It Could Happen Here - The Canadian Election: NOTHING EVER HAPPENS

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Garrison breaks down the 2025 Canadian election with the help of Lance from The Serfs. Conservatives snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as anti-Trump polarization gives Liberals another minority government. Sources: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2025/results/#/all-parties https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4jd39g8y1o https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/the-ndp-is-set-to-lose-official-party-status-after-canadas-election-heres-what-that/article_ac2e10a8-98f0-412d-81dd-a3408b07c6b4.html https://abacusdata.ca/2025-federal-election-final-poll-of-campaign/ https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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of iHeart Women's Sports. Coolzone Media. Dark woke is back. 10 more years of liberal supremacy, bankers in control in the great nation of Canada. This is It Can Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by James Stout. We are discussing the 2025 Canadian election, which I may be

slightly exaggerated in the opening there. But the election did happen yesterday or two days ago, whenever you're listening to this. I was up all day on CBC and on elections.ca checking in on all the charts and all the stats to see how this kind of upset election went. And oh boy, did it go. James, how much do you know about Canada and elections? Both of those things are things that I have some knowledge about. I've been to Canada twice. That's good. A fellow Commonwealth member.

I guess, yeah, we are both citizens of the Commonwealth. So there we go. Does Canada have a queen on the money? Queen is dead. Dead queen. Queen is dead. Queen is dead. But yes, we do have queen on money.

Queen on money. So that's another thing I understand. We have a on money. Yeah, Queen on money. So that's another thing I understand. We have a parliamentary system. Like, do I say England or like Britain or UK? It's the United Kingdom, I think, would be the institution. The UK, sure. The parliament. Yeah, have fun with that.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Well we have one of those too, but it's less confusing because it's just one country. We don't try to be three countries like you and the UK, Britain and England do. We're a continent-lit, a mini-continent. That's what we're going for. We've left Europe. We're on our way to the Caribbean slowly. Yeah, luckily Canada's doing just fine.

Debatable. But certainly this election has gone probably slightly better for global stability and stopping the advance of far-right populism than certainly what it looked a few months ago. For people who don't know, yes, Canada has a parliamentary system. People do not elect the Prime Minister directly. They elect the MP in their district, which is called a riding. It's a first-past-the-post system, so whoever gets the most votes in each district, which is called a writing. It's a first past the post system. So whoever gets the most votes in each writing, they get their representatives sent to parliament,

the party with the most representatives, they take control of the government. And that is who the prime minister is. And the next prime minister of Canada will be Mark Carney, who assumed the prime minister role, like last last month winning the liberal election after Justin Trudeau resigned in January. And before we get into some of the results, at first a little bit of an election kind of background. So liberals have been in power for nearly a decade, slowly getting less and less popular as the cost of living has risen. Last election in 2021, the Liberals kept their minority government, but the leader of their party, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, continued to decline in popularity. By the end

of 2024, his approval rating was just 22%, or net negative 52%. Conservatives were up 25 points in the polls. It was a near certainty that they would sweep the next election. Trudeau announced his resignation on January 6th, kind of the January 6th of Canada if you think about it. Former banker Mark Carney won the party election in March of 2025. Carney quickly called for an election to write off the peak of anti-Trump sentiment sweeping across Canada. This was following Trump's talk of annexing Canada and the global trade war and tariffs directed at the American neighbor upstairs next door. I don't know. Yeah, downstairs? South?

No, from America, it's up. Oh, I see. Yeah, okay. Yeah, got it. Understood. Which is maybe a northern standpoint, but who cares. Now this election or an election would have happened by October 2025 regardless, but calling it early was a smart move by liberals, as this was the first time in three years that they had led in the polls. Support for other third parties like the Quebecois Bloc and the National Democratic Party, the NDP, had slowly been shifting towards the liberals. And we saw this in the results Monday night. At this point, the liberals are projected to win 168 seats, falling barely short of the 172 majority. There's still,

as of time of recording, still a possible path for them gaining a majority government, but it's fairly unlikely it'll probably be a minority government. The Conservatives have won 144 seats, the Blocs de Bécois 23, and the NDP a measly 7, with the Green Party snagging 1. Liberals also secured the largest vote share, 43.6% of the vote compared to the conservatives, 41.4%. Though because of the vote efficiency, basically how spread apart certain votes are, this has still led to much more seats for the liberals than the conservatives, right?

