On this episode of the Corey Morgan Show, we hear from Mark Petroni, Clinton De Voe, and Mark Des Voe on the current state of the Conservative Party of Canada. We also hear about the Alberta Health Department's attempt to shut down a rodeo in order to enforce "anti-drug" laws, and the backlash against it.
00:02:00.000Good morning. Welcome to this Monday episode of the Corey Morgan Show, April 19th. I'm Corey
00:02:18.760Morgan. We're in for a good one today. It's going to be a lot of federal issues. We've got Clinton
00:02:24.420DeVoe coming back on along with Mark Petroni to, well, speak on our federal conservative party and
00:02:31.860see what's going on. Is there any possible chance that we're not going to see a repeat of Justin
00:02:38.560Trudeau after the next election whenever we get that chance to go to one? It's not looking terribly
00:02:43.300promising. We'll be speaking to Spencer Fernando after that as well. And yeah, sort of a downbeat
00:02:50.780show in that sense but we've got to try and figure out how we can possibly change things
00:02:56.940in this country and we're not going along a good path going towards it start with though i should
00:03:01.980mention we do have uh our sponsor Kyren's way and if you go to kyrensway.com it's a place that
00:03:09.660provides uh help if you got stress anxiety issues things such as that non-pharmaceutical means to
00:03:16.460deal with that uh good through dietary changes counseling more healthy approach to things
00:03:23.260sometimes you know you don't necessarily need to go to your regular doctor where they can be prone
00:03:27.980to over prescribing some medications you might not have needed in the first place her consultations
00:03:32.300are free she's a local business she's helping us we don't take federal money of course as a media
00:03:36.860outlet we rely on sponsors and subscriptions check out penny at kyronsway.com k-y-r-o-n-s-w-a-y.com
00:03:46.300and uh support her she's helping us as well be sure to subscribe to the western standard online
00:03:52.940some great news from dave naylor uh alexander dolly wall uh we've got mike demore on there
00:03:59.020now putting out some great content and of course columns from people like myself and derek who go
00:04:04.220on we need a subscription keeps us rolling keeps us producing content reporting to you because
00:04:08.940the mainstream outlets aren't giving you what you need for coverage so that exciting stuff out of
00:04:15.180of the way. Let's talk a little bit about, of course, COVID. We can't avoid it. The pushback
00:04:22.060is coming. You know, we've seen some interesting rallies over the weekend. There was a huge one in
00:04:25.720Calgary. Finally, it sounds like it was quite rational, which is something I've really been
00:04:29.640hoping and looking to see more of. So I was very happy for that. And we've got other events coming
00:04:36.720along. So people were going, by the way, to Chris Scott's restaurant in Mirror. They are still
00:04:41.560attending there. He's still open and giving in seating service in defiance to Alberta health
00:04:45.460orders. And we still have a rodeo coming up here. And Ty Northcott, who I've spoken about,
00:04:53.340we're going to have him on next week, actually. And he's holding a rodeo at the end of the month.
00:04:58.420It's going to be in Bowdoin. It's going to be a lot of fun. No more lockdowns rodeo
00:05:02.680slash rally. And he's, yeah, Alberta health has already been sending the warnings and firing off
00:05:10.160the shots and saying it's not going to happen. It is going to happen. Ty's dedicated to this.
00:05:15.780Look him up online, Northcott Rodeos on Facebook. Find more information, buy tickets, come out. It'll
00:05:22.920be a fun, absolute Alberta weekend. If Jason Kenney really wants to look bad, you think that
00:05:27.620shutting down a church was bad, let's have the RCMP come out there and shut down a rodeo in Alberta
00:05:32.540and see how well that works out for him. So moving on, speaking of crazed authoritarians, Doug Ford,
00:05:40.160who has been at the forefront of cracking down on individual freedoms in the name of saving us all
00:05:46.760from COVID, really went off his nut last week and came out with, well, border closures and
00:05:52.680this empowerment of police to basically do street checks and stop people. It was just crazed
00:05:59.460closing playgrounds, the whole works. And the police stood up and said, no, we're not doing
00:06:04.560that. We are not doing that on your behalf. You can go and take care of them yourself.
00:06:10.160And a number of areas where he got pushed back. He finally crossed the line and he has backtracked a bit. And what I do see as good as this in this is that people did push back and the state did respond. You see people, if we, you know, if we just stand up for ourselves, these politicians will respond to a reality check, at least at times, not every time, but sometimes.
00:06:31.900So a promising thing out of Doug Ford and his Ontario mess and these border crossings being
00:06:37.640set up between Manitoba and Ontario. I mean, who ever thought we'd see this? And I tell you,
00:06:41.860as somebody who leads toward Western independence, maybe Doug's doing my job for me. Let's get those0.99
00:06:46.160borders set up and just kind of make them permanent and we'll move on from there. But as it stands,
00:06:50.080anyways, the police aren't going to burst into people's workplaces and demand if they were
00:06:54.640essential workers and non-essential as Doug seems to have initially wanted them to, which was really
00:06:58.880crazy. They will back down when they push it too far. So let's look at some things too. You know,
00:07:04.320again, I'm not one of those that denies COVID is out there. I'm not out there to question vaccines,
00:07:10.480but we need to look at the real numbers that are going on. And because the fear mongers have
00:07:13.920really been dominating the show. Now it's been what, six weeks since Texas opened up,
00:07:19.440they had far fewer people vaccinated at that time than we do today. So that excuse is out
00:07:24.160the window their cases dropped and continue to drop their deaths as we can see here 50 deaths
00:07:30.800that's a state that has a population of what i believe almost 30 million people yes it's still
00:07:36.280tragic 50 deaths but come on guys this is down to uh next to nothing there are far more things
00:07:41.500taking out people in texas a lot faster than covid these days and what comes into question
00:07:46.120is the efficacy of lockdowns how well do they actually work i mean how many examples do we
00:07:50.800have to see some of the worst states still that are remaining with with infections and deaths
00:07:54.800going on are the stronger lockdown states whether it's california or pennsylvania or new york
00:08:00.640they're remaining with a pile of restrictions their infections are often higher than texas
00:08:05.180their deaths are higher than texas so we've got factors here like i said the pandemic is real
00:08:10.180it's a hazard but the it seems to me that the government can't really do a bloody thing about
00:08:15.520it try as they might but i mean try to tell an authoritarian that the government can't be the
00:08:19.080solution to a problem. It's a difficult task indeed. And here's the case count in Texas. Yeah,
00:08:24.740new cases, 1,800. Again, out of, that's just cases, a vast, vast, vast majority of people
00:08:30.740recover from out of near 29 million people. Here's Alberta right now. You know, there's
00:08:35.440things of concern, okay? We've got 103 people in the ICU. We've got 450 in the hospital. Again,
00:08:41.380we're a province of four and a half million people. This shouldn't be overwhelming our
00:08:45.040health system. We want to watch it. We don't want to overwhelm it. I mean, it's a risk.
