Front Burner - Politics! Poilievre calls out RCMP, auto woes

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Stephen Maher, a longtime federal politics reporter, is here to talk about Pierre Poilievre’s recent comments that the RCMP covered up for Justin Trudeau so he could avoid criminal charges and whether or not this will hurt or help his upcoming leadership review.Plus, fallout from carmaker Stellantis’s plan to move a plant from Brampton to Illinois and what it says about the state of trade talks with the U.S.We'd love to hear from you! Complete our listener survey here.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everybody. I'm Jamie Poisson. Many of the scandals of the Trudeau era should have been involved in jail time. I mean, Trudeau broke the criminal code when he took a free vacation from someone with whom he had government business. It's just like it's right there in the criminal code. If the RCMP had been doing it. job and not covering up for him, then he would have been criminally charged.

And then again, he probably violated the criminal code and the S&C Lavalance scandal. These would normally have led to criminal charges, but, of course, the RCNP covered it all up, and the leadership of the RCMP is frankly just despicable when it comes to enforcing laws against the liberal government. So that was conservative leader, Pierre Pahliav, without evidence, accusing the RCMP of a cover-up to protect former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from criminal prosecution. He was talking to the hosts of a podcast called Northern Perspective. The accusation set off a lot of blowback, which I guess is predictable when the man who wants

to be the prime minister calls the RCMP leadership despicable and incuses them of a criminal conspiracy. I'm talking today with Stephen Marr. He was on the show a lot during the election and is a longtime federal politics reporter. We're also going to talk about the state of trade talks with the U.S. as tariffs continue to pound the auto sector. All right, let's get to it. Stephen, hey, it's so great to have you back on Frontburner. It's a pleasure to be back. Oh, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. So as I mentioned, Pollyev went on this show and said that Trudeau deserved to be in jail for taking a vacation from the Aga Khan. That was what he was referring to. and that the RCMP covered up for him in that case,

and probably that they also did during the SNC Lavaland case. And what did you make of those comments when you first heard them, like what was going through your head? Well, I thought that Pierre Pahliav is trying to reach the people who will cast the deciding votes in the upcoming conservative leadership review in January. And he's been taking a more strident kind of tone recently, on immigration, on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and now going after Trudeau and the Mounties in a ill-considered way.

So I saw it in that context. He's out there trying to reach the fairly strident Tories, who will decide if he's going to continue as leader or not. Do you think he needs to reach them? Doesn't he already have them? Well, he wants to have a very high number. In this leadership review in January, this is the kind of thing that plays out whenever someone loses an election. And sometimes, as we saw recently with Bonnie Cromby, for example, they don't get the number that they're looking for.

Donna Cromby has announced she will resign as Ontario Liberal leader after party delegates narrowly voted against a new leadership race. Cromby received 57% support to stay on as leader far below the 66% that a grassroots faction of the party had set to have her resign. So he wants to be able to be sure. And so he's got to motivate the people and make sure that they cast a ballot for him. Like you said, he says other stuff recently about immigration, but this one really seemed to strike a nerve, right? What was it about these specific comments, you think, that people took most issue with? Well, they're considered nasty. He's always had a reputation as an attack dog, someone who,

who will just go in and go for the jugular on every occasion. Now, in this case, as on various cases throughout his career, he's gone too far and said something that he can't justify or back up. What were you hearing about the reaction from inside his own caucus? I know Politico reported, for example, that many of his own caucus members weren't aligned with their leader's remarks. Well, that's not surprising. And we heard from various conservatives outside the caucus expressing dismay.

What do you think about Polio's comments on the RCMP? Do you support his viewpoint? Conservative MPs returning to the House Monday were in no rush to defend their leader's comment. I support the Blue Jays 110 percent, and I hope they'll win tonight. From the perspective of conservatives, this is a distraction. I do not believe that Pierre Pahliav said to himself, well, I'm going to go into this interview with some very friendly podcasters or YouTubers and try to provoke a national story about my views on the RCMP.

