21:41.400 won the first time was that too many people took him literally but not seriously, whereas his

00:21:47.540 supporters took him seriously but not literally. Will he impose some sort of trade restrictions on

00:21:53.600 Canada? I absolutely believe that will happen depending on the time of negotiations. The time

00:21:59.060 an amount, I don't know. And I think when you listen to Trump on these things, the message,

00:22:04.480 the core motivation is very, very, very true. The specific details are often very much up for

00:22:09.840 negotiation. So whether we'll have, I think there's a chance we won't have 25% on February 1st,

00:22:16.560 but we could have something else. But his desire to get a better trade deal with Canada is absolutely

00:22:23.760 there. It absolutely should be taken seriously. And I think that's what Canadians should be focused

00:22:30.300 on. So I want to get your thoughts on this a little more. I had J.J. McCullough on the show

00:22:34.700 the other day, and he sort of discussed how he doesn't like that Canada attaches its wagon to Mexico

00:22:41.280 and that we have this sort of like team approach to dealing with the United States. He thinks that

00:22:44.900 the Canadian-U.S. relationship is totally different and that we should just ditch Mexico and go in on

00:22:49.740 our own. And interestingly, you know, we've seen because the federal government is so weak and

00:22:54.440 Justin Trudeau isn't really the prime minister anymore. I mean, he technically is, but he said

00:22:57.560 he was going to resign. So everyone knows he's on his way out. We've had premiers step in, like people

00:23:02.360 like Danielle Smith, who has gone down and met face to face with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. She was

00:23:06.460 there again for the inauguration. What do you think about that strategy? What do you think about the

00:23:11.380 sort of lack of any liberal government official being there? Like I didn't see any of them down at the

00:23:16.200 inauguration. Aside from Justin Trudeau's one visit down to Mar-a-Lago at the end of December,

00:23:22.420 we haven't really seen a lot of like Canadian federal people involved in these negotiations.

00:23:28.700 What do you think about the strategy there? Well, I mean, I think their strategy is terrible. I think

00:23:33.040 it speaks to the weakness of Canada. It speaks to the fact that they're focused on their own internal

00:23:36.680 drama. First, the fight of whether Trudeau would stay or go. And now that he's gone, the fight over

00:23:40.820 who's going to be the next liberal leader and prime minister. So they're very much focused on their own

00:23:45.740 drama. And they just don't have that much time for other things. So I think it's natural for the

00:23:51.320 premiers to step up. Premiers are very powerful in this country. We've got a strong federation that

00:23:57.380 the premiers have more say than in most countries in the world. So I'm not surprised they've stepped

00:24:02.780 up. And in a country like ours, it's not a surprise that a lot of premiers would have

00:24:07.200 relationships with people in the United States, both parties, often with senators or governors from

00:24:12.640 from nearby states, some of whom are now going to be in Trump's cabinet. And I think that it would be

00:24:18.060 very odd if the premiers weren't trying to. I can't think of a premier, especially not from a large

00:24:23.100 economically powerful state, province like Ontario or Alberta, who would just say, I'm happy to let

00:24:29.760 the prime minister do whatever. We'll just let Ottawa figure it out. It's a foreign thing. We're not

00:24:34.020 going to be involved. I think it's too important to get wrong for the livelihoods of too many Canadians

00:24:39.520 that the premiers aren't going to get involved in some significant way.

00:24:43.260 Absolutely. All right, Hamish, I wanted to talk about polling because I mean, you're a pollster.

00:24:47.080 You understand how these things work. I want to get your thoughts on it because this was making

00:24:50.880 headlines this week. A new ECOS poll from Frank Graves, a pollster, showed that the liberals have

00:24:57.500 gained 30 points following Trump's inauguration. So according to his poll, which came out on January

00:25:03.740 22nd, it still has the conservatives up at 38.5%, but it has the Liberal Party right there,

00:25:12.640 right behind it. You can see the bottom of that bar at 31.7%. How could it be possible? Are the

00:25:19.060 liberals all of a sudden polling at 32%? What's your take on this poll?

00:25:23.740 Well, that's certainly not the consensus from other public polls that we've been seeing.

00:25:27.840 And I think there's a couple of different things happening. One, I'm not surprised that the

00:25:31.840 Liberal vote is trending up a little bit with Trudeau gone, but also leadership races often

00:25:38.840 tend to produce slight bumps for parties having a leadership race, especially if they're in

00:25:43.980 government. Because what happens is when somebody says, well, you consider voting for the Liberal

00:25:47.680 Party, instead of imagining Justin Trudeau, who they might not like, or Carney or Friedland

00:25:52.380 or whomever they might have strong feelings about, they imagine a leaderless party with their

00:25:57.260 own perfect leader. And some of you'll go, well, but then when there is a leadership, whomever wins

00:26:02.220 ends up disappointing a chunk of those people and they end up moving away. So I'm not surprised

00:26:06.960 they're moving up a little bit. The Seacoast poll, I think, should be taken with a grain of salt.

