Front Burner - Election! Foreign meddling, Poilievre's premier problems

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

The federal election has only been officially underway since Sunday, and a few stories are dominating the headlines.Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are facing allegations of foreign interference, which has once again resurfaced questions about why Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre refuses to get his security clearance to be briefed on such issues.Liberal leader Mark Carney continues to face scrutiny for his time in the private sector, in particular his role at Brookfield Asset Management, which moved its headquarters from Toronto to New York during his tenure.Meanwhile, comments from Alberta premier Danielle Smith to American conservative media, as well as a continued cold shoulder from Ontario premier Doug Ford, raise the question of whether the country's two most prominent Conservative premiers are going to be bigger liabilities than assets for Poilievre in this campaign.Catherine Cullen and Jason Markusoff — the hosts of CBC's politics podcast House Party, which you can find here — break it all down.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Well, hey, look at us. You listen to Frontburner, I listen to Frontburner. We have something in common. My name is Alameen Abdul Mahmood. And look, we get to hear Jamie and the Frontburner team keep us on top of the big news stories that matter. I am someone who looks to culture to make sense of the world. The TV shows and books and music and movies that meet the moment. That's the kind of stuff I talk about every day on the podcast I host. It's called commotion. And if you want to hear smart, funny people talk about what the culture we consume says about us right now, follow commotion wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

Hey everybody, it's Jamie. Hey, everybody. It's Jamie. So today on the show, my colleague, Catherine Cullen is here with me. Catherine, hey, it's so great to have you. Hey, Jamie. Thanks for inviting me. Catherine is, of course, the host of the podcast, The House. Also, Jason Markossoff is here from Calgary.

Jason, hi. Hi, you too. Nice to be here. Hey, Jason. It's always here from Calgary. Jason, hi. Hi, you too, nice to be here. Hey, Jason. It's always great to see you. I will say you guys are hosting a weekly election podcast for the next several weeks.

It is called House Party. It's great. People should check it out. They can find it wherever they get their podcasts. But I am very glad to have you both on with me today to discuss the first days of the campaign as the candidates crisscross the country. We're gonna get into the foreign interference slash why won't Poliev get a security clearance news.

Also Alberta Premier Daniel Smith we're gonna talk about crowd sizes and of course Trump stuff too. Let's start here. We're talking around 1 o'clock Eastern time on Wednesday, day four of the election. Mark Carney is the only leader of the major parties with no campaign experience. And Catherine, how's it going for him? What have we seen so far? Jamie, I'd say there have been ups and downs. Poll numbers, those are great. CBC's poll tracker has a 65% chance of a liberal majority. I mean, think about what the conditions were like going into this election. That is an incredible turnaround. Mark Carney is executing

on the vision he brought into this election. He's got big plans on defense, a middle-class tax cut. He is making announcements in that regard. He did, I will say, though, have a stumble on Quebec, and right now it's not really clear how significant that's going to be. He misspoke. Natalie Pronevaux, who uttered the tragedy of the shootings at Concordia. And he was talking about the Polytechnic, or he meant to be talking about the Polytechnic massacre. He misnamed it. It's not, that was not a question of language. That was a question of misspeaking and the-

He opted out of a pretty popular French language leaders debate in Quebec. It's not clear how all that's going to affect him. He's dealing with a lot of questions about his work in the private sector, answering questions about his own in the private sector, answering questions about his own assets. Just on your personal assets, do you have any in Stripe and Brookfield, do you have

any equity stock options or anticipate any future payments from either two of those companies? So the first thing to say with respect to my personal assets is I have complied with all of the rules months and months and months in advance. All of this stuff is not the stuff he wants to be talking about and it really is sort of piling up on his agenda right now. Jason, tell me a little bit more about the scrutiny that he's under vis-a-vis his time in the private sector.

