Front Burner - The Liberal leadership contenders’ uphill battle

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

A week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, a much clearer picture of the Liberal leadership race has emerged.Whoever the candidate ends up being will have the challenge of running both a leadership and a general election campaign at essentially the same time.According to some recent polling by Abacus Data, that won’t be the only challenge.David Coletto is the founder and CEO of the polling firm. He’ll talk about that, how Canadians are responding to Trudeau’s resignation, and what that means for the Liberal party.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. A week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's resignation, there is now a much clearer picture of what the liberal leadership race is going to look like. Some of the contenders that we've been talking about, high-profile ministers like Dominique LeBlanc, Melanie Jolie, Anita Anand have dropped out. It's really shaping up to be a race

between former finance minister, Christa Freeland, and former Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, who are both expected to announce their candidacy imminently. Former BC Liberal Premier, Christy Clark, is also musing around, but her candidacy is less certain. Perhaps even more so after it came out last week that she registered to vote in the last conservative leadership race. Because it's looking pretty good that we could be headed to a spring election, whoever

the candidates are have the added challenge of running both a leadership and a general election campaign essentially at the same time. But according to some recent polling by Abacus Data, the candidates have a truly steep uphill battle, some might say completely insurmountable. David Coletto is the founder and CEO of Abacus Data. He's here to talk about how Canadians are responding to Trudeau's resignation and what that means for the Liberal Party. David, hey, always great to have you on. Thanks for having me, Jamie. Great to talk.

So you conducted the survey in the immediate aftermath of Trudeau announcing his resignation starting the day that he resigned through the following day, so January 7th. You asked people about their immediate emotional reactions to him stepping down. Across this political spectrum, what were the most common responses to that question? I think most Canadians, in the responses they gave to our survey, were generally happy or had a positive reaction to Mr. Trudeau's announcement, right? You had 42%, for example, of Canadians saying one of the three words they'd used to describe their reaction was relieved, right, with optimistic and happy following in second and third. That was particularly true among those who right now support the

conservatives or the Bloc or the NDP, right? Those opposition party supporters, they're really happy to see Mr. Trudeau go, which is one reason many of them may be opposition party supporters. But among liberals that at the time of this survey were supporters of the Liberal Party, there was still a sense of disappointment, some worry, some sadness about Mr. Trudeau stepping away. That mix of sadness among liberals though was overshadowed I think, a real sense of relief that many people felt that, you know, the prime minister had finally done what they thought he was going to do anyways, and now they could focus on the future and they're asking what's next.

So let's talk about the prospective candidates then that could replace Trudeau. But I just want to put this uphill battle, any of them would be facing into more context. And what do you know from all the surveys that you've been doing over the past few months, not just this one, about what Canadians want to see in the next leader of this country? What would a future liberal leader need to project to win people over to get more of those people onside? I think there's probably two things they're looking for. Most important, they're looking for a change in how they're feeling about the

world and their life and their place in it. Right. The cost of living, healthcare scarcity, the housing crisis are all things that regardless of your age or what part of the country you live in has really been the focus for people. That's been consistently what they tell us is the top issues facing the country. But now you have this added sense of insecurity

created by Donald Trump that I think is increasingly forcing people to ask themselves who is best able to get the country into a stable and secure position, which at the same time will secure my own future and my own current status. And so they're looking really for somebody in a way to give them some hope. The next liberal leader, whoever that is, if they're going to have any shot at becoming competitive within that contest, they're going to have to demonstrate that in comparison to Pierre Poliev and Jagmeet Singh, particularly Mr. Poliev, who are certainly winning on that front right now.

So I suppose the first hurdle is that they need to introduce themselves to the country. And I know that you asked people about some of the key people who have been floated as possible replacement leaders, right? The main ones, Christia, Freeland, Mark Carney, Melanie Jolie, Anita Anand, Christy Clark, Dominic LeBlanc. And since then, as I mentioned in the intro, Jolie Anand-LeBlanc have dropped out. But what did people say when you asked them about these frontrunners?

