Polls are tight as Carney and Poilievre eye a 2026 election!
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Summary
Wyatt Claypool talks about Canadian polling in the context of a potential early election in 2026, and why he doesn't think it's a good idea at this point in time. He also discusses why the opposition parties don't really want an election in the spring or summer, but rather in the fall.
Transcript
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Ahoy everyone, Wyatt Claypool here, back to talk about Canadian polling.
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Today I want to discuss the numbers in the context of a early election sometime in 2026,
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whether it's the spring, the summer, or the fall. Because it's very obvious, despite the vote on
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the budget, that the opposition parties do want an early election. They just didn't want an early
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election that coincided with Christmas, because no opposition party wants to look like the Grinch
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party, ruining everyone's Christmas to talk about politics and campaign at their doors when everyone
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just wants to be with their families. You also had the NDP without a permanent leader and being flat
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broke, which also gave them an extra motivation to keep a couple of their MPs back to make sure
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the Liberal budget passed. The Conservatives also kept a couple of their MPs back, but that doesn't
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mean that somehow they like the budget or they don't actually disagree with the Liberals.
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I know there are some more PPC-aligned people out there saying the Conservatives betrayed everyone
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because two of their MPs didn't vote to defeat the budget. Well, even if both of the two abstaining
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Conservative MPs voted for it, the Speaker could have still broken the tie in favor of the Liberals.
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At the end of the day, it wasn't a good time for the Conservatives to go to an election anyways.
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They would rather take the Liberals on in the spring or summer when more promises are broken
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or when bad economic news comes out of one of the updates that the Liberal government does have to
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deliver. But right now, I want to talk to you about where the numbers currently sit, because although
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the Liberals have an advantage, despite how confident they've seen behind the scenes, I don't think they
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should want an early election. The December election would probably be their best chance of winning a
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majority. But things are much, much closer than they were during the last election. This is Angus
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Reid's numbers. They just show their chart over the last, you know, over the last year since January
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with polling updates every couple of months. And what you see is in March, March 25th, which was a month
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before the election, they had the race slated as being 42 percent Liberal, 37 percent Conservatives.
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They got the numbers pretty close to the April election. I think they overestimated the Liberals
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by a point and they underestimated the Conservatives by a point. And considering that, the Liberals
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shouldn't be sitting too comfortably knowing that back in September, the Conservatives were in fact
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leading them by two points. And now they're only leading the Conservatives by two points after a
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really bad news cycle for Pierre Polyev. I'm not saying the news cycle was justified. It was the
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stupid floor-crossing controversy where Chris Dontremont left and then the media played it up that there
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were going to be tons and tons of other MPs who may leave. Well, the book was kind of closed on that.
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Matt Gennaro was the only other person who was rumored as wanting to potentially cross the floor,
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and he just ended up saying he's going to resign sometime in the spring. And then two other
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Conservative MPs from Quebec who were rumored to want to leave came out and said, no, we are
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absolutely not leaving. We are not traitors to the Conservative Party. And so that's all over.
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And despite that really bad news cycle for Polyev, it wasn't fair, but it was the news cycle,
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he only ended up not like just dropping a little bit behind the Liberals in such a way where actually
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this would probably lose the Liberal seats. If the final result in the next election was 40% Liberal to
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38% Conservative, the Conservatives would gain seats and the Liberals would lose them. And if the Bloc
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Québécois jumps up to 8% from 6% and the NDP jumps up to 9% from 6% as well, they would also both be
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gaining seats mostly at the expense of the Liberal Party. So I don't think the Liberals will actually
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improve from here on. Because the Liberals are relying on the idea that by simply announcing a bunch of
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stuff, you're going to like them. Now that may work as a campaign strategy in the extreme short term, but the
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problem is if we enter a spring election or a summer election or a fall election in 2026, and the Liberals don't
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have any substantial real achievements under their belts, I don't think that many Canadians are going to bother
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casting a vote for them. Because I think that voter enthusiasm is going to remain quite high for Pierre
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Polyev in the Conservative base, where Mark Carney was the guy you voted because you didn't like Donald
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Trump, and that was a stupid narrative the Liberals generated in the last election. It was really well
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done. They did get a lot of people driven out to vote for them. They did win the popular vote and the
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most seats. But it's not a trick, I've said before, that you can really pull off twice. You can't run against
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boogeyman Donald Trump two times in a row when clearly your own domestic policies suck and it's
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the main thing that's causing people financial friction in their lives as individuals. But now
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I want to move on to some other polling numbers, this time from Nanos. Now remember, Nanos itself
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is a pollster that tends to have a little bit more of a liberal sample. But their polling these days
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shows, again, a very tight race like Angus Reid. I'm using polling Canada's graphic for this one.
