Nuanced. - 190. David Coletto: What Will Decide the 2025 Federal Election?

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

A Canadian Polling Expert breaks down the upcoming 2025 election. David Coletto joins to discuss the key factors shaping the race, including Pierre Poilievre’s challenges, Mark Carney’s rise, Trump’s influence, affordability concerns, media dynamics, and shifting voter mindsets with host Aaron Pete. Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron P. What is going to happen in the next election? I'm speaking with the CEO of one of Canada's leading polling firms. We discuss Pierre Pahliav, Mark Carney, the Trump tariffs, new media versus traditional media, and what will happen in the 2025 federal election. My guest today is David Colletto. David, you have previously been recognized as by the Hill Times as one.

one of the most influential people, one of the top 100 most influential people in Canada, and it's a privilege to have you on the show. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself? Well, thanks, Aaron, for the introduction and welcoming. I'm David Coletto. I am a dog dad, a husband, born and raised in Toronto, but live in Ottawa. I am a political scientist by training out of PhD in political science from the University of Calgary. But my day job is getting to ask thousands of Canadians, hundreds of questions every week as the founder and the head of polling firm Abacus Data, which we have offices in Ottawa, Toronto, and Halifax, and I've got a great team of almost 20 people. Wow. Well, okay, we have to start with some of the most pressing

questions. What is happening in Canadian politics federally right now from your perspective? What isn't happening, I guess, is the question. It's a fascinating moment. Look, three months ago, Aaron, if we were doing this interview, I would have been pretty certain that Pierre Pollyov and the Conservatives were going to form the next government. You fast forward two and a half months and we're going to have some numbers out soon that shows the horse race between the Liberals and the Conservatives continuing to tighten like other pollsters have shown. We see the broader, I think, public opinion landscape really shifting where Donald Trump and his administration as a top issue is now up to number two on our list.

50% of Canadians put it in their top three issues. It's up 11 points in two weeks. And I think he and what he is doing and saying and threatening is really, I think, focusing most Canadians' attention on that and has completely reshaped the political landscape, along with the fact that Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and I don't know by the time this airs may be officially no longer the Prime Minister of Canada

and that too has given people the opportunity to imagine voting liberal again. I think he was like this damn that would just prevent them from getting past it. And so we're in an environment now where I think we could be in a federal election in a few days. It's going to be a very

competitive election. It's going to be one I think that Canadians are paying very close attention to. And the entire to direct trajectory of our country, it feels like, could be completely switched in the course of just you know, 60 plus days. You described those three issues, one of them being Trump's approach to Canada. What are the other two? So the other biggest issue is affordability. The cost of living remains the top issue. Sixty-one percent of Canadians put it in their top three issues. It's been

there for a long, long time. And the other sets of issues are all kind of bunched together. The economy, housing, and health care round out the top five. But really, you know, cost of living is holding, but that that Trump factor is really pushing up. And, you know, it's got momentum right now. More and more people engaged on it, thinking about it, angry about it. And so that's the mix of issues I think Canadians are thinking about as we likely head to the pool soon. What happened with Pierre Polyev? Why are, like, I understand and maybe we can dive more into people being able to reconsider the Liberal Party. But like, what is the decline in their momentum? Well, I think it's a few things. I mean, one is he was a very effective leader of the

opposition, and he is a very effective leader of the opposition. He convinced Canadians when Justin Trudeau was the prime minister that it was time for a change. You know, we saw, you know, close to 85% of Canadians at the height of that number, which was near the end of 2024, just before Trudeau resigned of people who said they wanted a change in government. He was very effective at making that case. But in his story, Justin Trudeau was the villain. People were deeply anxious about cost of living. I describe it as like, you know, a scarcity mindset had taken hold in the country. People thought the things they needed in their life were more expensive, harder to get, and if they had them, they might lose them. And so Pierre Paulyev spoke directly to that.

What happened, though, in the meantime, is, you know, one villain left the stage and a bigger, badder, more scary villain entered, one that was external to the country that I think has made it hard for him or harder for him to figure out to make himself the hero in that story. He was the hero in the previous version of that story, and today he's not. And so he's trying to figure out, I think, how to offer himself up as a candidate for prime minister. as somebody who's going to lead our country at a time when that scarcity mindset that I talked about that had been basically the view for two years has become one where I describe as almost precarity, broader uncertainty, deeper uncertainty around the world that's being driven not by things happening here, but by this external force, Donald Trump. That's really interesting, particularly the scarcity mindset that's set in.