They were offhand comments, right? And so they reflect as kind of casual thinking. And they do not necessarily line up with reality. Pollyab accused the RCMP of covering up for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during two scandals. In both cases, Trudeau was found to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act, but the RCNP did not lay criminal charges. Questioned late last week about the criticism the RCMP Commissioner defended his force. There's no interference.

You know, if he has evidence that the RCMP interfered with criminal investigations, then he should present that evidence. And to try to clean it up, he came out and said, well, I was only talking about Brenda Lucky. In a statement, Pierre Poliyev says his comments were directed at former RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucky, whom he says has a lengthy track record of publicly documented scandals, deception and political interference to the benefit of the liberal government. Now, there were serious things where she seemed to be, during the Porterpick Enquirer, we learned that she was excellent.

going liberal talking points politically in a way that raised questions. Both Commissioner Lucky and then public safety minister Bill Blair denied there was political interference, but the contents of her phone call with Nova Scotia Moutis suggests there was regular contact. Lucky has acknowledged being frustrated and news release from Nova Scotia RCMP excluded details of the Port-a-Pick killer's weapons. She denies allegations that she was crossing ethical boundaries and trying to boost public support for the government's gun control agenda. But that's a far cry from suggesting that she went in and told her investigators in the

sensitive investigations unit to take it easy on Justin Trudeau. If he thinks that that's true, then we should get to the bottom of it, but he doesn't seem to have any evidence for that. Calling for the jailing, essentially, of his political. opponent. I mean, it's something that we hear fairly often from Trump, right? And being too Trumpy is an accusation people have thrown around quite often. Pollyev is facing a number of negative headlines in the media, some drawing direct comparisons to language used by President Donald Trump. Political leaders on Parliament Hill are also

making that link. Pierre Paulyev's notion that the former prime minister should be jailed. It's deeply worrying because this is the kind of thing going on right now. in Trump's United States. You mentioned comments on immigration, but also he's talked about how Canadian cities are war zones. He sent out a petition calling to restore the merit principle and NDEI programs in the federal government. And I mean, I take your point that he's trying to win a leadership race in January with his base. But do you think that this is doing harm for him moving forward if he wants to be prime minister?

Well, I do. he since he became leader I'm sure you'll remember the circumstances because I think you were covering it in Ottawa when the convoy arrived and he was uh it was the convoy that in a way allowed polyev to take over leadership of the party from Aaron O'Toole who couldn't get onside with the convoy protesters and the theory strategically seems to have been Well, let's swallow the People's Party of Canada, the anti-vax people, the populist groundswell, and keep them on side at all costs. The Conservative Party of Canada cannot afford to have a rival party to its right. And so first look after those people and then extend from there. and in a lot of modern elections, motivating the base is more important than reaching the middle. But that strategy was not successful, where suddenly a lot of voters in the middle switched during the last election.

So he seems to be stuck in a way, paying attention to that base and giving the messages that they want. And you can see in the polling why that is, because, according to an Ecos poll that a lot of people keep sharing on social media, about 45% of Canadian conservatives approve of Donald Trump. So it makes sense in a way for him to keep feeding them messages, but then he gets jammed because more middle-of-the-road conservatives say, well, I don't like the sound of that. That's the pickle that he's got himself in.

He's got one foot on either side of a barbed wire fence. It was interesting. I was looking at some polling from Spark advocacy this week. And I mean, he's very popular among younger conservative voters in particular. So that coalition that he created that didn't win him the election, but definitely gave him some gains. That does seem to be holding quite well, would you say? I think that one of the most impressive things about Mr. Polio is the way that he has engaged a lot of young people in politics. and given them the sense that someone is looking out for them on issues like housing in particular and cost of living. And for a period of about two years, his tone, which is of anger and disgust with the previous government, the government of Justin Trudeau, perfectly matched the mood of many Canadians. The problem now is that the mood of Canadians has changed, and a lot of people, people are saying, well, let's give this Carney guy a chance. And he does not seem to naturally

find a way to change his tone. And so it does not help him at all to be saying that Justin Trudeau should be locked up, right? Like his overall strategy of appealing to the Trumpier Tories kind of makes sense. But when he goes too far, as in this instance, and he keeps, it seems like he keeps wanting to fight an election against Justin Trudeau, right? Right, he's looking backwards, yeah. Yeah, and Canadians are ready to move on from Justin Trudeau, and they're hoping he's having a nice time with Katie Perry, I think. You know, the moment has passed.