What's the latest there? He's facing it from all sides, which is the interesting thing. It seems like people feel like that's his big vulnerability. The years after he was at the Bank of England, he spent as chair of Brookfield Asset Management, this gigantic company, originally based in Canada, headquarters headquartered in Toronto. One of the attack lines that the concertists have really been hammering on for quite a while was the fact that while he was chair, the company moved to New York, moved his headquarters to New York. They've been attacking him steadily on that.

The attacks have kept on coming as this campaign has gone on. We've had the NDP talking about how the company Brookfield would buy up housing and resell it. The corporatization, the financialization of housing, making housing less affordable apartments. Like if you think you're up against a housing crisis now, and the chair of a company that said, hey, the best opportunity since the financial crisis to make money off the people in housing is the housing crisis, that's not your guy. That's not the guy that's going to fix the problem.

We've had the conservatives yesterday coming out in the attack, talking about how Mark Carney was going over to China last fall while he was economic advisor to liberals and Brookfield chair talking to Chinese officials around the same time that the company secured a refinance loan on a property from a state-owned Chinese bank. Why would he be having secret meetings with top bank government controlled bankers about getting a quarter billion dollar loan while he was supposed to be acting in Canada's interest as the Prime Minister's economic adviser. Our colleague Daniel LeBlanc from Radio Canada had a piece just out on Wednesday talking about how Brookfield had some climate funds with a

that were based in Bermuda, the tax haven, and so all these different accusations talking about his different interests. And it's been tricky to see how the party is defending themselves by saying that's a question for Brookfield. He's not with Brookfield anymore. Mark Carney is trying to explain away some of the rationale, the corporate rationale for his company is doing this, talking about how he knows these things, he understands these things, trying to explain. Mr. Poliev is a lifelong politician. It's all he's ever done. His slogans, soundbites, slander, doesn't understand how the world works. China happens to be our second largest trading partner.

It's our second largest trading partner. We have trade disputes with China right now. And what's so interesting about this, Jamie, is part of the reason we've seen Mark Carney rise in the polls is this idea that he has leaned so much on his resume, right? He said, I was the governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis. I was the governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit crisis. Like my CV, my time away from government, not being a politician, that was his primary virtue. And it may well continue to be his primary virtue during the election, but his political opponents

are trying to find a way to make it a real problem for him as well. And it's clear they're gonna keep hammering this throughout the election campaign. The question, as Jason suggests, is like, is this stuff gonna stick? Is it gonna break through or are people more interested in that top line question of,

do you have the skills to take on Donald Trump? Does your resume make you the best candidate for the job? Yeah. It was certainly like a real kind of one, two, three punch, right? The conservatives on the China stuff, the NDP on the landlord stuff, and then Daniel LeBlanc's tax article. It's a lot coming at him. We should probably note though, like while everybody is like throwing all the spaghetti at the wall here and they're taking everything Brookfield Asset Management did over the years and saying Mark Kearney is responsible for that, you really have to look at each of these

situations individually. Like in some cases, the things they're talking about, it's like Brookfield created a company which bought a company which owned a company and like the levels of responsibility aren't clear. But what is clear is that Mark Carney is going to be forced to talk about this a lot during the election campaign. Let's do Poliev down. This has shaped up to be a race between the liberals and conservatives to state the obvious. We're going to get more into detail about what is really the collapse of the NDP in many ways in a few days. But Jason, what have we seen from Polly up this week?

You know, he is, the way he's putting out promises right now, you'd think that the last few months haven't happened. That he's still fighting on these affordability issues. He's still talking about making life cheaper for Canadians, which look, a lot of Canadians need. But there has been this public sense that the conversation about Donald Trump and tariffs has taken over, but he is still bringing it back to some bread and butter affordability issues. He came out on the first full day of the campaign talking about a tax cut bigger than the one that Mark Carney and liberals were promising. Mark Carney was going to drop the lowest tax income bracket by 1%. They're going to one up and say 2.25%. The average Canadian would save about $900

a year, double the savings from under the Liberal plan. Every single Canadian who pays income tax will pay less. Then the next day on housing, the Liberals were saying they're gonna give a GST break for all first-time home buyers on houses under a million dollars which was kind of like what Paulie was already promising. Now he goes and one ups it by saying we're gonna cut the tax the GST on all homes under 1.3 million dollars because of inflation I guess. It's almost surreal isn't it? You know 10 years ago a million dollars would have got you a castle on a mountain overlooking a valley of gold.