If you have more conservatives voting in a district that's going to go conservative anyway, those extra votes don't necessarily mean there's going to be more representation in Parliament. That's the vote efficiency idea. Yeah, class class supposed to is a very bad system as electoral systems go. It leads to an awful lot of votes not counting for any representation. Like, for instance, the Garrison Davis party could have 51% of votes in all writings and the J. Stubb car. I could be there at 49 and I would get zero MPs. Based. Hey, this sounds fine.

Sounds fine by me. Garrison Davis in control. Well, this is kind of what happens in Canada. The election system in Canada is pretty swayed towards the liberals because of how much more dispersed they are versus most conservative supporters in the Western provinces, Saskatchewan, Alberta, a bit in BC, and a growing presence in Ontario. But yeah, the liberals kind of always get a bit of a boost in the election. Now, we did have record high early turnout in Canada, 7.3 million people cast their vote

early during Easter week. The full turnout is higher than it was the past few elections, but it matches pretty much to the 2015 election. To get a majority government, you need 172 seats. This allows you to not have to worry about no confidence votes, which trigger new elections, and you don't need to work with other parties to pass legislation. This will will probably be a minority government with the Libs having to work with a small number of remaining NDP and block seats to run the government which one could consider a good thing in terms of being pushed maybe towards some better policies rather

than just like liberal supremacy but it also means government will be more unstable and it kind of gives the conservatives more room to wiggle. So it's definitely a mixed bag. As reporting first came in for Atlantic Canada, it showed that this would be a tighter race than what the liberals were hoping for. During election night, it seemed conservatives were on track to pick up two seats in Newfoundland, though in the end the Liberal incumbent barely kept their seat, beating the conservative challenger

by 12 votes in Taranova the Peninsula. The Libs did fare much better in Quebec though, they flipped 11 seats. This was the best performance by liberals in Quebec in years. Conservatives gained some seats from the liberals in Ontario under Doug Ford, with conservatives flipping seats around the Toronto suburbs. One of the biggest stories of this election was just the complete NDP collapse,

the progressive kind of democratic socialist new democratic party. They're currently projected to lose 17 of their 24 previously held seats. The NDP basically gave Carney this election. Jagmeet Singh lost his seat, that's the leader of the NDP. He lost his seat to Wade Chung, a liberal, and stepped down as leader on Monday night. Part of what makes this such a big setback for the NDP is that because they fail to win at least 12 seats, they actually lose official party status in Parliament.

Parties have to win at least 12 seats to be recognized as an official party in the House of Commons. Official parties get to have offices in Parliament, extra staff, they get to ask questions in legislative sessions, and can sit on committees. Now, the NDP did previously lose party status in 1993, winning only nine seats in that election, but this performance was slightly worse, hitting only seven. So this is going to be a big shakeup. The NDP is going to have to be forced to rebuild, which is maybe necessary based on kind of

a degree of NDP stagnation the past decade. They're kind of caught in 2017 politics in my opinion, though Singh did lead them to pass some significant legislation. And progressive policies do have a degree of popularity in Canada. The NDP was polling about the same as the liberals just three months ago. The movement that we're seeing is from NDP voters scared of Poliev and Trump, so they moved to Carney to avoid splitting the left vote, as Carney was seen as more capable of beating Poliev than the NDP leader Singh and certainly Justin Trudeau. Now, funnily enough, some

of this quote-unquote strategic voting actually did end up splitting the vote in a place like BC and specifically Vancouver, which recently has gone strongly NDP, but this year the conservatives were able to snag three seats because enough previous NDP voters ended up going liberal in an attempt to gain a liberal majority, but that resulted in neither the NDP nor the liberal candidate actually individually getting enough votes to win the riding. Let's talk about vote share compared to the last 2021 election. So liberals did fairly well this election, especially compared to previous ones. They gained over 10 points

compared to the last election in 2021. Conservatives also didn't do badly, actually. They actually did okay. This certainly wasn't the result they were wanting, but they did not do bad. They gained over 7.5 points this race. Reliable conservative voters still voted conservative, and they were able to siphon off some support from other parties, with conservatives doing slightly better than what polling predicted,

but a lot of very close races across key districts. Now where all those extra votes or vote movement is coming from is all of the third parties. The Green Party and the Bloc Québécois both dropped over a point. The far-right People's Party dropped four points. And the NDP dropped 11.6. Huge, huge losses for the NDP. Most of those voters probably going liberal, although some may just not have voted. One of the more interesting parts about this election is that the Conservative Party leader, Pierre Polyev, lost his parliamentary seat. He lost to liberal Bruce Fanjoy by about 4,000 votes. Oh damn!