Is there something about his approach that people don't feel like he's the person to potentially go up against this bigger, badder villain? I see the liberals putting out ads basically saying that he would be a puppet to, that he would be more aligned with, that he wouldn't be able to stand up to. Is that playing into this in some significant factor? It is. And I think it's part of the problem that he has as conservative party leader in that, you know, if I'm going to visualize, you know, the way that his coalition was built. Right? If you looked at, even up until the last few weeks, close to 40 to 42% of Canadians said they were going to vote conservative, that reached 46, 48% at the end of 2024. That group was made up of the core conservative base, which I think is about 34, 35% of the vote in this country. And new voters, people who had not voted conservative in the last two, three elections, maybe people who have not voted before. Their younger, particularly young men had come to that. conservative coalition. The thing that was holding it together can think about the glue was a dislike for Justin Trudeau, a desire for change. And so almost no matter what Pierre Polyev did,

he was likely going to get those people to come to his side, because that was the primary motivator. But as Trudeau sort of continues to be in the rearview mirror, that glue is weakened, right? So it's it's weakening that coalition together. The thing they all agreed on is no longer there. and then you basically get Donald Trump as this like spike that kind of snacks right into the middle of it and breaks this coalition open. Because you see even today, even though Donald Trump's negatives have reached a record high in Canada, one and four conservative supporters still like Donald Trump. They have a positive impression of him. But two-thirds don't. And so I think Pollyev, you know, it's not to say that, you know, he has demonstrated any love for Donald Trump.

But the perception in people's minds is that he is somebody who would have been cheering on Trump in the last presidential election versus Kamala Harris. And there's too much similarity there. So I think that is what's caused him problem. That's why I described, you know, probably of having a Trump problem in that in the old version of Canadian politics, Justin Trudeau was this like wedge breaking liberals supporters apart. They've now all come together because they all agree on one thing. They don't like Donald Trump. And that same thing is now causing problems within the conservative voter coalition. There's something interesting you also said, and it just makes me think that for a period, it felt like Canadians were angry.

In a similar way, maybe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that they were angry with Stephen Harper when he was leaving, that there was just a strong frustration and a desire for significant change. And now, based on how, like, I'm understanding what you're saying, there's a. a fear. There's a fear of what the future looks like. And I think Pierre is doing his best to look like, for lack of a better term, an alpha male. He's wearing tighter shirts. He's got the aviators on. He's bringing this energy to alphas in that sense. I don't know if that comforts anybody. I think we're hoping that cooler heads prevail. I think you've nailed it on the head, right? I think that, again, that what people, the job people were hiring for three months ago is different than the job they're hiring for today. And I think, you know, that shift from anger and real

deep frustration with how things were working in Canada, with the cost of everything, you know, and the carbon tax was that perfect issue that exemplified that. And all the decisions that Justin Trudeau's government were making that just made people angrier and angry every time they tried to do something. to a world now where actually a growing number of people are looking for that sense of security, right? Who can guide us through this? I like to think of the analogy of like the captain of a ship through a rough storm. And we actually asked Canadian, between Polyev and Carney, who do you think best fits that description? And they're basically tied on that, right? And so that's an indicator to me that that's what this election when it comes is likely going to be about.

It's going to be about who can who can represent my interests, who can protect me, who can guide us. And Pollyov has built his brand around being that fire brand, that being that vehicle for that anger that you described, Aaron. But Canadians aren't so angry anymore at the federal government or at Canadian political leaders. They're really angry and have a deep sense of betrayal at Donald Trump and the U.S. government. And so Carney comes along as somebody who is not a politician, who has no elected political experience, which in some cases could be a vulnerability, a liability. But in this case, I think people are like, they're kind of sick with all politicians. And so he has this perfect opportunity in a way that the storm, the perfect storm that's been created actually is made for a Mark Carney in this environment.

And so he's got the experience on paper. he's got the calm, quiet, boring, bland demeanor that I think is appealing to a lot of voters. Maybe not enough, maybe not all of them, but enough at least to make this very competitive politically. I'm not a politically biased person. I suspect you're the same that we understand that there's ebbs and flows. And as we've just watched, one political party's popular and their ideas are popular one day. And that changes the next day, depending on the circumstances. And I, and from my perspective, great voters adapt and understand those changes.

Growing up, I've spoken to people who've gone, I voted for those people and they didn't deliver on the things that I wanted them to. So I'm never voting again. And it's like, okay, but like there's lots that goes into this political process that's far more complicated that shape how people make decisions. But one thing that I have as a criticism of the Conservative Party that I like your feedback on is they don't ever, from the ones. that I've interviewed, they don't come across as compassionate, even on issues they care about

and they say that they care about the best interest of Canadians, they lack compassion. The one that I would raise personally is the mass grave story for indigenous people. I'm First Nations. I'm a First Nations counselor. I understand the arguments being put forward by conservatives that we are not unearthing the bodies and therefore we are not providing physical evidence of their claims. And that makes us vulnerable to their critiques. And I'm alive to that. But the way they say it is not at all compassionate, as people perhaps on the liberal or left side are where they're like, maybe we don't have all the information. We're willing to learn more. We want to work with you to figure that out on issues of the LGBTQ community. They come across so harsh that it's hard to have an understanding or a common ground because they don't sound compassionate to the issues. And I think Pierre Polyev is guilty of this challenge as well. doesn't come from a place of compassion. And for Canadians, that feels like an important key piece of the metrics in making a decision on who's going to lead the country. Am I off base here?

