How Trump is forcing the Conservatives to pivot

Summary

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Front Burner (CBC)

Episode: How Trump is forcing the Conservatives to pivot

Date: February 17, 2025
Host: Jayme Poisson
Guests: Erin Wary (Senior Political Writer, CBC Parliamentary Bureau), David Coletto (CEO, Abacus Data)

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Overview

This episode examines how the return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency and escalating cross-border tensions—especially tariff threats and sovereignty debates—are forcing Canada’s Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, to recalibrate their approach. The discussion explores how these changes are straining the Conservative coalition, influencing Liberal party strategies, and reshaping the overall electoral dynamics ahead of the 2025 federal election.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: U.S.-Canada Tensions, Tariffs, and “Canada First”

• The episode opens with a symbolic weekend hockey fight at a Canada-U.S. tournament, reflecting heightened antagonism between the countries ([01:07]–[01:53]).
• Poilievre’s “Canada First Rally” in Ottawa is examined as more than just a campaign launch: it’s a response to tariff threats and Trump’s antagonism ([02:53]).
  • Erin Wary notes that Poilievre’s pivot to patriotism and “Canada First” is not entirely new but is now more pronounced. He is reframing prior Conservative positions—on taxes, pipelines, drugs, borders—as core to the national response ([03:09]–[04:32]).
  • A significant tone shift: Poilievre notably dropped the word "broken"—he once characterized Canada as broken, but now reframes the rhetoric toward unity and strength ([05:04], [07:37]).

Quote:

“He’s sort of trying to reframe a lot of things he was already talking about as more needed now than ever. But I think it is also conspicuous how much his language has changed. I don’t think the word ‘broken’ appeared anywhere in that speech yesterday.”
— Erin Wary ([04:32])

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2. Poilievre’s Trump Dilemma: Balancing a Fractured Coalition

• David Coletto explains Poilievre’s problem: the Conservative base is now split between pro-Trump and anti-Trump factions ([05:08]).
• Poilievre tries to sidestep direct confrontation: he mentions Trump’s name only seven times at the rally, avoiding direct attacks or endorsement, and instead focuses on defending Canadian sovereignty.

Quote:

“So let me be clear. We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country.”
— Pierre Poilievre ([05:51])

• The challenge: Conservatives were once united by opposition to Justin Trudeau, but Trump introduces new wedges. How hard can Conservatives go against Trump, considering pro-Trump support among members? ([06:09])

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3. Liberal Party Strategy: Tying Poilievre to Trump

• The Liberals seize on Conservative vulnerabilities by running ads juxtaposing Poilievre and Trump (“fake news,” “woke,” “radical left,” etc.) ([07:04]).
  • The ads argue that Poilievre “can’t speak for Canada when he speaks like Trump,” echoing lines he used when Canada was “broken.”
• Erin Wary observes the Liberals are now comfortable directly attacking Trump and those seen as aligned with him, breaking with their past caution ([07:47], [09:15]).

Quote:

“Donald Trump isn’t just the president, he is the president who is threatening Canada. ... There is overlap [with Poilievre]—he did use the word ‘woke’ three times yesterday, he talked about cancel culture.”
— Erin Wary ([07:47]–[09:15])

• The ads and rhetoric target a public increasingly wary of Trump’s return, particularly older voters.

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4. Public Reaction: Generational Divides and Shifting Polls

• David Coletto highlights polling: public anger at Trump’s policies is most pronounced among baby boomers ([09:42]–[10:35]).
  • Boomers are more likely than other generations to express desire to boycott U.S. goods and seem to drive the recent improvement in Liberal polling.
  • The public mood has changed dramatically in just two weeks, with increased Liberal fortunes and narrowing of the Conservative polling lead.

5. Conservative Policy Moves: Foreign Aid and Media

• Poilievre recently announced plans to boost Arctic security via “massive cut to Canada’s foreign aid budget” ([11:45]).
  • This echoes U.S. policy shifts and risks further perceptions of Poilievre as Trump-lite ([13:18]).
  • His media moves—giving interviews to outlets hostile to “legacy media” and promising more access for “independent media”—reinforce parallels in style with Trump’s media strategy ([12:55], [13:18]).

