00:02:00.000morning welcome to a special episode of the cory morgan show for easter monday april 5th are we
00:02:16.140sitting out here i'm calling special because actually i know on the last show i had said uh
00:02:20.820i wasn't going to do the monday one because of the holiday coming up and everything but
00:02:24.600my mind's easily changed sometimes. Some new polling numbers have come through on the federal
00:02:31.040front. Aaron O'Toole's situation looks dire. Well, not to mention the entire Conservative Party of
00:02:36.660Canada under his leadership. There's been a number of columns and of course critique going on about
00:02:42.680it. And there's a lot of concern. So Clinton DeVoe, who's been a guest a couple of times with
00:02:48.380us, he's great. He's from Halifax and speaks, well, gives us an East Coast perspective on the
00:02:53.960conservative front. And he'd recently written a piece on that. And he's got some speculation as
00:02:59.540to what should be done or what can be done. It's interesting, but it sounds pretty bleak.
00:03:06.240So Clinton's going to come on in a little while. We should have Mark Petroni as well. He's been
00:03:10.120on with us and he's the host of the Mark Petroni show in Mississauga, Ontario on Saga 960.
00:03:17.140And Mark's been on before as well. So I mean, we'll kind of have three regions of the country
00:03:21.400be able to pitch in and try to sort out you know just what's going on with this conservative party
00:03:28.120under a tool can it be salvaged what can be done uh can anything be done so we'll see here i'm
00:03:34.760gonna bring clinton in right now hello clinton good morning to uh you and your fellow albertans
00:03:40.600how are you today good thanks yeah i guess it's already the afternoon out your way so uh you had
00:03:47.880written a piece recently uh it was on medium and you said it's going to be appearing uh elsewhere
00:03:52.280soon yeah so i've written uh an article recently uh and it's called aaron it's over and uh the
00:04:00.680basis of the article is that i sat down and i examined all the polling data from a whole host
00:04:09.160of polling firms and then i looked at the regional breakdown of the polling data so i looked at the
00:04:16.200the Alberta regional breakdown, the Ontario breakdowns, those kinds of things.
00:04:20.880And then I looked at the favorability ratings and those kinds of things
00:04:27.580between Aaron O'Toole and Justin Trudeau, the prime minister.
00:04:32.740And basically, after going through all of the data and collecting it from September
00:04:38.500through March, through just this last week, a pattern has developed.
00:04:44.160And that pattern is that the Conservatives are anywhere from 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 points behind the governing Liberals.
00:04:55.300So as it stands right now, the Conservatives are not going to win.
00:05:01.520And I think the problem, quite frankly, is with Aaron O'Toole.
00:05:06.660Yeah, well, a number of people have said that.
00:05:09.240I read another piece by Lauren Gunter, you know, an Edmonton columnist who's been writing conservatively for a long time and he outright called Aaron O'Toole a dud.
00:05:19.880But I mean, what's terrifying, I guess, of this or frustrating with this is it's not like we're two years out from an election.
00:05:26.740And if you want to, you know, change a leader out that you have time to run a process and find the best person and, you know, try to rejuvenate through that.
00:05:34.880I mean, most people feel we're going into election possibly within a couple of months, probably definitely by fall.
00:05:41.640You sort of propose that it's beyond repair and that one way or another O'Toole should be yanked out of there.
00:05:47.760But how could that be accomplished without doing more damage than good?
00:05:51.240Well, I would argue that what would be more damage for Canadians is having an uncompetitive political party system.