Even though house prices have kind of stabilized in the time that he's been making that promise today we on Wednesday we heard about him promising stuff for seniors. He's still using the old bring it home slogan that we heard him use up until recently where he had to change it to Canada first and then Canada first for a change. We must work together, fight together, and win together. That is what it means to put Canada First. Let's bring it home! So I think he is hoping that he can make the ballot question still more about affordability.

What do you guys think? Like, what do you think of that strategy? Because certainly affordability issues are still polling right up there, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, he's leaning in, we have to note, on the issue set that is most likely to see him winning. It is astonishing. It's almost hallucinogenic how badly the Liberals have destroyed our

housing market and with it, the Canadian promise. You're right, Jamie. When you look at public opinion polling across the opinion polling, the number one issue is affordability. The number two is dealing with Donald Trump. It's pretty clear based on, again, what we've seen from opinion polling, that Polyev is more likely to thrive if the ballot question is who's going to make my life more affordable, who's more focused on that. And Carney is more likely to win if the ballot question is who is in the best position to

take on Donald Trump. Also this is more comfortable turf for Pierre Poliev. I mean you look at some of these rallies he's giving, it's the same speech he's been giving for literally years, right? He knows these issues, he's connected with a lot of Canadians on these issues, so he's going to continue pushing them. I think the question is, you know, what happens in the next few weeks and whether that proves to be the right gamble. There seems to be some pretty big crowd sizes.

Apolyev's rallies, 2,500 at a hotel just outside Toronto, an estimated 4,500 in Hamilton Tuesday night. We had a crowd wrapped around this building out to the QEW. If that doesn't say that people are ready for Canada first for a change, I don't know what does. What do you make of this? Does crowd size actually matter? I think it's like an indicator, right? It's not a definitive thing. The thing that was striking for me was just not just that all

those people showed up, but how enthusiastic they were. I was watching a bit of the rally in Hamilton, Ontario, and I was struck by the fact that he still got this line about, none of my ministers will ever go to the World Economic Forum. So this is like Poliev's greatest hits, right? We're back to the leadership debate and some of the things that he was putting out that were considered sort of like more wedge or niche issues. The room went wild. And I will ban all my ministers from any involvement in the World Economic Forum. Like right now in this moment of Donald Trump, that stuff is doing really well with people who like Pierpollio enough to take time out of their weekday and show up at one of these rallies, right? The question is, is he just sticking to the safe territory while the broader public moves

on or has he zeroed in on connecting to people in this really intense way, in a way that his political opponents are failing to do? And again, like we just don't know yet. One of the big questions in that is how, what those people do after they attend the rally. It's great to have 5,000 people at your rally or whatever he had. It's another thing to get those people after the rally on the phones, encouraging their friends, their neighbors, their family to vote for him. If it's just, you know, those 5,000 people in a box. I mean, there were cases where, you know, in 2000,

I remember reading about how the Green Party leader, Ralph Nader, filled Madison Square Garden right before the election. Whoopie-doo, he finished third. It might also be worth noting that Kamala Harris had much larger rallies than Donald Trump very recently. Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad. But when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims, all while armed guards stand by with shoot to kill orders. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime

podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi billion dollar criminal empire operating in plain sight. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, let's move on. Lots of stuff comes up during election campaigns and the campaigns have to react to it. One big thing dropped this week in the Globe and Mail. On Tuesday, it was a piece citing a source with top secret clearance. It said that CSIS had learned that Indian agents were raising money for and organizing for Poliev during his leadership race back in 2022. Now, there is no suggestion here

that swung his win or that Poliev and his team knew anything about it. Poliev swept that race. But the big problem for Poliev here is that the piece said that he was never told about the interference because he has refused to get his security clearance. And Catherine, just give us a bit more context here. If you could lay out the arguments on both sides for me, why has Poliev refused to get his security clearance? Catherine Kerstle Well, he says, Jamie, that if he got his security clearance, it would basically be the liberals muzzling him,

that he would learn information and then he wouldn't be able to speak out critically against the government. He's using pretty pointed language to make that point. They don't want me to be able to speak about these matters. So they bring me into a dark room and they'll say, we're gonna give you a little bit of breadcrumbs of Intel. And then we'll tell you, you can't talk about any of this stuff anymore.