Quote:

“There's no reason why it should be a small cabal of government-approved mouthpieces. It is highly undemocratic. I’ve always believed that.”
— Pierre Poilievre ([12:55])

• Erin Wary: Both policy directions fit previous Conservative positions but now risk being seen as “too American,” which the Liberals can exploit.

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6. Polling Volatility and the Mark Carney Factor

• The transition from Trudeau to Mark Carney as Liberal leader is causing a polling boost, but the size and sustainability are debated ([15:42]–[17:22]).
  • Coletto: All polls show Liberal momentum, but the gap with the Conservatives varies wildly depending on methodology and recent events.
  • NDP support is noticeably dropping, with many former NDP voters now considering Liberals, especially with Carney as leader ([17:42]).
• Carney polls well “hypothetically”—he’s serious, experienced, and has economic credibility—but many Canadians don’t know him well yet ([18:44]–[19:23]).

Quote:

“Mark Carney, hypothetically, … is at least right now able to get people over whatever hurdle they had previously to say, ‘Look, if it’s him, if he’s the leader of the party, I might actually vote Liberal this time.’”
— David Coletto ([18:44])

• Historical caution: Leadership bumps (e.g., John Turner in 1984) don’t always translate to election success ([19:37]–[21:36]).

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7. Election Timing: Snap Election Speculation

• With rumours of an early (March) election to capitalize on Liberal momentum and avoid the risk of damage from responding to Trump’s tariffs, both guests suggest it makes strategic sense ([22:42]–[24:16]).
  • However, there are risks: the new Liberal leader (Carney) isn’t in Parliament and the party might not be ready for a campaign.
  • The possibility of needing to recall Parliament for an emergency (e.g., tariff response) is raised as an unpredictable factor ([24:16]–[26:07]).

Quote:

“Tell me what the state of the world and the continent is going to be in mid-March. The one argument for bringing Parliament back, the strongest argument would be if there's some kind of emergency that needs to be dealt with ... It's just so hard to know what the world's going to look like in a month that it's really hard to predict.”
— Erin Wary ([24:16])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We will never be the 51st state.” — Pierre Poilievre ([05:51])
• “This wedge that’s kind of dividing [the Conservative coalition] around how do you deal with Trump and how hard can you go on him?” — David Coletto ([06:09])
• “The Liberals are now betting their fortunes on the idea that Canadians fear Trump and see his shadow in Poilievre.” — Paraphrased, Erin Wary ([09:15])
• “The NDP vote is dropping right across the board in our poll. It’s the lowest we've measured in years at 15% ... catastrophic for the New Democrats.” — David Coletto ([17:42])

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:39] — Pierre Poilievre’s “Canada First” rally speech excerpt
• [02:53] — Discussion begins: Analysis of the rally and Poilievre’s pivot
• [05:08] — David Coletto on Conservative coalition’s “Trump problem”
• [07:04] — Liberal campaign ads tie Poilievre to Trump
• [09:01] — Discussion on “woke” language and overlaps in rhetoric
• [09:42] — Boomers’ reaction to Trump and consequences for polling
• [11:45] — Poilievre’s announcement: foreign aid cuts for Arctic security
• [12:55] — Poilievre on media access, similarities to U.S. “free press” rhetoric
• [15:42] — Polling volatility and shifts since Carney’s ascension
• [17:22] — NDP vote collapse as Liberal momentum builds
• [18:44] — Impact of Carney leadership on Liberal fortunes
• [19:37] — Historical perspective: 1984 Turner transition caution
• [22:42] — Early election speculation
• [24:16] — Risks and unpredictabilities of snap election timing

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Conclusion

The episode provides an in-depth look at how Donald Trump’s return and aggressive U.S. posture are shaking up Canadian politics—forcing Conservatives to walk a precarious line and offering Liberals new material for campaign attacks. It’s a moment of volatility: public opinion is shifting rapidly while politicians must recalibrate strategies amid economic uncertainty and looming elections. The panel stresses that, despite dramatic recent developments, much remains unpredictable as Canada enters a pivotal electoral season.

