Canada Cooling on Conservatives (For Now)

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Welcome back to beyond the Polls. We traveled this week
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to the True North, Staring and Free Canada to talk
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about Monday's election with Canadian political analyst Shawn Spear. Let's
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dive in, Well, Monday is going to be a consequential
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election that starts off about two months of consequential elections.
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The America's great neighbor to the north, the place that
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Donald Trump aspires to add to the American flag, but
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a place that we know as Canada. And here to
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throw some true patriot love our way is my friend
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from Canada, Sean Spear, who is founder and editor at
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large of the Must Listen To and Watch the Hub
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and a previous advisor to former Prime Minister of Canada
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Stephen Harper. Sean, welcome to be on the polls, Henry.
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It's wonderful to to be able to talk to you.
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Well, as we were saying offline on January sixth, you
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were saying ninety nine percent odds on poly Market that
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the Conservative leader Pierre Polyiev was going to become the
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next Prime Minister of Canada. I suspect that is almost
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completely reversed if I were to look at Polly Market
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today given the polls, what happened.
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That's going to be a question that people are asking
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themselves for a long time, as you say, Henry, really,
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for the past two years or so, the Conservatives under
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party leader Pierre Polyev seem poise to form Canada's next government.
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We previously we've had a Liberal government for the past decade,
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led mostly by Justineau, who your listeners are probably familiar with,
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for the past several weeks by Mark Carney, Canada's former
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central banker, as well as central banker in England, who
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returned to Canada near the end of the Trueau government
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and in short order became party leader and in turn
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Prime Minister. When he won the party leadership, Henry, it
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seemed implausible that he would win the next election. Of
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the Trudeau government had accumulated the bumps and bruises of
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any government for a decade, but had a particular shoddy
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record on Canada's economic performance declining GDP per capita, low
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business investment, low productivity. There was a sense some polling
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showing its high at seven of ten Canadians who believed
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that Canada was quote unquote broken.
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So the scene was set.
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The conditions were there for what seemed like an inevitable
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and significant Conservative majority, and then Donald Trump happened. Beginning
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in late November, Trump started to intimate his intention to
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impose tariffs on Canada. That was destabilizing, of course, because
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Canada as a trading country disproportionately reliant on the US
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as an export market. It meant that tariffs were a
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major threat to the livelihoods of Canadians across the country.
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But what really had a major effect was, as you alluded,
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President Trump's increasing provocations about Canada becoming the fifty first state.
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It completely destabilized Canadian politics, essentially reset those conditions that
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seem so fertile for the Conservatives, and in turn have
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driven Canadians, particularly older ones, back into the arms of
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the Liberal Party and in particular Mark Karney in what
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I think I would characterize as a flight to safety.
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All this to say, the betting markets, as you say,
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have essentially flipped, and what seemed like the beginnings of
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a new Conservative government look increasingly like not just the
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reelection of the Liberals under their new leader, Mark Carney,
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but what itself could be a pretty significant majority government
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and a mandate not just to negotiate some type of
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new trade and security rangent with the United States. But
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carp lanche to do a whole number of things that
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Mark Carney has spoken about over the course of his
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twenty or thirty years in public life.
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Well, let's divert from what I was going to ask you,
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to ask you, what are some of those things that
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a ascendant one hundred and ninety to two hundred seat
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and a three hundred and forty three seat unicameral effectively
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unicameral parliament. What would a man with the ultimate power
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in Canada want to do that's on his to do list.
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Yeah, it's a great question, especially because, as you Henry,
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the Prime Minister of Canada, particularly the majority context, has
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a power that the President United States would love to have,
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especially because Carney will have become Prime Minister and it
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will be self in a way that it will be
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self evident for Liberal MPs that they are there because
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of him, And in that sense, I don't know there'll
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be a Canadian Prime Minister with greater dominance over his
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parliamentary caucus in my lifetime. And that's significant because Mark
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Carney over the past twenty years, particularly the past decade,
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has positioned himself as one of the world's biggest proponents
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of the net zero agenda, of the energy transition, of
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essentially engineering the end to the traditional industrial economy. That
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matters a great deal in Canada, because, as your listeners
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probably know, conventional oil and gas presents Canada's largest source
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of exports, a major source of employment in general, and
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in particular a major source of employment amongst the type
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of working class men who've become the agitators in populist
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movements and other parts of the world. Carney in this
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campaign has positioned himself principally on the subject of Canada
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US relations, and as we can talk about, Canadians are
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generally favorable to him on that subject. But of course,
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in Canadian politics, you aren't just getting the Prime minister
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for the parts of his agenda you like, you're getting
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all of it. And so in that sense, mister Carney
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could become Prime Minister, re elected as Prime Minister on Monday,
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with carte blanche for the next four years to yes,
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of course, pursue some type of arrangement with the Trump administration,
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but all of these other things that could have huge
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implications for Canada's economy, our society and indeed our political life.
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Oh boy, well, we will welcome all ten million Canadian
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Conservatives to the United States as legal immigrants to enrich
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our human capital as you flee net zero, EESG and
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wokeness on steroids. But steroids are a drug, and we
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know that Canada doesn't like to pay for the market
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price for its drug. Anyway, I digress. So let me
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ask you then, if we were to be talking during
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the period between early January and Donald Trump's inauguration and
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Mark Carney's election, which are I think they're like we
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within a week of each other. Yes, the Conservatives were
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somewhere between forty and forty five percent of the total vote.
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The Liberals had shot up after Trousseau's resignation, they were
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still behind, and the three parties to the left, the
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Block quebec Qua, the Greens and the New Democrats were
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getting around thirty percent of the vote. I'm looking here
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at the most conservative friendly poll that came out, and
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today the Liberals lead by a point and a half
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and the three leftist parties have dropped to a mere
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fourteen percent. So I look at this and I say, well,
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what Carnie has done is convince the groups convince about
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one half of the voters who normally don't like the
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Liberals because their two establishment not left wing enough, or
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in the case of the blou quebec Qua two Federalists,
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you know, not quebec Quah enough, and said help me
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fight bad orange man from the red, white and blue South.
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You know, I've been to your some of your monuments
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in the War of eighteen twelve, where we are the
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bad guys. The rock column I have climbed to the
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top of I think I got that right near Niagara.
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So I get that there is that there is a
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long history of tension here. But is this coalition sustainable?
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Is that if I look at what's happened, you've got
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people who pretty much never want to vote for the
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Liberals because they're not good enough, and people who like
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to vote for the Liberals because they are a source
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of stability and they are in the same party. How
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do you keep how does Carne keep this coalition together?