The thing is, that is not how security clearance works based on everything that we have heard from experts, people who have spent a lot of time in the security and intelligence world. Some of them point out that, for instance, this is a common practice in cross-commonwealth countries, right? People get briefed, they can still speak publicly, they just can't reveal top secret information. The other part of this is that Pierre Poliev keeps suggesting that it's like the liberals who are going to brief him and try to do something very partisan here. These briefings actually come from the non-partisan civil service. So this is really not supposed to be this like big wedge partisan issue. I think part of what is going on here is that Pierre Pauliev has dug in on this issue. This

is something we've been talking about for months and months, like years really, because of- Forever, yes. Forever, because of the discussion around foreign interference. So he drew a line in the sand months, if not years ago, on this security clearance issue, and he's dug in. And I'm not sure that like right at this moment, it's kind of hard to comprehend, like, why don't you just go do the thing? So is this just that he doesn't want to back off?

Let's be clear. I think there are certainly corners of the internet that have some big conspiracy theories about why Pierre Poliev isn't getting this security clearance. It's true. He had it when he was a cabinet minister. Then it'll last forever. You know, he would have to get vetted again. Is there something in his background? There's never been a shred of evidence. There's never been any meaningful suggestion that there's something that's preventing him from doing it. It seems to be, on the face of it, a political choice that he's making,

one he's taken a lot of flak for, but he's not exactly the kind of guy to swallow himself whole and go, oh, you know what, I changed my mind. So I think this is a case of him sticking to his guns and deciding that it's worth the flak. I know he said many people are criticizing him for this, pundits, other politicians, opposition leaders. I find it beyond baffling. I find it downright irresponsible

that the leader of the opposition, day after day, month after month, year after year, refuses to obtain his security clearance. I think the real question is, why didn't he? Why didn't he actually get security clearance and answer that question himself. Get the information and then take the steps necessary. But the former leader of the NDP, Tom Mulcair, did recently defend Poliev for this saying

that he does think that it muzzles the leader of the opposition. You do not accept to play this mugs game where you restrain your ambit and your ability to act as leader of the official opposition, which is a constitutional role to hold the government to account. I can point out that's what Tom Mulcair, who was last opposition leader, you know, almost a decade ago says, but that's not what other leaders who are currently, you know, have security clearance are saying. You know, if Francois Blanchet, Liz May, they say that there's no reason he shouldn't get clearance.

Tomo Care says a bunch of things too that a lot of parties might look askance at, including now telling people that people should not vote for the NDP, his former party. So go figure. Yes, that Tomo Care, always spicy, always spicy. Guys, though, how much of a problem do you really think this is for Polio? This story about security clearances and election interference can be very hard and frankly annoying to follow because so much of it is cloaked in secrecy

because of national security interests, quote unquote. I mean, what do you think? Is this a real problem? On one level. No. Go ahead, go ahead you think? Is this a real problem? On one level, they don't want to see the term foreign interference anywhere near your name. It conjures up image of, you know know Vladimir Putin pulling the strings on Trump people or you know that old movie the Manchurian Canada where a candidate is basically this drone sent in by China to Undermine the US so there are those you know that there's that new window

