HANNAFORD： 'Palpable Western anger,' if the Liberals win a fourth term
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
155.09854
Summary
After three years of being like a government in waiting, the Liberals are back in the polls, and are expected to call an election any time soon. What s the reason for the change in fortunes for the Liberals? And what s the role of the ballot question in the election?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
00:00:23.020
of the Western Standard. It's Thursday, March the 20th. With me today is political consultant
00:00:29.280
Jaroslav Paran. He's principal of the Pendulum Group, and he's been doing hands-on politics
00:00:35.400
in Ottawa, in government, and out of it for more than 25 years. Jaroslav, thanks for joining
00:00:40.180
us again in this interesting moment. Always a pleasure to be here, Nigel.
00:00:45.160
Well, thank you very much for coming back. Look, it's a very interesting thing that's just
00:00:52.300
happened in the polls. After three years of the Conservatives being like a government in
00:00:58.640
waiting, the Liberals have now called up, and I think they're even at about 37-point-something
00:01:03.820
percent in the polls. Now, we're expecting an election to be called any time. What just
00:01:15.280
Well, I think a number of things happened. First of all, Mr. Poiliev has enjoyed a commanding
00:01:22.940
lead in the polls for almost two years, and that was largely rooted in the post-pandemic
00:01:30.200
inflationary environment that we had in the Canadian economy and globally. Suddenly, everybody
00:01:37.640
was concerned about cost of living, cost and availability of housing, and these were really
00:01:43.100
serious concerns as people saw that their paychecks were doing less and less for them. Mr. Poiliev
00:01:48.940
had first-mover advantage. He started talking about inflation well before anybody else. And
00:01:54.000
even when he started talking about inflation, everybody thought the guy was crazy. Like,
00:01:57.480
what? We don't talk about inflation in this country. And then it really materialized as
00:02:01.580
an issue, and people recognized that, oh, this guy's got his finger on the pulse of the needs
00:02:06.480
of Canadians. So he then took off like a rocket and maintained a commanding lead. Now, a couple
00:02:14.180
things happened since then. First of all, Mr. Trudeau announced his departure early in January,
00:02:21.840
and a lot of the hostility, a lot of the anger was personally embedded in Mr. Trudeau. And
00:02:29.640
it seems that almost a weight was lifted once he finally announced, okay, okay, finally, I'm going to
00:02:35.680
go, I'm going to go. You guys win, I'm going to go. And so that took a lot of the, that took strain
00:02:41.600
off the depressed numbers for the Liberals. And then another thing happened almost immediately
00:02:47.000
after Donald Trump. He assumes his new role as president of the United States and immediately
00:02:51.840
came out swinging and largely against Canada, threatening a trade war, already imposing certain
00:02:58.040
tariffs, threatening more tariffs. And that really created a bit of an insular defensive posture
00:03:05.380
among the Canadian electorate. Now, and Nigel, if we kind of look back at how things happened over the
00:03:13.020
last couple of years, during the pandemic in Canada and internationally, we were seeing incumbent
00:03:20.780
governments getting reelected almost as a rule. Why? Because when people felt uncertain, when people
00:03:28.100
felt anxious, there was a, there was an instinctive reaction to vote for the people, you know, vote for the
00:03:34.280
people who are empowered because at least, you know, it was a sense of comfort in, in the post pandemic
00:03:40.400
environment, it was the opposite inflation, supply chain problems. And the general rule was throw the
00:03:48.140
bums out in Canada and internationally. We saw governments losing left, right, and center. There's a
00:03:54.020
yearning for something new. So now in the Trump era, Canadians feel embattled again. And there appears to
00:04:00.580
be a bit of an instinct to go with, you know, stick with the guys, you know, stick with the people who
00:04:05.680
are currently in charge, they're on it. So that contributed as well. And then, of course, you've
00:04:11.180
got the honeymoon effect of a new leader. And Mr. Carney was just elected liberal leader. And he gets all
00:04:16.900
kinds of free media attention all of a sudden, and none of it was really all that critical. It's just free
00:04:21.620
exposure. Okay, I think you've already ticked the answer to my next question. But I'll ask you,
00:04:34.740
That's, that's a really, really critical discussion to have now. The ballot question right up until
00:04:41.560
January was cost of living and inflation. And that gave Mr. Mr. Pauly of a distinct advantage.
