At Issue - Carney’s landslide Liberal victory

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

At Issue this week: Mark Carney handily won the Liberal leadership, how his victory could shape the next government and the looming federal election. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week on At Issue, a special podcast edition for Sunday, March 9th.

At Issue, Liberal Leadership. After weeks of campaigning, the Liberals have elected a new leader to replace Justin Trudeau. We're all being called to stand up for each other and for the Canadian way of life. So let me ask you, who's ready? Pierre Flau. Who's ready to stand up for Canada with me? But with a trade war between the US and Canada and an opposition eager for an election, what's next for the new leader and prime minister-designate? Hello there I'm Rosemary Barton and we're joining you from the Liberal Leadership Convention

floor here to discuss the results, the big Mark Carney win, Chantelle Iber, Andrew Coyne, and Althea Raj. Everybody here in person, delighted to have you all here. We'll start with the results. I'm going to start down here to shake it up. Althea, what did you make of the overwhelming victory by Mark Carney? I was surprised it was that high. I had seen some of the numbers of people who had voted and identified Carney supporters, but he was even higher than I expected it would be. The fact that he won every single riding in the country is kind of insane. But I think it speaks to the moment.

They wanted to pick a winner and polls suggested that he could win, not just that he would win the Liberal leadership panel, but that he could win a general election. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Pierre Poilier won every riding in his leadership contest as well or almost every riding. Anyway, Andrew what did you make of the win? The size of the win? This is a party that is looking for a savior the same way they found a savior with Justin Trudeau in 2015, 2013 I guess was the leadership and this is the guy who they think is their lunch ticket. And it's pretty clear the party has identified that pretty fully.

You can see why some of these cabinet ministers, I'm sure that was also because they wanted to serve their country, but they could also probably read where the party was headed and didn't want to get in the way of this juggernaut. Well, those who didn't read it, Christian Freeland got crushed in the process. 8% is a devastating result for someone who's been Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, has led big files in the previous government. Karina Gould, barely better than the complete outsider to this campaign. So basically, Mark Carney is in charge.

The Liberals have bought into him. They will fail or succeed with him, but there will be no second guessers between now and voting day. What happens after, as you know, is always another story. But I'm not sure I've seen a result of this magnitude, especially for someone who is an outsider. Yeah, yeah.

And maybe that ultimately was the appeal, that he could offer change for a party that wanted change without having to, I don't know, upend everything, Andrew. Yes. Now, the speech, however, he certainly went beyond just, I'm the cool technocrat, I'm the guy who knows economic policy. I was struck by the frankly brutality of some of the language.

Not only talking about Donald Trump, but talking about the Americans as being the Americans want our resources, the Americans, you know, we're going to keep our trust until the Americans show respect. It's a country that can't be trusted. That's remarkable language for a prime minister designated of the country, if that's the right term to be using. I'm not sure I'm wholly comfortable with it. It's one thing for a hotheaded newspaper columnist to write about it.

But for a prime minister to be talking about that, he's playing a bit with fire, point one. Point two is the way he talked about Pierre Ployat, to be saying that he worships at the altar of Donald Trump and would kneel before him is pretty remarkably forceful language. I'm not sure I'm terribly comfortable with that. Basically saying he'd sell out the country, but this is the kind of election we're going to be in. Well, Pierre Poilé have said that very thing about Mark Carney two days ago. So, you know, like... They're going to be giving back. I'm not saying this to one party, but it's going to be a brutal

election. There's not going to be a Mr. Nice on this ballot from any of the four main leaders, but the main two leaders, and I think the liberals in the room reacted positively to this because that's what they want. For two years Pierre Poilier has been throwing insults at them as he has with other leaders. And that someone is standing up and saying, I'm not going to get pushed around by this aggressive politician. It's kind of interesting to watch from the perspective of the people who voted for him. I think he delivered the speech that they wanted to hear.

And the French was okay. It was his best speech so far. Yeah. Any of the speeches. And yes, his French was good. Well, mostly good. I would say, though, that I think he drew some lines that he needed to draw.

But there's a risk, because I think, as we expect, there will be a conservative bombardment of ads against Mark Carney, probably as of right now. Not that there weren't already, but it's hard to go above that when you're trying to be positive. And he tried to suggest that he was going to be positive and then he levied some of the things that Andrew talked about, worships at the altar of Donald Trump's and the contrast ads that they want to have with Donald Trump.

But I do think the lines that he drew are noteworthy. One being this idea that we all have to unify behind one candidate and that candidate will be him. We need to unify as a country but he was talking about himself basically and that we cannot be divided like the Americans and I think that speaks to a lot of Canadians. And then I do think that the way he talked about himself and his own experience is a way of protecting himself against perhaps the lack of experience he has as a political candidate in saying that he, Mr. Poliev, is an ideologue basically, and he doesn't really understand how the economy works, but that I, as Mark Kearney, have all this experience

and I can lead us to the promised land and fix all our problems. Can I just say, yeah, we need to be united in the face of this threat. We should not translate that into saying you can only vote for one party. Yeah. And I'm really uncomfortable with that kind of language as well. That's what Doug Ford was peddling. It worked for him. It worked. It worked. But it's not a particularly democratic message. No interestingly he did talk about the americans and on the front but he talked about cap but they have not so much the conservatives uh... and to win this election the liberals are going to need to get voters from the nbp

at this point they are doing by the way if i were the new democrats i would be worried about carina gould's results because she appealed to what could be the nbp side or the left flank of the liberal party and no one came not even you know new democrats who could have signed up to do this you look at the polls you look at this result and what you see is canadians are going to be polarized between two options. They're gonna have to choose, and they're choosing between Pierre Poilier and Mark Carney to deal with Donald Trump.