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Or is it a real possibility that eighteen months from now,
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the pressures of governing and the fact that the one
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hundred and first Airborne despite weird al Yankovic's I don't
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want to be a Canadian idiot parody, which you know,
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if you want to laugh at the expense of silly Americans,
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go listen to that. You know, the Hunter first Airborne
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is not going to be landing in Ottawa to arrest
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the prime minister. You know you are going to be
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an independent country. How does he keep this coalition together
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and keep the Conservatives at bank.
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It's such a brilliant question, Henry, something I've thought and
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talked a lot about over the past couple of weeks.
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But if you'll permit me before I answer it, can
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I just address sort of the underlying assumptions of your question,
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because I think some illuminating for your audience. We have
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a Westminster system, not a presidential system. It has historically
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been a multi party system with different parties across the
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ideological and political spectrum. And the most significant part of
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this election, as you alluded, is that the Liberal Party
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and the Conservative Party are likely to get the most
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concentrated support of the popular vote of any two parties
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since the nineteen thirty election. We've gone in this election
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from what has historically been a multi party system for
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all intents and purposes to a two party race at
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least in English, Canada and Quebec.
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It's a bit slightly more complicated, and so.
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One way to think about that in simple terms is
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that Pierre pauliev has effectively consolidated the right. That is
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to say, he has the supportive of the Conservative Party,
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the party he leads, but he's also, through various messages
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and policies and intimations, driven the party to the right
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of him, the People's Party, into the ground, as such
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that he's, for all intents and purposes, as I say,
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consolidated the political right. Mark Karney has successfully consolidated, for
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all intents and purposes, the political left, not just the
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Liberal Party that he leads, but also the New Democratic Party,
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a party to the left of him, which is historically
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pulled somewhere north of twelve to fifteen points and is
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presently pulling, as you say, closer to five points or
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something like that. And so one way to think about
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this race in really simple terms is that Pierre Polyov's
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consulted to the right, Mark Karney's consulted to the left.
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The problem for Conservatives are just more of them of
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those on the left than there is of them, and
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so it is proving to be a pretty effective and
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successful electoral play on the part of Mark Karney. The
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question is how sustainable it is as a governing play,
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And I think you're really onto something asking that question,
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because if you think about it, on the right edge
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of his coalition would be what we would characterize in
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Canada's sort of Bay Street capitalists, people who are in
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favor of free markets and so on, but don't support
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the Conservatives because there's aspects of Pierre Polyiev's populism that
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turn them off. But on the left edge of the
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party you would have Hamas supporting social activists, people that
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he's pulled in from the NDP. And I think on
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a whole host of issues one can see the potential
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for a kind of nuclear missile to run directly through
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that coalition. The biggest, of course, will be the negotiation
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with the Trump administration. Mark Carney has essentially bought Donald
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Trumps silence in this race for the past two weeks
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by committing to entering negotiations for it. Whether he's characterizing
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as a trade and security agreement immediately after the election,
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that ostensibly implies something more comprehensive than our current free
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trade agreement, and it's going to come, Henry, I think
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with some pretty excruciating trade offs for a Canadian Prime minister,
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not just the types of grievances that US administrations typically
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have about Canadian protectionism, like are the way we protect
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dairy farmers, the way we protect Canadian culture or whatever.
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One can see a world where the Trump administration says,
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at the cost of maintaining mostly terror free access to
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the US market is that we have to essentially adopt
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extra territorially the US Administration's terryf regim visa VI China
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and possibly other countries, in effect handing over our trade
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policy sovereignty. I think that's probably on balance a trade
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worth making. But you can just imagine how excruciating that
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will be within the carne coalition, particularly since Carneie has
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Carneye's rise has been marked by this spike and anti
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americanism that you were alluding to earlier.
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So that's a long way of saying.
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I've joked at various points that when the celebration on
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election night finally dissipates, becoming Prime minister under these arrangements
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with this coalition might feel like something might feel something
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like a consolation prize.
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Yeah, for real political nerds, as a nineteen seventy two
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movie called The Candidate starring Robert Redford, where he's this
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idealistic young liberal who get it's recruited to run for
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Senate against an older Republican's and it takes place in
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nineteen seventies California, and it's understood to be a stand
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in for the John Tunney versus George Murphy race of
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nineteen seventy and he makes under his consultants, he makes
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compromise after compromise after compromise, until by the end he's
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this morally twisted pretzel. And as he wins, he's on
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the dance floor, you know, the celebration floor, and the
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noise is going in is candas you know, he's looking
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kind of like h and he turns to his consultant,
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who's giddy with glee at having pulled this offset, and
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he says, what do we do now? And the consultant says,
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I can't hear you and turns away. I mean, Carney's
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not morally compromise or anything, but how much of that
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is going when the reality of what he's got to
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deal with? You know, I've thought for a while that
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any deal he could make with Donald Trump will alienate
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the very left wing Trumpers that he just made to
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have his majority. And any deal that he makes, you know,
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if he doesn't pursue a green agenda, he alienates those people. Further.
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If he does pursue a green agenda, he hurts the
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suburban voters who were going to vote for Conservatives, and
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most crucially in your malaportioned unicameral legislature, the thirty two
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seats in Atlantic Canada that are disproportionately working class that
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were ready to fall to polyev and now look ready
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to go back to the being the Liberals who are
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disproportionately hurt by taxes on fossil fuel. So again, I
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look at this and I think, gee, campaigning is going
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to be pretty darn easy and running you know, he
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was governor of the Bank of Indland. You know, running
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an independent bank in a large but not a country
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without a reserve currency is difficult. But that's going to
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look like child's play compared to his task.
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Yeah, especially because us notwithstanding the nationalists.
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Fervor Wait, did you just introduce the notwithstanding clock. That's
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a little Canadian human.
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That is that is inside baseball and why I love
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Henry your analysis and your podcast. But notwithstanding the nationalist
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fervor that we've seen manifest in Canada, particularly because of
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Trump's various provocations, it still seems self evidently in Canada's
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interest to secure some type of arrangement with the with
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the administration Canada. A Canadian of Canadian exports, eighty percent
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go to the US. Exports represent a disproportionate shriff Canadian
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economic activity, such that trade with the United States is
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about thirty percent of GDP. And so if we face
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sustain tariffs in order to access the US market, I
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worry Henry the consequence will be we'll see a flight
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of capital and production from Canada to the US to
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essentially jump over that tariff wall. And so Mark Carney
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is going to have this, as I say, excruciating set
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of choices about securing some type of arrangement with the US,
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one that no doubt will be suboptimal and no doubt
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will alien in a lot of Canadians. And in that sense,
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his biggest task may be itself his undoing. But I
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would add another element is Brian Manrooney, the former Progressive
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Conservative Prime minister, often used to say Henry that a
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Prime Minister of Canada has two principal responsibilities. The first
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is national unity, the second is Canada West relations, and
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there's a way in which these trade negotiations has those
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two issues intersect. You could see a world where the
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Trump administration comes to the table and imposes on the
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Prime minister trade offs involving dairy farmers in Quebec, auto
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workers in Ontario, and energy exports out of Western Canada.
