The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Should Mark Carney Call an Election During a Trade War?

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Mark Carney becomes Canada's Prime Minister during a time of crisis. With reports that he plans to call an election soon, what will the coming weeks look like in Ottawa? Joining us to discuss are Ashley Csanady of McMillan Vantage, Amanda Galbraith of Oyster Group, Zain Velji of Northweather, and Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first-time donation and continue to discover your 2.0 TVO. Mark Carney will become Canada's 24th prime minister with huge challenges on his plate, from Canada's place in the world to a contemptuous relationship with the 47th president of the United States. And with expectations that he'll call an election any day now, will tariffs trump everything else?

Joining us to unpack all of this, we welcome in Calgary, Alberta, Zain Valji. He's a partner at North Weather and Alberta NDP Strategist. In the nation's capital, Tonda McCharles, Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star. With us here in studio, Ashley Chinatti, vice president at McMillan Vantage and a liberal strategist, and Amanda Galbraith,

co-founder and partner at Oyster Group and a conservative strategist. And it's delightful to see you two again here in our provincial capital, and then, hello Tonda, in our nation's capital, and Zane in a place that wishes it were Alberta's capital, but it isn't really. Hi everybody. Okay, here we go. Ashley, you got to hand it to Mark Carney.

86% is a hell of a victory. His victory speech, you and I were both there, the victory speech didn't exactly light the room on fire. Any concerns about that? I think that that's a bit of an understatement. It definitely was a very safe speech, maybe a little bit too long. As someone who's written these kinds of speeches that people like to armchair quarterback after the day, I don't want to do too much of that.

But I think if I was to tell his team anything right now, it would be maybe a little bit, a little bit shorter and a little bit punchier on the message. But I think that's what they're going for is this idea of, of boring and stable and safe and the contrast of all of the bombast and uncertainty of Donald Trump and the way in which Pierre Poliev can sometimes mirror that style. And I think part of the reason we're seeing the bump for liberals in the polls right now is that Mark Carney presents a really stark contrast to that.

And you know, they can continue to do that, But perhaps maybe in just slightly fewer words. Tonda, what was your read on the current victory speech? Well, I've heard him do other speeches and he's not one who does light up a room by any stretch. Look, I thought he made some pretty hard-hitting, took some pretty hard-hitting shots at the Trump administration and Americans But I was only yesterday actually that I noticed that he didn't repeat his own Threat to do dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs He said the government is already doing terrorists that will maximize the impact on Americans I thought that was an interesting tack He we didn't notice it in the light of the rhetoric around

We're all in and we're not gonna drop tariffs until they respect us. And that one huge, that was one of the big applause lines of the speech. The other thing that was very effective in a room full of liberals was the attack on the conservatives and Pierre Poilier. So, you know, look, he's, I think gotten better

over the last seven weeks of a campaign. He needed to be, I think, a bit more up to speed on that front beforehand. But I think I agree with Ashley like they do seem to be going for adult in the room, gravitas, serious and not too concerned about looking like the retail politician that maybe we've all come to expect our leaders to be. Zane, his first and most important decision presumably will be when are we going to go to the polls? If you were advising him, what would you suggest?

Go as soon as possible. I mean, right now, the polling is not great or perfect for you. But man, we were talking about a liberal party that was going to be in the doldrums if existed at all back in December and January, given their lack of provincial infrastructure. There was liberal folks I was talking to that were speculating the fact that, you know, if we don't get out of our current positioning, we are in a situation where it's not just a decade that we don't get to chance to form government again. Are we even a real thing? Because this has been made in Justin Trudeau's image for the last 10 years and we don't have the organizing apparatus in the

provinces. I'm not saying all of that's changed right now, but much of that has changed right now. And even if it's a sugar high, go to the polls on a sugar high because it's better than dragging this thing out, making any sort of deal with the NDP and waiting until your maximal sort of point in October. It's a matter of hours and days, not weeks and months, Steve. Amanda, I know Doug Ford just did it and did it successfully but what would you say about the advisability of a new Prime Minister going to the polls immediately at this particular moment in our history with this trade war and this 51st state nonsense going on? I mean I

think politically it makes a ton of sense right we don't really know much about him there's a lot of questions around what he has and has not disclosed about his assets, his interests, and I think that continues to be questions that loom over his head. Do they think it's responsible, one, to prorogue parliament in the middle of a trade war to have a liberal leadership vanity project in the middle of a trade war to then launch an election and have a brand new president? No, I don't think any of that is responsible. And I think hopefully Canadians will look and ask in some of the Liberal Party for what they've done because I do think it has really set the country back.

