The Ben Mulroney Show - Pierre Poilievre wins his seat. What's next? We ask him.

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us on this Tuesday, August 19th. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your ear. We appreciate your voice. We appreciate you following us wherever we find ourselves, wherever the show finds itself. And we're very excited in just a few minutes.

We're going to be joined by the leader of the opposition, his majesty's loyal opposition, Pierre Poliev, coming off of his massive win in his by-election in Alberta, where he got over 80% of the vote with 213 other people on the ballot. The nearest person after that got 9.9.9. percent of the vote, an independent, and I believe the next was a liberal, and after that was an NDP. Anyway, it was a resounding win for him. I've had conversations on this show with pundits and experts and people who follow politics for a living, who did not expect that he would

win with such a number. Some people were saying high 60s, mid-70s, and given the fact that in the election just a few short months ago, the conservative candidate won with just over 82% of the vote. This is a huge feather in his cap. But the road to electoral success in the next election for Pierre Poliov runs through a leadership review in January. And what that means for how he is going to return as his role of leader of the opposition,

that's a big question that I'm going to have for for Pierre when he joins us because between now and then everything that Pierre Poliyev does everything that he says until January will be used as evidence against him or for him against his leadership or for people will say well you see how he handled that thing we don't like that or somebody's to say oh did you see what he did there that's that's the guy You see how he did something differently than that he didn't do back in the day. That's proof of the growth that we needed to see. And of course, the polls.

The polls are going to matter. And how he responds to something Mark Carney does that might be viewed as a positive by the public. And you know, what sort of vision does he put forth? You know, he was riding high in the polls for so many months with a 25% lead over the liberals, the Justin Trudeau liberals, albeit. And so how does he reinvent what it means to be the leader of the conservative party in a world where Mark Carney and the liberals, they wipe the slate clean. Look, say what you will. I know that they are, that this liberal party is responsible for so many of the issues that Mark Carney now has to clean up.

I know that. You know that. But that was prosecuted in the election. And enough people voted for the liberals that we can actually say, you know what, that people didn't care. enough who was to blame. They just felt that the guy to clean it up was Mark Carney. So that's the world we live in. You're not going to hear me prosecute the previous election. I may point out every now and then that the responsibility for a problem lies here or there. But you're not going to hear me railing and fighting the way I did during the election.

That's just not how I'm built. And so this leader over the next few months has a, More than one needle to thread, he has to be in opposition, but he can't be, he can't be seen to be negative in the way that perhaps the Conservative Party was before, where they pointed out, rightly so, that so many institutions and so many things that used to work in this country were broken, that didn't work. People didn't want to hear that. Do they want a positive vision from Pierre Poliev? Do they want him to work with the government when they can? I've seen thus far that the conservatives have voted with the government more than a few times, actually when the House was sitting. But now that they're coming back in September,

will we see a level of cross-party cooperation that we probably need to see, is this conservative opposition going to give wins to this government? Or are they going to oppose because, well, that's their job. I mean, are they going to oppose and are they going to try to defeat? I don't know. Those are questions for Pierre Poliyev when he joins us in just a minute. But yesterday he did what he needed to do. He connected with the people of a riding.

They claimed he was parachuted in. And yeah, it wasn't his riding. But he sure made it his own with 80% of the vote. Anybody who says he was parachuted in, just as I'm not prosecuting the person. previous election anymore, you don't prosecute this by-election anymore. He won that fair and square. Fair and square. He won it with a campaign designed to confuse. And he did, like, he lost his first, he lost the election with the longest ballot committee working against him. He certainly didn't lose this one. And so he will be back in the House of Commons, fair and square, representing

his new riding and and so a lot of questions for him on who Pierre Pollyev is today earlier today on another radio on another show on this radio station

Melissa Lansman the conservative the conservative from the greater Toronto area had this to say about having Pierre back in the house you know look at the by election behind us we're looking forward to having Pierre back in the house where Canada's

conservatives are united under Pierre and united for Canadians, the millions of Canadians that voted for her, but voted for us in the last election. Look, I think after every election loss, and frankly, after every election, all parties sort of look into, you know, what they can do better, but don't forget, under Pierre, the conservative coalition grew significantly. It includes labor unions now to our last point tradespeople youth military police new Canadians indigenous leaders people who have never voted

before so that's a lot to build on yeah that's a that's a level of positivity and optimism wind in their sales they're looking at the positives a lot of positives and that's the really tricky thing for this conservative party

there are there were so many positive takeaways from that election more people voted conservative than never in the history of the party, more of a, you know, more seats than they've had in, in a decade. And yet they didn't do the one thing that you kind of have to do an election, which is win. And, you know, from what I can see in the polls, the young people seem to be sticking with this party. That is a long-term net benefit for the party. You know, you want the young people, because the young people become old people. And the old people, they pass away. And so if the old

people are parking their votes with the red guys, I don't know how many elections they're there for. that's just a numbers thing it's not i'm not trying to be offensive in any way but yeah uh it seems like the it seems like the the liberals have have the still have the elderly vote locked up right but i don't know how many of those elderly people are going to vote in the next election and if this government is not able to solve the problems that they said they were the only ones equipped to solve what does that do to the young people who parked their votes with the conservatives in the last election. They said, we can't afford a house.

