The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - DOES ANYONE STILL HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THE TRUDEAU LIBERALS?

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

After two by-election losses, the NDP terminating its supply-and-confidence agreement, and the Conservatives preparing to table a motion of non-confidence, what does the year ahead look like for Trudeau's liberals? For more on that we're joined by: Ginny Roth (Partner, Crestview Strategy), Andrew Perez (Principal, Perez Strategies), Brian Topp, (Chair of the Board, The Broadbent Institute), and Tonda MacCharles (Ottawa Bureau Chief, Toronto Star). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After two shocking by-election losses, the NDP terminating its Supply and Confidence Agreement, and the Conservatives preparing to table a motion of non-confidence, what does the year ahead look like for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals? Let's ask. Andrew Perez, Principal at Perez Strategies and a former Special Assistant to Premier Kathleen Wynne. Jenny Roth, Partner at Crestview Strategy and former organizer for the Ontario PC Party. And in the National Capital Region, Brian Topp, partner at GT and Company and one-time national campaign director to the NDP leader Jack Layton. And Tonda McCharles, Ottawa bureau chief at the Toronto Star. And it's great to have you two here, you again, you for the first time, Andrew.

Glad we could finally get you on. And to our friends out of town, thanks for joining us tonight on TVO. And Tonda, I'm gonna put you to work right away. We know the conservatives are about to put forward this non-confidence motion. We also know it's not gonna pass because the NDP and the bloc say they're gonna support the government.

So tell us, what is the value in doing this? Look, I think it signals to everybody it's a whole new ballgame. This is going to be a roller coaster of a ride for the parliamentary session. The conservatives are going to put forward this vote, even if they know they might lose it. Well, they will lose it on Wednesday, but they've set down a marker and they pushed the block and the NDP into corners where

they're they've had to stay clearer positions. The block has been the most clear, laying out a series of demands, and the NDP is saying they're going to go on a vote-by-vote basis. But I think now everybody's on their guard. This is a rollercoaster of a session. Brian, same to you. What's the value in doing this? It's showbiz.

I think they're trying to embarrass the other two opposition parties, but I don't think the other two opposition parties want to make Mr. Poliev Prime Minister of Canada. So basically the Tories are playing their game to their own people, doing what their own people expect them to do. But what we see in this vote is what it would be like if they

were the largest party in a future federal election, which is they struggle to work with anybody else. Jenny, the value of doing this, knowing it's going to fail. Well, to be embarrassed, you have to feel shame. And I think the conservatives assumed the NDP and the bloc would feel a sense of shame at propping up such a deeply unpopular government.

And so I think the conservatives want them to squirm. And they have been squirming, right? You saw Jagmeet Singh obviously felt some squirming, because he put on a bit of a show and said he was tearing up his supply and confidence agreement. Ultimately, that meant nothing. He's still going to prop up the government.

But I think he felt uncomfortable. Going into those by-elections, he was, I think, a bit freaked out that he was going to be too tied to a very, very unpopular liberal government that he'd been propping up for years. And so the conservatives, I think, want to go further down that path and really try to make voters that they're fighting the NDP

for, and in many cases, winning over, at least if you believe the polling, and make those voters understand what the choice looks like. Are you squirming, Andrew? Well, I think the NDP are in between a rock and a hard place. They had to make this move politically two and a half years into this agreement. It was clear that it was not benefiting Singh and the NDP politically. What becomes difficult is this is the most progressive

iteration of the federal Liberal Party that we've seen ever and Singh has supported this government strongly for the past two and a half years. In fact pharmacare is actually not the law of land yet. It still has to pass the Senate. And so, forever how much longer this government lasts, Singh has to walk a very tight rope around using political rhetoric to attack the prime minister and create more political distance between him and the Liberal government,

while also being a champion for progressive social policy. And that's a huge challenge. Brian, I should ask you, do you think it was a good idea for Mr. Singh to end the agreement that he had with the liberals? Oh, first of all, with regard to what we were just hearing, I think what Mr. Singh intends to do is say the liberals are on their way to the repair shop. Clearly the public is done with them. And then next election is going to be a decision between the new Democrats and the conservatives.