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Transcript

[Narrator]

Barbie Ferreira isn't afraid of taking risks, from being the first in her family to pursue a career in entertainment as a model first, then actor, to taking on the role of Cat in Euphoria, one of the buzziest shows of the last few years for its raw and gritty depiction of high school life. Barbie stars in the new film Mile End Kicks, which just premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. She'll tell you how Euphoria changed her life and how she prepared to speak Canadian. Follow Q with Tom Power wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Announcer]

This is a CBC podcast.

[Pierre Poliev]

Are there any patriots in the room who are ready to put Canada first?

[Jamie Poisson]

Hey, everybody, it's Jamie. In what has become a bit of a ritual these days, the US national anthem was booed very loudly on Saturday at the Four Nations Face Off Tournament game in Montreal. Canada was playing the US O say.

[Sports Commentator]

Can you see by the dawn's early.

[David Coletto]

Light what so proudly we hail I deserve?

[Jamie Poisson]

And in a fitting metaphor, things immediately came to blows. Three fights broke out between the American and Canadian players in the first nine seconds of the game.

[Sports Commentator]

Face off matchup is underway and the gloves are off.

[Pierre Poliev]

This was set up.

[Sports Commentator]

And here they come, Reagan Wright, right.

[Pierre Poliev]

Before the first Tkachuk fight. This was set up.

[Sports Commentator]

Now we're nine seconds in. We had a fight. Two seconds in. Another one, one second later. Now in the center of the action, it's Colt Pareco and JT Mil.

[Jamie Poisson]

Two things I think are worth noting here. It looks like the Americans started it and an American player, it seems, punched himself in the face. The tariff tension has forced this hard reset on just about every aspect of Canada U.S. relations. And one of the people feeling that pretty keenly is Conservative leader Pierre Poliev. On Saturday, Poliev held this, quote, canada first rally where he hoped to define himself and his campaign given this new political reality. So how did it go? And what tightrope is he walking right now? I've got two friends of the pod with me today to talk about all of this, and I'm sure more Erin Wary is a senior political writer with the CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. Hey, Erin. Hey. And David Coletto is CEO and founder of Abacus Data. David Hay, always great to have you.

[David Coletto]

Hi, Jamie.

[Jamie Poisson]

Aaron, let me start with you. This Canada first rally in Ottawa, hundreds of people were there. It was expected to be an unofficial launch of the Federal Conservative election campaign and also really a pivot. Was it that? What was it?

[Erin Wary]

I think it was a bit of a pivot. You know, the kind of first phrasing from him started, I think, very shortly after Donald Trump won the election last fall. And so it's not entirely new, but he's certainly now leaning into it much more than previously. And I think, you know, he. He has this rally. It's on Flag Day. It's at this moment of peak patriotism, and it's a chance for him to kind of reframe his offer.

[Pierre Poliev]

Everyone now admits, or they claim to admit, that conservatives were right on the liberal capital gains tax hike, that conservatives were right on the carbon tax, on pipelines, on lng, on fentanyl, the borders, immigration, and the need to celebrate rather than cancel our proud history and country.

[Erin Wary]

You know, I think it's kind of funny because I think part of his speech was really saying, you know, all of the things that I have been calling for already are now that much more important and that much more needed. And I was sort of right all along.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah. Tell me more about, like, what?

[Erin Wary]

Yeah, like, in terms of, you know, we need to, you know, him saying, you know, that the Canada needs to.

[Pierre Poliev]

Build pipelines, we need a plan to bring home production to this country, and that's what we will have. My common sense plan to unleash the production of our resources needs to, you.

[Erin Wary]

Know, crack down on fentanyl, and it needs to, you know, unleash economic growth and entrepreneurship and. And spend on the military. He's sort of trying to reframe a lot of things. He was kind of already talking about as. As more needed now than ever. But I think it is also conspicuous how much his language has changed. I don't think the word broken appeared anywhere in that speech yesterday. You know, the idea that Canada is broken has seemingly disappeared out of his vocabulary.

[Jamie Poisson]

David, do you want to jump in here? Anything that stood out to you in particular?

[David Coletto]

Well, I think two things stood out. I mean, I had written about the fact that I thought Polya has a Trump problem and that there's a sizable portion of his own supporter base that really likes Donald Trump and a sizable portion about equal the size who really doesn't. You know, what Trump has done is created a new wedge within the conservative coalition that really did not exist a few months ago or even a few weeks ago. And I think yesterday, I think I counted, he only mentioned Trump's name seven times, and a few of those were in the, you know, his French and English remarks. So he did not engage directly with the president and name him, but he aggressively went after his policies.