00:06:02.260So you've heard me argue many times, Corey, that Canada operates best when we have two national
00:06:12.180political parties vying for government. And to me, the alternative of a runaway liberal majority
00:06:23.380is a lot more damaging and problematic for the Conservative Party and quite frankly,
00:06:28.100the country as a whole um than replacing mr o'toole now while they have the opportunity
00:06:36.900so if we look at the the polling data for example there was a series of polls that came out last week
00:06:43.860that had the conservatives nationally in the 27 to 29 range and um the liberals were anywhere from
00:06:54.98035 to 40 percent depending on those whichever poll people were looking at and what that means
00:07:03.300is the liberals are going to win a majority government and some people could say well the
00:07:08.260poll is just a snapshot in time which is true except the problem for mr o'toole is that when
00:07:15.860he won the leadership of the conservative party back in august of 2020 historically any new leader
00:07:23.940that's chosen you know for the party whether it's the liberals or the conservatives they get a bump
00:07:29.540in the polls and instead of getting a bump in the polls what we saw was within seven days of him
00:07:37.860acquiring leadership the the poll numbers immediately started to tank they started to drop
00:07:45.380so there was no bump and in fact there was a fall and so what we have seen consistently since
00:07:51.220september through now april is that the conservatives start to tumble they form a new low
00:08:00.420they recuperate a little bit and they they will bump back up into the uh the 30 31 32 percent
00:08:09.300range uh for a week and then they immediately start to drop again and they they end up going
00:08:16.420to a new all-time low so what we saw last week were national polls that have the conservatives
00:08:22.420at 27 percent now we could talk about the regional breakdown as well if that's something that you're
00:08:29.140interested in doing because to me that's where it becomes even more problematic for the conservative
00:08:34.180party well absolutely i mean that the regional breakdown gets more into wonky status but that's
00:08:40.900okay that's what we're about here and it's critical i mean it's just like it's just like
00:08:45.460with the american system which is really uh you know complicated but you have to understand
00:08:49.940their electoral college and a number of things to see how certain uh presidents win in the united
00:08:55.700states it's the same in canada you have to look at the regional strengths because uh overall polling
00:09:00.900snapshots of the country don't necessarily uh indicate who can win or lose it's where those
00:09:05.540votes are concentrated which are most important and that unfortunately is part of what leads to
00:09:09.860our regionalism and division but that's a much longer separate uh discussion so looking at the
00:09:15.460uh regional breakdowns then uh what have you uh seen and determined with the conservatives right
00:09:20.420now as they're standing yeah so uh well i'll start with ontario first but then we'll have
00:09:27.460some surprises that are it's going to come as a shock to many of your alberta viewers
00:09:33.300so if we look at ontario right now the liberals are at 44 percent and the conservatives are at 28
00:09:42.740So that's a 16-point differential. What that basically means is that there's a whole bunch
00:09:48.980of existing conservative members of parliament that are going to go down to defeat when the next
00:09:55.140federal election is called. And more importantly, Corey Tanike, who is the former director of
00:10:03.220communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he gave an interview recently where he talked about
00:10:11.620how the Conservatives are anywhere from 10 to 15 points behind in the key ridings that Ontario
00:10:20.020Premier Doug Ford required in order to win a majority government. Now, the reason all of this
00:10:25.620is important is because the federal map in Ontario is the same as the provincial map. In other words,
00:10:34.260the ridings more or less all line up the same and so those uh ridings that are in the 905
00:10:42.180which is uh for your listeners that may not know that's the area code uh for the suburbs of the
00:10:48.340greater toronto area so doug ford was able to win seats in the in the 905 which is the the
00:10:54.420suburbs surrounding the greater toronto area premier ford was able to win seats in the 416
00:11:02.180which is the sort of the proper Toronto core and of course he was able to win uh ridings
00:11:09.940in uh the rural 613 which is outside of Ottawa it's that sort of the the rural country farmland
00:11:17.780of the Ottawa Valley so if the Conservatives are 10 to 15 points behind in all of those key areas
00:11:25.060according to Mr. Tanaik and he has access to a lot of internal data that the general public
00:11:31.380doesn't have access to that means the conservatives are in for a drubbing and you know it's for those
00:11:39.540members of parliament that are in the conservative caucus in ontario some of those individuals have
00:11:43.940been elected for the first time in the 2019 election and let's not kid ourselves you require
00:11:51.380two terms in office plus six years in order to qualify for a MP's pension so
00:12:03.420there's going to be a number of MPs that are most likely going to lose their
00:12:07.780golden pension and they're going to go down and defeat in Ontario so Cory I
00:12:15.440know in your case you often have questions about Alberta and I'm happy to
00:12:18.800talk about uh you know what i say even though i'm not in alberta i've been examining the data and
00:12:24.320i'm happy to talk about alberta as well if you'd like yeah well i mean things that are surprising
00:12:30.400and and not just alberta in the regional breakdown but an issue i mean when a leader is leading a
00:12:35.200party they've got two groups i guess you could say that they they have to appeal to i mean number one
00:12:39.840is the entire nation i mean if you're going to win in a general election you have to reach out
00:12:44.560to general canadians enough of them in order to win i mean simple as that but the other part is
00:12:49.360managing your own party your party faithful your supporters your members and uh o'tul seems to be
00:12:56.560having a lot of difficulty with traditional conservatives keeping them happy i mean not
00:13:00.560only is he not winning people who were swing voters he can't seem to retain his conservative
00:13:06.160base and that conservative base yeah a lot of it is in alberta these are people you would think
00:13:09.760would not drift away from the conservatives but the numbers out here aren't looking that great either
00:13:14.560Well, you're right. So, you know, there is a political strategy that some people would argue where if you're lacking support in some regions of the country and you have tremendous supports in a different region, if you can appeal to the area where you need votes and lose a little bit of support where you have a large critical mass, that at the end it will all work out.
