Western Standard - February 02, 2023


The Pipeline: POLLS; shine coming off Trudeau


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

168.1834

Word Count

9,339

Sentence Count

526

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A year in the rearview mirror, and the Freedom Convoy has come and gone. What did it achieve? What were the lasting effects of it? And what will it achieve in the future? All that and much more on this week's episode of The Pipeline.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrand, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching
00:00:28.260 the pipeline. Today is February 1st, 2022. I'm joined as usual by the Western standards opinion
00:00:35.060 editor Nigel Hannaford. How are you Nigel? Great today. Nice to see you. Excellent. And
00:00:40.900 at long last, we're rejoined by our long lost child of the standard with Corey Morgan back up
00:00:48.500 from the south. Got a little tan. Maybe a little bit. I've come out of the desert. It was sunny,
00:00:52.820 but cold. It's tough to get a tan on the bars. Yeah, Corey has been down south, sitting in a
00:01:00.500 desert smoking peyote or something. Vision quest. Yeah. Speaking of Corey, I was shocked the other
00:01:08.500 day. I was just, you know, wasting time on Facebook and I saw Corey published a book.
00:01:12.500 Like, oh, I thought his publisher would know if he published a book.
00:01:17.140 Apparently not. He didn't. Nonetheless, he was kind enough to bring in a copy for some of the
00:01:21.940 staff, including myself today, The Sovereignist's Handbook. It looked very familiar to me because if
00:01:26.900 you recognize kind of the art on the front, that's also the Western Standard's cartoon columnist,
00:01:32.580 Lyle Krohn. It looked very familiar and Corey gave me a copy this morning. I've been very busy
00:01:40.260 today. I don't know how I already found time to read 45 pages of his book. It's, it's sorry,
00:01:45.940 And it's called The Sovereignist's Handbook. It is. Take 10 seconds. Tell us about it.
00:01:52.820 I'm just as an independence advocate for a long time. I just wanted to share some of the many
00:01:58.260 mistakes I've made so that people will stop repeating those mistakes today. Because our
00:02:03.460 independence advocates are very dedicated, but sometimes just need some guidance. They need a
00:02:09.220 handbook. And that's what I put together. How's it worked so far? So might be a good idea for
00:02:13.780 someone to give it a read if you're if you're interested in that. Okay, well, we got a good show
00:02:17.780 today. Speaking of curry, smoke and peyote in the desert. BC has decriminalized pretty much all hard
00:02:26.340 drugs, opioids, methamphetamines, cocaine crack, lots of fun stuff and will be decriminalized as
00:02:35.220 part of a pilot project cooperation with the federal government exempting essentially the
00:02:38.900 the criminal code from BC until 2026. I think we're going to have an interesting discussion on
00:02:45.620 that here. We probably don't even all agree on that one. This is one of those ones that
00:02:48.620 kind of divides libertarians and conservatives a bit, where we might agree less often than we do.
00:02:55.360 We're going to talk about the Freedom Convoy. I know we've talked about it a lot, but it's been
00:02:58.980 over a year now, not just since it started, but since the renamed War Measures Act,
00:03:05.560 The Emergencies Act was invoked to suspend the right of free assembly and giving the police extraordinary powers, seize people's bank accounts, things like that.
00:03:14.800 We're going to talk about the Freedom Convoy a year in the rearview mirror.
00:03:20.460 What did it achieve? What were the lasting effects of it?
00:03:22.840 Now we've got a year behind us. I think we've got a reasonably good idea.
00:03:27.120 And we're also going to talk about some really fascinating new polls that are out.
00:03:31.580 Not particularly good news for Justin Trudeau.
00:03:34.160 looks like the shine is off. Liberal support down significantly, approval and positive impressions
00:03:41.700 of Trudeau way down. There's some very interesting numbers and we're going to dive into them. The
00:03:46.520 regional breakdowns, demographic breakdowns, how it works for Pierre Polyev, for Jagmeet Singh.
00:03:52.780 Very interesting stuff. Before we get going though, we got to thank my favorite sponsor,
00:03:56.540 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Canadian Shooting Sports Association is Canada's leading
00:04:02.280 firearms rights group in canada i've trusted them with my membership dues for over a decade
00:04:08.040 because without these guys our firearms would have been seized long long ago these guys are
00:04:13.320 on the front lines advocating to politicians helping them to understand as much as they're
00:04:17.640 capable we hope about reasonable firearms legislation and regulation advocating working
00:04:25.800 on public education making sure the public understands got around for most people who
00:04:29.880 don't own firearms don't necessarily like firearms some just think it's kind of weird
00:04:35.560 uh i i don't know i don't own planes i think guys who own planes are kind of weird
00:04:39.880 i don't try to take away their aircraft but i think it's kind of weird dudes who own planes
00:04:45.000 i actually had a session 172 for several years you're a weird guy well you're a weird guy it's
00:04:50.120 only the accent no no it's more it's more now you're kind of a james bond uh character to me
00:04:57.080 Okay. But it's, it's important. So if you're not yet a member of the CSSA, go to CSSA-CILA.org.org. Or just do what I do and Google it and join them today. It's worth every penny. You should become a member yesterday.
00:05:16.080 Okay, so let's start with our first story, BC decriminalizing hard drugs. So this has been coming for some time, but it just came into effect, I think yesterday, that pretty much all hard drugs in BC up to 2.5 grams for personal use are now decriminalized.
00:05:36.080 Now, that doesn't mean legal. You can't, you know, go to your local Calgary weed store equivalent in BC and, you know, get a little bag of crack. Can't do that. It means you're still going to be obtaining it through illegal means, but you're found by the police with something really bad like meth, heroin, or something maybe less bad, you know, mushrooms and different things like that.
00:06:03.180 You're not going to they're not going to confiscate from you and you're not going to be charged as criminal.
00:06:08.180 This can be in place until the end of January 2026.
00:06:14.180 Now, this has got a few angles to it.
00:06:19.180 There is some defensible, you know, even for those people who are definitely not fans of drugs, it's defensible.
00:06:28.180 2,236 people died of illicit drug use in BC alone last year. And that's pretty much mostly just overdoses. That's a wild number of people. And roughly to our population, Alberta is in a similar number. Saskatchewan is a similar number relative to our populations.
00:06:46.000 Tons of people are dying from this. You know, we've got addicts. We've had 60 years of the war on drugs, roughly, in different forms, and there's no end in sight. It's not been working.