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And it's important for listeners to understand that the Conservative Party,
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although likely to lose the election nationally, will probably win
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the popular vote in our to western a Prairie provinces
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as sketch from Alberta by about sixty with about sixty
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or sixty five percent of the popular vote. And so
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the vast majority of citizens in those provinces are oil
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and gas rich provinces support Conservatives. And so if Mark Carney,
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either through the negotiation or through a broader Green agenda,
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enacts policies that are injurious to those two provinces in
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their economic interests, one could envision a pretty big national
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unity crisis. And that doesn't even begin to consider the
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fact that in twenty twenty six, the province of Quebec
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is poised to have a provincial election. The probability that
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one of the separatist party wins that election is reasonably high.
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So he could be.
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Facing in Western Canada a spike in support for Western
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separation and a separatist party threatening to hold a referendum
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on Quebec separation in the first eighteen or twenty four
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months of his prime ministership. All this to say, you know,
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I don't know if we have reason to believe that
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President Trump is clever like a fox. But if he
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was really trying to create the conditions for at least
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some part of Canada to become the fifty first state,
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the next twenty four months for a CARNEI prime ministership
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may tend in that direction.
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Yeah. I think if Trump were thinking along that line,
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he'd kind of look at Canada and say Alberta and
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Saskatchewan are the provinces he wants lots of trade surplus,
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lots of natural gas and energy and other resources, and
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not a whole lot of pension obligations and so forth.
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And of course Alberta is the most conservative province in Canada.
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There's already in Alberta a small but not totally fringe
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Alberta separatist movement. There's the Danielle Smith's premiership. I don't
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know where the separate Alberta pension plan idea has gone,
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but the idea that Alberta is out of step oil
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and natural gas rich Alberta is out of step with
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the rest of Canada is not a new thing for Albertons.
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And you know, if basically Carney says Canadian National Unity
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basically demands that we stick it to the Albertons once again,
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the Albertons may say, well, maybe we have the pun
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intended trump card.
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Yes, yeah, And if I can just jump on that point,
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because one thing that may surprise your listeners is that,
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in a way, conservative politics in Canada these for the
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past several election cycles have looked a bit different than
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in the US in the sense that because of the
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Conservative Party's strong support in these Prairie provinces where the
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Conservatives are running up huge majorities at the provincial level
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and overall terms, but at the riding level, the Servative Party,
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as you know Henry has won the popular vote in
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the twenty nineteen election, the twenty twenty one election and
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may indeed win the popular vote on Monday, and yet
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in all three of those elections will be closed out
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of governing because the Liberals are able to pick up
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big gains, particularly in Canada's major cities Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
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And so I think there is a growing sense amongst
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Western Canadians that there's something structurally against their interests or
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against their favor in Canadian politics itself, that the structure
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of the system seems to consistently offset or veto their preferences.
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And so I think you're right. In the event that
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we see Mark Carney led Liberal Party win a majority
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on Monday, which is at this stage the most likely outcome,
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I think you're going to see a Western separation movement,
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a ship from the fringes of Alberta politics closer to
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the center, which is going to represent a real test
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for Alberta Premier daniel Smith, who up until now has
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been a champion of provincial autonomy against federal overreach, but
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hasn't really had to confront this question of separation, which
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we'll have growing salients inside her coalition.
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And let's not forget that Danielle Smith got her start
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for my American friends who don't like regularly read the
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Globe and Mail and the Hub and so forth. That
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she got her start as being a libertarian leaning conservative
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radio host and provocateur for the lack of a better phrase,
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who is actually head of the wild Rose Party, the
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Conservative rural base split from the right before she rejoined
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the PCs that became the United Conservative Party of Alberta.
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So she's got this background in that sort of wing
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where the separatist movement is likely at the foe Man.
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She's not from the Jason Kenny business bastions of Calgary wing.
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She's from the very sort of people who will turn
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around and say, we need to think about extreme measures.
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Can I ask you a question, though, Henry, because absolutely
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you know.
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One of the reasons I like talking to you so
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much is, although at times it makes me feel self conscious,
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is that you don't know not only knows so much
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about us politics, but you're informed as your leader listeners
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are hearing about Canadian politics. I think one way to
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think of the challenge for the Conservative Party of Canada
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is as follows.
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If we're heading in the direction of.
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Two party races in English Canada, I think that is
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not an improbable outcome. Yes, of course, there are unique
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contingent circumstances in this race, but the truth is it
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has been the goal of the Liberal Party of Canada
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dating back to the twenty fifteen election, and to try
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to absorb as much of the NDP as possible, to
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essentially turn this into two party races on the assumption
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that's likely to produce Liberal wins. More often than not,
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the Conservative Party faces this challenge. It has the highest
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floor rather of any party in Canada. In my lifetime,
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it has never really fallen below twenty six, twenty seven,
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twenty eight percent of the popular vote, but it does
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have a lower ceiling than the Liberal Party. You mentioned
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that late last year it was pushing up north of
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forty two forty three percent, but the historical norm is
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probably the high thirties. And in fact, one of the
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crazy things about this election is that Pierre Polyev made
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lose with a higher share of the popular vote than
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Stephen Harper had in twenty eleven when his Conservative Party
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won a majority, because of the way that Canada's multi
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party system plays out at the local right level. Anyway,
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all this to say, in a world in which the
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Conservative Party is stuck with this high floor low ceiling,
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and is facing the prospect of two party races.
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Particularly English Canada, moving forward, what does it do?
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This is such a fundamental question, because I think you'll
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have a lot of people arguing the answer lies in
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essentially shifting to the center to try to reach new
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and different voters on the right edge of mister Carney's coalition.
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The risk, of course is, as I alluded earlier, there
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is a party to the right of the Conservatives, and
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in the twenty twenty one election, that party, the People's Party,
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managed to win about five points five percent of the
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popular vote, precisely because the then Conservative leader, Erin O'Toole
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sought to make that kind of trade off. So that's
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a very long way of saying I do think that
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one of the major questions facing the Conservative Party moving
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forward is what types of adjustments it needs to make
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to its ideas and message and policies and priorities and
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all the rest in a world in which forty percent
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of the popular vote may not be enough to consistently
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compete for national power.
