The Ben Mulroney Show - The Liberals play another edition of don't hurt the front runner at the Leaders debate

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The Liberals play another edition of don't hurt the front runner at the Leaders debate with Guest: Anthony Koch, Managing Principal at AK Strategies and former National Campaign Spokesperson for Pierre Poilievre 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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stands for total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Last night was the English version of the French, quote unquote, debate, the liberal leadership contest. A lot of, we got more audio we could play on the show today than we did yesterday, obviously, because it was in French. And let's start with, how do I say this? I like people who don't talk to me like I'm an idiot.

I find it insulting when somebody says, don't believe your eyes, don't believe your ears, I'm here to tell you the truth. And Mark Carney decided to talk to us like we were idiots yesterday on one very particular point as he believes that, well, let's hear what he says about Pierre Poliev in relation to Donald Trump. We will never, ever be part of the United States in any way, shape or form. We have to recognize that the Donald Trump of today is different than the Donald Trump

of several years ago. Then his objective was to take more of our market. Now he wants to take our country. Let me finish by pointing out one other thing. Who's the worst person to stand up to Donald Trump? Pierre Pauliev. He worships the man. He uses his language. Let me finish by pointing out one other thing. Who's the worst person to stand up to Donald Trump? Pierre Pauliev. He worships the man.

He uses his language. He's not the right person for our country at this crucial time. That's patently false. By every metric, it is completely false. And for a liberal leadership candidate to fear monger and suggest that Pierre Poliev carries Donald Trump's water is insulting to my intelligence and your intelligence. I'm not telling you to like Pierre Poliev.

I'm telling you that he does not worship Donald Trump. He is a proud Canadian, as proud as anybody out there, who has said, Canada today, Canada first, Canada always. Now, Andrew Coyne, I'm no fan of Andrew Coyne, and Andrew Coyne is no fan of Pierre Poliev, tweeted, he has no basis for saying this. No basis. He perhaps uses some of the same language to communicate,

but he has no basis for it. And by the way, can we just zoom out for a second? Why would he use some of the same language? Possibly because the Liberal Party is more analogous to the American left-wing Democratic Party than Pierre is to Donald Trump and therefore some of the ridiculous progressive policies that American voters were so insulted with, Canadians are also feeling the brunt of some insane woke policies from the Liberal Party. Therefore you communicate in the same way because the effects on the people have been the same. But to suggest to a television audience that the leader of the Conservative Party, who

has been defending Canadian interests in the House of Commons for years, worships Donald Trump is a lie. It is an insult to your intelligence. It is an insult to what you hear and see every day. And you should remember that. Now, to be fair, Mark Carney also had some choice words about the liberal legacies. Be clear, and Canadians feel this,

I want to be clear about the, quote, strength of our economy. Our economy over the last five years has been driven by a big increase in the labor force, which was largely because of a surge in immigration. It is now trying to be controlled. And by government spending that grew over 9% year after year after year, twice the rate of growth

of our economy. So our economy was weak before we got to the point of these threats from President Trump. And I'm glad for that assessment. It's the nicest way of putting it, because essentially the problems that we are facing today are self-inflicted wounds and they were inflicted by the liberal government for nine years. That's what he's saying. And he was an economic advisor to this government. So he needs to own some of this as well.

Christia Freeland, who's running second, according to the polls to Mark Carney for the liberal leadership, gave her take on how she would respond to Donald Trump. Our retaliation will be a lot smarter than their dumb tariffs. And it's the Wall Street Journal, usually a supporter of Trump, that described this Trump effort as dumb. Canada, by contrast, is gonna be smart.