00:26:12.060 It's conducted largely using demon dial IVR technology. What IVR technology is often very,

00:26:19.120 very good at, in my experience, is detecting the movement of the parties, but it gets the amount

00:26:24.200 of movement wrong. So if IVR shows a big 10 point swing for a party, it probably means they're up

00:26:29.920 two or three points, which I think is entirely reasonable, but not to the extent they are. And

00:26:36.100 we've seen that time and time again with IVR as a methodology. This poll has been getting some

00:26:41.180 criticism online because when people dug into the results, they found that close to, I think,

00:26:47.040 close to 60% of the respondents have university degrees. Whereas the actual number in Canada is under

00:26:51.800 30, and those people are more likely to be voting liberal. So we're seeing a large skew of highly

00:27:00.160 educated people in this poll. That's certainly what I've seen, and some people have dug into it.

00:27:05.440 Why is it that people with university degrees tend to vote more liberal? I mean, you and I both have

00:27:09.340 several degrees, and that makes me not ever want to vote for liberal. So why generally speaking? I know

00:27:14.680 it's a tangent, but I'm just curious, your thoughts on that. I think that there is a preference amongst

00:27:23.040 people who are highly educated for parties that declare themselves to be open-minded, that say things

00:27:31.780 like, we saw the Trudeau government talk a lot about how they were using evidence-based

00:27:37.140 decisions. And also that essentially say the world is more complicated than it appears,

00:27:46.460 and that we can't be too reliant on, you know, sort of old black and white view of the world.

00:27:56.220 And I think that sort of message appeals to people who are more highly educated.

00:28:01.780 Broadly speaking, everything I just said there, everyone can point, I'm sure, to 100 exceptions

00:28:07.480 to that. But I think that's broadly what happens. Whereas a conservative message that says,

00:28:15.440 you know, a great example would be sort of like, as I say, a tough on crime message to say, well,

00:28:19.540 no, you've killed someone, you should get life in jail. And suddenly someone who's more highly

00:28:25.260 educated, maybe someone with a law degree, starts saying, well, there's exceptions, you know,

00:28:29.340 why, you know, what were the circumstances around this, and start reading into it and avoid some of

00:28:34.760 those more sort of almost gut decisions, the things that we as conservatives and others really know

00:28:41.640 in your heart is true, that you don't, but that some people try to rationalize away.

00:28:47.160 Yeah, wasn't it Justin Trudeau that said that it was society's fault, that the Boston marathon bombers

00:28:51.880 decide to blow up innocent people running in a marathon? I mean, you have to have a university degree

00:28:56.440 to be that ignorant. I would just say that universities brainwash people, but it's just

00:29:00.980 like a mass indoctrination program, and that they should probably be defunded as well. I don't know

00:29:06.020 if this is a fair comparison. But when I saw that Frank Graves Ecos poll, showing the liberals were

00:29:11.180 up 30 points, following Trump's inauguration, it reminded me of the Ann Seltzer, Iowa poll that

00:29:17.540 happened during the race election. I don't know if you're following this, but a couple days before

00:29:20.720 the election just in 2024 here in November, Ann Seltzer, who is a very famous, very storied,

00:29:26.520 very trustworthy and reliable pollster, predicted that Kamala Harris would win. And she, well,

00:29:32.980 her poll did. She had a poll in Iowa, she's from Iowa, that showed Kamala Harris up three points. So

00:29:39.660 she had Harris at 47, Trump at 44, which would be the Dems up three. It kind of caused everyone to

00:29:46.340 stop for pause because, you know, I saw that poll a week before I would have said Trump's going to win

00:29:50.200 a landslide just based on what I was seeing and what I was hearing and my perception of everything

00:29:54.520 post even the assassination attempt. And then when I saw that poll, because obviously Iowa is a deep

00:29:59.920 red state, I thought, hmm, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe Roe versus Wade is going to be

00:30:04.660 the biggest ballot question again in this election. I don't know. Anyway, it had me questioning myself.

00:30:09.620 It turned out to be totally wrong. Trump ended up winning Iowa by 13%. The poll went so bad for Ann

00:30:15.720 Seltzer that she literally had to quit polling. She literally retired in disgrace after getting

00:30:22.180 the Iowa survey wrong by 16 points, missing it so badly. And not just that, Hamish, Trump is now suing

00:30:30.240 her for what he alleged to be consumer fraud. So let me just read a little bit from this news story

00:30:36.500 at ABC News. It says Donald Trump is suing Ann Seltzer, her polling firm, the Des Moines Register, and the

00:30:41.400 newspaper's parent company accusing them of consumer fraud, according to a copy of the filing. Basically,

00:30:48.940 they were almost saying this is something like election interference by trying to, I don't know,

00:30:54.820 cook a poll to give the Dems energy and to make Republicans maybe want to stay at home.

00:31:01.840 I don't know if that's what Frank Grave was doing. I'm not saying it is. Probably not. But just kind of

00:31:06.620 interesting that that happened with Ann Seltzer in that poll. What's your take on all that?