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I was actually watching the English language debate in twenty
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twenty one, and I was pretty surprised at how strongly
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to the suburban center Aaron O'Toole played, and it was
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at that point that Maxine Bonier's People's Party started going
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up from like two to two and a half percent
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to eventually over five percent. And event O'Toole tried to
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get the center, he didn't get the center over Trudeau
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and he lost his right. But your point about Polyev
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is actually where I wanted to go next, which is
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that it's entirely plausible that he will get that the
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Tories will get more votes than they have gotten at
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any time in their modern history, which is say, the
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post PC history, and more votes than at any time
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except since John Diefenbaker in nineteen fifty seven, I think
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maybe sixty two, with the exception of the Malroney years
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when he made deals with Quebec separatists and the votes
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were pushed up by the people who are now in
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the block hebec quah. So in other words, there's a
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case to be made that Pierre Poliev is the most
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is going to be the most successful candidate of the
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right since John Diefenbaker upset Canadian politics for that brief
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whirlwind period in the late fifties early sixties. Will the
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Party understand that if he comes in it between thirty
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eight and forty one percent of the national vote, even
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if the Liberals beat him. But they can look and
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they say, the People's Party is still taking a little bit.
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But there's only so long Barnie can keep this dog
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in the hunt. And we're better off than we've ever
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been before. And this tornado from south the border came,
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and this is not a normal election. Will they see
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this and say, forty five year year old Pierre Polyev,
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you should deserve another term as leader to see whether
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or not this unnatural coalition on the left to the
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center left can survive, or do you think they'll say
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you lose, you're out.
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My gut is that Polyev has enough goodwill within conservative
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politics that if he wants another chance at running as
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for prime minister.
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He'll be given He'll be given that chance.
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Polyev has grown up in conservative politics.
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He speaks to conservatives in muscle memory.
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He's got a kind of intuitive relationship with base conservative voters,
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which is partly reflected, as I said earlier, in the
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success over the past couple of years to consolidate the right.
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So in that sense, I think he probably will have
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another kick at the can if you want it. But
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he's still going to have to answer the fundamental question,
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how does it go about pushing up that ceiling while protecting,
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as you put it, the floor from falling out, which
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is what happened to Tool in twenty twenty one. What's interesting,
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Henry is I think part of that answer lies in
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what has increasingly become core to your professional work, which
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is the realignment. If you look at some of the
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interesting data from polls right now, the Conservatives have had
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made gains or seen poised to make gains amongst those
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who have a high school diploma. They've made gains for
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those who make less than fifty thousand dollars. In fact,
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they're up as high as nine points amongst that that group.
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They've made significant gains gains that have generated interest and
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attention across the Anglo American conservative world with younger Canadians,
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those aged eighteen to thirty four. So what's interesting is
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not only will Polyev Henry win likely win more votes
482
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:23.000
than any Conservative leader before him, the composition of that
483
00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:26.640
vote will look a bit different, and that in itself
484
00:31:26.759 --> 00:31:30.559
may answer the question where does future growth come from?
485
00:31:31.759 --> 00:31:34.000
But I think that will be have to be at
486
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:38.279
the heart of any kind of autopsy or post election analysis.
487
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:43.319
How do you continue to push up that ceiling, because
488
00:31:43.440 --> 00:31:45.680
I guess this is the crucial point for those listeners
489
00:31:45.720 --> 00:31:48.519
who don't pay close attention to these elections.
490
00:31:49.240 --> 00:31:49.799
If the New.
491
00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:52.559
Democratic Party, the party to the left of Liberals, was
492
00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:57.079
pulling at its historic norm, Pierre Poliev would be cruising
493
00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:01.359
to majority government because as because it would have created
494
00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:03.839
three ways splits in most of these riotings that would
495
00:32:03.880 --> 00:32:08.480
produce a Conservative win. But the Liberals under Mark Karney
496
00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:12.599
have essentially absorbed fifty percent of the NDP support, and
497
00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:16.039
so in these what amount to two party races in
498
00:32:16.440 --> 00:32:19.319
different parts of English Canada, even at forty percent the
499
00:32:19.319 --> 00:32:22.680
Conservatives won will likely not likely be able to win.
500
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:25.480
And so I think there's been a tendency in Conservative
501
00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:30.839
circles to take for granted that a strong ENDP was
502
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:34.640
part of how it solved for its low ceiling problem.
503
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:38.640
I think that it's self evident after this election that
504
00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:42.640
the Conservatives can outsource their strategy to a successful ENDP,
505
00:32:42.920 --> 00:32:46.200
they have to assume agency and responsibility for their own
506
00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:50.640
political destiny, and that means pushing up even higher than
507
00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:53.039
the thirty nine or forty percent that Peer Polly has
508
00:32:53.039 --> 00:32:55.200
gotten the party over the past several weeks.
509
00:32:57.759 --> 00:32:59.200
And one of the things that stands out to me
510
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:01.960
about where Poly was about three or four months ago
511
00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:04.480
is and I'm going to get a little nerdy for
512
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:10.079
my American listeners, is winning almost every seat in the
513
00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:16.079
heavily South and East Asian immigration towns of Toronto, Brampton
514
00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:20.839
and Mississauga. Winning a vast majority of working class seats
515
00:33:21.240 --> 00:33:26.920
in Atlantic Canada, not Francophone New Brunswick, but Anglophone, non
516
00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:31.799
urban Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, even maybe
517
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:36.119
three seats in Newfoundland and Elaborator, and doing very well
518
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:41.079
in the heavily Chinese and South Asian suburbs of Vancouver
519
00:33:41.960 --> 00:33:44.400
as well as doing well and even today I was
520
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:47.279
just looking at the Main Street research profile, which is
521
00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:53.519
the most pro Conservative model. Even if it's as bad
522
00:33:53.559 --> 00:33:56.680
as it looks, you know, that'll be a majority government
523
00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:00.880
and a reasonably comfortable one. The Conservative will still pick
524
00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:05.160
up most blue collar seats in British Columbia, on Vancouver
525
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:08.159
Island and out in the logging and mining communities. They
526
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:10.679
will pick up seats in northern Ontario, they will pick
527
00:34:10.760 --> 00:34:13.239
up a seat or be very competitive for seats in
528
00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:16.159
Windsor and Hamilton, the old basis of the steel and
529
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:20.920
the auto industries, which suggest that even in this the
530
00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:28.639
blue collar realignment is successful. How do you Conservative Party
531
00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:32.960
strategists understand the center that typically in America, when people
532
00:34:32.960 --> 00:34:35.360
say the center, what they have in mind is, oh,
533
00:34:35.400 --> 00:34:39.079
moderate suburbanites just like me. And I think that's what
534
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:41.719
Aeron O'Toole was going for in twenty twenty one. And
535
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:44.199
you look and you say, actually, the doug Ford model
536
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:50.280
in Ontario and what paualiev is doing is more like
537
00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:52.400
a Canadian version of the Trump model. Is we're going
538
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:57.880
to go after the socioeconomically downscale people who aren't in
539
00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:01.559
the upper income suburbs, are in the places that maybe
540
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:05.280
you'll go to if you live in Saint Paul's for
541
00:35:05.400 --> 00:35:08.960
a good Indian meal, and then you'll go back to
542
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:13.639
downtown Toronto or so forth. They're both the center, but
543
00:35:13.679 --> 00:35:15.960
they're different centers. Did they get that.
