Front Burner - Politics! Carney pulls ahead, Ford to trigger election

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

The Liberal leadership race really got underway this week. Mark Carney wracked up endorsements from current cabinet ministers, while Chrystia Freeland pitched herself as running against the "Ottawa establishment".Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is calling an early election on Wednesday in hopes of shoring up another strong mandate, and capitalize on his visibility during the tariff fight.Vandana Kattar is a former advisor to Justin Trudeau, and a political strategist. Dennis Matthews is the President of the a national advertising agency Creative Currency, a conservative strategist and former advertising director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Mélanie Riche is Principal at Earnscliffe Strategies and former Director of Communications for the NDP and Jagmeet Singh. They join host Jayme Poisson to talk about it all.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

What does a mummified Egyptian child, the Parthenon marbles of Greece and an Irish giant all have in common? They are all stuff the British stole. Maybe. Join me, Mark Fennell, as I travel around the globe uncovering the shocking stories of how some, let's call them ill-gotten, artifacts made it to faraway institutions. Spoiler, it was probably the British. Don't miss a brand new season of Stuff the British Style. Watch it free on CBC Gem. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi everyone, it's Jamie. If you're listening to this because you search for podcasts about any one of the wild news stories that seem to break all the time now, why not give us a follow?

We cover the biggest and most interesting stories of the day five times a week. So please hit that follow button. Okay, thanks. Here's today's show. Hey, everybody. Jamie here. So there is lots to talk about today in the land of Canadian politics. Hey everybody, Jamie here. So there is lots to talk about today in the land of Canadian politics.

Not only is the Liberal leadership race well underway, but Doug Ford has said that Ontario will be headed to the polls as early as February 27th. Right now there's a lack of leadership at the federal level. We don't know who's going to be the next prime minister. Right now, we need strong leadership in this country. We need strong leadership in this province, and we're going to deliver that strong leadership for the people of Ontario. So we have convened a political panel to talk about all of this and more.

We have three astute political minds here, each with ties to one of the three main political parties. Vandana Katar is a former advisor to Justin Trudeau and a political strategist. She is also one of the hosts of Race to Replace, a podcast about the liberal leadership race. Vandana, hi, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, Jamie, thanks for having me. Great to have you. Dennis Matthews is here.

He is the president of Creative Currency, a national advertising agency, a conservative strategist, and former advertising director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Hey, Dennis. Hey, thanks for having me. And Melanie Richet is principal at Ernst-Gliff Strategies and former director of communications for the NDP and Jagmeet Singh. Hey, Melanie. Hi, how are you? Good.

And I'm so grateful that you guys have taken time out of your Sunday to make this happen for us. So speaking of Sunday afternoon, I think we have six candidates who say that they have submitted their papers in time for the liberal leadership deadline that they had to hit Thursday and that we know are currently running. Those candidates in no particular order are Karina Gould, Ruby Dalla, who was a Liberal MP from 2004 to 2011, Mark Carney, Christa Freeland,

Jaime Bautiste, current Liberal MP, Frank Baylis, Quebec businessman and former MP. And Vandana, let me start with you. How do you see this race shaping up so far? It's really interesting for me. I find that a lot of people are assuming that Carney is the front runner. And I think he's had a good week of caucus

and cabinet endorsements. I do think Karina Gould still had the best launch. It was a clean hit. She was able to actually punch and she has been consistently punching above her own weight. I would, I think clear is a really good path for her. But I think at the end of the day, as much as endorsements and caucus endorsements and all that is good, they're not all weighed equally. I think at the end of the day, as much as endorsements and caucus endorsements and all that is good,

they're not all weighed equally. I think at the end of the day, it's about memberships and who actually is able to deliver those memberships and persuade liberals to actually get out and vote. And I'll just say, since you mentioned it, Karina Gould is actually coming onto the show tomorrow. So if people wanna tune in, I think that will be a great conversation.

