Western Standard - 'Palpable Western anger,' if the Liberals win a fourth term

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:22.980 of the Western Standard. It's Thursday, March the 20th. With me today is political consultant

00:00:29.260 Jaroslav Baran. He's

00:00:31.320 principal of the Pendulum Group

00:00:33.240 in the Eastview, doing hands-on politics

00:00:35.360 in Ottawa, in government, and out of it

00:00:37.340 for more than 25 years. Jaroslav,

00:00:39.560 thanks for joining us again in this

00:00:40.920 interesting moment. Always a pleasure

00:00:43.300 to be here, Nigel.

00:00:45.100 Well, thank you very

00:00:47.240 much for coming back.

00:00:49.220 Look, it's a very interesting

00:00:51.480 thing that's just happened in the polls.

00:00:53.780 After three years of

00:00:55.340 the conservatives

00:00:57.140 being like a government in waiting,

00:00:59.260 The Liberals have now called up, and I think they're even at about 37 point something percent in the polls.

00:01:06.400 Now, we're expecting an election to be called any time.

00:01:12.340 What just happened?

00:01:15.100 I think a number of things happened.

00:01:17.660 First of all, Mr. Poiliev has enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls for almost two years.

00:01:24.960 And that was largely rooted in the post-pandemic inflationary environment that we had in the Canadian economy and globally.

00:01:36.200 Suddenly, everybody was concerned about cost of living, cost and availability of housing.

00:01:42.500 And these were really serious concerns as people saw that their paychecks were doing less and less for them.

00:01:48.160 Mr. Paglia had first mover advantage.

00:01:50.860 He started talking about inflation well before anybody else.

00:01:53.740 And even when he started talking about inflation, everybody thought the guy was crazy.

00:01:57.320 Like, what?

00:01:58.000 We don't talk about inflation in this country.

00:02:00.080 And then it really materialized as an issue.

00:02:02.140 And people recognized that, oh, this guy's got his finger on the pulse of the needs of Canadians.

00:02:07.500 So he then took off like a rocket and then came to commanding lead.

00:02:12.940 Now, a couple of things happened since then.

00:02:15.680 First of all, Mr. Trudeau announced his departure early in January.

00:02:21.820 and a lot of the hostility a lot of the anger was personally embedded in mr

00:02:28.220 Trudeau and it seems that almost a weight was lifted once he finally

00:02:33.520 announced okay okay finally I'm gonna go I'm gonna go you guys win I'm gonna go

00:02:38.020 and so that took a lot of the that took strain off the depressed numbers for the

00:02:43.060 liberals and then another thing happened almost immediately after Donald Trump

00:02:48.220 He assumes his new role as President of the United States and immediately came out swinging and largely against Canada, threatening a trade war, already imposing certain tariffs, threatening more tariffs.

00:03:00.360 And that really created a bit of an insular defensive posture among the Canadian electorate.

00:03:06.220 electorate you know and nigel if we kind of look back at at how things happen over the last couple

00:03:13.420 years during the pandemic in canada and internationally we were seeing incumbent

00:03:20.860 governments getting re-elected almost as a rule why because when people felt uncertain when people

00:03:28.060 felt anxious there was a there was an instinctive reaction to vote for the people you know vote for

00:03:34.060 the people who are in power because at least you know it was a sense of comfort in in the post

00:03:39.900 pandemic environment it was the opposite inflation uh supply chain problems and the general rule was

00:03:47.580 throw the bums out in canada and internationally we saw governments losing left right and center 1.00

00:03:53.500 there's a yearning for something new so now in the trump era canadians feel embattled again and

00:03:59.820 And there appears to be a bit of an instinct to go with, you know, stick with the guys, you know, stick with the people who are currently in charge.

00:04:07.060 They're on it. So that contributed as well.

00:04:09.580 And then, of course, you've got the honeymoon effect of a new leader.

00:04:13.640 And Mr. Carney was just elected liberal leader and he gets all kinds of free media attention all of a sudden.

00:04:18.800 And none of it was really all that critical. It's just free exposure.