00:31:12.360 Well, I mean, you know, the business of polling has changed a lot, right? And, you know, in the old days,

00:31:18.360 the media used to pay for polls, but quite a lot of polls, like a lot of polls, you know, back in, you know,

00:31:23.120 the late 80s, the Globe and Mail would have a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars for polling in a federal

00:31:28.140 election. Now, the vast majority of media pay very little for polls, maybe in an election they do, when they

00:31:36.180 need something consistently. But a lot of them are given away, the polls are given away for free,

00:31:41.120 especially these things that are posted online. And like anything, you get what you pay for. You

00:31:46.160 know, a company, a lot of companies are going to put more effort into the work they have, where

00:31:50.080 there's a paying client who's, who requires, you know, a certain degree of accuracy, whereas free

00:31:58.260 polls. And that also means that the way the industry's worked is now easier to set, a lot easier

00:32:02.180 now to set up because the internet set up a polling company now than it would have been 20 or 30 years

00:32:05.980 ago. And as a result, more and more people are getting in who perhaps don't have as much

00:32:09.760 experience. It obviously doesn't apply to Ann Seltzer or ECOS, to be honest, but we are seeing

00:32:15.180 a lot more garbage polls turn up because it's easier to do it and people are doing it for free.

00:32:20.800 That said, I mean, look, I think polling in elections, I have some sympathy for Ann Seltzer.

00:32:25.840 Polling in elections is very tricky. I've done it a lot. It's very, very hard to be right all of the

00:32:30.760 time and to understand why you're wrong. I think that the real mistake that she made was afterwards,

00:32:37.080 she said, I'm actually, actually, our data was still good. It was just misinterpreted slightly.

00:32:42.520 And she sort of came up with this excuse explaining why she was still right, sort of.

00:32:46.440 And I think it would have been much better to say, you know, in Canada, the polling all says,

00:32:50.340 you know, is within this margin of error 19 times out of 20. Sometimes you're just kind of outside of

00:32:54.560 the margin of error. And if she stood up and said, look, I got this one really wrong. I'm going to go back and try to figure out

00:32:59.900 why. I think she would be in a better place than sort of saying, well, no, actually, our data

00:33:03.700 collection was good, but this and she's trying to make excuses. Sometimes when you screw up, you just

00:33:08.300 got to, you know, take the heat. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I followed Nate Silver in

00:33:13.980 the States as well. And he was, I think, one of the only pollsters that got Trump right the first time,

00:33:18.320 or at least allowed that possibility. On election night in the US, he was saying that his gut was saying

00:33:23.720 that Kamala Harris was going to win. And then she didn't. And then he just kind of disappeared for a few

00:33:27.560 days. And I was expecting him to come out and like, say, to his readers, like, hey, sorry,

00:33:32.240 I got it wrong. But he just he just didn't. I think some people have a hard time admitting when

00:33:36.480 they're wrong. Okay, so that that that Ecos poll is quite an outlier. Abacus poll also and also had

00:33:43.720 a poll out in the field at the same time. And they still showed the conservative at 46. And the libs at

00:33:50.360 20. No, that's that's wrong. Let's go to the next one. There it is. Yeah, the conservatives at 46.

00:33:57.100 And the libs at 20. And then if you go to the poll aggregator, 338 Canada, you see that the average

00:34:04.940 of polls still has the conservatives way, way up ahead at 45. And 21. So I don't think that these

00:34:11.340 polls are catching that same shift, Hamish. So do you think the shift is certainly happening? Or do you

00:34:18.700 think maybe, again, that poll was just such an outlier that it must be an error? As I said, I wouldn't

00:34:24.700 be surprised to see liberals drift up to maybe 23%. If that that polling aggregator shifts over the

00:34:30.700 next couple of weeks, I can definitely see it at 23. With Trudeau gone, I think that's a bit of a just

00:34:36.380 a lot, you know, I think people are done with the Liberal Party, but they were very, very, very much done

00:34:40.940 with Justin Trudeau. So I think him being gone will help the liberals a bit, not dramatically, but I think they

00:34:48.700 could go from 20 to 23. But frankly, I think once they get a new leader, whom some people will like,

00:34:53.820 and a whole bunch of people will dislike, I think we can see that number begin to drift back down again.

00:34:58.380 I am curious to hear your thoughts. Let's talk about Mark Carney for a few minutes, because he sort

00:35:03.980 of came out with his triumphant campaign announcement last week. Kind of oddly, he didn't

00:35:08.780 let any independent journalists into the room, even the ones that were local, like our own,

00:35:13.020 True North's own Isaac Lamoureux is an Edmonton boy. He was up there, and they just wouldn't let

00:35:16.860 him into the room. Obviously, Kian Bextie as well. And then he kind of disappeared, Hamish. I haven't

00:35:22.220 really seen much from him. I don't know that he's even come out. And maybe he came out yesterday and

00:35:26.300 made a short speech, but he's kind of gone dark. But I do think that he's sort of the dream liberal

00:35:31.580 candidate, because he's kind of like Justin Trudeau, except for he's obviously much smarter. Like,

00:35:37.020 I think that ideologically, he's exactly, you know, the net zero, the Green New Deal, the whole,

00:35:42.300 like, carbon tax, they shared the same core political beliefs and ideology. But Mark Carney

00:35:49.660 is a very accomplished person. He's very smooth talking. His appearance is much more sort of

00:35:56.620 traditional and establishment. I could see, I don't think that that appeals to Canadians. I don't think

00:36:02.220 Canadians like electing bankers to positions of power. We've seen a couple bankers try to run

00:36:07.820 in various positions, and they don't seem to do very well. But I could see the liberals, you know,

00:36:12.220 he's got the, he's got the Harvard, Oxford pedigree. He saw success in London, and Canadians

00:36:18.300 love it when, sorry, liberal Canadians love people who have been successful elsewhere, especially in

00:36:23.420 Europe, come back home. So I see Mark Carney walking away with this race. What's your perception?