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And they show, with a sample size of 1,000 people and a margin of error of 3.1, so this is a statistical
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tie, the Liberals are at 40%, Conservatives at 38%, NDP at 10%, Block at 7%, Greens at 2%, and PPC at 1%.
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I genuinely don't even think the PPC is going to get 1% of the vote next time. It is a defunct party.
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There's just nothing really going on with them. But with this poll, 38 to 40, Sheree Attis actually
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ran the numbers on this one to see what this would actually get modeled out to. And he's one of the
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best polling projectionists in the country, despite just being 17 years old. Like, he was very close to
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getting the ridings right in the last election by just compiling polling data and then putting them
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through his model with a bunch of other factors he adds in. And he would model out an election where
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the Liberals would get 156 seats, the Conservatives would get 143, Block would get 30, NDP 12, and Greens
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2. That would mean the Liberals would lose 13 seats, Conservatives would lose 1 seat, Block would lose
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8, NDP would gain 5, or sorry, Block would gain 8, NDP would gain 5, and the Greens would gain 1.
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And that's what I've kind of been speculating would happen. I think the Conservatives could
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potentially pick up seats just in that particular model they were losing. But the Liberals are actually
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losing a lot of votes back over to the Progressive left and to the Quebec Sovereignist left. Because
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by trying to make a budget that pleased everyone, Mark Carney did a fantastic job in pleasing nobody.
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The spending was way too high in order to convince former Conservative voters who cast at least one ballot for
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Kearney in 2025 that he is fiscally responsible. But he also cut too much around public employees and
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operating budgets to make a lot of the more progressive left voters who ended up abandoning the NDP in 2025 to
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vote for Kearney to actually keep them around. I think a lot of those people are going to think, oh my goodness,
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he's too conservative. I have to go back and vote for whoever the NDP leader is going to end up being. And the NDP leader is
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really going to make a difference here. Because when you look at polling around who you prefer as Prime
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Minister, the NDP is woefully low because they are a first rate non-entity right now. This was Nanos' polling
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when it came to the leadership of the country. Who would you like to see? Oh, sorry, I'm trying to find it.
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Yeah. Who would you like to see as Prime Minister? Now, Kearney actually hits 50%. 50% of people want
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him to be the Prime Minister. Now, that's not very surprising considering that, heck, he just got
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elected as Prime Minister six months ago. And a lot of people taking these surveys will just default to
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say, well, I guess whoever just won should probably be the Prime Minister. But even then, as we see in the
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national numbers, it doesn't seem to matter very much. But the only thing I want to focus on
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is Don Davies' number. He's the interim NDP leader, and he's only polling at 4% for preferred Prime
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Minister. Now, again, I just said it doesn't really matter that Polyev is falling below Kearney. But the
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thing is with the NDP and why they need a very, very bombastic leader is typically speaking, even though
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it's an impossibility pretty much that the NDP leader will be Prime Minister. Typically in previous
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polls, even when Jagmeet Singh was the leader of the NDP, the NDP would punch pretty high up in the
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preferred Prime Minister polls. Sorry, Jagmeet Singh, although Nenshi would also basically poll exactly
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Jagmeet Singh, Jagmeet Singh could get 18% or so. Pretty much anyone voting NDP would also say they
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prefer him as the Prime Minister. This is a poll where the NDP got 10 points and only 4% of people
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think that Don Davies should be the Prime Minister. So hopefully the NDP end up picking a very big
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personality who will end up sucking away a lot of the progressive left vote of the Liberals that they
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ended up stealing from the NDP in the last election. I would like to see it be Heather McPherson because
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she's not really going to do damage to Conservatives in the local area because Alberta, where she is a
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MP, is too conservative to really be affected by her being on the ground as the NDP leader. But
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she is so, you know, she's very popular with the pro-Hamas hyper-progressive urban crowd that I think
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she would do a lot of damage to the Liberals in the GTA, in the Vancouver area, in Montreal, all that
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sort of thing. Anyways, but now I also just want to jump over to polling when it comes to issues. Now,
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I don't love the way Nanos does this. I like the way that Abacus does it where you get to pick a few
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different issues as your top issues because no one really just has a single top issue. But in this
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poll, it shows that Trump and US relations as major issues for people continues to drop. That Trump in
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the US has fallen to 17%. It's fallen by 1% since they last did a poll. Jobs and economy holds at 17.