00:04:21.980 okay i think you've already ticked the answer to my next question but i'll ask you what is the

00:04:31.700 ballot question in this election that's uh that's a really really critical discussion to have now

00:04:39.920 the ballot question right up until january was cost of living and inflation and that gave mr

00:04:47.580 Mr. Pauly of a distinct advantage. The ballot question now seems to be shifting and it's

00:04:53.500 shifting more towards who is best positioned to defend Canada, protect Canadians' interests

00:05:00.360 in this ongoing tension between Canada and our biggest ally and trading partner,

00:05:08.220 the United States. So, so far, Mr. Carney has been scoring some pretty okay points,

00:05:13.320 partly because he is the prime minister so whenever there's any kind of a response to the

00:05:18.400 latest you know the latest whatever coming out of washington all eyes all cameras are on mr

00:05:24.080 carney so that's giving him a bit of a a bit of a boost and we'll see how that ballot question

00:05:28.360 evolves i think um given how things are looking and have been looking for the last for the last

00:05:34.060 month the ballot question probably going to stay uh donald trump but it's going to be a mix because

00:05:40.400 people still have not forgotten the impacts of inflation and a lot of the things that really

00:05:46.380 soured them on the outgoing Justin Trudeau government. So it's going to be a bit of a mix.

00:05:53.640 So it seems that we have an electorate that personifies government in the person of the

00:06:02.000 leader. It was Mr. Trudeau. We don't like Mr. Trudeau. Now it's Mr. Carney. He doesn't make

00:06:09.300 us feel quite as anxious and uneasy as Mr. Trudeau did. And yet, if you were to go one step

00:06:17.080 backwards, you would say, wait a minute, how do the liberals, because we're talking about a party

00:06:23.200 that is continuing and, you know, leaders come and go, how do the liberals who have so trashed

00:06:29.880 the Canadian reputation over the past 10 years, you know, first of all, we were just a post-national

00:06:36.040 state we had no defining national identity that was mr. Trudeau in the New

00:06:40.960 York Times a very very early after he had been elected and then you see the

00:06:45.640 the trashing of Canadian symbols the desecration of the statues of for

00:06:52.660 instance of John A Macdonald arguably probably one of the greatest statesmen

00:06:56.980 of the 19th century but disregarded in the country that he actually managed to

00:07:03.640 cobbled together interestingly as a reaction to pressure from the south in the 1860s right after

00:07:11.320 the american civil war you know a great man but when the statue came down and the head came off

00:07:18.200 the government just said well yeah okay he was actually a a racist you know had to do with the

00:07:25.000 residential schools and everything everything that was great and good and powerful and strong

00:07:31.080 in canada was dismissed by the past government over this 10 years as being inconsequential or

00:07:37.560 perhaps bad for you now suddenly we get a like in the 1860s we get a threat from the south

00:07:44.940 and oh my goodness we're called to we're rallied to the flag and called to arms and so forth

00:07:51.160 how do they get away with that well you know the the liberal party does have a very strong

00:07:57.420 survivor instinct and what we're seeing right now is a very very aggressive push by the carny team

00:08:05.340 to demonstrate that this is new this is a new government it's a break from the past and they're

00:08:11.500 doing all kinds of things to make that case he slimmed down the size of cabinet he announced

00:08:18.140 and ends to the reviled consumer carbon tax now we can still have a debate about whether the carbon

00:08:24.620 tax is gone i would argue it's not i it's it's more of a superficial uh you know band-aid to try

00:08:31.740 to hide it more than anything else but he's claiming it's gone um they're also saying things

00:08:36.860 like where we've stopped focusing on identity politics and we're squarely focused on the economy

00:08:42.380 so these are these are overtures to try to appeal to conservative supporters and at every turn they

00:08:48.380 they are describing themselves as the quote-unquote new government of Canada. So they realize

00:08:54.560 that they need to distance themselves from the Trudeau government and they're trying

00:08:59.360 to do that really, really aggressively. Question is, is the country going to go for it? Are

00:09:06.400 they going to buy that line by the end? Because look at things like the new cabinet. It's

00:09:12.020 80% recycled ministers from the Trudeau cabinet, for example, is Mr. Carnegie to successfully

00:09:19.960 sell the idea that this is something new.

00:09:23.440 And you know what, also, he's got a number of liabilities that have not been tested yet.

00:09:30.720 First of all, he's new to politics.