The reality is a lot of foreign interference a lot of stuff including what what has been alleged in various cases is much more subtle It's you's people having meetings, members of governments, delegates from India or from China, trying to infiltrate their way in and influence and maybe get some kind of, it's almost like a spy ops sort of thing. It's not like totally influencing throwing an election. But when this stuff started coming out that Canada had these issues that they were kind of being left unchecked or not very well monitored, it was the conservatives under poly up that were really trying to hammer the liberals trying to

get this foreign interference inquiry. You know, and did it produce a lot that damage anyone partying more than others necessarily? No, I mean, it always looks bad in the government when you're not, when the security apparatus isn't working enough. But then it kind of heightens everybody's awareness to this fact. And the first leaders they'll get to may hurt the most. I think, Jamie, nobody is going to go into the voting booth and make their decision based on whether or not Pierpolliov got a security clearance,

but there's a big qualifier on this. The argument that his political opponents are making is that all parties are dealing with foreign interference, including his, and he could clean house if he had this clearance. So I think on its own, it's not an issue that's gonna drive a vote, but the danger, which is true for so many political issues,

is when this becomes a building block in a case. And if the case that starts to resonate with Canadians is this guy is too partisan, he's not willing to make the serious moves that need to be done because he's just too devoted to the partisan argument, then this is a building block that is not a good one for him.

I just think the calculation the conservatives have made is like, that's not where we're at right now. And turning himself around on this issue is not something that's frankly in his disposition. Lots of derision from conservatives at the Globe was like in the bag for the liberals. Tuesday with this piece, well, they have now dropped another piece

based on more unnamed sources sources saying that liberal MP Chandra Arya has been banned from running for the Liberals because of his alleged ties to India. This is the writing that Mark Carney has chosen to run in. Catherine, we have two stories here, one alleging India was trying to help Paliya get elected as leader, the other alleging that there is a liberal with close ties to India, and that's enough of a problem to get him barred from running under their banner. What are people even supposed to make of this? I mean, I actually think probably the most important takeaway from all of this is just

a flashing reminder to Canadians that there are foreign governments interested in messing with our politics. I think that is like the biggest day-to-day takeaway. When we talk about Chandra Arya specifically, he's responded to the Globe's report. He says, no one from Justin Trudeau's government ever raised any issues about who he met with. We should be clear about who he met with because this is not a small story, Jamie. Chandra Arya went to India and had a one-on-one with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which already you got a back-bench MP meeting with the leader of a global superpower. That's a pretty

surprising big deal. But add on to that the timing of this meeting in August. This is after Justin Trudeau had stood up in parliament and said, hey, Indian government, we believe we have evidence to support the idea that you were involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen. So it's a pretty wild time to be having a private meeting with the leader of that government. So, you know, Mr. Arya says no one ever raised it with him. I find that surprising, but this is where we are at. Mr. Arya says his only point of contention with the Liberal Party is that he was advocating

for issues that are important for the Canadian Hindu community, and he's taken a strong stance against Sikh extremism. I don't think we're gonna be talking about Chandra Arya in a week unless, and here would be the one thing to watch here, if his supporters are able to successfully sort of raise a ruckus around this, I think there's a world where we could see a threat of this emerge in the future, but this specific story today, I think people had a sense that

there were a lot of questions around Mr. Arya, we've only had this through the globe sources. There's been no confirmation otherwise, but I don't think that it has totally knocked anyone's socks off. This is something that I have found quite interesting in this campaign. I think it's fair to say it's a little unusual that we are seeing the role of provincial premiers loom this large during a federal campaign. And let's start with Danielle Smith. We've talked already on the show about the Breitbart interview she did the other week where she said that she has told US officials that they should lay off the tariffs because

it's helping the liberals and the US administration would be more in sync with a conservative government. Another touch point linking Poliev to Trump, which as we just discussed is not what you want to be addressing if you're a Poliev and Jason, what has happened since then? Is Poliev still struggling to address this? Has Danielle Smith does done anything to help him out? Poliev seems to just be ignoring this. He was asked in the early days, the campaign about this. And he avoided talking about Danielle Smith, who he's appeared at rallies with before.

