Front Burner - Election fallout: A divided Canada

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Monday’s election results reveal stark regional divides in this country, from a Conservative blue Alberta and Saskatchewan to a resurgent Bloc in Quebec. Meanwhile, the Liberals eked out their win in part thanks to support in urban centres. Today on Front Burner, Parliament Hill writer Aaron Wherry on these different regions’ interests, and how can a fragile Liberal government balance these competing, and at times conflicting, interests.

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. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So, we're two days out from the election now, and I can't stop thinking about how this country is looking pretty divided, more so than it did four years ago. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, there is a sea of blue. In Quebec, I see a block of well, the Bloc.

And in and around the major urban centres of this country, it is Liberal Red or NDP Orange. Today on FrontBurner, I'm talking to Parliament Hill reporter Erin Wherry about why this election shook out along these fault lines, if they're being overstated, and how a fragile liberal minority can govern from here. Hi, Aaron. How are you? Hey, not bad. How are you? Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I'm hoping that we can pick up today where I left off yesterday with our colleague Vashie Capellos. When I look at this electoral map, I see a Canada divided.

What do you see? Yeah, I don't think that's an incorrect take when you look at the map, especially a color-coded map at this point. It is pretty stark. So let me start by saying it's not entirely different than it's sort of been for the last 50 years. The Liberal Party has never been particularly popular in Alberta. It's always struggled to win seats there. The four seats that Justin Trudeau won in 2015 were a high point, sort of match the basically match the gains that his father had won and that Joan Chrétien won in 1993. the gains that his father had won and that Joan Chrétien won in 1993.

And in both those cases, in both Pierre Trudeau's case and in Joan Chrétien's case, those sort of small breakthroughs were followed by setbacks. But can we dig into Saskatchewan and Alberta for a second? Because we saw 60% of people voting Conservative in Alberta and Saskatchewan. That is more than people who voted Conservative in Quebec and Atlantic Canada combined. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the election results show, quote, the sense of frustration and alienation in Saskatchewan is now greater than it has been at any point in my lifetime. We have a very divisive, a very divisive, we are at a very divisive point in this nation. We are at a

crossroads in this nation, if you will. I get your point that there's been some serious animosity between the West and the Liberals before, but is this worse than we've seen it? Is Scott Moe being hyperbolic? I do think it is more intense than it has been, at least since the height of the National Energy Program and the sort of let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark era, the turnout numbers you saw in Alberta, the margins of victory for conservatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan, I mean, those are huge numbers. People really came out in Alberta and Saskatchewan

motivated to vote conservative and to vote against Justin Trudeau. And that is not, you know, you can look at that, like I was saying, and say, well, look, the liberals have never been particularly popular out West. This isn't a huge deviation. But I think the intensity is different now. And I think the history is difficult too, because Justin Trudeau is Justin Trudeau, and the son of Pierre Trudeau. This was always a pretty volatile situation. This was always fraught with the memory of his father, the memory of the National Energy Program, the fact that he's a Trudeau. And everything he did was going to be framed by that.

And he has now put himself in a position where he doesn't have representation in the West. And it's a... No, he lost Ralph Goodale last night, one of his cabinet members. Can you unpack that for me? This idea that, you know, Justin Trudeau is living in the shadow of his father's legacy for people who might not know this history. So his father brought in an attempt to reform energy policies in the early 1980s. The most sweeping national energy program ever to have been put into effect in Canada, transforming our energy consumption patterns and drastically changing the nature of our energy industry. And it coincided with an economic downturn and, if I'm not mistaken, a drop in world

oil prices. So it coincided with a period of very significant economic hardship in Alberta and likely contributed to that period of economic hardship in Alberta. And yet the roots of Western alienation, what became this idea of Western alienation that gave birth to the Reform Party and arguably set the stage for Stephen Harper and his government, it really has its roots in what happened with Pierre Trudeau and Alberta in the early 80s. And Justin Trudeau has always had to sort of contend with that. And one of the immediate questions when he first declared that he was going to get into federal politics or run for the federal leadership of the Liberal Party, rather, was what's he going to do about Alberta. And he has made a point of going back to Alberta and trying to show that he wants to find common cause. And on Monday night, Alberta and Saskatchewan really effectively turned their back on him. And worse than that, sort of told him to get lost. And that is...