00:08:48.900But realistically, the world is not ending here.
00:08:51.200You know, we've had just over 2,000 people die.
00:09:21.260And hey, if they want to, good on them.
00:09:23.500You know, and as Dave greatly wrote in the story, I mean, the census data shows French is fourth or fifth or maybe even sixth in Western provinces as a second language spoken.
00:09:31.840You know, German, Cree, Punjabi, Cantonese, Mandarin, Filipino, they're all ahead of French.
00:09:37.640And if we're going to be preserving other languages, and again, it's not the role of the government to do it anyways.
00:09:42.060In the West, French is way down on our priority list.
00:09:45.320But unfortunately, in our political system, the French are way up high on the priority list.
00:09:50.320So we can look forward to perhaps some more bilingual regulations.
00:09:53.620Maybe they'll make the French version on the back of the cereal box a little bigger or something.1.00
00:09:58.000All I know for sure is it's going to probably cost us more money, annoy us all the more.
00:10:02.340And there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it for now.
00:10:04.180But that's where they're moving along with things.
00:10:05.700They're courting Quebec, of course, because an election will be coming this year at some point or another.
00:10:12.220Here's something now, as we're getting our pipelines shut down in all directions.
00:10:17.500You know, we didn't get social license through our carbon taxes.
00:27:08.760When a person votes, they vote with their gut.
00:27:10.660I mean, wonks like us will go into policy and look at things like that.
00:27:13.860But your average voter, they go by feel.
00:27:16.040I mean, Rachel Notley did not win by her socialist policies in Alberta when she won.
00:27:20.520She won because the leaders of the two conservative parties were souring Albertans on their attitudes and trust issues because some of the hijinks that had gone on before that election.
00:27:30.860And as you said, now that O'Toole is without hesitation throwing his own supporters under the bus, why would anybody else trust him on anything? And in the West, when we're worried about pipelines, we're worried about C-69, we're worried about a great deal of things. We know, and I would say it, we know that O'Toole wouldn't hesitate for a second to go back on his promise to oppose those things too, if he thought it might serve him better somewhere else. So we can't trust him out here. We get taken for granted.
00:27:57.220if you want to see what builds western separatists is not when liberals screw us we're used to that
00:28:01.680it's when a conservative does it you know when brian mulrooney gave the cf-18 contract to a
00:28:07.280quebec company rather than a manitoba one that's what created the reform party not what trudeau
00:28:12.360was doing because we just it seems there's no end anymore there's no way out but i mean again
00:28:17.680the big issue is climate i mean it's a big one in the polls it's important to a lot of people
00:28:22.680more so, I believe, in the East and in Central Canada than in the West, or they feel more dearly
00:28:27.420about it, it does have to be addressed because it's a soft spot for the Conservatives. So how
00:28:31.280can the Conservatives, Clinton perhaps, you know, but people on the East Coast address it so they
00:28:35.860don't have a big hole or gap in their policy? Well, I mean, so just a couple of things. I want
00:28:42.740to sort of, I think a lot of people in, specifically in Alberta or Saskatchewan,
00:28:49.320They may not realize, in fact, that Newfoundland's economy is actually more dependent on oil and gas development and oil and gas exploration than Saskatchewan or Alberta's economy is, in fact.
00:29:02.740And if we look at another eastern province, like New Brunswick, which may come as a bit of a shock to some folks in the prairies, the largest refinery in Canada, and in fact the largest refinery on the eastern seaboard of North America,
00:29:19.320Okay. So, you know, this carbon policy position that Mr. O'Toole has released is actually something that affects other regions of the country besides Alberta and Saskatchewan.
00:29:34.820But in regards to your specific question, Corey, look, I, you know, as we've already discussed, the liberal position on the carbon tax, and I mean, I can't believe I'm saying it, but I am.
00:29:49.540um you know if i'm issued my money at the end of the year for whatever i've spent on carbon
00:29:57.720and i can turn around and buy what i want with it that's a much more uh consumer friendly option
00:30:07.340if you will then uh the government's telling me the only way that you can get access to the money
00:30:14.720that you spent in the previous year is by purchasing items from this pre-approved government
00:30:20.060list. So I actually think that this carbon plan of Mr. O'Toole's is a is a strategic blunder
00:30:30.060and I don't believe it's going to appeal to voters in the east nor do I believe it's going
00:30:39.020would appeal to voters in central Canada. And we can see from the polling data that he's having
00:30:46.440great difficulty sort of selling it in his Western base. Now, you know, it's deeper than Mr. O'Toole.
00:30:56.140You know, we see members of the Conservative caucus like Dan Albus, for example, in Western
00:31:02.500canada who was proudly saying this weekend that this is an excellent tool in order to change
00:31:10.580people's behaviors in the marketplace you know we heard another conservative mp doing rounds of
00:31:19.140media throughout the weekend tim upple sort of proudly boasting that the price of gasoline and
00:31:26.740diesel is going to go up at the pumps uh under this plan so you know i think they're going to
00:31:33.460have difficulty trying to sell this in all regions of the country and i think a better environmental
00:31:40.180uh position would have been to you know as i've alluded to many many times uh you know on your
00:31:46.900program and other programs across this country would have been to focus on things like um
00:31:53.460You know, a jobs program that benefits the environment and the economy simultaneously.
00:31:59.760So, for example, a national mining strategy where Canada would supply precious metals to the global EV market.
00:32:06.360There's something that would benefit Alberta, would benefit Saskatchewan, Ontario, Newfoundland, Quebec, all regions of the country.
00:32:14.240You know, the conservatives could have talked about how Manitoba can help export some of its hydroelectric power.
00:32:23.460uh to saskatchewan and alberta and how bc could do the similar sorts of things
00:32:27.860but instead of talking about that we're extremely fixated on a carbon tax
00:32:32.340and uh and i think that the types of controls that they've that they want to place around this and
00:32:41.020the fact that it's going to be so cumbersome when it comes to creating an account for 38 million
00:32:48.080individual canadians and creating a list of items that those canadians are able to purchase
00:32:55.120i think that's just going to turn people off so i i think that this this program was not well
00:33:00.320thought out i think it was a a strategic blunder and i think politically it's going to benefit the
00:33:08.000liberals uh not just in uh central and atlantic canada but i believe the liberals will benefit
00:33:14.000in western canada from this as well yeah well and and uh you know when it comes to environmental
00:33:20.880policy which is integral and people are concerned about the bottom line is or at least we would have
00:33:25.360thought the fact was that o'toole made it very explicit very clear that whatever his policy was
00:33:30.880was going to be it wasn't going to be carbon pricing it wasn't going to be cap and trade
00:33:34.560it wasn't going to be one of those schemes and and he jumped right back into it i mean his time
00:33:39.120to tell us then that a carbon tax is the only way to do it would have been when he ran for the
00:33:43.120leadership or would have been at least been at the recent convention. But no, he's waited until now.