Generally, their politics align largely, and he's been generally fine with that. He's okay aligning with Danielle Smith and all the things, not so much Donald Trump. Danielle Smith has dug in. She has refused to apologize. Asking for officials not to interfere is the very opposite of interference. And I would hope that the members opposite would like to see everything possible done to ensure that we do not have tariffs imposed on Canada at all. And she also has this, this thing that she planned that had driven a lot of, that kind of confused a lot of people. She's going down to Florida to speak

at a fundraising gala for this conservative education group, PragerU, with a former Breitbart, very provocative commentator, Ben Shapiro, who said all sorts of things about 51st day in Canada, generally seems anti-tariff, but also seems anti-Canada. Of course it's funny that Donald Trump called Justin Trudeau the governor of our 51st state. That's hilarious. I love it.

It's great. And again, I'm not saying we should, you know, take... I'm not saying Canadians should vote in American elections, God forbid or something. I mean, we can annex it and then just call it an outlying territory or something. Puerto Rico, but of the North. Kind of into it. She's sitting down with him at this gala, fundraising gala, this private gala,

and every of these seems to be wondering, why are you, is this part of your diplomatic tariff tour? And Daniel Smith says, well, yes it is. Maybe I can influence some more conservatives to be against tariffs. I'm fiercely criticized for going into the lion's den to change the hearts and minds of the very Americans that we need on Canada's side to avoid a trade war with the most powerful economy on earth. They want this lady and Alberta to just sit down and shut up. Well, here is

my response to that. I will not be silent. Alberta will not be silent. But everybody's worried about what she's going to say, what might come out. Because it seems like when she's talking to Americans, as opposed to talking to Canadians, her message might be different. I can see that the Liberals have really seized on this. They actually have an attack ad specifically focused on Smith's comments to Breitbart. The perspective that Pierre would bring would be very much in sync with, I think, where the new direction in America.

What part of Trump's vision is peer in sync with? Catherine, how big of a problem is Danielle Smith for Poliev? Is she a big problem? You know the way that Smith was saying, well, I approached the Trump administration folks and I said, can you guys put a cork in it until the election's over? This really isn't helping us out. You would think that the people around pure Poliev, ifarpolyev himself, are like, hey, Danielle

Smith, do you think you could put a quirk in some of this stuff for the next five weeks is really not helping me out? I do think, I mean, it's worth noting Piyarpolyev has actually never made like a big endorsement of any of the conservative provincial premiers. He was such a powerful force in conservative politics. He came in with such a big leadership win. He's always done his own thing. So he doesn't like hitched his boat directly to any of the conservative provincial premiers,

but they're still cut from ultimately the same ideological cloth. And when you have a conservative premier saying, oh, look, he's in sync with Donald Trump. And that is in many ways, one of the worst possible messages for Pierre Polyev's electoral fortunes. You know, they can't be happy about this.

Let's talk about another premier now, Doug Ford. Polyev seems to be getting the cold shoulder from Ontario's premier right now, who is, of course, also a conservative. The Toronto Star reported last week that according to sources, Poliev had reached out to Ford for support, but Ford told Poliev that he was too busy governing Ontario. Of course, people will know that Ford just got a massive majority. So he's very, very popular. Catherine, what did you make of that story?

We have to say first and foremost that both Doug Ford and Pierre Pauliev have publicly denied this story. But listen, everybody who follows politics somewhat closely, everyone in Ottawa and around Parliament Hill could tell you there's not a lot of love lost between these two. And it's interesting because as you said, they're both conservatives. Of course, Ford is a progressive conservative, Pierre Pauliev, Conservative Party of Canada. You could call them both populists, but they practice politics in pretty different ways. Doug Ford, he has sometimes a bit of this like, ah, shucks, just working my back off over here vibe.

Not ideologically rigid. He is somebody who is happy to reverse himself to apologize for things if he thinks it's in his own political best interest, if he thinks it's what the people who are voting for him want. Pierre Poliev is very firm in his political views, kind of a policy wonk in a way that Ford isn't.

