Front Burner - Inside a Pierre Poilievre Conservative leadership rally

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

It's still early in the Conservative leadership race, but candidate Pierre Poilievre seems to have momentum. He's drawing big crowds at rallies across the country with promises to make Canada "the freest country on Earth." Front Burner producer Allie Jaynes introduces you to some of the people who attended a Toronto event last week, and CBC Politics senior reporter Catherine Cullen gives context around those crowds and how Poilievre's brand of populism compares to past candidates.

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 Jamie Poisson. We're here today, ladies and gentlemen, please, a round of applause in welcoming my husband, Jack Poisson. As Pierre Polyev continues his bid to be leader of the Conservative Party, he's been holding these rallies across the country.

Pretty normal. Leadership candidates do this kind of thing. But what's unusual is that the crowds at these rallies, they're pretty big, even though the vote isn't until September. 1,600 in Vancouver earlier this month, 1,800 in Winnipeg, 5,000 in Calgary. So we wanted to get a sense of what's bringing so many people out to see Polyev speak and who's going. Today, we're going to take you inside one of those rallies. A little later, we'll also speak to CBC reporter Catherine Cullen, who's been covering the conservative leadership race. And we'll talk about these crowds and whether the solutions to people's problems are as simple as what

Polyev is suggesting. But first, our producer, Allie Janes, is here to talk about what she saw and who she spoke to at a Polyev meet and greet in Toronto last week. Hi, Allie. Hey, Jamie. So first, I know you barely made it inside the rally. What happened? Yeah, so maybe bad judgment on my part.

Like doors were at seven. I arrived just after seven. It was at this big hall that's part of the Steam Whistle Brewery in downtown Toronto. And there was like a huge line around the building by the time I got there. And by the time I got to the front of the line, they said, like, sorry, we're at capacity. The rest of you will have to go watch on a screen in the overhead room next door. So I basically like begged and pleaded with the door guy to let me in. But organizers told me, and they had 650 people in that main hall

and 500 in the overhead. Here's the scene, he can hear you. So let's do it again louder. Let's make some noise. And broad strokes, like who were these people? Young, old, diverse crowd? Yeah, so, I mean, the crowd was majority white, but there were a fair number of people of color there.

There were more men than women. But to me, the most noticeable thing was the age range. There was definitely a wide range of ages there, but there were a lot of people in their 20s and 30s, you know, more than you might expect to see at a rally for a conservative candidate, because conservatives tend not to be as popular with those age groups. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So anyway, I ended up talking to a lot of young people, and I talked to a few of them who were like Pierre Pauliev super fans. Like I talked to a few of them who were like Pierre Polyev super fans. Like I talked to the 23-year-old Sahil Chhabra.

Had you ever seen him speak before tonight? Yes, I've been following him for almost four and a half years. Yeah, since like before I came to Canada, I've been following Pierre Polyev. Before you came to Canada? Yeah. No way, like what? Okay, so get this. He says when he was 19 and still living in India, he read about Polyev on, like, I don't know what it was,

but some list of the most competent politicians in the world. When did you first find out about him? I was figuring out a good list, most competent politicians of the world, and I think his name was in that list. And I started watching House of Common Debates. No way. Yeah. So I think that's was in that list. And I started watching House of Common Debates. Yeah. So I think that's how I find him.

And I think he's a well candidate for the prime minister. He's been following him for four and a half years. Like I know Polyev has been around for a while, but like I certainly wouldn't peg him as one of the more high profile politicians in Canada, particularly with like international star power. Totally. And I mean, look, I have no idea what this list was, but yeah, definitely. I was quite surprised by this. So, okay, I also talked to a 32-year-old accountant named Jeffrey Jones. First time I noticed him, I was watching an episode of the finance committee,

and he was just grilling the former minister, Bill Morneau. And I thought, man, this guy's a really smart dude. He really knows his stuff and he's a politician. And he said he's been following Polyev for years. He watches videos of him speaking in the House of Commons all the time. And he's just really inspired by him. And I'm a Gemini like him as well, so I saw some commonalities in him, but well, Geminis are very humorous. They speak very directly. They're very honest. They say what's on their minds. And the youngest person I talked to was 18 years old.