00:07:01.220 But is this really the answer? Now, the federal minister responsible for this, Carolyn Bennett, said, I thought this was interesting.
00:07:07.420 She says this will reduce the stigma and harm of drugs.
00:07:12.420 I can get the harm reduction part, but I have a hard time swallowing how it's good to de-stigmatize something that is bad.
00:07:20.420 You know, the federal government actively tries to attach a stigma to sit to tobacco smoking, and that's probably a good idea. It's not a good thing to do, but it's active government policy to attach a stigma to it.
00:07:32.420 They even try to stigmatize drinking more than two light beers a week, but they want to de-stigmatize crack and heroin and methamphetamines.
00:07:42.820 So there's a lot to unpackage here.
00:07:45.620 Start with you, Nigel.
00:07:50.060 Do you think they're getting this right?
00:07:52.400 Is this move that's going to, by decriminalizing it, not treating users as criminals, still going after dealers, ostensibly.
00:08:00.980 Probably hard to get to dealers if you can't arrest the users, you know, leverage them to squeal on the dealer.
00:08:07.460 But do you think this is going to actually have a positive outcome for, I guess there's a few ways to look at it.
00:08:16.180 You know, there's a, you know, we always, we talk about the kid who got caught with a joint in high school, his life's ruined.
00:08:20.420 Well, that's obviously not happening anymore.
00:08:21.960 That's probably a good thing.
00:08:23.120 But I don't know, net positive, is BC on to something here, or are they just kind of going into dystopian, almost dystopian future?
00:08:33.500 Well, Derek, I mean, there's a couple of, as you say, there's more than one angle to this.
00:08:39.580 Don't have a crystal ball, so can't say whether this is going to reduce deaths in 2023.
00:08:48.040 We would always hope that, whether we think they're right or wrong in doing this.
00:08:51.920 Obviously, we don't want to see people dying of drugs.
00:08:55.980 But one of the functions of government is to signal what is right behavior.
00:09:03.960 Now, obviously, all the obvious things, theft, murder, that's understood.
00:09:10.820 But when you come to some of these other issues, what is right?
00:09:14.540 When I was growing up, when I was learning to drive, motor cars did not have seatbelts.
00:09:19.840 Over the course of the last 60 years, designs have changed, cars have seatbelts, and now, notwithstanding the libertarian argument that people shouldn't be forced to wear seatbelts if they don't want to, you will get fined if you...
00:09:37.380 I know it's a boogeyman argument, but I do agree. I don't think it should be mattered.
00:09:40.560 Well, you know, maybe I agree with you on that, but what I'm saying is that the government had made that decision that it would say the right thing to do is to wear a seat belt in your car and a helmet if you're riding a motorbike, and people eventually got used to the idea, and now you wouldn't get an awful lot of argument about it.
00:09:59.620 How is that working for drugs?
00:10:00.740 Well, the link with drugs here is that if they say there's no stigma, if they say it's okay to have a small amount, initially some people, like myself, will say, no, that's the wrong direction to take.
00:10:17.500 Either you're into helping people get off drugs or you're facilitating a bad habit that's going to kill them.
00:10:25.020 But if I lose the argument today, in five years' time, it'll probably be renewed.
00:10:30.060 And in 10 years' time, there won't be too many people who agree with me on that.
00:10:34.140 There are right now.
00:10:35.480 So government is sending the wrong signal.
00:10:38.840 Now, contrast that with Alberta.
00:10:41.780 We have, as you say, similar problems.
00:10:44.600 But interestingly, our numbers are going down more significantly than British Columbia's.
00:10:51.560 and our approach is not to make it easier for people to have drugs this
00:10:57.740 government has decided that they're going to try and if anybody wants to get
00:11:02.120 off drugs they'll help them so I've built treatment beds and they've got
00:11:06.740 various programs in place to help people I would link those kinds of measures
00:11:11.480 that have now been going on for a couple of years remember Jason Kenney you know
00:11:15.620 whatever else you say about Jason Kenney that was one of his big things in
00:11:18.620 those are not mutually contradictory policies necessarily like helping people get off they
00:11:24.860 don't have to be but i don't hear anything from bc about what we're doing to help people get off
00:11:29.420 all i hear about is safe injection sites roll in here with yours with your drug and we'll 1.00
00:11:34.540 give you a clean syringe that's not helping and this isn't helping either okay but we have been
00:11:40.460 more or less taking with different flavors and variations the approach of prohibition and war
00:11:46.700 on drugs forever really really as soon as narcotics as we know them at least modern narcotics as we
00:11:53.980 know them have been around they've been prohibited and that ramped up in the 60s and then you know
00:11:59.980 nixon declared war on drugs in the early 70s we've been doing that for a long time i i feel like
00:12:06.860 if that was ever going to work it would have worked somewhere in the world by now and it just
00:12:12.300 prohibition seems to never work if people want to do it and it didn't work
00:12:16.080 for alcohol and alcohol isn't nearly as addicting as opioids and methamphetamines
00:12:21.060 and things like that I don't know Corey do you have a different take or are you
00:12:27.600 with Nigel on this is BC's approach might be I think a little open I'm a bit
00:12:36.180 iffy on injection clinics and things like that. But I don't see anything contradictory between
00:12:44.180 helping people get off drugs, making sure that we've got appropriate programs in place,
00:12:49.140 and just not necessarily treating them as criminals for small possession.