00:09:34.780 Yes, we can recognize that he's had a distinguished career and he's done impressive things in

00:09:41.040 canada and in the world but he's done that as a technocrat um he's never run a meaningful

00:09:47.600 campaign anymore in a truly adversarial environment running in a campaign when the

00:09:53.120 spotlight is on and the pressure is on you need to think on your feet you need to often pivot in

00:09:59.280 the middle of a media scrum you need to have a thick skin and we haven't seen that yet for mr

00:10:05.840 carney in fact so far we've seen some evidence that he's got a pretty thin skin he had some

00:10:12.000 some pretty testy exchanges earlier uh earlier this week with some journalists when they tried

00:10:17.600 to pin him down on a couple issues that he'd rather not talk about things like conflict of

00:10:22.080 interest and moving the headquarters of his previous company out of canada things that are

00:10:29.040 not going to look good on him in a national election campaign especially when you're trying

00:10:33.200 to be capped in canada yes that was a remarkable moment i mean the the cbc are frankly the friends

00:10:39.200 of the liberal government as well they might be and then to pick on the miss barton like that it 1.00

00:10:44.720 was it astonished me it just seemed like a very bad uh first move and in dealing with the press

00:10:51.040 in the run-up to an election campaign uh people who who know and tell me that they weren't as

00:10:56.880 surprised as i was that that's just perhaps getting into an area where i can't provide

00:11:02.320 you a citation but it was an old thing to happen and if that's the style of government that we're

00:11:07.440 going to see um one more reason for canadians i think to take a very close look at this man but

00:11:14.400 while they're doing that if you were advising the conservative uh conservative party are you

00:11:22.160 in fact advising the uh conservative party oh no i don't have a role with the with the upcoming

00:11:28.480 campaign. Yeah, I'm in touch, and I know what they're up to, but I don't have a formidable

00:11:33.480 on the campaign. So, okay, if you were advising the Conservative Party, and having just laid out

00:11:40.120 what you've laid out, which are the advantages that the Liberal Party, some of us might say,

00:11:45.760 have unworthily inherited, what would your advice be to Mr. Paliyev? Well, number one is do not

00:11:53.440 underestimate the anxiety, the fear, the discomfort among Canadians with Donald Trump. Yes, he has

00:12:02.020 done some good things. He's announced some good things, mostly in terms of American domestic

00:12:06.920 policy. But when it comes to the trade war, the tariff war, threats of annexation of Canada and

00:12:16.080 so on, people are really genuinely concerned about it. And so they should be. Tariffs are going to

00:12:22.840 hurt Canadians. They're going to hurt individual people. They're going to hurt businesses. They're 1.00

00:12:26.640 going to hurt entire sectors. So we cannot underestimate the anxiety that the public feels.

00:12:33.840 And the Conservatives will have to focus squarely on that issue. This works very well for Ontario

00:12:40.960 Premier Doug Ford. He called an early election. He wrapped himself in the flag. He portrayed himself

00:12:46.940 as Captain Canada. I'm going to be the strong leader who's going to defend Canadian interests.

00:12:50.980 and we've seen Mr. Paulyov start to do the same thing.

00:12:54.260 I think that's got to continue.

00:12:57.220 Now, if I could just touch on one more thing about Mr. Carney, though, Nigel.

00:13:01.880 We talked about his style and his thin skin so far in dealing with reporters,

00:13:06.080 but it's not just style.

00:13:09.720 It's also a question of substance.

00:13:13.360 There are legitimate questions to be answered about the fact that he,

00:13:19.760 as chairman of the board of a multi-billion dollar huge Canadian business success story,

00:13:25.460 Brookfield Asset Management, he moved under his watch, the headquarters moved from Canada

00:13:31.500 to New York City, Donald Trump's hometown. He tries to dismiss that as, oh, whatever,

00:13:38.820 it was a business decision, it doesn't matter, things like that. But in this climate where

00:13:44.320 we've got a resurgence of Canadian patriotism and bi-Canadian movements and all of that sort

00:13:51.980 of thing going on. It's not going to be a good look for the incumbent now, Prime Minister, to

00:13:58.540 say, ah, whatever, who cares about, you know, where my corporate headquarters was, you know,

00:14:04.100 who cares if I moved it out of Canada to the States. It doesn't fit the narrative of trying

00:14:08.860 to be capped in Canada. And there's also the other issue of conflict of interest and asset

00:14:15.700 disclosures. We also, again, we saw him snap at some journalists for raising this the other day.