00:36:31.260 Absolutely. I think Mark Carney is going to win this race reasonably easily. Once they release some of the

00:36:36.300 numbers around the membership or the sort of registered liberals that we're going to, we'll

00:36:40.460 secure that in the coming days, that'll give us a little more clarity, but I think it'll be pretty

00:36:44.780 easy for him to win. I think he's the sort of messiah candidate. Liberals love a messiah.

00:36:49.260 They don't actually, if you look back at the history of the Liberal Party, it's very rarely

00:36:53.660 a candidate who comes in and slowly builds and fixes problems. Maybe the last one might have done that

00:36:59.260 would have been Mike Pearson. But then it was, you know, Pierre Trudeau will fix all our problems.

00:37:03.820 John Turner will fix it. You know, people are fed up with the Pierre Trudeau. John Turner will come

00:37:07.740 in and change the channel and be completely different and change everything. And then,

00:37:11.420 you know, he didn't work. Clayton has a little bit of an exception to that. But Paul Martin,

00:37:15.180 Clayton is not popular anymore. People are getting fed up with him. Paul Martin will fix everything

00:37:19.260 and didn't work for them. Michael Ignatius will fix everything. You know, Justin Trudeau, he did win.

00:37:23.660 He did change things for them. But they have a very much of this messiah complex when it comes to their

00:37:28.700 leadership. And I think that's what we're going to see here. We need somebody different,

00:37:31.580 somebody not too associated with Trudeau, you know, and they're going to choose Carney.

00:37:36.700 You know, Carney's got obviously an impressive resume. There's not a lot of people have been

00:37:40.220 a central banker in multiple advanced economies. But I don't think he gets politics. I think the

00:37:50.220 political advice he's getting feels very sort of 20 years ago. I think of the fact that he's,

00:37:56.940 you know, his launch at this, his launch was weird and awkward, frankly, I didn't think it showed him

00:38:03.980 at its best foot. But and you know, now and you're keeping independent media out very, very focused on

00:38:10.540 the traditional media, in a way that they don't matter the way they did five years ago, much less

00:38:15.820 15 or 20. I really feel that he's running this this sort of sort of the last gasp of the old

00:38:23.180 liberal establishment. And this is going to be their last best chance to do something. And I don't

00:38:27.500 think he is going to, I think he's going to run into a buzzsaw of the, you know, the Pierre Polyev

00:38:34.620 campaign machine. I think the campaign machine that Pierre has built is, is very, you know, 2020,

00:38:41.340 it's a 2025 campaign, and we're going to see it in a way that is that people that people who are used

00:38:47.660 to campaigning the old way, don't know how to deal with. And I think that Carney's going to have a lot

00:38:54.220 of trouble with that. He's used to getting instant respect, as being this banker is being officially

00:38:59.740 nonpartisan, of being the smartest or the most influential person in the room. And he's going to

00:39:04.860 find that, I think, to your point that a great number of Canadians don't not even don't care about

00:39:09.740 that, but see that as a problem, not as an advantage for them.

00:39:14.700 Right. Like the zeitgeist. I mean, we have had a turn against institutions and experts and elites,

00:39:20.300 like we don't want to listen to them anymore. They're not right. The things that they're advocating

00:39:23.980 for us are anti-human many of the time. It kind of reminded me when you talked about how they thought

00:39:29.740 that Michael Ignatieff was going to be the savior. I remember I was on college campus at that time,

00:39:34.700 and the liberals were trying to make like Iggy mania happen. And, you know, I went and watched

00:39:39.340 him give a speech and I'm like, I don't understand how people can call it Iggy mania. This guy is so

00:39:44.460 boring and so uninspiring. I mean, he's an interesting professor, but as a leader of the party, no,

00:39:49.660 I feel that same way about Mark Carney. Like I watched his speech and I, I just couldn't get over how

00:39:53.980 low energy he was. It just reminded me of low energy Jeb running for the Republicans in 2015 and 2016.

00:40:00.700 Uh, interestingly, you know, Carney's trying to distance himself from Trudeau, trying to distance

00:40:04.780 himself, uh, from specifically the carbon tax. Uh, I thought it was interesting that, uh, Gilboa,

00:40:10.540 Stephen Gilboa, the, uh, environmental minister, um, you know, starts environmentalist. Uh, he came out

00:40:16.700 and backed Mark Carney as leader. Um, you know, in the past he had said that he was willing to leave

00:40:23.260 cabinet if there were exemptions and carve outs to the carbon tax. Like this is the most staunchly

00:40:28.220 environmentalist, uh, person in Trudeau's cabinet. Uh, he called himself a socialist

00:40:33.100 in the house of commons, which was a little weird. I almost wondered if he misspoke when he said that,

00:40:37.100 but the fact that he's out there endorsing, um, Mark Carney, what do you make of that?