00:12:53.140 Yeah, well, these aren't mutually exclusive. But part of the problem is the ideally
00:12:56.180 ideology has made it that way. And we've got two very stark examples. Actually,
00:13:00.020 Portland's already gone down this road, they did the free for all they did,
00:13:04.020 They will destigmatize. And I had one of their members of their legislature on the show, their overdoses exploded dramatically. And Vancouver's are rising as well. Alberta has taken a treatment focused thing. They've 8000 treatment beds is more than double BC's amount, even though we have a smaller population, and we're having a reduction in overdoses. Now, people point to Portugal, though, because, and it's always been a good example. But Portugal didn't just open it up and decriminalization, they had a very intensive treatment
00:13:34.020 focused policy to go with the outright legalized. Yeah, I believe so. Because there's no sense
00:13:39.940 chasing an addict around because he's got a dime bag is some sort of poison on him. But at the same
00:13:45.160 time, there's different attitudes of what we're seeing from Portland and BC is almost implying
00:13:50.740 that you could sustain a lifestyle while continuing to consume. Look, there's no lifestyle you can
00:13:56.120 maintain when you're on meth or when you're on heroin, or some of those strong drugs. I mean,
00:14:00.580 it's a complicated area, but it just seems to be either or. It's like in BC, it's all about
00:14:05.760 safe consumption and enabling and providing clean drugs. Whereas perhaps Alberta is turning away a
00:14:12.740 bit from the safe, you can't treat them if they're dead. So I mean, if you can keep consuming safely
00:14:16.500 for a while till you can get them into treatment, we need both. And I think Portland has kind of
00:14:20.680 found, or not Portland, Portugal has sort of found that combination. There's no sense wasting
00:14:24.860 police resources, as you say, prohibition fails. But also, they're not saying you should carry on
00:14:30.420 with it. They're saying, we want you off this crap, and we're going to give you all the resources we
00:14:34.380 can to get you off this crap. We're just not going to throw you in jail for it. It's, you know,
00:14:38.880 Carolyn Bennett, you know, she kind of taken her broadly for that movement. I think she was
00:14:45.280 speaking for many supporters of that policy when she talked about reducing the stigma. And for me,
00:14:50.700 that seemed, I'm very open to this kind of thing. I don't think people should be criminalized for
00:14:56.800 something that doesn't hurt anybody else although you know certainly if you're on meth or uh crack
00:15:03.120 you're almost certainly going to hurt someone else but there's other drugs in here where people do
00:15:06.480 consume and it's just recreational they're not hurting others but i'm pretty open to this but
00:15:11.120 then once you talk about destigmatizing i scratch my head wondering are they giving then a moral
00:15:17.840 sanction to this that that this is you know at the end of the press conference they said
00:15:23.920 And just to be clear, we're not encouraging people to do drugs. And I thought, isn't it something that they needed to add that in at the end? Because it wasn't very clear. I know that they're not sitting there saying we're making crack legal because we want everyone to do crack. They don't. I don't believe that. But, you know, I think it's one thing for government to require someone to do something.
00:15:45.320 I don't think government should require someone to wear a helmet on a motorcycle.
00:15:49.160 But I definitely think government should play a role in creating a stigma against idiots who don't.
00:15:56.720 I mean, that's a role. That's the educative role of government.
00:16:00.660 I don't think you should be forced by a law to wear a seatbelt.
00:16:03.480 Definitely think the government should drive through people's minds that it's a very good idea to wear a seatbelt.
00:16:08.640 Justice, I don't think we should be throwing people in jail for small possession of narcotics.
00:16:13.020 But I think it's a very weird thing for the government to say, we're not going to judge here.
00:16:18.440 There's nothing necessarily wrong with doing these drugs.
00:16:21.640 Because, yeah, some of them, mushrooms, arguably cocaine, there's people who can live their lives doing that.
00:16:28.040 But has anyone ever met, other than the mayor of Toronto, a functional crackhead?
00:16:33.580 I just, I haven't.
00:16:35.080 They don't, they pretty much don't exist.
00:16:37.620 And it hurts other people when they do it.
00:16:39.820 Well, you know, you open this discussion, Derek, by pointing to the things that they stigmatize and contrasting it with the drugs, which they now want to de-stigmatize.
00:16:53.840 It makes, this is the logical inconsistency that you find so often when you examine the policies of this liberal government.
00:17:03.000 And it's just that they have a very, very different worldview where some things are okay and other things aren't.
00:17:08.680 I just think we have a very different idea of what's okay.
00:17:12.300 And my point on this is simply that it's not okay to be on drugs.
00:17:17.420 I mean, maybe we're not going to chase you down the road.
00:17:20.100 Maybe we're not going to put you in jail.
00:17:21.700 But boy, we don't want to see you stay there.
00:17:24.480 If we can get you off drugs, then we should.
00:17:27.480 And you should want to.
00:17:29.380 There is a stigma.
00:17:30.860 Well, let's talk about, I'm not sure I'm going to say what this is, sort of a stigma.
00:17:35.960 the after effect of the freedom convoy. So it's been more than a year now since Justin Trudeau
00:17:44.100 and his government invoked the Emergencies Act, which was the reworked version of the War Measures
00:17:49.400 Act, which the only time, it's funny, the only time the War Measures Act has ever been invoked
00:17:54.400 in peacetime was when there's a guy named Trudeau in office. So it's been a year. They invoked this,
00:18:01.200 They froze a bunch of people's bank accounts without any due process whatsoever, sent in a bunch of goons to clear people out, beat up some old ladies with walkers on the streets in front of Parliament, and the Freedom Convoy comes to an end.
00:18:16.720 We already know the story, and we know, you know, there's the inquiry going on, but I want to talk big picture.
00:18:23.060 Zoom out to two miles up.
00:18:26.920 I want to talk about its lasting effects.
00:18:29.020 What did it achieve?
00:18:29.660 So we'll start with you, Corey.
00:18:31.200 What, if anything, do you think the Freedom Convoy actually achieved? Because, you know, in your book, you talk about some of the misguided folks in the convoy issued this so-called memorandum of understanding for the governor general to fire the government and put the Senate in charge or something crazy.
00:18:47.600 Obviously, that didn't happen. Justin Trudeau is still the prime minister, but I don't know. What were the big, what were the lasting effects you think came out of this?
00:18:55.060 I think a lasting effect. I mean, despite speaking of stigmatizing, I mean, the government worked very hard to try and make the picture that everybody who was in that convoy or everybody who supported it was on the fringe or they were crazy or they were extreme.
00:19:06.300 And that wasn't the case. I mean, yes, there were some people of questionable motive.
00:19:09.820 When you get thousands of people, you always will. And they're usually the loudest ones, too.
00:19:14.220 But what I think was accomplished was, holy cow, those passive Canadians, eventually you can push them too far, or at least enough of them far enough that they're going to get up and push back.
00:19:25.060 And the government panicked. You know, I mean, it's a matter of opinion or whether they overreacted. I certainly feel that I think most of us do feel they did. But I think the members of the government do understand there's a limit. They never saw a limit before. They had never seen a limit with Canadians and how far they could push them. This time they saw a line. They got way too close to it or they crossed it. And I think that is a positive development in the long run.
00:19:47.640 So your big takeaway was that kind of the liberal establishment of the government realized that there is a, it might be really far that you could push Canadians, but there is somewhere.
00:19:58.520 Yeah, and it won't turn them good or reasonable, but I think they did get a bit of a slap back and realize, you know, they panicked.
00:20:04.040 They got scared.
00:20:05.040 Like, wow, okay, we pushed it too far.
00:20:06.760 And it's good for every government, I think, to learn that now and then.