He was this university student named Owen Webb, and he just got really into Polyev in high school. They speak more to me. He speaks more to me because he's more of a genuine person. Right. I see myself in him. I see many other people in him. Right. He really gives me hope. The other people don't necessarily give me much hope. right? It really gives me hope. The other people don't necessarily give me much hope. Wow. I want to get more into why the people you spoke to like Polly so much in a little bit. But first, can you just tell me what what like actually happened at this meeting? Like who spoke at it? What were their speeches? Yeah, so first his wife and Aida came out. And you know, she talked about her own story of coming to Montreal from Venezuela and, you know, her family working to make ends meet and eventually find a success.

When my father immigrated here, he had to jump on the back of a pickup truck and go and pick up vegetables because that's what you had to do for a living back then. go and pick up vegetables because that's what you had to do for a living back then. And then she talked about her husband also coming from humble beginnings. He was born to a teenage mother. He was adopted by two school teachers in Calgary. And, you know, she talked about both of them being raised to value hard work. And here we are, West, East, French, English. Our household is diversity and unity all at once. And that is our Canada. And then what happened when Polyam took the stage? I mean, people went wild.

Like, the cheers were huge. And, I mean, this crowd was loving his jokes. Oh, my goodness. We've got a troubled microphone. Is Justin Trudeau messing with my mic already? He knows that I've never met a mic I didn't like. Okay, so maybe you had to be there for that joke. Beyond the jokes, what were some of his big messages?

Yeah, so he had this really tight, focused speech. And, you know, everything kind of fit into like two themes that are pretty core Pierre Polyev ideas, which are personal freedom and fiscal responsibility. But lately, people have not felt so free in this country, have they? No big, bossy governments have tried to dictate our health decisions. So in terms of freedom, you know, we talked a lot about vaccine mandates and about businesses being shut down by the pandemic. The small businessman who mortgaged his house to open a restaurant only to have it shut so many times he couldn't open it anymore. And that's just the medical freedoms that we...

And I mean, I'm just going to note, those shutdowns were put in place by provincial governments. It's not a federal thing, but it was definitely a big part of the messaging and kind of how he was like getting the crowd riled up. Yeah, yeah. And on a similar note, Polyev has received a lot of criticism, right, for his support of the convoy protests that shut down border crossings in Ottawa for weeks. He has said that it's about supporting freedom, supporting free speech,

and that the whole movement shouldn't be responsible for, like, extremist views that only a few people who were there held. We believe in supporting the peaceful protest by legitimate truckers who simply want to protect their livelihoods. We can simultaneously do that while denouncing anyone who promotes extremism. Yeah, totally. And I mean, just to be really clear, though, you know, some of the key figureheads of those protests have expressed white supremacists and anti-Islam conspiracy theories. And, you know, there were credible threats of violence from some of the

protesters. We're aware of a small organized group within that larger Quds border protest, border blockade, that had weapons, ammunition, and that seemed to indicate that if police were to try and move in and end that blockade, that they might be willing to act. So, you know, that's a big part of why Polyev has been criticized here. And what about the fiscal responsibility part of his message? Yeah, so his other main theme here was about the rising cost of living, which obviously hits home for a lot on the housing crisis. a buck, 70, a litre, to fill up his tank. And in particular, he focused a lot on the housing crisis.

Canada has the second biggest housing bubble on earth. Vancouver is the third most unaffordable housing market in the world. And Toronto is the 10th, ahead of New York, Los Angeles, London, England, other places with more money, more people, and less land. And he kept coming back to this theme about how immigrants and working class people can't get in on that money because they don't have either the credit history, the collateral, or the access to financing to do it. Are, you know, kind of being screwed over by the wealthy and powerful, like investors and corporations and politicians. We need to take control of money away from politicians and bankers

and give it back to the people. And by what he calls gatekeepers. That means getting rid of the gatekeepers, right? The gatekeepers who stand in the way of our people. So what's happening is the gatekeepers are preventing the construction of the new housing and effectively shutting young people, immigrants, and the working class out of homes. Enough is enough. A Paulian government will stand in the way of our people.