544
00:35:16.360 --> 00:35:18.440
I think they do, And I think one of the
545
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:23.159
reasons they've backed into this strategy is I think they've
546
00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:25.360
reached the conclusion that.
547
00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:28.559
Much of the.
548
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:33.840
Pre existing conservative orthodoxy and message reaches some of the
549
00:35:33.920 --> 00:35:37.440
voters you're talking about without the types of compromises that
550
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.559
one might have to make in order to reach the
551
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:44.760
traditional conception of the center. That is to say, a
552
00:35:44.760 --> 00:35:47.800
lot of those, for lack of a better term, blue
553
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:52.280
collar voters that you're talking about their responsive to Polyieff,
554
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:58.199
not because he's not because he's moderating, but because he's
555
00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:03.559
speaking to their inests and issues, particularly the kind of
556
00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:07.159
excesses of identity politics over the past decade in Canada.
557
00:36:07.599 --> 00:36:10.760
You know, you guys think you have it bad. I
558
00:36:10.840 --> 00:36:13.239
mean the view of Prime Minister Trudeau for the past
559
00:36:13.239 --> 00:36:16.760
decades that Canada was fundamentally a genocidal state, that we
560
00:36:16.840 --> 00:36:21.119
had carried out genocide and arguably we're still carrying out
561
00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:25.800
genocide against our indigenous population. We've had statues of Canada's
562
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:29.079
founding Prime Minister, Sir John McDonald taken down. We had
563
00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:32.440
our flag fly at half mass for weeks, if not
564
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:36.000
months a few years ago in the aftermath of the
565
00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:39.840
of the George Floyd issue, and just kind of a
566
00:36:40.280 --> 00:36:45.159
flowering of cultural progressivism across North America and other parts
567
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:45.639
of the world.
568
00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:49.760
So Pierre pauliev has what's fascinating.
569
00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:52.199
Is that he's reached these new and different voters, these
570
00:36:52.239 --> 00:36:54.960
re alignment voters, if I can call them that, without
571
00:36:55.480 --> 00:36:59.840
speaking in two different languages or speaking in two different voices.
572
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:03.719
He's communicated a kind of comprehensive conception of the case,
573
00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:05.800
if I can put it that way, that has reached
574
00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:09.679
traditional Conservative voters but also brought some of these new
575
00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:11.440
and different ones in and it's gonna, as you say,
576
00:37:12.119 --> 00:37:14.559
should result in picking up seats in parts of the
577
00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:18.039
country that would have previously been closed the Conservative Party.
578
00:37:18.480 --> 00:37:21.800
The question I guess is how much juice can they
579
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:25.239
extract from that fruit, if I can put it that way,
580
00:37:25.599 --> 00:37:28.480
and how much further can they kind of push up
581
00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:34.880
their support by leaning into the political realignment, And that,
582
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:37.559
no doubt is something that they'll be thinking and talking
583
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:39.400
about after the election.
584
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:44.039
The other question comes to mind for me.
585
00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:55.000
Is Quebec Conservatives have long had aspirations of essentially rebuilding
586
00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:59.400
the coalition with Quebec nationalists that, as you say, was
587
00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:01.800
at the heart of the nineteen eighty four and nineteen
588
00:38:01.800 --> 00:38:05.559
eighty eight Mulroney elections. The two biggest Conservative majorities are
589
00:38:05.559 --> 00:38:08.000
amongst the two biggest in Canadian.
590
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:11.239
History that's been challenging.
591
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.800
Frankly, it's hard to fully understand what stands in the
592
00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:19.159
way of that progress. Used to be able to tell
593
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:22.039
ourselves it was because the Conservative leader wasn't seen as
594
00:38:22.039 --> 00:38:25.719
a Francophone. But Mark Karney is mopping things up and
595
00:38:25.760 --> 00:38:29.239
he barely speaks French, and so I don't know like
596
00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:32.719
this will be won't be provocative for your audience, but
597
00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:35.440
would be provocative for Canadian audience. I do think there
598
00:38:35.480 --> 00:38:38.760
becomes a point where Canadians Conservatives need to accept that
599
00:38:38.840 --> 00:38:41.960
there's just a kind of ceiling on their support in
600
00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:45.079
the Province of Quebec in a way that could be
601
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:49.119
liberating because it enables them to think differently about about
602
00:38:49.119 --> 00:38:52.199
certain issues. Let me give you one example. The Province
603
00:38:52.239 --> 00:38:56.360
of Quebec has a legislation in place called Bill twenty
604
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:01.519
one that essentially bans the wearing of religious clothing or
605
00:39:01.559 --> 00:39:04.719
accessories if you want to work in the public sector.
606
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:08.639
It's a highly controversial piece of legislation. It is in
607
00:39:08.760 --> 00:39:14.000
theory unconstitutional. It infringes on individual rights, but by virtue
608
00:39:14.039 --> 00:39:17.159
of Canada's unique constitutional system, the government has been able
609
00:39:17.159 --> 00:39:20.840
to use a notwithstanding clause to effect and pose it
610
00:39:21.599 --> 00:39:28.039
on majoritarian terms. The Conservative Party has been resistant to
611
00:39:28.239 --> 00:39:31.119
criticizing the legislation because it is something that has a
612
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:34.800
high salience with Quebec nationalists. But for the Conservative Party
613
00:39:34.840 --> 00:39:39.760
of Canada, which is the political home of disproportionately of
614
00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:42.519
people of faith in Canada, there does seem to be
615
00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:47.960
something a bit off about being silent on what amounts
616
00:39:47.960 --> 00:39:53.400
to a challenge to the religious freedom or of or
617
00:39:53.400 --> 00:39:58.400
freedom of conscience of quebecers. One wonders if a Conservative
618
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:02.039
leader came a in a more full throated way against
619
00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:05.480
that legislation at the expense of probably losing support with
620
00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:09.800
Quebec nationalists, he may he or she may find greater
621
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:15.480
support i in religious minority communities, particularly in the GTA.