00:33:48.460And the other thing is he isn't winning the hearts and minds of Canadians as it goes. But the other
00:33:53.460thing he's got to try and win the support and love of is his own caucus. And we had numerous reports
00:33:58.880of MPs who were caught completely flat-footed by this announcement. He didn't consult his own
00:34:03.720caucus whatsoever on going forward with this. I can't imagine what the phone lines were like
00:34:09.020for caucus assistance and so on, or people working in legislative offices after this bombshell got
00:34:15.840dropped, particularly for Western MPs, even if O'Toole's found a couple who would come out and
00:34:20.640try and parrot his lines for it. But what do you think, Mark, like this has done for caucus unity?
00:34:26.200Because that's another very big area of threat for a leader. Yeah, the funny part is, or not so
00:34:30.860funny, Corey, is that there was a caucus meeting just a day or two before, and Clinton knows about
00:34:35.760that because there had been talk about the fact that O'Toole had had very little if any contact
00:34:43.360face-to-face time and I realized that we're in a pandemic but there was no real one-on-one time
00:34:50.140between O'Toole and the members of his caucus and months had passed and that was still the case so
00:34:56.420you really got the sense that whatever O'Toole was doing it was within his own little inner circle
00:35:01.920of people who were advising him, and the caucus was very much shut out. And boy, did that ever
00:35:07.740come very clear on the week that he tabled this bombshell report, this climate plan,
00:35:16.200just a day or two after he met with caucus, didn't say a word about it. You know, that was
00:35:20.760a perfect opportunity right there to say, hey, look, this is coming down the pike. I'm going0.74
00:35:24.820to give you a few minutes to talk about it, to look it over. Tell me what you think, yay or nay,
00:35:30.040but this is the direction we're going. There was none of that, Corey. You talk about thumbing your
00:35:36.300nose at the people in your own caucus. That is a perfect example. And by the way, for all the talk
00:35:41.980about Harper being this controlling guy who had his inner circle, and you know what? He did consult
00:35:48.440with the people in his caucus. I know that for a fact. I mean, he may not have agreed with them,
00:35:53.180and he may have been disdainful of some of them. Yeah, that's true. But at the end of the day,
00:35:57.820he did give them an opportunity to talk about the various things that were coming down the pike
00:36:02.840O'Toole did nothing of that kind and so for that alone I think caucus has every reason to be ticked
00:36:08.700off this guy but I want to talk a little bit about this whole environmental policy of O'Toole's
00:36:14.140because I don't want it I don't want to suggest that everything about what this guy has been
00:36:19.040talking about is a absolute failure because one thing that he is talking about that suggests that
00:36:25.320he is getting it right it is on the area and this is a story by the way that ran on the western
00:36:29.860standard a day after flip-flopping on canada's carbon tax conservative leader leader erin o'toole
00:36:35.300says the liberals should slap one on imports from china well that's absolutely right by the way that0.91
00:36:40.080story came from black locks reporter we should be taxing crap from china and giving them a carbon0.92
00:36:45.480tax and i'll tell you what else he should be going even further if we're going to be importing oil0.98
00:36:50.980from the Saudis, from the Nigerians, from Qatar, from Venezuela, and all these other reprobate0.93
00:36:56.940nations. We should be slapping a massive carbon tax on all those countries and saying, fine,0.97
00:37:02.800Quebec, you want to use oil from all these other countries rather than Quebec oil? Well,
00:37:06.460you're going to pay for it because we're going to levy a massive carbon tax on all that oil
00:37:11.280being imported from those other countries. You want Alberta oil? Great. Well, you approve
00:37:15.560a pipeline you say okay to energy east and let's move more of that alberta oil more of that alberta
00:37:23.260crude to markets in the east because it makes economic sense to do so if you're going to tax
00:37:29.400the crap out of the imports i think in that regard o'toole was at least going in the right
00:37:35.220direct direction you know punishing countries where they they don't have anywhere near the kind0.74
00:37:40.900of environmental measures and standards that we have here in Canada. Why are we just opening the
00:37:45.840door to those products just because they're cheap? No, that's not good enough. We should be taxing
00:37:50.100more from China, Chinese goods and other goods from countries that do not have anywhere near0.99
00:37:56.240the kind of standards that we have. So at least there, O'Toole is showing an indication that he's
00:38:01.120going in the right direction. And I throw that out there only to make it clear that I'm not going to
00:38:06.840just bash everything the guy says if he does do something right I will talk
00:38:10.960about that Cory okay is it okay that I jump in Cory on a couple of points that
00:38:17.660both you and Eric just mean yeah well on just to circle this back to the
00:38:22.560unveiling of this policy that that you were mentioning and then Mark's point
00:38:27.660about the lack of consultation with the conservative party caucus I mean that is
00:38:33.420one of the big problems that I think not enough people really fully comprehend in
00:38:40.620this case so 48 hours before this announcement mr. O'Toole was issuing
00:38:47.460statements to his caucus that he was against carbon taxes and that's fine
00:38:54.720whether someone is forward or against it but less than 48 hours later he says no
00:39:01.800i'm in favor of this and so the problem i see for him to circle this back to the flip-flop discussion
00:39:09.080is that it's one thing if someone has a different perspective or view that that what you or i may
00:39:14.280have on policy directions but it's another thing where there's this sudden flip on policy direction
00:39:22.360so if mr o'toole had been struggling with this issue let's say over the last 12 months
00:39:27.240and, you know, had been consulting with different people
00:39:32.260and sort of been talking about the possibilities of this,
00:39:44.460But the fact that it was a sudden shift like that in 48 hours,
00:39:51.140you know, that just leaves a sour taste in the public
00:39:55.560because the public views it, rightly so, as a flip-flop.
00:40:00.380And, you know, that's a lot of these problems that Mr. O'Toole is having.
00:40:05.300And, you know, yes, I know we like to pick on politicians, and rightly so in this case.
00:40:12.960But, you know, the more politicians outright lie and flip-flop like this,
00:40:19.940the more the public at large is going to be turned off.
00:40:25.360And, you know, that's one of the big problems I see for Mr. O'Toole here.
