Liberal strategists admits Carney has NO WINS in government!
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Summary
A new poll from Abacus data has the Liberals ahead of the Tories by 7 points in the polls, but it doesn't really tell us much about what's going on in the rest of the polls. In this episode of the National Telegraph, Wyatt talks about why the polls aren't telling us much, and why we should be worried about it.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and welcome back to the National Telegraph YouTube channel.
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Although Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals are currently flying pretty high in
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the polls right now, one of the things that's coming down the tracks towards them is the fact
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that they really haven't accomplished anything yet. And when I say the Liberals are leading in
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the polls, we do have to discount the crazy polls showing them like plus 13, plus 15. No,
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the Liberal Party is not ahead of the Conservatives by 15 points. Public opinion does not move like
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that. The Liberals have an edge because Donald Trump has been in the news lately, so it has moved up
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the issue of Trump and his administration in the polling, which means more people are rallying
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around the current incumbent government. We have this new poll out from Abacus Data that shows the
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Liberals ahead of the Conservatives by seven points. Here are the regionals, although even then I don't
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think the Liberals are ahead of the Conservatives by seven points. I think it would be fair to say
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they're ahead by four points. Also, the Quebec sample tends to look a little bit wonky to me,
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both Ontario and Quebec. I don't think the Liberals are ahead by nine in Ontario, and I do not think
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they're ahead by 19 points over the Bloc Québécois in Quebec. Actually, it was pointed out by Cade right
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here. I'll bring this back up on screen. The reason why I don't quite trust their Ontario samples,
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and they had a big Ontario sample. I give it to David Coletto and Abacus Data. They polled a thousand
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people in the province of Ontario, but Cade here, who is a polling analyst, much like Sheree Attiste and
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the Great Canadian Bagel, he points out the Liberal Party of Canada is plus 30 in the City of Toronto,
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but the Conservative Party of Canada is plus 12 in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. So that feels
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like they probably just had a crazy Liberal urbanite sample. Way too many elbows up Liberals
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ended up getting into the sample, which threw the whole thing off, and maybe that was even an
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overpull for the Conservatives in the GTA. But every once in a while, based on the news cycle, sometimes
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you have it that Liberals are far more likely to pick up the phone or answer an online survey
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than the Conservatives. That's what we call a response bias. There is a bias in who is willing
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to respond to the survey. That doesn't mean that Liberals are passing each other the links to the
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surveys and they're all taking it artificially. That's impossible based on the way these pollsters
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do things. What would be happening is just more so because of the way Liberals feel at the time,
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they become 80% likely to take the survey, whereas Conservatives are 60% likely to take the survey,
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which throws the balance off a bit. But this is basically to say the Liberals are still ahead,
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but it's because of the issue of Trump. Now I want to get to a video from CPAC, which is the state
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broadcaster that does all of the parliamentary broadcasting. Whenever you see question period
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clips that is being taken by CPAC, they also have these little panel shows where strategists talk
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about politics. And I found it very odd that in this clip right here, we actually have the Liberal
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on the panel admit that Carney doesn't have any actual wins right now. And like I said, that is the
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fundamental problem for Carney. He is ahead in the polls right now because Trump is in the headlines,
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but that is a temporary bump that Carney gets. Now, maybe if an election occurs, maybe the bump
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happens at just the right moment that it carries him into a majority government. But if he doesn't
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get the Trump bump, well, he's going to have to try and rely on his record. And there's pretty much
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nothing actually there. But before I get into this clip, guys, I just want to remind you that if you
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like the show, make sure to leave a like on this video, subscribe. If you are not yet a subscriber,
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leave a comment about what you think about all this. And if you guys want to help try and financially
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support the channel, you can hit the join button below the show. It makes the channel more sustainable
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for me and allows me to be less reliant on the YouTube algorithm. A great example of what I mean
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by that is a few days ago, I made a video about the BC Conservative leadership race and the overall
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polling in British Columbia right now. That video is quite long. I went into a lot of detail and talked
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about every single one of the BC Conservative leadership candidates. But because it's not
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exactly the most spicy video of all time, it doesn't do that well. But those who want to know
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information about the race do appreciate that stuff. And by having that monthly support by the members of
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the channel, it allows me to do a video like that knowing it's not going to be super friendly to the
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algorithm. Anyways, let's get into this. I want to first go to the Conservative on the panel,
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hear him describe Mark Carney's performance in terms of any wins, any accomplishments he's gotten
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done. And then I want to jump over to the Liberal and show you how similar what both of them say are
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on a fundamental level. That is exactly where I want to pick it up because, you know, we're
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approaching the first break week of this year. We are just a couple of weeks away from the first
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anniversary of Mark Carney becoming the Liberal leader. So that's where I want to begin. In terms of the
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assessment of what this government has been able to do. Has Mark Carney, has his government lived up
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to what it campaigned it would be in the last election, Cole?