00:20:10.040 Nigel, what do you think was, what did it achieve?
00:20:13.200 What were the big achievements of the convoy?
00:20:16.020 Well, first, to Corey's point, it did everything that he said.
00:20:21.000 The government got the message.
00:20:22.440 The question now is, what is the government going to do with that message?
00:20:26.080 Is it going to say, okay, fine, we hear you, we back off, we don't push the limits?
00:20:32.800 Should a similar situation ever reoccur?
00:20:36.180 Or do they say, well, if we're going to actually keep control of this crowd,
00:20:41.120 here are the things we need to do while we've got some time to get it set up.
00:20:45.540 let's take a look at the internet let's how are people going to access the internet what are we
00:20:50.820 going to let them see are we going to have an active office uh leasing disinformation and
00:20:57.620 misinformation uh maybe we need to uh maybe we need to add hunting rifles to the list of banned
00:21:04.980 firearms uh we don't know how that's going to play out yet it's been too soon but i wouldn't assume
00:21:13.620 that a government that thinks the way that this government thinks is necessarily going
00:21:19.380 to consider itself reprimanded and change its ways i do think that it's entirely possible
00:21:25.860 that they will take a take votes about what they need to do next and we shall see over the coming
00:21:33.300 months and years probably not much before the the next election if indeed it goes out as far as 2025
00:21:41.380 uh but watch out after that let's talk about the effect it had on concert politics and
00:21:47.380 conservative politics in particular um it wasn't necessarily a right-wing movement but it was
00:21:52.260 dominated by you know people who tended to vote conservative or ppc um a lot of libertarians it
00:21:59.140 was born the freedom convoy was hatched from alberta was an alberta movement and picked up
00:22:03.300 steam everywhere um so i want to talk about the effect on conservative politics and and there's
00:22:08.740 two very easy ones, I think, at least to see. The most immediate effect was the capitulation
00:22:15.320 of Aaron O'Toole's leadership. It came to a very swift and bloody end very quickly.
00:22:23.720 You know, Aaron O'Toole came out and was very tepid about it. He knew that these people are
00:22:28.900 supposed to be conservative voters, but maybe weren't. Maybe they had just voted PPC in the
00:22:33.500 recent election. But, you know, they were on the right. But, you know, Aaron O'Toole was pretty
00:22:39.660 left for a conservative and wasn't very comfortable with it. And he had some wishy-washy
00:22:44.380 statements behind the scenes. He had made some moves against perceived leadership rivals, wink,
00:22:50.200 wink. And he made moves against them. And it all resulted in his quick capitulation as a leader
00:22:59.120 with the conservative caucus voting him out less directly, but I still think pretty connected is
00:23:04.900 accelerating the end of Jason Kenney's premiership. You know, there was the Coutts blockade, which was
00:23:12.160 pretty much a part of the same movement. You know, Jason Kenney had gone around lying, saying that
00:23:19.280 the protesters at Coutts had attacked RCMP officers. The RCMP confirmed on the record to us
00:23:25.040 that that was just not true was not based on anything just Kenny just made it up. And a lot
00:23:29.520 of these protesters both in Ottawa and Coutts, they were carrying signs that had Justin Trudeau
00:23:34.480 and Jason Kenny on the same sign, putting them together as partners and lockdowns and mandates.
00:23:42.080 So go maybe go to you first Nigel, on how significant were the effects on conservative
00:23:48.800 politics in Canada? And do you think much of that is going to be lasting?
00:23:51.520 I think it was very significant, and I think, I can't tell you whether it's going to last 100 years,
00:23:59.080 but I can tell you it's going to last to the next election.
00:24:05.020 The whole thing was a reaction to some very specific COVID restrictions on cross-border trucks.
00:24:14.420 That was the actual spark in the pan, but it came after a long period of people becoming increasingly disillusioned with the information that they were receiving from government and from public health authorities, because it often seemed contradictory, and it often didn't seem to really reflect the truth.
00:24:37.560 So what it created was a huge atmosphere for somebody who would tell it as it was.
00:24:46.060 And certain conservative politicians had a tendency to do that anyway and presented authenticity.
00:24:55.840 People had the impression that people like Pierre Polymer, for example, were saying what they really thought and not what was a carefully crafted message.
00:25:05.300 and that idea led as we saw to a massive win in the conservative leadership debate
00:25:14.420 and i think that daniel smith also put a very straightforward message out there
00:25:22.540 and people responded to it couldn't have done that prior to covid prior to the convoy
00:25:30.960 well they're just extreme they listen to that and the other thing but people finally said
00:25:34.920 At last, somebody actually seems to get it. That's the effect that all this had on our politics.
00:25:41.820 Corey, what effect do you think it had on conservative politics in particular,
00:25:48.060 both personnel and maybe movements more broadly?
00:25:50.420 Yeah, well, I think it also isolated a dangerous split. I mean, as mentioned,
00:25:55.060 when you have Jason Kenney and Trudeau on the same side, because the distrust of government
00:25:59.080 has run so deep for some of them that just anybody who's in authority and in power,
00:26:03.000 they're going to oppose. And that's led to a lot of problems, too. I mean, we've got prickly
00:26:08.340 conservatives who love to fight with each other within their parties at the best of times.
00:26:12.440 And this has given a very big flashpoint for a very vocal group within them that just want
00:26:18.440 no more restrictions, no more coming down, and other ones who worry about being painted with
00:26:24.300 the extreme end. And it's just, it's a tough tightrope, but put them in difficult positions
00:26:28.740 as leaders and it's going to take a while to get through that as Nigel said that's going to carry
00:26:33.140 over into the next election you know that that's what's going to be brought up and the conservatives
00:26:37.380 are going to have to learn how to deal with that. All right while speaking of the next election
00:26:42.740 we've got some very interesting polls out so abacus research put out some polls I think just today
00:26:51.700 and the news is not particularly good for Justin Trudeau it's not he's not certainly doomed you
00:27:00.580 know they always say the only poll that matters is for an election day well everyone says that
00:27:04.820 when it's not a good poll but nonetheless polls are are a snapshot in time and if you have polls
00:27:12.820 over a period of times they might show trends they can't tell you what's going to happen tomorrow but
00:27:17.140 But they can tell you what's happening today and yesterday. So we're going to start with kind of the broad feelings.
00:27:23.680 It's not just who are you going to vote for. We're going to finish with who you're going to vote for and dig into those.
00:27:28.340 But there's a lot of a lot of inputs to go into how someone votes.
