Front Burner - Can the Liberals win back younger voters?

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

The Liberal cabinet retreat is underway in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, with ministers discussing fall priorities amid flagging poll numbers. Once a source of strength for the party, the Liberals appear to be losing ground with Canadians in their 20s and 30s who are concerned with affordability. Abacus Data says the Liberals have fallen over 10 points behind the Conservatives with millennial voters. Today, CBC senior writer Aaron Wherry explains how a leader once obsessed with the middle class ended up on the opposite side of affordability anger, and what the Liberals could still do to reclaim their 2015 image. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Tamara Kandaker. And yes, there are people who are hurting. There are people who are lashing out. And we need to be there to reassure them that they're going to be able to succeed,

that their kids and their communities are going to be able to succeed, even though the world is changing in very scary ways. So yesterday, at a child care announcement, ahead of this week's Liberal cabinet retreat in Charlottetown, a reporter with the Canadian press asked the prime minister about the bumper stickers. You've probably seen the ones. This past weekend, I was camping with my family,

and there was a vehicle that was, it was our neighbors basically, and it had a bumper sticker on it with your name and an expletive, which I had to explain to my children. She asked Justin Trudeau if he'd considered whether he'd become a liability. Politics is never going to be a game of unanimous support. It's about a whole bunch of thoughtful, good people coming together to try and figure out the best way forward." The thing is, Trudeau's challenges have gone far beyond just those who are cursing his name. Trudeau and the Liberal Party have been struggling in the polls, especially among

young people. Abacus Data says there are 10 points behind the Conservatives among millennials, many of whom are having a tough time dealing with the rising cost of living and lack of affordable housing. And I need someone to tell me the pros and cons of living in America, because at this point, Canada just ain't it. I'm working like three jobs right now, and I have been grinding it out, and I'm not even really saving that. I'm not saving anything, really. I can't stay here, but I can't move anywhere else because anywhere else I move to, the landlords are just going to charge me like $2,500 a month in rent.

So with the Liberal cabinet gathered this week, today I'm talking again with CBC senior writer Aaron Wary about how they're refocusing amid sinking poll numbers and how they can convince voters that they're the right government to help struggling Canadians. Hi, Aaron. It's great to talk to you. Great to talk to you. So the Liberal ministers are at their retreat in Charlottetown right now,

and they're essentially going to be setting the agenda for Parliament in the fall. And what do we know about what they might be focused on? Well, I mean, obviously the fires in large parts of the country are going to take up a fair bit of time. But the original plan, and I think what will kind of take up the bulk of the discussion, is this issue of sort of the economy, but also affordability, the cost of living, housing prices. We know there's going to be a specific session, a specific discussion on housing. We also know there's going to be a specific discussion on sort of, you know, to use the term loosely, younger adults, sort of people in their 20s and 30s, the concerns they have about, you know, not only buying a house, but, you know, finding a job and dealing with sort of a changing economy and a changing planet. But it's really going to be this kind of affordability

cost of living, quote unquote, crisis, as people say, that I think is really going to dominate the discussion. Yeah. And I'm curious why the focus on younger voters? Why is that a priority for the liberals right now? Well, I mean, first and foremost, it's been a strength of this government and this party in the past. Younger voters have tended to support Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau has made appealing to those voters a priority, putting youth issues on the table, trying to bring young voices into government. And we know from the opinion polling that right now millennials and Gen Z are starting to look at other parties and maybe even looking

at the conservatives. And that's a problem for the liberals. If they want to get reelected, a lot of things have to go right for them. But one of the things that they have to get is the support of young people. And if young people aren't supporting this government, they've got all sorts of reasons to try to figure out how to win those voters back. And it's worth mentioning that when Trudeau was elected in 2015, a thriving middle class in Canada was a big priority for the party, and it's kind of what they were elected on, right? I'm wondering what happened to that message,

and what's the difference between then and now? Yeah, you know, it almost became a bit of a joke, at least sort of in Ottawa, you know, the number of times this government and the prime minister would talk about the middle class and those working hard to join it. You know, they worked it into almost every other sentence, it seemed. But the middle class and those hoping to join it, working hard to join it, join it, join it. Our low and middle income Canadians. In order to grow the economy, the way to grow the economy is to strengthen the middle class.