Okay, I've got to follow up and say, but it was okay for Doug Ford to do it? Well, I don't say it was okay for Doug Ford to do it. But I'm saying politically it makes sense, right? Doug Ford did it. He was successful at it. If I was advising her, and I think like all of us around this room, we'd probably tell him,

yeah, for sure you should go. The Conservatives are sitting on $40 million worth of a war chest they can advertise you into smithereens over the next like three four months also we don't know what Donald Trump is gonna do it might just get worse but there's 50% tariffs on aluminum and steel apparently as of like you know today so I think it's it's a smart decision I don't think it's a politically responsible decision and I do think again to Shane's point about the sugar

high yes eventually we're gonna people are gonna come down from the ooh he's not Justin Trudeau and we've got to take a look at what we've got in front of us. One of the reasons liberals are feeling so good these days is, Sheldon you want to bring this graphic up? Nick Nanos is a pretty fine pollster and here's what he has been discovering over the past few months. The conservatives back in December were almost at 47% in Nanos tracking. They are now just a shade over 35%. The liberals were down in the dumps, 21 plus percent. They're now almost at 35%.

We have a statistical tie right now. NDP down a tad, block up a tad, greens down a tad, the People's Party down a tad. But essentially the big, the big switch here has been the liberals are back in the game. Amanda, why do you think that is? I think we have a different scenario, right? We have a different leader. Clearly Justin Trudeau was wildly unpopular. I mean, clearly. Also, I never expect it. I don't think anybody would expect the Conservatives to sit at 47% for the duration of an election period. Also, we have existential threat to the country which is Donald Trump, right? And inevitably whenever there's an existential threat to anyone, the

citizens and Canadians will move to support the government, the people in charge, the people who wear the mantle of that, right? So we even say because Justin Trudeau sort of rise a little bit in popularity over the last two months, which I would have said was impossible based on what happened over the last decade. Do I think these are static numbers? No, they never are. Do I think that at the end of the day this means the Liberals are going to march to an easy victory?

No, I don't. I think it's competitive now. But as a conservative, sitting at 36, 37 points, when I was working on the Harper campaigns in 0406, we would have thrown a party in the war room if we were sitting there. So I think everyone needs to kind of calm down a little bit. Yes, we're going to have to fight an election campaign, but that is what we should be doing as a country. And also, Mark Carney has not been tested. He's not a retail politician. He's been around politics a long time.

That's very different from actually being in the game. Tonda, do we infer from these numbers that there wasn't a hatred of the Liberal Party back in December? This was an anti-Trudeau thing. Now the Trudeau is gone. The Liberals are back in the game. Is that how you see it? I think to a large extent, yes, it was that Trudeau was so unpopular. And we've even though in the face of the Trump threat, as Amanda just said, you know, Trump's own or Trudeau's own approval ratings have gone off

12 points in six weeks. So, so now he's out. It's a new game. I think politically though, you know, the fact that it's a statistical tie in those numbers is one thing. The aggregator of all the polls right now is showing at this point a conservative minority. What is that reflecting? That reflects still a bit of fatigue with 10 years of liberals. But I don't underestimate the fluidity and volatility of this campaign.

This is going to be a campaign unlike any other amidst a trade war. There's, you know, Donald Trump may be dialing back and on and off again, pausing his, you know, sectoral tariffs as we've seen earlier today with steel and aluminum and war threats coming on other sectors. But his big play, April 2nd, where he intends to show the world how he intends to deal with what he calls unfair trade practices will land smack in what I expect to be a federal campaign. And that is something that nobody can predict at this stage. No poll, no pollster, no pundit can really tell us where that's going. And to be honest, I mean, I kind of thought yesterday as I attended the Poliev, Pierre Poliev Scrum and watched Mark Carney kind of come into office, I think there is such an

attempt now to be careful on everybody's side. I think Pierre Poliev could potentially be one very snarky nasty comment away from not looking like the prime minister Canadians want these days. And Mark Kearney is perhaps, you know, one stumble, one gap away from also making Canadians think, are we still in the old era or what's going to happen? So I think honestly, so volatile, I've never seen anything like it. Well this is, you've led me nicely to the next question for Ashley, which is, you know, liberals on Sunday that I spoke to, without exception, are feeling so much more wind in their sails nowadays because of these numbers.