What are your feedback on what I've had to say? I don't think you're off base. I think we shouldn't overemphasize, though, that what you describe is what all Canadians want, right? I think we have to recognize that we, although we don't see ourselves as polarized and divided as, say, the United States, there is still very different views on a lot of those issues you've described. animate people on both sides. But where I think the conservatives now find themselves in a weaker position exactly as you describe it is because prior to the moment we're in right now, I think while they may not have demonstrated compassion in the word you use to a lot of people, I still believed peer

poly have felt empathetic to the anxiety around scarcity that people were feeling, right? So if, and I'd like to you to think about like what scarcity does to the average person, it basically, if you think about that, you know, hierarchy of needs, the Masloff's hierarchy of needs, that triangle, right? And the items at the bottom are physiological security and personal security. Can I feed myself? Can I house myself? You know, do I feel safe? So many Canadians over the last two years have basically moved down that list. And so it's in their minds, it's not because they are less compassionate. it's, and I'm not saying the conservators, I'm saying Canadians, the public, it's that they're not able to think about things like indigenous reconciliation or social justice or even climate change, frankly, has fallen down as people's material concerns have become front and center, right? And so Pierre Paulyev, I think, was very good at connecting with people, enough people, at that level. And so he could ignore all those other things. And he didn't have to, you know, smile very often. in, or he didn't have to demonstrate a warmth and a compassion, I think, as you described.

But in a world today where that anger, that frustration has shifted to, as you perfectly described as fear, we are actually seeking a compassionate set of hands, right? Somebody who understands what this uncertainty is doing to us, right? Like when Donald Trump first announced his plan to bring in 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada, I am certain that almost every Canadian household, you know, if you live with somebody else, we're looking at each other and asking this, what does this mean for me? I don't know. I need somebody to help guide me.

And I think, you know, in Ontario anyways, we saw a provincial election there where Doug Ford has this interesting ability to be both at once compassionate, showing that he cares at the same time as being tough and able to stand up to the bully. And I think he, for enough on Terrans, was the kind of leader that they were looking for, and hence why he was easily reelected despite being a conservative in that election. How much does scarcity play a role in elections overall? Because within my community, we face this, and I've called it famine mentality. I think scarcity mentality is probably a better term. And you just see that when we're doing something for some people,

they feel like they're getting less or that that somehow taking away from them. And there becomes like a competitive mindset that there's not enough to go around. And so how are we going to divvy things up? And it can really stop progress in communities in a significant way. And it's what some call zero-sum thinking, right? It is exactly as you described. So if I have something and you don't, I'm going to be protective of it and not going to share.

And if I don't have something and you do, I'm going to want it. I'm going to want to support leaders or anything that helps me get a piece of that thing that we believe. It's very perceptual. I think in your community might be more real than it is in other communities in Canada where, you know, we've never been wealthier as a country than we are today. And yet the perception is we're not. And so that perception is everything and it drives us to fight over these scarce resources. So I do think it's changed our thinking.

But again, what Donald Trump has single-handedly done is reset that mindset in so many people who said, look, you know, our country isn't that bad. Our country actually is pretty great. And I am going to rally around our flag. And I'm going to look to a more collective response to this. I'm going to do my part. I'm not going to buy American products. I'm not going to travel to the U.S. anymore. And so that collectivism, I think, for many, has taken over the individualist fight for scarce things,

because now we're all in it together. We have a common enemy, and I'm using that term more symbolically. I still hope we don't think he's an enemy, but nonetheless, that common enemy in our framing unites us, right, and brings us together. So I think it is changing that mindset, which is why I think it's going from scarcity to precarity. We talked about how Justin Trudeau leaving has perhaps given a sigh of relief to Canadians, the Liberal Party community. And I'm wondering how much has it played a role that Mark Carney is now the leader. Who is Mark Carney from Canadians' perspectives? Well, I think many Canadians have gotten to know a little bit about him.

But I would say, you know, he's going to become prime minister, probably as the least familiar prime minister we've had in a really long time in the sense that there's close to a third of Canadians who probably know nothing about him. They haven't been paying attention to the leadership race. They don't remember him or weren't alive when he was, you know, bank, governor of the bank of Canada. And so he's very much a blank slate. But I think what many people, even if they only know one thing about him, they know he's in a con. They know he's led, you know, the banks in Canada and in England. And I think they're projecting on him a hope that he can figure this out, right? You know, just I don't always use individual conversations I have, but my mother, who I think is like that typical baby boom swing voter, lives in suburban Toronto.