4.6% of the vote. So this is going to probably cause a bit of an upset in the Conservative Party. There might be some internal conflict over whether Polyev should continue as party leader, though he did not step down from that position during his concession speech Monday night. James, do you have any thoughts here before we pivot to ads? It wouldn't be seen as such a humiliation for the Conservatives if it wasn't for all the polling until maybe a couple of months ago, right?

Yes. The reason why it's such an upset is because they were like destined to win as almost like divinely written into fate like three months ago. And the fact that they fumbled this is going to be like a massive like historical footnote. Not even a footnote. This is like a historical topic is how conservatives fumbled this election. Yeah like people, the thing is the liberals want to spite people having been pissed off with them for a long time and wanting something different. Yeah. Yeah because people were just like mad at Trump. And we will talk more about the background of the lead-up to this race and in those dynamics that James mentioned in the next segment after these ads

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So here is that interview that I recorded just a few hours before the polls closed in Canada. Hey, my name is Lance. I run a number of different channels, usually under the banner of the Surfs. There's YouTube.com slash The Surftimes and at the surfs TV on most other social media I cover news politics internet slop Usually from a dumpster fire like perspective and you're Canadian importantly. I am this role. Yeah Yeah, I am I am Canadian, but I have been resigned to living in the states for quite a while I actually just had some Canadian family visit me and they kept making fun of me for living in the States Specifically because the states are trying to you know, take take Canadian territory seemingly So now I'm getting a lot of hate from my Canadian family members for for living in America, which is interesting

I was gonna say it's gotta be a scary time to be living in the United States as a Canadian citizen Little bit I am I am dual but we'll see how long that matters. Yeah. So, I want to talk a little bit about kind of the background of this election, because I think this is maybe the most interesting Canadian election in the past 10 years, specifically because of how much the results have always felt inevitable, but the actual results have like flip flopped. Three months ago, four months ago, I'm sure that that me and you may have may have predicted probably something resembling a conservative sweep. Not to put words in your mouth.

Well, minority or majority government led by the conservatives, no question that that was the where all the major polling was trending. And then the exact opposite on this roller coaster election in both directions. I think it's pretty easily explainable, especially to your American listeners who might have been wondering what was happening. Essentially the country had a combination of burnout on Justin Trudeau and the person who replaced Justin Trudeau, Mark Carney, effectively took the number one campaign. It was the actual campaign slogan of the conservatives away from him immediately after being crowned the new leader of the Liberal Party, which was,

Axe the Tax, which is what, you know, Fascist Millhouse, who we call Pierre Polyevka over here. That was his big campaign promise. The conservatives were going to axe the carbon tax. And that had a lot of people excited. A lot of people didn't like Justin Trudeau. And then along comes Mark Carney and he takes both of those things away from the conservatives. He's not Justin Trudeau and he acts the tax. And so they had to kind of completely reset. And this was before the wild card of Trump shows up. Yeah. Which of course now is scary not only Canada, but the world, I would say like most countries now are kind of Having to completely reset how they think and want to do geopolitics into the future because of his policies

Well, and I know like a decent chunk of the Alberta economy is now in great jeopardy because they can't self fuck Trudeau merchandise Which was propping up their entire economy outside of the oil Yeah, well, if you ignore the oil, which will probably be fine. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, could you talk a little bit about kind of what led to this universal hatred of Justin Trudeau in the past five years, just ever so briefly? Yeah, for conservatives, a lot of it really became increasingly more intense with COVID. And I think internationally there was an association with very basic safety protocols and tyranny. So I guess some people, the United States and Canada, both saw the idea of wearing a

mask or having to wash their hands as some form of dictatorship akin to some of the worst war crimes ever committed on any population. That made a schism happen where the sentiment kind of really started accelerating towards less of, you know, blaming Trudeau for everything, kind of like Obama that used to be a joke, like, ah, Trudeau, to actual fuck Trudeau merchandise and the idea of, you know, Trudeau being an enemy of the state and a communist dictator. That was on the right side of things. On the left side of things, everyone got burned out from Trudeau because of the performative progressive politics of his entire character. He was very vocal about standing up for a lot of issues that on one end he would,

you know, pretend to care about such as indigenous rights, land back, stuff like that. And then he would be suing the survivors of residential schools in federal court to try and prevent them from getting too much money from the federal government. So there was a lot of Trudeau seems to performatively enjoy being perceived as someone who's enlightened and progressive and trying to steer the society in a good direction where his policies are effectively exacerbating wealth inequality very rapidly because that's effectively what you get with neoliberal centrists, right? Yeah. And like to go back to that COVID thing, like I was I was in Calgary in like spring of 2022. And I was getting like made fun of in like bars and clubs for like for like wearing a mask at that point in time.