But Melanie, let me ask your thoughts there. So Vandana mentioned that Carney has gotten all of these endorsements, pretty high profile cabinet ministers like Sean Fraser, Anita Anand, Patti Haidoo, notably from Quebec, Melanie Jolie, Stephen Guilbault, Francois-Philippe Champagne. And I believe on Sunday, Carney did an event in Shawinigan with Champagne. What do on Sunday, Kearney did an event in Schoenigen with Champagne. What do you make of all of these endorsements? You know, I take Renina's point that membership matters, but do these guys have the ability to kind of push people to vote, right? Mm, totally. I think if it was a longer leadership race, you may get into the questions of, oh, was this a good idea to have these cabinet ministers,

these MP supporting Mark Carney? I think because it's such a short leadership race, you need those members, right? You need those folks to come out and to vote for you. So it may be a better way to get that membership number quickly. I think the Quebec cabinet ministers, Minister Champagne, ministers are the Stephen Gui Bo,

while those are folks that, you know, the opposition may have a fun time criticizing, those folks are massive organizers as it relates to Quebec. So for Mark Kearney, I think that that's probably good. But I just want to point out that there's kind of two things that you need to accomplish. One is you obviously need the liberal members to vote for you, and that's what we're in right now.

But then you'll need Canadians to vote for you. And I think the harm, perhaps, of having all these cabinet ministers who are so closely tied to the prime minister come out and back Mark Kearney is it'll be really difficult to say your agenda is different to the Canadian public, particularly when you're getting attacked by the opposition. So that's kind of the thing that I'm looking for now. it'll be really difficult to say your agenda is different to the Canadian public,

particularly when you're getting attacked by the opposition. So that's kind of the thing that I'm looking for now. Who is with who, but also, is that going to be harmful in the second part of this really important process? SHARA Right, Dennis, maybe you want to chime in on that because certainly that's something that Poliev and the Conservatives have been picking up on. I think it was Sunday that Poliev and the Conservatives have been picking up on. I think it was Sunday that

Poliev released a statement asking Carney to commit to banning Trudeau's ministers from his cabinet if he were to become the leader. What do you think about that? Yeah. Well, I think it's the backdrop of the liberal leadership race is sort of a preview and a way of the upcoming election. And it's a bit of a question around who can sort of authentically present change. When you take a look at the polling, you know, there's an abacus poll right after Trudeau had resigned, only about 12% of the public is looking for the Liberal government to be reelected. And so, if you're looking to change that, you've got to change yourself somehow. And that's where we've seen this be sort of this melodrama here, who's an insider, who's an outsider. And it's

kind of like a proxy for the real question of like, who's different than Trudeau. And, you know, that's something really hard for many of these candidates to do because they either advised or served in the government over closely aligned to. And so how do you find a way to show that you're different without being too different to offend current Liberal Party members? It's a really tough sort of Rubik's cube to turn around. Just going with this insider-outsider stuff a little bit more, I want to play you guys a clip

from an interview that Christa Freeland did with my colleague, Catherine Colwin, late last week. And I just, I really cannot wait to get your reaction, but let's listen. It is certainly looking like Mark is the choice of the liberal establishment. It is certainly looking like he is the PMO's candidate. And that is okay with me. I am really happy to be running against the Ottawa establishment.

We are completely out of time, but you made an allegation there, PMO's candidate. Can you cite one piece of evidence that that is the case? I said it certainly is seeming that way. Okay. Vandana, do you want to go first? Sure. What do you make of her assessment that she's running against the Ottawa establishment and that Carney is the

Prime Minister's office, the candidate of the Prime Minister's office. But also you can say anything you want. Okay, sure, of course. Krisha Filin, she's been here. She's been here and she's very much part of that Ottawa establishment. I would say there's a lot of strong people on her team who also, people would say, are the Ottawa establishment who are supporting her team. So I think while I think it's supposed to be a dig

at Mark Carney, I think the problem is if you're trying to run with liberals, this is a gross underestimation of like how people feel about the prime minister. I think for the most part, liberals still like him. They remember him as someone who has brought us from third to first and did good things. Maybe they did feel like it's time to go right now,

but they don't think they want our dirty laundry being aired that way, like that insider baseball, family drama, like I don't think that negativity is gonna help. I also think for most part it's wrong. And I think a lot of liberals will see it as wrong, and I don't think it'll help her case. She's better off focusing on what she's done

with Donald Trump, and to Dan's point, it's hard when she's been here for so long and was in lock and step with the PMO and with the policy ideas that they have put forward together to say that I'm going to be different. So it's going to be a hard thread for her to follow through with. Melanie, I see you nodding vigorously. Do you want to just chime in? Totally. I agree with all of that.