Like a real repudiation. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to like, it seems silly to say, well, if they had Ralph Goodale, everything would be different. Right. But there's something symbolically powerful about the fact that they don't have a seat in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Whereas before, A, they had Ralph Goodale and they had four liberals in Alberta, but they had a, had Ralph Goodale, who was one of the strongest, most senior members of cabinet

around the table so that whenever there was a question about what's the mood in the West, they could turn to Ralph Goodale and he could speak to that. And now they have effectively no one. And now he's got to figure out how to put together a cabinet that at this point would look like it's not going to have any representation from two pretty major provinces. Right. Premier Moe from Saskatchewan is calling on the Liberals to make a new deal with Canada. I know Jason Kenney also wants his voice heard. Last night, the prime minister said to Canadians in Alberta and Saskatchewan, quotes, I've heard your frustration and I want to be there to support you, unquote.

Well, Mr. Speaker, those are fine words. But if we are to avoid real, lasting damage to the unity and prosperity of this federation, they must be more than words. Premier Mo wants the carbon tax cancelled, pipelines built. How are the Liberals going to navigate this? I suspect they are still figuring this out.

I think they had some advanced knowledge that things were going this way and that it's possible Ralph Goodell was not going to be an MP anymore. But I don't know that they have a playbook yet for what they're going to do about this. So I don't think the federal carbon tax is going anywhere. I don't think much can change on pipelines necessarily right away. There's one being built, and I don't think there's an obvious proposal coming forward for another one. Equalization will be a point of debate, I suspect. Right. These are some demands over equalization payments, which, like, give me a quick 101 on equalization payments. Effectively, it's the federal government trying to ensure that all provinces have a common level of services and resources and using federal tax money to do that. And there's a complaint from the West that they believe they put in more than they get out. Right. They feel like aggrieved, like they've been

putting in like more of their share. Right. So these demands, is this what it will take to ease the tensions in the West? Is there anything that the liberals can do here moving forward? It's hard to know what they can do. When you think about the fact that Justin Trudeau invested $4.5 billion to buy an existing pipeline with a commitment to spend, you know, upwards of $8, $10 billion to build another pipeline. And the amount of credit he got in Alberta for that was effectively zilch. And accusations that this was like a conspiracy to buy the pipeline, to shut the pipeline down. The Western resentment, the Western anger, the Western just opposition to Justin Trudeau is such that it's not clear that he could change one or two policies and simply reverse it. He almost, to a certain degree, I think he needs to find voices in the West that he can use as allies. I don't know that, you know, maybe he could go to Alberta and Saskatchewan

and do a series of town halls and interact with the public and try to explain himself, and maybe it would win him some goodwill, and maybe it would start to turn the tide. But I think he needs people in Alberta and in Saskatchewan who will stand beside him and say, and in Saskatchewan who will stand beside him and say, we support this guy, we see what he's doing. And, you know, we are bringing the West's concerns to him so that he is aware of them and, you know, is working with us. There needs to be something more than just policy here, I think, to really get you through it. And do you think those people exist? I mean, Jason Kenney is probably the most high profile politician in in out west right now, certainly one of the most high profile politicians in the country. And I believe he's called the Trudeau government an existential

threat. Am I right? Yeah, it would be it would be a mind bending thing if Jason Kenney and Justin Trudeau suddenly became allies. I think what he needs to find at this point is some kind of bridge. But I think he needs to deal with it. He probably ends up having to deal with it head on. Like, I don't think this is the sort of thing that you can just sort of hope to ride out. So there's a real responsibility there. But I think the secondary part of it is, if it seems like Justin Trudeau himself is a threat to national unity, I would wonder whether voters in Ontario and British Columbia and other places would start to worry about the very idea of him being prime minister. And so he, to a certain extent, needs to show that he can handle this situation. Let's move on to Quebec. So the Bloc had the best night of any of the parties, really. They gained 22 seats.

Vashie and I talked about this a bit yesterday, but I'm curious to hear why you think that happened. Quebec never fails to be interesting on election night. So first of all, I'm not convinced it's a, this is the rebirth of sovereignist sentiment in Quebec. Right, because you're not hearing a lot of rhetoric around separatism. And the bloc really played down their interests in that issue in this election. So I don't think it's that. I think there may be a certain amount of just sort of a protest vote. You know, these are... They're sick of Justin Trudeau and liberals and they don't know where else to park their vote? Yeah, they're not. They don't love the conservatives. They don't love Andrew Scheer. They've turned away from the NDP after the sort of Leighton Mulcair era.