Should they risk inhaling here? I think that when there's momentum, you have to seize it, right? And even if Mr. Carney were to say, let's take a breath and let's work with some of the opposition parties and try and get a budget through and respond to tariffs and meet the moment, I think he would be operating in a bit of a lame duck limbo for the next six months. We have basically since Christia Freeland wrote

that letter in December that kind of started off this whole process that got us here where she publicly called for Prime Minister Trudeau to go. The federal government has been at a stasis point in a lot of substantive ways for stakeholders with the exceptions of responding directly to tariffs. And I think that we need something to unlock and we need something to move. And I think for the good of the country, an election, regardless of the result, will be offer some clarity that I think we need at this moment in time. Now, as a partisan, we're definitely feeling good.

And I was talking to members I know from across the country who are seeing their internal polls that they've done at the riding level very specifically tied to Mark Carney's name boost up. And people who thought they were in tough are now feeling really enthused. They're hitting the doors with a lot more vigor and they're getting a much better reception at the doors as well. So I think liberals are feeling pretty good right now. You use the expression in tough and that's going to take me to Zane because these numbers are tough for the NDP.

They weren't great back in December and they're even worse right now as an NDP surrogate. You know where are you on this? How do you what what advice do you possibly give your party to get back in the game here because at the moment they're not. Well to be clear I'm not a federal NDP surrogate at all. I work for the Alberta NDP. Federally, the NDP are in tough. And I think the opportunities that we have right now as a federal NDP are limited. In fact, I'd say the window is closing on an opportunity

for the federal NDP right now. Because if you look at those numbers, the Nanos numbers that you put up on the screen, Steve, you're seeing that the initial surge and the breadth of life that the liberals had was on the backs of the NDP, where they were at like 10, 12, 11 points. Now you're seeing that the liberals are taking vote share

away from the conservatives, and the NDP are still at 14, 15 points. I still think the floor is lower for the NDP. I hate to say that, but when you look at those numbers, we've seen the historical last minute strategic voting that happens between progressives. And now in this very acute moment of the Trump threat and the Poliev threat, you know that the liberals are going to make that argument. They're going to, they're going to inhale, cough it up and inhale again and tell the NDP that, listen, if you're an NDP reporter right now, 2025 is not the time

to vote your conscience. You have to come over to us. And they're going to make that argument as they historically have probably even more successfully than they have. So the NDP are in tough right now because A, the ballot box question on tariffs trump the economy, not in their natural wheelhouse. And B, you have someone as the central, you know, central bank governor, former central bank governor, coming in saying this is my wheelhouse and you have those historical elements. I think the floor for the NDP are lower than they are even when we see those with those nano numbers, Steve. Okay, Tonda, I am really going to get out over my skis here in asking you this next question, but Canadians are going to be doing this

over the next few weeks. They're going to be doing this over the next few weeks. They're going to be speculating and trying to understand all the possible permutations that numbers like that could deliver. And the reality is, I mean, it's possible the Conservatives could come back with a minority government based on those numbers if they were to hold up. I know, a ton of ifs. My question is, in your judgment, does Pierre Pauliev have acceptable relationships with other party leaders, the smaller parties, in parliament, whereby if he does win a minority government, whenever this election happens, he could keep it alive? I can't say I've seen a lot of evidence of, you know, if we're going to base whatever speculation on what we've seen in the past in terms of relations between parties.