00:27:31.920 So, you know, they asked Canadians, you know, it's weighted in different provinces and demographically and whatnot.
00:27:39.700 They asked if they believe Canada was going on the right direction or was on the wrong track.
00:27:47.140 And that's generally a good indication
00:27:50.180 of how well the government is doing in public perception.
00:27:53.900 30% of Canadians polled said that Canada was moving
00:27:57.420 in the right direction.
00:27:58.980 55 said it was on the wrong track.
00:28:01.740 Now, I know those numbers don't match.
00:28:03.160 There are some people who don't know or unsure.
00:28:05.980 But 55 on the wrong track, 30% on the right track.
00:28:10.520 Now, we've also got figures showing
00:28:12.580 how that's moving over time.
00:28:14.580 In June of 2021, 47% of Canadians said,
00:28:21.020 Canada is going in the right direction.
00:28:23.180 47% in just June, 2021, different world.
00:28:31.300 June, 2021, 47, today, 30.
00:28:37.660 Those who think, yeah.
00:28:40.800 Now we've got how people are believe that the are the Liberals paying attention to the right issues again.
00:28:49.800 These are kind of input issues that will eventually filter down into how people may vote at election time.
00:28:55.800 You know, so our is the government is the liberal government paying enough attention to these issues.
00:29:00.800 The rising cost of living 72% say the government is not focused enough only at 4% say too focused.
00:29:09.800 And 18% say focused as much as they should be.
00:29:13.080 So Canadians, huge numbers on across the political divides, even the slight majority of liberals saying they're not focused enough on cost of living.
00:29:20.120 Very similar numbers for the cost of housing.
00:29:23.140 Problems with the health care system, 66% say not enough.
00:29:26.780 5% too much, 21% the right amount.
00:29:31.520 Growing the economy, 52% say not enough.
00:29:35.380 27% approving of how much.
00:29:37.220 And it kind of goes down the list from there.
00:29:40.220 This is interesting actually.
00:29:45.220 Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 23% say focus too much, 17% not focused enough, and 46% focuses as much as they should be.
00:29:58.220 So that's actually where the big one, but it's a fairly large sizeable minority, 23% saying too focused.
00:30:05.220 focused. Similar with indigenous, so racism, reducing racism and inequality. 30% say not enough. I think they mean that Justin Trudeau needs to wear blackface every day, to the question period. But 20% saying the government's just spending too much time on it.
00:30:25.500 And this kind of boils down to impressions of Justin Trudeau. And this is where there's really concerning numbers for him. In, say, May 2021, he had a net favorability impression of about negative one or two, meaning, you know, if you had if you had 10 percent say if 60 percent disapprove of you and 40 percent approve of you,
00:30:55.500 view, you'd have a negative impression of 20. So he was only at negative 2% May 2021. It wasn't
00:31:02.160 too popular then, but it was almost equal between how many people approved and disapproved. Today,
00:31:07.200 the number is in January 2023, 50% have a negative impression of them. 31 have a positive impression.
00:31:16.380 Corey, not good trends for the Liberal government. They're not good trends for Justin Trudeau.
00:31:25.380 But he's been down in the polls before and still secured re-election.
00:31:30.080 Do you think, I don't know, do you think the shine is finally coming off of Justin Trudeau or just another blip?
00:31:37.860 I'd like to think so, but as Nigel kind of mentioned earlier, Trudeau can be underestimated and it'd be a danger to do so.
00:31:45.860 But I think with that broader trend, something we've seen that's happened, though there's always been issues,
00:31:50.520 as sort of showed in one of the polls, is people are feeling it in their wallets.
00:31:54.840 It's one thing with a war in Ukraine.
00:31:56.400 It's one thing with racial issues for most people aren't dealing with it.
00:32:01.360 But when suddenly you're not making the bills at the end of the month or you're really feeling that crunch, you're cutting back on your vacations, you're worrying about where you're going to be.
00:32:09.540 That affects everybody, liberal, conservative.
00:32:12.040 It doesn't matter.
00:32:12.600 And it brought it to your doorstep.
00:32:14.760 And now they're paying attention.
00:32:16.740 And this is where Justin Trudeau is going to have to show some strength.
00:32:20.200 And he hasn't shown much strength in the economic front since he got in.
00:32:22.800 Nigel, how worried do you think Trudeau should be about this? They're not catastrophic numbers, but if you look at the numbers up on the screen, there's kind of a fork in the road now.
00:32:36.240 the fork, the last time his favorables and unfavorables were at least equally matched was
00:32:42.520 November 2021. Every single poll since then has showed favorables continuing to increase and,
00:32:49.840 sorry, unfavorables increasing and favorables decreasing and an increasingly large departure
00:32:54.760 between those numbers. Do you think there's, he has any significant chance of trying to close that
00:32:59.860 gap back down? Yes, I do. And the reason that I say that he does, I'll come to in just a moment,
00:33:05.780 But what you're witnessing there is the slow and steady loss of trust.
00:33:15.340 First time somebody does something stupid, people laugh at them and mock them and condemn them,
00:33:21.220 and then they forget about it.
00:33:22.780 The second time that somebody does something stupid, they say,
00:33:26.360 oh, wasn't he the guy who did such and such?
00:33:28.380 When you get up to about the 10th or the 12th time,
00:33:32.060 they've forgotten the individual incidents along the way.
00:33:35.000 They just know they don't like the guy, that he's a fool.
00:33:38.860 Now, with Mr. Trudeau, we have had a succession over seven years of incidents that have caused people to lose their trust in him.
00:33:49.720 And it has resulted in that spread that you're seeing on that graph there.
00:33:54.100 That line is just showing how people are walking away.
00:33:59.820 They've got less and less time for Mr. Trudeau.
00:34:02.220 However, depend upon the liberals, this is where they would pull it back.
00:34:07.720 They will use a fear and smear campaign during the election when it comes.
00:34:14.900 They will use arguments like, if you're a conservative, you're with all those racist, misogynist truckers.
00:34:22.180 If you are a conservative, you are in the same camp as that crazy Premier of Alberta, Daniel Smith, who's out to wreck Confederation.
00:34:33.240 It's all rubbish, but it plays well where the Liberals typically fish for votes.
00:34:39.660 So that is going to be his salvation.
00:34:44.680 And to the point that we were speaking of earlier today, it is common to write Mr. Trudeau off as a fool.
00:34:52.180 because he does many foolish things.
00:34:55.500 Nevertheless, he is making the changes to Canada that he wants to make.
00:35:01.000 We have so far not had the power to stop him.