Did people even have a sense of who they were? The short answer is no. In the case of Chrystia Freeland, let's use her as an example. Probably the most high profile cabinet minister in the Trudeau government, deputy prime minister, minister of finance, even after her resignation, which within hours almost every Canadian had heard of, in our survey when we showed respondents a picture of Christa Freeland, only about half could recognize her,

either say her name or what her role was, or even some, like we gave people a lot of leniency to sort of signal they understood who it was. So that's Christa Freeland, and she's in the strongest position in terms of name recognition or familiarity than anybody else. Mark Carney, let's talk about him. He's being, you know, there's talk he's going to run announced this week. Three out of four Canadians can't pick him out of the lineup. And even when we show his name, a third say, I don't know who that is.

And only one in five, 20%, say, I know, I feel like I know him pretty well. Everyone else we tested was well behind. Even Christy Clark, former Premier of British Columbia, she's well known in BC, but outside of BC, less than 10% could recognize her in a photo. For the people who did recognize them and do feel like they know something about them, did you get a clearer picture of who they like or who they have good feelings or vibes about?

Yeah, and this is where I think, yeah, and I use that, I like how you've said those who you, because a campaign can increase that. So if we want to understand among those who already have a good sense of who somebody is, do they like or dislike them? Right. And for Chris Jeffreeland, far more people said they had a positive view of her than a negative one, as did Mark Carney. In fact, Mark Carney had the most favorable impressions as a pollster like me would say. More people liked him than disliked him than anybody else. Interestingly, Christy Clark is different in that slightly more at a favorable view

than a negative one, but she was much closer to that even mark, 38 positive, 34 negative. But I think the overall takeaway from this is despite the fact that many of these people, Ms. Freeland, Mr. Carney, Ms. Clark are not that well known, there is some goodwill built into them that if they are able to introduce themselves in a positive and consistent way to the country, there's a possibility that they could connect with people and maybe convince them that another liberal government

led by them is gonna be better than what the alternatives might be offering. So just elaborate for me a little bit more here on how tough that's gonna be. Well, that's what's extraordinary about this particular moment, is that not only do these candidates only have about 60 days to win over liberal supporters, but it's likely they'll then only have another, if they're lucky, 60 days

to win over the entire country. And keep in mind what we talked about earlier. These are folks who aren't household names. And if Mark Carney, for example, in particular becomes leader of the Liberal Party, he's got to find a way to not only convince liberals that he is their best hope or shares their values, but then has to quickly pivot in an environment where Donald Trump is going to suck up almost every inch of the attention real estate that exists as he gets inaugurated in a few weeks and as he starts doing the things he's promised to do,

that the liberals are competing to win over their own voters, but also at the same time, introduce themselves to the country. ["The New York Times"] Has anybody pulled anything like this off before? Is there any kind of precedent you could point to where a candidate, a leader, was able to make up this kind of deficit in polling in such a short timeframe? And if the answer is yes, why and how are they able to do it?

Well, the answer is really no. Like there's no example of someone who has had this short a period of time. I mean, you could go back to Christy Clark herself, right, who became leader of the BC Liberals after Gordon Campbell had been in power for a while, started a campaign well back in the polls and won. Some things only happen in British Columbia. And here tonight, we have an opportunity, we have been presented with an opportunity

by British Columbians to open a whole new dialogue in our province. But she had been in office for a while and had some time for people to get to know her and it required her opponent to actually raise doubts in people's minds. Kathleen Wynne, former Premier of Ontario, replaced Dalton McGinty who had been in office for almost a decade and pulled off a majority win. But her too had been in office for more than a few weeks, right? She'd been in office almost, I think, more than a year. The win is a coup for Premier Kathleen Wynne, who overcame her party spending scandals, and a rebuke of the Conservatives, who promised deep cuts to the public service.