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Inflation fell a little bit to 8. Healthcare jumped up to 8. Immigration jumped up to 7 from 5. Environment
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fell from 5 to 4. Debt and deficit fell from 5 to 4. Housing fell by 1 point. Education jumped up by 1
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point. And crime is at 1. Now, again, I don't really like this particular way of polling top issues
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because I feel like people have a few top issues and making them decide on one kind of confuses
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people. But in Nanos polling, Trump and US relations used to be above 30%. This used to be
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a massive top issue. This is why the liberals started winning the 55 plus voter. Now, if you're above the
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age of 55 and you're watching my show, you're probably conservative. But you would have to agree
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a lot of people above the age of 55 watch a lot of mainstream media and they obsess a lot about Donald
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Trump because that's what Canadian mainstream media talks about all the time. The fact that
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we've effectively had that issue fall in half for the liberals means that they're going to have to
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run on something other than Trump derangement. And now the liberals don't really have a record to run
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on. They're trying to manufacture a record to run on by signing fake trade deals and by trying to just
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announce a bunch of hollow projects. But that's not really something I believe is going to be making
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people run out of the house and slam a vote in the ballot box for them. Now, I just want to jump over
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to this clip of Pierre Polyev talking about Mark Carney on the economy. I think that this was sort of
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Pierre Polyev positioning himself for the next election, talking about the hollow achievements
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of Mark Carney. And I think this is probably the right thing for him to do. You can't go too bombastic
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because you have to wait for the liberals to really mess up to go hard on them. But I think that
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this light mockery of the sort of gamesmanship, the showmanship of Carney is a good idea.
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What are Canadians getting for the 28 trips, 150,000 kilometers, enough to circle the world
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four times that the prime ministers build back to Canadians? Well, he met with the Americans and
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they doubled tariffs on our steel aluminum autos and tripled them on our forestry. He met with the
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Chinese who increased tariffs on our farmers and fish harvesters. He met with the Indians. They
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increased tariffs on Canadian peas. He met the Brits and they're keeping their blockade on our beef.
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Why is it that whenever the prime minister gets on a plane, Canadians end up paying more tariffs abroad?
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That's good news for Canadians. Germany just signed a...
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Of course, Mark Carney is not the one who tries to answer this question.
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One billion dollar deal with Lockheed Martin, Canada to support jobs right here in this country.
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This is what Canadians are getting from the prime minister being on the world stage.
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He got a one billion dollar deal. The most money they can say was invested was a one billion dollar
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deal. Now, that's nothing to sneeze at. That's a lot for one company to give. But the problem is
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there's not a lot of other companies giving money. And the defense sector investing in Canada is not
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that shocking considering it's a very much a government driven industry. You don't have a
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lot of private armies around Canada. So if the Canadian government's willing to dump money into
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supporting the defense industry in Canada, they're going to show up. That's fine. That's a, that's an
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achievement. But I'm not sure if a lot of people are, again, running out of the house to like slam dunk
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a, like a ballot in the ballot box because Lockheed Martin is setting up shop and doing one billion
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dollars of extra business in Canada. Selling what Canada has to offer. Unlocking new markets
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and creating good jobs here in Canada. The prime minister billing millions of dollars for his
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high flying trips around the world. 28 trips, 150,000 kilometers. Now is the time for a scorecard.
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The Americans have increased tariffs on Canadian autos, aluminum, steel, and lumber. The Indians have
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increased tariff on our peas. The Chinese increased it on our farmers, our fish harvesters. Now, allow me to
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introduce a comprehensive list of all the tariffs the prime minister has successfully had. Oh, and by
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the way, they're yelling at him because he's now introducing a prop into the house and this is
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somehow bad. He's holding a sheet and this is violative of the rules. Produced on Canada.
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Yeah, so I think that the conservative strategy going into this next election, maybe I'll start off
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with the bloc. The bloc is very easy. The idea is that they did not negotiate with them. This
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government would love to ignore Quebec. And so you need even more bloc MPs in parliament to make sure
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that the liberals do not get a majority government and can fully dismiss Quebec as a concern.