I think he's going to focus a lot of this fire on the Tories, frankly, which is what Jack Latham always used to say, you know, when you're in a swim race, you don't pay attention to who's behind you, you pay attention to who's in front of you. To your question, look, viewed by new Democrats, they were doing their job. They were doing what they've always done since the 1920s, which is when you get into parliament and the public has given you a little bit of power, you use it to try to get things done. And we have pensions and employment insurance and we have Medicare and many other good things

because the NDP played that way. And they made some progress, some incremental good progress in this parliament, and it mostly got done. And now it's time to focus on the coming election. And I don't think that they want to have to simultaneously be defending the government and outlining why they'd be a better alternative to it. So it was time to, in their view, time to part company from this court. But it wasn't nothing. It was more of what they've up to now, they've done very well in federal politics for many years, which is Harley, balance of power position into some gains for the public.

And they got that done. Tonda, I should just get a word from you on Mr. Singh's both performance and the aftermath of the quote unquote ripping up of an agreement that I don't think actually exists on paper. So there was nothing to rip up. But anyway, he ended the agreement. Tell us how that played after he did that in that news conference in such dramatic fashion. Well, I mean, there were there was an agreement on paper. There were a set of 24 sort of quid pro quos. we'll do this in exchange for your support getting our bills through Parliament. And so there were a series of progressive policies. But

to your question about, you know, Singh's performance in all of this, I think that many people have rightly said that when he called an end to the deal, he didn't outline a clear case as to why now. And let's face it, I think Brian's done that, outlined that it's time for them to set some distance between Mr. Singh and Mr. Trudeau and differentiate the parties somehow on the left and the centre left, and left we will say, because Trudeau's never governed more left than when he was aligned with Singh. But Mr. Singh, for all his rhetoric around a corrupt government, all the calling them corrupt, for all his rhetoric around saying why he couldn't work with them, calling the liberals weak and selfish,

he was unable to articulate clear policy reasons why and where they differed and where they will part ways in the future. In fact, as he's admitted since the getting out of the deal, he said they want to see dental care finalized, expanded to all eligible claimants, not just the young and the seniors. They want pharmacure to get through. It's in the Senate right now.

So he's made very clear that in many cases, he will support Trudeau. However, I think he's starting to articulate, and maybe this is what we're gonna see in the weeks ahead, that more differentiation is coming on, for example, the carbon pricing scheme. We hear they're going to pull back from the consumer price on carbon.

So these will be things to watch. How does he differentiate himself? But I don't see it happening very, very soon. And we can talk about that some more. Jenny, the piece you wrote for The Hub, the headline was, Trudeau duped Singh and Poliev schooled them both. OK, I know that's your view, but make the case. Well, I think you have to give Trudeau some credit for how

long he's strung along the NDP. The NDP have claimed to have extracted commitments from Trudeau, but I don't see a lot of evidence of that. It's true the government's left wing, but the government's left wing on all kinds of experimental social policies that people seem to not like very much when it comes to crime and public safety. Lots of programs announced, but very few actually rolled out,

certainly not making impact for people that they're telling pollsters that they feel and that therefore that they're supportive of. And we sort of have gone through this rigmarole through these confidence in the budget, other items, where Singh has made a big show of extracting more commitments. And I think the liberals have sort of quietly chuckled as they've convinced the NDP to support

them through this period since 2019 where they have not had a majority of seats in the House of Commons. And they've been able to govern as though they have. And so I think Trudeau deserves some credit for that brinksmanship. But in the end, by both of them being combined and by having a left-wing, very progressive government, they've gone further down this path of big government, big spending, high taxes, while the public has said enough.

This is not what we want. And as a result, Poliep appears to be the only choice for a change. So if the public wants a change, less spending, lower taxes, more relief, no carbon tax, they have one choice. And for now, for Jackmeet Singh to try to say, I'm going to bring change, is all but impossible.