I think, you know, and again, I'll go back to the, you're speaking to liberal members and you're speaking to the Canadian electorate. She's not yet speaking to the Canadian electorate, right? You're speaking to liberal members first. And at least what I know as a partisan is rather I like the leader or not, when you take shots at the leader publicly, that pisses me off because you're taking shots at me publicly, right? So, you know, punching on the prime minister, punching on the PMO, you forget that you're punching

at the liberals and you're harming the liberals when you do that. And I think that that's something that will be hard to forgive from, you know, the resignation back in December, but also hard to forgive now if you continue to do it. That the second thing is you've signed off on the majority of the things that the prime minister has done in the last,

I can't remember. And publicly defended them. Exactly, publicly defended them, but as the deputy prime minister and the finance minister, you're kind of the last check there. So I think it's really hard for that to be true, again, with regular Canadians, but forget Liberal members.

Like it just feels like that is not the right approach. And I agree that I think the overcorrection here of assuming that because the Canadian electorate is tired of the Prime Minister, that Liberal members don't like him. I think that that is a mistake. I agree with that. I think that that is a mistake. I agree with that. I think it's time for him to go,

but we're still thankful to you for everything you've done. So I think the overcorrecting there is for sure a mistake. And it will be, I think, not believable to the Canadian electorate if you get to that next step. I mean, if I could add one thing in there, I mean, when you think about what resonates in politics as being authentic and, you know And there's a real lack of authenticity of trying to distance yourself

when you're the deputy prime minister from the prime minister. It's like the person who shows up to the party with like the fake glasses and mustache and they pretend there's somebody different. It's like, no, no, we know that's Bob, that's Bob. That's kind of a serif story we're in here. So I think it's like, it is really fraught with

just presenting yourself in a very weird light, not just the things that we were just talking about here with the Liberal Party members, but the public saying, wait a second, what are you, who are you? What are you doing here? So you guys seem to be in agreement that that didn't, didn't really work. But Freeland did send out an open letter last Friday calling on Liberal candidates to commit to running in the next election, whether they win or lose. And Dennis, like, what did you think about that? What was she trying to do there, first of all? And do you think that was effective?

Well, I mean, this whole question of whether you'll run afterwards, it sort of comes up in every leadership race on all parties. And it's sort of the commitment you make to then, you know, the election's over and you see who actually follows through on it. I mean, John Chere is not running for parliament anytime soon. I mean, I think he made that commitment. There's a stack of people that make those kinds of things. And so, you know, I think it's a little tactic to try to, you know, again, smoke out who's really part of your team and who's not.

But I think it's an easy promise for Mark Carney to say he's going to run again. We don't know what seat, I don't think at this point. But you know, we'll see who wins and where that goes. I just don't know that it's a follow through kind of thing. Talking about Kearney, I see a conservative critique of Carney that they seem to me at least to be hitting quite hard, especially over this weekend. And that is the criticism that he hasn't actually laid out any real policy or platform yet.

He has signaled that he would find an alternative to the carbon tax. He says that stuff is coming down the line. I'll add too, he has not sat down and done any real interviews besides the one on The Daily Show. I mean, we were just maybe being a bit critical about Krista Freeland, but I suppose to give her some credit, that was an interview that she did. And she was asked a question. Do you think that this is going to be a problem for him, Vandana? No, I think, you know, I will say this is what conservatives are good at. They're good at message discipline and they'll hit it over and over again to try to stick.

They're really focused on him. I think they're really worried about the outcome of him leaving. I think they were planning to run against Justin Trudeau and this changes it. So they're going to change that message discipline to focus on him. I do things a bit rich. I'd be like, you're not doing me. Yeah, when they don't either. Sorry, Dennis. But, um, but I don't think it's going to stick because it's only really been just over a week. Um, right now, if I'm running a campaign, I'm going to be like, I don't want to media prep you. I don't want to worry about what's going to come out of it. I want you to talk to liberals and I want you to spend, especially if you're new and you're from the outside and they don't

know you and there have been criticism like, is he like Ignatiev? Is he like this? Does he know how to politic, et cetera? So I would want every effort. If you have 10 minutes, I want you calling these three riding presidents. If you have five minutes, I don't want to prep you on how you say something. I really want to focus on talking to liberals. So I do think these things will come later.

I also think in terms of all the candidates, the policies they've done so far, not really exciting. They're all just saying, we're going to do the ops with the government's doing. We're not going to do the carbon tax. We're not going to do capital gains. Exactly. So there's nothing that is groundbreaking to the broader, to Melanie's point, the broader electorate.