00:04:49.960
The ballot question now seems to be shifting, and it's shifting more towards who is best positioned
00:04:56.900
to defend Canada, protect Canadians' interests in this ongoing tension between Canada and our biggest
00:05:06.340
ally and trading partner, the United States. So, so far, Mr. Carney has been scoring some pretty okay
00:05:12.740
points, partly because he is the Prime Minister. So whenever there's any kind of a response to the
00:05:18.460
latest, you know, the latest, whatever coming out of Washington, all eyes, all cameras are on Mr.
00:05:24.200
Carney. So that's given him a bit of a, a bit of a boost. And we'll see how that ballot question
00:05:28.420
evolved. I think given how things are looking and have been looking for the last, for the last month,
00:05:34.980
the ballot question probably going to stay Donald Trump, but it's going to be a mix because people
00:05:40.760
still have not forgotten, uh, the impacts of inflation and a lot of the things that really
00:05:46.400
soured them on the outgoing, uh, Justin Trudeau government. So it's going to be a bit of a mix.
00:05:53.720
So it seems that we have, uh, an electorate that personifies government in the person of the leader.
00:06:02.360
There was Mr. Trudeau. We don't like Mr. Trudeau. Uh, now it's Mr. Carney. He doesn't make us feel
00:06:09.700
quite as anxious and uneasy as, uh, as Mr. Trudeau did. And yet, if you were to go one step backwards,
00:06:18.160
you would say, wait a minute, how do the liberals, because we're talking about a party that is, uh,
00:06:24.380
continuing and, you know, leaders come and go. How do the liberals who have so trashed the Canadian
00:06:30.680
reputation over the past 10 years? You know, first of all, we were just a post-national state. We had
00:06:36.860
no defining national identity. That was Mr. Trudeau in, uh, the New York Times, uh, very, very early
00:06:42.960
after he had been elected. And then you see the, the trashing of Canadian symbols, the, uh, desecration
00:06:50.280
of the statues of, for instance, of John A. MacDonald, arguably probably one of the greatest statesmen of the
00:06:57.300
19th century. But, uh, disregarded in the country that he actually managed to cobble together,
00:07:04.520
interestingly, as a reaction to pressure from the South in the 1860s, right after the American Civil
00:07:12.300
War. You know, a great man, but when the statue came down and the head came off, the government just
00:07:19.120
said, well, yeah. Okay. He was actually a, a racist, you know, had to do with the residential
00:07:25.660
schools. And everything, everything that was great and good and powerful and strong in Canada
00:07:31.760
was dismissed by the past government over this 10 years as being inconsequential or perhaps bad for
00:07:38.440
you. Now, suddenly we get a, like in the 1860s, we get a threat from the South. And oh my goodness,
00:07:46.700
we're called to, we're rallied to the flag and called to arms and so forth. How do they get away
00:07:52.180
with that? Well, you know, the, the liberal party does have a very strong survivor instinct.
00:07:59.220
And what we're seeing right now is a very, very aggressive push by the Carney team to demonstrate
00:08:06.060
that this is new. This is a new government. It's a break from the past. And they're doing all kinds
00:08:12.400
of things to make that case. He slimmed down the size of cabinet. He announced an end to
00:08:18.900
the reviled consumer carbon tax. Now we can still have a debate about whether the carbon
00:08:24.680
tax is gone. I would argue it's not. It's, it's more of a superficial, you know, bandaid
00:08:31.540
to try to hide it more than anything else, but he's claiming it's gone. They're also saying
00:08:36.720
things like where we've stopped focusing on identity politics and we're squarely focused
00:08:41.060
on the economy. So these are, these are overtures to try to appeal to conservative supporters.
00:08:47.220
And at every turn they are describing, describing themselves as the quote unquote new government
00:08:52.660
of Canada. So they realize that they need to distance themselves from the Trudeau government.
00:08:58.620
And they're trying to do that really, really aggressively. Question is, is the country going
00:09:05.080
to go for it? Are they, are they going to buy that line by the end? Because, you know, look at things
00:09:10.360
like the new cabinet. It's 80% recycled ministers from the Trudeau cabinet, for example. Is, is Mr.
00:09:18.860
Carnegie to successfully sell the idea that this is something new? And you know what? Also he's got a
00:09:26.200
number of liabilities that have not been tested yet. First of all, he's, he's new to politics.