622
00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:17.800
So it's a long way of saying, you know, these
623
00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:22.000
are in politic questions to have. There's a sense that,
624
00:40:22.159 --> 00:40:23.800
you know, to be a national leader, you have to
625
00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:27.639
be competitive ian the province of Quebec. But Conservative parties
626
00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:30.119
have been at it for a long time and at
627
00:40:30.119 --> 00:40:31.800
some point you just have to kind of take no
628
00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:34.679
for an answer, and in so doing it seems to
629
00:40:34.719 --> 00:40:39.280
me it creates new and different possibilities for the Conservatives
630
00:40:39.320 --> 00:40:40.559
in other parts of the country.
631
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:42.760
I mean, with the exception of the Maloney art, the
632
00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:45.719
Conservative Party has not been competitive in Quebec since the
633
00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:49.239
Silent Revolution and arguably since the draft riots of the
634
00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:50.039
First World War.
635
00:40:50.840 --> 00:40:52.880
Yeah, that's right.
636
00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:56.920
I mean, the historian would say it starts with Robert Borden,
637
00:40:57.000 --> 00:41:02.079
the Conservative Prime Minister, imposing conscription in the unpopular World
638
00:41:02.159 --> 00:41:06.000
War One, which, as you say, produced a huge backlash
639
00:41:06.039 --> 00:41:09.039
in the province. I'm not quite sure how to fully
640
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:12.679
understand the disconnect, but the net effect is the Conservas
641
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:15.199
are going to not only spend a lot of attention
642
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:17.679
and resources on the province, but as I say, are
643
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:22.119
going to make a series of policy compromises and in
644
00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:25.280
the end they're probably going to win five.
645
00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:26.880
Seats, maybe maybe ten if they're lucky.
646
00:41:28.119 --> 00:41:31.239
And you know, it's funny, there's this tendency to think
647
00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:33.760
about this trade off between the base and the center,
648
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:38.199
but there is very little room for conversation about a
649
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:41.480
trade off between Quebec and other parts of the country.
650
00:41:41.719 --> 00:41:45.679
And it seems to me if the party fails to
651
00:41:45.679 --> 00:41:48.239
win this election, even while pushing their support up to
652
00:41:48.280 --> 00:41:52.119
forty percent, these are precisely the kind of incremental questions
653
00:41:52.719 --> 00:41:54.599
that you need to be asking to get that number
654
00:41:54.840 --> 00:41:57.039
as high as you can so you're no longer dependent
655
00:41:57.440 --> 00:42:00.000
on vote splits to get you across the world.
656
00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:05.719
I mean, if you think of Canada as three linguistic groups, Anglophone, Francophone,
657
00:42:05.719 --> 00:42:11.760
and allophone, two out of three win yes, and you'll
658
00:42:11.800 --> 00:42:15.519
win Anglophone Canada. The Liberals will win Francophone Canada, and
659
00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:19.679
they'll win Allophone Canada if the all which you know,
660
00:42:19.679 --> 00:42:23.519
for my English American listeners, means every other language under
661
00:42:23.519 --> 00:42:26.960
their sun, you know, and you know, it strikes me
662
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:30.920
that running up the margin a little bit in Anglophone
663
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:35.480
Canada plus winning Allophone Canada's a much better strategy.
664
00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.760
One way to think about it is Ontario is really
665
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:42.000
key here because the Conservatives are gonna win out West
666
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:44.840
and the Liberals are going to win in Quebec. And
667
00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:50.079
the question is who can glom Ontario onto their base coalition.
668
00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:54.400
And if you accept that premise that that really is
669
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:56.079
at the heart of what Conservs are trying to do,
670
00:42:56.920 --> 00:42:58.599
and then I think they have to prepared to make
671
00:42:58.679 --> 00:43:04.000
some hard choices about positioning and the dedication of resources
672
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:07.559
and so on to the province of Quebec where they
673
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:10.800
can't win, where they've proven over and over again they
674
00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:15.159
can't win, and so really the goal should be trying
675
00:43:15.199 --> 00:43:18.960
to build this coalition from Toronto to Calgary.
676
00:43:21.760 --> 00:43:23.559
Well, I mean, it's just turn to the NDP for
677
00:43:23.559 --> 00:43:25.840
a couple of months. The New Democratic Party, the Social
678
00:43:25.880 --> 00:43:30.239
Democratic Party, historically having its roots in the labor Union
679
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:34.960
and the collectivist farmer movements, that over the last twenty
680
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:38.639
five years has really become, in my view, a party
681
00:43:38.760 --> 00:43:45.599
of the educated, young, urban left, and we've seen that
682
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:48.039
they've started to lose support in those old areas. One
683
00:43:48.039 --> 00:43:50.440
of the reasons why Polyev is going to do well,
684
00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:54.039
jag meets saying, this is his third time he's going
685
00:43:54.119 --> 00:43:56.719
to lead them to the most disastrous showing. And you know,
686
00:43:56.760 --> 00:43:59.159
maybe its history even when they were the CCF. I'm
687
00:43:59.159 --> 00:44:02.519
not sure. I haven't looked back at that history. But
688
00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:06.480
certainly the lowest number of seats, he's predicted to lose
689
00:44:06.519 --> 00:44:09.039
his own reelection in Burnaby Central. So they're going to
690
00:44:09.079 --> 00:44:13.960
need a new leader. Whither the NDP, because if you
691
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:18.519
look at the provincial level, they run Manitoba, they are
692
00:44:18.679 --> 00:44:23.559
competitive in Alberta, they are competitive in Ontario, and they
693
00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:26.800
run British Columbia. So why is it that they do
694
00:44:26.920 --> 00:44:29.119
well at the provincial level but have not been able
695
00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:33.360
to do well at the national level. And what does
696
00:44:33.400 --> 00:44:37.199
that mean about where the next NDP leader goes.
697
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:45.280
Yeah, great question, which exhibits your knowledge of Canadian politics.
698
00:44:46.519 --> 00:44:49.320
At the risk of losing some of your listeners.
699
00:44:49.960 --> 00:44:53.079
About twenty years ago or so, in hindsight, that the
700
00:44:53.400 --> 00:44:57.599
Democrats made the party's most consequential decision. They were faced
701
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:02.360
with the leadership race between At Layton, Toronto City councilor
702
00:45:03.159 --> 00:45:09.400
PhD in sociology, someone who embodied the kind of growing
703
00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:15.039
progressive cosmopolitanism versus Bill Blakey, who was a Western Canadian
704
00:45:15.719 --> 00:45:19.760
United Church minister who was a embodied the kind of
705
00:45:19.760 --> 00:45:27.000
traditional social gospel ethos of the Democratic Party. They chose Layton.