00:13:42.420Now, the problem in this case is if we look at the regional breakdown in Alberta, to your point about the conservative base, if you will, there's multiple polls, and this is not coming from me.
00:14:01.740If we look at the breakdown of Alberta, the conservatives are leading, and they're in a solid 41%.
00:14:09.780uh the problem for the conservatives is that the liberals are at around 34 percent according to
00:14:17.020that regional breakdown and that means the liberals are going to win seats in alberta
00:14:21.660and this is not just coming from me but hardcore sort of rock rib right-wing conservatives you
00:14:27.840know people like ezra levant for example he's openly talked about over the past week that he
00:14:35.060believes that the liberals are most likely going to win seats in alberta and specifically in the
00:14:39.300greater Edmonton area yeah well and go on sorry yeah so what I was saying was it's this is not
00:14:45.800just a problem that's occurring in central Canada or eastern Atlantic Canada it's a problem that's
00:14:53.940actually occurring in the prairies for the conservatives and and to your point what's
00:14:59.540happening I believe is that a lot of the conservative vote is being suppressed and
00:15:05.900And in some cases, I think a lot of the Conservative vote has, for whatever reason, decided that the Conservatives, as they are currently constructed, are not going to win.
00:15:19.260And so, you know, there's an older argument where it's better to be inside government than it is outside government.
00:15:26.740And we know that Saskatchewan, for example, your neighboring province, that they don't currently have any representation in the government.
00:15:35.900And so if it looks like the Conservatives are going to go down to defeat, then the likelihood of more Liberals being elected becomes a greater possibility because people don't want to vote for an opposition party per se.
00:15:54.440You know, most people want to vote for someone who they believe can win, who they believe can form government.
00:16:00.320yeah it's it's frightening and galling as a uh you know conservative albertan that we might be
00:16:08.680seeing liberals representing us in calgary again and uh you know those swing votes in edmonton but
00:16:13.060these numbers indicate just that very thing we might be finally getting rid of mayor in the head
00:16:17.840and she is the mayor but he might actually be entrenched as one of our members of parliament
00:16:21.240what an awful trade-off for us there we were just kind of hoping to shuffle about all together
00:16:25.840But I see Mark Petroni has jumped in now, which is great.
00:16:29.480So we can kind of get that middle perspective on what's going on here.
00:16:34.160So, yeah, Mark Petroni is from the Mark Petroni Show in Mississauga at Saga 960.
00:16:38.980And, Mark, we've been discussing Clinton's recent piece and just the polling numbers and just that inability for O'Toole to gain traction, it seems, virtually anywhere.
00:16:50.240with his own party faithful, with swing voters in other parts of the country, or as we just finished
00:16:55.840there in Alberta. What are your views or what are you seeing out where you're at with this?
00:17:02.080Well, remember, Aaron O'Toole was the guy who was going to bring seats back to the Conservative
00:17:07.260Party of Canada, right? I mean, that's the Ontario guy, right? He's the kid from Bowmanville. So he
00:17:12.860was going to bring in, which is, you know, part of the greater Toronto area. It's a little bit
00:17:16.640further out. He's east of Toronto. But I mean, this is the guy who was going to do that. He was
00:17:21.600going to accomplish that. It's one of the reasons why conservatives, grassroots conservatives,
00:17:26.400gravitated towards his campaign. That and the fact that he said, no, I will not betray
00:17:31.540conservative principles, not like that, you know, Peter McKay over there, that lefty,
00:17:37.520despite McKay's long, solid track record of voting, you know, along, you know, strict
00:17:44.100conservative lines, it didn't matter because O'Toole pushed this narrative that McKay was the
00:17:51.460lefty and that the true blue conservative, the only real true blue conservative of the bunch,
00:17:56.660was Mr. O'Toole. Well, turns out that he's not really blue or true. Here's a guy as soon as he
00:18:02.820got in. What did he do? Well, he turned on the very people who supported him, who helped him
00:18:08.500get over the top, namely the SOCONs, the social conservatives, people like Derek Sloan, whom he
00:18:13.380later booted out of the party. And so then he started talking a lot about climate change,
00:18:19.620you know, rather than talk about reopening the economy, getting Canadians working again,
00:18:25.940the kind of, you know, rock-ribbed conservative policies that people who vote conservative
00:18:31.680normally, like myself, wanted to hear from him. Well, no, he didn't want to talk so much about
00:18:36.500that. He didn't want to talk about the Liberals' ongoing attack on free speech, on pushing this
00:18:43.000idea that we need to regulate social media posts. Stuff like that tends to scare conservatives,
00:18:50.120but we didn't hear Aaron talk about that pushback against those types of policies.