[Pierre Poliev]

So let me be clear. We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country.

[David Coletto]

I think he, he tried to, to, to thread that needle and we'll see whether it was, it was possible but, but it is the, the big challenge I see Conservatives having to face now that their coalition which previously was, was united and glued together by a common desire for change and a common antipathy towards Justin Trudeau has now been replaced with this wedge that's kind of dividing it around how do you deal with, with Trump and how hard can you go on him?

[Jamie Poisson]

The Liberals are really picking up on that, right? This weekend I noticed that they put out some ads really trying to nail pole on some of this stuff. There's this one that they put up which is just clips of Pollyv and clips of Trump side by side.

[Pierre Poliev]

Fake news, fake news. The left wing censorship regime, their woke censorship ideology defeating the radical left, radical leftist, authoritarian.

[Jamie Poisson]

And it makes the argument that Polly have can't speak for Canada when he speaks like Trump. Another ad questioned Polly of his ability to speak for Canada when as we've been talking about, you know, he has been really focusing on how everything is broken for the last couple of years.

[Pierre Poliev]

It's not the Americans fault, it's our fault. We're stupid. Everything in Canada is broken.

[Pierre Poliev (continued speech)]

Canada is broken.

[Pierre Poliev]

Everything is broken in Canada. Everything is broken. Everything is broken. Everything is broken.

[Jamie Poisson]

Aaron, just like did you see those ads? What did you think?

[Erin Wary]

So I think the Liberals have been sort of playing at this argument for a while and trying to figure out how to land it. There was a period of time when the Liberals started referring to Maga Conservatives, Pierre Polio's Maga Conservatives, and then they kind of dropped that. And I think in part because the liberal thinking, you know, going back to the first Trump term was, you know, don't, don't be seen as attacking Donald Trump. Don't be seen as attacking what's going on in the States. And I think that has sort of fallen away now because Donald Trump isn't just the president, he is the president who is threatening Canada. I think David's right for Pierre pov. You know, look, you can, you can sit down and list all of the ways Pierre Poliev and Donald Trump are different. You know, Pierre Poliev has not campaigned on the sort of nativist nationalism that you see in the United States. You know, he hasn't leaned on the idea of, of illegal immigration the way Donald Trump has, you know, so on and so forth. But some of the language and some of the, some of the things that, that Pierre Pal is interested in talking about, there is overlap. Right. You know, he, he did use the word woke, I think three times yesterday. He, he talked about cancel culture.

[Pierre Poliev]

We will defeat this insidious and divisive cancel culture that, that sought to destroy our national pride and monuments. They've even tried to destroy the great founder of this country, John A. MacDonald. Well, I've got a message for them.

[Erin Wary]

And, you know, I think that that speaks to a certain part of the conservative base that is interested in those issues and interested in those ideas. But, you know, the flip side of that is there are lots of Canadians probably looking at what's going on in the United States and feeling pretty concerned. And so for the liberals, there's a lot of logic, I imagine, in saying, you see what's going on in the United States and, you know, listen to Pierre Poliev and notice the similarities.

[David Coletto]

Yeah. If I could just add. And I mean, the reason why today this is, is a much bigger problem for Pollyv than it was a few weeks ago, even as Canadians knew that Donald Trump was going to become president, was because what he did angered so many people. It was a sense of betrayal that now any sense that, that any political leader had in the past cheered for him, would have supported him, and even somewhat like him, I think brings real risk in a way that it didn't a few weeks ago. So that is part of why this landscape has changed, because the public is so mad. And what's really interesting, I noted in a piece I, I put on my substack, it's baby boomers in particular. If you look at all the polls and the shift in, in the polls that we've seen over the last few weeks, a lot of that shift has come among those over 60, the Liberals.

[Jamie Poisson]

Why do you think that is?