00:14:22.600 Under Canadian rules, a newly elected, newly appointed cabinet minister, which is what he is,

00:14:31.040 has 60 days to disclose all of their assets. This is true for any prime minister, for any

00:14:35.740 cabinet minister. And he's saying, yeah, sure. No problem. I'm going to, I'm going to meet that

00:14:39.800 deadline. Problem is that 60 days comes after the election campaign. So throughout this entire

00:14:45.540 campaign, Canadians are going to be in the dark about what he holds, where he holds it and where

00:14:51.620 there might be conflicts of interest. What kinds of issues would it be inappropriate for him to be

00:14:58.300 involved in, in terms of policymaking? He doesn't seem to think this is a big deal to keep this stuff

00:15:03.700 under wraps until after the election.

00:15:06.140 I'm not sure Canadians are going to agree with that.

00:15:09.260 You know, those people who follow it carefully will not.

00:15:13.900 Do you think enough people will actually lose themselves

00:15:18.840 in the weeds of conflict of interest and investments and so forth?

00:15:24.040 I mean, for a lot of people, that's way over there,

00:15:27.660 way over their levels of interest.

00:15:29.180 It may be, but 36 days is a long time for the Conservatives, for the New Democrats, and for the Bloc Québécois to hammer away, saying, you're trying to be Captain Canada, you moved the headquarters of one of Canada's biggest countries out of Canada, and you refuse to tell us where you might be in a conflict of interest.

00:15:55.460 But those two twin issues could hound him for 36 days and erode some of the glow that he's experiencing right now.

00:16:06.120 We'll certainly see whether he's got a sense of humor or not, because if he gets out and after the CBC question the other day, maybe not.

00:16:14.020 Look, the other thing that concerns people out west especially is that although Mr. Carney's opening actions have been to cancel apparently the consumer carbon tax, which is great, but it seems to us a little strange that this has been like an article of faith for all these years.

00:16:42.360 that climate change was the ultimate issue

00:16:46.740 and that all sacrifices to reduce carbon emissions

00:16:50.120 were necessarily justified, and if they hurt,

00:16:53.540 well, guess what they were intended to?

00:16:55.320 Now there's an election, and oh, well, actually, yeah, we can drop that.

00:16:59.680 So there's a certain insincerity about that,

00:17:01.800 which many people have observed upon,

00:17:03.680 but once he's back into office,

00:17:07.780 is it going to then revert to all climate change all the time well you're quite right

00:17:14.920 noting that not only has he traditionally endorsed the carbon tax he made it his own

00:17:21.980 personal mission to try to sell the canadian carbon tax model around the world he's on record

00:17:28.440 saying this is the model that every other country should adopt so to do a 180 degree turn on that

00:17:35.600 especially in something of a gimmick fashion with this big ceremonial signing of this piece of paper

00:17:41.300 doing a prime ministerial directive something that doesn't it isn't really anything it's just

00:17:46.860 sort of a memo um it seems like it seems like the pope saying well actually martin luther had a point

00:17:53.360 you know i mean it's not credible yeah yeah exactly and it's also at best a partial elimination of the

00:18:02.460 carbon tax. It's still going to be embedded on an industrial level throughout the supply chain,

00:18:07.720 therefore still raising the costs of consumer goods across the country and on just about

00:18:15.240 everything you can imagine. So I'm going to give you the national unity question.

00:18:19.840 If the Liberals somehow secure a fourth term, what would you anticipate would be the reaction

00:18:26.820 and Alberta and Saskatchewan

00:18:28.980 and right through the West generally?

00:18:35.740 You know what?

00:18:37.540 It's hard to imagine.

00:18:40.440 There will be palpable anger, I think,

00:18:45.240 in many parts of the country

00:18:46.900 because this is, you know,

00:18:50.620 we can say the leader is new,

00:18:52.760 the prime minister is new,

00:18:53.880 but at the end of the day,

00:18:54.780 this is a continuation of almost 10 years of liberal government and all

00:19:01.260 governments have a natural life cycle. At a certain point,

00:19:05.160 the public says enough, enough, like go away already.