00:18:55.240No, he wanted to talk about climate change, which is straight part of the liberal party
00:19:00.760bailiwick. And then he sort of said, well, I'm going to move the party left. And that's basically
00:19:07.720what he said so after months of pushing the idea that he was the true blue conservative he gets in
00:19:13.080what does he do he is anything but the true blue conservative then he tries to
00:19:17.160tell people like like we saw in that speech at the policy convention we got to change you know
00:19:22.520where was the solid uh defense the full-throated defense of conservative party policies and
00:19:29.640principles and values it wasn't there i didn't hear it instead he got this kind of mea culpa
00:19:35.880thing going where we've got to change well excuse me but it's liberal parties that suck they're the
00:19:40.920ones who have to change and we're the ones who need to bring in you know common sense policies
00:19:46.360on issues like the economy and i didn't hear that from erin o'toole we needed to hear that we didn't
00:19:52.040it was more of this yeah we can try to get liberal votes well unfortunately what happened
00:19:57.640he not only alienated people in his own party but he failed utterly at least he has up to this point
00:20:03.400guys failed to draw in many people who would normally vote liberal. So he figured, at least
00:20:10.600the brain trust in the O'Toole camp figured that, no, if we just move the party left,
00:20:15.880we know that there are a lot of people who vote liberal who are not happy with Justin Trudeau,
00:20:22.920and guess what? We're going to get those people. Those are the people who are going to flock over
00:20:26.520to our side if we just move a little bit left. Well, did it work? So far it has failed miserably.
00:20:33.400And I think Clinton is absolutely right.
00:20:47.520Just on a side note, do you mind if I jump in, Corey, to some of the things that Mark has mentioned?
00:20:54.320You know, Mark, there's another problem that you didn't touch on, which I think is really important in this case.
00:21:00.580There seems to be, from my perspective anyways, what I like to call a communications disaster coming out of Aaron O'Toole's office.
00:21:08.780So a couple of months ago, he started to make traction by talking tough, and rightly so.
00:21:14.740Let's be honest, there are Canadian citizens currently being held hostage by the Beijing government.
00:21:21.180And he started to make traction with the public at large.
00:21:25.140And then for some strange reason, Mr. O'Toole decided to hire the vice president of Huawei.
00:21:33.360And, you know, I think that created a communications problem for him where a lot of people were left scratching their head going, geez, like, what's this guy on?
00:21:44.260And, you know, I would argue that one of the reasons, amongst many, but one of the reasons why he's performing terribly in the polling data is because of mistakes like we saw with the Huawei situation.
00:21:58.560And I would argue now is not the time for the Conservative Party to capitulate, nor is now the time for the Conservative Party to take a knee.
00:22:07.960And I'm wondering, you know, from your perspective in Ontario, do you think that Wall Way was a was a problematic issue for Mr. O'Toole?
00:22:17.220Well, I think it was a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
00:22:20.920I mean, O'Toole was going gangbusters, get tough on China, get tough on China.
00:22:25.820And I think a lot of Canadians in the midst of everything that's happened with the two Michaels, the bashing of Canada on the world stage.
00:22:34.740We saw some trade related attacks on this country on things like commodities like soybeans.
00:22:42.660And so and then, of course, you go back to what happened with Nortel and the ongoing theft of intellectual property.
00:22:48.260Canadians are very wary of China right now. China has a major PR problem in Canada.
