At Issue - Pierre Poilievre goes on Joe Rogan’s podcast

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Will Pierre Poilievre’s Joe Rogan’s podcast appearance help him politically, and what will it do for Canada? How Mark Carney has reshaped the Liberals, one year into his leadership. And Avi Lewis emerges as the NDP frontrunner. Catherine Cullen hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hey, I'm Catherine Cullen this week on at issue the podcast edition for Thursday, March 19th. We're never going to be the 50 first state. And I just wish you'd knock that shit off. We should get the tariffs out because there's so much we could be doing together as neighbors and partners if we got rid of those tariffs. You know, if you win, I'm coming up there, I promise. Well, we're going to try to get you up there earlier. I'm going to keep working on you.

So this week, we are asking, what's the story? strategy behind Pierre Polyev's appearance on the Joe Rogan experience. Plus, what have you learned about the Prime Minister after a year of Mark Carney? So why, after saying no before, has Pauliav decided to say yes to the Joe Rogan experience now? And will it help Canada's cause? I'm Catherine Cullen. Rosemary is away, but here to break it all down are Chantal Abert, Andrew Coyne, and Altheiraj. Shantel, I want to start with you. This conversation is more than two hours long. What did Pierre Palliab accomplish? Okay, I asked myself three questions. Does it objectively help Canada? And remember, Joe Rogan has a large audience that includes a lot of pro-Trump people, including himself, at least back at the time of the election. So objectively, did it help the cause of Canada as we're about to renegotiate trade? I think the answer is yes. No time was wasted on partisan politics. And, uh,

hard pass on taking hits at both Justin Trudeau and Mark Kearney. I thought taking a pass on Justin Trudeau was more remarkable than taking a pass on Mark Kearney. Did he help himself? I believe he did. Third question goes back to the question you were asking yourself. Should he have done that back last year in the election campaign? Probably, although I suspect that back then, the pro-Canada message wouldn't

have necessarily been received by Joe Rogan this positively as it was today. Andrew, I wonder, I mean, going into this, or certainly this morning after it had been taped before it was public, Pierre Pahliav said he wanted to fight for Canadian workers, his objective was to make a case against tariffs. To what extent do you think he was effective in doing that? Chantelle seems to think wasn't such a bad idea. Well, the specific point about tariffs, I'm not sure that there'd be a lot of bandwidth on this type of show to, remember, this kind of listener, to really make the case. But more broadly, I think he presented a sympathetic face of Canada, if you will, for that kind of audience.

We shouldn't underestimate how much the Trump administration has been trying to kind of whip up, if you can believe, an anti-Canadian feeling, Americans. I don't think they've succeeded with the public at large, but amongst their own following, they'll basically follow anything the administration says. So to have somebody on there who they can relate to, I think, is helpful. It conjured up this image of Canada as this kind of woke dystopia, and that's hard to pin on Pierpaoli Ever, to say the least. I think the other thing it's able to do is sometimes you need to go against type. On the one hand, he's on the Joe Rogan show, so that'll appeal to a certain section of the base who like to see them touching base with that. But he also took the time to sort of emphasize his differences,

not only going after Donald Trump on the 51st state business in probably the strongest language we heard. At one point, he said it was just crazy talk. But also just on not taking the bait from Joe Rogan on things like, you know, was Phil D'El Kestra, the father of Justice. and Trudeau and these kinds of things. So he politely distanced himself both in terms of home, but also stylistically. You know, if this was two years ago, he might have shown up in a t-shirt to emphasize how broie he was. This time he showed up in a suit and tie looking a bit more prime

ministerial. So all in all I think he modestly helped himself with this. Althea, I want to lean in on this idea of the taking the bait. I mean, Joe Rogan is somebody who has no problem with a conspiracy theory. Paulie Evan's people would have known this. Andrew references the where Rogan at one point says, oh, well, Fidel Castro, isn't he Justin Trudeau's dad? And Pollyoev really shuts that down, says, you know, not true. I don't believe that's true. How much of a risk, though, was Pahliav facing going into something, knowing that the host could kind of take this any which way

and certainly into things that don't have a lot of basis behind them? Yeah, I mean, it's always a risk going into a theater where you're not sure where the host is going to take the conversation, where the host has already in the past been accused of anti-LGBQ, comments of racist comments, someone who trumpeted Trump's, his support for Donald Trump, who had Elon Musk on his show. But I mean, the conversation was pretty tame. You could see that Pierre Pahliav was nervous right off the get-go, and it's kind of odd, frankly, because most of us don't see Pierre Paulyev being nervous all that often. But the conversation, I don't think