00:19:08.700 We need something new. If they get reelected and largely on the strength,

00:19:14.220 it's a fact of life in, in, in, in politics,

00:19:16.360 largely on the strength of Ontario and Quebec,

00:19:18.720 they're going to be big pockets of the country outside of Ontario and Quebec and

00:19:23.260 say what the heck like how can this be and we've had it so i'm a little bit worried about the

00:19:30.620 national unity implications should this government win but you know what nigel if we still have time 0.50

00:19:38.540 i'll point out two two important case studies go right now we've got three minutes go ahead

00:19:44.780 right in the polls we're seeing we're seeing a a balance for the liberals we're seeing uh

00:19:51.180 post leadership high for Mr. Carney. But twice in federal politics, we had a similar situation.

00:19:59.700 In 1984, the Pierre Trudeau government was deeply unpopular. He recognized it. He stepped down and

00:20:07.700 they brought in John Turner as the messiah. He's the savior. He's going to bring back the liberal

00:20:12.240 brand. And you know what? Same thing. Same thing happened. Instant bounce in the polls. They were

00:20:17.520 neck and neck again with the conservatives. But by the end of the campaign in 1984, they crashed

00:20:23.540 and burned and the conservatives won and they won with the landslide. And again, in 1993, Mulroney

00:20:31.500 was deeply unpopular. They brought in Kim Campbell as their Messiah. Suddenly the polls rebounded.

00:20:40.460 She was hugely popular, flirting with 50% in the polls. But by the end of that writ period,

00:20:45.860 by the end of the campaign, crashed and burned, wiped off the electoral map.

00:20:51.000 So that to me tells, 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 1.00

00:21:02.420 out.

00:21:03.240 So we should live in hoax, shouldn't we?

00:21:05.480 My word.

00:21:06.380 That's the best comment I've heard on this situation for all the time that it's been

00:21:12.120 current.

00:21:13.160 Look, where do you think, we don't know this yet,

00:21:15.720 but where do you think Mr. Carney will run?

00:21:18.520 Oh, gee, that's a good question.

00:21:20.460 I hadn't even thought about that yet.

00:21:23.520 Well, he's going to have to know by Sunday.

00:21:25.580 Yeah, I guess so.

00:21:26.760 I'm guessing he'll probably run.

00:21:29.140 Is he going to run in the Northwest Territories?

00:21:31.380 That's where he's from originally.

00:21:32.860 But the Liberals have an incumbent MP there

00:21:34.980 who may not want to give up his seat.

00:21:37.300 So, I mean, the most appropriate place for him to run

00:21:40.000 would be somewhere in downtown Toronto.

00:21:42.500 hanging out with his Wall Street buddies, or with his Bay Street buddies. That seems to be where

00:21:48.260 he's comfortable, but I guess we'll see. And a bigger question also is, if he wins a seat,

00:21:55.500 assuming he will, but loses the election, is he going to stick around? Somehow, I would be

00:22:01.500 pretty surprised to see Mark Carney decide, yeah, I've decided to go into public life,

00:22:07.440 and I'm going to stick it out as leader of the opposition for four years

00:22:10.660 under a quality of government.

00:22:13.160 I'd be really, really surprised if he stuck around.

00:22:16.320 Well, I mean, the model is Mr. Ignatiev,

00:22:18.500 who in many ways has things in common with his situation with Mr. Carney.

00:22:27.220 Look, thank you so much for your insights, Aroslav.

00:22:30.980 This is great.

00:22:32.040 Just stay with me while I salute our sponsors here.

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00:22:42.860 This episode of Hannaford is sponsored by New World Precious Metal, based right here in Calvary.

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00:23:12.240 Bereslav, thank you so much.

00:23:14.440 This is, I have a feeling we may be talking to you

00:23:17.220 a little more often in the weeks to come.

00:23:20.520 Reach out anytime.

00:23:22.240 And I had to ask you,

00:23:23.940 what are your plans during the election?

00:23:28.320 It's going to be staying on top of everything

00:23:31.120 trying to keep my clients up to date on everything happening in the election

00:23:35.340 and doing some door knocking in my spare time.

00:23:39.140 My kids are already fired up as well.

00:23:41.620 They've already signed up to go door knocking and they've been put on teams.

00:23:45.780 So it's going to be, we're going to have some fun in this election.

00:23:47.900 They're all pumped to support Pierre.

00:23:51.280 Super good.

00:23:52.380 Well, good luck and we'll be speaking again.

00:23:55.120 You betcha.

00:23:56.260 Bye-bye.

00:23:57.100 Bye-bye.

00:23:58.360 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

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Western Standard - March 21, 2025

'Palpable Western anger,' if the Liberals win a fourth term

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