00:22:54.360So here's O'Toole coming out and saying, yeah, we agree with you and we're going to go after China on the matter of the Uyghurs and other minority,
00:23:01.700religious minority groups in China, which we know have suffered, which have been under
00:23:05.640the thumb of this Chinese totalitarian regime, which have had to exist in a very hard circumstance
00:23:15.380like, you know, the labor, the forced labor camps that we have heard of, associated with
00:23:30.420Well, days later, it comes out that he hired the former VP of Huawei Canada, and we had a lot of people scratching their head like, well, what's going on here?
00:23:39.460And why isn't he talking about banning Huawei 5G? We haven't heard too much about that.
00:23:44.820Yeah, there was talk about it before, but all of a sudden something flipped, something changed.
00:23:48.880So I agree with you, but not only was it a communications issue, it was a change in direction that I think had a lot of Canadians scratching their head and wondering,
00:23:58.060This guy, he has flip-flopped on the Social Conservative issue, he's flip-flopped on being
00:24:03.340Mr. True Blue Conservative, and now he's flip-flopped on China. So we no longer trust the
00:24:08.060guy. I think I agree with you, Clinton. It was a major blunder on his part.
00:24:11.740And Corey, just to add to this, one of the other issues, to Mark's point about
00:24:19.820Huawei was that the Conservative Party actually had a popular petition basically arguing that
00:24:29.740things like Huawei being involved in Canada's 5G network may not be a good idea.
00:24:35.580And shortly after the hiring of the Huawei vice president,
00:24:41.900that petition from a number of media sources has disappeared.
00:24:46.700So that sort of feeds into the narrative that that Mark has pointed out, that there's this communications problem. And like I said, I would argue now is not the time for conservatives in Canada to capitulate and take a knee in the face of how Beijing is treating Canadian citizens by randomly picking them up and essentially treating them as hostages.
00:25:10.640yeah well and if anything's happened over the years and i've been guilty of it is underestimating
00:25:17.300justin trudeau i hate to say it uh and i i do believe he almost began as a bit of a blithering
00:25:23.060idiot but he's really actually evolved uh and and become stronger perhaps it's better guidance from
00:25:29.400the people around him uh perhaps he himself has just eventually learned and gotten into that role
00:25:34.840but he actually instills confidence in a fair number of canadians whether we like it or not
00:25:40.420even if it seems unimaginable to us and when it comes it you know that's where you have to look
00:25:45.280at a vulnerability then where is he soft and it has been inexplicable justin's got a giant weak
00:25:51.840spot with china uh but they will they won't exploit that i mean that's where a number of
00:25:58.300canadians you see the articles you hear from canadians they're worried about china i mean
00:26:02.220they're the world rogue nation right now they're the bad player on the stage they want to feel
00:26:06.700confident that we're not vulnerable to them. It doesn't matter which leader, they just want one
00:26:10.460to stand up to them. And when O'Toole's coming off weak need with China as well, where do we go?
00:26:17.820But getting back to that, and as somebody else asked, like what, you know, a bit of it was,
00:26:21.420okay, let's take a stronger stance and with China and standing up for Canada,
00:26:25.980what else would it take to dislodge the Liberals? I mean, the time is running out fast.
00:26:30.300Well, to your point, Corey, you are correct that Prime Minister Trudeau is very popular
00:26:38.780amongst a large segment of Canadians. And there are a lot of Conservatives that may not like that,
00:26:43.900but that is a reality. And we just have to look at the polling data in order to see this.
00:26:49.420So to circle this back, like setting aside Conservative data versus the Liberals, if we look
00:26:54.940at Prime Minister Trudeau versus Aaron O'Toole for preferred prime minister, there's a number
00:27:00.940of research firms in the last month that have released data that shows Trudeau is the choice
00:27:08.540of 40% of Canadians and Aaron O'Toole is the choice of 15% of Canadians. So if it's 40 to 15
00:27:17.580for preferred prime minister um and the the conservatives are uh 10 to 13 points behind
00:27:27.980uh the liberals depending on whatever polling data we're looking at i would argue that mr o'toole
00:27:34.620is dragging the conservative party further down and uh this is why i wrote this article saying
00:27:42.140you know aaron it's over and um when we talked about the regional breakdown earlier in ontario
00:27:50.700with the liberals leading by 16 points in alberta with the liberals uh on nipping at the the tails
00:27:57.660of the conservatives at 41 to 34 this means a lot of conservative mps are going to lose their jobs
00:28:04.220so they can either quietly sit back and allow themselves to be unemployed that's fine that's
00:28:10.860their choice some of them won't qualify for a pension that's fine that's their choice or they
00:28:17.500could speak up now while the opportunity is there uh in caucus and the caucus could act as a unifying
00:28:25.340voice and so oh geez sorry about that i uh hey that's the joys of life sorry about that um so the
00:28:37.260The other problem is that if we look at what caucus members are saying, there's a well-known Alberta Conservative MP named Michelle Rempel-Garner, who stated that there's been no communication between the leader and the caucus.