00:35:05.180 So maybe it isn't him who's the biggest fool.
00:35:11.040 We don't like to face that.
00:35:12.540 We don't, but we need to.
00:35:13.800 Well, let's talk about his partner in crime, Jake Mitzing,
00:35:18.680 and then his main opponent, Pierre Polyev.
00:35:22.180 So Jagmeet Singh has kind of got a reverse trend, as you're gonna see up on the chart here. He began
00:35:29.220 with pretty big net favorables. July of 2021, he had a 38% approval, only a 26% disapproval.
00:35:40.500 It's funny how Canadians give the Green and NDP leaders this weird thing that Canadians,
00:35:45.940 we're not going to vote for your parties, but we always like your leaders. It's a weird,
00:35:49.380 it's a weird Canadian tradition. He got up to a really good positive gap by September 2021,
00:35:56.440 pretty much during the election, didn't get him any seats. Again, Canadians like the far left
00:36:03.960 leaders, but don't vote for their parties generally. He had a 46% positive impression
00:36:09.960 from Canadians and only 25% negative. That's a big spread. So as Trudeau's began pretty much
00:36:18.820 even between favorable and unfavorable and split open with unfavorable at the top and favorable at
00:36:25.560 the bottom. Jade Mead Singh has done the opposite. He had a big favorability and fairly low
00:36:31.360 unfavorability, and they've closed in now, where for the first time in the history of
00:36:35.180 polling around Jade Mead Singh by Abica's data here, his favorables and unfavorables are tied
00:36:41.480 at 34% respectively. So a net favorability of zero. I guess we won't spend too much time on
00:36:49.700 Singh, but we'll start with you, Nigel. What would be driving that? Because I don't think he's
00:36:54.580 changed what he's doing that much. I mean, I guess in the last few days, he started throwing shots
00:36:59.560 at Trudeau. So maybe that's a sign that his very close collaboration with Trudeau is hurting his
00:37:06.300 popularity. Well, you're reading my mind. I mean, this is the thing. What's the point of
00:37:10.620 Jagmeet Singh, what's the point of the NDP?
00:37:14.400 They are there to prop up the government.
00:37:16.600 That is the popular perception.
00:37:18.520 You'll notice that when the,
00:37:20.640 that very strong positive gap between favorable and unfavorable
00:37:25.360 was when he was his own man.
00:37:27.360 Once he did the deal with Mr. Trudeau to prop up somebody
00:37:30.520 who has been decreasing in popularity as the months go by,
00:37:36.520 other people are saying, well, you're actually part of the problem too,
00:37:39.640 aren't you Mr. Singh? If you're holding this man up, we don't like him. Maybe we don't like you
00:37:44.440 either. Remember his supporters are more often than not further left than liberal supporters.
00:37:51.320 So Corey, why would people be, is this just conservatives who maybe were thought they
00:37:59.080 liked him but wouldn't vote for him before who are turning against them because he's propping 0.99
00:38:02.760 up trudeau or or i don't know are these new democrats who are thinking um believe it or not
00:38:09.880 there's always a lot of new democrats out there who think that no matter how far left the liberals
00:38:13.080 go the liberals are really right-wing uh sellouts to business etc um i don't know why do you think
00:38:21.400 this is because this trend it's been going on really since he's been gone a downward trend
00:38:26.360 since the election uh it really accelerated though last summer uh to the point now where
00:38:32.360 There is no gap. It's finally sealed. What do you think? And that's well, this trend is a trend
00:38:37.880 about the person on the polls in general. And I mean, people look at people like, as you said,
00:38:42.040 the exception they make for NDP leaders and green leaders, they're that voice of conscience from the
00:38:47.080 left, they can speak as an opposition member to highlight issues or speak for the working man or
00:38:51.960 for the environment. And they enjoy that they know they're not going to get into power, but they can
00:38:57.240 respect the person and like the person. But now, as he said, he's hitched his wagon to Trudeau,
00:39:02.100 and that means you're going to ride the popularity with him. And he looks weak. For his own supporters
00:39:07.660 who wanted him to stand out then and pull things farther left, they're going to start dropping off.
00:39:12.740 I mean, if Poliev had made a deal with Trudeau, you know, as unimaginable as it sounds,
00:39:17.980 conservatives wouldn't put up with it for terribly long. They're going to be pretty upset,
00:39:21.940 saying there's some conservative things we want to see happening. We're just not going to stick
00:39:24.840 with you any longer. I think it's Sing's own base that's starting to depart from him right now,
00:39:29.520 saying, well, if I wanted to vote for Trudeau, I would have voted for Trudeau. You can't be in
00:39:33.420 bed with him. I just can't support it. So we're going to move over to Pauliev. So we've got
00:39:39.240 numbers actually from O'Toole and Pauliev here from the same period, again, starting in September
00:39:44.140 2021 to present day, polling about every month along the way. Now, you can see the numbers at
00:39:50.580 The end of O'Toole's time, they look a lot like Justin Trudeau's time right now.
00:39:56.840 The last poll of O'Toole before he was decapitated as Conservative leader had him with only 20% of Canadians approving of him and 43% of Canadians disapproving, which means a lot of Conservatives were disapproving of O'Toole.
00:40:12.980 That's when you're in real trouble is when you are less popular than your party.
00:40:15.920 Now, Polyev starts here in March 2022. There was a slight lead. There was 22% negative against him, 20% positive, which means that the clear majority of Canadians had no impression of him at all.
00:40:35.140 as well known as he's fairly well known for an opposition leader, but I guess maybe not that
00:40:40.440 well known. So what's happened between March and January of this year now, is that the gap between
00:40:47.360 his positive and negative hasn't really changed much. There's slightly more unfavorables and
00:40:51.520 favorables against him here. But there's just a lot more people having both a favorable and
00:40:57.620 unfavorable impression. So you'll see, you know, it was 22 unfavorable at the beginning to 20
00:41:03.260 favorable, two point difference. Now there's 34% unfavorable and 31% favorable. So I guess
00:41:10.700 it's increased by one percentage point within the margin of error. I don't know. Is this just
00:41:15.500 people maybe just getting to know him a bit better and on net people who there's just as many
00:41:23.080 big a proportion of people who didn't like him as before and just as big a proportion of people
00:41:27.280 who do like him as before. There's just more people who know of him. I don't know. What do
00:41:31.320 think I would make a bet that the people who like him are mostly conservatives and the people who
00:41:36.980 don't like him are mostly well that's a that's a that's a wild bet I don't know this is a random
00:41:43.160 poll so I I would what what I notice is that people who have strong opinions frighten Canadians
00:41:53.920 he has strong opinions he is very articulate once you have been had things explained to you
00:42:03.740 by mr poilover the a lot of people don't know what to say and they don't really they're not
00:42:10.380 sure they agree but they feel like they don't have an argument anymore so what do they do
00:42:15.440 they just turn it back on him i think danielle smith runs into some of that same problem she 1.00
00:42:22.900 wants to change things. She has very strong opinions. People don't necessarily disagree,
00:42:28.640 but they just don't like the forcefulness of opinions. They're used to weak, pusillanimous
00:42:34.280 leaders, and people with strong ideas frighten them. So I think there's a certain amount of that
00:42:41.080 involved with Pierre's numbers.
