HANNAFORD： Spring election and a change of government？ It could happen
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Summary
In this week's show, Conservative strategist Yaroslav Baran talks about the party's upcoming leadership review, and why it's important to have a strong leader in order to win re-election in the next election.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
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of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, January the 22nd. With me today is our old friend Yaroslav
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Baran. In a past life, he was communications director to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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These days, as co-founder of Pendulum Group, he's a political consultant in Ottawa.
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Yaroslav, in just a week, conservatives from all across Canada will be gathering in Calgary
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for the party's leadership review. Nobody seems to think Pierre Poitier's job as leader is in jeopardy,
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but conservatives are paying $1,000, plus hotels, airfares, and bar tabs to be here.
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So, if it's not the leadership, what are the issues here for conservatives?
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Well, I mean, I wouldn't agree that it's not just leadership, because the leadership
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vote is going to be probably the highlight of the weekend. It's going to be happening on
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the first evening of the convention, and it's probably going to be the thing that,
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at least that the media hones in on. I haven't heard too many people paying too much attention
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to what the resolutions are for policy or party bylaw changes. Everybody's really focused on
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the leadership, but like in every convention, there's a lot of housekeeping that gets done,
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too. They usually refresh the constitution, they tweak some bylaws, and they pass policy
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recommendations from all over the country. But I think the focus that we're going to see is going
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to be a message of unity. Conservatives, as you note, are coming together from across the whole country.
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And since Mr. Poliet became leader, the conservative movement has grown, it's strengthened,
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and the coalition has expanded. Witness the results of the last election.
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Actually, can you remind us of those era stuff?
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Yeah, sure. I mean, in the last election, Mr. Poliet, one of the conservative party under his
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leadership, received 41.5% of the popular vote. As you noted, Nigel, I used to advise Mr. Harper.
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He would have given his kidney for that kind of a result, the kind of vote percentage that Mr. Poliet got
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in the last election. All parties dream about getting 41.5% because it translates not only into
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victory, but into a strong majority government under normal circumstances. So the real story
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of the last election was the implosion of the NDP, period. That's what rewired the game and meant that
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even with 41.5%, huge voter support, the conservatives did not form government.
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And I will eat my shirt. I will eat my sweater if that phenomenon repeats itself next time. I think
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the NDP is going to rebound in reaction to what they're seeing from the Carney government. We're not
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going to see the left coalesce around Mr. Carney again. And that means that if Mr. Poliet continues
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to lead with principle to demonstrate strong leadership, if he maintains the support that he
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got last time into the next election, he will be the next Prime Minister of Canada.
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That's a very interesting analysis. Why would the NDP not cluster around Mr. Carney if their failure
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to do so would put Mr. Poliet in office again? That sounds unlikely. Can you flesh that out a bit?
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Yeah. Look, I mean, the NDP and NDP voters are no strangers to strategic voting, but in the next
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election, they're going to see genuine opportunity. So it's not going to be just a question of, oh,
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we're going to be the kingmakers. We're going to be a hopefully a strong third party or anything like
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that. They're going to see a genuine opportunity to grow because they see Mr. Carney having repositioned the
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liberals to the center, some would argue to the center-right, and the left feels betrayed.
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Public service jobs are being cut by the thousands. Progressives, capital P so-called
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progressives, feel homeless. And when the NDP elected a new leader in March, I am convinced that
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we're going to see a normalization of Canadian politics and a pretty strong resurgence for the
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NDP as the voice of the left. Okay. Just coming back to the conservatives,
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we already agreed between ourselves that they were coming from all corners of the country.
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Are any of them coming with malice in their hearts? You know what it's like trying to keep
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conservatives together? Well, yeah. Any strong, successful party with a track record of success
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is that Mr. Polioff also has a degree of impatience. Conservatives will not wait around forever if
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they feel that their dogs can't hunt. Same is true for the liberals. But the evidence is that Mr. Polioff
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can hunt. Again, look at the results of the last election. Look at how he continues to lead. He's a
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trailblazer in terms of putting issues on the agenda that genuinely connects with voters or that
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or that mirror the true preoccupations of voters. He was talking about things like the cost of living
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well before it was on anybody else's radar. In fact, the establishment in Ottawa was kind of
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laughing at him thinking, what planet is this guy on talking about inflation? Whatever. Fast forward a
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year, everybody's talking about inflation. Everybody's talking about the cost of living. Time and time
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again, he was demonstrated on crime, on fixing the immigration system, on national security. He
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tends to be a trailblazer. He's got his finger on the pulse. So what does he have to score to win?
