True Patriot Love - November 04, 2025


Budget 2025： Will Carney’s Plan Trigger an Election？ ｜ TPL Roundtable


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

189.5432

Word Count

3,473

Sentence Count

258

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi there, thanks for joining us. This very time tomorrow, we'll be sitting at a desk and we'll
00:00:11.620 be poring over what the budget means that will be presented in our legislature tomorrow in Ottawa
00:00:17.340 by Mark Carney. It's a little late and we're hearing that some belt tightening is going to
00:00:22.540 occur and that might lead to a voting down of the budget. Joining me to talk about that today,
00:00:29.520 TPL's very own Nick Dolinsky. Nick, thanks so much for joining us.
00:00:33.480 Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
00:00:34.860 You know, you and I have known each other a lot of years and just last week after having sent you
00:00:38.680 10,000 emails, I noticed that Nicholas is spelt with a K.
00:00:42.280 It is. That's true. It is with a K.
00:00:44.000 I want to tell you my embarrassment is mounting just telling you about it.
00:00:46.880 People have spelt it this way my entire life.
00:00:48.980 Well, the X and S is often mixed up in my name. So there you go.
00:00:52.580 Sure.
00:00:52.740 Well, look, thanks for joining me to talk about this because it's a pretty interesting point in Canadian
00:00:58.940 politics.
00:01:00.040 Yeah, it is. And I, like a lot of Canadians, don't really know the nuts and bolts of this kind of
00:01:06.320 stuff and how this actually works and what to expect really.
00:01:11.000 Yeah. Well, like you say, many Canadians just let what happens in Parliament happen.
00:01:16.500 But for some reason, this budget is really kind of on everybody's mind. I think mainly because it
00:01:21.900 seems outstanding.
00:01:23.060 Sure.
00:01:23.480 Like, it's almost like something we should have seen. We had a liberal government. We have a new
00:01:28.820 liberal government. They must have some paperwork they could share with us.
00:01:32.440 Yeah.
00:01:32.940 In that transition, we've seen nothing.
00:01:34.860 No, it's all a bit of mystery, right?
00:01:36.520 Yeah. And then, of course, we did a previous episode where we were talking about, you know,
00:01:41.780 how Mark Carney has traveled the world, essentially doing diplomacy and handing out a lot of money,
00:01:48.360 about $10.3 billion to various countries for various reasons. And he came back with one deal
00:01:54.380 that we can say is documented with Malaysia. Aside from that, not really much to show for it.
00:02:00.200 It seems like the consensus is that's pretty bleak. I don't think anyone's expecting to be blown away
00:02:06.240 by this budget. I think everyone is sort of going to be pissed off. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will
00:02:12.740 usher in the new era of Canadian greatness. But I suspect I'm not as optimistic.
00:02:20.260 I don't think many people are optimistic at all, actually. I think that just hearing that we're going
00:02:25.140 to have major infrastructure projects and, you know, at a time where we've lost so much industry
00:02:30.940 has just already vacated Canada, that this budget, it means something to Canadians. Okay,
00:02:37.540 so here's what I did. I took some notes. I wanted to be diligent about this to make sure that I
00:02:43.000 explained the process properly. Okay, so if the budget's defeated, it means that the government
00:02:47.140 has lost confidence of the House. Okay. And at that moment, the Prime Minister, he has to make a
00:02:52.500 choice. Either resign and let somebody else try to form a government. Oh, that's pretty heavy,
00:02:56.880 huh? Yeah. Or to let the Governor General, you know, he approaches the Governor General and asks
00:03:03.860 for an election. And almost always that means Canadians head to the polls because the Governor
00:03:09.440 General usually says, yeah, okay, go ahead and have an election. And nobody in this country wants
00:03:15.160 another election. Good point. Didn't we just do this so many times under the wrong circumstances?
00:03:21.420 Yeah, it seems like this is a pretty, these elections are not very popular.
00:03:26.520 So here's what happens at that moment. Parliament stops. Remember we prorogued a government not so
00:03:30.980 long ago? Yeah. We would be doing that again. So, you know, the government shifts into caretaker mode
00:03:36.940 and campaigning begins all over again. So nothing really happens. So here's the situation we're in.