You did it. You voted for jobs. You voted for growth. Thank you for voting to build Ontario up. And so there are a few examples of a leadership change leading to that same party winning, even in an environment where voters want to change. But it was never the deficit was never this big in terms of popular support. They were not up against an opponent in Pierre Poliev, who has a massive war chest.

That's the other thing about that we haven't talked about is any of these candidates who run for leader are not just going to be competing against themselves. I suspect they're going to be competing against Pierre Polyov, who will be advertising against them, laying the groundwork, defining who they are before they have any chance to do it themselves. I mean, he's already doing it now, right? They're already trying to shape the narrative around Freeland and Carney, even Christy Clark. In the next election, I will be running against Justin Trudeau. Whether his name is Justin

Trudeau or his name is Christy of Freeland or Carbon Tax Carney or Carbon Tax Clark, they will all be Justin Trudeau. One thing I was thinking about though is going back to what's happening with the United States, the threat of a looming trade war, the 51st state thing. It does seem increasingly likely that this is going to be the ballot box question in an election, not, for example, the carbon tax, I guess. And I know you don't necessarily have polling on this specifically, but I imagine that you do have some thoughts on it. I'm not convinced it will become the balaba question. I think it'll be part of it.

I think that people are well aware of Donald Trump. When we ask them, do you think he's likely to bring in these tariffs? They think he is. The question though, I think is maybe not who's best to deal with Trump, but who's best to deal with the consequences of Trump. Because I think there are some Canadians who believe no matter who's in office, Trump's going to be Trump. You're not going to change his mind.

He's going to do what he wants to do, especially now. This is not like it was in 2016 or 2017 when you could maybe influence him because it was his first time in office. He has nothing to lose now. And so I think that what voters are likely going to look at, part of it is who is going to be able to go to Washington and at least get a hearing from Mr. Trump. But it's also about who's going to have the policies and the approach that are going to still protect me and secure me. But do you think that it opens up a good thing for Poliev because people like

Elon Musk and all those people around Trump seem to kind of look at him like a bit of a celebrity right now? I think Justin Trudeau stepping out of the way is the thing that creates the opportunities for the liberals because whenever we would ask people do you know between Mr. Poliev and Mr. Trudeau who do you think's best able to to deal with Trump, Mr. Poliev and Mr. Trudeau, who do you think is best able to deal with Trump? Mr. Poliev would win overwhelmingly on that. So the question for someone like

Christopher Freeland or Mark Carney or Christy Clark, if they were to win the leadership of the Liberal Party and become Prime Minister, is they need to not only quickly demonstrate they have a handle on that issue, but that they're better fundamentally than Mr. Poliev. And that's possible. I think it is possible that Justin Trudeau could not, I think, have achieved that. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news.

So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

So if I'm a liberal leadership candidate trying to introduce myself to the country, I imagine another layer of challenge here is how much the media landscape has fragmented in the past decade. And talk to me about how you're seeing the impacts of that media fragmentation in your own polling and how you think that changes what any of these candidates would be up against as they try to win over Canadians. I mean my data clearly points to a fragmented, maybe the most fragmented information ecosystem I've ever seen and probably has ever existed and what I mean

by that is you know if you're under the age of 30, or you're over the age of 60, you live in almost entirely different worlds in terms of how you get your information and even what that information might look like. And we asked it on this last survey we did about how people found out that the prime minister resigned. If you were over 60, television and traditional news organizations were still the overwhelming primary way that they first heard about it. If you were under 30, social media and word of mouth, you know,

70% said that was how they heard about it. TV was like in fourth. And so if you are a candidate, if you are anyone, frankly, trying to communicate with the entire country at once, it's never been more difficult. You have to have sizable amount of money to advertise, I think, directly to people where they are. You've got to build pretty rapidly an organic following on five different platforms. And you still have to find a way to compete against all the other news that is going on around the world I think that point you made to about an organic following is really key You know, I would say none of these guys are screaming sort of Twitter or tick-tock or you know seem like they have a real

Understanding like is Mark Kearney gonna go viral Like and create instantly millions of people following him? Is he going to do TikTok? I don't even know, right? Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you recently posted some survey data about how many people had seen at least some of the interview that Poliev did the other week with Jordan Peterson. And just tell me about those findings and what they say to you.