accomplished necessarily what Pierre Paulyev initially suggested Thursday morning he was setting out to do. Like, I don't think the listener came away thinking, ah, this is why we need free trade with Canada. I do agree with both of my colleagues, though, is that Pierre Pueleff presented a very sympathetic face to Canada. He talked about, you know, the need for Canada and the U.S. to work together, that we have all these critical minerals that the Americans need as well, for example. You talked what are natural resources as an angle to help the United States on the affordability issue. But mostly it was a conversation where Pierre Pahliav came across looking very sympathetic. You know, this is a guy with 11 million average views on his podcast.

It's nothing to sneeze at. For a core constituency of the Conservative Party, young men, who are mostly the listeners of Joe Rogan, this obviously speaks to them. And today, you know, he had another speech to a foreign policy audience where you, he did make that case about partnership and allyship with Canada and tariff-free trade. And so I don't know if the political mission was accomplished with Joe Rogan, but I think his personal

mission was accomplished with Joe Rogan. And I don't know what Pierpoli have planned to do if he doesn't win the next election. And this certainly will help him in whatever endeavor he chooses to go in. I mean, Chantal, to Andrew's point earlier, it probably is helpful to have Joe Rogan say to an audience that does include a lot of Trump support.

over and over again how much he loves Canada, how much this 51st state thing is ridiculous. But I wonder if you can reflect a bit more on the fact that Pierre Polyev is doing this now. He didn't do it during the election campaign. He said at the beginning of the podcast, oh, it's timing. I don't want to leave the country. But Rogan has said in the past that Polyev didn't come on because Polyev's team told him he was too problematic. So what do you think it tells us about where Pierre Polyev's head is at right now? Well, it has been part of a shift from saying I'm going to.

do everything different from the liberals in government to I'm going to be doing better than what the liberals are in government. And we've seen that over the past few weeks. You asked about risks. I think the biggest risk, and I'm not sure it's that bigger risk, was his most definitive statement to date on Alberta's separation, which he shut down without a pause, as in this isn't going to happen. And I don't think he'd ever been that clear. So if there are people who are angry at this, he got Joe Rogan's endorsement as a future prime minister.

But if they're angry at this, it was going to happen at some point that Pierre Puehlia would have to say that very clearly. It happened then. This is maybe where he gets the most pushback. And that's going to be centered on Alberta. It will probably reassure some of the voters who, who are normal conservatives in Alberta, and who've been giving Mark Carney a second look

because they want to be sure that they vote for the party that will defend their province staying in Canada. Well, if nothing else, it accomplished the effect of getting a lot of attention on this trip. Quick, last thought from you, Andrew? Well, it's not like he's protecting a lead. You know, he's got to take risks,

even moderate ones like this. And it's much better to look proactive and like you're working hard to try to get people's votes. rather than just sitting somewhere, you know, wringing your hands over your bad poll numbers. So this, from that standpoint, people like to see you work. Okay. We're going to leave this conversation there. From floor crossers to world tours, Mark Carney has had an eventful year since winning the liberal leadership.

Has the prime minister's first year lived up to expectations? That's next. I pledge to you that I will follow their example. I will work day and night with one purpose, which is to build. a stronger Canada for everyone. From MPs crossing the floor to join the liberals to the struggle to get a deal on tariffs with Trump, what is to be made of Carney's first year in office. Here to break down Mark Carney's first year, Shanta Liber, Andrew Coyne, and Althea Raj.

Althea, I want to start with you. You've done a lot of writing around this recently. On the one hand, Mark Carney's more popular than he was a year ago. On the other hand, he still hasn't gotten that deal he wanted on tariffs. The opposition criticizes him for not. moving fast enough on building Canada. How has Mark Carney done? Would you say a year out? It really depends on who you ask and what their expectations were. If you ask people, are you better off at this time than you were this time last year? You know, the conservators

will point out, and some liberals will point out that people are not. The affordability crisis is still front and center. The Trump stuff has not been dealt with. Mark Carney has basically laid down the foundations for future economic growth where he sees it. But the delivery on those promises hasn't happened yet. And I think a lot of Canadians understand that is what's happening and that is why they are giving him a long leash to follow through on that mandate. On the other side, I think you can see that there are a lot of people who, especially progressive voters, who let Mark Carney their vote to deal with a crisis that is still front and center and who still prefer him to Pierre Paulyev by a huge margin.