00:03:42.700 We're going to get a budget and we almost have to go with it or we stop everything at a crucial point
00:03:49.460 in trade negotiations with the U.S. and go have an election. Yeah. And that's really not what we want
00:03:55.300 right now. We really want to see movement in this country in some regard. Okay. So here's the other
00:04:01.480 thing that I did. And, you know, maybe after the fact, we can graphic some of these. I thought to
00:04:07.080 myself, okay, what non-confidence votes have we had in the history of Canada? And it's an interesting
00:04:13.440 lineup, actually. 1926, Mackenzie King's government lost a confidence over a corruption scandal
00:04:18.980 and the governor general refused dissolution. And it led to an election that King later won. So he
00:04:26.960 came back on that. Were you around then? Yeah, that's very nice, Nick. 1963, John Diefenbaker's
00:04:35.500 government lost confidence after disputes over nuclear weapons. An election was called and Lester B.
00:04:41.760 Pearson took over with the liberals. Now, here's the one that caught my attention. In 1974,
00:04:46.560 Pierre Trudeau had his budget defeated and Trudeau called an election. And guess what he did?
00:04:52.020 He had a minority government and he won the majority for the liberals. Okay. So it was sort of a reverse
00:04:57.600 card. He actually, uh, yeah. And in fact, that's the scenario we're in right now. We have a minority
00:05:01.840 liberal government. If we call a non-confidence vote, you know, conservatives could lose or the block
00:05:07.900 really, who are the two going concerns, could lose seats and we end up with a majority government.
00:05:14.360 Okay. So this, this is, you think this is the most likely scenario that this would actually help,
00:05:20.700 this non-confidence would actually help the, uh, the liberals?
00:05:23.900 Well, there's a lot of discussion about this. I mean, first of all, will the block have a role in
00:05:29.980 this? If there's a non-confidence vote, will they vote non-confidence? I mean, they've got a good
00:05:35.240 stronghold right now. They've got a good voice in Quebec at the moment. They might like to run the
00:05:42.120 status quo at the moment. Okay.
00:05:44.200 And then conservatives, you think, okay, this is their chance to go grab a bunch of seats
00:05:48.700 and maybe flip the government. Not too likely in most of the ridings where they need the support,
00:05:55.560 they still don't have it. Okay. There's, there's still too weak to be really going into an election.
00:06:00.720 Well, they do great in the West, but in key markets in Ontario and Quebec and places like that,
00:06:05.440 no, they would still have a really difficult time. It would seem, I mean, who knows what would happen.
00:06:11.260 Um, and then the other thing is, well, let's look at the NDP. They're already starting to give
00:06:18.120 indication that they will abstain from the vote altogether, which makes me absolutely crazy.
00:06:23.480 Okay. Well, why is that?
00:06:26.220 I think it makes a lot of it because it feels cowardly. It feels like they they're doing nothing.
00:06:30.520 They're just fence sitting.
00:06:31.900 Absolutely. And, and really at a moment where they need to be representing their constituents and,
00:06:37.620 and showing government that they mean business, if that's what they want to do,
00:06:41.540 they're going to sit there quietly because they don't know which, uh, you know, which side of the
00:06:47.240 table to place or bet.
00:06:48.320 Okay. So if, if, uh, say, uh, abstaining was not allowed, how would they vote?
00:06:55.140 You would have to ask them. I mean, I, I don't know, but it would be great if they did something.
00:06:59.880 Sure. Absolutely. Would, would, would you think that they would side with, well,
00:07:03.800 we don't know the budget yet, so we don't know if they would side.
00:07:06.180 Well, they're actually talking in the news, uh, earlier today, I saw a clip, um, and their,
00:07:12.240 their whole thing is, well, you know, we're going to take the, the budget at face value.
00:07:16.500 We haven't seen it. So we don't know. And that, that, that, that, that, that, that,
00:07:19.100 they don't seem to have a game plan. You know, that actually feels the same to me with the
00:07:23.780 conservatives. If I may be honest with you, right. That if they had to be put into an election
00:07:28.700 position at the moment, they'd be better off complaining about the budget than actually taking
00:07:33.480 an election on at this moment where they may not have any better strategies.