I think that's a really, really steep hill for him to climb, and I don't think he can pull it off. Do you think, Andrew, that the Liberal government has done anything as a result of needing the NDP's support that they wouldn't otherwise have done had they had a majority. I think there's an argument to be made that the supply and confidence agreement did push the liberals into a more progressive direction. Perhaps not substantively, but in terms of speed. You know, since earning their third mandate exactly three years ago, we've seen remarkable progress. Dental care, which despite what conservatives say

is now operational, 650,000 Canadians are benefiting from that. A model for national pharma care, which can be expanded upon, which will hopefully become the law of the land shortly. National child care, something that the Liberal Party had been talking about as early as under former leader John Turner.

So substantively no, but the speed in which we've seen this social progress, I will give the NDP credit for that. My question is, I think that they could have extracted all these concessions from the Liberal government without formally partnering up with them. I think they could have on a piece-by-piece basis, like Jack Layton did. I hearken back 20 years ago I was a page in the minority Parliament of Paul Martin and Jack Layton was masterful in extracting concessions from Paul Martin and in fact there was a liberal NDP budget deal that was done in the spring of 2005. I was there and you know millions of dollars flowing for social housing and other progressive social policies.

If I were in a really cheeky mood, I would say, then why did he bring down Martin's government and usher in a decade of Stephen Harper? But that's another story for another show. Tonda, let me get to you on this. And that is, if it were a different leader at a different time, maybe with a different party, two absolutely

groundbreaking, shocking by-election losses might have caused a volcanic eruption from the party in which it was happening. That doesn't seem to have happened this time and I wonder if you could tell us why Mr. Trudeau so far seems to have withstood any massive pushback despite losing Toronto St. Paul's which we sit in right now and La Salle-et-Marc Verdon in Quebec. How come? Look, I think that there was tremendous pushback after the loss in June of Toronto St. Paul's by the so-called 416 Liberal caucus. It was furious at the loss, furious at all kinds of targets, the party machinery, the campaign organizers, the prime minister's office, the prime minister himself.

And there was an uproar, but it was tamped down in part by the fact that there wasn't a giant national caucus meeting and airing of grievances. And that wasn't so much by design, I'm told, at the PMO. It was actually because of a scheduling of, they were quickly after Toronto, St. Paul's, they were, parliament had broken, there was no national caucus scheduled. He was at NATO and then on and on it went. And then they started doing their outreach.

So they tamped down some of that dissent. And when it comes to Quebec and the loss in South Montreal of La Salamard-Berdon, that's in large part a function of the fact that the Quebec caucus is actually not the 4.6 caucus. They're very much more united. They have a different dynamic. They don't air their laundry out in public. We were getting lots of people complaining to us in privately on background. And so we were able to publish a lot of those concerns, even if it was under, you know, confidential sources. But in the caucus, they're still pretty tight. There's a lot of grumbling, but nobody's outright calling for the prime minister to go.

Why is all of that the case? I think it is also a function of the fact that he's persuaded them that he doesn't want to go. and most of them came on his coattails in 2015 or if not in 2015 2019 or 2021. This is not the party of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin where there were divisions and the ability to control membership and executive directorship at the riding level. The party has changed all its rules so getting rid of a leader who doesn't want to go is a whole new ball game. And so I don't, there's all kinds of steam, you know, the steam valves are open. People are grumbling to Trudeau and his staff

behind closed doors, but there's no mechanism by which to oust him. No, there's no mechanism, but yeah, sure. But let me get Brian to build on that answer as well. Because, well, for example, we saw in your party, when Tom Mulcair led your party, the NDP, to actually not a terrible election outcome, they threw him overboard really quickly

and with extreme prejudice. And here we are, Justin Trudeau has been losing, losing, losing, losing, and losing. And there is no obvious heir apparent. And he seems to be able to quell any of the mutineers. What's the special sauce he's got going for him, you think, that allows him to do that? Timing.

Look, I was at that convention in Edmonton when my friend Mr. Mulcair was sent back into the private sector by the members. And it was after an election. We should say you jokingly called him my friend, because you ran private sector by the members. And it was after an election. We should say you jokingly called him my friend because you ran against him for the job and you two did not emerge from that as bosom buddies.