And she texted me the other day after watching the leadership convention on the weekend, a little pieces of it, and said, you know, maybe because he's not a politician, we can trust him more. Maybe he'll be more honest, right? Which I think that comment goes to the underlying concern that people have about politicians generally, about the fact that they, you know, and Justin Trudeau was part of that, and Pierre Pollyov has been a politician for most of his life, in a weird way, being sort of that non-politician right now, having very little political experience may absolutely be an asset for Mark Carney.

So I think there's still, I wouldn't believe, I don't believe views of him are baked in. I think a campaign when he is front and center, when the stakes are higher, are going to really illuminate, I think, to people who he is and what he stands for. But I'm not sure people really know the guy. Pierre Pollyov is far more well known and people feel more familiarity with him, like him or not. Mark Carney is still someone who, I think, people's views. will be shaped over time. You've talked quite a bit about, through almost like a storytelling lens, and I'm just curious how much of the work that you do is taking in numbers and understanding the broader

context and putting that in a story form. How important is that in your work? I think it's essential, and I think it's actually not to not toot our own horns at but I think it's one of the things we become really well known for is right like it's it's one thing for me to say well 40% of Canadians think this and 30% think this and drown you with numbers right Aaron like that would be a boring conversation um you probably wouldn't get the the point even um and so what I try to do is make sure that my conclusions my interpretations of what's going on are grounded in research are grounded in high quality you know surveys or or when we do qualitative research with conversations with people, but make it make sense, right? And so when I try to find these prevailing frameworks that, or mindsets as I like to think about, I think it helps us understand kind of why people are doing what they're doing, right? If we go to the core of it, I think my number one job as a market researcher is to identify the unmet needs of any audience, whether it's your customer, whether it's your voter, whether it's your employees or

member. And so understand, but it's not enough just to say, well, 60% want this. It's to understand why and how has that evolved over time. And so, yeah, it's my favorite part of my job is to sort of ask a whole bunch of questions, look at the data, but then say to myself, like, okay, but take a step back. And if I was writing a children's book about this, what would I write? And, you know, sometimes it's more complicated and you've got to really think about how do you simplify it, but sometimes it's just obvious and we get lost in numbers and so we got to get outside of it, you know? Where do you learn that skill set?

Because that is likely not something you learned in school on how to do. And so do you, like, is movies helpful? Like, how would you stay connected to that? And how does that inform, where do you get that information from? It's a great question. I don't know how, if I had to go back and say, if I was going to write a book on how to do what I do, I don't know if I could point to the exact moments because you're right. and I teach a class at Carleton University in polling and public opinion.

And if you ask my students, I like drill into them the importance of telling the story, of finding that nugget and making an impact with whatever audience you're speaking to, because ultimately they want to take your research and do something with it. And if they don't know what you're concluding or saying, how can they act on it? Because that's what good research does, is it allows you to make better decisions. But in terms of how I got here, you know, I think it was a mix of, just doing this for almost 20 years and learning through practice, right, where I would do a work and then I would present it to my clients or to audiences. And, you know, I could tell by whether they

got it or didn't that, you know, I would just need to keep refining and thinking about the way that you do it. But perhaps the best training for me was public speaking. I do probably like 30 or 40 presentations a year, big audiences, small, and it's always thinking about, you know, what does this audience need to get away, get out of this? What are the five key things? And oftentimes, the best way to deliver that is not just with a bunch of charts and data, but actually a very clear story. And so, yeah, I, you know, I've learned from, like, excellent communicators and speech writers. And I guess it's just, you know, living in the world of politics and surrounded by it, you learn that way.

You know, I'm a huge fan of the West Wing. And so, you know, you think about the stories that come out of that, and some of your listeners might be too young to even, it's crazy that I think about the West Wing as being like an old classic TV show, but it was that, you know, I think personification of an ideal political world that and the writing was just so good that I always think of that when I think about how to make sense of what's going on out there and make it make sense for people and the consumers of the work we do. Correct me if I'm wrong again, but in 2015, it felt like the main story was a young man versus older individual ready for fresh change. And in this

election, it feels like younger man not necessarily super helpful to the conversation. older, wiser, man, lots of years of experience is what we're looking for. And, like, I know that politics is famous for flipping one side to the other. How much is that going to play? Yeah, I think, you know, 2015, Justin Trudeau won, I think, because people were looking for optimism. I hope and hard work that was embedded in that liberal campaign was exactly where most people, or at least a plurality, enough people were, after close to a decade of Stephen Harper. And Stephen Harper, I'm not going to judge his prime ministership, but he was not Justin Trudeau.

He was very different, more serious, more like steel-eyed, more strategic. And Justin Trudeau came along at a time when people, and this is important, back to my original story around scarcity, people weren't generally feeling that things were scarce. And so after coming out of the financial crisis in the Great Recession, which didn't hit Canada as hard as it did the U.S. or the U.K., I think we could talk about gender equity and indigenous reconciliation and climate action because we were ready to. We wanted to. It was time. And Trudeau exemplified a view and a belief that we wanted, Canada wanted to be noticed again, right?