00:07:37.400 They're saying Carney took their plan. So what strategies would they have?
00:07:41.760 Yeah. Well, it's, it seems like, um, well, this is the major complaint from, you know,
00:07:46.560 a lot of sort of typical liberals, uh, people like my parents and things like this, um, that
00:07:52.260 the conservatives have not really presented any kind of plan or any kind of, they've presented
00:07:56.560 problems, but not solutions. Right. This is the big, this is the big criticism. I think it's pretty
00:08:00.860 common is that they just, Paul Yev just seems to have a platform of complaining and he gets
00:08:07.140 a lot of support from that because people are, people are not happy with the current state
00:08:11.520 of affairs. So a lot of people side with them, but you know, there's just this, this other
00:08:15.740 chunk of the population going, okay, well, what have you done for me lately, Paul Yev?
00:08:19.500 What, what's your, what's your solution to this? I think as we got less information about what their
00:08:26.480 plan would be in that last election, that's where they started to lose. I mean, the polls for so long
00:08:32.900 showed that Paul Yev, I think the Trudeau hating was driving those polls, but so many of the, uh,
00:08:39.280 illegitimate polls out there. And I say that about many polls, although I think we'll start polling
00:08:44.720 right here because people seem to want to tell the truth to us. Sure. Having said that, uh, the polls
00:08:50.200 were huge for the conservatives. And as we got closer to that election, it wasn't long before we
00:08:55.760 were starting to discover that there wasn't a lot of meat on the bone. Right. And especially in their
00:09:00.060 key ridings. What do you think Nick is going to happen if the budget gets voted down? What do you
00:09:08.420 feel Canadians, where are Canadians at in their heart about this? I really can't say, but, uh, I,
00:09:14.540 I could say that it's, um, well, this whole thing is very dismaying and the whole thing
00:09:19.600 is very, um, um, you know, it's, it's so negative right now in terms of, uh, what this budget will
00:09:26.460 be in. And there just seems to be no hope in sight, uh, in regards to. What if Carney gave
00:09:31.940 you some clues about what was going to be in the budget? How would you feel a little bit
00:09:35.560 more relaxed about this? I'm not sure. I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not a big, you know, uh, maybe
00:09:42.060 not everyone watching would know this, but I, I'm, I'm, I tend to, I tend to lean towards
00:09:46.460 the left of the spectrum, left of, left of the liberals. Yeah. And so for me, you know,
00:09:52.140 uh, uh, uh, a liberal budget is probably a lot of, a lot of more, uh, neoliberal policy
00:09:56.960 and a lot of status quo kind of stuff that I'm not particularly excited about in general.
00:10:01.920 If they start cutting that budget, I wonder if the liberals do lose instantly, uh, lose votes
00:10:07.300 out there because so many programs, I mean, I don't know what they're going to do, except
00:10:11.960 bureaucracy has to become smaller. That's been on the cutting block. I think assumed anyway,
00:10:16.880 since day one, and then it starts to head toward programs and taxation, right?
00:10:23.560 Yeah. And I mean, uh, uh, I'm, I'm for programs in general, well, programs could include your
00:10:29.300 hospitals and proper care and nutrition, which actually elevate the country.