And so, hey, the bloc's here and he seems nice and the leader seems like a kind of an interesting guy. And he is talking about the environment and and he's essentially saying look i'm going to go to ottawa and i'm going to protect what quebec's priorities and interests are right you know there's there's a there's a certain appeal to that so i i don't know that you should look at the result and go uh-oh uh the bloc quebecois is back we're headed towards another sovereign crisis you know huge divisive fault line but you're not right yeah not yet at least but here's the thing like if is another huge device of fault line that you're not playing by. Right, yeah. Not yet, at least, but here's the thing.

Now that they're here and now that they're back, rather, and that they can play a real role in the debate, in the federal discussion, they have a chance to stir up some trouble and see if they can sort of reignite that sense that there should be a new deal for Quebec or even sovereignty. And so it's another complication. I don't know that, I mean, I think if you're the prime minister right now and you're looking at the map, you view sort of the bloc as an electoral problem, I suspect, in that you need to break into that vote whenever the next election comes. But you view Alberta and Saskatchewan as more of a massive sort of existential issue of how you deal with it, how you keep it from becoming a real separatist idea, how you overcome the rhetorical and the political and the practical issues that you're

going to have to overcome to reach out to those provinces and to somehow make inroads again there. Okay. You know, is it fair for me to say the issues that the bloc will put on the table for Quebec, the issues that they'll be arguing for are, you know, more power over immigration, a single tax return managed by the province, and they want Ottawa to essentially stay out of any efforts to overturn the province's controversial secularism law, Bill 21, the law that prevents public service workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. Maybe they could make a deal on at least some of them. Yeah, I suspect that the well, I don't know if I'll be able to make a deal, but I suspect the two flashpoints I would watch for would be first on Bill 21. Now, in terms of the secularism bill, the fact is, it's not their jurisdiction. Just stay out of it and don't use Quebec resources against a Quebec law. Because I do think there is definitely a part of Trudeau that would, if this case gets to a level

in the judicial system where there's an opening to intervene, I suspect Trudeau will want to take it. And so that will be hard. And I suspect then the flip side of this is, you know, we talk about Alberta and Saskatchewan being worried about equalization. Well, but now there's a Bloc Quebecois who's going to say, whoa, what do you mean you want to deal with equalization? This better also treat Quebec well. And so you're going to have, you know, dueling pressure points here. You're going to have the West and now a revitalized Bloc Québécois demanding better deals on equalization. The Bloc is a party that cares about Quebec, obviously, but can they contribute to our national parliament in a way? Where do you see them contributing to a more national discussion? Yeah, it's funny. Like if when you're in Ottawa, you at least I found in the bloc iteration that that I covered sort of from 2008 until 2011, you can almost forget that there's sovereignists.

You know, if you tell people from outside Canada, oh, yeah, there's a separatist party in parliament. People kind of look at you like you have two heads, but, you know, they're parliamentarians and they will they will they will mix into the parliamentary debate into into what happens in parliament, into committee proceedings. To a certain degree, the sovereignty issue will become secondary to the fact that they are MPs with political views. But the flip side of that will be when there are these hot button issues, when it's equalization, when it's Bill 21, when it's any kind of arrangement for Quebec, that's when it'll be, oh, right, it's the Bloc Québécois. And that's when you will have these sort of interesting conflict points. Okay. Do you think they'll push the liberals on climate change? I suspect so. I mean, I think that if you listened to Trudeau in his speech on Monday night,

or Tuesday morning, I guess it was. The speeches that they were all having at the exact same time? Yes, the simultaneous speech making. He leaned on the idea that there was a progressive agenda and Canadians had voted for a progressive agenda. And I think that is the one thing, if he's looking around, he's seeing the Greens, the NDP and the Bloc, who are all essentially now progressive parties, even if Quebec, it's complicated. They're essentially progressive parties. They're essentially one action on climate change. And I suspect that that's the block will fit into that idea that climate change is where things will move. Interestingly, the block has pushed this idea between resource based economies that are emissions intensive and are going to be the hardest situations to convert to a low carbon future. And then you have the rest of Canada, which is less focused on oil and gas and industry like that and is more eager to move on climate change. And you are always going to have this point of conflict between the regions of the country in terms of climate policy and in terms of resource policy. But now it's the political cleavage is significant, too. It's not just a split on on resource development and climate change. It's one section of the country.