00:40:31.100Yeah, well, it's funny, you know, this is where I like these discussions, because ideas come up and concepts that I hadn't really thought of, because that's what I've been digging as, okay, well, people do accept we want to see more environmental improvement around the world and around here.
00:40:54.220We know we have high human rights standards and all of these things, you know, Trudeau likes to
00:41:00.140virtue signal and say that he wants to help the world with the rights of women and people who
00:41:05.980are being oppressed. Yet we are without question purchasing their products all the time. We're a
00:41:11.580happy customer of all those things. We can be using mechanisms to try to encourage the other
00:41:17.080guys to improve themselves. That way we can say we're being environmentalists. We're doing better.
00:41:21.540our domestic industries you know if you guys want to start competing with ours bring your
00:41:25.260environmental and human rights standards up to ours and then we'll start bringing your stuff in
00:41:28.960but in the meantime yeah we're going to tax the crap out of it because you're bad players i i1.00
00:41:33.220really like that approach but you know china i mean that's a huge elephant in the room with0.62
00:41:37.480true you think it's his weakest spot yet o'toole is not pounding him on his relationship with china
00:41:43.180there's a soft spot it seems that every leader has with that but why do you think that is mark
00:41:47.080It flipped with O'Toole. If you'll remember early on, O'Toole and the Conservative Caucus was pushing hard to condemn China with this declaration, attacking the Uyghur situation in that country as far as, for lack of a better word, slave labor, forced labor camps, facilities that we know in Xinjiang province, I believe it is.
00:42:15.640and these were plants that use labor that is subject to all sorts of draconian
00:42:24.520torture we're hearing we're hearing all sorts of stories of the treatment of the yuger minorities
00:42:29.080and other religious groups in china and so o'toole and company were at the forefront of pushing back
00:42:35.480against this you'll remember what happened it was a massive slap on the face to the liberals because
00:42:41.400even though they didn't defeat the declaration they didn't show up so caucus stayed out of it
00:42:46.520the liberals stayed out of it so the declaration passed but oddly enough after that everything
00:42:52.840flipped and uh o'toole hired of course the canadian vp of huawei and it really got people
00:43:00.680wondering like where is this guy you know one minute he's he's calling out china for its uh
00:43:06.760extremist policies as far as the treatment of minority groups is concerned. And next he's
00:43:12.980hiring the Huawei guy. And by the way, I've heard precious little out of O'Toole recently
00:43:17.260about whether he would ban Huawei 5G. I think it would be an excellent time for him0.97
00:43:22.260to clarify his position on where he stands on that. By the way, where is the decision on that?
00:43:27.560How come this prime minister has yet to decide on the issue of Huawei? Maybe he's waiting for
00:43:35.460yet another election. Maybe he's waiting to win that majority before he finally hands the keys of
00:43:40.360the country over to China, lock, stock, and barrel. I don't know. I'm not sure what happened with O'Toole.
00:43:46.140I'm not sure who got to him, what changed in his head, but something clearly changed after that
00:43:52.000declaration. O'Toole was not the same guy after that. And you can speculate all you want, Corey,
00:43:58.500about who or what got to O'Toole but something changed and it just wasn't the same guy well
00:44:06.600just so I can jump in there right quick I look I agree with Merck on most of those points that
00:44:11.940he's brought up and in fact you know when the vice president of of Huawei was hired the the
00:44:22.440motion that the conservative party had and I don't recall the exact name of that motion but it was0.81
00:44:28.480essentially saying you know we don't want to have to deal with with Beijing and
00:44:36.520and Huawei in the 5g network and all that kind of stuff and there was a big
00:44:41.200petition that went up about this and of course that petition just sort of
00:44:47.240magically disappeared within days of the hiring of the vice president of Huawei
00:44:52.980And look, I also think that there's a problem in Canada.
00:44:57.720You know, to your point, Corey, when it comes to China.
00:45:02.280Look, I really believe that Canada, quite frankly, has done a very poor job of building and strengthening relations with India.
00:45:11.680And the reason I think that's important is because over the next two decades, it's imperative that the global economy and that in all matters related to foreign affairs and those kinds of things, that the world have a counterbalance to the growing and accelerating influence that Beijing has.
00:45:40.520And so from my perspective, India is the perfect place for us to build those relations, because India has a deep, rich understanding of a functioning legal system.
00:45:59.180They pride themselves on being the world's largest democracy.
00:46:02.980you know so there's a lot of things there where India could help you know not just Canada
00:46:14.440but the global economy as a whole I just wanted to throw that out there oh absolutely and that's
00:46:20.100another area with foreign you know affairs that Trudeau left a pretty wide opening I mean his
00:46:25.820is now infamous India trip I mean he embarrassed Canada around the entire world and India is a
00:46:32.720huge developing market uh you know i mean if anything we benefit from the number of professionals
00:46:38.480that come from india here to canada to work or doctors and chemists or or even you know business
00:46:44.000owners we should really be nurturing that relationship but we hear so little about india
00:46:49.680and again this being beholden to china and some of it is is our our addiction to cheap consumer
00:46:54.880products i mean there's a lot to change you can't just flick a light switch i mean i i understand
00:46:58.720the hypocrisy of people to a degree. I mean, I remember the big scream, or at least for some
00:47:03.500people was minimum wage hikes in Alberta, and they're pushing and pushing. And I owned a bar
00:47:07.520back then, you know, just to give an analogy, but there's truth to it. And people said, it's a good
00:47:11.840idea. Notley brought it in. They raised the wages. Well, I had to raise my prices. And you wouldn't
00:47:16.580believe how quickly some people started bitching that I'd raise prices to cover for paying staff1.00
00:47:21.220more. I mean, they want to virtue signal, but they don't want to reach into their own wallet. So
00:47:25.200if you suddenly can't go to Walmart and buy those cheap Chinese products, as much as people say
00:47:30.000they're upset with China, they're going to get crabby about it. So I mean, it does take a bit
00:47:34.760of work to wean ourselves or change that relationship with China. So I can see a bit0.99
00:47:39.240of the problems going on there with that. But it's a big black hole, I think that there's some
00:47:44.920electoral opportunity for the conservatives if they would only grasp it. Well, look, one of the
00:47:52.240things too i think uh just to kind of to go back to some earlier points uh in the first sort of
00:47:59.080half of our discussion um i i think one of the the concerns or worries uh is going to be for
00:48:07.160mr o'toole is going to be how many conservative mps are going to announce over the coming uh
00:48:14.820perhaps days or maybe weeks, that they have decided not to seek re-election.
