The Ben Mulroney Show - Chrystia Freeland's leadership launch was railroaded by Protestors

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Chrystia Freeland's leadership launch was railroaded by Protestors Guest: Warren Kinsella, Former Special Advisor to Jean Chretien and CEO of the Daisy Group 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

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Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canada. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca. And last week was all about Mark Carney's launch, his bid to replace Justin Trudeau. Christy Freeland is next on deck.

She threw her hat into the ring. And I gotta say, her launch was preceded by a video, an online video where Freeland, prior to the word Freeland appearing on screen, it was free land. And then those two words came together to form Freeland. I liked that very much. What ensued at the launch was,

well, I'm sure there was some good, but people seem to be focused on the bad with the popping up of protester after protester after protester and rapid succession that really deflated the energy in the room. Let's listen to one of the many protesters. We have voters, how can we have voters that they won't trust?

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This is a This is a This is a This is a This is a This is to explain it away. The time has come for us as a government, as a country, to do two things. I think we all know we have to fight against climate change. We all get that. We need to do it for our kids. We need to do it for the planet. Liberals believe in that, and that is a fight that has to continue. But it is also the case that we need to get better at listening to Canadians and at listening to what Canadians are telling us.

And we have heard very clearly from Canadians in provinces where there is a consumer facing price on carbon that they don't like it. All right, to give us his unvarnished opinion on this as someone whose opinion I value a great deal in these matters, Warren Kinsella, former special advisor to Jacques Retzian and CEO of the Daisy Group. Warren, happy Monday. What did you make of this launch? It was, well, good morning. And yeah, it was like the arsonist preaching about fire safety, like in fairness. I felt it badly for her that her event was disrupted about 20 times, but it was quite symbolic. You know, she was deputy prime minister and a senior cabinet

minister for a decade during a period when extremism and anti-Semitism has surged across the country. She and her colleagues did precious little about it. And so it was ironic in the extreme to see these same people show up and basically wreck her event. They totally destroyed her event. So kind of an irony there, but also an irony in terms of when she finally got around to saying some things about what she wanted to do, you know, casting doubt on the carbon tax. It's like seriously. Yeah, she voted over 40 times in favor of the carbon tax, including touting it as recently as two months ago. So to me, she's just she's going where the votes are. It's not about deeply held beliefs. It's and if you don't believe in anything,

then you stand for nothing. Exactly. And that is something that every voter gets. You got to believe in something. I mean, even Donald Trump, as much as a lot of people in the country don't like him, you at least know where he stands most of the time. And in Freeland's case, it's like, well, what are your core beliefs? What do you believe in? Like the carbon tax was a prominent feature. It wasn't just a line or two. It was a prominent feature of every liberal election campaign document going back almost a decade. They believed in that

policy. And, you know, in fairness to them, polling showed at the outset, a lot of Canadians believed in taxing polluters as well, until they figured out that the government regarded them as polluters too. But it, you know, it's just, when you do these kinds of reversals, voters then do a calculus and they say, well, how should I, why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth? Because this one thing that was a cardinal, you know, was in your catechism. It was something you believed in in your soul. Now you're saying you didn't really mean it.

Warren, I want to talk to you about between Mark Carney and Christia Freeland, who has the most likely chance of success as presenting themselves as an agent of change, because on one hand, you've got Mark Carney, who when he speaks, certainly sounds and makes you feel very differently than Justin Trudeau. There's the dramatics and histrionics aren't there. And you can tell that when he speaks,

behind his words are thoughtfulness and deliberate nature. But he is the Trudeau candidate. He's got the cabinet behind him. He's got the machinery behind him. On the other side, you got Chrystia, who walked lockstep with Justin he is the Trudeau candidate. He's got the cabinet behind him, he's got the machinery behind him. On the other side, you got Chrystia, who walked lockstep with Justin on so many key issues. And even though she's doing an about face on these things,

