Front Burner - Politics! Poilievre's crucial byelection, Carney's tariff tightrope

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot is about as safe a riding as Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre could hope for as a place to regain a seat in the House of Commons in a byelection later this month. But he's facing pushback from some locals who feel they're being used as a means to an end by someone who won't represent their interests in Ottawa. The riding is also the latest target of the Longest Ballot Committee protest movement — including one dinosaur-obsessed candidate, Nicola Zoghbi, who promises to move the national capital to Drumheller and rename the riding "Raptor River-Crowfoot."Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing growing pressure to secure some sort of trade deal with the United States after Donald Trump made good on a promise of 35 percent tariffs on all Canadian imports not covered by CUSMA. How much political runway does Carney have left?CBC Ottawa senior reporter Aaron Wherry breaks down both of these stories.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Allie Jains, in for Jamie Poisson. Under Mark Carney's leadership, it has been elbows down and tariffs up. Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing renewed pressure to make a trade deal with the United States. That comes after Donald Trump went ahead last week with his promised 30,000, 5% tariffs on all Canadian goods not covered by Kuzma, the existing trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. We're going to talk about that a bit later in the episode with CBC senior writer and friend

of the pod, Aaron Wary, but first, conservative leader Pierre Paulyev's upcoming by-election in the southern Alberta riding of Battle River Crowfoot and the hurdles that he's facing there. Among them, the fact that Pauliev is once again the target of a political protest movement known as the longest ballot committee. They have flooded the by-election with more than 200 registered candidates, just like they did in his Ottawa riding in the general election and in the former liberal stronghold of Toronto St. Paul's back in 2024.

And Pauliev is not happy about it. This is a scam. It is unfair. It is unjust and must have. There is one candidate in particular who, I really wanted to hear from on this. His name is Nicola Zogby. He's a teacher who lives in Montreal, but that hasn't stopped him from running in this by-election. And his platform is almost entirely about dinosaurs.

Which might not make sense if you don't know that this writing is home to Drumheller, which is basically Canada's dinosaur mecca. Mr. Zogby is a pleasure to have you on Frontburner. Thank you. It's a pleasure to, I'm happy to be welcomed on Frontburner. So one of your platform planks is to get a new theme park in the Battle River Crowfoot riding, which you claim visitors from around the world will flock to like pterodactyls. What is this theme park and why is this a priority for your campaign?

So if you've been to Universal in Florida, you may have waltzed around the Jurassic World part of the park, which is essentially a theme park based on dinosaurs. Now, rest assured, the dinosaurs will be dead. So no mistakes from the movie series, Jurassic World and Jurassic Park. But having something like this in Canada would have tourists from all over Canada and the world really come to Alberta to have this experience without having to go to the USA. And it goes hand in hand with dinosaur museums, the dinosaur valley, et cetera. So I think it would be a, it's a no-brainer for me. I see. Okay. Now, I should come clean and say that I'm originally from Calgary.

and I am a very big fan of Drum Heller, not just the Tyrol Museum, but the whole Badlands area. So I would like to do a little test on your knowledge of the writing that you say you want to represent. So firstly, okay. So firstly, what is the name

of the world's largest dinosaur, the 86-foot T-Rex sculpture in the middle of town? I'm going to complete and say I've never been to Alberta, but I'm going to try and answer your question. So the largest T-Rex, he has a name. The name of which I do not know.

It's a she, actually. Her name is Tyra. Tyra. Okay. All right. Secondly, a place close to my heart, the iconic Last Chance Saloon in the nearby Hamlet of Wayne, was featured in which Kung Fu Western starring Jackie Chan? As a politician or aspiring politician, I'm not afraid to admit that I do not know the answer

to that one. It's Shanghai noon. Oh, yes. But listen, let's get down to brass tacks here. You know, considering that you have at best a cursory knowledge of Battle River Crowfoot, and you are, after all, based in Montreal. Yes. Why do you want to run in this riding?

Why are you doing this? Do you want the fun answer or the real answer? Let's get the real answer. The real answer is we have a big problem with our electoral system. So the first pass post, that just doesn't work anymore. And I shouldn't be allowed to run for MP in that. Battle River Crowfoot. That feels wrong, the fact that you can run wherever you want without living there.