But anyway, keep going. So, you know, it was a post-mortem after an election which was viewed as devastating, you know, in a circumstance in which he was building on the orange wave. We thought we had a shot at government and we ended up back in third place, having lost an enormous chunk of our,

that wonderful breakthrough in Quebec, and party members took it very badly. Here we've got a prime minister who's months away from an election. So, you know, changing your leader at this stage of the game, when you only have a few months before you're likely to meet the electorate,

is extremely difficult. And it's not obvious that they've got anybody available who would do better in those circumstances. The calculus becomes maybe I could win. For them to win, they're going to have to come up with a really good offer because I think in the alternate, they're facing a change election. The public has made up their mind and you know, after nine or ten years, that's often what happens to every government. Or in the alternate, what they calculate is that they'll do least bad under the Prime Minister and

then they're not handing whoever succeeds him a poison chalice, where the successor has to eat a defeat. Instead, the successor can do the rebuilt. So you could argue that Mr. Trudeau is either looking for a really big reset, in which case they're gonna have to come up with it really soon, or he's doing the honorable thing and eating what's coming so his successor doesn't have to. Andrew, let me set up the question to you with a few more facts and that is it's not just the two by-election losses, it's the campaign director saying I'm standing down because I'm not sure I can orchestrate a victory for you nextlection losses. It's the campaign director saying, I'm standing down because I'm not sure I can orchestrate

a victory for you next time around. It's his Quebec lieutenant, Pablo Rodriguez, leading the National Caucus to go run for the Quebec Liberal leadership. What exactly is putting wind in liberal sales these days? Well, that's a good question, Steve. Very little. I've been involved in this party for 20 years.

It's been a big part of my life and my professional life and it's been very painful over the past six months to watch the series of events that have happened. Particularly coming out of Toronto St. Paul's, it was summer but we heard very little from the Prime Minister. No change in policies, no change in communications approach. There was no cabinet shuffle, no staff changes. The only real announcement was a couple of weeks ago when they announced Mark Carney would be a senior economic adviser, which I give them credit for.

To the caucus. To the caucus. Not the government, but the caucus. Yes. And I give them, and I think that was largely a positive story. But I want to pick up on a point that Brian made. I think conventional wisdom is that perhaps no other new leader could do better than Trudeau.

I want to challenge that, that thesis. You know, time is indeed running out and the end of the supply and confidence agreement does make the situation of this government more complicated and more inherently unstable. But if we look down south, what happened with Joe Biden doing the right thing and Kamala Harris ascending to the leadership of the Democratic Party, that has been a fundraising boon. It's re-energized the base of the Democratic Party and single-handedly changed the trajectory of an election.

And I just want to say, yes, there is no mechanism. But I guess the challenge we have is there doesn't appear to be a Canadian Nancy Pelosi, or for that matter, a Canadian Kamala Harris. But I think perhaps a robust leadership race, held very soon, could dupe that out. And I think we could do better with a new leader. I'll push back a little bit on that, only in as much as,

you don't have to look south for an example of that. Your party did it. They kicked out Patrick Brown in January of 2018. Doug Ford became the leader in March of 2018 and he was premier in June of 2018. I mean stuff happens fast up here too. As you watch the Liberals do whatever it is that they're in the midst of right now, how do conservatives have to be careful that they don't overplay their hand right now? They've got a pretty strong hand.

And I think the discipline has to be, what is the issue set that is resonating with voters? So I won't repeat the slogan, or maybe I will. Axe the tax, fix the budget, stop the crime, build the homes. But I only say it to say, that is the discipline of that caucus. You saw Pierre Pellier speak to address his caucus when Parliament came back. There was axe the tax written as far as the eye could see.

It was drilled in in the speech. And that's where you see the discipline. Axe the tax and replace it with what? Well, I don't know that you have to reply. I think most voters right now want less tax, not more. So they wouldn't want to replace it with anything. They want their taxes to be lower. And forget the rebate as well, I don't know that you have to reply. I think most voters right now want less tax, not more. So they wouldn't want to replace it with anything. They want their taxes to be lower. And forget the rebate as well, I guess, eh?

Well, I think that on balance, voters have said, we don't want it. And so, yeah, repealing the carbon tax, crystal clear. I think you could expect that to be the first act of a new parliament under Prime Minister Poliev, if that happens. But I think the discipline comes in on the message discipline and the issue set. As far as parliament goes and these sort of hijinks,

I think he's got to keep the pressure really, really solidly on those other parties so that they don't have any room to try to sort of hoodwink Canadians into thinking that somehow they will bring change. I mean, Jagmeet Singh has been very clear that he won't. The prime minister obviously is not interested in changing things up. He's shown that over the last number of months.