And so it was, you know, even to this day, I would travel to when I was visiting family in Italy on the, this summer. And my, like, 70-year-old aunt who doesn't speak any English still knew who our prime minister was. I don't think she knew who Stephen Harper was at any point during his time. And so that, I think, was the dynamic. And so today, you know, when I look at the zeitgeist of the public, I think you are right. I think they're looking for security. I think that is ultimately what people want. And they're not looking for somebody who's going to eliminate the scarcity.

Scarcity is still there, that perception of things. but it's no longer driven by bad decisions in Ottawa. It's being driven by really bad decisions coming out of Washington. The other piece, I'm just Stephen Harper, to me, I was not a fan of him as he was exiting stage left in 2015. I had done a criminology degree, learned a lot about mandatory minimum sentencing, and the impact it had on indigenous communities, but people more broadly, that it wasn't a strong policy from my perspective overall.

And so I had negative connotations towards him. Now, in the, what I would say wild times were in, there's something about me that goes, maybe things weren't so bad. In 2008, we got out pretty okay, and things aren't as bad as I thought they were. And maybe we could use some normalcy around here, and maybe that approach isn't so bad. And now Justin Trudeau, I would say, is in the same situation where there was a visceral dislike for him. There were F. Trudeau signs on people's vehicles. Is it hit a critical mass on their dislike?

Is that just common that, of course, they have like a 10-year shelf life? Then over time, we look more fondly as years go by? Or is Justin Trudeau's legacy really going to be locked in with the reflections we have today on him? I think every prime minister, for the most part, is viewed more favorably 10, 20 years later than they are the time they leave. Think of, you know, when Brian Mulroney passed away, it was an outpouring of support. And he was one of the least popular prime ministers when he was. design that we had ever seen. So I think Justin Trudeau, I think history will be kinder to Justin Trudeau, particularly given what he's done in the last few weeks. You know, we even see his approval

ratings starting to rise pretty quickly as people come to recognize that there were some strengths there. He's a great, I think, and this is my opinion, but I think he, and I think a lot of people would reflect this, he's very good in a crisis, right? But what he lacked was a strategic vision of where to take the country. And so in between the crises, he could never get things back on track in people's minds. And I think the other thing is that leaders come along for the moment, right? And so after, you know, a number of years of liberal government, after the sponsorship scandal, and it's maybe way before your time, Aaron, but like in 2004, and then 2006, Stephen Harper was the, I think, the moment, the guy that people wanted at that moment, stability, strength.

And then if you remember in 2011 after the financial crisis, you know, they were asking Canadians to give them a strong, stable, majority, conservative government. And they got, one in 2011. You fast forward to today, and it almost feels like that's what Canadians are looking for as well, right? The financial crisis was not as severe, I think, in people's minds as the Trump crisis could be. And so, you know, I think you're going to hear both Mark Carney and Pierre Pauly of asking

for a strong, stable majority government because they need that, because people are going to want stability. Minority government isn't stable. A majority government is. And I think they're looking for calm, sensible leadership. And that ballot question is still sort of teetering on like a seesaw between like, is this about scarcity or is this about precarity? And it's not decided yet. But I still think the momentum is moving towards a place where Mark Carney is in a more favorable position to win as a result.

From your perspective, what are the big political differences between like, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z? I think that you've got to start with how they get information, I think, before you can get anywhere else, right? I don't think the difference between, you know, Gen Z or Zoomer, I hate that term, is with a boomer right now in terms of where they're getting their information, right? We know from our research that millennials and Gen Z are far more likely to be listening to podcasts, one in four.

Canadians under 30 say their primary news source. Their primary news source is TikTok. Less than like 10% of boomers are on TikTok, right? And they are much more likely still to be watching mainstream broadcast news and listening to the radio and reading the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail, maybe not in paper form anymore, but still going to those sites and relying on that traditional news source. So that's the first point, is that you can actually have two people living in the same household across different generations and be living in a very different perceived world, right? That they aren't exposed to the same things.

They aren't consuming the same information. They aren't being influenced by the same people in terms of the story. So that's the first point. The thing that I've seen, at least at this moment, is the big change in views that baby boomers in particular have had towards the liberals. I think I even wrote a piece that said, you know, hey, boomer, like, or, okay, boomer, like, why the boomers might be the saviors for the liberal party. And I think it's in part because if you look at the data around reaction to Trump, boomers are the most angry. They are the most animated, the most likely to say they're going to boycott the U.S., but they're also probably the most likely, literally, like, consuming information about what's going on through a fire hose, right?