There have been times when the Conservatives have worked in minority government, for example, with the Bloc Québécois, with the NDP, they have shown an ability under a previous leader to do that. They have shown an ability in the previous parliament or in the last, I would say, like since 2019 and 2021, since the liberal minority governments have been in place, the ability to push things through parliament, agendas at committees, ordering the government to produce documents on the pandemic, for example, ordering the government, getting the government to move on

the Winnipeg lab investigation. But I cannot say that I've seen Mr. Poilier and Mr. Blanchet and Mr. Singh show any love for each other. If anything, both the BQ and the NDP leaders of late have been slamming the conservatives, ripping them at every turn politically as not just their rivals, but as bad for Canada. So, Polyev has really placed his bet full on

on a majority government. He has been mercilessly criticizing Blanchet, the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, calling him sellout Singh. I mean, there's no going back. How do you go back from calling basically another leader, a traitor to Canada, and at every turn calling the BQ leader, you know, a separatist who wants to destroy Canada? Like, how do you walk that back when your own, I guess they'll try. But I'm just trying to, I guess, base, you know, to answer your question

based on what I've seen and what I've heard over the last, not just a couple of years, but even last eight weeks, it's just I don't see it. Amanda, I mean, that is the question. Is it majority or bust for Pierre Poliev? I don't think I don't think that's the case. I think this is highly speculative. We have to go through an entire campaign. Having worked for a new conservative leader under a minority government, you make friends

in all kinds of places. You're talking to Stephen Harper? Yeah, exactly. Right? Stephen Harper was able to very successfully work with the other parties across the aisle to maintain minorities and then also a majority government eventually. Right? And I think there's very much a possibility of pure poly of doing that. I think any leader when they get the job, they grow into it over time, right? Certainly we've seen aggressive

rhetoric in the House of Commons against one another. That's not a new thing. But I think, you know, bottom line is we're going to have a debate in this country, as we rightfully should about who's best to lead us through this process. Is it another fourth term for the existing Liberal government? And yes, it's got a new face, but it's still the same ministers, it's the same advisors behind the scenes, it's the same people that brought us here over the last decade, or is it Pierre Poliev and his team? And I think Zeyn made an excellent point.

The NDP's floor has not been reached, and they're in very big danger, I think, of going much lower, and I think that will also benefit the liberals. We started by talking about the Kearney victory speech and about how much we thought it just livened up the... No, we didn't say that, actually. We said the opposite. How it didn't exactly liven up the room.

But there was a nugget of an indication of what a future strategy might look like. So let's play some of that. Sheldon, if you would, the clip. So Donald Trump thinks, thinks he can weaken us with his plan to divide and conquer. Pierre Poiliev's plan will leave us divided and ready to be conquered. Because a person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him. Okay, so we know where this is going, right? Pierre-Paul Liev is a mini Donald Trump.

Is that going to play? I think the people will tell us if it plays or not. I think it's, as of right now, a really smart strategy. We have seen that for rallying the base was a great line. And yes, that speech was about him introducing himself to Canadians as the prime minister designate. But it was also about saying to everybody in that room, look, we have another war to fight.

And these are people who've just gone through running a very rapid leadership race after being in government through kind of crisis after crisis. There's a lot of liberals in this country who are probably feeling a bit of fatigue right now and you need that rallying point to give people the motivation to go knock the doors and make the phone calls and do the hard work of a campaign. So that's one motivation that that's hitting. And the second is it is deadly to be associated with Trump right now.

And I think that the way that Pierre Poliev has played footsie with some kind of really far right personalities like Jordan Peterson, those threads are things that for liberals can and should be pulled on as we enter a campaign that's going to be about who do you think is really going to stand up to Donald Trump? I've got to give Amanda time to respond to that because we've seen Poliev take pains, particularly in the last couple of weeks, to put out tweets there saying, never the 51st state, Donald Trump, you're wrong about all of this. Trump has actually blasted back at him saying, I don't know what's happened to Poliev, but he's saying some nasty things about me right now.

What kind of case does Pierre Poliev have to make in order to make sure that he's not associated with Trump? I think he continues to do that, right? To criticize the president of the United States who's attacking our country, talking about Canada First. We've seen the Canada First rallies. He had a massive rally in London, Ontario, the same day as the Liberal Convention, which by the way had more people attend it than the Liberal Convention.