You know, some of these ideas, they're not so different from what you might hear from some politicians on the left, eh? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. And I mean, also, just to be really clear, even if we set aside some of these like kind of vague terms like gatekeepers, I mean, some of the issues he's talking about here are totally real. For example, there's a StatsCan report from this month that found that investors, meaning people who own multiple homes, own about a third of the housing stock in major Canadian cities. So this is a real thing. Speaking of investors, it's probably worth mentioning here that Polyev and his wife own rental properties themselves. And a journalist from CTV actually, I saw asked him the other day about whether he's contributing to your problem. He says he wants to fix.

You co-own a real estate investment firm in Calgary and your wife also owns a rental property in Ottawa that she doesn't live in. Buying and renting properties as an investment can contribute to increased competition in the housing market. So aren't you contributing to that problem? No, not at all.

We're helping solve the problem by providing affordable rental accommodations to two deserving families. But anyways, in his speech, what did Polyev say he's going to do to make life more affordable for Canadians? Yeah, so I mean, if you've followed Polyev much, you may be familiar with his main thesis here. And with this term he has, just inflation. Mm-hmm. The cost of government is ballooning the cost of living. Inflationary taxes and deficits

are driving up living expenses for all Canadians. More dollars chasing fewer goods always leads to inflation. But that's what happened. He says that the Trudeau government is driving up inflation by, on the one hand, printing money, and thereby by putting too much cash into circulation in the economy. Today, you know, we have $400 billion pumped into the financial system to bid on the same nearly fixed supply of up too big of deficits by spending.

accompanying it to the financial system. The people who get that money are those who have most access to the banking and financial system. The wealthy, the investor class, the number of mortgages that have gone to investors has increased by 100% since the government started renting money two years ago. Listeners may have heard the episode we did a few months ago on this idea of just inflation. But I just want to point out, firstly,

it is definitely true that Canada's inflation is skyrocketing. But a lot of economists say the reasons are a lot more complex than federal government spending, right? That it has a lot to do with the pandemic and supply chains, a bunch of other global issues. There's a war in Ukraine that's driving up oil prices, for example. So not to let the federal government off the hook here, but it's probably partly out of their hands. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I mean, Canada also isn't the only country that's seeing major inflation right now. And, you know, something else we've also covered on the show is that there's also debate among economists about whether deficits or

printing money are actually even a problem or not. Like there are, you know, multiple schools of thought on this. But anyway, you know, Polyev's solutions here are mostly pretty classic, fiscally conservative policies. Like he said, he'd cut spending. He'd cut certain taxes, including the carbon tax. He'd stop printing more money. He'd balance the budget. And he also said that, you know, to make it easier to build more houses and increase the housing supply, he'd get rid of red tape

and what he calls municipal gatekeeping. Enough is enough. A poly of government will stand up to the gatekeepers by imposing real financial penalties on gatekeeping municipal politicians who stand in the way of construction. Here's how it will work. One, a poly of government will have a bureau in the infrastructure department to receive and investigate complaints of egregious examples of nimbyism and gatekeeping, and we'll withhold infrastructure funds from politicians

that carry out that nimbyism and gatekeeping. Secondly, if municipalities want to have more infrastructure dollars, a polyam government will tie those dollars to new completed houses built. If you want more money, you have to allow for more houses. This idea of tying infrastructure dollars to completed houses, it sounds a lot like the liberals' housing accelerator plan. I want to ask our colleague Catherine about that a little bit later. But, Ali, what did people you spoke to think about what Polyev was saying in his speech? I mean, firstly, I think people I talked to loved it overall.