00:48:22.600And, you know, that I think would be really problematic for Mr. O'Toole
00:48:27.780because there are some members of Parliament from Ontario, you know, from BC,
00:48:35.720from Atlantic Canada that have a lot of experience that have been in government in the past.
00:48:40.400And if some of those individuals, like let's use Pierre Polyev as an example, you know, if Mr. Polyev examines the polling data and see sort of how poorly the Conservatives are going to do in this election, and, you know, he may look at that and go, wow, you know, the party's about to lose a lot of members of Parliament from the province of Ontario.
00:49:04.640Maybe he decides to retire and go work in the private sector rather than stick around for, you know, a potential onslaught of bad news.
00:49:17.020So, you know, these are some of the other, I think, problems that Mr. O'Toole is going to be facing over the coming days and weeks.
00:49:25.280Yeah, absolutely. And there's some complexity. Somebody did mention, yeah, don't forget Trudeau stepping into the mess with the Indian farm protest over there.
00:49:32.500I did that myself, by the way. I had a podcast, I had a guest on speaking to one side of that
00:49:38.880protest and boy, I got some feedback and I'd gotten into, basically I was out of my depth.
00:49:44.060I didn't know enough about it. I didn't really take a side, but I put one side on and it got
00:49:47.780another side quite stirred up. Due to having worked managing Prasad Panda's campaigns a couple
00:49:53.180of times, I'm quite well connected in the Indian community. So I had another guest come on and put
00:49:57.400the other side out, but it's a very nuanced, complicated, and sensitive issue, which takes
00:50:03.460some extremely careful diplomacy on the part of our federal leadership, no matter who is delving
00:50:09.260into there. Again, India is a potential partner we need to develop and do well with, but we do have
00:50:14.980to tread carefully. They are a very complicated country. So moving further, though, moving on
00:50:21.080with caucus, and that's something I bring up because Danielle Smith has said it a number of
00:50:26.020times. And she certainly got experience with it. She says, you know, the thing that will always
00:50:29.580take a leader down in the end is when their caucus turns on them. That's when you've really hit the
00:50:34.540wall, the end point. I mean, citizens only have so many things they can do. The press can only get
00:50:38.400so upset. But when the caucus behind closed doors or even in the open turns on you, then you're up
00:50:42.980the creek. Stockwell Day dealt with it. You know, Alison Redford got wiped out by an Ed Stelmac in
01:07:45.000Now, the other factors were there was the Reform Party.
01:07:49.620There was the surging Bloc Quebecois at that time.
01:07:52.360There were a few things, but no pundit going into the election was going to predict that they were going to end up with two seats in the House of Commons after that.
01:24:12.620So, you know, and I see people saying, well, okay, I'm still going to, you know, still need to give O'Toole 100% support because of these other issues.
01:24:20.380Well, what makes you think he's not going to flip on the other issues?
01:24:22.900How can you have confidence in what he says, say, on protecting, you know, Canadian gun owners, right?
01:24:29.240although he says he's not going to balance the budget for 10 years so i don't even know
01:24:33.640what the deal there is but you know why would you trust somebody who's flipped on such a big issue
01:24:38.520so obviously and so brazenly and so arrogantly and then think oh but on these other issues i'm sure
01:24:43.160he'll totally stick to what he promised we can trust him on these other things i mean trust has
01:24:47.240to be earned and he hasn't even come close to earning well no i mean out west here you know
01:24:51.800we're pretty upset still and it's stinging with c69 c48 i mean these were legislations that were
01:24:57.800targeted towards our industries and our resources. And Erin O'Toole has been vocal,
01:25:04.200as have the Conservatives in general, in saying they're going to repeal or backtrack. But
01:25:08.280how can I believe him for a second now? If he finds it politically inexpedient,
01:25:12.440he's not going to back off on CC69. I mean, he might rebrand it and stick it out there and say
01:25:18.120it's not an anti-pipeline bill. I just have difficulty being able to pull out a ballot for
01:25:25.160this man now yeah and you know i think a lot of mps have to be answering those questions too right
01:25:30.280conservative mps who've been saying one thing to their constituents and party members and supporters
01:25:34.840for years and then all of a sudden i guess some of them they're just silent on this they're not
01:25:38.520saying anything so again you know if they can't stand up for themselves you know it's self-respect0.89
01:25:43.800too right i mean from what most of the reports show it seems that o'toole didn't even tell most
01:25:49.720of his caucus about this he just went out and announced it so if you're an mp and you let0.99
01:25:54.280Let yourself be treated, let's be honest, just be treated like garbage like that.0.98
01:25:57.840Someone, the leader showing no respect to you whatsoever, doesn't think you should be included, doesn't think you should talk to you at all.0.99
01:26:05.160How can you then go to voters and say, I'm going to be a strong advocate for you and I'm going to stand up for the country and our interests when you couldn't even stand up for yourself?
01:26:12.480So I think a lot of them have to answer those questions.
01:26:14.540And if they're just going to hide and hope, oh, it's just going to blow over and go away.
01:26:20.880I don't think it's going to be that easy for them.
01:26:22.400No, I mean, there's got to be some internal discord. I mean, what a sign of disrespect for all of those people who got elected. I mean, you know, that's the thing of our system. It's not one big election that puts in there. It's a series of hundreds and hundreds of little elections. And these people all earned their spot. They were representatives of their area within their party. They should be respected enough to at least be told before such a massive policy shift. And they weren't even informed. I can't imagine what the email inbox is for some of the prairie members of parliament or
01:26:52.380looking like right now. And they were caught flat footed. Will this have a cost though? I mean,
01:26:58.140is there a chance, do you think of some caucus rebellion going on or some pushing? I mean,
01:27:02.400I think of a lot of it. We discussed that prior with the other guests on the show.
01:27:06.080A bit of a saving grace for a tool as far as that goes is it just looks like we're on election alert.