So I think the internal stuff with membership is very inside baseball. But what members are looking for is who's electable and who's going to give us a fair chance against Pierre Poilé, and that means like testing him with liberals. That's what I want to prioritize at this point. This weekend, there was a lot of traction online about a poll that was released by Frank Graves at ECOS. And it showed this really dramatic narrowing in the polls. The conservatives, according to him, now have a seven point lead versus a 25 point lead. That's crazy.

That's a crazy amount of movement in such a short amount of time. A massive catch up for the liberals. And Dennis, like, what do you think of this poll? Do you think it's capturing something real? Is it like an outlier? Is it dead wrong? It's clearly an outlier. We're not having an election tomorrow, so you can never know whether a poll is totally right or wrong. But it's an outlier and it has a liberal support

higher than it was at the last federal election. That doesn't seem to match anything else out there, either people you talk to on the street or other public convenient polls. And so, I'm really, really skeptical of it. What I would say is, Justin Trudeau was a flashpoint for anger and frustration across the country. And I think the Prime Minister even said this when he resigned, removing me from the equation might take down the temperature in politics a bit. And so, it wouldn't surprise me to see some changes in numbers over time. But this dramatic of a change without anything else having happened, it's honestly, it's really hard to explain.

Maybe worth noting here, David Coletto at Abacus data says that he's still waiting to get a bunch of data back. But so far, he saw some tightening, the Conservatives with a 20-point lead, so not a 7-point lead, still heavily favoring the conservatives, the environment. But he did, to Dennis's point, say he's seeing some big shifts, including that fewer people think the conservatives are going to win the election. Few definitely are less inclined to see a change in government and more are open to

voting liberal. Hi, I'm Matea Roach and I know a little bit about a lot of different things. And I learned about a lot of those things from reading books. If you're anything like me, when you're finished reading a great book, you leave with burning questions for the author that you absolutely just can't get out of your head. And on my new weekly show Bookends, I get to ask some of those questions and you'll get to hear the answers. You can find Bookends wherever you get your podcasts. Shall we move on to the Ontario election?

Doug Ford said that he is planning to call an election Wednesday of this week. He already has a big majority government. Melanie, why is he doing this? I totally think it's self-serving. I've not been shy in saying, you know, I think that Premier Ford's messaging as it relates to the United States, as it relates to President Trump, has been smart and has been, I think, what folks, particularly folks in Ontario, are looking to hear. And I think with the absence of, or what has happened with the prime minister

and what has happened with the Liberal government, the absence of that direct message to voters or that direct message to people of, like, we've got your back, don't worry, we're taking this seriously, we're proactive, not reactive, I think has been really heard from folks. So I'll start off with that. But pretending that this is anything other than self-serving

and trying to get another mandate, I think doesn't pass it back. Do I think folks care that we go to an election early? I don't think so. I think we've seen premiers in Nova Scotia. We saw, I remember John Horgan went a yearly in British Columbia as well and he got the biggest mandate he, you know, the BCNDP ever got. So I don't know that folks will be totally upset or if they are that it'll last long

enough, but he is going because he wants majority. We heard rumors this summer before President Trump was elected that he was looking to do this, particularly to get ahead of any Pi-Pol-Yev government in Ottawa. So I think that that's why he's doing this. I think he feels that the Ontarian pulse is with him right now, particularly as it relates to Donald Trump and that immense threat that folks are rightly scared of. And that's why he's going right now. But I don't know, any anything to add here? Yeah, I think I agree with Vinny. And I would say that from the outset, yes, he's looking like Captain Kenda.

He's staying the right thing. He has this cutesy hat that people are ordering. And he knows how to polish the hat. I know. So they're not going to throw on the hat. It says Canada is not for sale on it. Yeah. So people are looking at him and saying, this is great.

But it's distracting from the other things that primaries should be doing, which is like healthcare and education. Like there was a huge lineup, I think it's in walkerton, just to get a doctor and those are real issues. And I think really this is also because, you know, he was, there was sense of this before Donald Trump and all that he wants to get ahead of a peer polio of government, but also ahead of any momentum Bonnie Prombie can have. They are way ahead still, like the, in terms of organization and fundraising, etc. So I think he wants to keep that at bay.