00:28:59.700There's been, I think her words were, there's been no in-person interaction.
00:29:07.120And, you know, I understand that in time of COVID that that's harder to do.
00:29:13.140But, look, you can use equipment like we're using.
00:29:22.860You can use all these different apps in order to have communication and interaction with your caucus.
00:29:29.700You can wear a mask, you can social distance, and you can meet with people in person that way.
00:29:35.100And the fact that there's been no interaction for the past seven months is probably one of the other reasons why the Conservatives are polling so poorly.
00:29:45.240And so I just thought I'd throw that out there.
00:29:46.820I'm sure maybe Mark might have a different viewpoint or something to add to that.
00:29:50.280But I think that's another big problem in this.
00:30:16.100I mean, these were majority party leaders, at least Redford and Stelmack were.
00:30:20.220But when their representatives below them felt feared for their jobs, they cut their legs out from under them.
00:30:26.640But to you, Mark, and with that, and Clinton's pointing out, you know, there's the mechanism
00:30:30.700perhaps to pull a tool out, but is there time?
00:30:33.700I mean, can this be done without doing more damage than good?
00:30:36.280I mean, what if Trudeau calls an election when you don't even have a leader?
00:30:41.200Yeah, and I wouldn't put it past him to do that.
00:30:44.060But there's going to be a budget tabled in what, two and a half weeks?
00:30:47.300So we're looking at a budget on April the 19th.
00:30:50.300and uh you know you can bet that there will be some extremely unpalatable things in that budget
00:30:57.820that will make it very difficult for the typical conservative member of parliament to vote for the
00:31:03.980party to vote for so there will be a poison pill in there and there may even be things in there
00:31:08.620that the ndp can't support because of course uh all the liberals really need is new democrats to
00:31:15.100support the budget and the Tories can pound sand. And so who's to say there won't be something in
00:31:21.420there that gives, you know, Jagmeet Singh reason to say, hey, wait a minute, I can't support this.
00:31:26.780This is too right wing. But it's possible. He may be able to do that because we know that Justin
00:31:33.580wants to go. Yeah. Well, and to Mark's point, what's even more of an issue there is that if
00:31:40.780If the Conservatives are, well, not if, we know they're polling terribly right across the country.
00:31:46.980So the problem then becomes if one of the other opposition parties feel that they can't support the existing government in order to keep this minority government going,
00:31:57.580then it's going to be left in the hands of the Conservatives to prop up the existing Liberal government.
00:32:05.460And I would argue that that is also going to help suppress the Conservative Party base of support.
00:32:15.720And so, look, Erin O'Toole, it hasn't worked out.
00:32:19.900And it's time for the party and for the caucus to start having these discussions.
00:32:28.380Because as it's going right now, the Conservatives are going to lose a lot of seats.
00:32:35.460and the Liberals are going to win big and so it's up to the caucus to speak out and
00:32:40.980you know there have been other you know there are members of parliament that have been talking to
00:32:45.060the media um and uh you know besides Michelle Rempel-Garner uh there are others that have that
00:32:54.580have gone as unnamed in uh in various newspapers but um all it takes is for one or two of those
00:33:03.060to to chime in publicly with their name and uh they can create uh the circumstances to to bring
00:33:12.660about a new leader and uh you know otherwise i think everyone's just wasting their time
00:33:19.700you know i think the liberals are going to win unfortunately and that's great for the prime
00:33:23.700minister and that's great for the liberal party but i'm saying as as for conservative activists
00:33:28.340and conservative voters, that's a problem.
00:33:31.520As Mark was saying, if I were a liberal strategist and I wanted to engineer an election,
00:33:37.760the budget's the ideal opportunity, particularly in a year of crisis.
00:33:41.140I mean, this timing, the stars are lining up for the liberals as far as I'm concerned.
00:33:45.660I mean, we're going to see infections going down between the weather and the weather patterns
00:33:50.400and vaccinations finally dragging out and getting out to people.
00:42:10.260The rest of you guys that better not vote liberal or we're out.