Yeah. So we found about one in five Canadians said they had watched or listened to either all of or some of that interview and then another third had heard about it. The segment most likely to have either to watch some of it or listen to it were younger men, were younger Canadians. And the reason I asked the question on the survey, and I always come at this with, I'm like, sometimes conventional wisdom isn't accurate, right? There are some who believe that Jordan Peterson's views are so outside the mainstream of Canadian

public opinion, that his audience is so small and niche that why would Pierre Pauli have taken the risk to go on his podcast? And the data backs up the reason why. And that is because there is actually a wide audience. And it's the audience, back to what we just talked about, that's often hard to reach. Young men, young Canadians aren't on, they're listening to your podcast

probably more than most other content produced by the CBC, by the way, Jamie, but they aren't watching The National or they aren't tuning into the radio, but they are listening to podcasts like yours and others that are much more long form and directed at them. And the point that I wanted to make was, if you're a political leader, if you're a leader of anything,

you've got to do far more to connect with those different audiences, but those audiences are out there and they are consuming this kind of stuff. Not one in five, right? I think maybe you're not listening to this podcast or other podcasts. I found that number absolutely extraordinary. It stopped me in my tracks, David, really, last week when I saw it.

And I get the appeal of these podcasts, of the long form stuff. I know that Jordan Peterson has a huge following of young men in particular. But I guess this isn't really a question for you, but just something I've been thinking about what really worries me here. And I'm not saying that I'm perfect and that journalists across this country are perfect, but that man in that interview, there was no challenge, no scrutiny, no fact checking. You know, at one point, they just kind of agreed, both of these men, Polly and Peterson, that basically racism was imported and invented in Canada quite recently. And by the way, put aside race, this obsession with race, that wokeism has reinserted.

Well, invented even. Invented in many ways. that wokeism has reinserted. Well, invented even. Invented in many ways. When I moved to Toronto, it was as race blind as any country, as any city could be. We basically, what would you say, imported and invented racism in Canada, right? As a consequence of policy.

Wokeism seeks to divide people into these different groups and subgroups and we see the results in a 250% increase in hate crimes. That is a statement that like a great many different groups and people would disagree with not least our indigenous population. So it just really worries me that these are real echo chambers. And here's another stat, right, that I didn't release yet. And we followed up among those who watched and said, did that interview give you a better sense of who Pierre Poliev is

and what he would do as prime minister? And almost 80% who had watched some of it or all of it said, yes, quite a bit or a great deal. So to your point, if there was no challenging, if there was no counter arguments, these environments leave people with the view they get, right? But they're reaching a big audience. I guess my question here to end this, if I am one of these prospective candidates, if I am Mark Kearney, if I am Krista Freeland, if I am Christy Clark, given everything that we've talked

about today, why am I running? How do you think that they're looking at this? One of the reasons is because there's only been 23 other prime ministers in Canada, and you get to be the 24th. That's what's different with this leadership race than any other, is that you don't get one job, you get two. But it's clear that, you know, you may not have that job for very long because not only will you face an electorate soon after,

but the odds that you can convince people that you and your party that have been in office for almost a decade deserve another shot, I think, is the head scratcher here. But here's the thing that gets me, is even if you get re-elected, this is such a difficult world that that job itself is going to be incredibly hard. So on the one hand, I say to people like Mark Carney and Christopher Freeland and Christy Clark who want this job, in a way, thank you, because I'm glad somebody does. But on the other hand, you look at the data that I've collected, you look at everything else and you wonder what makes these folks

tick because to want to do this, in my mind, the reasons aren't very clear other than you get to be prime minister, which even if for a week, I guess, might be a pretty cool job. Okay, David Coletto, thank you very much. Thanks, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.