My parents, again, live in a suburban house in Toronto in Richmond Hill. And from 6 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock at night, CBC News is on somewhere, right? It's just on. Most people your age are in probably never turn on a TV or stream any of that content. And so that is a very different experience. Look, I think there's, though, a big gap, though. I look at what particularly under 40 Canadians are,

and I'm no longer there anymore as a geriatric millennial and in my now mid-40s, I still believe there's this sense that this country has left young people behind, that it's impossible to buy a home, that the employment market doesn't feel that secure, and the hope for opportunity isn't there, add-on climate change and a bunch of global insecurity,

and I still feel that young people are still in that scarcity, mindset, much more than older folks who have the benefit, typically speaking of more wealth. They've paid off their home if they own their home. And so they can worry about the big existential crises like Trump and not be so focused on like, how am I going to pay the rent? And I still think that's a big problem. So I think we could see a big, a larger generational divide in our politics, perhaps, but going the other way than we've typically seen, where younger people are more likely still to be conservative-oriented voters and older folks are navigating towards the safe harbor of Mark Carney and the liberals. How do you think about that switchover? I know a lot of

people are worried when people are getting their information from TikTok, and I know young people who say the Globe and Mail or the National Post are not always that reliable and have gotten big issues wrong over the years, so they're not safe from criticisms either. And I think about it, even within the realm that I'm in, that I have a fiduciary duty to learn more about journalism, to practice good interviews, to make sure I ask tough questions to politicians if they come on. Because we're moving in this direction, which I think is good, longer form conversations, less scripted, more opportunity to connect with a person, but not the same level of standards and consistency as CTV news or CTV. BBC is going to bring to a standard quality interview.

And so we have to start to humble ourselves and integrate those pieces in order to make sure that we're delivering key information to listeners. How do we make sure that there's that balance and that one group isn't getting bad information? Well, I hope first that, you know, everyone in your kind of position who has an audience takes it as seriously as you do, because I don't think they all do. And I think some have an agenda and push that agenda. And, you know, what you have able to build with an audience is something that very few can do anymore, which is, you know, people will spend half an hour to 45 minutes listening to an interview you do. And they build a, even though it's a one way still media, and they don't get to talk to you, Aaron, like I am doing right now, but they still get comfortable with you. I have a number of podcasts that, like, I'm so comforted by their voices that they can put me to sleep, right? Like, they're just familiar.

I trust them. And with familiarity comes trust. And so I do think that is a dynamic that's happening, that the rise of long form is creating opportunities for people to learn about a lot of new things and in depth in ways they wouldn't before. But it depends on who they're listening to and who they're, and end up building relationships with. And so, yeah, I think, I think it is a responsibility.

And I'm so happy to hear that you understand it. But I am worried that not everybody does. And in a world where, you know, for most Canadians, but particularly those under 40, YouTube is like the primary platform in which most people get information about everything, that you have, there is a tendency if you want it to, and I say want because you keep consuming the same kind of information, that you could get locked into both a deep rabbit hole of things that you probably shouldn't be exposed to, but also. you can isolate yourself from everything else. If you're only interested in like hockey, you can basically surround yourself with content that's only about that and you never get exposed to anything else that's going on in the world, right? That's different than what it was even when I was growing up, where you still were exposed to, you know, journalism about a number of different things. If I had one piece of advice for every younger person listening to this or

anybody, really, and I tell my team all this time, read a publication like The Economist every week if you can, right? And sometimes it's very technical, but it gives you this broad based understanding of what's going on in other parts of the world beyond just even our own borders and linking the business and politics and society altogether. I think we lack context anymore. And without context, we can't have perspective. And I think we've got to find a way to get people more perspective on things. I agree. I would add context, and I think maturity is something that I hope we see more of.

In the U.S., it's become two teams, and I think we're vulnerable to that here in Canada, but in eagerness to seek out the complexity and things, the nuance in complex dialogues, and to not want it to be black or white, to want it to be more complicated, and to see that is an opportunity for growth and to learn more. Like when you go into history on anything, you realize that there is so much to know. And even this historian did not in this information, and there was more to read here. And so I think just making sure that we humble ourselves in that sense as well. The other piece that I think is really important from my perspective to understand is the media dynamics with politics is, I think, changing. Pierre Pahliev, I think,

started this movement of being willing to go on the Jordan Peterson's and do long-form interviews with individuals who he might be more politically aligned with. And we saw Justin Trudeau start to step back from the Christmas interviews and making himself available for the town halls that he had famously started in 2015 and just taking questions from the audience. And that's perhaps my one fear with Mr. Carney is that we did see him go on John Stewart, that he did have an interest in certain media, just as Pierre Polyev did. And my hope, my dream would be that these politicians go, I want to find the toughest interview, like a real interview, not while Pierre Pauliev's eating an apple, but a really tough interview that challenges his perspective, that

brings different ideas on how he could approach things. And if he could manage that well, I feel like there'd be a lot more trust in him. And same with Mr. Carney. And so I'm wondering, how are politicians going to approach new media and old media moving forward? Well, I think, I mean, I love your idealism. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic that, you know, any political leader of any political stripe is going to see the benefit of engaging more with, you know, journalists and good

journalists than less. And the reason is for the exact conversation we're having is that that media, market has fragmented so much that from a political marketing perspective, it no longer makes any sense to sit for a 20-minute interview with the host of CBC, the National, like you may have done, and you would have thought was a win, an opportunity to speak to millions of people at one time, that doesn't happen anymore, right? And so Pierre Pahliav, to his credit, knows who his audience is. And so he goes on the Jordan Peterson podcast. And we did some research on this, knowing full well that the number one audience for that podcast is young men.

