Front Burner - How Trump is forcing the Conservatives to pivot

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Tensions over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats on Canadian goods have forced a hard reset on just about every aspect of Canada-U.S. relations.Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre responded to that on Saturday at his party’s “Canada First” rally, where he hoped to define himself and his campaign given this new political reality.Aaron Wherry is a senior writer with the CBC’s parliamentary bureau. David Coletto is CEO and founder of Abacus Data.They joined host Jayme Poisson to talk about how the Conservatives’ big event went, and the political challenges facing Poilievre, especially in light of the Liberal party’s bump in the polls.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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who are ready to put Canada first? Yeah! ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Any patriots in the room who are ready to put Canada first? Hey everybody, it's Jamie. In what has become a bit of a ritual these days, the U.S. national anthem was booed very loudly on Saturday at the Four Nations' face-off tournament game in Montreal. Canada was playing the US. And in a fitting metaphor, things immediately came to blows. Three fights broke out between the American and Canadian. Now we're nine seconds in. We had a fight too.

Seconds in, another one. One second later. Now in the center of the action, it's Colt Perreco and JT Miller. Two things I think are worth noting here. It looks like the Americans started it, and an American player, it seems, punched himself in the face. The tear of tension has forced this hard reset on just about every aspect of Canada-U.S. relations. And one of the people feeling that pretty

keenly is conservative leader Pierre Poliev. On Saturday, Poliev held this quote, Canada First rally, where he hoped to define himself and his campaign given this new political reality. So how did it go? And what tightrope is he walking right now? I've got two friends of the pod with me today to talk about all of this and I'm sure more. Aaron Wary is a senior political writer with the CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. Hey Aaron. Hey.

And David Coletto is CEO and founder of Abacus Data. David Hey, always great to have you. Hi, Jamie. Aaron, let me start with you. This Canada first rally in Ottawa, hundreds of people were there. It was expected to be an unofficial launch of the federal conservative election campaign and also really a pivot. Was it that? What was it? I think it was a bit of a pivot. You know, the kind of first phrasing from him started,

I think, very shortly after Donald Trump won the election last fall. And so it's not entirely new. But he's certainly now leaning into it much more than previously. And I think, you know, he has this rally, it's on Flag Day, it's at this moment of peak patriotism, and it's a chance for him to kind of reframe his offer. Everyone now admits or they claim to admit that conservatives were right on the liberal capital gains tax hike, that conservatives were right on the liberal capital gains tax hike, that conservatives were right on the carbon tax, on pipelines, on LNG, on fentanyl, the borders, immigration, and the need to celebrate rather than cancel our proud history and country.

You know, I think it's kind of funny because I think part of his speech was really saying, you know, all of the things that I have been calling for already are now that much more important and that much more needed and I was sort of right all along. Yeah, tell me more about like what... Yeah, like in terms of, you know, we need to, you know, him saying, you know, that the Canada needs to build pipelines. We need a plan to bring home production to this country and that's what we will have. My need a plan to bring home production to this country. And that's what we will have. My common sense plan to unleash the production of our resources.

Needs to crack down on fentanyl, and it needs to unleash economic growth and entrepreneurship and spend on the military. He's certainly trying to reframe a lot of things he was kind of already talking about as more needed now than ever. But I think it is also conspicuous how much his language has changed.

I don't think the word broken appeared anywhere in that speech yesterday. You know, the idea that Canada is broken has seemingly disappeared out of his vocabulary. David, do you wanna jump in here?, do you want to jump in here? Anything that stood out to you in particular? Well, I think two things stood out. I mean, I had written about the fact

that I thought Poliev has the Trump problem and that there's a sizeable portion of his own supporter base that really likes Donald Trump and a sizeable portion about equal the size who really doesn't. You know, what Trump has done is created a new wedge within the conservative coalition that really did not exist a few months ago or even a few weeks ago. And I think yesterday, I think I counted, he only mentioned Trump's name seven times

and a few of those were in his French and English remarks. So he did not engage directly with the president and name him, but he aggressively went after his policies. So let me be clear, we will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country. I think he tried to thread that needle and we'll see whether it was possible. But it is the big challenge I see conservatives having to face now that their coalition, which

previously was united and glued together by a common desire for change and a common antipathy towards Justin Trudeau, has now been replaced with this wedge that's kind of dividing it around how do you deal with Trump and how hard can you go on him. The liberals are really picking up on that, right? This weekend I noticed that they put out some ads really trying to nail Poliev on some of this stuff. There's this one that they put up, which is just clips of Poliev and clips of Trump side by side.