Coming off the heels of these remarks about the RCP, there was this column written by former Stephen Harper A. Dimitri Soutis about the remarks, but really about Pollyam more broadly. And Soudis said that Pollyev was, quote, dismantling. the principled, serious, incredible conservative party, Harper worked so hard to lead and bring to power, one of substance, maturity, and integrity. He said that Pahlia, quote, failed to make the jump from critic to leader, that the conservative party was built to serve the country, not the ego of a single leader. And essentially, he says that he doesn't think he can win an election. What did that signal to you? Are the knives out here in the lead-up to this leadership race, which has seemed up until now, pretty much like in the bag for him, right?

Well, the big question to me is whether someone else wants the job. It reminds me a little bit of the position of Canadian liberals before Mr. Trudeau left. I had so many conversations with liberals at the time who would be saying, well, we'd like to get rid of them, but who would be better? So that's the question that Canadian conservatives are facing now is who's the alternative. So that's what I first thought when Dmitri Soutis started to go after Pahliav. An important thing to keep in mind here, I think, is that the longstanding divide in the Canadian conservative movement, going back to the time of Diefenbaker, is from more moderate eastern

Tories and more populist Western conservatives and reformers. So Soutis would be associated with the eastern side, right? He lives in Ontario. He's from Montreal and is often a commentator on TV there. So it's not surprising to me that the Eastern Tories would hope that they'll get someone better than Mr. Pollyap. What is not clear to me is whether they've got a candidate. Right. I mean, who even could it be?

Have you seen, have you heard any names? Well, yes. People often talk about the Mulrooney's. Carolyn, Mark, Ben, one of them. None of them seem to me to be positioned to do that right now. The person I'm most interested in, and we'll see if he demonstrates any interest in this, would be Jason Kenney, the former Premier of Alberta, who comes from a similar ideological place as Mr. Poliov has long seemed to be interested in federal politics, but it's sort of more fulsomely a patriotic Canadian, a monarchist. and would not be susceptible to the same accusations of being Trumpish. But Mr. Kenny has not indicated that he's interested in this job.

And it's awkward when someone else has the job for him to indicate that he might be interested. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights.

And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. Norval Morso is one of the most famous indigenous artists ever. Looking at his paintings, it's easy to see why. Colors are intense. Color as medicine. But look a little closer, and you'll see something else. Fakes.

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Stalantis recently announced that it is canceling its plans to build the electric Jeep compass at a facility in Brampton. They're going to move their plant to Illinois. There are 3,000 jobs on the line here. And just today, GM announced that they plan to stop making their electric vans in Ingersoll, Ontario. That's 1,000 jobs up in the year. Is this a bad bet, do you think, on Ontario's part to put money into this General Motors facility? And how do you get that money back? If they breach a contract, we're going to sue them.

Simple as that. And he knows that. They breached a contract. And we're going to make sure that we get another vehicle in that area. This is a heavily tariff sector. And recently, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said to a meeting of Canadian leaders that second is good enough for Canada, that free trade, the free trade era is dead. And I think significantly that the U.S. does not want Canadian-made cars.

How bleak a picture do you think this is painting when you look at some of this latest news all taken together? I think it's very worrying. If you spend any time in southern Ontario, among the people who work in those factories, you know, that it's been an important engine of the Canadian economy since the 1960s. and this seems to be the gravest threat that it's faced since the Autopact was signed in 1965. And the basic outline of that arrangement was that we were going to let the Americans sell their cars in Canada, and in exchange, we would get some of the work. Donald Trump and Mr. Lutniks are saying they don't want that arrangement anymore.