Like that is that is Alberta. But yeah, no, that was definitely like strong. We certainly saw degrees of that here in the States as well. But yeah, you know, it's a little bit of that like general anti-incumbent sentiment was growing so much last year, which we saw levied against the Democrats in the States and certainly against the Liberals. And the way that the Liberals in Canada have kind of been able to maneuver away from that in the way that like the Democrats haven't is super interesting. It's not necessarily like replicable, especially for US politics, but it still is interesting.

I guess like on the conservative side, their leadership changed in 2022, right? Yeah, I think so. It was it was 22 or 23, but I believe it was it was around then. That's when Pauli there became became leader of the Conservative Party, which is like, you know, closed ranks in like coalesced the past 10 to five years or so. And they've been gaining a large, or had been gaining, you know, a large degree of popularity the past two, three years, not necessarily because of who their party leader is, but because they are simply not the Liberal Party, at least that's kind of what it seemed like to me, because like approval ratings

for Polo Verde has never been like great, but the conservative party has still been gaining popularity, at least previous to the past few months. Yeah, I don't want to play, you know, give the far right any kind of kudos or points, but I think from an analytical standpoint, something that people should realize is that within the last, I'd say year and a half or so, Pierre was really, really effective at doing faux populism in a way that a lot of people were starting to get very worried about. Yeah. And that he was starting to speak a lot about the working class, you know, the housing crisis

in the country, and the fact that the liberals are out of touch elites who only care about enriching themselves. And, you know, obviously you'd have a lot of the right-wing kind of nebulous terms like woke ideology Being tied into that kind of stuff But he was for a long time kind of starting to gain a lot of ground and traction as more of a moderate style Conservative who was concerned with helping the working class which is astonishing considering the man is a lifelong Politician like that that is who he is. He was making fun of people like the leader

of the Social Democrats here, Jagmeet Singh. He was making fun of him for just working for a pension and not even caring about the people or the working class. The man has never marched with the union. I'm talking about Pierre. He's never marched with the union. He is a, you know, his voting track record is decidedly anti-worker. It's decidedly exacerbating wealth and equality.

He's worked his entire life to make houses more expensive. But marketing and branding really work, especially like, you know, there's compilation clips of him saying things that are JK rallying tier in terms of both their nonsensicalness, like talking about how electricity is crafted by harnessing the power of the lightning bolts into the wire that the electrician holds up. You know? Very cool.

Yeah, very cool. Thor-like powers. I'm on board, but, like, unfortunately, that's just not how we usually generate power in this country. But, like, it works on some people. They like to see a man who fakes owning, like, different kinds of wood and tools. You know, like a Tucker Carlson-esque, I've got a wood shop in my back. And it's like that.

Well, no, I think this is the first time you've ever seen that lumber, sir. But as you know, again, some voters, they really started his rebranding in that respect actually worked pretty successful for the last year and a half against Trudeau. Yeah, he had a pretty substantial makeover the past the past few years to make himself like presentable in this way. Yeah, very Carl Sinesq, very Ben Shapiro goes to Home Depot and gets some wood. Yes.

That's definitely pulling from that vein, although maybe a bit more successfully. And at least from my perspective, it feels like the degree to which Pierre kind of hitched himself to the Trump populist wagon the past few years, especially like with like sentiments like growing in like the Western provinces that kind of mirrors some of the Trumpian rhetoric. That type of stuff was getting popularity. And now because he put if not all his eggs, but some of his eggs in the Trump basket, this is like backfired in like popular opinion when it comes to his ability to succeed as like a politician and like gaining support because we've seen so much anti Trump polarization based on like the 51st state stuff based on

the tariffs and and like Carney has been able to weaponize that pretty effectively against against Pierre like like initially like the way like popularity points shifted was like by like 20 points which was like huge like 20 points, which was like huge. Those have gotten closer, but I think it's one of the biggest reversals or if not the biggest reversal in Canadian political history was was the dominating lead they had from having an almost an assured majority to now perhaps losing to a liberal majority, which again is unheard of. Yeah. One thing that people are also kind of missing is that he also really closely started associating himself with Elon Musk

prior to leader of you know, the US or whatever you want to call him the the real president of the United States But he had a number of rallies and on the record praising Elon Musk prior to Elon Musk This was pre Elon Musk overt Nazi era kind of more just like Nazi light to Elon Musk. This was pre-Elon Musk overt Nazi era, kind of more just like Nazi light era. Covert Nazi era. Yeah, exactly. But around that time, Pierre was asked, like, what do you think about being endorsed and praised by Elon Musk? And, you know, he started making jokes about how his kids want to go to Mars. So that's pretty cute. And started talking about how he wants Elon Musk to build more