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Was 80% support sufficient? You know, I'm not sure that there's a particular number. There's no,
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you know, there's no magical number on the books in terms of the party constitution or anything like
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that. Um, so there's no, there's no number he quote unquote needs to get. Although I know many
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in the media are going to hone in on that point, but it's an arbitrary and academic point at best.
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I'm not going to guess whether he gets 75 or 80 or 85 or whatever, but the, the real question I think
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will be the mood. What's the mood in the room? Uh, will there be a strong showing of support? And
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I think there, there will be, but there's nobody else agitating in the wings. There's no alternative
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leader trying to build support. And that in and of itself is a reflection of party unity.
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Good. Mr. Carney's speech to the World Economic Forum, uh, laid out an uninspiring
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vision of how the world's also-rans could compete for third place in the emerging
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multipolar world that he foresees. How would you advise Mr. Paulyev to respond to that speech?
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Well, first of all, I'm not sure Mr. Paulyev would have gone
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to the World Economic Forum. Uh, so he wouldn't, he certainly wouldn't be responding
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or giving an alternative speech there in person. It's not exactly on brand for him, but you know,
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Hey, given the global context and given the fact that Mr. Trump attended and everybody wants to bend
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his ear, maybe he, maybe he would have gone, I don't know, but I'm not sure there, there is much to say
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in response. You know, Mr. Carney laid out really, you know, the world as it is, as it really is. I think
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that was the point of the speech and you know, he made, he made a number of true points that we need
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to move away from our naivete of the past and accept, you know, the, the real power dynamics in
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the world, um, might actually is right, whether or not we like that and whining about it doesn't do a
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thing to, to help Canada. Um, he also made the point that we need to keep diversifying and investing
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in security in order to put actions behind words like sovereignty. Um, and you know, I, I actually
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quite liked his point that many countries are being performative when they talk about sovereignty
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while actually capitulating to pressure from Washington, even though he didn't actually
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mention Washington by name, but that's why the conservatives have always said that we need to
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get serious about natural depends. The conservatives have always said that we need to be serious about
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security, about maintaining confidence in our immigration system by not being irresponsible in
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the way we structure and run it, uh, by partnering with allies and like-minded countries, not just
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the biggest, you know, international clubs that we can find. So I agree with you. The speech wasn't
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inspiring. It was sobering if anything, but you know, that doesn't mean its contents weren't true.
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It's, it seemed like he was playing catch up to a lot of the stuff that conservatives have been saying for years.
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Well, he certainly was, although I don't think we've ever put it quite the way he did. You know,
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perhaps for that particular audience, the bureaucraties of variable geometry, plural lateralism,
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the gains from transactionalism, you know, the architecture of collective problem solving,
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uh, what's a hyperscaler? Yeah. I, I don't know what a hyperscaler is, and I'm not sure that I would have
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written a speech for a prime minister that starts by quoting, uh, Thucydides, but you know,
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that's Mr. Carney style. That's the, you know, that's the, the company he travels in and, you know,
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maybe, you know, maybe, and maybe for the Davos set that place. Um, I, I personally prefer to see
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leaders make speeches that their true audiences, their own voters can relate to. And, uh, you know,
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that they, they can resonate with people. If people are worried about, uh, paying their mortgages,
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if people are worried about, uh, the price of bread, um, my advice and luck, Nigel, you know,
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you, you've been a professional speech writer and I might add one of the best I've ever seen.
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I'm sure that you also wouldn't have, uh, wouldn't have stylistically employed the same kind of
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rhetoric and the same kind of focus that we saw in Mr. Carney's speech, but focused much more on,
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on practical issues that Canadians are, are preoccupied with. Well, certainly my wife would
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have mocked me if I had, you know, I give it to her and say, this is, I'm going to put this up to the
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boss. You know, what do you think? She would have probably, uh, told me to change the language a bit.
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While you were speaking, I looked up what a hyperscaler is, by the way, and that's a reference
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to the big tech companies, the AI people that, you know, the invidias of the world and so forth.
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Don't, well, I don't understand how they put more together, but that's what it is anyway.
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So between the hegemons in China and the US, uh, they will, they've all got a piece of this.
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Yeah. If, if Mr. Carney goes into the next election with, uh, you know, with that kind of lexicon,
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uh, in his thumb speeches, and he's probably gonna have some, some problems. And your,
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your wife would be absolutely correct in mocking you if, uh, if she, if you can prove to.
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Yeah, exactly. Honey, should I open it up with, uh, uh, uh,
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Thucydides quote or maybe Herodotus? What do you think?
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I will say this as an exercise in speech writing, uh, and we're getting a long way from the
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conservatives here, but he did follow the classic Aristotelian, uh, framework for his speech. You
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know, he introduced his subject, he presented his evidence, he made the argument, he, it was,
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and then he finished fairly strong. So as an exercise in speech writing, it's good,
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but the technical proficiency of it and the vocabulary that he used really identifies who Mr.