And they had an overflow room. So I think there's still, yes, I get that people are excited that Mark Carney is here. He's daring to descend from the UK to lead us through this crisis. But at the end of the day, I think everyday Canadians, there's still momentum for Pierre Poliev. And yes, liberals and other parties

are going to continue to say, oh, the Canadian conservative leader is just like the US president, which like, could you say change? When I worked for Harper, he was Bush. Like, yes, and on and on. He asked a very vocally criticized Trump, which he's been doing. I think doing interviews with US media or sorry, right wing or conservative media outlets is something that conservative leaders should do, period.

And they have to be getting around mainstream media. We saw the same, we're seeing the same strategy, by the way, from like the Carney team too, right? I mean, he's gone on... The most successful media interview he's done was on a US... John Stewart. ...fake news show or whatever we're calling it. And he has yet to actually face the media in any kind of substantive press forum, especially

since it's become prime minister-designate. I know he had a little catch-me-in-the-hallway thing yesterday, but I'm sure Tonda and her colleagues would love to have a nice shot at him if they could. Well, let's ask about that because, you know what, the state of play has changed so much in terms of journalists doing their jobs right now, Tonda, and I'd like you to speak to this. They're going on American television shows. I mean, Christa Freeland was on an American television show. She was on Bill Maher's show a couple of weeks ago.

They are doing their level best to avoid sort of legacy journalists and are going on friendly media, the likes of which I think we've never seen before. What is that doing to the way Canadians learn about who these people are? Just to dial back for a second, I think Chris J. Freeland actually was more accessible to reporters than Mr. Carney ever was in that campaign.

But it's kind of hard to untangle some of this. I mean, Canadian politicians going on American media at this time is actually smart politics for the country, you know, to make, to transmit the message in the way that Premier Doug Ford has been doing. But they were doing it previously in the hopes of getting elected in Carney's case, leader of the Liberal Party. Now that they're here, there is a huge expectation that they should meet reporters in this, in Ottawa, as part of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, meet reporters here to take questions, because obviously the knowledge and breadth of the questions will be different

than you're getting at, you know, Scrum opportunities in different regions of the country. But look, the job of doing this job is absolutely, it's been harder ever since social media kind of became made everybody think they're a journalist for one, and made governments and political parties double down on their message discipline and try to avoid or do and runs around legacy media or mainstream media journalists. But I think there's still value in it. And I think we're seeing that in some cases, they're coming back to transmit their message. The conservatives have been hounding us to cover them, to show up at their news conferences where by the way, they deny us questions. So I

managed to get a question into Pierre-Paul Yavre yesterday, but they didn't like I wanted another question, but they didn't give them. And so it's a constant push and pull tug of war. It has been for a number of years. Will it get better under you know, any future Prime Minister? I'm not holding my breath. I think it's always going to be a struggle. The industry across the board, whether you're in newspapers or broadcast, audiences are fractured and there's a long-term challenge for all of us on the business side. Amanda, can you give me a quick word on that? Because I went to Pierre Poliev's press conference last Friday, which was held in Toronto.

And yes, he went out, he spoke in French, he spoke in English, he spoke at length. It was then five questions, some of which were from very friendly media, no follow-up questions, and then he walked out. What is, I mean, if you're trying to win friends and influence people, is that the way to go? I mean, this is the same strategy the Liberals, literally we've had Prime Minister Desimit who has not actually spaced the Canadian media. It's 48 hours, right? It's two days.

Well, he did yesterday. He did a three-minute scrum yesterday. Well, he walked out of the hallway and it was, how was your day? You feeling good? Are you excited? It doesn't count. Yeah. It doesn't count.

Okay. That was not, that was not. Pierre Pauly, I've stood up in the House of Commons and yes, like Tonda can say he did not take questions away, but he actually stood there and took questions from people who shouted at him. Mark Carney has yet to do so. If you have a, he's the prime minister designate. That is insane to me.

I think technically he actually isn't yet. I don't think he's the prime minister designate until the governor general meets him and says, you're the incoming prime minister. I appreciate that, but he's regardless going to lead the country in like what, 48 hours? Or he's starting to lead the country. My understanding, I'm getting all kinds of,

this is going to be the DECOM, here's the new ministers, Jean Charest may or may not be in the cabinet. But I think, you know, this strategy of, yes, reducing mainstream media questions is not one that's pursued just by conservatives. So did Justin Trudeau. So Mark Carney is not even taking them. So I think we could all do more to I love a good scrum like the next person. And I encourage Mark Carney to do what Pierre Pauliup did yesterday, which is like take some cues. Zane, you want to come in on this? I'm going to quote you on that. I mean, listen.