00:40:43.500 And then secondly, I want to ask you, Hamish, do you think carbon taxes will be the ballot issue?

00:40:47.980 Cause it seems like all of the liberal candidates are running away from this record. Like everyone kind

00:40:52.140 of agrees and admits at this point, the policy is a disaster and it's harming Canadians, uh,

00:40:57.580 at a very difficult time for when it comes to cost of living. Uh, nobody wants it anymore. I know the

00:41:02.700 conservatives want to make this a central issue of the campaign. Um, but will it still be if all of

00:41:07.740 the other candidates also walk away from it? I don't think they are walking away from it. I think

00:41:12.220 they've made noises, but I haven't seen a single definitive proposal to replace it or get rid of it.

00:41:17.420 And I think, you know, when you, when you look closely at Jibo's comments, he says some, one of

00:41:21.980 the reporters asked him, you know, you said you will not, a carbon tax is necessary. You know, you

00:41:28.220 know, have you, has you, have you gotten assurances from, uh, Carney that there will still be a carbon

00:41:32.620 tax? And he, he didn't, he basically said yes without quite saying yes in that very politician kind

00:41:36.940 of way. Uh, I believe that, you know, both, uh, Carney and Freeland will roll out some sort of

00:41:43.020 rebranded carbon tax that we'll try, we'll try to explain away as actually being

00:41:47.260 better, uh, for consumers. Uh, and I, and I actually don't think, um, that it will be

00:41:53.260 persuasive because what they, what they don't realize is that the liberal party of Canada has

00:41:57.260 lost a massive amount of credibility in the minds of voters and will be seen as simply lying

00:42:03.340 about this. And I think it'll be very easy, uh, for Polyev to be able to say,

00:42:08.380 this is a lie. Of course he still, his alternative plan is actually going to cost you even more

00:42:13.420 with whatever it is that they roll out. Because at the end of the day, there's absolutely

00:42:17.020 no way they can put, um, a massive tax on carbon and it not impact, uh, the, the take home pay

00:42:24.060 or the out of pocket expenses of every single Canadian. It's just fundamentally, mathematically

00:42:29.260 impossible. Um, so even if they say, well, we'll put it all on polluters. Well, you know, then watch

00:42:34.460 the price of gas go through the roof. If suddenly every, uh, oil and gas company has to, uh, put a huge

00:42:39.820 target, uh, uh, tax on. So we will see that they're not going to run away from it. Um, uh,

00:42:47.420 because they still need it for some part of their base. They're going to call it something different.

00:42:51.100 They're going to dress it up, but I don't think it'll be different enough. And I think that, um,

00:42:55.100 Polyev and the conservatives will be able to act to be able to point it as a, as the scan that it is,

00:43:00.140 and that for the reason why it shouldn't be, uh, trusted. So we have a clip of Pierre Polyev saying

00:43:07.020 that this proof, Gilbo's endorsement proves that Carney is still committed and is still

00:43:11.660 radical. Let's play that clip. Make no mistake. This guy is just as, if not more radical than

00:43:19.180 Justin Trudeau. And today we got the proof. You'll never guess who's announced he's supporting Carney.

00:43:25.260 The most crazy self-described socialist in the government, Steven Gilbo, the crazy carbon tax

00:43:33.100 minister. This is a guy who has been arrested twice. Once for climbing on the roof of the

00:43:39.020 premier of Alberta to protest against the energy sector. A second time for climbing the CN tower.

00:43:46.540 He's wants to ban road building, nuclear power, wants to shut down the forestry sector because he

00:43:52.940 says that's the only way to save the caribou. He's against hydroelectric dams. And most important of

00:43:59.820 all, he said he would resign from the Trudeau cabinet if there was even one more exemption from

00:44:06.060 the carbon tax. He wants the carbon tax to apply on all fossil fuel energy and has said he would end

00:44:13.260 his career if it did not go ahead. Now, this is important because it means that if Carney were not

00:44:19.900 privately committing to him behind the scenes that he would keep the carbon tax, that Gilbo would not

00:44:26.140 be supporting him. So, I mean, you could just see Pierre is so worked up on this issue and really

00:44:33.500 effective. It makes you wonder, like, why did Gilbo come out and support Carney? Because I think that

00:44:39.660 kind of hurts Carney. So that kind of brings me to my next question, Hamish. Like, usually we see this

00:44:44.940 happening a lot on the conservative side. When you're running for leader of the conservative

00:44:48.300 party, you have an incentive to lean, like, hard right on policy and show, like, you're the truest

00:44:53.740 blue. You're going to go down with, you know, your policies are going to be based on what the base wants.

00:44:58.780 And then in a general election, you pivot because you have to appeal to all Canadians. I don't like

00:45:03.100 this. I don't endorse it. It drove me crazy when Erin O'Toole did this and kind of abandoned all the

00:45:08.060 things that he said that he was going to do. But it's a typical pattern on the Canadian right.