Right. So, I mean, talk to me more about the purpose of this wider campaign, the longest ballot initiative. What are you guys trying to do? So, well, I can only speak on my behalf, not on the longest ballots committee's behalf, but the goal is to show how terrible the system is. So we have a system that allows a party to gain examples, to gain, to gain. 20% of the votes of all Canadians, but get 40% of all seats or the other way around. And usually it harms independent candidates and it harms the smaller parties or parties that

have a little bit of support everywhere rather than a lot of support in very few places. So the goal is to try to show how terrible the first past the post system is and it's disruptful and there is collateral damage to a certain extent, but I feel like it does. point, it's the best way to provoke change. One criticism of this campaign is that it's taken attention and momentum away from actual serious independent candidates in the race. In particular, the independent candidate, Bonnie Critchley, she wrote an open letter to the longest ballot committee that said, in part, you were going to crush any legitimate independents who run. Your actions make it impossible

for electors to be able to find anyone who isn't attached to a party. You were first they're pushing us into a party system? What would you say to that critique? I've been seeing Bonnie's campaign and I'm, I think that yes, it makes it hard for serious candidates. But like I said, there's got to be some, unfortunately, there's got to be some collateral. I hope that it doesn't harm her campaign. I think she will reach the voters who are interested in her. But yeah, it does make it harder for sure. All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you speaking to us and good luck with your campaign. Thank you. I really appreciate being on radio.

Okay, so in addition to the protests from the longest ballot committee, Pahliav actually does have a fair bit riding on the results of this by-election. To talk a bit more about that, our good friend Aaron Wary is here. He's a senior reporter with CBC in our Ottawa Bureau. Aaron, always great to talk to you. Good to be here. So this by-election in Battle River Crowfoot is set for August 18th. This was supposed to be a slam dunk for Pollyev, the conservative MP who won this writing in the general election, Damien Kurek.

He got 83% of the vote. But there's been this whole thing with the longest ballot initiative that we were just talking about. And he's also facing at least some level of genuine competition. So what has Pollyette himself actually been saying? Like, how has he been approaching this campaign? So, you know, as you mentioned, there's been the complaints about the longest ballot committee. You know, I think that has been kind of a, you know, subplot to the whole thing. But I think his main, you know, his main message, at least on a national scale, hasn't really changed much.

You know, he's still calling for smaller government. He's still attacking the liberal government for its environmental policies, you know, still talking about oil and gas development, you know, things like that. But he is, you know, it's fair to say, or at least from afar, it seems that he's, he's tailoring it more to a kind of local audience. You know, if you look at his social media feeds, it's full of, you know, knocking on doors and going to local events. It looks like a cowboy hat, some belt buckles. It's been great fun to be on the ranches and the farms, to be out at the rodeos and the

bronch matches, and even to whirl around a little bit in Riley on the four-wheeler. All right, we're headed to, to warm. It's the Main Street. These young guys actually erase these things. Hey, thanks, buddy. That's my husband. You can do it again. Thanks for that.

Make sure to get out on the 18th or earlier. You know, he talks about being a national voice for local issues. You know, my mission here is to give national leadership to the issues that are of local importance. For example, reversing that EV mandate to a local. allow you to drive your truck. That is a local issue. And it will take national leadership to overturn it the way I overturned the carbon tax. Your right to protect and keep your firearms.

I think it's notable that he's participated in a couple all candidates debates there. You know, probably he had to do that. Given the fact that he's sort of parachuted into the riding, he couldn't really, you know, avoid those and not be punished for it. But given the conservative candidates in general election campaigns have been known to skip those all candidates debates, it's interesting to see him, you know, campaigning such a kind of locally focused campaign. So one of the most interesting things about this by-election has been this independent candidate, Bonnie Critchley. She has not been shy about taking Polyev on, head on. This is our home. This is our riding.