Um, if you want a sense of like how touchy this is, I would say look to when conservative MP Jamil Javani, who used to have a role as an advisor for Ford, when he was elected in a by-election. He was giving a speech and he complained about the liberal elites who run the Ontario Ministry of Education in this province. That's the progressive conservative government that Doug Ford runs. Ford pushed back on this and basically said, to be very frank, you go to root cause, he wouldn't even be where he is if I didn't give him that opportunity. So I just want to wish Jamil all the best. Maybe he should come in. I'll give him a couple lessons on how to speak to, you know, his constituents.

And I think long story short, things are frosty there. They are not inclined to help one another out. And while there is like, you know, I'll talk to conservative MPs will say oh I get along with the the PC MPP in my writing there's there's there's clearly some tension between the provincial and federal folks. Let's look forward here just to wind this down. What can we expect in the coming days heading into the next week from the campaigns, but also from external factors here? Catherine? Are you talking about Donald Trump, Jamie?

You must mean Donald Trump. I might be talking about him. External factors. I think I'm talking about, I believe that the US administration is calling it Liberation Day, right? April 2nd. Woo! Woo! Listen, Donald Trump is the specter hanging over this entire political campaign. He is the one who dramatically changed the calculus here. Yes, obviously Justin Trudeau stepping away as a leader of the Liberal Party was a big part of this, but big part of Mark Carney's rise,

I think, has to do with this moment we're in and the political calculation that Canadians are making about who is best suited to deal with Donald Trump. Frankly, I'm going to tempt fate here. I'm sorry, Canada. He's been kind of quiet, it feels like, about Canada lately. But I think when he leans in again, be it on April 2nd and their questions, how hard does he go against Canada versus the rest of the world, whether he steps up on something else like auto tariffs, you name it, you know, more of this 51st state talk, whatever it is, it has the real potential to shake things up on the election campaign. Right. And I'll just note, again, we're talking kind of early afternoon, Wednesday, and there's actually reporting from Bloomberg that these auto tariffs could come down as soon as today,

as soon as Wednesday. So it's possible that they're in place even by the time that people listen to this podcast tomorrow. Jason, final word. I mean, April 2nd is going to be a big day. April 1st is going to be an interesting day in Canada. listen to this podcast tomorrow. Jason, final word. I mean, April 2nd is going to be a big day. April 1st is going to be an interesting day in Canada and some people here might call Liberation Day. That's the day the carbon tax comes off and people will see that change that Pierre Pauliev has long wanted and that Carney promised as his first big act. People will see their gas becoming 17 cents or so cheaper right that day. The other thing I think everybody's wondering is, is this a sugar high for liberals on the polls that they're leading, that they've surged up from nowhere to come back and be the dominant

force in popular opinion right now? Or is it going to be ephemeral? Is it going to change? Odds are that it's going to change. If I look at the last three elections and the trend line, the lead of the polls has changed hands every of the last three elections, 2015, 2019, and 2021. And the polls are tight enough that it's probably safe to expect that events may shift for the polls to change, least change this one too. And the one other thing I'd say too is both in the cases of Carney and Poliev, they haven't run a national election campaign before. Who's going to shoot themselves in the foot? Who's going to step on a rake, right? It's that

inexperience. What sort of unanticipated moments could that provide that's something else to watch too? Guys, this is great. Thank you so much, Jason. I really appreciate that you appropriated Liberation Day to take it as our own. It's our own. We have annexed it. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jamie. Before we sign off today, sure enough, Catherine did tempt fate. A few hours after we finished recording, US President Donald Trump signed

an executive order and promised tariffs on all cars not made in the United States. From what we can gather right now, Trump suggested the tariffs would start on April 2nd at 2.5% and then ramp up to 25%. They will apply to finished cars and some components such as engines. Autos are the second largest Canadian export after oil linked to hundreds of thousands of jobs. So this is poised to have major impacts here in Canada and will obviously take center stage on the election campaign. Carney, for example, is returning to Ottawa to convene a meeting with the Canada-U.S. Council. Stay tuned. We're going to be following all of this really closely.

But that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.