The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben goes Inside the Liberal War Room to find out who will be the next Prime Minister of Canada

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Ben goes Inside the Liberal War Room to find out who will be the next Prime Minister of Canada Guest: Warren Kinsella, Former Special Advisor to Jean Chretien and CEO of the Daisy Group Guest: Marcel Wieder, Liberal Strategist, President and Chief Advocate of Aurora Strategy Global If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The liberal leadership race is nothing if not entertaining. And it's given me a lot of content for the Ben Mulroney show. But there's only so much that I know. I don't have the institutional knowledge about how these races are run, the dynamics at play. And so I've called upon two great friends of the show. We've got to let's say hello to Marcel Weider, liberal strategist and president and chief advocate of Aurora Strategy Global.

Marcel, welcome to the show. Thank you, Ben. And also in an effort of full disclosure, I have a professional relationship with Aurora. And let's also say hi to Warren Kinsella, former Special Advisor to Jean Chrétien and CEO of the Daisy Group. Welcome, Warren.

Hey guys. Okay, so if I look at the polling data that I saw on Twitter, it looks like it's a two-way race between Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, at least at this point. With Carney being pulled among liberal voters for who their preferred liberal leader is,

Carney's polling at about 27% and Freeland not too far behind at 21%. So Warren, would you agree with that assessment? And given the fact that Mark Carney is Godfather to Christa Freeland's child, does that mean we shouldn't expect any mudslinging? No, I think that's why they invented Karina Gould. Karina Gould, the word is she is getting into the race with no hope of winning it, but she is going to be able to say critical things of Krister Freeland that Mark Carney cannot or does not want to say himself. Uh, you know, if we all remember back to the start of December, when Justin Trudeau, uh,

fatally fired, uh, Krister Freeland from finance, he was doing that to bring in Mark Carney. And Monday morning she fired off her letter, quitting his cabinet. And at that point, Mark Carney said, I can't come into government because it would be stepping on the political remains of Chris or Freeland, a woman. So he's very cagey. He's very hesitant to get into a kind of a man, a man, a fight with a female candidate like Christopher Lund. So that's why Karina Gould's in the mix. But anyway, right now guys, bottom line, the Trudeau candidate is Carney. The anti-Trudeau candidate is

Freeland. What say you Marcel Weider? I tend to agree with what Warren just said. I think however on the Karina Gould thing is that she wanted to introduce somebody from the progressive side of the party, and that's what she's going to try and represent. She's also going to be the youngest candidate of the three, and so it's designed to inject a little bit of youth into the party. What about, I mean, I think a lot of us are surprised that it's a very thin, a very few number of candidates. I, you know, Trudeau said he wanted a robust national debate. I think a lot of us thought more than what we have

would be in the race. How much of it is attributable to the high barrier of entry with the $350,000 entry fee? It's $350,000 plus the time limits. You know, to sign up members, you have to be a member by, I believe, January 27th or 29th. So that's only a couple of weeks to sign up people. And then the actual vote takes place on March the 9th.

So a real compressed timeline for any potential candidate to get in. And they just announced that the spending limit is about $5 million. So, you know, and on top of the 350 for the entry, you have to raise, you know, several million dollars to mount a credible national campaign. Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do.

I've got two experts here and we really have, for all intents and purposes, two candidates. So Warren, if you were backing and advising Mark Carney, what would your advice be to him at this point in the campaign? He needs to create a distinction between himself and Trudeau. You know, Trudeau's inner circle is running his campaign. He's been providing advice to Trudeau's government on the QT, on the financial

front for almost two years. Like he is the Trudeau candidate, as I say. So what he needs to be doing is Khalil Jaber says he needs to have some spaces in his togetherness. You know what he needs to hold himself out as a liberal, but not just an extension of the Trudeau policy and the Trudeau approach. Because if that becomes the impression, he is going to lose big time. Right now, as things stand, they have to come back. Proagration ends at the end of March so they can come back for that supply vote. At that point, there will be, we are told, a new liberal leader and they may be heading into an election immediately. If he is just seen as an extension

of what we had with Justin Trudeau, you know, he may lose even more seats than Justin Trudeau. So he's got to create some differences, and he's got to do that pretty fast. I think just calling yourself an outsider doesn't make it so. Marcel, if you were backing and advising Christia Freeland, what would your advice to her be today? Well, she needs to be having some bold ideas.

She needs to be out of the box and show that she's breaking away from the Trudeau cabal that's been running things for the last nine years. So if I was her, I'd be doing things a lot differently. I'd be out there with some bold progressive policies that will set her apart and set the Liberal Party apart from a potential Pierre-Paul Léves government. Meanwhile, last week, Anthony Housefather and Yvonne Baker,

two Liberal MPs, wrote an op-ed in the National Post, essentially saying that for this party to become palatable again to most Canadians, they have to revert back to the party of Jean Crezien, this party of Paul Martin. And Jean Crezien himself. The radical center. Referred to the radical center. Warren, he's your old boss.

First of all, it was nice to see him on TV again. Glad to see he's doing so well. Even if that happened today, Warren, how long until, and what would the party have to do to make it themselves a valid alternative to the Tories? Because I don't think people want that right now. Well, it would all be symbolic. There isn't enough time.

You're talking about major surgery here and they've given themselves only a few weeks. So there's not enough time. It's like Kamala Harris, who I worked for field disclosure, you know, a hundred days was not enough time for her to define herself as a credible alternative and somebody who was different from Joe Biden. They've got the liberals have got an even bigger problem. So to me though, there is one sliver of hope. There is one, you know, silver lining in the clouds overhead. And that is Donald Trump. It is evident now, Doug Ford confirmed it yesterday, the tariffs are going to happen. You know, and the Ford said yesterday, we're looking at half a

million people in the province of Ontario about to lose their jobs as a result. Nationally, it's going to be millions. That is the only issue in the country. And the advantage or the opportunity that the liberals have got, whoever their leader is, is they need to be talking about that in the way that Stephen Harper did on the weekend, in the way that Jean-Claude Chrétien did, in the way, you know, Ben, that your dad would like all three of those men would be talking about resisting the terrible mistake that, that Donald Trump's about to visit on us. Pierre Poliev has disappeared. You can tell he is freaked out by all of this stuff that's happening because about a third of his base are Trump fans, right? And he doesn't want

to alienate them. That creates opportunity for whoever the liberal leader is. That to me is the only strategy they've got left. Anything else that Trudeau tried didn't work. To me, the ballot question needs to be Donald Trump. Marcel, the last word to you. No, I agree with Warren on this. It really will come down to a Trump type election with whoever the liberal leader is, is going to have to focus on how they're going to protect Canadians, how they're going to respond to Trump. And both Freeland and Carney are well positioned. You know, Carney, a former Bank of Canada and England governor, and really knows the economics of how to respond. Freeland, who negotiated the last Canada-US-Mexico agreement,

is well poised. In fact, Trump detests her and was happy to see her go. So either of those two are the right people to respond. Unlike Polyev, who has no background in economics, has never held a professional job other than being a professional politician. So the contrast is there and will make a huge difference in the election. The contrast is there but so too are the challenges for the liberal brand in this election. But I'm glad to have the two of you here to help us navigate the red waters as it were.

Warren Kinsella, Marcel Weider, thank you both for being here. Appreciate it. I hope to see you again soon. Thank you. BC Children's Hospital is one of North America's top pediatric care hospitals, leading the way in groundbreaking research, treatment, and innovation. We're pushing the boundaries of what's possible, so kids of all ages and health challenges can have the best opportunity to thrive. We're treating today's patients, and we're shaping the future of pediatric care

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