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Carney is. And, uh, he, he ain't one of us. So I would want to ask you, do you think that in
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fact he is a closet conservative? He's taken lots of, uh, uh, Mr. Polyero's ideas and run with them
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and done very well with them. I mean, do you think that's where his comfort level is?
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Look, you know what? I, I think there's a fair argument to be made that he is a closet,
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you know, variety of conservative, uh, maybe sort of, uh, uh, a closet classical Tory, if you will,
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sort of, uh, comfortable on Bay street, comfortable, um, you know, presenting, uh,
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you know, quarterly earnings reports, that sort of thing. Um, and you know, that's reflected in his,
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uh, in his verbiage in his speech. It's the kind of language that was probably fairly familiar to the
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actual people in the room near the billionaire, you know, corporate set who was in the room,
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listening, listening to a speech of Davos. Um, I, I think the conservatism has evolved quite a bit
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in Canada. It's always been a coalition of different groups. And I, I would also posit that
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that's likely why Mr. Polyev has been successful as a conservative leader. He doesn't belong squarely to
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any one of the factions or groups within the conservative tent. He's sort of a cross pollinated
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kind of function of all of them. You know, he's comfortable speaking with, um, with social
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conservatives. He's comfortable speaking with, uh, a democratic reformers. He's comfortable
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speaking with, uh, um, what, you know, with, with, uh, you know, sort of a populist, uh, resonant,
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you know, uh, what's, you know, what's on the mind of your barber or your cab driver,
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your small business owner. And, and that's, that's certainly Mr. Polyev's recipe for success.
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Um, I would say that he is, uh, he's a bit more of a pan conservative than, you know, whatever
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variety, uh, Mr. Carney might be, which might be a sort of a, uh, downtown Toronto Bay street type.
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Yes. Um, well, let's say for the sake of argument that Mr. Carney is sort of
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something of a conservative, then how is that going to affect his relationship with the NDP?
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That's precisely why I think the NDP is set for a strong rebound, uh, in, uh, you know, in the coming,
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um, months or, or years, if, if it is that long, because, you know, many people in the liberal party
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itself are quietly grumbling that they don't recognize our party anymore, that their, uh,
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that their leadership has, uh, deviated far more to, far more towards an economic and business
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preoccupation that they're comfortable with. They feel that social justice and environment are being
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sacrificed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So if liberals are, are muttering that way, then certainly
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new Democrats feel that they no longer can morally justify parking their conscience and,
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and casting their vote for the liberals. I, I think that, that Mr. Carney's repositioning of
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his party is ultimately going to be his own downfall. Um, he's trying to appeal to a broad swath of
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conservative and liberal vote switchers, but I'm not sure that that's going to hold in the end.
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You've got the real deal of conservatives on one end and a revamped left that's, that can actually
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be true to itself on the other end. And he, and Mr. Carney might end up squeezing himself out of,
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uh, you know, out of a political home. Well, that does bear very much on the, uh,
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the possibility of an election this year. Uh, there's a lot of speculation that Mr. Carney, in order to get
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the majority that he feels he needs to advance his, uh, his agenda will bring about the circumstances.
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Uh, but is, is that actually going to work? He got elected on the basis of the NDP coming to his
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support. If he alienates the NDP, then it's back to him against, uh, the conservatives, uh, and he
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running on a conservative platform. Can you put that together for us? What, what should we be
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watching for in the, in the, uh, during the convention? Well, it's not just the convention.
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I think it's the, the next few months that are going to be really, really telling. Uh, Mr. Carney
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spent the, the end of 2025 aggressively trying to get a majority by stealth, you know, trying to get
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floor crossers and, um, and you got to, um, I don't think that there are more waiting in the wings.
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This is not the kind of thing that you can strategically stage or we're going to announce
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so-and-so in, you know, mid February or anything like that. It's too risky. It's too slippery.