And he can speak directly to them, and you're right, in probably a medium that's a little more friendly, more aligned with his worldview. And so it's less risky. But that's the nature of the environment today, right? And you hear any political strategists tell you today, it's like earned media almost doesn't matter in their minds when they're running a campaign. It matters, I think, in terms of good civic literacy and good democratic debate, but unfortunately, it's way more effective to spend, you know, half a million dollars and put your ads on YouTube than it is going and speaking with, you know, Vasi Capellos on her show or with any host of one of the evening or late night news programs. So the incentives aren't there anymore, and I think I'm a realist, and I recognize that, like, the incentive drives the behavior. And so even for somebody like Mark Carney, who should feel comfortable, and we should want him to feel comfortable answering tough questions, because it's a tough job that he's applying for and that he's actually going to get in the next few days, I still don't think he's going to. So I've got to find other ways, I think, of holding them accountable, which I think is in transition right now.

I think that's the wild desire, and I'd be interested to see if this is true from your perspective. I don't think we want politicians who are being this strategic about who they're going on. I think we want real people who are coming to represent the people they serve. And maybe there is some idealism to like what I think what previous prime ministers throughout history would have done. There was this mindset of you go in front of the camera, you look at dead in the eyes and you go, hey Canada, I have failed you greatly on this approach and I should have done A, B, C, D and I could have done it better. And for that reason, I'm choosing to resign or I'm choosing to move out of this position or I'm choosing to move that person out of this position. I have made a mistake and I want to

hold myself accountable to you, Canadians. Is that idealism? Am I lost in the 1960s? Well, I think it's still idealism. I'm not confident that we're going to see anyone come out and say, going to completely change it. But I think you are giving voice to what most people want, right? When my mother says, I like Mark Carney maybe because he's not a politician and politicians aren't honest, that's going to fade pretty fast likely when Mark Carney becomes, he is a politician now, and he's going to have to campaign in the environment as you describe it. So I think there's a place for and it's not just out of pure idealism or what is right for that politician who has enough self-confidence

to say, I'm going to be the person and the leader that people want me to be. And I actually think there's a space for that in Canada still. I don't think we're as polarized as the U.S. I don't think our media environment is as partisan as it is in the U.S. I'm just not sure that the people around those leaders are going to encourage them to do it. And so I'm with you, Aaron.

I hope that that's where we get. And I think, and I think, you know, maybe it's idealism on my part. I think that the next generation of political leaders, I think we're going to come hopefully with that in mind because that's what they want, too. They want to hear their, whether it's their political leader, whether it's their employer, whether it's, you know, the person who owns the company that they do business with. They want to hear from the person and want to be able to hold them accountable or thank them for the good work they've done.

Two more brief questions. One, what do you foresee in this upcoming election? Are the NDP and the block irrelevant in this upcoming election? And how do you process that? Yeah, I wrote a piece just recently on the NDP. I think they're in deep trouble politically because of a climate that we described on this interview. that is leaving very little room for both of them, frankly, both the new Democrats in the block.

The block is less relevant today than it was a few months ago, in part because even Quebecers, francophone Quebecers, who would probably be the last to the fly the Canadian flag rally, are joining in. They're just as anxious and worried and upset and angry at Donald Trump as Canadians in other parts of the country. And so that Quebec nationalist fervor is no longer,

as strong, I think, as it was. Even Lege, another polling firm showed that a few days after Trump's first tariff threat, like support for independence in Quebec dropped 10 points, literally in like three days. So the block is going to have a hard time. But the NDP in particular, I think, is going to be challenged, even though you would normally look at this scenario and say, wow, former central banker, former Goldman Sachs executive, this should be prime NDP time to go after the liberals. The liberals are moving kind of to the right, and that should create space for the NDP. The problem is when we're in a kind of crisis mentality, it has a tendency of making it a binary choice. And I, you know, for anyone's listening who is at all interested in UK politics, in the

2017 general election in the UK in England, after the Brexit vote, you saw an increase in the share of the two largest parties. The third, fourth, fifth parties saw their vote drop. as the choice became like pro-Brexit party, anti-Brexit party, right? And so I think the NDP is going to have a really hard time navigating that. You know, Jugmeet Singh, I can just visualize sort of in the back, being like, hey, guys, what about me? What about me? Because there's going to be such a sharp choice between Pollyev and Carney that where does sing fit into all of that.