We just had an election. and we spent all that money and we elected the candidate of our choice who promptly turned around and said, no, I don't want that mandate I asked you for. And we're spending another $2 million to vote in the guy from, angry guy from Ottawa, who doesn't know Jack about this area? You know, you were just talking about the parachuting criticism, which is something that she's talked about. I mean, can you tell me a little bit about her and the ways that she's been criticizing Pollyev in her campaign? Yeah, so she's a military veteran. I fought in Afghanistan. She describes herself as, I think, kind of a centrist or a small sea conservative, but is running as an independent. And she really is making this argument that, you know, he's sort of being dropped into this riding. He's not a real voice for the community. The community just elected an MP. And now here comes Pierre Polly of sort of pushing that MP aside to take the seat and really running that against that idea of him. being parachuted in.

It's not that he didn't have a seat. It's that he didn't bother to show up for his constituents. So they fired him. And now he just assumes we're going to vote him in when he lived in the same town as his constituents. We're 3,000 kilometers west. Do you think he's going to show up here ever? She, I think, has kind of become sort of the focal point for that criticism. It's hard to know exactly what that will amount to, you know, when the ballots are counted.

but she, you know, it is at least kind of presenting that challenge to him that he's not just sort of walking necessarily into a safe seat. Yeah, I mean, I have not been able to find any polling. I don't know if any has come out yet, but, you know, do you get the sense that, like, you know, how much of a threat is he realistically facing either from her from this longest ballot campaign and, like, threats to him being elected at side? What do you think is at stake for him here? I think it would be fair to say it would be shocking for him to lose this riding. You know, if the conservatives won it with 80% or 83% of the vote just a few months ago, it would be an absolute earthquake for that to change now. He's presumably also running, you know, the best funded, best organized campaign in that riding.

So we'll see what the ballots look like, you know, on election day. But I think the flip side of that is that as much as it's a safe riding, maybe one of the safest conservative writings in the country, you know, it does set a kind of high bar for him. You know, if the last candidate got north of 80% of the vote, and I believe no conservative in that writing has ever gotten less than 70% of the vote, you can see how, you know, if Polyev finishes with even 65% of the vote, that might look like a letdown. That might look like another indication that maybe things aren't going well for him, that maybe support for him is starting to erode. Coming off the general election result, coming off the result in his previous writing, this would be another or could be another indication if the numbers were to come out that way, that things aren't going well for him and would feed that narrative. So there's still something at stake for him, I think, in the final result. I mean, looking kind of at his future, you know, I think it's, I think it's safe to say that for a liberal prime minister, we've seen some fairly conservative flavored policies coming from Mark Carney and his government so far. You know, he got rid of the carbon tax. He's asked every government department to look for big cuts. He's talking up the possibility of building a new pipeline. So, you know, to what extent is he kind of eating Pollyov's lunch here?

Yeah, it would seem that there's definitely that possibility. You know, Pollyov's argument is that, or has been, that the federal government needed dramatic change from what it was doing and where it was under Justin Trudeau. And now Mark Carney has come in and kind of said, yeah, that's true. We do need to make some changes. And, you know, as you say, is promising things like, you know, greater fiscal discipline and at least sort of hinting at the possibility of greater resource development. you know, these sorts of things that, you know, at this point are kind of considered, you know, small-sea conservative or centrist positions. And so, you know, just to jump in, I mean, some of them are things that Pollyev really, like, made the bread and butter of his campaign, like the carbon tax. Like, this is stuff that he really was talking about. And he has accused Mark Carney of kind of, like, lifting ideas from him. Yeah. I mean, Pollyov's argument has sort of become that he's won all these arguments. He won the argument on the carbon tax. He won the argument on the size of government. He tries to use it in a way to bolster the argument for himself. The risk is that, you know, Mark Carney will succeed at these things and it will be harder for Pierre Paulyev to mount an argument against the government. Now, of course, the conservatives would say, well, let's see if Mark Carney actually succeeds at these things. Like he's talking about fiscal discipline. He's talking about resource development. Let's see where he goes with these things. The conservatives have also kind of moved on.

from the carbon tax and now they're making arguments against other, you know, climate policies like the EV mandate. The other part of that, though, is that there's a risk to the liberals of, you know, bleeding votes to their left, essentially, where if they seem to be becoming too much of a kind of centrist or right-leaning liberal party, that gives a bit more room for the NDP, despite the NDP's current state to kind of revive itself and get back in the game. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz comes an unprecedented exhibition about one of history's darkest moments. Auschwitz, not long ago, not far away, features more than 500 original objects, first-hand accounts and survival. testimonies that tell the powerful story of the Auschwitz concentration cap, its history and