That's basically where we're going. Donald Trump has given the liberals a gift because they can run in both directions at the same time. Carney can tack to the right on policy to satisfy people who thought the liberals went too far left, but he can also reel in new democratic voters by saying, I'm the only one who can protect you from the Americans. So he's been given a gift. And look what happened to the climate side of the cabinet. They all lined up behind Mark Carney who very early on said, I'm going gonna scrap the carbon tax that you went to war for and still they rallied to him. Why? Because he has shown more interest in the climate policy of course than Pierre Poilieuve. Or Chris Dear Freeland.

Or Chris... yes exactly. But they did it with ease. They're going around here very happy with the outcome, not worried about that agenda. The reaction in the room when he announced, he was, you know, not announced, but said again he was going to scrap the carbon tax and scrap the capital gains increase, was really interesting hearing them applaud for something they had only just brought in. Although not just in Trudeau. I did look very closely. He didn't applaud out there.

Yeah, well, I could understand why he wouldn't because that's basically his legacy. His thing, yeah. I think the NDP is going to target certain writings like we saw in Ontario, and I think that's going to be their, you know, save the furniture strategy. On the attacking more to the right, which clearly he even suggested in his speech, the language that he used around pharmacare, he said, for those who need it, that is different language than what Justin Trudeau has suggested that he used around pharmacare, he said for those who need it, that is different language than what Justin Trudeau has suggested that he the direction that he's going in. So you already see that there is a movement going while still mentioning pharmacare and dental care. So you keep you know

core liberals and these are the things we ran on and these are the things that are quite popular when you ask caucus members. There's definitely a movement more towards the center right. Okay, we're gonna pause it right there if we can. We're going to keep the conversation going though and we'll discuss the larger implications, what this might mean for election timing, for MENA cabinet, the transition, all of that. Stick around, more at Issue Right of Place. Welcome back here to the convention floor of the Liberal Leadership Convention to talk more about the win for Mark Carney and what it means for Canadian politics Chantel, Andrew

and Althea. Before we go to what has to happen next, I want to take one round to talk about what happened to Christa Freeland. Eight percent of the votes devastating loss for someone who started this, who started this and thought, she obviously thought she had a chance. Me, I think she should have pulled out if her people were good enough to figure out where this was going. After the debates, she should have just stepped back

because this is, there were two bad outcomes that were possible for her. Finishing third didn't happen, but finishing at 8% is almost worse. There were two bad outcomes that were possible for her, finishing third didn't happen, but finishing at 8% is almost worse. What that means is that when cabinet gets made, which will happen soon, I believe that there will be a spot for her, but she won't be able to negotiate that spot. She's going to have to take whatever is on offer and it will not be foreign affairs or

finance. No, no. Andrew. She may have felt she needed to take one for the team. Having taken down the Prime Minister, which some people would be congratulating her for, some people would be holding her against her, to then pull out of the race, I don't know, it might have looked like. Well, Mark Garnow did, right? Yeah, that's true.

And didn't lose face. But he wasn't carrying the same baggage she was. No, no, no. So, I don't know. Obviously, it's a humiliating thing. I was frankly thinking she might be humiliated further by finishing third. I thought Karina Gould, it seemed like, was going to... Like, I thought Krista Freeland was going to be caught in between the people who were

voting for Carney because he could win and for Karina Gould because she represented old school liberalism. Yeah. But Karina Gould didn't do very well either, so. Althea? I had heard talk during the early days of the leadership race of offering Christy Freeland an exit ramp because some people were worried about the blows that Mr. Carney might have in a debate. Yeah. And clearly they did not need to worry. And she seemed herself to have pivoted in that moment. I think she grossly underestimated the support

that she had in caucus. She told cabinet colleagues that she would not put their money in her budget because she didn't want to affect her numbers, but to ask for her after the fact and she would find the funding for it. So there were people who felt that she didn't have their back and frankly was operating in ways that she should not have been operating. And caucus members felt that she was snobby, didn't respond to their messages. And even though she changed some of those tactics in the

later years, caucus members have long memories. People remember things. And I think that that's why there was nobody behind her when she looked back. And you can't be a leader if there's nobody willing to follow you. Okay, what has to happen next? He'll be sworn in as prime minister probably in a couple of days. Which will be extra quick for a transition. We usually do these things over two weeks. Me, I believe that the transition has already started.