And so he's got a pretty open lane. The challenge for the conservatives now is they have to somehow get through the next year. And I think it'll be a long time because I think the other parties don't want to call an election. They don't want to see Poliev win. And by all accounts, he would. Tonda, let me go to you on that because Ginni says it's obvious the prime Minister doesn't want to change his policy as it relates to the carbon tax. The NDP has decided to make a change in their view of supporting the carbon tax. Do you think it's a given that there will be no changes at all to that policy over the

next 13 months before the election? I wouldn't rule anything out at this stage because the Liberals are famously agile and nimble when it comes to stealing other people's great ideas. And look, if there's a way to maybe tweak a consumer carbon levy at the fuel chart that consumers pay in terms of maybe ratcheting back the scheduled increases or something. I wouldn't rule out because look, he's very, Mr Trudeau is very set on fighting the Conservatives back. And this is a, this whole cost of living piece is something they're acutely tuned into. They also know that if they did something like that, maybe they could gain still support from the Liberal, from the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

So even though they would keep a price in place, maybe they'd tweak it a little bit and say it's applying nationwide and avoid the political fallout they had when they did a different carve out for home heating fuel and really played it as a political play in Atlantic Canada. That was their mistake. So I wouldn't rule things out. I think that this government is fighting for its life right now and fighting to stay and carry through,

this leader's fighting to stay and carry through the next campaign. So, you know, anyone who thinks they know exactly what's going on in Justin Trudeau's mind right now, I think is kidding you. Brian, I should get you on that because it's not only the federal NDP that has distanced itself from the current carbon tax and rebate policy. Bonnie Cromby, the leader of the Ontario Liberals has also said she's not for it

either, will not be bringing in anything comparable if she were to become premier after the next Ontario election. Is that the reality of politics in Canada today, that this thing's a dead skunk and it just ain't going to... What do I finish off this sentence there we go okay over to you Brian look carbon pricing is conservative policy it's it's saying that it was introduced by a conservative government in British Columbia on the idea that you should tax things you don't like and then use the money in the case of that government to stop taxing things you do like, which is people's income. That was the deal

in British Columbia. And when our government in Alberta, I was Rachel Notley's chief of staff when we did this, mirrored British Columbia's policy. What we were telling ourselves is, we're going to adopt a conservative approach, which a conservative economist approach to carbon pricing, in order to try to get consensus on the climate change issue and stop debating it, because climate change is urgent and we need to deal with it. And then what we were up to was revenues would get recycled into Alberta to fund, to fund renewables and change and lower carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector. So what's happened is the, the people who you would expect would support

conservative policy, which is the conservatives have instead decided to run a populist campaign. And by the way, this slogan, acts the tax, was first road tested by the NDP in British Columbia, opposing the conservatives on this issue. And what they discovered was that the end of the day, when the public thinks about it, they wanted to act on climate change. And they thought that climate change deniers weren't setting out a responsible position. So social Democrats left to their own devices, don't use market-based carbon pricing to deal with issues like this, cap and trade thing,

where there's a hard cap or regulatory solutions are more in our wheelhouse. And so if the conservatives themselves are repudiating their own policies to embrace a cheap populace in which your guests there couldn't defend for 10 seconds because you asked the immediate question, which is what about the rebate? And by the way, what about the industrial carbon pricing and all the other issues that fall out of it, which Mr. Polivarie was refusing to answer? Then we don't have to embrace it

either. And at the end of the day, you get back to if we don't have consensus on this, then you can advance your own solutions. The consumer carbon price yields about 8 end of the day, you get back to if we don't have consensus on this, then you can advance your own solutions. The consumer carbon price deals with about 8% of Canada's emissions. It's not critical. And if at the end of the day, there isn't consensus on it, then people like us will advocate measures that we think are effective, which are directly added with a cap. Ginny's champing at the bit to get in here. Go ahead.