Strengthen the middle class. Is to strengthen the middle class. We're going to grow our middle class. But it really was, for all of the things that Trudeau represented and talked about in 2015, it was that kind of core idea of helping the middle class, supporting the middle class, that really brought him into government. And it, you know, there was lots of discussion about what is the middle class? Is the middle class that really brought him into government. And it, you know, there was lots of discussion about what is the middle class, is the middle class suffering, you know, what exactly does

that mean? But really, at its real core, the idea of focusing on the middle class is about economic security, confidence, opportunity, social mobility. It's a really kind of core economic message that goes to what people are going through on a day-to-day basis and how they feel about, you know, not only the current economy, but where things are going in the future. And the big policy piece of that that sort of represented it was the Canada Child Benefit, which was this payment to families who have children to help them sort of deal with the costs of raising those kids. Unfortunately, for too many Canadian families, things like new shoes and healthy groceries and summer camp and class trips are a real strain on the family budget. And if you're struggling to make it into the middle class, it's even harder.

Today, the first payments of the new Canada child benefit have now been made. And, you know, it had big impact. It was a very popular policy, still is a very popular policy. But over time, the discussion has kind of shifted. And whereas the Liberals kind of owned that message, really, you know, in 2015, and then when they got reelected in 2019 and 2021, you know, in 2015, and then when they got reelected in 2019 and 2021, now people are dealing with inflation, they're dealing with record housing prices, and now they're dealing with higher interest rates. And so the squeezing and the insecurity that Trudeau kind of rightly picked up on in 2012 to 2015, when the liberals were coming to office, it's sort of come back with a vengeance now. And the government isn't quite on top of it. And it's the incumbent government. So I can't

just sort of criticize it now has to try to deal with this problem. And it's wearing the problem. You know, the middle class has gone from being sort of the kind of key strength of the Liberals to being this big problem that they have to try to figure out and solve. Yeah, and it obviously doesn't help that Pierre Polyev's been going pretty hard at the liberals on these issues, right? Yeah, he has almost in the same way that Trudeau did in his years in opposition. Polyev has very smartly seized right on those issues and gone very hard on those issues and sort of turned it around. So whereas in 2015, Trudeau was saying you need a

more active, ambitious government to deal with these problems. Polyev is now coming around and saying, ah, actually, it's the ambitious, aggressive government, activist government that you've had for eight years, which is causing all these problems. And now you need to come back to my side, which is much less government. I want to be careful, though, that we don't build more bureaucracy when we need to build more homes.

Trudeau's increased the federal housing budget to $89 billion a year. He's spending vastly more on so-called housing programs than any government ever, all to achieve a doubling in the actual cost. Admittedly, when I was housing minister, the taxpayer paid less for housing programs, but housing was affordable. You know, Polyev is a talented politician, and one of his strengths is seizing on these issues, figuring out which issues are really going to resonate. And we see that in opinion polling. You know, cost of living and housing affordability have shot way up in terms of public concern. And it's become a very hard thing for the liberals to deal with.

He's the one that doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments. He's the one that gave us the worst inflation crisis in 40 years. He's the one who sent interest rates on our mortgages rising faster than at any time in monetary history. And how are people receiving Polyev's message that the liberals are at fault here Like, to what extent do we see Canadians agreeing with him? Yeah, it looks like, if you look at the opinion polling, it looks like Polyev's winning this argument right now. When Abacus asked Canadians, you know, what's at fault for the inflation people are experiencing, you know, spending by federal and provincial governments was the second most popular choice, only after companies raising prices. You know, the idea that government spending is the

problem here, which Polyev has been pushing from the start really does seem to be resonating. And the other part, which has got to be doubly frustrating for the liberals is, Abacus also asked people, the inflation that Canada is having, is it lower or higher than it is in the other G7 countries? And a very small minority of people said, oh, it's actually lower, which is correct. And a majority of people said, oh, it's higher than it is in the rest of the G7. And that is, you know, an argument that it's kind of hard for the liberals to get it out there. They try to when they say like, oh, we understand that people are struggling, but we should know that inflation isn't as high in Canada as in other places. It's a hard argument to kind of make, but it's not resonating. And so you've got people very much buying into the idea that

government spending is at fault and Canada has it worse than other places. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a

financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So last week, we saw the liberals do something that could kind of be read as them trying to project financial responsibility. And it came out in this leaked letter from the new Treasury Board President Anita Anand. And first of all, tell me what was in that letter and what did Anand ask cabinet ministers to do? Yeah, so this letter is kind of a follow-up on a promise the Liberals made back in the spring, which was that they were going to cut about $15 billion, spread over several years. You know, they wanted to cut back spending in certain areas, basically go through the books, figure out what spending they don't necessarily need to be doing, programs that aren't

really priorities or aren't working, and try to repurpose that money. So they had committed to this spending review in the spring. And Anita Ahn in her new job sent out this letter basically saying, no, no, we mean it. The rest of the cabinet ministers, you guys have to come forward with some ideas of how we're going to repurpose or eliminate this spending. And it's, you know, $15 billion in the context of a, you know, a massive budget and a massive economy is maybe not a huge amount of money, but there's sort of a political message, which is this government is trying to be responsible with spending, which is not exactly a key part of their brand. It's something that's often been criticized. coming out of the pandemic, the pandemic kind of reset everyone's understanding of what federal and what government spending look like, because such huge sums of money were going out the door. And I think this is also, to a certain extent, a bit of a resetting of that

understanding and saying, okay, we're out of the pandemic now. We understand we all got used to spending hundreds of billions of dollars, but the federal government can't keep doing that. Interest rates are going up. We need to show some fiscal discipline. And so now they're trying to kind of reset it with the spending review. Coming out of the pandemic, we are refocusing the spending of our government on delivering economically for Canadians. I will be seeing everything from a policy perspective. And yes, I'm going to have to speak with my colleagues about the need for prudent spending. And I'm looking... We have heard pushback from our largest public sector workers union and the NDP, which is in

a coalition with the Liberals right now. So why are they against the cuts? And what kind of impact do they say that they could have? So I mean, I think it's understandable that public sector unions would be the first to say, wait a minute, what are you doing? Because they're workers who are going to be impacted. And for the NDP, it's smart political positioning to kind of get out in front of it and say, you know, Canadians need lots of support right now. What exactly are you going to be cutting? But I'm concerned that in a time when people are already feeling so squeezed that these cuts might mean cuts to things that Canadians need, like our health care, like our social services and the social safety net. Those are areas where we're already feeling the squeeze. At this point, we really don't know what's going to be cut. The

government has focused a lot on saying they're going to cut back on private sector consultants, which is an issue that kind of came up in the past year, the amount of money the government was spending to bring in public sector consultants to advise the public service how to do things. So I think that's kind of one area. But, you know, a fair bit of that money is going to have to come from other areas. And there are sort of every government kind of knows a few examples of things where you think it's a harmless cut and then you make it and it turns it turns out that you've you know really stepped in it you know in the previous government the harper government became infamous for cutting the

kitsilano coast guard in british columbia right which at the time was just sort of seen as a sort of small part of a larger uh attempt attempt to kind of curtail government spending. But it became this massive issue in that area, and it arguably cost them seats, and it became sort of this symbol of sort of callous cuts made to government spending. And, you know, so even when it can seem like you're just kind of taking a bit of a haircut on government spending, for every government program, there's going to be somebody probably somewhere who thought it was a good idea or who was benefiting from it. And even smaller exercises in cutting government spending have a certain amount of political risk. And so, you know, in addition to forcing the discipline on our fellow ministers, Anita and Ann's also going to have to kind of go through this and make sure there aren't any political minefields that the government's about to step into.

Right. So just one last thing that I wanted to touch on with these cuts. After the cabinet shuffle last month, we talked about how Anita Anand being moved out of defense and into the Treasury Board, it could be seen as a demotion and as a way of sort of getting her out of the limelight because she was being floated as a possible replacement for Trudeau. But with this letter, she's still kind of managed to make Treasury into headline news. And I was just wondering what you make of that and what does it tell us about her place in the party? Yeah. So look, I have no idea how the Globe got the letter, but if I'm being cynical, I would say that that leak was a nice bit of work by whoever's around Anita