But there is disappointment on the climate file. For example, there is disappointment on health care. You know, Alberta introduced a piece of legislation that clearly violates the Canada Health Act and the federal government said peep squat about it. You have another concerning thing that Andrew and I have both written a lot about, which is this kind of authoritarian bent from the Carney government. Mark Carney and some of his cabinet ministers are certainly, in a hurry. And the message to the public service is also to be in a hurry to deliver on the things

the government wants. And they have taken shortcuts. And if you listen to Elizabeth May, for example, of the Green Party, there are even senators, Parliament is being cut out of that discussion, whether those are controversial bills that take power away from Parliament and give it to the executive. We've seen a litany of examples where there is a kind of a power grab. brought to the executive, there's lack of transparency. And on liberal values, you know, like they've introduced a refugee bill that's actually more restrictive than what we see in the United States. And so there are a lot of people that are saying, wait a second, there's a bit of, there's some warning signs here, and we need to keep a closer eye on what exactly the Kearney government is doing.

So, Shantelle Althea talks about warning signs, but also voters giving Carney a long leash. I think a lot of that seems to come down to Donald Trump. If you are Mark Carney and the liberals, how long can you really expect that leash to run? For as long as Donald Trump and Pierre Puellier are the people that they have been over the past year. Because that is basically, Donald Trump does one thing for Mark Carney by constantly being in Canada's face in so many ways.

He keeps people focused on the choices for who will lead the country as opposed to all these other issues that Ldia mentioned, because that is the top-of-mind issue when you think of who the prime minister should be. And Pierre Paulyev so far, and subject to the success of his rebranding, has been an agent of Mark Carney's success in the sense that many Canadians have looking at either or have come to the conclusion that there is not a valid or a better alternative to Mark Carney. How long that lasts?

It depends. But the one thing that is a measure of success after one year of any leading politician is political capital. And it is very rare in difficult circumstances that one accumulates more rather than loses some. And at this point, Mark Carney is accumulated, obviously, when you look at polls. And despite the reservations, a lot of political cases. capital over his first year. No buyer's remorse in voting for someone who never spent a day in the House of Commons and it was an unknown quantity. I'm not saying people, there's carnivania out there. But at this point, a plurality, a strong plurality of Canadians believe that,

and still believe that he is the best person for the job. So Andrew, political capital says Chantal, what he doesn't have is a majority government, at least not right now. How much do you think that matters politically. I don't think it matters a great deal. He's pretty close to majority anyway. If he was on the, you know, one point to the positive side or one point to the negative doesn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of your ability to manage parliament. Nobody's going to provoke an election anytime soon, particularly in light of these poll numbers, you know, a year in to be at the party's close to 50% in some polls. He's above 60% in the personal approval. So on that indicator alone, you'd have to say he's had a pretty good year. He benefits from not being just

and Trudeau from not being Donald Trump and from not being Pierre Ployev. And at this exact moment in history, he seems to be what a lot of Canadians are looking for in terms of his personal qualities and demeanor. He's not flashy. He's not the warmest guy, perhaps, but he's sort of down to earth, nectocratic. I think it was Scott Reed, the former liberal communications consultant, marveling that he seems to have gotten a major boost out of going to Davos and giving a speech at that supremely elite event.

You would not normally have recommended that as a way of dishing the populace, if you will. But that's where we're at. The nature of this struggle we're in right now is it's not particularly policy-oriented or programmatic. There are things that the government needs to do and the country needs to do, but most of those are in the offing. And there's a lively and legitimate debate going on

that Pierre Poyerva has contributed to, you know, to what extent do you want to diversify and look externally for your ticket out of this? And to what extent you want to build more resilient inside. That's a legitimate debate, but I think from a lot of Canadians right now where they're at is just, they're just looking at leadership. They're looking at who do they think has the temperament, the character, the judgment, etc. to handle this very uncertain, very strange, unprecedented territory with effectively a madman in the White House, the worst nightmare than any Canadian could conjure. And that tends by its nature to take focus away from things like affordability or housing

or the budget where people might not perhaps score him as well. And for now, that's where the focus is, and therefore he's being marked up well. The longer time goes on, depending on what happens, what eruptions we see coming out of the White House. But if things calm down that front, then obviously at some point people are going to be shifting their focus back a bit towards more domestic matters.