00:45:13.900 So far, Pierre Polyev seems to be bucking that trend a little bit and not doing that.

00:45:18.140 But now I kind of see that that could potentially be a problem for the Liberals. So the Liberals have

00:45:22.220 to run a leadership race where their base is still pretty left wing and pretty woke. And they want,

00:45:28.620 like, I would like to hear all the candidates what their position is on gender ideology and trans and

00:45:35.340 kids and all kinds of, like, social policies that have turned out to be really unpopular because they're

00:45:41.660 deeply wrong. What do you think about the idea that whoever wins the Liberal race has to first appeal

00:45:49.180 to the left wing base of the Liberal Party and then turn around almost immediately because it looks

00:45:53.740 like it will trigger an election almost immediately and, like, the next day try to craft a message that

00:45:59.020 appeals broadly to Canadians. Do you think that's going to harm the Liberals or what do you think is going to happen there?

00:46:03.660 So, because of the way the Liberal race is structured with these free memberships,

00:46:08.460 the fact of the matter is this race is going to be determined by mass sign-ups of people,

00:46:13.260 which are generally non-ideological. You know, the Conservative race is determined by

00:46:18.540 Conservative supporters paying $15. The people doing that are overwhelmingly the most conservative

00:46:22.860 and the most committed and movement Conservatives. This Liberal race is going to be determined by

00:46:29.180 people just signing up hundreds and hundreds of people online who may or may not know their members

00:46:33.900 and then figuring out a way to help those people vote for the candidate you want. I think this is not,

00:46:38.940 I think there's almost no ideology in this whatsoever. And the deals that are being struck to sign up

00:46:47.660 a hundred people or a thousand people by different power brokers are all around access. They're around

00:46:55.100 connections as opposed to around ideology and sets of issues. The one exception, I would say perhaps,

00:47:01.500 is the Hamas activists, the anti-Israel activists, who apparently I'm told are lining up behind Kearney.

00:47:09.420 I'm not sure, I don't have proof of that, but that's what I've been told. And I'll be interesting to see

00:47:14.700 if they sort of require him to come out and make some sort of statement in the days and weeks ahead.

00:47:20.140 We'll see about that. But I think, you know, the fact of the matter is I think they've, you know,

00:47:24.540 Kearney and Freeland have both discussed, you know, some change to the carbon tax or something like this.

00:47:28.940 They've already fumbled it. If they wanted to take the carbon tax to the earlier point,

00:47:33.100 if they wanted to take the carbon tax off the table in this election, both of them at their launch

00:47:37.500 should have said, I will eliminate the carbon tax as Prime Minister and being clear and definitive

00:47:43.420 about it and made it a central plank of their campaign so that Canadians know that's the person

00:47:48.300 who stands with it. And then they can, they can, they can very clearly say when Pierre brings it up,

00:47:53.980 they say, well, it was there, but I'm the one who got rid of it. I promise you I'm going to do it.

00:47:57.260 I'm getting rid of it. The first vote in the House of Commons is going to be to get rid of the carbon tax

00:48:01.500 and dare the Conservatives to vote against that. That would be the smart thing to do. The fact that they

00:48:05.660 haven't done that, they've got this sort of middled, well, we're going to tweak, tweak it, stay tuned,

00:48:10.140 see what happens. It's not a key part of their message. And we're going to end up with a simply

00:48:14.780 a rebranded carbon tax, which is, does not give them the electoral bump that they're looking for.

00:48:21.340 Well, I had you on my show just over a year ago, and I asked you in that interview,

00:48:26.940 will there be an election in 2024? At the time, I really believed there would. It just seemed to me

00:48:32.860 that the liberal consensus was falling apart, that Canadians were very angry, and that there would

00:48:37.340 be enough pressure on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh to pull the plug and call an election.

00:48:41.980 You predicted, much to my dismay and dismay of my viewers, that there would not be an election in

00:48:47.020 2024, and you turned out to be right. So I know pollsters, a lot of time, if you make predictions

00:48:51.500 and you get them wrong, you get your name dragged through the mud. Yeah, you got that one right.

00:48:55.180 I don't know if you get credit for getting things right, but I could believe it. I still can't believe it.

00:48:59.500 I still can't believe that Jagmeet Singh can look people in the eyes, can look his constituents and his

00:49:03.580 party in the eyes, saying that he's doing what's best for them by propping up this horrible liberal

00:49:07.660 government. I think it's so shameful, so disgraceful. I hope he leaves public life very soon and never

00:49:12.220 comes back. A recent poll shows that 77% of Canadians want an immediate election. They want a government

00:49:19.020 that has a strong mandate to deal with Donald Trump and his threats. Two thirds of Canadians say they're

00:49:24.700 confident in Canada's ability to respond to Trump, rising to 75% among older Canadians. 77% said that we should

00:49:31.580 have an immediate election. This is kind of interesting as well. Six and ten think that

00:49:35.580 Justin Trudeau should be leading the response over Canada's provincial premiers. If six and ten believe