01:27:10.920There's going to be one happening this year. It could be right away. At the latest, it's going
01:27:15.020to be this fall. So it's just really a self-destructive time to try and tear out and
01:27:19.640replace a leader or even just have a lot of infighting with a leader so they're more inclined
01:27:24.920to toe the line but how much longer do you think they'll take that yeah i think that's what o'toole
01:27:29.160is counting on and again i think that itself shows uh really in many ways a lack of character on his
01:27:35.080on his part because he's saying look i basically i'm holding you guys hostage uh there's nothing
01:27:39.640you can do about it you know if you go against me now it makes us look bad so i'm just going to do
01:27:44.680whatever i want i'm not going to talk to you i'm going to just ignore what we've told the party
01:27:48.200and told our supporters and you just better go along with it because there's an election coming
01:27:51.980up so it's it's very manipulative and it's very i think disrespectful to his colleagues and of
01:27:57.020course to conservatives in the country and all the people he campaigned uh to during the leadership
01:28:01.800race and uh but yeah i guess he thinks he's going to get away with it the problem is none of the
01:28:06.880polls show that it's working right if his whole idea was we're going to trade some you know western
01:28:11.680hardcore conservative support and win more support in the east well he seems like he's losing some
01:28:16.540western hardcore support but he's not gaining anything in the east or really anywhere else in
01:28:20.620the country and i've been writing about this for a while is that the big risk is he loses core
01:28:25.260supporters and just doesn't resonate with the public and then you're even worse off than when
01:28:28.860you started and it looks like that's what's happening to him well that's it i mean if you're
01:28:32.540going to look from a cold just electoral electoral strategic point of view and that's part of why
01:28:37.580alberta tends to get taken for granted hey we're predictable voters i mean you know even if you
01:28:42.860your MPs in Alberta lost 20% support. Most of them are still going to get re-elected having
01:28:47.900lost that much. So you can kind of ignore them. And just the reality of Canada's makeup is
01:28:53.580you have to appeal to central Canada. You have to, there's no getting around it.
01:28:57.340You've got to win a certain chunk there. O'Toole has decided to sacrifice the Western ones and he0.71
01:29:03.180feels that in coming up with a carbon tax, he's going to garner that central Canadian vote that
01:29:07.820he needs so badly which you know he hasn't been able to catch their eye so far in his period of
01:29:13.180leadership but i mean we're going to know pretty soon whether people want to accept his disingenuous
01:29:18.140bloated bureaucratic carbon tax versus at least trudeau's carbon tax which is already in place
01:29:22.860and i got a feeling i already know the answer to how this gamble is going to come out for him
01:29:27.020yeah that's you know beyond all the dishonesty and the lying it's also objectively just a terrible
01:29:32.300plan i mean that's that's the other big problem he has is you know if he came up with something
01:29:37.100amazing and brilliant you could maybe get away with it and say look how smart this plan is i
01:29:41.420mean look how brilliant i am well aren't i a smart guy you should listen to me but it's a terrible
01:29:45.340plan i mean it's you know in politics to say if you're explaining you're losing right so you try
01:29:50.380to explain to someone the the liberal carbon tax and i'm not saying i agree with that i don't like
01:29:54.540it at all but from a pure you know political pr perspective they say we tax it then we give it all
01:29:59.820back to you right it's simple to explain the tool plan so we tax it and then we put it into a fund
01:30:06.780uh that's run by you know it's gonna end up being like a bay street consortium of banks so
01:30:11.260we're gonna give the banks more power and put them in charge place it like the interact system
01:30:15.340and then you can use it but not on anything you want you can use it on this government approved
01:30:19.820checklist of green items to make your life greener i mean just explaining that to people i've talked
01:30:24.860to a few people you know not really very political people about it and they don't like how it sounds
01:30:29.260at all it's just it's tough to explain it doesn't really make sense it's more bureaucratic and more
01:30:33.820almost of a kind of nanny state program than what the liberals are doing and so beyond all the issues
01:30:38.700of how Tua lied to everybody you know the thing he lied for the plan the big plan he wanted to bring
01:30:44.460in it's terrible oh and yeah the administration of it would be horrific i mean that's for each and
01:30:50.860every canadian in the nation uh i said it earlier with the other guests it's true let me look how
01:30:56.140well government has managed the phoenix pay system or the gun registry in the past i mean these are
01:31:00.540and that's just the nature of bureaucracies and governments in general they just don't run
01:31:04.540sleek efficient uh uh things and i know that they're saying oh we would outsource it yeah but
01:31:09.980when it's government contracts outsourced we just see the same thing it's just now it goes into
01:31:13.500private pockets rather than government ones it this is just uh bad but you know and if carbon
01:31:19.580tax was the only way to win if it was because that's what some people on twitter are coming
01:31:22.300after me well we just have to do it it's the only way to do it why didn't he tell us about that then
01:31:27.820four months ago why didn't he say it at the convention even you know when you're going to
01:31:31.180change your mind on issues and that's fine issues change leaders should be flexible but this was just
01:31:36.540out of the blue i i mean what's he thinking yeah i think his problem is that he's totally buying
01:31:43.260into the kind of the narrative of much of the establishment media and it's very interesting i
01:31:47.980notice a lot of people rewriting history they're saying oh if only andrew shear had a carbon tax
01:31:52.940he would have won last time. But that wasn't actually the big problem Scheer had. Scheer's
01:31:57.300problem was on social conservative issues and his difficulty giving answers to some of those
01:32:02.440questions, right? That's what everyone was talking about then. Scheer lost because he was seen as too
01:32:06.280socially conservative or couldn't answer the questions well. You know, everyone's kind of
01:32:09.780pretending that that didn't exist. And now, oh, the actual problem is that Scheer just didn't have
01:32:14.060a carbon tax. He would have won with the carbon tax, right? The conservatives still won the popular
01:32:17.940vote last time and you know you flip maybe you know a hundred thousand votes in a few ridings
01:32:23.220and you're talking about the liberals and conservatives with the pretty uneven splitting
01:32:26.500seats right so the idea that all the conservatives needed to told that all all they need to do is
01:32:31.220bring in a carbon tax and they're going to win well do the polls show that that's working i mean
01:32:35.780is is that the right approach is that actually a good thing to do and also just in terms of
01:32:40.900democracy i mean canada's supposed to be a country where you know people who have opinions on
01:32:46.180different issues are represented and a large portion of the country is still against the
01:32:50.580carbon tax and the conservatives were supposed to be the party for those people with those beliefs
01:32:55.100and they've been totally abandoned so you're disenfranchising a lot of people as well
01:32:58.940by saying oh we'll just buy into the media narrative and just give the liberals and the
01:33:02.620media what they want well they're just going to keep demanding more from you they're just going
01:33:05.860to say oh the tax isn't high enough or now the new thing is that you need to cut emissions even more
01:33:10.420they're just going to move the goalposts again and so what is a tool just going to keep chasing