You know, they were really affected by it. But, I mean, the main thing that clearly resonated with people I talked to loved it overall. You know, they were really affected by it. But I mean, the main thing that clearly resonated with people I talked to, especially young people, was the affordability stuff. I mean, the housing crisis is, like I said, something that I deal with day to day. My money is literally, majority of it goes towards paying rent. But I can tell you from my experiences, half of my classmates are not able to afford their rent, their tuition. They're going through a crisis out there and

there's no... With the amount of debt that we have and with the inflation we have, I'm worried that I'll lose my future. It seems like he really cares about a lot of issues I care about, like, you know, low-income people, the housing crisis, the carbon tax crisis. And Polyev hasn't actually given a lot of details about how he would balance the budget, but pretty often that does mean cuts to social programs, which are often there to support lower-income people. And so were people you talked to concerned about that at all? So I asked a few people about this.

There was a young woman named Hillary Lockhart who I spoke to, and she talked about growing up below the poverty line. Both my parents are extremely poor. They work, you know, minimum wage jobs. They can't even make ends meet. I know my mother, she's in gear to income housing in northwestern Ontario, and she can't even afford to both buy groceries and pay her rent. And do you have any concerns that, I mean, if a conservative government, you know, got rid of certain social programs, like, would that be something that could also affect your family?

I don't think so, no. I'm not really concerned in any least bit about anything like that. I think that, you know, why... And I also asked a similar question about possible cuts to a 25-year-old named Alex Francione, who was also really concerned about, you know, these affordability issues and the housing crisis. And he really connected to Polyev's messages about, you know, fixing those issues

by balancing the budget. And, you know, he told me, of course, people need help. But at some point, we need to understand that the hardworking taxpayer, the blue collar worker, ultimately, they should be able to live a life that their parents generation was able to live. I don't see why social programs that exist have to be completely eradicated for that to happen. I think we just need to balance the books. Were most of the people you talked to already supporters of the Conservative Party? Or was it about Polyev himself or them? Yeah, so this was so interesting to me because they weren't necessarily conservatives. They weren't necessarily even interested in politics before this. I talked to a guy named Ian Wright,

who told me he's in no way a real conservative. I hated Stephen Harper. You know, I wanted him to go so badly. I was so happy when he got out. I voted Liberal all the way up until about 2010. My brother ran for the Green Party. I started voting for the Green Party, and the Green Party kind of lost its way. But he's the first one I felt really inspired that he's saying it from his heart. He's not saying it just for political points.

I actually signed up to be a member of the Conservative Party. I never in my life thought I would do that. And Alex Francione, who you heard earlier, he told me his family would not be caught dead at a Conservative rally. I've come from a traditional NDP liberal household. My parents have never in their entire life voted conservative. I found that as a child growing up into my adolescence, I had always leaned more towards liberal ideals. And as I get older, I start to see that the left has no longer become, they used to be for the working class. They looked out for the everyday man, union people, middle class. I've seen a complete shift from the liberal NDP representing the middle class to Pierre Pallier. Regardless of

his party, he seems to have completely turned this into a nonpartisan issue. I support him. I also talked to a young woman named Katie who said her politics now, you know, they still lean left. I do believe in like a universal base income. So in that level, I would support like the NDP. And so she's not a hardcore poly up supporter at this point. She's not necessarily sold on him at all. She just came to the rally to check it out because she thought some of his ideas were interesting. Free speech. Definitely the fact that he's for the worker class, which I do also find interesting because historically I wouldn't say that conservative leaders are.

And, you know, she's not sold on him at all, but she did like some of his messages, especially on housing. on him at all, but she did like some of his messages, especially on housing. She's a cook, and especially in the pandemic, she's been struggling to keep up with rent. Especially at this moment in my life, because I've had issues finding jobs and keeping jobs because of COVID. So I honestly, I think anyone who would be able to deal with that, no matter how they go about that, would be something that I support. who would be able to deal with that no matter how they go about that would be something that like I support. This is so interesting, Ali. I feel like that's indicative of the fact that so many people right now are looking for like a political home. Yeah. But, you know, the other thing that I mean, I heard from a lot of people is that they're just tired of Justin Trudeau. And,