factories and plants in Canada. Well, that's all really coming back to hurt him now because the very idea of there being a stronger Tesla presence in the country is decidedly rejected by the populace. Like, you know, the protests that are going on in the United States against Teslas are going on here as well. Maybe not as large scale or perhaps as fire based, but a lot of them are occurring here. And so like that, I think is also really hurting hurting them So there's been this really funny strange political dance It's kind of happened in the last couple months where everyone is trying to say Trump loves you more It's like a circular firing squad like at one point the the conservatives were trying to market themselves the same Trump was making fun of Pierre and in this clip. So look he hates that Pierre more

Yeah, and then it was like,, no, no, no, look, he's talking a lot of smack about Mark Carney. He hates Mark Carney more. So that is actually becoming a very strong dynamic of the Canadian election is who exactly does Trump like more. And that's not going to be good for you if it turns out you're the one. I guess I'd like to talk a little bit now at the end here about Mark Carney himself and kind of what this means for the Liberal Party. He was the governor of the Bank of Canada starting in 2008. Then he became governor of the Bank of England and managed them through the Brexit fiasco. Brexit was not his idea.

He was not pro-Brexit, but he just happened to be holding the reins of the Bank of England during that time period, returned to Canada, has served as an informal advisor to Trudeau, and now is the leader of the Liberal Party. He's a very, I don't know, he tries to project this sense of he's a reasonable man, which in some ways is. He's kind of boring, He works in banking, right? Like he's he's not like overtly charismatic, but he doesn't have like the the like youthful like bumbling presence of like Trudeau. Like he just he seems he seems kind of basic.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, you're you're totally right. I mean, we're talking about a lifelong banker. I mean, he's even worked for Goldman Sachs. He has a very long and sordid... Well, I mean, it depends on your worldview, right? If you were a person who thinks that the solution going forward, especially in the face of actual manifesting fascism, is more neoliberal policies, austerity and measures, then you

might be very, very excited to perhaps get your own, like honestly, Joe Biden style election here, where we are once again going to be choosing center to center right economic policies that are going to undoubtedly exacerbate wealth inequality more. They are not going to solve the housing crisis. The housing crisis of Canada, while it is portrayed constantly as complex, really goes down to fundamentally there are a lot of houses, but there are also a lot of houses being built in luxury markets that most people can't afford. Speculation is not addressed. And so speculation usually gets blamed on foreign investors, which in turn kind of brings

up the whole immigration fears, which are very successful. But with Carney, I mean, I don't see anything dramatic. Not only did he ask the carbon tax when he was in power initially, and that was again, I think strategically to remove the power the Conservatives had on that policy, he also was getting rid of the capital gains tax, which again is just going to be funneling more money towards the ultra wealthy in Canada. So the problem for me is that if anything, I'm happy that Pierre, it looks like he might not win. I don't know what, by the time people are listening to this, what the results are.

But I also recognize that this does not solve these crises for simply putting band-aids on a pause before, you know, finally a Trump of our own gets elected. And then, yes, people after the fact start realizing, oh oh my God, he's doing a lot of the horrifying things that he promised he would do. He's actually trying to enact project 2025, all these terrible things are happening. Well, I mean, if this was an election where it looked like Pierre was going to win,

I would say he is going to follow through on all of the aggressive measures and more that he's promising right now, which include suspending the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to people that he deems should be worthy of receiving freedoms, specifically because like Donald Trump, he wants to begin silencing people for their speech in relation to protesting against Israel and their genocide of Palestinians, especially if you are an immigrant or someone

on a student visa. And these policies, you can see, they're a disaster after the fact, and people, I think, wake up to them like Americans are right now when they realize Trump's actually doing it. But, you know, make no mistake, it doesn't require too long of the increase in wealth and equality for people to look for an answer because they're not being listened to by the Libs or the liberals here. No, it is interesting that how much this election has almost mirrored the American two party system with the bloc Quebuqua as well as the NDP. Like probably most likely, right, this is before the results, but probably going to be losing seats to both the liberals and the conservatives. And like I think like a big part of this election, I think is similarly looking back at the past