[David Coletto]

Why I think they are watching this more intently than anybody else. They're also much more likely to say they're going to boycott American products and companies. They're more likely to, to change their behavior than any other generation. So you're mixing this all in together. And I think. And then you've got, I think, the prospect of Mark Carney, which, if he's not a boomer, I think he's right on the edge, but he's as boomer as they get in terms of the leaders that we have. And there's this actually interesting moment where, you know, the liberals who a decade ago won a majority on the backs of the surge in millennial turnout and now I think could be saved or at least not destroyed by this spike in former interest by their parents who are deeply enraged by and fearful about what Donald Trump represents.

[Jamie Poisson]

When we're talking about this tightrope that Poliev has to walk when it comes to, like, rowing too close to Trump. I want to ask you about two specific things that happened in, I think the last week, week and a half. Polyev made this announcement about boosting Arctic security through a, quote, massive cut to Canada's foreign aid budget.

[Pierre Poliev]

We've got enough problems at home. We've got our own backyard to protect. We can't be sending billions of dollars to other places. Often if much of it is wasted and stolen and swallowed up by bureaucracies that act against our interests, I will be bringing our money home with massive cuts to these wasteful and corrupt foreign aid grants.

[Jamie Poisson]

Which was interesting because of course in the US there are massive cuts to foreign aid right now, given all this happening with usaid. And the other one that I thought was interesting was that Pollyv is known, of course, for being confrontational with mainstream media outlets. Late last week, he sat down with someone from a new media company called Juno News. And on their website they talk about the importance of free speech and press freedom, which they say used to be the foundation of Canadian newsrooms until, quote, Justin Trudeau bribed every member of the legacy media with bailout money to help secure his reign as Prime Minister, unquote. And in the interview, POV was asked whether he'd give press access to Parliament Hill, the citizen journalists if he was elected pm, and he responded, absolutely.

[Pierre Poliev (continued speech)]

I think their independent media should be allowed in the, on the precinct. There's no reason why it should be a small cabal of government approved mouthpieces. It is highly undemocratic. I've always believed that.

[Jamie Poisson]

And Aaron, what did you make of these two moves? Maybe in particular, how do you think that people will react or respond to them?

[Erin Wary]

So the foreign aid piece, in part, it's not a new position for the Conservatives. Andrew Scheer also talked about slashing foreign aid. But, but, you know, Polyev doesn't just want to cut 480. He says that it, you know, it's apparently going most of it or much.

[Pierre Poliev]

Of it going to dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracies.

[Erin Wary]

You know, so the Conservatives can fairly say, look, we've had this position for a while. The problem as you point out, is for them is that, well, that sounds like something Donald Trump's doing. And I think the, the Other issue there is on a larger scale is if Canada is in a world that's going to be more uncertain and we don't have our most trusted friend and ally that we can count on, is now really the time for us to be engaging less or doing less for, for other countries and taking part less in, in international efforts in the world. So I think there's kind of two issues there. For the Conservatives on the media piece, it sounds a bit like what's going on in the United States, right? The, the, the attitude towards the mainstream, the quote unquote mainstream media. I mean, I do think that there's a piece of it where you're seeing politicians more and more. You've seen Justin Trudeau do this too, going to sort of non traditional media outlets in part because these outlets have an audience that you can reach that you maybe can't get by going on the quote, unquote mainstream media. But it does again speak to that sort of balancing act he has where, you know, Pierre Polyev wants to say he's, he's standing up against Trump and standing up for Canada. But you know, the Liberals are going to dine out on these things of saying, you know, that sounds kind of familiar, doesn't.

[Podcast Announcer]

Was the dawn of a new era of space flight.

[Pierre Poliev]

Our space program has reached another important milestone.

[Erin Wary]

Going to fly this new rocket, never.

[Pierre Poliev]

Been flown before and we got people on it.

[Erin Wary]

You know that there are a lot.

[David Coletto]

Of things that can go Wrong.

[Podcast Announcer]

From the BBC World Service, 13 Minutes. Presents the Space Shuttle.

[Erin Wary]

I think we've got something that's really going to mean something to the country and the world.

[Podcast Announcer]

Listen on the BBC app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jamie Poisson]

So we've been talking about, well, today and also on the show for a while, how that gap is closing between the Liberals and the Conservatives. But also the polling is kind of all over the place too, in a way I find it very hard to parse. So could you please parse it for me?