706
00:45:28.199 --> 00:45:33.639
It probably in the short term had positive political consequences
707
00:45:33.639 --> 00:45:37.760
and enabled the party to continue to build on its
708
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:44.280
support in major cities, particularly amongst those who either were
709
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:48.159
in public sector unions or who worked in a civil
710
00:45:48.159 --> 00:45:54.320
society organization adjacent to public sector unions. But it's become
711
00:45:54.360 --> 00:46:00.000
clear that that that that approach to progressive politics, particularly
712
00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:03.679
in a world in which the Liberals themselves have have
713
00:46:03.920 --> 00:46:05.679
moved to the left, and maybe that's something we can
714
00:46:05.719 --> 00:46:08.559
talk about. Has just kind of reached a natural limit,
715
00:46:09.639 --> 00:46:13.280
and that the net effect, Henry, is that the NDP,
716
00:46:13.760 --> 00:46:17.639
in choosing a kind of latent path in this fork road,
717
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:25.320
has has foregone representation of the types of traditional voices
718
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:29.199
who were part of the New Democrats, and a lot
719
00:46:29.199 --> 00:46:32.360
of them have actually, as you say, through this exercise
720
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:36.000
of political realignment, moved moved to the Conservative Party.
721
00:46:36.559 --> 00:46:38.360
The reason why I'm a bit skeptical.
722
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:41.519
About the future of the NDP is as as logical
723
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:48.079
as that all may sound, by being by being driven
724
00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:52.320
down into this kind of rump party. What's left is
725
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:56.440
precisely those people who self selected in by virtue of
726
00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:01.079
being progressive cosmopolitans. It's just not obvious to me that
727
00:47:01.119 --> 00:47:04.800
they are going to see a different path. The NDP
728
00:47:05.079 --> 00:47:11.280
has increasingly become a pretty eccentric party on Israel, Hamas,
729
00:47:11.880 --> 00:47:18.760
on issues around human sexuality, on the role and size
730
00:47:18.760 --> 00:47:23.920
of government, and so I just don't see an obvious
731
00:47:24.079 --> 00:47:27.199
path out for at least for the National Party.
732
00:47:27.679 --> 00:47:29.679
But I do think the Liberals are a big part
733
00:47:29.719 --> 00:47:31.440
of this story. Henry.
734
00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:35.159
You'll have some listeners who you know, cursively follow political
735
00:47:35.239 --> 00:47:38.719
Canadian politics and probably have this self image of the
736
00:47:38.760 --> 00:47:43.039
Liberal Party as the centrist, pragmatic party, but it has
737
00:47:43.079 --> 00:47:45.480
taken on more of an ideological character over the past
738
00:47:45.559 --> 00:47:50.719
decade as well. You know, when Justin Trudeau resigns in January,
739
00:47:51.039 --> 00:47:54.639
what's interesting is in his remarks he doesn't address liberals,
740
00:47:54.639 --> 00:47:57.719
he addresses progressives. I think a lot of today at
741
00:47:57.719 --> 00:47:59.880
the center of gravity of the Liberal Party today have
742
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:03.360
a self image as a progressive party. And in that world,
743
00:48:03.440 --> 00:48:05.760
it just seems to me it's not obvious that there's
744
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:11.199
a lot of political oxygen for the NDP. The question
745
00:48:11.880 --> 00:48:15.199
something we've come back to is in that world, particularly
746
00:48:15.239 --> 00:48:18.639
as a prime minister, Carney, assuming he wins, is forced
747
00:48:18.639 --> 00:48:21.639
to confront some of these difficult trade offs, does that
748
00:48:21.719 --> 00:48:25.559
breathe some new life in the NDP on his left flank?
749
00:48:26.679 --> 00:48:28.039
You know that's that's possible.
750
00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:32.920
So let me throw one name at you and I
751
00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:36.920
want your instant reaction. Laurel Collins.
752
00:48:37.599 --> 00:48:42.000
Laurel Collins, a British Columbia MP. I think she continues
753
00:48:42.079 --> 00:48:46.239
the path the NDP and the path of pretty hard
754
00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:47.280
left irrelevance.
755
00:48:48.159 --> 00:48:50.679
All right, that's what I was thinking, is that forty
756
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:55.360
forty one year old woman left wing basically say, Okay,
757
00:48:55.400 --> 00:48:59.440
we're facing the same problem that the Labor Party of
758
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:03.639
New Zealand. We're facing the same problem that Delinka faced
759
00:49:03.960 --> 00:49:07.719
in Germany. And the way out is to double down
760
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:12.000
on leftism, but choose youth and femininity all, you know,
761
00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:15.639
just into our turn the new thirty something year old
762
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:18.199
leader of Delinka. They were three percent of the polls.
763
00:49:18.280 --> 00:49:21.360
They surprise everyone by getting seven or so percent of
764
00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:25.760
the zo Now we're breaking double digits. That maybe that's
765
00:49:25.800 --> 00:49:27.960
exactly the thing to do, is that when you have
766
00:49:28.039 --> 00:49:31.199
dug yourself a hole, the only alternative is to keep
767
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:35.039
digging and then to just basically have a drum beat
768
00:49:35.119 --> 00:49:38.679
of Mark Carney will never deliver for us.
769
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:43.840
Yeah, yeah, maybe the only thing I might be a
770
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:48.800
bit more favorable than you or your characterization to the
771
00:49:49.239 --> 00:49:53.920
d NDPS in the over the past decade, you can
772
00:49:54.079 --> 00:49:57.719
argue that, well, they've driven themselves into an electoral ditch.
773
00:49:58.840 --> 00:50:01.559
They've had a a third party, not as a party
774
00:50:01.559 --> 00:50:03.880
of the spires to form government, but as a party
775
00:50:03.920 --> 00:50:06.760
that aims to pull the kind of ideological center of
776
00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:09.280
gravity of the Liberal Party to the left, you could
777
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:12.440
argue the NDP has actually been pretty successful. Yeah, even
778
00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:14.800
just in the past four years, the Liberals have adopted
779
00:50:14.800 --> 00:50:20.199
a lot of key NDP priorities, like single payer drug coverage,
780
00:50:21.079 --> 00:50:26.920
a universal, publicly funded, publicly administered childcare regime, increasing.
781
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:28.880
Dental coverage.
782
00:50:30.079 --> 00:50:34.280
Even on the question of Israel Hamas the Liberal Party
783
00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:38.119
has moved to the left. So, you know, obviously causality
784
00:50:38.199 --> 00:50:40.639
is hard to prove, but I think if you were
785
00:50:40.719 --> 00:50:44.119
kind of steel manning the case for jag Neet Singh,
786
00:50:44.159 --> 00:50:48.679
you would say his success hasn't manifested itself in electoral numbers,
787
00:50:48.679 --> 00:50:51.679
but it has in that he's helped reshape the.
788
00:50:51.679 --> 00:50:53.639
Character of the of the Liberal Party.