10 years is how much I think the NDP has frankly fumbled and probably needs to do a major overhaul to really regain trust in the voters. And yeah, it's going to be tough because I think like for the progressives in Canada, it's kind of been convenient for the liberals to have a minority government because they need to work with NDP. And they've gotten a lot accomplished to be fair to Jagmeet Singh and you know, for American listeners, the Social Democratic Party of Canada, they accomplish some great things working in a minority government setting, including a pharma care program, including a federal feeding program for children, a school lunch program, you know, working on paid family sick leave and extending it. So

they've done a lot of good in sort of enacting progressive policies, but it's the liberals who are also equally as good at taking credit for all the things that people have come to really like, such as having dental care for the first time and having cheaper pharma care and stuff like that. Thanks to Lance again for talking with me about the Canadian election. It's time for one more ad break and we'll come back to discuss the future

of the Canadian government. The dream season is now complete. And the dream season is now complete. The Golden State Warriors are the 2015 NBA champions. On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship. We examine the controversial move that made it possible. It's never a great conversation as a player when you hear that you're being benched. For the entire behind the scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10 year run, listen

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or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Okay, we are back. Let's talk a little bit more about Trump's undue influence in the 2025 Canadian election, because it is a little bit odd for a foreign leader to be exerting this much influence

in the votes of, you know, a separate country. Now, this was an election that was previously about liberal stagnation and wanting change in economic policy. This was kind of leading the conservative popular support the past two, three years. And very suddenly, this whole election changed and it became about who Canada trusted to oppose Trump, and who Canadians wanted to be like the face of Canada in this new global trade war and this fight against a hostile neighbor. And Trump did not help this. On election morning, Trump released a statement

basically endorsing himself as the leader of Canada. Oh great. Saying quote, good luck to the great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half. Increase your military power for free to the highest level in the world. Have your car, steel, aluminum, lumber, energy, and all their businesses quadruple in size with zero tariffs or taxes. If Canada becomes the cherished 51st state of the United States of America, no more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this landmass

would be. Free access with no border, all positives with no negatives. It was meant to be. America can no longer subsidize Canada with hundreds of billions of dollars a year that we've been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a state. Man, Trump the border abolitionist. This is the rhetoric that really produced a liberal victory and Trump did kind of back off this stuff in the past few weeks and it's very funny to see him go like full throttle the morning of the election in case anyone was like on the fence

about whether they really was worrying about like Trump. This just, this is like such a crazy Hail Mary and we can see this in some polling stats. On Trump's inauguration day, the Conservatives in Canada were leading 44.8% in the polls compared to the Liberals' 21.9% and the NDP's 17.6%. But as Liberals searched for a new leader and as Trump took office, the Conservative lead slowly started to slip. The President began referring to Canada as the 51st state, called the Prime Minister quote unquote Governor, and threatened to impose huge tariffs to stop a non-existent fentanyl smuggling crisis through the Canadian-US border. By April, the Conservative lead had fully flipped over to the Liberals, who rose to

44% in the polls, Conservatives falling to 37% and the NDP around 8.5. These are pretty close to the final results. This number is very accurate for liberal support. Conservatives got a little bit more than 36% of the vote and NDP got a little bit less than this 8.5. This is according to data from CBC and Abacus. This was very much a leader's election, meaning that one of the biggest factors driving votes

was who people wanted the prime minister to be. And Mark Carney is much more popular, despite being kind of an unknown figure, which kind of actually helps in popularity. Carney was so much more popular than Poliev. The past three months, Carney has steadily gained in popularity, getting 46% approval, whereas Poliev has slowly declined in popularity. I talked about this

a little bit with Lance, but the degree to which he's aligned himself with this anti-woke far-right populism rhetoric really bit him in the ass these past few months. He would have done fine against Trudeau, certainly. He was really riding off that anti-incumbent wave. But he is not like a loved figure across Canadian politics, even among some conservatives. The two most important factors driving Canadians' vote, according to abacus, was reducing cost of living and dealing with Donald Trump. Younger voters seem to be more focused reducing cost of living and dealing with Donald Trump. Younger voters seemed to be more focused on cost of living and changing policy, around

57% of voters 18-29, while older voters, around 56% of boomers, were more concerned about stopping Trump. The very first topic in the Canadian Prime Minister debate was tariffs and US threats to Canadian sovereignty. This is seen as like a very real issue up there and like hatred against the US is genuinely growing. Like people are very upset. Canadians are very upset about what Trump and the US has been doing.