I don't think she can escape those. So both are presenting as a simulation of change. I don't think that they have the patina of change, but not real change. Which one has the best chance of succeeding in presenting themselves as that change agent? Neither one, neither one. Like they're just if that is what they're going to do, it's gonna blow up in their face. Carney is

surrounded by the entirety of Trudeau's inner circle. He's been advising quietly on the QT. He's been advising Trudeau about economic policy for years now, not just months. And the person that Trudeau wanted to replace Freeland with after he fired Freeland that fateful Friday was Mark Carney. So for him to depict himself as, as an outsider, he literally said those words. I mean, if he'd been hooked up to a lie detector, would have knocked out the power on the Eastern seaboard. And then in Freeland's case, it's the same deal.

It's like, you know, hey, Krista, here's this, let's take a look at your LinkedIn profile. We're talking about you being the deputy prime minister, the minister of finance, the minister of global affairs, and you've been with Trudeau from the earliest moments of his leadership. You've been with him through the entirety of his government as a cabinet minister. Neither of them is an outsider. I think what she did was a bit smart. Yeah.

She had a better launch than him. His was a, it was kind of dud. He sounded like a central banker trying to be a politician. She had a video launch that would preceded this terrible events that she had that was disrupted by the pro Hamas people. And she framed herself as the anti Trump person like Trump has said he doesn't like her. So she was smart. She leaned into that. And so if you're looking for somebody to face off against Trump, it's not me, not the other guy, not the banker. So I thought that was a good that was a good strategy. So So how do you see it playing out between the two of them? Because I think

she did something very interesting as well worn by by saying that even if she loses, she's going to fight in the next election. I think what she's not saying is, do you really think that Mark Carney if he loses, intends to to fight for you. He's in this for himself. He he's he's enjoyed being an account an unaccountable influence on the government. He wants to be Prime Minister and only Prime Minister if he doesn't get that he's gonna take his toys and go home. And that's the truth. That's what he's told. I've spoken to,

you know, you speak to people in politics, I speak to people in politics, he is told, members of parliament, he's not going to stick around if they lose. And she has said, I'm going to stick around. So that's one of the things liberals want to hear. But what a, you know, I've been involved in the liberal party since I was a little guy. And the one thing I know about liberals, they're not so hung up on carbon taxes or anything else. It's winning. Who can win? And we'll all know at the same time who they're going to go with. Because if the polling shows the Carney is more favorable of choice to Canadians, that's where liberals are going to go. That's in fact what the polls are showing right now.

And the fact that you got Mélanie Jolie on board, does that speak to him having a strong ground game to bring in members in Quebec? Well, there is this mythology that she's got this great team in Quebec, if that were so why didn't she run for the leadership? No, what I think it actually is more meaningful is Freeland had, you know, these pro Hamas people disrupting her event, as we talked about a few minutes ago. And the most pro Hamas minister in the government of Canada is Melanie Jolie lining up behind Mark Carney.

Yeah, I think that is a meaningful development on both fronts. I think if the Jewish community is looking, you know, who, who would they be most comfortable with? I think it's gonna end up being Christopher England. Interesting, interesting. And then of course, you've got you've got the wild cards like the Karina Goulds of the world. So make sense of that.

She is the rumor there, because nobody could pick her out of a police lineup and she's gonna lose her riding. How do you win the country if you're gonna lose your riding? The view there is, where does she get the $350,000 to run and the $5 million limit, you know, to spend on your campaign.

The rumor is that she is a stalking horse for Mark Carney. And what that means is, you know, and I know in politics is it's basically somebody who knows they don't have a chance and they're kind of a kamikaze candidate who is in there to go after Krister Freeland and say things to Freeland that are critical that Carney cannot say himself.

So he can stay above the fray. Hey, Warren, thank you so much. A really insightful conversation and I hope you come back again soon. Absolutely. That was Warren Consell, the former special advisor to Jean Chrétien and CEO of the Daisy Group. Home Network is here. I love it.

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