[David Coletto]

So let's, let's start with the thing we all agree on as pollsters and that is the landscape is changing. There's no doubt in my mind over the last two weeks that, that Donald Trump has thrown a complete grenade into the mindset of the public. But where the polls are disagreeing is on the size of the Conservative lead. Right now we're all showing the Liberals gaining from anywhere between, you know, seven to 10 points over a few weeks, which is a massive shift that you rarely see. But the abacus poll that we released last week shows the conservatives ahead by 19. There was an ecos poll that came out a day later that showed them ahead by five. Both of those cannot be true. That is too big a gap. I think Liberals right now in this country are more likely than they were weeks ago to be excited about answering a survey. When a pollster calls them, they're engaged in the leadership race. Trump has created engagement that wasn't there before. And Trudeau stepping away is giving them hope. Are there more Liberals? I don't think quite yet. But there's one indicator that we all agree also is compared to a month ago, there are far more Canadians now open and reconsidering whether they'd vote Liberal again, where only a month ago more than half this country, 60, 70% were shutting that door completely.

[Jamie Poisson]

Do you have a sense of where they're getting those votes from? Like, is it people who previously thought that they were going to go Conservative, but now they'll, I don't know, go back to the Liberal Party? Or is it people who were going to vote NDP who now all are kind of more open to, to voting Liberal?

[David Coletto]

Well, that's, that's the other thing I didn't mention. The NDP vote is dropping right across the board in our poll. It's the lowest we've, we've measured it in, in years at 15%. When you put Mark Carney's name into the mix, it drops to 12, 10%. That, that is catastrophic for the New Democrats. So we are seeing a number of New Democrat supporters in the past saying now they would vote Liberal. We are seeing some of those Liberals that had migrated either to the Conservatives or were saying to us they were undecided coming back to the Liberals. But I still think the Conservatives are holding on to a sizable group of, of of its new coalition that includes its almost all of its previous supporters and a sizable chunk of of past Liberal NDP and even and People's Party supporters that is giving them still that, that 42, 43 share right now in vote intention.

[Jamie Poisson]

And then just tell me a little bit about what happens when you put Mark Carney's name atop the Liberal Party. You know, what are we seeing?

[David Coletto]

Well, we're seeing evidence from almost every pollster who does it that, that he either completely erases the Conservative lead in the case of a leger poll that came out, or in the case of, of an abacus poll, tightens it and takes a lot more support away from the ndp. You know, no matter how you do it. Mark Carney, hypothetically, because I still think it's somewhat hypothetical because half the country doesn't even really know who he is, is at least right now able to get people over whatever hurdle they had previously to say, look, if it's him, if he's the leader of the party, I might actually vote Liberal this time.

[Jamie Poisson]

Aaron, you were the one who actually brought to my attention earlier this week that this boost for new leaders isn't unprecedented. Right. What, have we seen this before and. And what happened?

[Erin Wary]

Yeah, I mean, whenever, as I've been watching these polls come in, I. I have been thinking back not from personal experience. I wasn't a journalist in 1984, but John Turner replaced Pierre Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister in 1984. And the Liberal Party, which had been trailing in the polls to already as Progressive Conservatives by a fair margin, started to come up. And then even going into that election, John Turner and the Liberals seemed to have, or felt they had a small lead in the polls. And that did not end well for the Liberal Party. The Progressive Conservatives went on to win a massive majority. And you can, you can put that down to a couple things. One is, you know, the Liberal Party at that point was not really set up and ready to run an election. John Turner wasn't really ready to contest an election. You know, David just talked about sort of the hypothetical effect in polling. It's hard to know what will happen once it's not a hypothetical. Right. If once Carney is the leader or if he's the leader rather, you know, how does he fare? How do Canadians respond to him? I mean, I can, you know, speak from personal experience of covering The Liberals in 2006 and in 2011, and Stefan Dion and Michael Ignatieff put the party into polling leads too. You know, look, the Liberals can't be unhappy that they're polling numbers are coming back up, but it's not the. It's not the whole ball game.

[Jamie Poisson]

I guess. Fair for me to say. What this says is that campaigns matter, obviously. And we haven't seen a ton from Carney yet. We haven't seen him kind of articulate his vision for the country in any real detail quite yet. So, like, lots of unknowns here, right?