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So this is Cole Hogan. He is the Conservative on the panel. And again, I'm going to let him run
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through. He's going to say a lot of stuff that you and I would agree with. I think he's a great
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commentator. But I then want you to remember what he said and then match it up to what the Liberal
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says. Now, the Liberal is going to say everything in a flowery way, but she's not going to factually
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And I think there's a few things they need to do to really, like we've mentioned before on this
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program, demonstrate those wins. And there is a spirit of cooperation on Parliament Hill right now.
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So, you know, the Conservatives voted for Bill C-5, the major projects bill. They voted for the GST
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bill the other day. They actually put forward a unanimous consent motion to push forward the GST bill
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even faster. And they're willing to work on, well, I think Pierre said they'll vote for anything that
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makes groceries more affordable. And they're willing to work on the crime bill as well. So I think right
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now we're not anywhere near an election for all those reasons, because I think the Conservatives
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see that they need to meet the moment in terms of cross the aisle cooperation. But Mark Carney in
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particular and the Liberals, they really do need some to demonstrate some wins on the domestic front
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because there really isn't anything measurable that we can point to. They had a housing
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announcement that was completely buried by the EV strategy because the government has only built
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about 7,500 houses when they need to build about half a million by each year to keep up with
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population growth. So if they don't get any major wins on the domestic front, it's going to be pretty
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hard to go back to the electorate and ask for a majority mandate. Now, I also just want to quickly
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talk about what he just said there about kind of conservative strategy of, you know, voting with the
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Liberals. It is actually very smart right now for Polyev to be voting with the Liberals on much of
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this stuff. Because the thing is, the GST rebate really isn't going to do all that much. And you
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could say, well, that's it's bad policy, the Conservatives should vote against it. The problem
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with voting against it as the Conservatives is then if it gets defeated, or you're not part of it,
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it looks like you're blocking benefits for Canadians, that you don't want people getting the grocery
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rebate. Now, the rebate's silly. I think it's going to cause more inflation. I think also a lot of
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people are going to be ticked off that they're not included in it because it's only for the bottom 30%
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of income earners. But the thing is that it's worse if you're the Conservatives and you don't vote for it
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because the Liberals get to go into the next election saying the Conservatives are trying to block
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all the benefits that Mark Carney's trying to give you. And so they're basically, that's where it
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becomes a little bit of a game of cat and mouse. They don't want to go to an election on the basis of
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blocking at least surface level popular Liberal legislation. They would rather it be over
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something really big the Liberals are doing. And even then, it kind of steals the accomplishment
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away from the Liberals because it becomes a unanimous thing. And if it doesn't work out very well,
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the Conservatives said, well, we gave you our votes, we let you pass it without any friction
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because you thought it was going to be so helpful. And it turns out it wasn't just like we said.
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But now let's get over to the Liberal on the panel to make my point that even the Liberals
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What would you say about, you know, living up to the promise? Really, and dovetail that
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with the accomplishments that you would say the Liberals have been able to accomplish under Mark
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Yeah, but I think to the point of where the polls set, I think he has been very successful
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and he's told Canadians what he was going to do and more importantly, who he was going to be.
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See, now you can already feel the pivot happening. She's about to get to the point where she just
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admits he doesn't actually have a lot of wins right now. But immediately she's just saying,
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well, we know he's doing a good job and that he's what Canadians want because the polls show that
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he's doing quite well. Okay, well, that's different because the polls are the way they
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are because of Donald Trump and because Canadians will naturally or people of any country will
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rally around the current party in power when opposing the at least imagined threat of an outside
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force. Now, I don't actually think that Trump's a massive threat to Canada. And I think our
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negotiators on trade have been terrible. But to the average Canadian who's not a big political
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watcher, they see it as a Trump-Carney conflict. So they're more willing to vote for Carney.
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So I would disagree with Laura Pennell here, who is acting like somehow the polling is a direct
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reflection of the polling is somehow a reflection of Mark Carney's performance. It really isn't. It's
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complete outside factor driving this. But then notice that she says, well, you know, he was honest
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about who he is because he's not honest about his actual accomplishments because he hasn't
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accomplished the things that he promised to do. So instead, we're going to do this like, well,
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you saw in the glint of his eye that he wasn't going to do the things he said he was going to do
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and you're happy with it anyways. He has been very successful and he's told Canadians what he was
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going to do and more importantly, who he was going to be. Oh, who he was going to be. Oh, we don't
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actually care about real accomplishments. We care about who he was going to be. But let's get into the
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accomplishments section of this. And that these are extremely and I hate using this word like
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unprecedented or challenging times. And they wanted someone who could roll with the punches and be a
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steady at the helm of the ship. And I think that's what they're getting. And so I understand and I agree
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that they're going to have to find some wins in the levels over the next few months. These promises
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that they've made on infrastructure, on housing and cost of living are going to have to start to roll
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out. But I also think so that's that's hilarious. So she talks about how well, Mark Carney has been
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the steady hand on the wheel of the ship and Canadians appreciate the fact that he's, you know,
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firm or he's some they talk about him like they're describing a mattress. Well, he's very firm,
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but soft. And he's always there for us at night. It's like, but then she moves into the you know,
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but he does kind of have to start moving on all these accomplishments and get something done on
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housing, health care, affordability, all this stuff, you know, pretty much everything.