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So when you've got somebody, when you've got a, we've got a live fish on your, you know, on the
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end of your poll, you reel it in right away. So I don't think that there, that there's any,
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anybody else crossing the floor that's going to give him that majority. And I think he desperately,
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all the signs are that he desperately wants one. He doesn't seem to be that capable of governing,
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at least in parliament without a majority. His legislative progress has been really, really
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weak, like really weak, weaker than I've ever, ever seen, uh, for any government. And he, he's,
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he's going to try hard to get a majority. If he can't get it through floor crossings,
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I think he'll be strongly, strongly tempted to call an early election. And, um, given,
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given that the North American free trade agreement, renegotiation or, or, or refresh exercise is going to
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be starting this summer, it's going to give him all the pretext he needs. You're an old watcher of
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politics, Nigel, you know, that, uh, typically a prime minister announces a reason. And as long as
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it's a re as long as it's a reasonably plausible excuse, then you get away with it. So he, I could
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absolutely see him saying, we're going into the negotiation of our lifetime with the, with the
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KUSMA, uh, re-evaluation and I need a, a refresh mandate specifically for this. I need a stronger
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hand. So, uh, so I'm going to go to the polls. I would not be surprised at all to see that happen
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for say maybe a June election or June, June, July election type thing. Oh, you think that late? I
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haven't said when I was thinking about it, I was looking at the NDP. I think their leadership vote is
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at the end of March. They need to have somebody in place by then. What, why would you wait any
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longer? Well, um, the closer you get to summer, the closer you get to the beginning of the KUSMA,
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the free trade agreement renegotiation that the, the more, the more credible your pretext is.
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So people aren't really going to be thinking about it necessarily in April. They certainly will be in
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June, but you know, the time is going to be variable and he's going to be watching the polls.
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And right now he's doing well, the liberals and the conservatives are basically neck and
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neck depending on which poll you look at. And, um, he's not, um, I, I can see him not quite
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realizing in time that the NDP is going to be a threat, but once you, once the election campaign
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gets underway, people start to pay attention. They start to match their own values and their own
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conscience to an electoral option. And, uh, the NDP is going to rebound. The conservatives are going to
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hold strong and it's going to be really competitive. So what do you think is possible for him to do in
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the next five months during which he's got to occupy, you know, you've got to make headlines.
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He's got to be there and occupy the space. What could he actually achieve? There is a number of
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controversial bills out there. Uh, C9, for example, there's a lot of people talking about that.
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C C2 as well, which, uh, you know, the border security bill yet, uh, where's his priority going
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to be? Honestly, I think his, his, his priority is going to be on foreign policy. I think we're
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going to see a lot of foreign travel, a lot of foreign visits, a lot of foreign speeches,
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a lot of announcements about new free trade negotiations with this country or that country.
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You know, we saw Indonesia, for example, in the fall, you know, we got some negotiations underway
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with India and so on. He, he is strong in that kind of an environment. It plays to his strength,
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but actually getting stuff done in parliament, that's probably his, his weakest suit because
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he doesn't seem to be capable of, of managing parliament well. So I, yeah, I don't, I don't think
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that we're going to see a lot happen in parliament. I think it's going to be largely continuation of what
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we saw last year. I mean, last year, um, between, uh, parliament opening up and summer, they passed
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one bill. I'm pulling aside supply bills, you know, the kind of stuff that finances, you know,
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keeps the lights on, keeps people paid. Uh, they, um, out of like substance bills, they passed one bill
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in the spring and one bill in the fall. I've, I've never seen that, you know, that week,
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the legislative record, like it's, it's almost stupifying.
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Maybe he should call a meeting of European heads of state and, uh, somewhere in Greenland.
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That's, but that's the kind of thing I think we will see from him because it's the kind of thing
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he doesn't need, you know, a competent parliamentary management to do. You can announce meetings or
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announce the tours and give speeches and get global audiences. So he's, he's probably going to play to
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his strength. We're going to hear a lot of a foreign policy and trade policy and very little,
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I think getting a gun in parliament. To be honest, uh, Yaroslav, if I expected anybody to show up in
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Greenland and make a speech, it wouldn't be Mr. Carney. It would be Mr. Trump, but we'll, we'll see how
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that whole thing develops. We are out of time. And I, did you want to comment on that before we say
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farewell? Well, I, uh, Greenland is, is quickly eclipsing everything else as the issue. Uh, it's, uh,
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it's, it's certainly eclipsing the Canada, us, you know, trade negotiations or trade relationship.
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Uh, globally, it's becoming the number one issue. Unfortunately, I think it's taking the spotlight
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away from, uh, from Russia's, uh, war of aggression against Ukraine. Greenland is the central focus.
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We're probably going to hear a whole heck of a lot more about it in the coming months.
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Yeah. It's the darndest thing that that speech, whether it was a good speech or, uh, uh, uh,
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a poorly written one was all about the United States walking away from the so-called rules-based
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order. There was no mention of the fact that Russia and China walked away from it about 30 years ago. So
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I, I, I do find that from the, when we're talking about that speech that he made in Davos,
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the logical inconsistency there. Uh, Jaroslav, I think you're coming to town for the convention.
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We hope we see you there. And, uh, thank you for taking the time to talk with me this evening.
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Always a pleasure, Nigel. And I look forward to seeing you in Calgary.
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Thank you so much. For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.