00:42:12.780Well, it doesn't impact how people are going to vote in the rest of the country, whether we like it or not.
00:42:17.320So we're just in quite a conundrum going into the election this year.
00:42:20.520I'm not looking with optimism, I'm afraid.
00:42:24.100Well, as I said, the power rests in the caucus.
00:42:27.280And so if the caucus chooses to be silent and chooses to do nothing, then we know what the results will be.
00:42:35.320If the caucus chooses to do something and take action, well, we don't know what the results will be and we don't know what the outcome will be.
00:42:44.120So sometimes there's greater opportunity by taking a chance than there is with accepting an impending defeat.
00:45:43.240And that's actually more infuriating when you sit and think about it for a little while.
00:45:48.020Well, that's because you've got to have, you've got to push for a referendum.
00:45:51.820You really do. Albertans have to do that. And the reason why they don't, I've heard this from people, I've spoken to people in Alberta many times, and they all say, well, you know, what's the point? We're going to lose. Hey, Quebec lost two of them, and they're not doing too badly. You know, have it, push it. Let's see how far you can go. You know, start a crap storm internationally. Show the world that here's a province in Canada that is considering going its own way. You know, I mean, make Ottawa nervous. Make Ontario nervous.
00:46:21.820make Quebec nervous, make Atlantic Canada nervous, make BC nervous, and do it by pushing seriously,
00:46:29.620looking seriously at a referendum and really putting it before the people and making a strong
00:46:34.820case for independence. That's how you get to where you're going. You don't get anywhere by
00:46:40.780taking independence off the table like Jason Kenney did. Oh, no, we're not going to go down
00:46:44.860that road. Well, congratulations. You just got rid of your own Trump card, the only Trump card
00:46:49.860you're only going to have because if you don't use that trump card or at least have it there
00:46:54.500then the rest of canada is going to say screw you we don't care it's just a lot of noise
00:46:58.800look i i i so i don't agree with mark on this on this point when it comes to and i understand
00:47:08.460strategically why he's arguing for it but i don't think it's ever a good idea um to push the
00:47:15.600potential breakup of a country through a referendum. But setting that aside, I think
00:47:21.720a solution to this would be for the Conservatives to put forward a series of policy directions
00:47:31.080that would cause Canadians to vote for them. So I know, Corey, in your case in Alberta,
00:47:38.100that obviously energy and specifically, you know, oil is a big issue. You know, instead of the
00:47:45.240conservatives always talking about finding a way to run a pipeline through Quebec, which everybody
00:47:50.340knows is never going to happen, find a workable solution. So as I have said many times, you know,
00:47:58.680you have your neighboring provinces of Manitoba, and you have a water port there at Hudson's Bay.
00:48:06.760So there is a way to get your product, the Tidewater, that doesn't involve British Columbia
00:48:37.400And, you know, those are what I like to, as you guys make fun of me,
00:48:40.440Sometimes I call it the ingredients of the electric car battery.
00:48:44.320You know, Mr. O'Toole is not talking about those issues that would benefit people in Alberta, that would benefit people in Saskatchewan, whether it's Hudson's Bay or the ingredients for electric vehicle batteries.
00:48:55.060So, you know, there's a whole host of these issues that the Conservatives could be promoting and could be talking about, which would maybe help them gain traction throughout the entire country.
00:49:06.200But for whatever reason, Mr. O'Toole has chosen the option of silence and nobody knows what he believes in or what it is that he would like to accomplish.
00:49:20.960And so as long as that policy vacuum remains there, then people will look to the government.
00:49:26.700And, I mean, let's be honest, like his first big policy decision upon winning the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada was to unveil a new logo with a sideways-leaning maple leaf.
00:49:42.060I mean, if that is your big first policy announcement, that speaks volumes about the vacuum that exists between your ears when it comes to policy.
00:49:52.840Yeah, well, we're running a little, you know, late.
00:49:55.200I mean, that could be a longer term things for the Conservatives to try and it sounds more like plans for rebuilding after an election.
00:50:01.260I mean, along the lines, though, of what Mark was saying, too, I mean, we are something interesting.
00:50:06.320And again, as a person who's very quite pro-independence myself, I'm looking at Canada as a system rather than a country I'm sentimental about.
00:50:13.020It's a system that's broken. And this is an opportunity to tear it down and repair it.