We can't invest in the future. We can't, there are no jobs out there for us. If that, if that status quo remains, what happens to that cohort in the next election? Well, we're now joined by the leader of the official opposition. Pierre Poliyev, congratulations, Pierre, on your win. Pierre? Is he there? Oh, I think we lost him.

Well, we'll try to get him back. we'll try to get him back but yeah this is um i'm going to ask him how he connected with his riding how does somebody with no i mean listen as a federal leader you got to go all over the country and as Canadians they we share that in common i know that we feel these days like we don't have a lot in common but you know everyone on election day is a voter and everyone's vote counts the same and so he knows the country as well as any federal leader but knowing a knowing a riding intimately is a little different, you know, getting to know that riding and being able to feel connected to it,

I think is something different, right? Like I remember when my dad ran, oh, we've got him now. Oh, we're going to go to break. When we come back, more on our conversation with Pierre Polia. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and less waste no time. Please welcome to the show, the leader of the opposition. and the new MP for Battle River Crowfoot in Alberta. Pierre Pollyev.

Pierre, welcome back to the show. Great to be with you, Ben. Thank you for having me. Congratulations. You know, a lot of people, everyone knew you were going to win this thing. But I think given the longest ballot committee with 214 names on that ballot,

a lot of people thought, hey, it probably won't be as resounding a win as your predecessor won just a few months ago. But you're up there, man. I mean, above 80%, just like him. are you very gratified and humbled by it and it's a beautiful very morning here in camrose alberta with a bright blue sky and that is signifying what comes ahead well tell us about your riding what what did you learn as you got to know the people there you got to know the issues

what's what's special about that riding a lot of things it's the riding and the region that feeds powers and protects the country with some of the highest a number of farmers and ranchers per capita anywhere in the country. Secondly, it has Hardesty, Alberta, which we'll talk about pipelines. Hardesty is where all the pipelines start. There's literally about 13 pipelines that originate in the tank farms there. And in that town, of about 600 people, they move about $90 billion of oil every single year, which is more than the GDP of many countries.

And then you've got the military base at CFB. Wainwright, the prison, major penitentiary in the south end of the riding in Drumheller. Of course, that's the town with one of the most famous excavations of dinosaurs. Oh, yeah. I took my boys there on one of the best trips of my life. I loved it in Drumhiller. It's a very special place. I encourage you, everywhere should go out there.

It's an incredible museum. an academic museum, but also a place for someone who's just watched Jurassic Park. My little guy Cruz was there with his Spider-Man outfit, and his eyes were wide open in fascination. So look, what I heard is that people can't afford to live. Even in the countryside, life has become really expensive for folks. They feel like their life is under attack by a hostile government. this EV mandate would basically ban them from living in rural communities because you can't live without a diesel or gas-powered truck in much of rural Canada.

Rural crime is now taking off as this tiny group of offenders consistently released from jail is terrorizing small towns like provost and oil and farms are having their copper wire. Yeah, Pierre, I don't mean to interrupt, but I've got a lot to get to with you in a short period of time. And, you know, you were able to connect with the people of this riding. But the knock after the election, the election loss, was that you weren't able to connect with enough Canadians to ensure a conservative government. And look, you know, you're assuming your position back in the House of Commons. But until January, which is when you will face a leadership review, it feels to me like things are going to be a little weird for you. You're going to have everything that you do and say and everything that you don't.

do and say will be judged either as evidence for or against your leadership. So between now and January, that's a very unique time to be the leader of the conservative party. Is, are you feeling that everything that you do is under a microscope right now? Look, it always has been. I didn't sign up for this job because it would be easy. I do it because it's hard. Easy Street leads to a dead end and the hardest roads lead to the best destinations.

but we've got the people's interests at heart and we've got a clear agenda going into the parliamentary session we're going to be fighting for stronger take home pay safer streets secure borders and a sovereign Canada those are our goals and they happen to be the goals of the Canadian people so I'm confident in the success of that of that session yeah and anytime someone suffers a loss in any way whether it be in sports or in politics there's a post-mortem and I was certainly not privy to the official post-mortem of the conservative party, but in the conversations that I've had, it feels like a lot of people who are on the fence as to whether or not

they want to support a Poliev-led conservative party, want to feel or hear some sort of admission from you that things could have gone better had certain decisions been made. They want to hear contrition. They want to hear, they want to know that, Pierre Poliyev has learned a lesson and the person that rejoins the House of Commons will be a different version of himself, a more nuanced version of himself. Did you get that sense in your post-mortem?