00:09:34.060
He, yes, we can, you know, we can recognize that he's had a distinguished career and he's done,
00:09:39.580
you know, impressive things in Canada and in the world, but he's done that as a technocrat.
00:09:45.700
He's never run a meaningful campaign anymore in a truly adversarial environment. Running in a campaign,
00:09:52.340
when the spotlight is on and the pressure is on, you need to think on your feet. You need to often
00:09:58.740
pivot in the middle of a media scrum. You need to have a thick skin. And we haven't seen that yet
00:10:05.440
for Mr. Carney. In fact, so far we've seen some evidence that he's got a pretty thin skin.
00:10:10.460
He had some, some pretty testy exchanges earlier, earlier this week with some journalists when they
00:10:17.440
tried to pin him down on a couple of issues that he'd rather not talk about. Things like conflict of
00:10:22.200
interest and moving the headquarters of his previous company out of Canada. Things that are not going
00:10:29.520
to look good on him in a national election campaign, especially when you're trying to be Captain Canada.
00:10:35.540
Yes, that was a remarkable moment. I mean, the, the CBC are frankly, the friends of the liberal
00:10:39.820
government as well. They might be. And then to pick on Ms. Barton like that, it was, it astonished
00:10:46.260
me. It just seemed like a very bad first move in dealing with the press in the run-up to an election
00:10:52.540
campaign. People who, who know and tell me that they weren't as surprised as I was, that that's
00:10:59.060
just perhaps getting into an area where I can't provide you a citation. But it was an old thing
00:11:04.880
to happen. And if that's the style of government that we're going to see, um, one more reason for
00:11:11.820
Canadians, I think, to take a very close look at this man. But while they're doing that, if you were
00:11:17.220
advising the conservative, uh, conservative party, are you in fact advising the, uh, conservative party?
00:11:25.080
Oh, no, I don't have a formal role with the, with the upcoming campaign. Yeah, I'm, I'm in touch and, and I
00:11:32.080
know what they're up to, but I don't have a formal role on the campaign. So, okay. If you were advising the
00:11:37.040
conservative party, and having just laid out what you've laid out, which are the advantages that the
00:11:42.740
liberal party, some of us might say, have unworthily inherited, what would your advice be to Mr. Paliyev?
00:11:50.600
Well, number one is do not underestimate the anxiety, the fear, the discomfort among Canadians with
00:11:59.260
Donald Trump. Yes, he's done some good things. He's announced some good things, mostly in terms of
00:12:06.180
American domestic policy. But when it comes to the trade war, the tariff war, uh, threats of annexation
00:12:15.360
of Canada and so on, people are really genuinely concerned about it. And so they should be, uh,
00:12:21.540
tariffs are going to hurt Canadians are going to hurt individual people. They're going to hurt
00:12:25.860
businesses. They're going to hurt entire sectors. So we, we cannot underestimate the anxiety that the
00:12:32.740
public feels and the conservatives will have to focus squarely on that issue. This works very well
00:12:40.340
for Ontario premier Doug Ford. He called an early election. He wrapped himself in the flag. He portrayed
00:12:46.580
himself as captain Canada. I'm going to be the strong leader who's going to defend Canadian interests.
00:12:51.380
And we've seen Mr. Paliyev start to do the same thing. I think that's got to continue. Um, now if I could
00:12:58.260
just touch on one more thing about Mr. Carney though, Nigel, we talked about his style and his thin skin so
00:13:04.820
far in dealing with reporters, but it's not just style. It's also a question of substance. There are
00:13:14.180
legitimate questions to be answered about the fact that he as chairman of the board of a multi-billion
00:13:22.420
dollar, huge Canadian business success story Brookfield asset management. He moved under his
00:13:28.820
watch. The headquarters moved from Canada to New York city, Donald Trump's hometown. Um, he, he tries to
00:13:37.380
dismiss that. It's all, whatever it was a business decision. It doesn't matter. Things like that.
00:13:42.340
But in this climate where we've got a resurgence of Canadian patriotism and by Canadian movements
00:13:50.980
and all of that sort of thing going on, it's not going to be a good look for the incumbent now
00:13:57.460
prime minister to say, ah, whatever, who cares about, you know, where, uh, where my corporate
00:14:02.660
headquarters was, you know, who cares if I moved it out of Canada to the States? It doesn't fit the
00:14:07.940
narrative of trying to be captain Canada. And there's also the other issue of conflict of
00:14:14.660
interests and asset disclosure. Uh, we also, again, we saw him snap at some journalists for
00:14:19.780
raising this the other day. Um, under Canadian rules, a new, a newly elected newly, uh, a newly
00:14:28.180
appointed cabinet minister, which is what he is, has 60 days to disclose all of their assets.