Annan to make her look significant and powerful and serious. You know, all of the sort of rumors and speculation about whether she'd been kind of demoted or had her wings clipped coming out of defense and moved to Treasury Board, the pushback from within government was no no we're putting her in treasury board we're going to make that a significant sort of economic file we're going to use her as a significant economic voice we're going to have her go around the country and give speeches to chambers of commerce it definitely puts a focus on what she's doing you, because usually you would think of fiscal discipline kind of being imposed mainly by the finance minister. In this case, it's being put very explicitly that it's going to be the Treasury Board president. And it does look like she is

going to have some prominence, at least on this file for the next six months. So a bit of a pivot. We've been talking about how the liberals are trying to shore up their brand when it comes to the economy. But another big part of the liberal brand is Trudeau himself. And he and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau announced that they were separating. And that's obviously a personal matter. But how, if at all, do you think it might cross over into politics? So it's hard to predict, but it's also, it feels safe to say it's surely going to have some kind of impact because, you know, as much as Treasury Board president decisions and spending reviews are pretty significant, the amount of public interest

in the separation of Justin Trudeau and his wife dwarfs any other political story this summer. It was intense. And that suggests to me that the public is closely watching and the public is interested and that as much as, you know, Justin Trudeau's celebrity or personal brand may have dim kind of situation. It's really hard to know whether it's going to have a political impact. It seems, you know, to be honest, it seems even crass to speculate about whether it could have a political impact. But it's hard to get away from the idea that, you know, the public's understanding of him and who he is has changed somewhat. And, you know, that may dim after a while. You know, someone said to me, you know, it's sort of like when one of your friends, you know, and their wife get separated, there's a kind of intense interest and then probably everybody just kind of gets used to it. And so maybe that's what will happen this time. But, you know, just based on the intense amount

of public interest and even international interest in his relationship and in his personal life. And given how politicians are sort of expected to kind of put their personal life out there, I imagine it could have some impact, but I couldn't even hazard a guess of what kind of impact. Yeah, I was kind of curious about this. It seems like the political parties haven't really touched it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the liberals themselves doesn't seem like they've really said much beyond the announcement. But do we have a sense of how much people in Canada still care if a politician is married or not? I don't think we really know, because I think the examples are so few and far between. Almost every politician I've ever covered has been married, has almost always been a man, and has always projected family harmony and matrimonial love and has never presented anything, any kind of complicated picture. say objectively, oh, it doesn't matter. You know, politicians appear with their spouses, their kids all the time. It's not unreasonable for voters to say, you know, I'm not just picking

a set of policies. I'm picking a person. I want to know who this person is. You know, so there's got to be some impact there or some kind of, you know, different sense of who Trudeau is maybe. But we are like, we aren't dealing with, other than his father and his mother, ironically and sadly enough, there really is not a long list of literature that people can go, here are all the examples of times that this has happened and what it's meant politically. So we really are in a different place and it may lead to a bit of a discussion about what exactly do we expect of politicians in their personal lives? And does it matter in the least? Could we have a completely single prime minister get elected? It'll be a discussion and I don't think it'll necessarily

fade quickly, but it's really hard to know exactly how this plays out. So just coming back to this broader challenge that the Liberals are having of falling behind in the polls as Canadians kind of trust conservatives more with the economy, in your mind, after these cuts, what do the Liberals still need to do to convince Canadians that they could manage the books and this affordability crisis? Yeah, I really think it comes back to the affordability thing. I mean, the middle class, if you go back to 2015 and you look at sort of how the middle class was as a part of that campaign that they ran, you know, even back then, internal Liberal polling said, if you ask Canadians who's best to manage the quote-unquote economy, people said Stephen Harper.

Not by a huge margin, but they still said Stephen Harper. But then if you ask people who's going to do the most for the middle class, Justin Trudeau was ahead by a huge sum. And that not only kind of spoke to how effective the the liberal campaign was in 2015 on that, that particular idea, but I think it really goes to what's a kind of major part of Trudeau's appeal, which is the idea that, you know, he's not this serious Bay Street economic manager, but he is a guy who understands what people are going through and then takes the government, you know, uses the powers and the spending of the federal government to make people's lives easier and to help people. And in the current context, they're wearing all of the blame, or a lot of the blame, at least for the cost of living concerns and the affordability concerns that people have. Rightly or wrongly, it's landing on the government's feet. And they've got to,

you know, in some way kind of regain that advantage. You look at housing and that starts to feel like the big issue for the next two years for this government. In addition to all the other things they have to do or want to do on climate change, economic transition and reconciliation and so on, they really need to be able to show people they have an answer on housing and they're going to make things better. Because if they don't have that resonance, if it doesn't seem like they are able to help people, it's going to be that much harder for Justin Trudeau to win what is really a rare fourth election in a row. All right, Aaron, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. I appreciate it. Anytime.

All right, that's all for today. I'm Tamara Kendacker. Thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.