I think that's pretty cynical, that the NDP are now running as fast as they can away from this very, very unpopular policy. And I think the reason it's unpopular, and voters, by the way, there's nothing wrong with populism. Voters are not dumb. They can experience a policy and decide they don't like it. And the reason they don't like the carbon tax

is because for it to work, it has to go up to the point of being punitive. And we live in a cold country. So people have to heat their homes. They have to drive to work. All the ways that they experience the consumer carbon tax, as prices have gone up, as inflation's out of control because of NDP propped up

government spending, totally run away, has made it so that they're broke, they're poor, and they can't afford to heat their homes or fill their cars. And they said to politicians, enough. And now every politician is running away from it as fast as they could, even the ones who defended it to the end by saying that if you believe in climate change, you have to do what it takes to stop it. And pricing carbon is the only way.

Well, it turns out that's not true, because carbon doesn't respect borders. It doesn't care that Canada is a only way. Well, it turns out that's not true. Because carbon doesn't respect borders. It doesn't care that Canada is a nation state. And instead of exploiting our natural resources, getting natural gas to tide water, replacing Chinese coal and much dirtier forms of emissions around the world, we've been navel gazing so that we can look good at Davos. I mean, it's absurd. And it's hilarious now for for left of center parties to pretend

that they never that they never supported it. I think voters want a different alternative clearly that's why you see the change. Let me show you some numbers here which might just buttress what you were about to say. Sheldon can you bring up this graphic please? Ipsos polling who Canadians want as their next prime minister. Here we go. This won't surprise you. You've been following Canadian politics. Pierre Pollyet remains the top pick for PM among Canadians at 45%.

Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister, is a distant second at 26%. 25% think Jagmeet Singh would make the best prime minister. Tonda, let me go to you first on this, and then I'm going to come back to Jenny. We have a bit of an unusual situation in the country right now, because normally it is, I guess, the job of the fourth estate, members of the media,

to keep the prime minister of the day accountable. But Pierre Poliak was telling everybody he's the prime minister in waiting. The polls suggest it. It's only a matter of time. So my question is, is it incumbent upon you and your colleagues in Ottawa to stop treating him like an opposition leader and more like the PM in waiting he is and force him to be more accountable on everything?

What do you think? Well, you know, there's a shot at the gallery, but look, I think come any day up to the Hill to see how reporters do try to do that, to hold Mr. Poliev accountable, to ask him for specifics on all his policies. Most days that's impossible because first of all he doesn't take questions very often and when he does it's a four to eight minute speech in French then in English and then it's two questions and he does his talking points and turns on his heel. So don't think the questions aren't being asked, but to Jenny's point, this is a very disciplined political communicator. He has honed it to a skill. He does it. He's not afraid of looking rude to anybody. You know, he has no, I guess, governor in that respect. And so if people watch live, you will see people trying to hold him to account. And I don't think that that will stop from here to

the next campaign and beyond. But is it incumbent on Mr. Poliev to answer some of these questions? The conservatives will tell you they don't feel the need to be detailed on policy specifics now because it's well ahead of an election, that there will be details coming in a campaign, but that won't stop people from asking. And I think that then it's up to Canadians to judge if that's the kind of political accountability that they're prepared to endorse. In fact, I think the appetite to all the panelists' point, you know, the appetite out there is for change. Can Mr. Poilier between now and then make mistakes? Yes, he can. He can make mistakes in the way he communicates to Canadians, coming off looking as a very aggressive opposition leader and not prime ministerial.

Is that a mistake Canadians are willing to tolerate now in order to get rid of Trudeau? Who knows? But those polls tell me that people are a lot more tolerant right now because the change idea is the one that's in the forefront. They're not looking to Mr. Poilier for sunny ways and hope and all of those other narratives that often go with campaigns. They're looking for change. Okay, two things. First of all, I feel your pain because he came to Mississauga to do an event. I waited in line to ask a question.