Well, whenever you fall short, you learn lessons and you improve. At the end of the day, you know, my core mission remains the same, though. it's to bring back the promise of this country. That's why Iran, and that's why we did connect with so many people. You know, we did, we made massive breakthroughs and gains in the last election, but we need to go even further this time. So we're going to build on a solid foundation, and we're going to continue to fight for the people who believe that their promise has been robbed from them,

while giving confidence and assurance to people who voted for other people. other parties, that the best of what the country already has will remain and strengthen under a future conservative government. You know, there are issues that we talk about on this show almost every day, gun violence in the streets of cities like Toronto, issues of bail reform, you know, the rotating door of a criminal goes in, criminal comes out, obviously the economy is an issue, immigration. We're on a pace for 400,000 new immigrants this year, which doesn't feel like the slowdown and we were promised, that the problem as I see it, Pierre, is these are all issues that are

the meat and potatoes of the Conservative Party. But you're not dealing with a tired, old Trudeau-led liberal brand anymore. This is an invigorated popular Mark Carney-led liberal party. And so how do you see your role as the leader of the opposition? To oppose everything might put and the crosshairs of some people who want this parliament to be productive? In the words of Lincoln, we stand with a man when he stands right and against him when he stands wrong. You know, 10 years of liberals have led crime, cost of living, housing prices, immigration, and debt to spiral out of control. Mark Carney said he'd be different. It turns out that he's worse. Let's look at the objective measurement, not at the meetings and the politicians

patting each other on the back and the photo ops and the gushing media coverage. Look at the actual factual changes. The deficit is bigger under Mark Carney than it was under Justin True, a lot bigger. He sent Canadians, parliamentarians home without a budget with a crime crisis, with the housing market in a total disaster. In fact, housing starts are collapsing as builders can't afford to build and buyers can't afford to buy the tariffs, which Mark Carney was supposed to be

the ingenious negotiator that would solve. It turns out the tariffs are actually higher today from the Americans than when he took office. And now there are new tariffs from the Chinese as Mark Carney loses abroad. Canadians are paying the price at home. So increasingly, as Canadians have a chance to look through all the gushing media praise.

And at the core facts, what they're finding out is that Mark Carney is actually worse than Justin Trudeau on the performance measurements, maybe not on the image and the style, but on how he's actually delivering or, as I should say, failing to deliver. Well, you know, as you say all these things, it may be the fact that this leadership review is coming in January, may be a blessing in disguise for you, because, you know, The honeymoon may be over by then, and the expectations, the very high expectations that Mark Carney placed on himself and on his government may lead to people saying, hey, he's falling short. And, you know, comparing two leaders, by comparison, a Pierre-Poliev leader of the opposition may start looking a lot better to the Mark Carney who may or may not be able to deliver. No, what has he delivered so far?

The only things that are popular that he's done are things he's stolen for me. All the things that he long opposed and then came along and plagiarized. But everything else has been really a disaster. You look at the $60 billion of investment that has poured out of Canada since he took office. The bloated and growing federal bureaucracy that despite the announcements that he was going to rein in spending has actually grown dramatically. In the very short time he's been in office, inflation is on the rise, so is unemployment. Youth unemployment is at a 26-year high, and we're seeing a whole generation of young people

having a hard time finding a job as Mark Carney continues to let in a record number of temporary foreign workers to displace our own people. So, again, if you measure on the real results, not on the slick, image and the media gush, you see that this is a prime minister who's costing Canadians and failing to live up to the really incredible promises that he made during the last election. But, you know, we're not just going to oppose. We will propose solutions to strengthen, you get stronger, take-home pay with lower taxes and inflation to bring safer streets by locking up dangerous criminals to secure our borders by cutting back.

on immigration and kicking out foreign criminals who are in our country and a sovereign Canada by unleashing our resource sector so we can produce more at home and ship more overseas becoming less dependent on the Americans. Those are our priorities for the fall session. Stronger take home pay, safer streets, secure borders, and a sovereign Canada. Pierre Poliev, the day after your election, your by-election win, I congratulate you my best to Anna and the kids. And I'm sure you need some sleep. So we'll let you, we'll let you rest a little bit, and we look forward to seeing you in the House of Commons. Thank you so much for stopping by the Ben Mulroney Show.

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