you know, they think that Polyev is the guy who has the best chance of beating him. Like, do you remember this young woman, Hillary Lockhart, who we heard from earlier? Yeah. So she's actually the lead plaintiff in a class action against Cadets Canada over their alleged handling of sexual abuse cases. And she told me that she felt like the federal government wasn't doing enough to address the issue. And, I mean, that was a big part of why she was there at a polyeth rally. Justin Trudeau is obviously telling all the victims, not only within the cadet program, but within the Canadian military,

he does not care about us, and that is why I'm here today. Because I have voted liberal in the past, and I will not be a supporter of the Liberal Party anymore. Ali, this has all been super fascinating. Thank you. Thank you so much for this. Thanks, Jamie. 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 Couops. All right, so now on to our colleague, Catherine Cullen, a senior reporter in Ottawa, for a little more on this. Hey, Catherine, thank you so much for making the time today. Hey, Jamie, I'm delighted to be here. So put these crowds into context for me. How would you compare what we're seeing here to past campaigns or even with other candidates

in this leadership race? Well, Jamie, people were already using the word unprecedented to describe what was happening with Pierre Poilier before he did those two big events in Edmonton and Calgary. Now, there are a lot of factors that play into this. Consider that during the last race, COVID was very much underway. People were staying home. So it just wasn't possible to have these kinds of gatherings. So if you do want to try to make some comparison, interestingly enough, I don't know if it quite counts as ironic, maybe it's like an Alanis Morissette version of ironic. But the person that a lot of conservatives are making a comparison to is actually somebody that Pierre Poiliev wants to fire.

And that's Justin Trudeau. Yeah, I've heard this. It's very interesting, especially when you consider how much he seems to be like the anti, seems to be billing himself as the anti-Trudeau. But just like talk to me about that a little bit more. Like, why these parallels? I think one thing is that Pierre Polyev seems to be bringing in people who are not normally engaged in politics. And that's certainly something we saw with Justin Trudeau. I was speaking with Gary Keller. He's a conservative strategist. And he said he thinks of 2015 when Justin Trudeau at the end of the election, you know, he was sort of going along the 401 and doing these they call them whistle stop rallies often, which means you just sort of pop in and give a little speech and people scream their heads off. Now is the time to make Justin Trudeau the prime minister.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the crowds that Justin Trudeau could draw at seemingly the drop of a hat. Keller really sees a comparison between that and what Polyev is doing right now. Now, I should say, Keller is remaining neutral in the race. Now, I should say, Keller is remaining neutral in the race, but if you like Pierre Polyev, or if you're hoping he's going to win this leadership competition, it is actually a comparison you'd want to make in terms of this sense of momentum. Because, listen, things worked out pretty well for Justin Trudeau. This message that he's delivering, you know, it's clear, it's timely, but it feels like the solutions are really not as simple as he's suggesting, right? Like the fix for housing

or inflation. And where do you see the flaws in this logic? And could this hurt him? You're right, I think, to say that he is looking at some incredibly complex problems and he is delivering a very simple solution to people, right? So you look at his argument, for instance, around inflation, that inflation is Justin Trudeau's fault, that it has to do with the amount of money that the government is spending. Well, if you talk to economists, they will say, listen, yes, government spending is a factor in inflation. Is it a major factor? Is it a driving force? Well, let's imagine that the government wasn't running the kind of deficits, hadn't put forward the kinds of support programs it had since the deficit began.

What is that going to do to affect, for instance, the price of oil, which is something that is driving inflation? You know, how would that change the price of housing? What would it do about supply chain issues? Right. I don't think we want to dig too deeply into the economic theory here. But the reason the price of some things is going up is just because they're harder to get. It's a simple supply and demand thing. And certainly when you look internationally, there are inflationary issues that a whole vast swath of the world is dealing with. So a lot of economists will say it's just too simple to say that it is about government spending. Yeah. And do you think that this is going to hurt him, this sort of, you know, cherry picking your facts?

I guess I'm trying to imagine that scenario. If you look at the way that Pierre Poiliev has structured his whole argument, it's that the he doesn't call them the elites, right? They're the gatekeepers. It's like the elites 2.0, essentially. But there's this whole class of people out there, and economists would be amongst them as he points to things like the actions of the Bank of Canada. There's a whole whack of people out there who are trying to benefit themselves, who've gotten rich during the past two difficult years. So I think he's suggesting that the people who might criticize this are entirely lacking in credibility. And how are people going to hear about these arguments?