I got one question, no supplementary. I wonder, like, what's he worried about? He's good. I mean, he's got game. He doesn't have to worry about supplementaries. That's number one. Number two. It was never, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You make him the same mistake that everybody made in the Harper years. It's never about what they're worried about. Mr. Poliev is perfectly capable of handing any question, any question, any of us throw at him. It's a question of what he wants to control, the message of the day to be, and the question of what he wants to be in the papers and on the newscasts,

if he even cares about that. Because he has his own channels to communicate with voters via social media and via other targeted media outreach. But you know, he's not looking to the mainstream broadcasters or news outlets to do that. Yes. Now let me follow up on the second part of your question, which is, Ginny, to say, yes, more Canadians, the biggest chunk of Canadians like him is PM more than any other candidate. However, I remember not too long ago talking to a conservative partisan who said, I like

him, but does he have to act like such an objectionable and then the next word rhymed with trick all the time? What's the answer to that? Can he not bevel his edges and act a little more prime ministerial? How old was that partisan? Older than me. Yeah. He's really particularly popular among young people, and I think there's a stylistic piece

there, which is to say, first of all, he wants to bring change, and I think the change is substantive. So it's true, he's not able to platform, he hasn't costed every commitment, but I worked on his leadership campaign, and we rolled out a lot of policy planks, and he talks about policy on a really regular basis because he wants people to understand how he's gonna fix inflation, how he's gonna get housing built. Inflation is pretty much fixed isn't it? Yeah but he cares about a fiscal policy and a monetary policy that will keep it in

line which this current government has not. So all this to say I think there's substance behind all of this, which is why he's become popular and become popular with young people. And a lot of people take umbrage with his merely being popular or his being a strong communicator. Just because he communicates well or he thinks he comes up with slogans to describe his policies doesn't mean they're devoid of policy. It's not those slogans people object to, I think.

I think it's when he says things like, sell out Singh. That's name calling. That's like schoolyard Donald Trump name calling. Why does he indulge in that? I think it's branding. He's branding for the public that this Jagmeet Singh, who they might not be that familiar with, has been the guy who's been selling out and propping up

a government that ostensibly has policies that he doesn't support for years. and he wants the public to understand that so that they make that that take that decision at the ballot box. Andrew. Mr. Pauly-Evora is a very talented political communicator. I don't question that for a moment but his pithy sound bites are only that. This is an individual who's been in parliament for 20 years. He is very much part of the establishment.

And so this narrative that he's an outsider and he's gonna come in and revolutionize Ottawa is nonsense in my view. And this is someone that's well outside the mainstream of Canada, of both where liberal and conservative parties have traditionally governed. Someone that has promised to defund the CBC, English Canada CBC, mind you he doesn't talk about Radio Canada because he knows that's popular in Quebec.

And there is no platform and I suspect there will be no platform until even in the election. There'll probably be five key points and that's about it. And so I think it really concerns me as a Canadian and I think it accelerates and really underlines why the Liberal Party needs genuine reform because we are facing a populist conservative and you know I think replacing Mr. Trudeau is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reform. This is a party that you know I was attracted to the party because, 20 years ago, because it was a brokerage party that brokered interest in Western Canada and English Canada, Quebec.

It was also a party that married free market economy. I got to save some time for Brian. I'm down to my last 30 seconds, Brian. What are your plans for the guy who says he's the Prime Minister and waiting? Well, it's going to be called out. This is a guy who wants to get elected as prime minister by chanting angry nursery rhymes and hinting at policies that don't hold up to a hill of beans. I mean, what he has to say about inflation is he wants deep, unspecified cutback to the

federal government. What are those? And he's a guy who who says we're going to fix housing by beating up municipal mayors. How? And to what end? And so I think, you know, the angry nursery rhymes have been working for him up to now. People were in the mood for change. That's the mood that they're in. There's no doubt about it. But at the end of the day, I think in a run up to the election and the election, he's going to be called out

and people will look for something better. And although those are good numbers to show the last thing to say, a majority of Canadians don't want this man to be prime minister. So the question is, who's the alternative? And in a time for a change election, it's going to be up to Mr. Singh

to offer a better alternative. We'll see if he does operate. Let the story unfold. And I want to thank the four of you for coming on to Mr. Singh to offer a better alternative. We'll see if he does operate. Let the story unfold. And I wanna thank the four of you for coming on to TVO tonight to discuss it. Brian Topp, Tonda McCharles, Ginny Roth, Andrew Perez. Thanks so much, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Thanks, Steve.