And at that point, if we're two, three years into this government and he still hasn't delivered more than just fine words, then I think he'll be held more to account accordingly. Okay, we have to take a short break, but when we return, we'll look at the latest from the race to lead the new Democrats and the parties fight to get back to official status. That's next. Right now, what we see in the leadership race is something new being born, a different kind of politics in the NDP? I think the comeback has already begun. So are we approaching a new era for the new Democrats?

Can a new leader do enough to get the party back to official status? Let's bring everyone back, Sean Telle-A-Barre, Andrew Coyne, and Althea-Royne. Chantelle, Abby Lewis, says the comeback has already begun. What do you think? Well, that's certainly very optimistic, especially on the heels of losing one MP and probably a second one moving off to the Quebec provincial scene sooner rather than later.

And in this case, the possible election of a leader that doesn't have a seat in the House of Commons. So I guess time will tell, but I have not, and I don't think many in the country have seen any signs of this NDP revival. And I will add, it's not just on the party. It goes back to an earlier conversation we were having. Voters are still in the same mindset as they were last year, i.e., they are looking at who

they want to lead as prime minister to face Donald Trump. And the NDP is clearly not in the running and will not be in the foreseeable future. So that makes it harder for third parties, be it the Black Quebecoa or the NDP, to have a voice in this conversation. And I have to say over the past, since Parliament reopened, I have not felt that the NDP was in the conversation, whether on the leadership podium or in the House of Commons in the main conversation in Canada. So, Andrew, is this just the circumstances the NDP are dealt then, or is there something any new leader can do to try to get in the conversation a little bit? bit more. Well, there's another difficulty that we've talked about before, which is that the NDP are for the first time fighting a battle on two fronts. So they're fighting with the liberals for the sort of progressive vote from the bigger cities, and they're fighting increasingly with the

conservatives for the blue-collar unionized vote. It's really unclear whether Avi Lewis, if he choose, is the leader. And that's by no means certain. The rules of the race make that very hard to predict, even if he does have a commanding lead in the fundraising. But if he were, I suppose you could say he has more upside than the other candidates. He's more of a chance, more of a name, more of a polarizing figure for Goetheal and there's potential upside. But you'd have to say more likely is he's not going to be particularly appealing to those blue-collar workers. He's not going to be particularly appealing to more than the hard core of the left among progressives. I mean, you know, Elthia mentioned that progressives are disappointed with Mark Carney on some issues like climate change.

they're not so disappointed that they're leaving support for the liberals and going to the NDP. That has not happened yet. And in fact, we have an NDP-MP crossing over to the liberals. So I think they've got this difficulty that they have this coalition of two large groups within the party that are often at odds with each other and are now being pulled in two directions by two parties. That's going to be hard for any leader to corral and to keep control of it, and particularly as divisive a figure is Avi Lewis. Althea, do you think it makes sense for the party to make a further move to the left? Or should they be trying to, you know, sort of stay where they are now with the argument that the rest of Canadian politics has moved more to the center or more to the right?

Well, that's the question that's in front of NDP members as they vote, basically. Avi Lewis is giving them an opportunity to vote for ideological purity, if you wish. dream big, you know, don't put so much water in your wine that you look like a liberal light. And then there are others, some caucus members who really feel that they need to be a practical party that pushes the liberals to the left, that elects more MPs, to have more weight in parliament, to amplify the message of progressive voters, to call for things like dental care and child care, but maybe not public grocery stores, for example. That is the discussion that's going to be happening next weekend.

And then, you know, if Avi Leuvis wins, the other part of that discussion will be what's the impact on the provincial parties, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan. Is he such a polarizing figure that actually it's polarizing for the NDP as a whole, not just the federal party? Certainly something for at issue to dig into once we know the results. Thank you all for your time. That's at issue this week. What do you think about Pierre Polyev's appearance on the Joe Rogan experience? How are you feeling about Mark Carney after a year of his leadership? Let us know what you think. Send us an email at Ask at cbc.ca.

You can catch me on the house Saturdays just after 9 a.m. on CBC Radio and wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.