Yeah. And it puts the Premier and the Union leaders and the private, Prime Minister all in a very difficult position because presumably there's a plan B and a plan C where we invite the Chinese to build EVs in Canada and offer them a similar arrangement. But the transition costs, you know, would be extraordinary. If Trump really, if Trump and Lutnik really want to insist on dragging the whole industry into the United States, we have a very difficult problem on our hands. This news, the Stalantis news, is set off an immediate rebuke from the government

with industry minister Melanie Jolie calling the move unacceptable, threatening legal action and summoning the company's Canada head to Ottawa. The company has commitments under different types of agreements with the government, including the fact that we provided support for the retooling of the very Brampton facility that right now is sitting idle. So we will make sure that we pushed a company and we hold them to account. Holly have called on the government to release contracts it has with Stalantis that would outline subsidies the government has given or promised to it previously

for doing business here and the terms of those deals. And my understanding is we're talking about billions of dollars in subsidies here. A parliamentary committee is now going to get these contracts. And where do you think that that is headed? Well, it's very interesting. And it's good opposition politics from the, the conservative appointment on the committee, Garnet Jennings. The idea is that, you know, we'll see what kind of deal that the previous government made with this company.

The context was very different then because Biden had brought in the Inflation Reduction Act and was offering enormously generous tax credits. And the Trudeau government seemingly frightened of losing our piece of the auto industry was forced to match them, basically. So, is it possible that the industry minister at the time got stampeded into signing unwise contracts? If that's the case, if that was to be what the documents show, that would be embarrassing and difficult for the government because that industry minister was Francois Champagne, who's now the finance minister. Yeah.

Right? So the Tories have a potentially very powerful attack on the go. here, and it looks like they are going to get the documents. So stay tuned. The other big industry here that I want to talk about is the lumber industry. That industry was just hit by another 10% tariff, and BC Premier David E.B. is saying that it is on a razor's edge and has been calling on the federal government for more support. We are calling on Ottawa to ensure that they're deploying the more than $1 billion they've committed to the forest sector with urgency.

There is no time to wait. Jobs and mills are on the line. Eby also talked about how he thinks issues in provinces like Ontario and Garg are often more front of mind for the federal government. And it seems like there's clearly strain in this Team Canada approach here. What are you making of that? Well, there is, yeah. And I suspected it will get worse.

If you look at, you know, British Columbia is worried about the lumber. And in Saskatchewan, they're worried about the canola. And the Chinese tariffs on canola are there because to stay sweet with the Americans, we put 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles. If you're Kearney, you haven't got much choice, but to put, the auto industry and aluminum and steel up at the top of your priority list, given where his seats are and the population center is. But I can well see why the premiers of British Columbia and Saskatchewan and Alberta don't feel good about that.

Maybe worth noting here, Dominic LeBlanc is saying that they are now into a level of detail we hadn't seen previously in the negotiations. And the globe is reporting that some kind of deal on steel, aluminum, and energy might be ready. by the end of the month. I just, I know that you talk to a lot of people in and around the government. Like, what is your sense of where these trade talks with the U.S. are headed? Well, it's significant that Mr. LeBlanc is saying that now, because when I talk to very well-connected people who have the ear of Mr. Leblanc and other senior members of the government, until recently, they did not have much idea of what was going on, which suggests that nothing was going on in the talks. So Mr. Carney sent some bouquets of flowers to Mr. Trump. He backed down on our digital services tax.

He praised him in the Oval Office. He appears to be trying to get them talking. And he has to because the review of NAFTA is coming up. And if we can't get some kind of a deal with the Americans, it could be disastrous. It gives them an opportunity to radically change the trade relationship. Stephen, thank you so much. Great to have you. My pleasure. Thank you. Okay, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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