I don't think we're going to see the Arnie Vinnick from the West Wing, you know, ask me as many questions until I'm absolutely tired and you're absolutely tired with asking your questions. The media environment, as Tana said, is fractured. And in fact, the own media that these political parties have, as well as the influencer media that they have connections to, is probably more punchier and reaches more people than many traditional media outlets. That's a reality of the situation. And I'm not saying these folks are journalists or that their questions are better or that their accountability, but right now it's about reach

and profile. And then what folks are doing on all sides of the political spectrum is taking that advice and taking the modeling that they've seen from the United States where Donald Trump went on friendly podcasts that weren't necessarily political but asked questions that really humanized them. And if I'm predicting the Carney strategy, it's going to be less so about politics as it relates to media, other than when it's going to be about tariffs and Trump, and there's going to be soft elements to it and more sort of lifestyle elements to it. I suspect that's going to be the Carney strategy heading forward. In addition to that, the one question I'm asking here myself without a really clear answer to Steve is when Carney

calls an election, how much of this time, this election writ period, is he going to be spending campaigning versus doing the job of a prime minister in one of the most acute crisis we've ever seen? And I think the question is how one of the most acute crisis we've ever seen. And I think the question is how much of the Doug Ford playbook that we just saw in Ontario does he borrow where he does things like go to Washington and meet with the president or meet with senators, meet with Congress people, versus doing the conventional coast to coast campaigning. And I think that is also going to dictate a lot of what this campaign looks like, what it feels like, where one person who's got the advantage

and benefit of being prime minister, how much will he use it during this campaign? Even if his mandate is slim from a small group of liberals in a very acute time, he may have the credibility and frankly the rationale to use the powers of prime ministership while in a general election. Okay. Got about five minutes to go here. I want to put one more issue on the table. The narrative of what an election about is always something the parties fight over, right? What's this election about? What's the frame we want to put around it? What's the narrative? What's the story we're trying to tell? For the longest time, Amanda, to you first,

the conservatives have wanted this to be a carbon tax election. And Mr. Poliev said it again yesterday Conservatives have wanted this to be a carbon tax election. And Mr. Poliev said it again yesterday, said this is going to be a carbon tax election. Is this really going to be a carbon tax election? I think we will talk about the carbon tax for sure, because we don't know what's going to happen with that. Yes, Mark Carney has allegedly taken the consumer one off the table that he's championed for the last decade, but there will also be an industrial tax that may be increased. So conservatives are certainly going to talk about it but I think the bigger question to my mind is going to be at least from the conservative side is do the liberals get

rewarded with a fourth term, a fourth mandate? Is the way the country has gone over the last decade, are you richer? Are we happier? Are we healthier? Can I afford groceries right now? Are these the people you want to reward and line up against Donald Trump? And who are the same reason, by the way, we are so behind the eight ball on pipelines, on infrastructure, on our ability to pivot. So I think that will be the issue. But no matter, we saw this play out in Ontario to a certain extent. And I do think global events, Dear Boy events, will be the big dictator of what happens.

And I think Zane's on to something. My guess is we'll see a foreign trip out of Mr. Carney at some point. Well, it worked well for Doug Ford. So why not? That's the play in of what happens. And I think Zane's onto something. My guess is we'll see a Ford trip out of Mr. Carney at some point. Well, it worked well for Doug Ford. So why not? That's the play in the playbook. Tonda, come on in here. Is this going to be a carbon tax election?