00:42:45.620 Well, I want to move on to voter intention, but we can wrap this stuff on Polyev into it,
00:42:49.700 because I'm gonna come to you first, Corey.
00:42:52.480 So how would you vote, I was gonna ask people,
00:42:54.860 how would you vote if there was an election tomorrow?
00:42:57.180 And well, the conservatives have been,
00:43:01.680 there's been a upward trajectory for the conservatives,
00:43:05.440 down for the liberals, down a bit for the NDP as well.
00:43:11.080 Block is about steady.
00:43:13.020 The PPC is really kind of dropped off.
00:43:16.200 The PPC lost a lot of its raison d'etre
00:43:19.580 When Polyev came in, it still got about 4% support, which is actually more than I would have thought.
00:43:24.660 That is a stubborn voter base.
00:43:27.180 If Polyev can take back, it gets him a majority government probably.
00:43:31.240 So the Conservatives have been on upward trajectory.
00:43:34.100 They're now at 37% in the polls.
00:43:37.360 That's up three from the latest.
00:43:39.660 And Liberals are down four.
00:43:44.140 People's Party is down only one from, I think, the election where they got around 5%.
00:43:49.100 now it's always imperfect math it drives me crazy when people say this well if you take this party
00:43:56.640 plus this party you get this amount of votes that is sometimes true but it is very more often than
00:44:02.600 not not entirely true but you know if you you know if you got the ppc at four uh the conservatives
00:44:08.300 are now in minority government territory 37 percent they're going to get a clear plurality
00:44:13.140 of seats. Now, are they going to get to be the government? Yeah, that depends. The liberals could
00:44:19.760 stay in power if they can get the bloc and the NDP to support them, and that could happen. So I'm
00:44:25.980 generally the theory that unless the conservatives are just like three seats short of a majority,
00:44:31.720 there's no such thing as a minority government. But these are pretty strong numbers for them.
00:44:36.960 the PPC is stubbornly still at 4%. We'll start with you, Corey. What does Polyev need to do
00:44:44.580 to try and get that 4% over? Because if he can get it, he is then in very clear, significant
00:44:49.460 majority government territory. Yeah, but I don't know what he could do to get them without bleeding
00:44:55.120 some into that liberal bunch that are in the center, because that's part of what he's got to
00:44:58.760 harvest as well. He's in a really tough spot. And I mean, the trends are favorable in the sense that
00:45:05.140 they're not going down. They're slowly climbing up. It's a positive thing, but he needs a breakaway.
00:45:09.620 He's got to pull away from there. I mean, we know as well, they've won the popular vote
00:45:13.900 repeatedly. That's where these polls get a little deceptive, but it doesn't necessarily
00:45:18.300 translate into seats. They need to see a more comfortable number in there. And yeah, harvesting
00:45:25.380 that stubborn four to five percent from the PPC, I'm not sure. I'm kind of lost for words on how
00:45:32.720 you would strategize to get them without perhaps shedding votes on the other side with it. It's a
00:45:37.200 very tough dilemma. And that can be the number that makes a difference in a whole heck of a lot
00:45:40.980 of tight races. I mean, that's a spoiler territory. I think it was about 15 seats. They figure that
00:45:45.600 they lost to because the PPC took up some of their vote. Yeah, and as Derek said, it's not
00:45:51.480 necessarily a direct translation. But if you can get there, certainly those PPC voters are not
00:45:57.040 typically going to go liberal or NDP. So if you're going to get them chances, the ones with the
00:46:00.900 They disproportionately came from the conservatives, but a surprisingly large minority of them were people who voted green, NDP, not too many liberals, because liberals are just such an establishment party.
00:46:12.480 But, you know, when you like, there were like naturopathic hippies on Vancouver Island who became PPC, like people you really just wouldn't expect.
00:46:23.180 And the media just had such a hard time wrapping their head around it.
00:46:26.840 Even I had a hard time wrapping my head around some of them.
00:46:29.180 But it depends where the votes are.
00:46:31.800 So libertarians stick together, you know, there are those left libertarians and right ones and they love fighting with each other, but they're right.
00:46:41.820 Libertarians can't even agree on what to do, let alone move on other ones.
00:46:44.660 Well, the regional breakdown is interesting.
00:46:47.120 So in B.C., the liberals are running an increasingly distant third place at only 22%.
00:46:54.500 You've got the Greens at eight.
00:46:56.320 I mean, definitely their best province.
00:46:58.240 I think they have at least one seat, maybe two there. NDP second at 28. Conservatives' points make pretty big gains at 38%.
00:47:08.240 Now, again, BC is a big province. The way that slices down in the seat-by-seat race is tough. Not surprising to people. Conservatives dominating in Alberta at 55%.
00:47:20.240 The NDP in second at 21, and the Liberals again at 14%.
00:47:25.240 Those 14% are people who did not live any portion of their life under the National Energy Program.
00:47:33.240 Similar, almost mirror image Alberta to the combined Manitoba and Saskatchewan numbers.
00:47:40.240 53% Conservative, 15% Liberal, 23% NDP.
00:47:46.240 everywhere west of Ontario. It's really, it's conservative dominant, and the only challenger
00:47:53.080 is the NDP. The Liberals are not really a significant challenger. Outside of a few
00:47:58.940 individual seat pockets, you know, there are localized pockets where the Liberals can be
00:48:03.040 competitive, but they have fallen out of contention west of the Lakehead. Ontario,
00:48:09.340 the Conservatives, slightly over the Liberals, and that's really where the election is going
00:48:13.600 determined 37 to 35. Quebec, Liberals in a statistically 31% over the block at 30,
00:48:21.280 Conservatives at 22, and Liberals obviously leaning Atlantic as they always do 53 to 37.