00:49:41.740 it should be Trudeau, that means that four and ten don't think it should be Trudeau. Four and ten don't

00:49:47.340 think the prime minister of this country should be the one taking the lead in negotiating bilaterally with

00:49:53.740 the president of the United States. I read much more into that, that four and ten Canadians have such

00:50:00.780 little faith in Justin Trudeau that they don't even believe that our system of government represents

00:50:04.620 them and that they would rather just a premier's ad hoc going out and getting them. So if you could

00:50:09.100 look into your crystal ball, Hamish, and tell me when will the election be? Okay, so gun to my head,

00:50:15.740 I would say the 12th of May. This is a highly specific prediction that will almost certainly be wrong

00:50:21.500 to your earlier point, but looking at the parliamentary calendar, I think the 12th of May is the most likely outcome.

00:50:28.060 Can you walk us through why? Sure. There has to be a vote of no confidence on something called supply,

00:50:36.300 which is continuing funding for about 40% of the federal government's commitments. That has to

00:50:43.340 happen before the 31st of March. It has to, or on April 1st, that money stops flowing. Parliament comes back

00:50:49.900 on the 24th, the vote has to be on the 31st, I don't know when it will be, 27th, 28th, something like that,

00:50:55.100 I'm not sure exactly, but some point there'll be a vote. If there's a vote of confidence and if the NDP

00:51:01.340 keep their word and vote against the Liberals, the parliament will be resolved. The election has to be

00:51:08.460 held within 53 days, I think, 54 days, something like that. The 12th of May would be 40 something days,

00:51:18.700 going, an election has to be on a Monday, so it could be the 5th of May. I think the 5th of May is

00:51:23.260 the earliest. It could be the 12th of May, it seems more likely to me. In theory, it can't be the 19th

00:51:29.260 because the 19th is the Victoria Day holiday, and so therefore it would move to Tuesday the 20th.

00:51:35.820 I think people are not going to want to have an election on the Tuesday after a long weekend,

00:51:39.900 and maybe that's what they choose. We'll see. But I think the 12th of the way is the most likely.

00:51:43.660 This all depends on whoever the Liberal leader is not doing a deal with Jagmeet Singh.

00:51:48.780 And my controversial and terrifying statement is that if they do a deal with Jagmeet Singh,

00:51:53.900 it's not going to be to extend parliament for another few months. The NDP, I think,

00:52:00.220 are smart enough to say an election in May versus an election in October doesn't make a difference.

00:52:06.060 If the NDP is going to go back on their word, they're going to want something good for it,

00:52:09.660 and that means they would support the Liberals in exchange for getting rid of the Fixed Election

00:52:14.060 Date Act because by the Constitution, the election can go five full years and push it into 2026.

00:52:20.140 So my view is that I think the 12th of the way is the most likely, but if there's a deal between

00:52:25.900 the NDP and the Liberals, we're going to see an election in 26, not 25, which is horrifying.

00:52:31.340 I just, I can't get over that. I've seen conspiracies and people writing posts like that on X.

00:52:36.940 And I just, I can't fathom that happening, given the mood in the country right now.

00:52:41.740 Like, I see something like if that, if they try to do that, Hamish, I see something like

00:52:47.260 10 times bigger than the truck or convoy coming to Ottawa and putting pressure on maybe the prime

00:52:52.140 minister or maybe the governor general, maybe even the king, just like you cannot allow these

00:52:56.300 people to govern our country anymore. They don't have a mandate, like get them out.

00:52:59.660 Um, I don't, I don't even want to allow my brain to go there because I find that so terrifying,

00:53:04.620 but, um, okay, well, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll definitely have to have you on again in the

00:53:09.660 future, um, to follow up. Um, hopefully it's May, hopefully it's not 2026. Um, before we wrap up,

00:53:15.260 I thought we would, uh, do a fun segment at the end of the show here. Um, so this, this got a lot

00:53:21.500 of play on my, a lot of people were noticing this, uh, President Donald Trump was at the national

00:53:26.380 prayer service. So they went and did a religious ceremony the day after his inauguration.

00:53:31.180 And you probably saw this, um, the Episcopal Bishop in Washington, the right reverend,

00:53:36.060 Marianne Bood sort of went off track. Um, she deviated from scripture, um, to take a moment

00:53:44.220 to lecture the incoming president, um, and his administration. Um, and then just started

00:53:49.980 saying a whole bunch of woke, crazy stuff. So I want to play this clip for you here.

00:53:55.420 In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

00:54:07.180 There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in democratic, Republican, and independent families.

00:54:15.340 Some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office

00:54:26.620 buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat

00:54:32.620 in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They, they may not be citizens or have

00:54:39.500 the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

00:54:48.300 So it was a little strange and very off-putting to hear that. I, I want to just give a personal

00:54:52.780 anecdote because my husband and I lived in California for a few years. I'm an Anglican

00:54:57.340 Church of England in Canada. Um, but they don't have the equivalent of that in the United States.