Right. Is nationalism good for us, this movement towards nationalism? Well, it's more of a question, I think, for economists. I think from a public opinion perspective, it can be, as long as it's a positive nationalism. I think we've seen versions of a negative one. You can look at some countries in Europe, and even Donald Trump's version of nationalism, I don't think is a positive thing. It's one that basically says, like, we're better than everybody else, and let's just beat on everybody else,

as opposed to, we're better than everybody else, then let's guide them to a better place, which was like the old American exceptionalism. We now have a new version, which is like bully, bully exceptionalism. But in the Canadian context, I think it's, I think it is a good thing right now. I think the public psyche around our own country

has been kind of down for the last number of years, that we weren't as proud to be Canadians. There were lots of reasons that we could point to that people said, ah, you know, our economy's not as strong or, you know, we, and a lot of political leaders, we're helping fuel that kind of negativity towards our country. But I think in this moment, all being said, I think national is good. I think it's bad when it prevents us from seeing beyond our own borders and recognizing. And I think Canada has always been a place where we know we aren't the biggest. We know we aren't the strongest. And so I think that's

embedded in our political culture to recognize that we can have influence, but we can't really bully people and tell them what to do. And so I've found myself more often these days, you know, in a meeting's putting a Canadian flag on my lapel or walk down the neighborhood and see Canadian flags out on houses that you would only see on Canada today. They're out there now. Don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's increasing our mood. And last point, I'll make it just from a data perspective for basically two years, barely a quarter of Canadians felt that their country was headed in the right direction. This was like we were in a funk. We were in this like hole that nothing that anybody could do could get us out of it. Donald Trump, in just a brief period of

time, I think, has brought some life back to us. And we're seeing that country hit in the right direction number starting to go up and moving pretty quickly. And so that's giving me some optimism that This is all not a bad thing to happen right now. Oh, he almost told my last question. David, you've been able to watch the ebbs and flows of our country in a really deep way. As a First Nations counselor, I've done a lot of surveys. We're doing a comprehensive community plan right now. And it's been very humbling to be able to see the statistics still speak with people and get those anecdotal stories,

but really see the vibes and what actually people think on issues and get 113 responses out of 650 and start to get a good. on what the community actually wants and where we're going and those ebbs and flows of good times, 2008, not being a good time and the positive. Is there any hope you can leave people with as we look at the negativity and all of this uncertainty? How do we keep that hope? Well, look, I think, I think, you know, one of the most fascinating periods of my life was doing research around COVID, right? And if you remember that, we try to forget that moment, but it was a scary moment for everybody. But in that scary moment, I think we found,

we changed some of the values that we had. We changed the way we did things. And I think in a lot of ways for the better, there's still a lot of pain and suffering and harm done by that event. But it left us in a different place and in some ways, I think, better. So that's the hope and optimism I have. As much as Donald Trump is challenging us in a ways that we, haven't been challenged before, I think, I see it in the data. I see a renewed interest in us,

you know, being entrepreneurial and being builders and makers of things again. We see us looking beyond North America and saying, well, there's a bigger world out there, right? Like, let's engage with Asia and Europe. And, you know, we released a survey earlier this week that showed like more people think it's a good idea to join the EU than not, right? Like, that may never happen and probably not a good idea, given the bureaucracy of that arrangement. But that's not the point. The point is we're now being forced to look beyond that North-South relationship, which is, I think, always going to be important.

When Donald Trump eventually leaves, the U.S. will never not be our most important partner. But I think, I hope that, you know, by saying, I'm not going to travel to the United States this year, I'm going to go to Mexico, or I'm going to go to South America, I'm going to go to Asia, that's going to expose people to new. ideas and new opportunities. So that's the optimism I have. I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy all the time. And so as anxious-inducing as this world is at this moment, I'm always mindful of

that Thomas, I think Pinker book, you know, Enlightenment now, that I am someone who still believes I would rather be born today than I would have, sorry, Stephen Pinker. Thank you. I would rather be born today than at any point previously. And unfortunately, most people aren't there, but I'm going to be the one who keeps telling them and reminding them that there's a lot better reason to be alive today than, you know, in 1950 for a whole bunch of people. Mr. Coletto, it has been an honor to speak with you. Very rare that I get to speak with someone who's reached what I would call self-actualization in that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because you bring a calmness to these really complicated issues. of course you have a pulse on on what's going on but there's there's something very calming about

how you're delivering the information that I really really appreciate because these are very intimidating scary times for so many people trying to figure out how they're going to run their business under this and and how the federal government's going to play a role and all of these never-ending questions but your ability to share this information and tell us where others other Canadians are at I think really helps bring the temperature down in the room and I'm just honored to share this time with you. I appreciate that, Aaron, and thanks so much for having me on your show.