Fake news. Fake news. The left-wing censorship regime. which is just clips of of Poliev and clips of Trump side by side. And it makes the argument that Poliev can't speak for Canada when he speaks like Trump. Another ad questioned Poliev's ability to speak for Canada when, as we've been talking about, you know, he has been really focusing on how everything is broken for the last couple of years. It's not the Americans' fault. It's our fault. We're stupid. Everything in Canada is broken. Canada is broken. Everything is broken in Canada. Everything is broken.

Everything is broken. Everything is broken. Aaron, just like, did you see those ads? What did you think? So I think the liberals have been sort of playing at this argument for a while and trying know, going back to the first Trump term was, you know, don't be seen as attacking Donald Trump, don't be seen as attacking what's going on in the states. And I think that has sort of fallen away now because Donald Trump isn't just the president, he is the president who is threatening Canada. I think David's right for Pierre Poliev You know look you can you can sit down and list all the ways Pierre Poliev and Donald Trump are different

You know Pierre Poliev has not campaigned on the sort of nativist Nationalism that you see in the United States, you know, he hasn't leaned on the idea of Of illegal immigration the way Donald Trump has, so on and so forth. But some of the language and some of the things that Pierre Poliev is interested in talking about, there is overlap, right? He did use the word woke, I think, three times yesterday. He talked about cancel culture. We will defeat this insidious and divisive cancel culture that sought to destroy our national pride and monuments. They've even tried to destroy the great founder of this country, John A. MacDonald. Well, I've got a message for them.

And, you know, I think that that speaks to a certain part of the conservative base that is interested in those issues and interested in those ideas. But the flip side of that is there are lots of Canadians probably looking at what's going on in the United States and feeling pretty concerned. And so for the liberals, there's a lot of logic, I imagine, in saying, you see what's going on in the United States and listen to Pierre Poliev and notice the similarities. Yeah, if I could just add, and I mean, the reason why today this is a much bigger problem for Poliev than it was a few weeks ago, even as Canadians knew that Donald Trump was going to become president was because what he did angered so many people.

It was a sense of betrayal that now any sense that any political leader had in the past cheered for him, would have supported him, and even somewhat like him, I think brings real risk in a way that it didn't a few weeks ago. So that is part of why this landscape has changed because the public is so mad. And what's really interesting, I noted in a piece I put on my sub stack, it's baby boomers in particular. If you look at all the polls and the shift in the polls that we've seen over the last few weeks, a lot of that shift

has come among those over 60. Yeah, why? Why do you think that is? I think they are watching this more intently than anybody else. They're also much more likely to say they're going to boycott American products and companies. They're more likely to change their behavior than any other generation. So you're mixing this all in together. And then you've got, I think, the prospect of Mark Carney, which if he's not a boomer, I think he's right on the edge, but he's as boomer as they get in terms of the leaders

that we have. And there's this actually interesting moment where the liberals who a decade ago won a majority on the backs of the surge in millennial turnout, and now I think could be saved, or at least not destroyed by this spike in humor interest. By their parents. That's really interesting. Who are deeply enraged by and fearful

about what Donald Trump represents. When we're talking about this tightrope that Poliev has to walk when it comes to like rowing too close to Trump, I want to ask you about two specific things that happened. And I think the last week, week and a half, Poliev made this announcement about boosting Arctic security through a quote, massive cut to Canada's foreign aid budget. We've got enough problems at home. We've got our own backyard to protect. We can't be sending billions of dollars to other places.

Often if much of it is wasted and stolen and swallowed up by bureaucracies that act against our interest. I will be bringing our money home with massive cuts to these wasteful and corrupt foreign aid grants. bringing our money home with massive cuts to these wasteful and corrupt foreign aid grants. Which was interesting because of course in the US there are massive cuts to foreign aid right now given all this happening with USAID. And the other one that I thought was interesting was that Polly of his known of course for

being confrontational with mainstream media outlets. Late last week, he sat down with someone from a new media company called Juno News, and on their website, they talk about the importance of free speech and press freedom, which they say used to be the foundation of Canadian newsrooms until, quote, Justin Trudeau bribed every member of the legacy media with bailout money to help secure his reign as prime minister." Unquote. And in the interview, Poliev was asked whether he'd give press access

to Parliament Hill, the citizen journalists, if he was elected PM, and he responded. Absolutely. I think their independent media should be allowed on the precinct. There's no reason why it should be a small cabal of government approved mouthpieces. It is highly undemocratic. I've always believed that. a small cabal of government approved mouthpieces.