00:10:34.380 Of course, of course. And you know, my, my biggest, my, my biggest complaint, and maybe
00:10:40.300 this is off topic is just the w where is the left in Canada in any of this, who is speaking
00:10:45.700 for the left in Canada? Uh, we, we have this NDP party, which, uh, I, I don't know what they
00:10:51.980 do. Maybe it's cause I'm not, I'm not in tune. I'm not listening to them closely, but there's
00:10:55.980 this huge, you know, there's this huge desire for economic, economic populism, you know, around
00:11:04.360 the world. And we, we, I just find it very sad that we see stronger leftism in the States
00:11:12.020 than we do here. There's, you know, Bernie Sanders, AOC, uh, Zora Mondani getting a lot,
00:11:18.780 getting really popular in the States. These seems unstoppable at this point. Where, where
00:11:23.200 is the Canadian Bernie Sanders? It's so true. We all seem to be standing close to the middle
00:11:28.400 someplace. Yeah. And, and the NDP, you expect to be hanging off the ship on the left so far
00:11:35.700 that they can taste saltwater. Right. And, and it doesn't appear that way, or they don't
00:11:40.180 have any force of movement. Is this just strategizing? Is it just that this doesn't
00:11:45.500 seem like a popular time to bring up, um, say, um, public housing or perhaps holding the grocery
00:11:54.260 stores accountable, stop them price fixing and shit like this? Well, I think the budget
00:11:57.920 needs to show us some clear action. For example, are we putting shovels in the ground, you know,
00:12:04.320 and who's actually holding them accountable? Now, I think, you know, I don't lean far to
00:12:08.860 the left, although I don't lean far to the right either. I'm almost one of these people standing
00:12:13.620 in the middle with my head spinning, wondering who wants to have an opinion aside from nobody.
00:12:20.420 Right. We seem to have zero opinion on what the government is doing. And it seems to be doing
00:12:25.820 very little at the moment, to be honest with you. And then on the, on the opposition side of things,
00:12:31.420 we don't seem to have a lot of solution makers out there.
00:12:34.820 No, no. I, I, I, I seldom see any, um, productive solutions.
00:12:42.380 You know, I, I actually feel that if the NDP doesn't take action in government, it's time for
00:12:46.860 people to really look at them as a party for real. I don't even know if they should be a party. If
00:12:51.900 that's the case, because you go there, abstaining is such a weak stance to take. It shows your
00:12:58.140 constituents in a lot of ways that you're just non-conformist, not a solution maker.
00:13:03.600 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, it just seems like it's a, it right now, it just seems to be an anti-vote
00:13:08.040 to the conservatives.
00:13:09.260 I guess.
00:13:10.420 Yeah.
00:13:11.060 Although they don't profess that, I guess that that's their mainstay, right? They're not saying,
00:13:14.840 you know, we want to keep conservatives out of power necessarily. They're not saying they want
00:13:19.120 to keep liberals in power. They're sitting there and they're going for lunch.
00:13:23.880 Yeah.
00:13:24.940 That's what it feels like to me.
00:13:26.620 Yeah. Well, I, but I, I felt this way about the NDP for years now. Well, what have you done for me
00:13:31.980 lately? You know, Jagmeet Singh, what did he do? What did he say? Did he even say anything?
00:13:36.860 I think so many Canadians even feel that he just hung in there to get a pension.
00:13:40.000 Yeah. I think that's a common thread among people because as soon as he got that, he's gone.
00:13:47.400 Yeah.
00:13:48.160 Well, you know, not even really all that present now with the NDP as a supporter.
00:13:53.100 Now, if, if the NDP, you know, this is hypothetical, the NDP was disbanded. Would that, would that
00:14:01.040 leftist mindset carry over to the liberal party? Would they have to satisfy the left more with
00:14:10.120 their policies?
00:14:10.980 Or would it create a more libertarian opening out there where on the right people become
00:14:17.020 more extreme? And then on the left, uh, there's a gap that needs to be filled. That becomes a new
00:14:22.920 party of, of really left thinking people.
00:14:26.540 Right. And, and it's, it could also be said that, uh, the NDP is sort of, um, splitting the vote a bit
00:14:32.680 from, from the liberals. It's actually, they're actually taking votes away, just like the, the
00:14:36.600 Green Party in the United States where there was the whole fiasco with Ralph Nader and the 2000
00:14:41.000 election, stuff like that.
00:14:42.280 It feels like a destroyed vote.
00:14:43.600 Yeah. You know, I, I hate to say that. And, and I know, you know, I, I think it's easy to be,
00:14:49.300 uh, polarizing in politics, except right now, because none of the parties seem to be, have a
00:14:56.120 polar opposite solution. Then again, we have not seen a budget. We have not seen a plan at all from
00:15:03.880 this government. And it's been a lot of months, Nick.