[Erin Wary]

Yeah, tons of unknowns. I mean, you can see the kind of, again, hypothetical argument. Right. Mark Carney is a serious person who has had serious jobs and this is a serious time. And he's talking about, you know, focusing on the economy, which seems to be the thing that people are worried about right now. And I think that from the outside, for those of Us who aren't in the polling industry, but who watch the polling industry obsessively. There was always a question of how much of this big Conservative lead is because of Pierre Poliev and how much of this is because of Justin Trudeau. And the early indicators would seem to suggest that at least some of it was because of Justin Trudeau. And so you can, again, yeah, you can see sort of all the hypothetical argument for himself and for why the Liberals may be doing better in the polls. But it's still very early days. It seems like a lot's happened, but we're barely a month since the Prime Minister resigned. Justin, Mark Carney's been a politician for about three weeks now.

[Jamie Poisson]

How has it been?

[Erin Wary]

Yeah, there's still a lot to come.

[Jamie Poisson]

I know there's still a long way to go, but actually there might not be that long of a way to go. Right. The other big question looming over all of this is the timing of an election. I saw last week, an internal memo was leaked from the NDP where the national campaign director was telling candidates and campaign staff to be prepared for a snap federal election as early. We'll call this early as March 10th, which I guess would put us at a, like, mid May, end of May election. Carney has also said that if he is chosen as leader, he would think about just going to an election right away. And I'll put this to both of you as, like, a final question here. Do you think that's the most likely scenario here? David, you want to go first?

[David Coletto]

Look, I think it makes a lot of sense. On the one hand, I think it forces the Conservatives into a spending limit that they don't have right now. It doesn't require. Let's assume Mark Carney is the Prime Minister to, you know, have to do anything, actually. And when you start doing things in response to, let's say, tariffs that might come in in March, you might have a debate about whether that was the right thing to do or not. And you don't. You don't necessarily want to do that. So it allows you to take the momentum you have with that election as leader and keep it going. So it makes some sense to me. On the other hand, is the Liberal Party ready? Can it run a national campaign as it just pivots away from a leadership?

[Jamie Poisson]

Aaron, what do you think? Final thoughts?

[Erin Wary]

I mean, I do think there's a pretty clear argument for going early, at least not going back to Parliament. You know, the idea that there'd be an election, that he would. That Mark Carney would become Liberal leader on March 9 and then proceed directly to Rideau hall on March 10 for an election is a bit far fetched, I think. I, like, I literally don't know whether you can work that timing out, but that he would come back to Parliament, that he would not bother coming back to Parliament on, on when it's due back March 24 makes sense in a lot of ways because you just don't have to bother with a throne speech. You don't have to bother, you know, getting ready to, to meet Parliament and, and run government and all of those things. The flip side of that is, you know, tell me what the state of the world and, and the continent is going to be in mid March. The one argument for bringing Parliament back, the strongest argument would be if there's some kind of emergency that needs to be dealt with. You know, if, if you need Parliament there to pass legislation or take measures to deal with some kind of economic emergency brought on by tariffs or something else, you know, then maybe you do bring Parliament back, at least for a little bit and, and try to kind of put something in place to, to deal with that. It's just so hard to know what the world's going to look like in a month that it's really hard to predict. It still seems more than likely that we have an election sooner rather than later. But, you know, the last month and a half, month and a few days has taught us not to make predictions about these things.

[David Coletto]

And if I could just add one other thing, if it is Mark Carney, do you bring a Parliament back when you don't have a seat in it? Yeah. Which makes it awkward, I think, to lead through a crisis and not be in that House of Commons.

[Jamie Poisson]

You can't be in the room. Yes.

[David Coletto]

Yeah. So, so that makes it, I think another, I think that adds another check to the. Call it earlier if you can, because you don't then have to deal with the fact that you'd be the first Prime Minister, I think, without a seat either in the House or the Senate.

[Erin Wary]

First since, first since Turner.

[Jamie Poisson]

Lots of John Turner today, guys. It's always a pleasure to have you both here. Thank you so much.

[Erin Wary]

Thanks, Jamie.

[David Coletto]

Thanks, Jamie.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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