Oh, it has, yeah. Behind the scenes. But it's still very fast for this kind of thing. But the only way to do this by midweek, and I think no one expects that cabinet swearing in to not happen this week is very quick. So that means you leave some people in the same jobs I would think. Yes. Get rid of some jobs. But the Carney team has already made it clear they want to cut this cabinet by half to have about 20 ministers and who will like that. But that means you've got to, you know, figure out what you keep, how it works, and what happens to those portfolios that you're

basically throwing out the window. They're not always big, but you need to fit them somewhere. Yeah, yeah, or not, where maybe you say this is a wartime cabinet and we're only gonna deal with this set of issues. And then someone says you didn't do official languages. Yeah. Oh, you put that back in heritage where it fell. Exactly. That's right. And I got 86% of the vote. He has a freer hand than probably any leader in Canadian history to bring in a cabinet that's actually a cabinet rather than just a free for all to reward every constituency in the country. So I hope he makes it in that.

We'll see. We'll see how long that stays in the case. You know, everyone's saying he's going to go to election, go to election right away, and I understand your arguments for that because don't give the conservativeist time to define him and all these things. I also think there's some case to be made just from a liberal standpoint of establishing himself as a prime minister and stamping his authority on the party and on the country. There are benefits to that in terms of you know otherwise he's just this kind of strange guy that nobody really knows.

Well I have heard one of the first things he's going to do is stop the carbon tax so it doesn't go into effect on April 1st. He could do something like that without having to have parliament. Looking for the way to do this, to stop the increase. The greatest gift though that Mr. Carney gets, frankly, is that he gets to be Prime Minister during Donald Trump causing chaos. So maybe they won't be in place for the steel and aluminum tariffs, but he will be in place for the April 2nd reciprocity tariffs. And he gets to go to Washington or he gets to make speeches

and try to bring the country together. And so he doesn't need to wait because he gets to be this dual role at the same time, showcasing what he would be like as prime minister. Like Doug Ford did. Exactly, exactly. He gets to say, I'm not on the campaign trail because I'm dealing with this.

Because I need to deal with this crisis at hand. On the cabinet size, so I did this experience over the weekend and I can get down to 19 portfolios. I'm sure whoever is in the prime minister's office and on the transition team can easily do this. Basically, Justin Trudeau had swollen the size of cabinet by giving ministers of state or parliamentary secretary jobs and made them actual cabinet minister jobs.

I don't think that's an issue. I think the bigger issue is who does he keep it in what positions? Because you know, Dominic LeBlanc has the best connections to Howard LeTnick in the United States. He's by far the most valuable cabinet minister, but do you keep him at finance? How much do you reflect change and how much do you keep the people that you need who have a skill set that you need at least in this transition period and then do you bring in any star candidates? Do you bring in people who do not have a seat because you're trying to show that

you can attract other people? I think that's going to be interesting to watch this week. Don't forget not all those ministers are a burden on the government. Dominique LeBlanc plays well in Atlantic Canada, plays well in Quebec, does well in Ontario, is a friend of Premier Ford. So when you look at this, you say, I'm not gonna push this guy away in the name of change, but I too am curious to see if we will see people

who are currently unelected join this war cabinet. And if they do, I assume they will not all be traditional liberals. Yeah. Yeah. That would be interesting to see if there's any conservatives in the mix. Yeah. And so in election timing then, what is your best? You all hate doing guesses, but if your most informed speculation would be what?

Before May 15th. That, but the election, you have to read before me. Yeah. Okay. What do you mean the call? What about the call? Yeah. That but the election you have before me. Yeah okay what do I mean the call? What about the call? Yeah. Not this week. Next week. Next week yeah. Two weeks. And how long is it? 37 days. Seven weeks. They need to take into account the Christmas, the Easter break. Otherwise they would be shorter. You know the shorter the campaign the less that the conservative money advantage would play to their benefit. Well actually, it's the same amount of money, no matter the length of the campaign. No, but the longer the campaign, the more you can build up in questions.

Between now and the call. Okay, 45 seconds. The one thing Pierre Poilieff has to do. Get himself a team starting with someone who would look like Jim Flaherty or Paul Martin or Michael Wilson. Do I need to go through the list? Look like a prime minister. Stop worrying about the far right.

There you go. It's so much easier to do in person. Because you can interrupt each other. I know when to talk to you. I know when you want to in person. Because you can interrupt each other, I know when to talk to you, I know when you'd want to be quiet. Anyway, thank you. So we're going to see each other perhaps more often than usual.

It's going to be a wild ride. Thank you all for coming. You mean you'll have us in studio for election night. Yes, and also that. Yes, Chantal, and your coin, and Othiraj. Good to see you all. Thank you so much for that. That is at issue from the Liberal Leadership Convention, a real historic moment for this

country and as you all heard from our friends here, the beginning of a wild political ride and undoubtedly a federal election for all of you much sooner than you thought. That is our special edition of At Issue from the Liberal Leadership Convention. What did you think of the race? What do you think of the Liberals' choice? And are you ready for the next election? Send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. You can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays

at 10 a.m. Eastern. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.