00:14:33.860
This is true for any prime minister, for any cabinet minister. And he's saying, yeah, sure.
00:14:37.780
No problem. I'm going to, I'm going to meet that deadline. Problem is that 60 days comes
00:14:42.740
after the election campaign. So throughout this entire campaign, Canadians are going to be in the
00:14:47.380
dark about what he holds, where he holds it and where there might be conflicts of interest. What
00:14:53.780
kinds of issues would it be inappropriate for him to be involved in, in terms of policymaking?
00:15:00.740
He doesn't seem to think this is a big deal to keep this stuff under wraps until after the election.
00:15:06.100
I'm not sure Canadians are going to agree with that.
00:15:07.860
You know, those people who follow it carefully will not. Do you think enough people will actually
00:15:17.860
lose themselves in the weeds of conflict of interest and investments and so forth? I mean,
00:15:24.740
for a lot of people, that's way over there, way over their levels of interest.
00:15:29.140
It may be, but 36 days is a long time for the Conservatives, for the New Democrats,
00:15:38.660
and for the Bloc Quebecois to hammer away saying, you're trying to be Captain Canada. You moved
00:15:47.300
the headquarters of one of Canada's biggest countries out of Canada, and you refuse to tell us
00:15:53.780
where you might be in a conflict of interest. Those two twin issues could hang him for 36 days
00:16:01.460
and erode the, you know, some of the glow that he's experiencing right now.
00:16:06.340
We'll certainly see whether he's got a sense of humor or not, because if he gets out and after the
00:16:10.740
CBC question the other day, maybe not. Look, the other thing that concerns people out West,
00:16:18.420
especially, is that although Mr. Carney's opening actions have been to
00:16:26.820
cancel, apparently, the consumer carbon tax, which is great, but it seems to us a little strange that
00:16:35.860
this has been like an article of faith for all these years, that climate change was the ultimate
00:16:46.340
issue, and that all sacrifices to reduce carbon emissions were necessarily justified, and if they hurt,
00:16:53.460
well, guess what they were intended to? And now there's an election, and oh, well, actually, yeah, we can
00:16:58.260
drop that. So there's a certain insincerity about that, which many people have observed upon, but
00:17:04.740
once he's got, once he's back into office, is it going to then revert to all climate change all the time?
00:17:12.900
Well, you're quite right in noting that not only has he traditionally endorsed the carbon tax,
00:17:20.340
he made it his own personal mission to try to sell the Canadian carbon tax model around the world. He's
00:17:27.940
on record saying this is the model that every other country should adopt. So to do a 180 degree turn on
00:17:35.220
that, especially in something of a gimmick fashion with this big ceremonial signing of this piece of paper,
00:17:41.380
doing a prime ministerial directive, something that isn't really anything. It's just sort of a memo.
00:17:50.660
It seems like the Pope saying, well, actually, Martin Luther had a point, you know, I mean,
00:17:55.940
it's not credible. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's also at best a partial elimination of the carbon tax.
00:18:02.900
It's still going to be embedded on an industrial level throughout the supply chain, therefore still
00:18:09.300
raising the costs of consumer goods across the country and on just about everything you can imagine.
00:18:17.300
So I'm going to give you the national unity question. If the Liberals somehow secure a fourth term,
00:18:22.260
what would you anticipate would be the reaction in Alberta and Saskatchewan and right through the West generally?
00:18:31.460
You know what? It's hard. It's hard to imagine. There will be palpable anger, I think,
00:18:45.460
in many parts of the country because this is, you know, we can we can say the leader is new,
00:18:52.660
the prime minister is new. But at the end of the day, this is a continuation of almost 10 years of
00:18:58.740
liberal government. And all governments have a natural life cycle. At a certain point,
00:19:05.060
the public says enough, enough, like go away already, we need something new. If they get reelected,
00:19:11.700
and largely on the strength, it's a fact of life in Canadian politics, largely on the strength of
00:19:17.220
Ontario and Quebec, there are going to be big pockets of the country outside of Ontario and Quebec
00:19:23.060
and say, what the heck? Like, how can this be? And we've had it. So I'm a little bit worried about
00:19:30.500
the national unity implications should this government win. But Nigel, if we still have time,
00:19:44.580
Go ahead. In the polls, we're seeing we're seeing a bounce for the liberals. We're seeing
00:19:51.860
posts leadership high for Mr. Carney. But twice in federal politics, we had a similar situation.