00:55:01.820 So when we were looking for a church to attend, we were looking at the Episcopal Church because I

00:55:06.140 thought that that was kind of like the equivalent. That's sort of what you told it,

00:55:09.020 it's the American equivalent of the Anglican Church. Um, and I think that my husband and I

00:55:14.220 went to like six or seven different Episcopal churches in the Bay Area, looking for one that

00:55:18.380 was suitable. And the reason that we had to go to so many Hamish is because of this. We would get

00:55:23.660 this wherever we went. Now this was granted, it was 2017. It was sort of the height of Trump

00:55:28.300 derangement. Uh, but I, I heard those kinds of speeches. I heard, I heard them over and over again.

00:55:32.460 Interestingly, a lot of the Episcopalian churches in the United States, um, you, you look at the

00:55:37.100 prayer book they have and it's the same one as the United Church in Canada. So not, not the equivalent

00:55:41.580 of the Anglican. Although I will say that many Anglican churches in Canada sadly have gone very,

00:55:46.860 very well, but you don't go to church on Sunday wanting to hear political screed lecturing you

00:55:53.260 about immigration and trans and kids. I'm sorry. Like that, that's not the place of the church.

00:55:58.300 And those are not the correct stances, uh, for someone in the church. Uh, so, you know,

00:56:03.180 uh, kind of amusing to see that happen, looking at the faces of the Trump family, um, just kind of

00:56:08.620 like, what is happening? Why is this happening? Um, and then, and then hearing this woke lecture,

00:56:13.820 I just want to get your reaction. Like, what did you think about all of that?

00:56:17.020 My favorite is to watch JD Vance and that because right when she starts, he's sort of

00:56:21.020 looking down, he's looking at the, the, the program. He's not closely paying attention.

00:56:24.700 And she says a couple of words and he looks up like, oh boy, here we go. And he, and then

00:56:29.180 20 seconds later, he's kind of like, uh, he's rolling eyes, but you know, Trump sort of kept

00:56:33.500 his composure and his face didn't move, but JD Vance, you could read him like a book and it was,

00:56:38.140 it was fantastic. Look, I mean, um, uh, there's a, obviously a long tradition of trying to keep politics,

00:56:44.860 uh, out of churches in many ways originally for the good of the churches, um, because you start

00:56:49.340 making them political and then political actors can come and we'll start to want to start interfering

00:56:53.660 with churches. So in order for, for faith communities to protect themselves, they kept

00:56:58.220 out of politics. And I don't think that's, um, you know, I think that's not a bad instinct that's

00:57:02.620 served many faith communities well for hundreds and hundreds of years. Um, you know, I, I, I'm not

00:57:08.220 surprised if you, if you, to be honest with the state of the, um, you know, mainline Protestant churches

00:57:13.260 these days, you know, if you put a bishop up there for a mainline Protestant church,

00:57:16.460 I'm not surprised you get something like this. I think you might get something different from a

00:57:19.900 Catholic bishop or a leader in an evangelical community. Um, but you know, uh, if you put up

00:57:25.260 the moderator of the United church in Canada, you would get exactly this. Um, and frankly, the, who,

00:57:30.300 who, the, the, uh, the leader of the Anglican church in Canada probably wouldn't be that vastly

00:57:34.700 different either. So I think it says more about the state of mainline Protestant churches, uh,

00:57:40.060 these days in the sad state on an Anglican myself. And, um, you know, I, I find it all, uh,

00:57:45.660 all disappointing and it's, you know, uh, this sort of, uh, political politicization and jumping

00:57:50.780 on bandwagons, uh, I think is one of the reasons why, um, you know, the mainline Protestant churches

00:57:56.060 are continuing to decline and see lower membership. And I think, I think it's sad more than anything else.

00:58:00.780 Well, I, I just feel that way. Like I, I want to go to church. I like the community. I like the way

00:58:05.180 that I feel after going to church, but I just, I can't, I can't handle hearing bad political opinions

00:58:11.180 in when I'm in that state, when I'm trying to be focused on God. And I want my kids to be involved.

00:58:15.420 I want my family to be able to go. Um, but that, but that wouldn't be the kind of thing that would

00:58:18.940 make me get and walk away. I give them credit for not getting up and walking away. Although,

00:58:23.420 uh, Vance's face was a tell. So if you go back and watch that clip, so are the faces of all the Trump

00:58:28.620 children. You can see them all in the background. And Ivanka is just kind of like,

00:58:32.300 what is going on? Like horrified. Um, so it was, it was, it was, it was kind of amusing.

00:58:38.060 Of course, uh, Trump shot back and just saying that it wasn't a very good service and that, um,

00:58:42.620 it was very ungracious, which I will agree with. Okay. Well, we'll wrap it up that. Hamish Marshall,

00:58:46.860 such a pleasure. Always great to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. Have a great weekend.

00:58:50.860 My pleasure. All right. Thank you so much, everyone. I hope you have a wonderful,

00:58:54.620 wonderful weekend with your family and we will be back on Monday with all the news. Thank you so much.

00:58:59.340 I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm show. God bless.

00:59:02.300 God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - January 24, 2025

Trump & Milei HUMILIATE the WEF, the latest polls and federal Liberal comeback？ (with Hamish Marshall)

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