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everything that's not covered under COSMA. And that agreement does cover about 95% of our exports to the U.S. But, you know, there are a number of industries that have still been hit pretty hard here with their own tariffs, aluminum, steel, lumber. And now we're hearing that Trump and Carney are supposed to have a phone call very soon. But assuming that that happens soon, I mean, how do you expect Carney to play this one? Yeah, right now, it seems to be very much a kind of not panicking, being patients, you know, not necessarily pressing for an immediate agreement, not. immediately pushing retaliatory measures or increasing retaliatory tariffs against the United States. He seems to be kind of trying to project, I think, a certain measure of calm at this point. We have always said that we will apply tariffs where they had the maximum impact in the United States and a minimum impact in Canada. And so we don't automatically adjust. We look at what we can do for our industry that's most important.

effective. Carney, at least from the outside, doesn't seem to be in any rush to take whatever is currently on the table, if there's something on the table at this point. And that, I think, you know, it's always hard to know exactly how the Canadian public is going to read these things, but if they're looking for, or if they trust Carney to be kind of the reasonable reassuring person right now, you know, maybe there's something to be said for not, you know, charging into either a deal or into retaliation. But, you know, I think ultimately it comes back to if or when there is some kind of resolution to the current conflict, you know, do Canadians look at that and say either we accepted too little or we accepted too much in the way of tariffs or did we give away too much in terms of bargaining?

So, you know, I think Carney has some room right now to kind of be patient, but it's unclear, I guess, how much patients the Canadian public will have. and then there's still so much riding on where this lands. I mean, how much pressure do you think there is on him to, like, be tough or be tougher on the U.S. and he has been right now? I know he's sort of, you know, hinted maybe that they would even drop some of the retaliatory tariffs. Yeah, I think there's always going to be some appetite for being tough for taking action against the United States. You see that in some of the polling, you know, people saying that we should do retaliatory tariffs, even if there's a cost to Canadians.

I think it's sort of up to Carney to explain if he's not going to go down that route, why it's not the best route to go down. I mean, there may be some economic sense and sort of practical sense insofar as lashing out of the United States might make us feel good right now, but if it does harm to us in the long term,

then maybe it wasn't the best idea. He is sort of vulnerable to this idea that, you know, he was elbows up during the campaign, so is he not elbows up now? You know, you've heard that a bit already. I don't know necessarily that Canadians are going to say this isn't the elbows up, Prime Minister we elected necessarily. They may say this is the kind of reasonable Prime Minister we wanted for this situation.

But, you know, it's still, again, as I say, comes back to where does this land and how do Canadians feel about where it landed? So expanding out from Carney himself, we've seen Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada, U.S. trade, you know, was in Washington all last week and lead up to this announcement, trying to sort it out. Foreign Minister Anita Anand, finance minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, have both been in Mexico City for the past couple days trying to strengthen that relationship. how effective have Canada's, you know, broader political efforts been on this beyond Discarnie? I mean, it's hard to know in these situations, and we experience this a lot during the first round when it was the Trudeau government negotiating with the United States. It's really hard to judge from the outside because you just don't know what's going on behind closed doors. You don't know how much of what's going on outside is posturing.

I mean, I think, you know, the federal government at least outwardly is showing itself, you know, reaching out to other countries, going down to Washington, trying to negotiate, you know, so there's visible action you can see that seems to suggest that they're taking it seriously, that they're doing things. But it's hard to know what's going on inside that room. You know, there's been some reporting that suggests there's not a lot going on inside that room because the Americans are kind of talking in circles and aren't really laying down demands or terms. But at least outwardly, the government is at least seeming to be making an effort, you know, particularly the trip down to Mexico, that seems to be kind of a, you know, part or broader outreach. So that, you know,

that kind of action, I think, has some value. But the mystery is always going to be, you know, what exactly is going on behind closed doors. And then, of course, you know, to state the obvious, who knows what the Trump government is ultimately going to do. On the topic of that Mexico trip, it's probably worth noting that Mexico seems to be in a, like, significantly better position right now than we are in terms of tariffs. They last week managed to avoid 30% tariffs on their shipments to the U.S. that those were set to come in on Friday. They also secured a 90-day pause to work out a trade deal with the U.S. Canada, obviously, did not get those things.