01:33:13.840them around. I mean, it's just, it's very stupid. Yeah. Well, and you brought up an important point1.00
01:33:19.900when it came with Scheer. It wasn't just the fact that he was socially conservative. I mean,
01:33:24.620people accept that with some leaders. It's not as un vogue, I guess, as it used to be,
01:33:28.760but it's still okay. But you have to trust a socially conservative leading leader to know
01:33:34.140that they'll feel, you know, they'll protect the personal individual rights for social
01:33:37.300conservatism, but not trying to impose it on anybody else. And because Scheer couldn't give
01:33:40.920clear answers the trust got lost and that's where the issue hit because once trust is lost then
01:33:46.440people can read in anything they like into what you say and it's hard to deny and now O'Toole
01:33:51.800has broken trust with his own members and I mean if I was a liberal voter sitting on the fence I'd
01:33:57.000be saying well how can I believe anything you're telling me you won't even respect your own members
01:34:02.600why would I even consider giving my vote to you and you're in Manitoba which is a much more
01:34:09.720swing riding it's a great interesting central canadian spot i mean geographically it's truly
01:34:14.040central but uh you know you've really got a great deal of ridings that can go either way out there
01:34:21.080how do you feel this will resonate out that way though will this potentially help them i mean
01:34:26.440there's still there could be some benefit in some areas for for the conservatives with this
01:34:31.480i mean it's always possible if there's voters on the fence who are saying oh i really love
01:34:35.160the conservatives if when they had a carbon tax i just think the number of those people is very
01:34:39.720small and i think if if you really feel that government intervention on climate change is your
01:34:44.840top issue you're probably voting liberal ndp or even green right so for the voters on the fence
01:34:51.880i think you know the issue you know for a lot of people is well the economy is in serious trouble
01:34:57.480the debt's a big problem they want some action in the environment but they obviously don't want to
01:35:01.720to pay a whole bunch more because people i mean the government says inflation is 1.1 nobody
01:35:06.280believes that people are seeing costs of everything rise out of control life is getting more expensive
01:35:10.680so i think focusing on those uh core issues would be the most important so yeah there may be a few
01:35:15.800people who are saying yeah i'll vote conservative if they have a carbon tax but i just don't think
01:35:19.160it's too many people and i think you're going to lose more by doing what o'toole did than you gain
01:35:25.560yeah well and o'toole's facing a kind of an ugly situation there's some things that are beyond
01:35:29.480conservative control that are big factors in canada if a conservative party wants to form
01:35:33.800government basically you need somebody to pull votes off those liberals you know you need a
01:35:38.200strong ndp or you need a strong block and both of those parties are decimated right now i mean jagmeet
01:35:45.320singh is is just abysmal in the polls he's not appealing to much of anybody and that all is to
01:35:50.600towards trudeau's favor because disenchanted ndp voters don't typically go to the conservatives
01:35:55.000they will go liberal uh what can the conservatives do to remedy that though i mean the only way
01:35:59.880somebody would say is well we got to tack left a little bit in order to grab some of that vote if
01:36:03.720we have any hope yeah well i think and this is something a tool can't change and i guess we'll
01:36:08.920try to put it nicely but um you know having photogenic and charismatic leaders is often
01:36:14.920very important right i mean you know justin trudeau gets away with a lot of stuff i think
01:36:19.160because you know a lot of people see him as a charismatic politician now people can disagree
01:36:23.400agree with that or not, but he's definitely built up a cult of personality around himself.
01:36:27.500And in politics, that's a big thing, right? So Aaron O'Toole, not really photogenic,
01:36:31.360not really charismatic. So if you're like that, the only thing you really have to offer is
01:36:35.060competence and honesty, right? Maybe he still has a little credibility as a competent person,
01:36:40.360but the honesty thing is kind of fading away too now. So that's a big problem they have.
01:36:44.780One thing I've said is they should be emphasizing their team much more, right? They do have a fair
01:36:48.700amount of MPs, Pierre Polyev, Michelle Rempelgarner, Michael Chong, Raquel Dancho, you know, put them
01:36:55.340in ads, you know, I guess alongside O'Toole, because you have to put O'Toole's face out there
01:36:58.720a bit, but put them in ads and show, look, we're a big team, you know, we've got a lot of, you know,
01:37:03.440charismatic or photogenic young people in the party, and that's just kind of the image you have
01:37:07.360to present, but they seem to, once again, be just focusing it all on the O'Toole brand, which again,
01:37:12.200if you're trying to build a brand around someone who's not really that interesting and not super
01:37:16.160likeable then it's not going to go well so i would say they should emphasize the team but
01:37:20.400the leader's office is often seen quite narcissistic and unwilling to do that
01:37:25.200yeah that's interesting because it has been quite the the opposite i mean paul you have you know i
01:37:29.200mean some people love or hate him but he's certainly a vocal and he's got a strong following
01:37:33.120you would want to diversify your reach have him out front but what did o'till do he's kind of
01:37:37.520slid him a little farther back and a little out of the spotlight and uh michelle rempel again a
01:37:42.880polarizing but active and vocal person with a portion of support among her I mean you could
01:37:50.000distribute that yeah I see that strategy and yeah he's not doing that
01:37:55.360I got spanked a bit by Mark just recently on that whereas I gave Trudeau a little more credit than
01:37:59.760he felt was due because I still feel I've underestimated Trudeau a little bit over the0.99
01:38:03.680years and I've called him an imbecile in many things and he's done many stupid things there's0.99
01:38:08.080no doubt about it but he does seem to be getting a little better at the role that you know he's not1.00
01:38:12.480a cerebral type of leader or anything like that he never will be but he's being more controlled
01:38:17.920there's less yeah there's fewer gaffes uh he's communicating better um this is gonna make him
01:38:23.920harder to take down as a cult of personality around him and then and then that's fine so
01:38:27.840if you can't beat him on that boy we've really got to come up with something new and fast
01:38:33.120yeah i mean the liberals they're terrible at governing but they're great at politics right
01:38:36.400and unfortunately in today's world that's often enough to stay in power and the conservatives
01:38:41.280Maybe they have the opposite problem, although I guess some could question some of the governing
01:38:45.200in some conservative provinces right now in the country.
01:38:48.500But yeah, I mean, the conservatives have a politics problem, which is ironic, right?
01:38:52.400You know, you're in politics, you should know how to communicate.
01:38:55.120But the conservative party federally, I mean, they seem like they're just terrible communicators.
01:38:59.860I mean, to have O'Toole come out and give that plan and then the big line being, oh,
01:45:14.240It's a problem, but the conservatives are saying no balanced budget for 10 years, so they're kind of boxed in there, right?
01:45:19.980And so you'd have to say some sort of scandal.
01:45:21.780Well, the waste scandal didn't hurt the liberals much in the polls, or if it did, it was relatively temporary.
01:45:26.580So the only thing I can really see is an extremely strong performance by O'Toole in debates and, you know, on the campaign stump and Trudeau making tons of mistakes.
01:45:37.240But as you said, Trudeau, he's not getting worse at politics, right?
01:45:39.980He's getting a little bit better, unfortunately, at least at the time.
01:45:42.600Yeah, he's no genius still, but he has been adapting.