00:15:06.780 Yeah. Yeah. It just seems like a mystery. And, uh, we, we, we've been waiting with bated breath
00:15:12.080 for months now for this budget. And, uh, I don't know. It just feels like a, it's, it's a ticking
00:15:16.880 time bomb for, uh, drama, drama, predictions. What gets cut? Hmm. I definitely think bureaucracy
00:15:24.760 gets cut, but not CRA.
00:15:27.260 Oh, of course, of course, of course. And, uh, it seems like immigration's on the, on the chopping
00:15:32.200 block. Um, say what, say what you want about that.
00:15:35.460 I think we'll be seeing increase in border security expenses and military defense. Cause
00:15:40.400 we've made a lot of commitments out there.
00:15:41.980 Is this just appeasing Trump? This kind of stuff feels like it feels like a NATO, uh, if
00:15:47.160 not Trump, then on the other side, it feels like, um, you know, trying to hold up a NATO
00:15:52.380 promise. I wonder if things will be mentioned, like the status of our military and how it needs
00:15:58.780 to be upgraded and updated.
00:16:00.100 That's, um, you know, cause we have people living in housing right now who are military
00:16:05.680 personnel that it is unsuitable for them to be living there. They've dropped, I don't
00:16:10.720 know if you know this, do you know the military dropped the health standards to become a serving
00:16:16.140 member of our military?
00:16:17.220 I think they did in the States as well.
00:16:19.180 I mean, how, who, I mean, I guess you still have to pass bootcamp or something.
00:16:25.960 Yeah.
00:16:26.700 No, no, no, you don't have to pass.
00:16:28.800 No. And in fact, if you, if you can't do it, they'll put you into a program to get into
00:16:31.700 better fitness, but you will still become a member of the military.
00:16:35.420 I mean, if it's, if it means that they have to go to a fitness program, I, I, if, and you
00:16:39.420 can't find physically fit people, I'd say, that seems fine to make, to make people fit
00:16:45.240 because of, uh, McDonald's and, uh, and sedentary lifestyle, I can see that this is an adjustment
00:16:51.620 to, uh, you know, okay, well now we have to actually, uh, uh, put them on, uh, you know,
00:16:56.200 the Jillian Michaels workouts.
00:16:58.380 Okay.
00:16:58.820 Well, if that's, what's going to happen.
00:17:01.060 Yeah.
00:17:01.500 I mean, if that's necessary, then sure.
00:17:03.140 Do you see Jillian Michaels workouts?
00:17:04.440 Yeah, the Jillian Michaels.
00:17:05.700 Remember those?
00:17:06.360 Yeah.
00:17:06.780 Of course.
00:17:07.580 Yeah.
00:17:07.720 You can do the, the 20 minute workout.
00:17:09.400 Yeah.
00:17:09.640 Yeah.
00:17:09.800 The 20 minute shred.
00:17:11.240 That, uh, yeah.
00:17:11.920 So a couple of the notes that I made were that I didn't think the conservatives, uh, they're
00:17:17.800 not going to be eager to, for an election because they win big in the West and rural areas, but
00:17:21.700 that doesn't guarantee them enough seats in Ontario and Quebec.
00:17:24.100 And they also don't want to go too soon and risk being seen as reckless and opportunistic.
00:17:28.940 Canadians don't really want that.
00:17:30.360 I think they must know that at this moment.
00:17:32.860 So what you're saying basically is that, you know, aside from the liberal political class,
00:17:37.860 there's not really much to be excited about unless you're, again, part of that liberal
00:17:42.140 political class.
00:17:43.320 Yeah.
00:17:43.460 I wonder what happens with this budget though, because if it cuts a bunch of people's programs,
00:17:47.300 I think some liberals are going to start to change their tune, to be honest with you.
00:17:51.060 We'll see, I guess.
00:17:51.900 All right.
00:17:52.320 Budget day is tomorrow and we hope that you'll be with us.
00:17:54.980 Uh, we will be posting on Wednesday.
00:17:57.620 So make sure that you're along for that ride on budget 2025, uh, brought to you by the liberal
00:18:04.200 party and Mark Carney.
00:18:05.720 Thanks for joining us right here on TPL.
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00:18:18.340 Thanks.
00:18:18.780 See you next time.