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Name me the place where we're doing better. Even areas where we need to spend more on the military.
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Well, yeah, he's earmarking more to be spent on the military, but we still haven't
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actually improved the military in any way now. Housing starts are down. Inflation's way up.
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Jobs are down. Manufacturing jobs are way down. And now we even have certain liberal MPs
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like Jenna Suds and Bruce Fanjoy in the Ottawa area having to now oppose their own Prime Minister
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Carney and say that they oppose his back to work order for their for federal workers,
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because those two ridings are kind of the outskirts of Ottawa. They're not exactly
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attached to Ottawa directly. And a lot of federal workers moved out to those ridings and Mark Carney
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wanting workers to go back to work, which is something I actually agree with. You should be
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present in the office to work your federal job in Ottawa. They're actually having to push back on him
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because they technically never ran on that. And that's going to start taking off a lot of those
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liberal voting public sector workers and may push them over to the NDP if Carney's not careful. Now,
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he's right to tell the workers to go back to work, but the liberals are doing like the problem is that
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this is considered like a conservative thing to do. And the liberal base doesn't want him to do
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those conservative things. But anyways, I'll let her keep going here. Canadians see that leadership
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and that steady helm. I think people right now are very stressed at home. They're scared at home.
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There's a lot of noise on the news right now, and he gives people a lot of confidence. And so I don't
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think we should kind of discount what that is. And I think he's looking at this in generational wins,
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and he needs to find a way to to find those more immediate political wins. Okay, it's generational wins.
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So he's not actually going to get anything done right now, even though if you just cut taxes,
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our economy would be doing fantastic overnight. If you just cut taxes, everything solves itself.
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So many problems are just a problem of how bad the taxes are. But to occupy generational wins,
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that's basically saying, well, you know, he's focused on the wins that come eight years later,
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aka, he's not going to do any of it. He doesn't have to actually accomplish it because he'll just say
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in eight years when he's not prime minister, oh, well, you know, the thing that the conservatives are
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doing that's working, that was because of something I did during my prime ministership.
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She is right, he doesn't have any immediate wins, and he'll need them. As soon as Trump is out of the
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headlines, you will start to see the polling go back towards the mean, which is probably around
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a tie ballgame. And as we saw in that abacus data poll, the problem with a lot of the liberal polling
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is that it's all bound up in the sort of Toronto area, not even the GTA, just Toronto, just Montreal,
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just, you know, some of the other big cities in Winnipeg and in Vancouver. And that's a lot of
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seats. The problem is, is if you start losing the southwest of Ontario pretty hard, or you start
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losing seats in Brampton, Mississauga, Hamilton, on in the Maritimes, you'll lose a couple other seats
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in the lower mainland, Kelowna gets recaptured by the conservatives. Now, it's pretty impossible to
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actually win the election, you can sweep all the Vancouver ridings, all the Montreal ridings,
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all of the Toronto ridings. But if you start losing the GTA, the Maritimes, and you start getting
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cleaned up in the north in the southwest of Ontario and some of these other places in British Columbia,
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now the conservatives are getting to that point where they're 10-15 seats away from a majority
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government or even at a majority. Anyways, but with all that being said, thank you guys for watching
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today. You know, this was just a bit of an overview of that one clip I wanted to go over and talk about
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sort of the dynamics of the next federal election because a lot of people are seeing the Liberals
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far ahead in the polls and they think that this is permanent. They're not. One, the Liberals are not 15
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points ahead like what you'll see with ECOS or what you'll see with Main Street Research. They're not
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behind, but they're not ahead by that much. And when we understand that why they're ahead,
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you wouldn't want to be Mark Carney right now, not in the sense that, of course, you want to be
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whatever party is leading, but in the sense that it's not like this is some sort of lead that you
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should be jealous of. It's temporary because like with Trump in the last election, when Trump pops up
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in the news, the Liberals rise. But if he's distant from the news cycle for a month or so,
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the Conservatives come back up and oftentimes they start leading. You would rather be the party
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that's winning on the issues rather than the party that only wins if Trump happens to pop up
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in the headlines again. Anyways, well, with all that being said, thank you guys for watching.
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Like, share, subscribe, comment, and I'll see you all next time.