It's being seen as like a genuine like, like intense betrayal. The Buy Canada movement movements been gaining a lot of support with people trying to only purchase Canadian products and this has resulted in a real cultural moment in Canada united against the United States it's genuinely remarkable like they like the Canada the US have always had pretty good relations for it well not always not always. Well ever since that one incident. That one time, yeah. That one time I went with the White House. Yeah. Things have improved. And like, what's also remarkable is that this seems to be having

an effect on Australia as well. And if you've seen that. But like, I think I saw an ad the other day that just said, Dutton wants to make Australia like America. Like, straight up, you know, this is our Trump and he will align with Trump. Like, yeah, it's incredible. The degree which Trump doing this global trade war has catalyzed negative sentiments around this like far right populism, global, global wave that we've been seeing is really been a boon to neoliberal hegemony. The past few months. You'll see like, I mean, I mean,, obviously, I take voter interviews in legacy media with a huge pinch of salt,

right? Because it's pretty easy to find someone who wants to say what you want them to say. And often, certainly some of the US voter interviews have just been ridiculous. But people saying, oh, I just want to go back to how it was. I want to go back to the things that we're used to. And obviously, Trump is trending that for a lot of people and like in a very negative way. And so, and as Garris has said,

like the politics of personality is becoming more important, like voting specifically for individuals who they think will have like the negotiating ability or just bravery or like whatever it is to stand up to Trump, right? Yeah. And like in Canada, I think it's less personality driven. Like actually Canadians are very against personality politics. It's more like competency driven.

And this is where Carney was really able to succeed is because he's not a compelling personality, but he is like a professional. And that is why he was elected. Carney helped Canada weather the 2008 financial collapse better than almost any other Western nation He is genuinely good at his job of being like a neoliberal like bank economy guy and specifically with these tariffs this is the guy that you want to Handle this global trade crisis because this is like what he has done his entire life he's never been elected to office before. He is just an economy guy.

And we saw this in like head-to-head matchups with Carney versus Poliareff, rating certain things like finding common ground to solve a dispute, where Carney was 12 points ahead. Standing up to a bully, Carney's 8 points ahead. Managing household expenses, Carney's eight points ahead. Managing household expenses, Carney's six points ahead. Sitting beside you on a long airplane flight, Carney's six points ahead. Captaining a ship through a rough storm, Carney five points ahead. That's what you need, you need a seafarer.

Only five points ahead on seafaring. Hosting the best party, Carney one point ahead. And we'll see. This is reminiscent of that, like, was it like Tim the Plumber shit from like the Bush-Palin election? Like the people I would want to have a beer with? Well, the funny thing is the conservatives are still better in like those types of like physical things, like putting out a kitchen fire, Polyev is up two, and putting up a shelf, Poliev's up six.

Those are the only two ones measured where the conservative candidate edged out the liberals, is putting out a kitchen fire and putting up a shelf. But all other things like solving disputes, standing up to bullies, managing like expenses, like household expenses, Carney came out. I'm going to read a few lines from Carney's celebration acceptance speech here, and I'm just going to read them and not play clips because he blends English and French,

and that's going to be annoying. No offense to our French speakers out there. It's going to be annoying to play for a podcast. It's not going to sort of give a crowd quote. America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never happen. We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history. Our old relationship with the United States relationship based on steadily increasing integration is over the system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has

relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades, is over. But it is also our new reality. We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves, and above all, we have to take care of each other. When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economic and security relationship between two sovereign nations, and it will be with our full knowledge that we have many, many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all

Canadians. We will strengthen our relations with reliable partners in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. And if the United States no longer wants to be in the forefront of the global economy, Canada will." And yeah, this is the type of rhetoric that's going to be, I think, successful in Canada right now and probably in the next few decades is Canada's going to try to take the spot that America used to hold as the center of global power, especially with climate change, with crops slowly needing to be moved north. I think as global warming progresses, Canada is in a spot to be a new emerging world power. And with the degree to which America is just kind of giving up that role under Trump, someone like Carney is very interested in gaining that

degree of superiority. Now, I'm going to read a few comments from our listeners who I asked to send over their thoughts on the Canadian election. And yes, this is a limited sample size. It's based on the politics of people who listen to this show. But I still think there's some interesting points here outlining what's happened in this election. Quote, Mark Carney might not be far enough left for my tastes, but he immediately made gas cheaper, a tangible improvement for my broke ass. And with the way he's been polling, I'm settling on voting for him to keep the conservatives out with their stated anti-woke agenda. Not like I have much

choice. I would have loved to be picky about my vote, but I don't feel confident in the NDP or the Greens to come out on top of the cons." Another person said, quote, I can't believe the country seems to be rallying around a neoliberal central banker in the face of American fascism. But our resentment to the US seems to kind of override all other political considerations. So much of the way this election is panning out is a display of our culture's profound inability to take necessary risks. We're running scared to the serious administrator man. In the blind hope things will be safe and normal again. When he fails, we'll take a late and stupid risk again."