01:45:46.820I mean, that's kind of what I hoped for in the past, too.0.99
01:46:00.680So to turn this tide around, I mean, we need to, and it sucks having to rely on the incompetency of others, I guess.
01:46:08.320But you almost need the liberals to implode because we can't seem to chip away at them from the conservative approach right now.
01:46:14.760Yeah, the only other thing I could see, and again, I don't see this happening with the conservatives, but it's actually taking, you know, controversial but courageous stands on a lot of issues.
01:46:24.960I mean, you talk to anybody and they say, this is crazy.
01:46:27.320You know, the fact that in many cases you have Canadian citizens being priced out of the housing market,
01:46:32.160in large part because of, you know, billionaires and millionaires from foreign countries.
01:46:36.620And you see, okay, no one's really talking too much about that.
01:46:39.620Pierre Poliev talks about it a bit, you know, but not much from O'Toole, so it doesn't get much attention.
01:46:45.800Even issues like immigration, this is where it does get touchy for them.
01:46:48.760But, you know, most polls show half the country is not really in favor of higher immigration levels, especially coming out of an economic crisis.
01:46:55.400Right. You had even less support for it. Then you've got issues of inflation, of course, you know, money printing, the debt, all those things.
01:47:02.200So there's issues that conservatives could be talking about. I think health of the population.
01:47:05.940If we saw anything in the last year, it's how vulnerable we are because of our very weak physical and mental health in this country.0.75
01:47:12.040So I think if they took courageous stands on a lot of deeper issues that I think a lot of people are very concerned about, people would say, well, at least they're not just saying Trudeau sucks.
01:47:20.680At least they're saying, here are some other problems in the country, some deeper issues, and we're actually going to look at addressing those.
01:47:26.820And I think that would be a way to kind of escape from the traditional political spectrum, because the average person doesn't go around life saying, I'm a conservative.
01:47:33.540I think I'm 8 out of 10 on the left to right scale today, right?
01:47:37.140People don't really think that way in their own lives.
01:47:39.600But the Conservatives, they seem like they're just going to try the same approach.
01:47:42.440Oh, we'll just nitpick the Liberals here and there and hope that they make some mistakes.
01:48:24.720And Trudeau has always been extremely weak when it comes to China.
01:48:28.160And instead of finding a good ground to cover there, at least, and show, you know, we're standing up against that nasty regime, O'Toole hires a Huawei executive.
01:48:38.160i i i just it seems like a self-destructive party at times i i don't get it yeah yeah that was one
01:48:47.020area where they were actually doing quite well i think uh you know canadians were seeing well
01:48:50.740the conservatives seem like they're pretty tough on china and in some ways pushing the liberals to
01:48:54.520be a little bit tougher right the conservatives were dominating that and so yeah then you go
01:48:58.240hire a former uh huawei executive and it's like why would you do that i mean it's not saying the
01:49:03.580guy's evil i don't think the guy's evil but is he such a supreme political genius that hiring him
01:49:08.680was worth throwing a lot of your credibility on china away like why would you do that and again
01:49:13.480seeing that move and then the carbon tax move they seem kind of similar to me right it's
01:49:19.220this is so obviously arrogant this is so obviously kind of in your face opposite to what we had
01:49:24.960promised people but we think we're smarter than you and we think that you either won't notice or
01:49:29.600we'll just talk our way out of it and so we're going to do it anyway and that seems to be kind
01:49:32.960of the attitude from O'Toole. And the problem is that's very similar to the attitude of the
01:49:37.260liberals, right? Which is, yeah, we're lying to your face and we're going to keep lying and you're
01:49:40.940going to listen to it and we're going to convince you that our lies are the truth. So that lack of
01:49:45.300respect for people, just treating people like idiots, we're starting to see that from O'Toole1.00
01:49:50.300and the liberals now. And I think that's the last thing people are looking for.0.99
01:49:54.000That's a pretty frustrating way for us to be right now. The budget's coming out today. I mean,
01:50:01.040we know it's going to be a high spending budget. I mean, no matter who was in, it was going to be
01:50:05.320one. What do you think, though? I've still been of a mind, though, because the infections have
01:50:11.480spiked again and that, that, okay, the Liberals are taking their foot off the electoral gas again.
01:50:15.440But my theory was that, you know, if infections have been going down, the pandemic's starting to
01:50:19.400ease off, we're going into spring, people are going to be in a better mood. You know, if I was
01:50:23.660a Liberal strategist, what I'd be doing is say, let's put out a feel-good budget, an election
01:50:27.040budget all full of goodies and promises in the works and then we'll tell everybody this budget
01:50:31.420is so important for the rebuilding of Canada the pandemic that I have to go to well we don't even
01:50:35.900have a governor general I got to go to somebody and dissolve the parliament and we've got to take
01:50:40.040it to the people to affirm this document you know and we're off to the races uh I I think right now
01:50:46.920it's looking a little too uh volatile out there on the ground I don't think the liberals want to
01:50:50.700quite pull the pin yet but when do you think we might be in for an election yeah I think certainly
01:50:55.300by the end of the year, it's possible. I mean, as I've said before, the Liberals have a window
01:50:59.400where there's going to be some euphoria when people feel the pandemic is basically over and
01:51:04.260they're pumping tons of money into the economy. So there should be maybe a year, year and a half
01:51:08.240where you don't really notice the impact of the debt and all the money printing. It's not super
01:51:13.400obvious yet. And so it's going to feel like all the economy is booming and man, we get to go
01:51:18.340outside and we're hanging out with our family again. This is great. So I think the Liberals
01:51:21.980know that that's their window. If they wait, you know, two years, then people start saying,
01:51:26.480it seems like there's a lot of inflation going on here. You know, why is the debt so high? Why is
01:51:30.900the economy not really doing as well as it felt like it was? And then again, just going back to
01:51:35.260normal, it's not going to be euphoria for long. People are going to say, well, this is what the
01:51:38.960life we had before the pandemic. So we just expect this as the baseline. So I think the liberals have
01:51:44.100a relatively narrow window and the conservative party seems like it's very much in chaos right
01:51:48.880now. So I'm sure they want to take advantage of that as well.
01:51:52.940Yeah. Well, we'll wait and see, I guess. I'll leave it at that. For today, we get ready to,
01:51:59.780well, wonks like us who will actually read and look at the budget so we can digest it and see
01:52:03.460what we can read out of those tea leaves. They don't just really seem to mean much anymore.
01:52:07.220They're almost as bad, in my view, as drone speeches. They're broad documents, but you're
01:52:11.580really, it's difficult to tell what's actually going to be implemented or what they'll mean.
01:52:15.980So thank you very much for joining me again today.