00:19:59.540
In 1984, the Pierre Trudeau government was deeply unpopular. He recognized that he stepped down and
00:20:07.620
they brought in John Turner as the Messiah. He's the savior. He's going to bring back the liberal brand.
00:20:12.900
And you know what? Same thing. Same thing happened. Instant bounce in the polls. They were
00:20:17.620
neck and neck again with the conservatives. But by the end of the campaign in 1984,
00:20:22.820
they crashed and burned and the conservatives won and they won with the landslide. And again,
00:20:29.140
in 1993, Mulroney was deeply unpopular. They brought in Kim Campbell as their Messiah.
00:20:37.220
Suddenly, the polls rebounded. She was hugely popular, flirting with 50 percent in the polls.
00:20:44.260
But by the end of that period, by the end of the campaign, crash and burned, wiped off the electoral
00:20:50.100
map. So that to me tells that that to me says that when a government is at the end of its natural
00:20:56.740
life cycle, when it's time to throw the bums out, Canadians will, in fact, throw the bums out.
00:21:02.660
So we should live in hoax, shouldn't we? My word. That's the best comment I've heard on this
00:21:09.300
situation for all the time that it's been current. Look, where do you think that,
00:21:14.660
we don't know this yet, but where do you think Mr. Carney will run?
00:21:18.500
Oh, geez, that's a good question. I hadn't even thought about that yet.
00:21:24.980
Yeah, I guess I guess so. I'm guessing he'll probably run. Is he going to run in the Northwest
00:21:30.820
Territories? That's where he's from originally. But the Liberals have an incumbent MP there who
00:21:35.060
may not want to give up his seat. So, I mean, the most appropriate place for him to run would be
00:21:40.820
somewhere in downtown Toronto, hanging out with his Wall Street buddies or with his Bay Street buddies.
00:21:47.380
That seems to be where he's comfortable, but I guess we'll see. And a bigger question also is,
00:21:54.180
if he wins a seat, assuming he will, but loses the election, is he going to stick around? Somehow,
00:22:00.900
I would be pretty surprised to see Mark Carney decide, yeah, I've decided to go into public
00:22:07.140
life and I'm going to stick it out as leader of the opposition for four years
00:22:11.140
under a quality of government. I'd be really, really surprised if he stuck around.
00:22:16.180
Well, I mean, the model is Mr. Ignatiev, who in many ways has things in common with
00:22:27.140
Look, that is, thank you so much for your insights, Jaroslav. This is great.
00:22:32.100
Just stay with me while I salute our sponsors here.
00:22:35.220
The Precious Metals in Calvary. This episode of Hannaford is sponsored by New World Precious
00:22:46.100
Metal, based right here in Calvary. Years of inflationary money, printing and rising debt
00:22:52.100
have decimated the savings of the average Canadian. Gold and silver are the early currencies that have
00:22:57.380
held their value for thousands of years. Last year saw 30% gains. New World Precious
00:23:02.580
Battles offers unique platforms that help you protect your hard-earned wealth.
00:23:12.260
Jaroslav, thank you so much. This is, I have a feeling we may be talking to you a little more
00:23:17.940
often in the weeks to come. Reach out anytime. And I had to ask you, what are your plans during the election?
00:23:28.580
It's going to be staying on top of everything, trying to keep my clients up to date on everything
00:23:34.340
happening in the election and doing some door knocking in my spare time. My kids are already
00:23:40.340
fired up as well. They've already signed up to go door knocking and they've been put on teams. So it's
00:23:45.860
going to be, we're going to have some fun in this election. They're all, they're all pumped
00:23:49.380
to support Pierre, so. Super good. Well, good luck and we'll, we'll be speaking again. You betcha.
00:23:56.180
Bye-bye. Goodbye. For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.
00:24:15.460
For the first time of the day, I've been left with President Kremie.
00:24:23.940
By the time you, drama and a school'sle oh-to-work we had arrived at all the mandatory party.