This is something I've seen other people express is like, with this kind of Obama-esque, you know, serious man in charge, this like return of neoliberalism, will this just set the stage for like the material conditions for someone like Trump to emerge in the next 10 years? This is a fear that I've seen people express. I don't think it is an inevitability Because this is not America in 2012 or 2016. This is Canada in 2025. The world is different, but I can understand this fear Lastly, I'll read from one other commenter from blue sky quote I understand the drive to keep the Conservative Party out of office, but I'm also terrified of what the Liberal Party will do to this country

if they can keep campaigning on that very basis in perpetuity. It's good that we will probably avoid the worst. It's terrible that progress is on hold until the Conservative Party is no longer a contender, which could take decades. I also do not expect the Liberal Party is no longer a contender, which could take decades. I also do not expect the Liberal Party to meaningfully change the conditions that are pushing voters towards reactionary politics to begin with." So kind of a similar sentiment there. I think the role for progressives in Canada right now is either to rebuild the NDP or infiltrate

the Liberals, probably rebuilding NDP in most cases because they are going to have to have new leadership and seriously reevaluate their strategies going forward. James, any notes here, I guess? Yeah, I think, like, I guess kind of to echo what a lot of those people said, like, in the US, we had Biden for four years, right, essentially because he was elected on not being Trump. And he was able to get away, well, he thought he could get away with more than he actually was able to get away with, as it turns out, electorally. But like, we were admonished to vote for the person who wasn't Trump, right?

And what we got is open air detention for migrants, what we got is inflation, what we got is a genocide in Gaza, right? And this fear that a lot of other nations in the global north, right, like these neoliberal economies are feeling, it's going to lead to lots of that, like, yes, we need a serious man. Like, we need a statesman to stand up to Trump. And that's going to reinforce a lot of that neoliberal orthodoxy. And that's going to make it very hard to make any meaningful progress to electoral politics in those countries for the next few years, which sucks.

I think this is why some people are excited about the minority government, although it is less stable. They could be swayed by some more of the progressive agendas from the NDP because they'll need NDP or block cooperation to run the government. Yeah, they can't do what Biden did, which like, I mean. Also, like, Carney isn't Biden, like, and the Canadian Liberal Party is not necessarily the American Democratic Party. Like, they are different. His stuff on Gaza is different. Like, the Canadian Liberals have restricted arms, arms trades and arms deals to Israel the past year.

Carney has not thrown trans people under the bus the same way some Democrats have the past year. These are different people. I think Canada is a different country than the United States. But now, Garrison. And I think what we can see here is that this Canadian election, although it was close, it still was a rejection of Trump-style politics. Most Canadians do not want Canada to go the way of America. There's been a subset of Canadians, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan, who have been trying to push for this mega-style, Canada first rhetoric.

And this was denied. I think you were seeing more support for conservatives under Doug Ford with this more like moderate conservatism. I think that's something to like watch out for more. But like this this Trump style of politics was was rejected across the country. And and and Carney was able to figure out a way to make people trust him to be a genuine like combatant against against Trump and and usher in a in a new golden age of neoliberal trade in the face of Trump's chaotic and anti-market sentiments. Hopefully it does put an end to this tendency among liberals, especially in the US but also

in the UK, to feel that they need to engage on right-wing culture war talking points and like, I guess quote unquote, give some ground. Like we've seen that in the UK, right with like, really transphobic shit coming out of the Labour Party. And like, I would hope that like people can see where this leads to and that they're not going to vote for liberal politicians who are going to throw trans people under the bus. And like that that will be like a deciding factor in their support. But I guess that's just my hope right now. Yeah. Well, and frankly, you know, a better liberal party or a liberal NDP coalition would be willing to engage with the idea of like taking trans refugees from these extremely hostile countries.

Asylees. Which is just something they've not publicly talked about. But as things get worse in the States, we will see. So yeah, that is what I have to say as a Canadian who lives in the United States. My thoughts on the Canadian election, you know, it could have been worse. It is odd to see Canada almost accidentally replicate America's two-party system. So even if this was a rejection of Trump's top politics, this climate of fear did result in replicating America's two-party system, which is kind of interesting.

The amount of which the third parties lost support with support going just towards conservatives and liberals. That is one of the big stories of this election. The NDP blowout, one of the big stories. And Pauliev losing his seat, I think, is at least, at the very least, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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