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Now, the NDP needs to say this government is anti-worker. This government is too conservative.
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They're secret Harper conservatives. And so you need more NDP MPs to make sure that the public sector
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union worker is not all like, you know, they're not all laid off and fired in order to try and reduce
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the Carney deficit. Now, the funny thing is Carney blowing out the deficit. And that's where the
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conservatives can go after this guy for being a spendthrift fool, somebody who pretends like he's
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a big shot, but doesn't actually know what he's doing and being a complete weakling when negotiating
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with the Chinese, with the Americans and with pretty much everybody else. Now, I don't think that
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you need like this hyper elbows up fighty approach with the Americans. In fact, when you're dealing with
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Donald Trump, be nice, look for a win-win scenario, and basically try and be seemingly as team America
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as possible. We're Canada, but we're cheering on America from the sidelines. That's what you end up
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doing with the Americans. But the conservatives can say that Mark Carney has been basically doing
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the worst of both worlds. He acts like a weakling at the same time he talks tough. He'll talk tough,
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tick Trump off, and then act weak in the aftermath and get absolutely nothing out of it, but give more
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concessions just to get back to the table. And so then the conservatives can also just go after
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all the hollow things he's been doing and the very peevish elitist character of Mark Carney.
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I know like there's people out there like Rupert Supramania saying you shouldn't attack
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Murkfield Asset Management. It's in fact a Canadian institution and a success story.
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No, it isn't. It's not like it's not. They're not. Are they evil? No, it's it's a company that's very
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much targeted the subsidy market, the grant market. Anytime there's government money going
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into an industry, Brookfield Asset Management is at the other side of the pipeline with their mouths
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open. They know how to line up in order to get into industries where you couldn't possibly fail
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because of all the taxpayer money being just absolutely launched into it. But the conservatives
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in terms of the electoral map, I think need to focus on the GTA digging into those suburban GTA
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neighborhoods, not downtown Toronto. They need to focus on southwestern Ontario, and they need to
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focus on places like Brampton and Mississauga by just having better candidates in those areas.
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There were far too many kind of pompous community leaders who ended up kind of using their sharp elbows
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to move themselves to the front of the line and try and woo Pierre Polio's people into appointing them,
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many of whom were not actually popular individuals in the area. There is a reason why in the writing of
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Brampton East, Jeff Lall, who ran for the PPC, doubled the PPC vote. Now, the PPC performed
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pathetically last election. They got 0.7% of the vote. But Jeff Lall took them from 2021,
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only getting 2.5% of the vote in Brampton East, so it was an underperformance compared to the rest of
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the country. He doubled the vote because there were too many Hindu candidates who ended up getting
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kicked out in Brampton and Mississauga, and many of them basically stayed home, or if they did show up,
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they voted for the PPC, to the point where if there was a Hindu temple in the polling district
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in Brampton East, if there was a Hindu temple in a polling district, the PPC was getting like 15%.
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Most Hindus didn't even vote, but if they did vote, they voted PPC just because they resented too many
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of their people getting kicked out. Now, I want open nominations, but just make sure you don't kick
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out people needlessly who didn't deserve it just simply because other people in the community
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basically said, well, we're not going to support you if you let that guy be the leader or be the
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candidate, and way too much of that went on. But that's what the conservatives need to do in Brampton
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and Mississauga. So again, target GTA, target Brampton and Mississauga, and I know those are in the GTA,
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but it's a little bit different than like the York areas. Southwest Ontario, and then hit the Okanagan Valley
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and hit the lower mainland really, really hard. Anyways, well, that should be it for me today in
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this video, guys. No doubt, I will be back someday with more comprehensive polling video. I'm out in
00:19:15.660
Victoria right now working at the legislature for the 1BC party. Hey, if you're in British Columbia,
00:19:21.280
please look at the 1BC party, check us out, join the party. We're actually conservative, unlike the
00:19:26.760
BC conservatives. But while I've been out here, I don't have my whiteboard with me and all that stuff.
00:19:32.200
So it makes making videos a little bit more annoying. But hopefully, you guys don't mind
00:19:36.580
this. And hopefully, just the sound of my voice is enough to make you watch even if I get a bit
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boring. But with all that being said, thank you for watching, like, share, and subscribe. And I'll see