It is highly undemocratic. I've always believed that. And Aaron, you know, what, what did you make of these two moves maybe in particular? How do you think that people will react or respond to them? So the foreign aid piece, you know, in part, it's not a new position for the consul, as Andrew Scheer also talked about slashing foreign aid But but you know Paul you have doesn't just want to cut for an 80. He says that it you know, it's apparently Going most of it or much of it going to dictators terrorists and global bureaucracies You know, so the conservatives could fairly say look we've had this position for a while

the problem as you point out is for them is is that, well, that sounds like something Donald Trump's doing. And I think the other issue there is, on a larger scale, is if Canada is in a world that's going to be more uncertain and we don't have our most trusted friend and ally that we can count on, is now really the time for us to be engaging less, or doing less for other countries and taking part less in international efforts in the world. So I think there's kind of two issues there

for the conservatives. On the media piece, it sounds a bit like what's going on in the United States, right? The attitude towards the mainstream, the quote unquote mainstream media. I mean, I do think that there's a piece of it where you're seeing politicians more and more, you've seen Justin Trudeau do this too, going to sort of non-traditional media outlets, in part because these outlets have an audience

that you can reach that you maybe can't get by going on the the quote-unquote mainstream media. But it does again speak to that sort of balancing act he has where you know Pierre Poliev wants to say he's standing up against Trump and standing up for Canada but you know the liberals are going to dine out on these things of saying you know that sounds kind of, doesn't it? and the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. With less than anyone could imagine. But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness.

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So we've been talking about, well, today and also on the show for a while how that gap is closing between the Liberals and the Conservatives, but also the polling is kind of all over the place too in a way. I find it very hard to parse. So could you please parse it for me? So let's start with the thing we all agree on as pollsters, and that is the landscape is changing. There's no doubt in my mind over the last two weeks that Donald Trump has thrown a complete

grenade into the mindset of the public. But where the polls are disagreeing is on the size of the conservative lead right now. We're all showing the liberals gaining from anywhere between seven to 10 points over a few weeks, which is a massive shift that you rarely see. But the abacus poll that we released last week shows the conservatives ahead by 19.

There was an ECOS poll that came out a day later that showed them ahead by five. Both of those cannot be true. That is too big a gap. I think liberals right now in this country are more likely than they were weeks ago to be excited about answering a survey when a pollster calls them. They're engaged in the leadership race. Trump has created engagement that wasn't there before and Trudeau stepping away has given them hope. Are there more liberals? I don't think quite yet,

but there's one indicator that we all agree also is compared to a month ago, there are far more Canadians now open and reconsidering whether they'd vote liberal again, where only a month ago, more than half this country, 60, 70% were shutting that door completely. Do you have a sense of where they're getting those votes from? Is it people who previously said that they were going to go conservative, but now they'll, I don't know, go back to the Liberal Party? Or is it people who were going to vote NDP,

who now are kind of more open to voting Liberal? Well, that's the other thing I didn't mention. The NDP vote is dropping right across the board. In our poll, it's the lowest. We've measured it in years at 15%. When you put Mark Carney's name into the mix, it drops to 12%, 10 percent. That is catastrophic for the New Democrats. So we are seeing a number of New Democrat

supporters in the past saying now they would vote liberal. We are seeing some of those liberals that had migrated either to the conservatives or were saying to us they were undecided coming back to the liberals. But I still think the conservatives are holding on to a sizable group of its new coalition that includes almost all of its previous supporters and a sizable chunk of past Liberal, NDP, and People's Party supporters that is giving them still that 42, 43% share right now in vote intention. And then just tell me a little bit about what happens when you put Mark Carney's name atop the Liberal Party.

What are we seeing? Well, we're seeing evidence from almost every pollster who does it that he either completely erases the conservative lead in the case of the Leger poll that came out or in the case of an abacus poll, tightens it and takes a lot more support away from the NDP. You know, no matter how you do it, Mark Carney, hypothetically, because I still think it's somewhat hypothetical, because half the country doesn't even really know who he is, is at least right now, able to get people over whatever hurdle they had previously to

say, look, if it's him, if he's the leader of the party, I might actually vote liberal this time. Erin, you were the one who actually brought to my attention earlier this week that this boost for new leaders isn't unprecedented, right? What have we seen this before and what happened? Yeah. I mean, whenever, as I've been watching these polls come in, I have been thinking back, not from personal experience, I wasn't a journalist in 1984, but John Turner replaced Pierre Trudeau as liberal leader and prime minister in 1984 and the liberal