00:50:17.420But one of the worst things we could do is rush to an independence referendum and lose with a 20% vote because it'll be 10 years before we get another chance. I don't think Jason Kenney is trying to move towards that. But with this equalization referendum we're holding this fall, that's a dry run. That's a practice run. The people opposed to, you know, Alberta voting against the equalization are going to frame it as such. They're going to say anybody who votes for that is a separatist. Anybody who votes for that is pursuing Alberta independence.
00:50:46.420So this gives a proxy vote a chance to push that out there, push regional items onto the agenda, at least in Alberta.
00:50:54.600And as Mark said, you know, if we had a strong, strong vote among Albertans, like 70 percent saying, you know, take your equalization formula and jam it somewhere deep and dark.
00:51:03.640Whether or not Canada listens, it'll be a very distinctive warning shot across the bow of other regions.
00:51:09.900Look, I'm of the opinion, quite frankly, that the issue of Alberta independence, and this is going to frustrate some of your viewers, I think this is a dead issue.
00:51:26.280And the reason I argue it's a dead issue is because if we look at Quebec, where separatism gained strength and steam in Quebec, it did so for a couple of reasons.
00:51:38.460The first reason is that you had a provincial government in Quebec, the Palti-Quebecois, which was a separatist government.
00:51:46.080Now, the last time I checked, Jason Kenney, nor the Conservative Party of Alberta, is going to advocate for independence from Canada.
00:51:57.860Now, the other reason that it was able to gain traction in Quebec, and this is often forgotten through the annals of history, unfortunately,
00:52:05.620is that the Bloc Quebecois, the federal counterpart to the Palti Quebecois,
00:52:13.780was created by conservatives and liberals, both parties,
00:52:18.580leaving their respective parties, elected members of parliament to create the Bloc.
00:52:24.700I don't believe for one minute that you're going to see liberals in Western Canada
00:52:32.800or the prairies, or quite frankly, New Democrats, leave their respective parties to join with
00:52:39.380a potential handful of federal conservative members of parliament in the pursuit of the
00:57:35.080I, you know, look, I got to jump in there. I have marked through a lot there. So I'll tell you, one of the more interesting aspects in all of this is that this week, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to be giving a keynote address to the Alberta Strong and Free Network.
00:57:57.660And I expect to see probably a lot of Conservatives publicly start to long for Mr. Harper to come back.
00:58:08.140And that may, in fact, be the first steps of the undoing of Mr. O'Toole.
00:58:15.940As Lorne Gunter pointed out in his column that he published over the weekend,
00:58:22.720is it too late to ask for Mr. Harper to come back?
00:58:26.500And so we may start to see a push for that.
00:58:29.240So I think Mark is on to something interesting there.
00:58:34.480Well, and so, Mark, we can find more from you and those great rants and diatribes at Saga 960.
00:59:15.440And today, they're a hell of a lot better off than they were, say, 30 years ago.
00:59:19.280I'm saying that Alberta could take a page out of their book and say, look, if we're not happy, you know, maybe we should look at it.
00:59:26.540I'm not saying go. I don't want the country to break up.
00:59:29.920And so I want Albertans to stay in, but I also want Albertans to feel like they're a part of the country and welcome.
00:59:35.840And if they need to get some leverage in terms of being able to push their agenda, well, sadly, the only people that really listen are those who fear that the country is going to break apart.
00:59:46.600So I think it's a card that Alberta should be prepared to play,
01:00:10.780So I hope your listeners and viewers enjoy it.
01:00:13.660next time I'm gonna try not to fall off my chair I don't know it helped break
01:00:19.520things up in the process anyways well thank you both very much for guys Monday
01:00:29.380we've got lots to watch and guys like us have always got lots to talk about so
01:00:33.180I'm certain we will do something like this again sometime soon great thanks
01:00:37.440guys thanks for having me on thank you
01:00:43.660Okay. Well, that was, you know, I mean, what I enjoyed there, everybody, it was multiple perspectives. I mean, I know some of the commenters were having differences with some of the views, but I mean, that's the point of this, right? We're talking, we're listening, we're getting different perspectives and from different parts of the country.
01:01:02.760I mean, we can be prone to living in our own little bubbles and forgetting that whether we like it or not, different regions don't share our view necessarily on these things.
01:01:12.100So we have to figure out more ways to make change through reaching out to other regions and taking a stronger stand.
01:01:21.460One thing that seems that we're agreeing with all the way across the country, we're not seeing leadership out of Aaron O'Toole and the Conservative Party.