They've been running these campaigns over and over, and those ads over and over again that are effective. So I think he wants to get ahead of all that and make sure he has what he wants to say is a bigger majority, like a mandate, but he has this mandate already. So I agree, he should be focused on Ontarian jobs, not his own. I'll just know for people listening across the country, Bonnie Combi is the Ontario liberal liberal leader. Dennis, I'll just bring you in here. You could respond to anything that's just been said. Also, I was wondering if you think that this could hurt Polio. If Ontario votes for Ford in big numbers in February, would the province be less inclined to vote for Polio?

Let's say if we go to a federal election at the end of May, because I know Ontario has a very long history of doing the opposite of what's happening in the other level of government. Yeah, I know. I think the two things, the federal conservative scene and provincial politics in Ontario are quite disconnected. Pierre Polly had built a significant lead on a really clear message the last number of years.

So I don't really think there's any sort of crossover here. What I think when you look at Ontario, and the one thing we haven't mentioned here, Doug Ford's brand is as a populist. It's listening to people, it's responding, and things have fundamentally changed. Like what was three months ago is not what it was three years ago. Like things are completely different. And if we're headed to like sort of a 2008 type financial crisis, like government might have to be doing some pretty dramatic things to respond to, whether it's Trump's tariffs or whatever comes next. I mean, this is a

very unpredictable US president. We're talking about a February 1st tariff date. We could be talking about that for the next three or four years. And so adding somebody with a mandate to do those kinds of things, I think there's a reasonable argument for that that'll be made over the next 30 days or so. Final question for you all. Doug Ford, as Vandana mentioned, has been positioning himself as Captain Canada in the standoff against Trump. He's really made himself the face of the fight. And he is calling for a united front, right, with provinces and the federal government on the same page.

That hasn't actually been the case. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith has been campaigning essentially to take energy exports off the table. And recently, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Quebec Premier Francois Legault, they inched closer to her position. And just quickly, how do you all think Canada is doing right now when it comes to pushing back on Trump's tariffs? Melanie, let's start with you. Melanie Maloney I think there's two things. I think there's what is actually happening at the table and then what is actually happening out loud. And unfortunately, those things need to be very different. So as it relates to what is happening at the table, I'm hopeful that those are good conversations.

The out loud, though, I think is really important for folks. I think folks are rightly worried about what tariffs from President Trump could look like. I grew up in Cornwall, a border town. Where stuff stops, where stuff starts, is so hard to understand. So it's really important to reassure folks in times like this that we have their back. So I think some premiers are doing that quite effectively.

I don't know that the pulse of people right now is to say, yes, President Trump will do whatever you want. I don't think folks are feeling that way. And I think the premiers who are who are taking that approach may eventually have to overcorrect a little bit. Dede? Well, I don't think it's going well. And I don't think it's going well, because you know, Trudeau has mismanaged his relationship with Trump sort of historically. And now he's resigned, sort of leading candidate in a purgatory state. The thing to do would have been to have an election federally, sort that out, give somebody in the prime minister's chair a real mandate to

handle the situation. And absent of that, we're seeing premiers in different ways and actually kind of like what a number of different premieres are doing. I don't think there's one easy answer here, but I think the real challenge here is the leadership vacuum in Ottawa. And that's not going away. I mean, whoever wins, whether it's Freeland, Carney, anybody, you know, they're not coming in with a big mandate to do anything here. You know, the election is inching down. And so I just think, you know, we're not in a good position. It's going to be a rough, I think, year on this file for sure.

And hopefully after that, we can get to a better place. All right. And then a final word to you, Trump tariffs. How are we doing? Sure. I mean, I will agree with Dan's point that's not going you, Trump tariffs. How are we doing? Sure. I mean, I will agree with Dennis's point that's not going well, but I'll disagree with some things he said, but I'll say that I think it's really important now through on the outside voice as Melanie said, to have a united front, I think behind closed doors, say what you

want, argue about it, speak for your own province. You all have your own industries that you have to support advocate for. And I understand that. But I think as a moment in time, we have to look like Captain Kenda collectively. I think that's really important. There is a functioning government, you know, Justin Trudeau is the prime minister. They are going down south.

They are having those conversations, but I think publicly can use to feel comfortable that we are working together. And I think from the American side, you know, from a media perspective, looking like we're working together, cause I want Americans to American side, you know, from a media perspective, looking like we're working together, because I want Americans to feel like how are we going to get hurt if we, if there's counterterrorism, how's it going to affect us? And that's the only way to deal with these things. Okay. Guys, this is great. It's a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. It's great. Thank you. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.