Well, likely that's going to come through the media. He has quite a few things to say about what you want to call legacy media or mainstream media as well, the liberal media, right? He says that they just want to keep Justin Trudeau in power. So it's not entirely clear to me that such criticisms would necessarily be affected with a broad swath of his audience. I did want to spend a little bit of time talking about his promises around fixing the housing crisis, housing affordability, and also speaking of similarities to Justin Trudeau, some of what he's saying sounds a lot like the Liberals' housing accelerator plan. And so, you know, talk to me about that. The comparison to the Liberals is an interesting one, because on the one hand,

you have the Liberals trotting out all this money in the budget. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has said there is no silver bullet. There is no one magic solution to this. Compare that to Pierre Polyev saying stop printing money, start building houses. That's what print less money, build more houses like we are going to fix this. They are both, in a sense, talking about pouring money into the problem and the federal government trying to address it. But fundamentally, you're sort of looking at the difference between a carrot and a stick approach. The liberals are trying to motivate municipal governments by offering them more funding to help cut red tape. There is some aspects of Pierre Polyev's plan that does involve incentivizing municipal governments,

but really he's also wielding a pretty darn big stick and saying, essentially, if you don't build houses, we're not going to give you money that you would already put in your budget. So you, you gosh darn better step up. That may not be an exact quote, Jamie, but essentially, essentially in a manner of speaking, threatening them and saying that if you cannot do better, you are not going to get money to which you feel entitled. Yeah, yeah. There are a lot of aspects of what he's saying that are populist in nature, right? And so I guess, how would you compare his style of populism to what we've seen from other leaders who've gone that route over the past few years? Certainly, there have been people who have compared Pierre Polyev to Donald Trump. I think that there are similarities that you can draw and some really important distinctions that you would want to make. I mean, there are a lot of ways that Pierre Polyev has nothing to do with Donald Trump in that Pierre Polyev is well-read. He is somebody who

understands the political system very well. If you listen to his whole stump speech, there are all sorts of examples from Canadian history. I think there has also been a suggestion that perhaps he is in some way anti-immigrant, is somehow baked into the Donald Trump comparison. And again, if you were to listen to the speech at his rallies, the opposite is true. He is making direct appeals to new Canadians, talking about things like, again, that phrase, the gatekeepers, right? Punishing the gatekeepers that are stopping new arrivals from getting the accreditation for the jobs that they were doing in the countries from which they came. So that is not part of his message at all. And in fact, I think he very much sees part of his base of supporters as people who are new to Canada.

On the other hand, you do have this question of offering perhaps relatively simple answers to complex problems. You could say maybe that's what politics is all about. But Pierre Polyev has spent a lot of time thinking about just the right message. And he's also telling people, you know, the elites here, they're not here to help you, right? They're making your life worse. I'm going to make it better. So I do understand the idea that this suggestion that he is sort of fomenting a bit of a, I

don't know if it's a class divide or the frustrations that people have experienced in their lives. But again, you can also look at the Justin Trudeau comparison there, right? When Justin Trudeau would talk to people about the middle class and those who hope to join it, observers have said affordability is the new middle class. And it does feel like that's what's playing out here. So, so look like this momentum that he seems to have, I think his competitors will point out. It's not just about crowds at rallies, right? Like you need support across a range of ridings to win the leadership,

you have to translate fandom into actual votes. Globe columnist Andrew Coyne recently pointed out in this piece that like, possibly he's just exciting the already excitable, right? It is true that leadership races are an iceberg, right? We just see the little bit poking out of the water that is the size of the crowds and what's happening in the debates and what the candidates are saying in terms of their social media and their interviews with the media, when a huge part of this has to do with actually getting those people signed up, getting them out to vote. Nonetheless, it does seem pretty clear that Pierre Polyev is the frontrunner in this race. He's the person to beat. Okay.

Catherine, this is great. Thank you so much. Thank you. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.