00:48:28.800 Nigel, what stands out? Anything interesting in the in the regional breakdowns for you?
00:48:33.840 Yeah, that Ontario number is I think an improvement for the Conservatives because it seems to me that
00:48:40.160 at the last election um we built up huge majorities in the western provinces and that's
00:48:48.320 confirmed by this this most recent poll but the conservatives lost uh a lot of seats in the in
00:48:59.120 ontario by not that much which means razor thin margins which means that uh if there is any kind
00:49:06.080 of an uptick in Ontario for the Conservatives, that's going to translate into actual seats.
00:49:12.320 I mean, don't want to go back into too much past history, but it can get as close as two votes,
00:49:18.240 which is what the Conservatives won an Ontario seat on the shore of Lake Huron in 2011. That's
00:49:25.840 Nipissing-Timbus-Camming. After about 30 recounts, it was hours by two votes. So if you think of that,
00:49:33.840 there are a lot of seats in that election that were I did a I did a spreadsheet on this took
00:49:40.160 the results and I think that we had a majority of 16 at a time so I took the the 16 seats that
00:49:48.880 we held by the smallest majorities added up those majorities I don't think I got the 5,000 votes
00:49:56.240 so if and that's largely in Ontario so if it's not how you vote it's where you vote it's where
00:50:02.160 you vote oh so so true so very true that's that for the conservatives that's encouraging you know
00:50:08.080 so the liberals of the last two federal elections have had wickedly efficient vote and by that
00:50:13.360 and for those who aren't as familiar with this um you know you only need to win one
00:50:19.600 more vote than the next highest guy in a constituency to win the seat so it doesn't
00:50:24.800 matter if you had 10 000 more votes or one more vote you win and so if you're running up 10 000
00:50:30.400 vote majorities, although that doesn't happen federally, we don't have that many voters in the
00:50:34.540 writing, but if you had 10,000 votes more than the next guy in the writing, you've wasted
00:50:39.400 9,999 votes. Those are wasted votes. And so the Liberals, you know, Conservatives won some seats,
00:50:47.420 particularly in the West, the rural parts of Ontario by huge margins, and then lost by the
00:50:51.580 slimmest margins in all these 905 suburban Ontario, surrounding Toronto seats, that kind of stuff.
00:50:58.140 The thing about having an efficient vote is it's sufficient until it's not.
00:51:02.220 And then it becomes hyper inefficient.
00:51:04.980 The greatest example of all time were the progressive conservatives in 1992.
00:51:09.560 Sorry, 1993.
00:51:10.620 Now, they were going to lose anyway.
00:51:12.600 They were going to lose power.
00:51:14.260 But they had had this hyper efficient vote.
00:51:16.360 And even though they placed second nationally, they placed fifth place in seats when it was done.
00:51:23.520 Because they had two seats.
00:51:24.460 They had two seats, and only one of them had been re-elected. Jean Charest was the only one re-elected.
00:51:28.640 Elsie Wayne was new. So they won two seats nationally from a big majority government down to virtually nothing.
00:51:33.460 Less than the NDP, less than the Bloc, less than the Reform Party, obviously less than the Liberals.
00:51:37.260 Even though they were second place, because their votes were just spread a little bit everywhere, and it got them nothing.
00:51:43.660 Similarly, in Alberta, the Progressive Conservatives in 2015, they had slightly more of the vote than the Wild Rose.
00:51:50.120 But Wildrose had twice as many votes, even though we were in opposition, because the PCs were trying to compete.
00:51:56.900 Jim Prentice was trying to win every single seat in Alberta.
00:51:59.840 He thought he could win downtown Edmonton pretty much.
00:52:02.820 And they ended up winning very, very little, whereas Wildrose said, wow, we've just been through hell.
00:52:07.940 So we're going to try and win rural, south, central, and maybe some in the north.
00:52:13.660 And if we're really lucky, one or two in Calgary.
00:52:15.860 And they got them.
00:52:17.060 Wildrose won all of its target seats and then a few more.
00:52:20.120 So that's the problem with voter efficiency. Out of the regional breakdowns, what stands out to you, Corey?
00:52:26.660 Is it Ontario, you know, the slim margin the Conservatives got, or is it BC that, you know, they're actually a pretty big league now?
00:52:33.220 Well, yeah, it's, I mean, BC has always been a hornet's nest.
00:52:37.680 If you want a tough area to predict, look at Vancouver.
00:52:39.700 You can have an NDP seat next to a very Conservative seat next to a Green seat.
00:52:44.260 At least have them next to Reform seats.
00:52:45.300 Exactly. So, I mean, you know, that's where positive campaigning will really make a difference. I mean, you got those needles to move. Same with those areas in Ontario with those microfin margins. But right now what we're seeing, I guess, is anybody's guess. It's a close race, though. I mean, this is the first time we could kind of say that in a while, too. I mean, it's been pretty safely liberal for quite a while with all the polls you see. And right now, there is definitely some room for some movement and shifting if the votes go the right way in our crazy system.
00:53:14.320 Very interesting, and we'll wrap up with this, is the leading province for the, now this is margin of errors.
00:53:20.460 We're talking single points, two points at this point, so the accuracy goes down.
00:53:24.540 But the strongest province for the PPC is Ontario, where those margins are so thin.
00:53:31.760 Second is Alberta, where the margins are so not thin.
00:53:35.820 But 6% in Ontario, that is a lot of votes up for grad.
00:53:41.160 Now, and I don't think there's any big deal to be had.
00:53:43.120 I don't think Maxine Bernier has any desire to work for anybody else.
00:53:48.060 And I don't think Polyev, even though Polyev probably ideologically agrees with Bernier in a lot, I can't imagine him having to essentially share the leadership.
00:53:58.320 There's just no way he would agree to it.
00:53:59.800 These guys are not going to end up in the same party in the next election.
00:54:02.380 But, you know, if Polyev can find a way to bring those voters home, so to speak, that would move Ontario then decisively in his direction.
00:54:12.600 And that is the election right there.
00:54:15.200 You could win an ex-majority government with that 6% sitting for the PPC in Ontario.
00:54:22.520 That, if I'm advising PolyEv, I'd say that is the group you've got to get, 1.00
00:54:27.860 while alienating as few swing liberal and NDP voters as possible.
00:54:32.140 You get them, the election's over.
00:54:36.180 Okay.
00:54:37.460 Well, very numbery conversation today, guys.
00:54:41.040 Thank you very much.
00:54:42.600 it was a pleasure all right well i thank all you for uh for joining us today um i we appreciate you
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