The resource section is represented entirely by conservatives and the rest is predominantly liberal. Right. And this goes back to what you were saying, that you see this as really a divide between this existential threat in the West and, you know, essentially the rest of the country. Yeah. I mean, I think there is... With like some problems in Quebec for the liberals. Sure. Like I think there is some problems in Quebec for the liberals. Sure. Like I think there is there's there is risk in overstating things like I don't think the country's breaking up tomorrow. And I think that politicians who seem to be trying to stoke or exploit the situation will probably be punished for it. But I don't think you can you can look at that map and say, OK, this this isn't an issue that needs to be addressed. You know, Abacus Data, who's a polling firm here in Ottawa, took to breaking their polling down by Alberta and Saskatchewan on one hand and the rest of Canada on the other. And Alberta and Saskatchewan are heavily conservative and the rest of Canada is

heavily progressive. And that's essentially the split you have. And it's not insurmountable. It's not, you know, we're not into a national unity crisis like we were in the 90s and the 70s and the 80s, but it's not something that seems super healthy in the long run or that seems like you can just let it go because it will lead to real animosity, especially when we have to have conversations about how we're going to move forward to a low-carbon economy.

These two sides can't be in perpetual opposition. What do you make of the fact that it looks like the Conservatives actually got more votes, right? Like they actually won the popular vote. Andrew Scheer said in his press conference today that they got a million more votes than any other party. No party earned more votes than the Conservative Party last night. And at 6.2 million votes and still counting, we earned the third most votes ever cast for a political party in an election campaign including the conservative majority of 2011 so obviously

popular vote we don't it doesn't that's not how we run our our political system although i saw you tweet today perhaps the conservatives will now become proponents of proportional representation which is something that they opposed before the idea that... I mean, I do think, again, the massive outpouring for conservatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I mean, I think that's sort of the main driver of that. The fact that the conservatives ended up with a lead in the popular vote. So, I mean, I don't think it's it's not it's not a you know, it's not like our elections are suddenly invalid, but it's a difficult issue for the liberals to deal with and just a psychological idea that they have, that it weakens the sort of mandate they've been given. Okay, so this seems like an impossible tension here, right? The West wanting their energy sector

to thrive, you know, other places in the country wanting climate change addressed. This liberal victory is very fragile. You mentioned that you think Justin Trudeau needs to address this head on to govern from here. But how does he do that? How does he govern from here? example is what his father did in 72, which he got knocked down to a very, very narrow minority and had to recalibrate and had to adjust and had to, in Pierre Trudeau's case, it was sort of a kick in the butt to go, hey, look, you sort of squandered the first four years. You need to change how you operate and you have to decide what you're doing here. And I don't know that it's necessarily quite the same thing for the liberals. I mean, I think they had more of a sense of what they wanted to do. These liberals, the Justin Trudeau liberals, had more of a sense of what they wanted to do with government than Pierre Trudeau did. But I do think it is an opportunity for them to go, OK, well, how did we get to this place and what do we have to do to make sure we don't get here again?

And what can we do with the next two years to make sure it's a majority next time? OK. And you say two years. Is that your sense of how long this government could last? Yeah. I mean, it's more of a wild guess than anything, but it's very rare that a minority hangs on for a full four years. Usually at some point someone decides they want to pull the plug. And I think that's probably, if the liberals were sitting down and trying to game out the future, I suspect two years would be the right timeframe to aim at. Right. And I imagine, especially with tensions being this high and the Conservatives, you know, essentially raring to go for a second shot at this,

Andrew Scheer kind of framed this as like the first step in what feels like a two-step process, I guess. That's kind of what he was saying. Although we'll see whether Andrew Scheer's party believes that he's the person to take the next step. Yes. And that's a factor. He might not be the second step. Yes, that's a factor that may also alter the time frame. Okay, Aaron Wary, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. One more thing before we go today. He was kind of persona non grata during the campaign, but Ontario Premier Doug Ford emerged after his quiet spell on Tuesday to say he looked forward to working with Justin Trudeau. Our government hopes the federal government will join us in making life easier, more affordable for Ontarians and Canadians alike. We'll have to wait and see how that relationship works out.

That's all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you all tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.