party which had been trailing in the polls to Brian Mulroney's progressive conservatives by a fair margin started to come up and then even going into that election John Turner and the liberals seemed to have or felt they had a small lead in the polls and that did not end well for the Liberal Party. The Progressive Conservatives went on to win a massive majority and you can put that down to a couple of things. One is the Liberal Party at that point was not really set up and ready to run an election. John Turner wasn't really ready to contest an election. David just, David just talked about sort of the hypothetical effect in polling. It's hard to know what will happen once it's not a hypothetical, right? If once Carney is the leader, or if he's the leader rather, you know, how does he fare? How do Canadians respond to him? I mean, I can, you know, speak from personal experience of covering the Liberals in 2006

and in 2011 and Stefan Diyan and Michael Ignatiev put the party into polling leads too. You know, look, the liberals can't be unhappy that their polling numbers are coming back up, but it's not the whole ballgame. I guess for me to say what this says is that campaigns matter, obviously. And we haven't seen a ton from Carney yet. We haven't seen him kind of articulate his vision for the country in any real detail quite yet. So like lots of unknowns here, right? Yeah, tons of unknowns. I mean, you can see the kind of, again, hypothetical argument, right?

Mark Carney is a serious person who has had serious jobs and this is a serious time. And he's talking about focusing on the economy, which seems to be the thing that people are worried about right now. And I think that from the outside, for those of us who aren't in the polling industry but who watch the polling industry obsessively, there was always a question of how much of this big conservative lead is because of Pierre Poliev and how much of this is because of Justin Trudeau. And the early indicators would seem to suggest that at least some of it was because of Justin Trudeau. And so you can again, yeah, you can see sort of all the hypothetical argument for himself and for why the liberals may be doing better in the polls. But it's still very early days. It seems like a lot's happened, but we're barely a month since the prime minister resigned. Justin, you know, Mark Carney's been a politician for about three weeks now.

So, yeah, it's, there's a lot, there's still a lot to come. I know there's still a long way to go, but actually there might not be that long of a way to go, right? The other big question looming over all of this is the timing of an election. I saw last week an internal memo was leaked from the NDP where the national campaign director was telling candidates and campaign staff

to be prepared for a snap-fire election as early, we'll call this early as March 10th, which I guess would put us at a like mid-May, end of May election. Carney has also said that if he has chosen as leader, he would think about just going to an election right away. And I'll put this to both of you as like a final question here. Do you think that's the most likely scenario here? David, you want to go first? Look, I think it makes a lot of sense on the one hand.

I think it forces the conservatives into a spending limit that they don't have right now. It doesn't require, let's assume Mark Carney is the prime minister, to have to do anything actually. And when you start doing things in response to, let's say, tariffs that might come in in March, you might have a debate about whether that was the right thing to do or not. And you don't necessarily want to do that. So it allows you to take the momentum you have with that election as leader and keep it going.

So it makes some sense to me. On the other hand, is the Liberal Party ready? Can it run a national campaign as it just pivots away from a leadership? Erin, what do you think? Final thoughts? I mean, I do think there's a pretty clear argument for going early, at least not going back to parliament. The idea that there'd be an election, that Mark Carney would become liberal leader on March 9th and then proceed directly to Rideau Hall on March 10th for an

election is a bit far-fetched, I think. I literally don't know whether you can work that timing out. But that he would not bother coming back to Parliament on when it's due back March 24th makes sense in a lot of ways because you just don't have to bother with a thrown speech. You don't have to bother getting ready to meet Parliament and run government and all of those things. The flip side of that is, you know, tell me what the state of the world and the continent is going to be in mid-March. The one argument for bringing Parliament back, the strongest argument, would be if there's some kind of emergency that needs to be dealt with. You know, if you need parliament there to pass legislation or take measures to deal with some kind of economic emergency brought on by tariffs or something else, you know, then maybe you do bring parliament back, at least for a little bit,

and try to kind of put something in place to deal with that. It's just so hard to know what the world's gonna look like in a month that it's really hard to predict. It still seems more than likely that we have an election sooner rather than later, but the last month and a few days has taught us not to make predictions about these things. And if I could just add one other thing, if it is Mark Kearney, do you bring a parliament back when you don't have a seat in it?

Yeah. Which makes it awkward, I think, to lead through a crisis and not be in that house of commons. You can't be in the room. Yes. Yeah. So that makes it, I think, another, I think that adds another check to the call it earlier if you can,

because you don't then have to deal with the fact that you'd be the first prime minister, I think, without a seat either in the House or the Senate. First since Turner. Lots of John Turner today. Guys, it's always a pleasure to have you both here. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jamie.

Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Jamie. All right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.org. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, click on the link in the description. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, click on the link in the description. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, click on the link in the description.

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