789
00:50:54.079 --> 00:50:59.440
Okay, so there's your provocative Canadian secret resolved jag Meet
790
00:50:59.519 --> 00:51:03.440
saying is the most successful NDP leader since Tommy Douglass.
791
00:51:04.599 --> 00:51:06.199
Yeah, there's something to that.
792
00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:13.519
I mean, Mark Carney is positioning himself as different from
793
00:51:13.639 --> 00:51:18.280
his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. He's positioned himself as more hard headed,
794
00:51:18.599 --> 00:51:21.840
more centrist. This is someone who incidentally worked at Goldman
795
00:51:21.960 --> 00:51:26.119
Sachs for some time. You know, not on the face
796
00:51:26.119 --> 00:51:31.760
of it, a traditional progressive. But the Liberals released their platform,
797
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.480
their policy platform last weekend. You know, the distinction between
798
00:51:37.880 --> 00:51:40.760
a carne Leed agenda and Justin trudeau one is a
799
00:51:40.760 --> 00:51:42.320
matter of degree.
800
00:51:43.639 --> 00:51:44.800
I think we'll see.
801
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:50.400
A large increase, ongoing increases in public spending, deficits in debt,
802
00:51:50.519 --> 00:51:51.840
a more ambitious.
803
00:51:51.400 --> 00:51:52.679
Vision for the role of government.
804
00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:57.719
A Carneie A Carnie led liberals, for instance, are proposing
805
00:51:57.719 --> 00:52:02.639
that the government get into the business of actually building homes.
806
00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:06.559
Where Carney seems to differ a bit is you just
807
00:52:06.679 --> 00:52:10.320
you get the sense he has less tolerance for some
808
00:52:10.360 --> 00:52:14.239
of the excesses of identity politics that was much more core,
809
00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:17.760
I think, to the political identity of Justin Trudeau. And
810
00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:22.559
that may be where as you say, some fault lines
811
00:52:22.599 --> 00:52:26.039
emerged between carneye and the kind of left edge of
812
00:52:26.039 --> 00:52:26.639
his coalition.
813
00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:30.079
Well, Sean, last question, where are you going to be
814
00:52:30.119 --> 00:52:30.559
on election?
815
00:52:31.800 --> 00:52:34.280
I'm going to be in Toronto. You were kind enough
816
00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:37.400
to mention that I helped co found four years ago
817
00:52:37.519 --> 00:52:40.840
The Hub. You can find the Hub dot ca, an
818
00:52:40.920 --> 00:52:45.199
online commentary site where we publish opinon commentary, some standard reporting,
819
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:48.199
and a series of podcasts on Canadian policy and politics
820
00:52:48.199 --> 00:52:51.760
from a center right point of view. We're hosting a
821
00:52:51.800 --> 00:52:56.159
live show where we'll have Darryl Bricker, one of Canada's
822
00:52:56.199 --> 00:53:01.320
leading pollsters, and various pundits on to analyze the returns
823
00:53:02.079 --> 00:53:04.840
and what they mean both for Canada.
824
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:07.440
But of course the future of the Conservative Party.
825
00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:11.119
I think, as your listeners have probably hurt over the
826
00:53:11.119 --> 00:53:13.800
course of our conversation, I think one of the key
827
00:53:13.840 --> 00:53:18.400
outcomes of this election will be some pretty fundamental questions
828
00:53:18.639 --> 00:53:20.360
looming over Conservative politics.
829
00:53:21.079 --> 00:53:21.760
How does the.
830
00:53:21.639 --> 00:53:24.960
Party compete in what appears to be a shift to
831
00:53:25.119 --> 00:53:26.519
a more of a two party system.
832
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.320
How can it remain.
833
00:53:28.159 --> 00:53:32.159
True to a set of conservative principles, will reaching new
834
00:53:32.199 --> 00:53:36.920
and different voters, to what extent does conservative orthodoxy require
835
00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:41.880
some adjustments to appeal to some of the realignment voters
836
00:53:41.880 --> 00:53:43.320
who I know are so core to the work that
837
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:47.000
you do. These our big fundamental questions, to say nothing
838
00:53:47.039 --> 00:53:50.800
of the party's relationship with the Province of Quebec that
839
00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:54.440
we'll be talking about on election night, and no doubt.
840
00:53:54.440 --> 00:53:58.000
That the weeks and months and even years after it well.
841
00:53:58.079 --> 00:54:01.400
I encourage all of my listeners who want to learn
842
00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:04.119
about all things Canadian in a thoughtful and deep way
843
00:54:04.199 --> 00:54:07.599
to follow Sean at the Hub dot Ca do you
844
00:54:07.679 --> 00:54:10.840
have other places where my listeners can follow your work?
845
00:54:10.920 --> 00:54:12.320
Are you active on social media?
846
00:54:12.519 --> 00:54:13.719
I am the active on social media.
847
00:54:13.800 --> 00:54:16.199
You can find me on x at Sean Underscore a
848
00:54:16.320 --> 00:54:19.079
Spear that's s C A N Underscore s P E
849
00:54:19.079 --> 00:54:21.880
E R. And I just want to thank you, Henry.
850
00:54:22.199 --> 00:54:24.599
I've been grateful to have you on our podcast to
851
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:27.440
help make sense of of US politics. I'm a big
852
00:54:27.480 --> 00:54:31.760
fan of the podcast, here to help do the same.
853
00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:37.400
And if I had one message for your audiences, you know,
854
00:54:37.480 --> 00:54:42.840
notwithstanding this spike in anti americanism in provoked by by
855
00:54:43.199 --> 00:54:49.119
Trump's agitation, a lot of us are keen to to
856
00:54:49.360 --> 00:54:52.639
move forward in a way in which we are we
857
00:54:52.719 --> 00:54:57.239
are reflecting our shared interests, particularly Visa Va China. I.
858
00:54:57.960 --> 00:55:01.079
You know, different types of economic and security arrangements that
859
00:55:01.119 --> 00:55:03.760
it seems to me would be the best outcome for
860
00:55:04.039 --> 00:55:04.599
both of us.
861
00:55:05.239 --> 00:55:07.960
Well, I agree, we don't need to be one nation
862
00:55:08.159 --> 00:55:12.519
to be united in defense of freedom and Sean, he're here.
863
00:55:12.920 --> 00:55:15.559
Thank you for joining me on Beyond the Polls.
864
00:55:16.119 --> 00:55:16.960
Thanks for having me.
865
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:21.159
That's it for this week. Joining me next week as
866
00:55:21.199 --> 00:55:24.280
I explore the gold standard of assessing partisan lean in
867
00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:29.320
states and districts. Cook Politicals PVII with Cook Political Stave Wasserman.
868
00:55:29.719 --> 00:55:33.000
Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we
869
00:55:33.079 --> 00:55:39.639
journey beyond the poles.