And so, you know, I know Minister Anon was questioned about this. To parse out individual elements of one country's negotiations versus our own is somewhat what superficial because the relationship is so very complex and we really do need to understand that that complexity drives the entire negotiation, which of course is being led. Which, fair enough. But is there something that we should read into this, do you think? Yeah, again, it's so hard to know. You know, the U.S. ambassador to Canada was on Power and Politics.

the other day and was asked about this. And he said, well, you know. Well, I think it's because of the feeling in the room or the energy in the room when the negotiators are talking to each other. And, you know, so the decision was made by our team, you know, to the president. The president decided let's give Mexico an extension. Put the 35% tariff on Canada. And that's, you know, it's hard to know what to do with that kind of comment.

Like, is that, is that a. real read of why Canada and Mexico are being treated differently? Is there something they're doing that we're not? Do we have that energy? Yeah, exactly. Are our vibes off? Like, have the Mexican delegation figured something out that we haven't? It's, and I mean, this is, this is a stuff that gets picked up on during these negotiations and kind of gets held over the government's head, you know, maybe reasonably, but it's just so hard to know what it actually amounts to. Not, you know, as I say, not only because you don't know what's going on inside the room, but because, you know, you're trying to decipher the ways of the Trump administration. Yeah, which, as we all know, is, I mean, basically impossible.

So that's the foreign policy angle, but Kearney has also been talking a lot about juicing the domestic economy in response to this economic pressure from Trump. He, of course, recently passed this fairly controversial Billed Canada Act, but we still don't have any actual concrete projects announced yet. So how good a job do you think he's been doing of, you know, delivering on his promises for building up Canada? So, you know, in one way this government's moved very fast. You know, the passage of that legislation was, you know, record speed as these things go. You know, he's talking about having certain things set up by the fall. He's, you know, talking about the housing, his housing strategy moving forward in the fall. So, you know, it's hard to on one thing. hand say this government isn't moving fast enough. But on the other hand, you're right. We don't have a list of projects. We don't know where that's going. You know, there is, you know, these sort of specific targeted sectoral strategies for the sectors that are being impacted by tariffs right now. But, you know, at this point, it's still sort of more theory than than sort of practice in terms of

what the new kind of larger economic strategy looks like in action. On the other hand, it is, I think, where the conversation probably ends up moving is that as much as we're focused on tariffs and this particular conflict with the United States, and we will, you know, in the next few months, move into an entire new trade renegotiation for the Canada, U.S., Mexico trade deal, the larger conversation, I think, is about where Canada goes in terms of this sort of new world that we're facing, that this isn't necessarily just a trade dispute between Canada, the United States, or between the United States and various other countries, that this is about a different situation in the world and a different United States, and what do we do with that?

You know, Mark Carney, one of the things he did say this week when he was announcing support for softwood lumber was... And the U.S. is in the process of fundamentally changing all of its trading relationships. In a series of recent agreements, America is in effect charging for access to its economy through a combination of higher baseline tariffs, unilateral trade liberalization by its partners and new commitments to invest in the United States. And that felt like a bit of a throwback to some of the more bracing comments he made during the campaign when he said the old relationship with the United States is over.

And that, you know, if you take that seriously, that means, you know, you know, a real reorientation of the country in terms of trade partners and also a lot of action domestically to build up the economy, to build housing, to do a bunch of things. And so, yes, Carney's definitely being tested on this tariff dispute and where he lands it, but the larger issue is whether he can show action on the kind of bigger project of moving the country in a particular direction because the world has changed, not just because we're facing these tariffs from the United States. All right. Aaron, we will leave it there.

I know we will be talking to you about all of this very soon again. Thanks so much. Anytime. All right, that is all for today. I'm All right, that is all for listening to Frontburner. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.