I doubt it. Carbon tax may be an element of a larger campaign that it's going to be the economy stupid election, isn't it? I mean, it's going to be the election that wraps up not just the greater economic threat from Trump and the United States. That's going to have all balled up into that argument, the annexation threat and the sovereignty concerns that Canadians have. And so this election campaign, rather than be, I think, on, you know, are you going to get a sales tax cut or are are you going to get a check for your child care, or whatever that, you know, we've seen play out in other elections, I think this election campaign is now going to have Canadians really focused on bigger threats to bigger sectors of our economy and our ability to survive

as a country and push back against the U.S. I hear that everywhere. Whereas it used to be perhaps a change ballot question, I think that there is a question now around how do we stabilize and grow our economy and wean our dependence from the U.S.? I see that. I don't see how that doesn't factor into the bigger narrative questions. No matter what any party wants to put forward, I think that will be the framing. I know, Ashley, that the liberals are

going to want to portray this as a brand new start with a new leader, divorced from anything that transpired over the past 10 years under Justin Trudeau. But the reality is we're going to hear conservatives say, why should the liberals deserve a fourth straight term? What's going to be the punchback on that? I think the punchback on that is going to be, who do you trust to lead the country in these tumultuous times?

And who do you think the steady hand would be on the tiller? And I think that's why liberals endorsed Mr. Carney so resoundingly, is we think that he is the one to lead us through these troubled waters. And we think that he will put the best value proposition in the window. Because I do think as much as Piyapoliev and his team will probably want to make this about the liberal incumbency and a fourth mandate, and we're going to hear a lot about that,

I think we did just learn loud and clear in Ontario that you can sit there and say every single metric of success in this province or in this country has gone backwards over the last, whether it's seven years or 10 years, and do you like the state of your health care system do you like the state of your roads do you like the state of the the housing supply and the answer was no to all of those things was no to all those things and the guy won anyway but there's a safety in what you know in troubled times and if you position yourself as the person who is the the captain Canada then I think that that is who will win this election. I think that any party who thinks they're going to, I just learned this lesson in a

very, you know, we all learned this lesson in a very clear way. I don't think you can change the ballot box question right now with what's going to happen over the next six weeks. And I think you need to fight it on who's the best to take on Trump and win. Zane, I thought one of the most amusing things that I heard at the convention on Sunday were liberals coming to the microphone and championing and boasting about the fact that they'd put in pharmacare and denticare, which we know that they really didn't want to do if not for the fact that the NDP forced it on them.

Ashley, you disagree, but I'm sticking with my story here. If that's the case, where does that leave the NDP forced it on them. Ashley, you disagree, but I'm sticking with my story here. If that's the case, where does that leave the NDP here? If the Libbers are getting credit for stuff the NDP made them do, where does that leave the NDP here? Back to my previous point, still not experiencing their floor. That's where it leaves them. I mean, unfortunately right now, I agree with Ashley. The ballot box question seems to be baked.

And I think there's a version of the ballot box question that advantages the conservatives, which is that if it's about the economy and plainly about the economy, if they can kind of shift it away a bit from the American dynamics and make it about the economy, stupid as Tonda said, advantage conservatives. If it's about fighting Trump and wrapping yourself in the Canadian flag, advantage liberals. That's a nuance, but it's an important nuance. The party I'm not mentioning is the NDP though, Steve. Like I think they're going to be the ones that ultimately lose out to the liberals here.

They're fighting chances to pick up certain writings in this place and target them specifically. It's not sexy advice for them, but it's to say in the midst of this air war, this changing ballot box question, the NDP strategy has to be, what are the writings we can win and where can we then ultimately hope and pray that we are the balance of power once again in order to influence a minority Parliament

either way that that ends up going. Amanda, just in our last 40 seconds or so here, conservatives were really feeling great about things when they were up around 47% in the polls. I'm wondering if, I mean is there a little disillusionment right now with the fact that they've sort of, water has found its level? I think as a country we're all concerned about what's happening with Trump, right? It feels to me a little pre-COVID, like COVID-y almost, right? What's going to happen economically?

Can my business survive? So I think Conservatives and Canadians across the country are concerned about that. I also think we're long overdue for an election for a leader to have a mandate to lead this country through this crisis. And no matter who the result is, I think we'll all be better off for having this issue resolved and having a functioning government, which we have not had for the last two to three months. So I think that's where Conservatives' heads are at, is that let's go, you know, let's get this done. And I think let's have a leader in place that can lead us forward. Gotcha. I want to thank the four of you for coming on to TVO tonight

and sharing your views on this. Zane Velji in Calgary, Alberta, Tana McCharles in the nation's capital, and here in the studio, Ashley Cinatti and Amanda Galbraith. Great to be with you all tonight. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Thank you for having us.