We are going to have a targeted retaliation that exerts maximum pain in the U.S. and does minimum harm to us. We're going to hit Trump's best friends. I will impose a 100% tariff on Tesla's. I'm going to hit Wisconsin dairy. I'm going to hit Florida orange juice. And you are going to see a stock market reaction. You're going to see people like the American Farm Bureau complaining about the Canadian potash they need that costs more. And that reaction, that pain will cause Trump ultimately to back down, just like you did last time. Okay. I mean, listen, I like a strong talking leader. There's not a whole lot of daylight, in opinion between that position and what I've heard from,

you know, the Doug Ford's of the world and Pierre Poliev. We don't have that many tools in our toolbox. I mean, it's tariffs or something like it's, I'm just, it's fine. To me, that's fine. I think that you have to say that. Now somebody we have not heard a lot from, who actually, I think acquitted himself quite well yesterday, was Frank Bayless, the West Coast entrepreneur, former a liberal member of parliament. And I haven't heard him speak, to be honest. I heard him speak in English yesterday on the debate stage.

And he was asked about, just tried to get into Donald Trump's head. Here's what he said. President Trump needs to show that he has a win on the border. And he's got himself elected by saying he's going to deal with illegal immigration.

And right away, he puts out a tweet saying there's a problem with Canada and Mexico. The problem is, for him, there is no problem with Canada. We know it, and the Americans know it. So he's trying to make one so that he can later solve it. Now, I want to point something out. This is not a negotiation. This is a shakedown. We have an agreement. He negotiated the agreement. He signed the agreement. The problem we have is he's not respecting the agreement. Yeah, I mean, I think I think I've said that before. And I something occurred to me while

we were listening to that audio piece Because of the Donald Trump I gotta think these liberal leadership candidates really like the the Donald Trump of it all Because it they don't have to put They don't have to put a whole lot of policy in the window He dominated the entire conversation and there's not much you can say because we don't know what he's gonna do. So it's talking in hypotheticals. It's talking strong language. It's trying to get into the man's head. It's talking about how he's a threat.

This is a shakedown. I'm gonna be strong. Dollar for dollar tariffs, reciprocal tariffs. I'm gonna hit him where it hurts. I'm gonna be smart. These aren't policies. These aren't positions. This is posturing.

And for every minute they spend on Donald Trump, they are not spending on policies and ideas and that Canadians should probably want to hear about. And so this is wonderful for the Liberal Party where they get to perform on a stage and they don't have to do anything or say anything of meaning. Meanwhile, I will remind you that Pierre Poliev,

for somebody who is not prime minister and is not in an election campaign, has put a heck of a lot of policy initiatives in the window. There is no politician as far as I know in Canada, who from, we know where he stands and what he would do as prime minister. I still don't know what most of these guys are gonna do

on the liberal stage to be honest with you. Here's one last, one last person we haven't heard from is Karina Gould. And she has a pretty good idea, I think, on basic income. But when we're talking about people who are going to food banks, we're talking about the most vulnerable in our society. A middle-class tax cut or removing the GST on new homes isn't going to help those folks.

But you know what will? Modernizing our social safety net. Making sure that seniors who live on a fixed income, persons with disabilities, folks who have lost their job, who need support to retrain and rebound, are better off. And that's why I'm talking about opening a path

towards a basic income. Poverty costs money. That's why we need to work to eliminate homelessness. It's why I would work with provinces and territories to have specific accords to ensure that folks who get into housing can stay stable and that they can enter the workforce and join and be prosperous. I wouldn't trust this government to organize a one-man parade and come in on budget. government to organize a one man parade and come in on budget. Welcome back to the Ben Mulvary Show and in our previous segment I gave you my take on some of

the highlights of the liberal leadership English language debate from last night and to talk more about it and somebody who probably knows a little more than I is Anthony Kosh, managing principal at AK strategies and former national campaign spokesperson for Pierre Poliev. Anthony, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me on. Okay, so let's fly over real quick. Who do you think won last night?

I think Karina Gold actually surprised people. I wasn't the only one that had that take similar people can get the same conclusions. I think, you know, I hadn't really heard much of her when she was a cabinet minister. She never really had that senior position, but I'm shocked at the ability. I don't agree with the policy. She's probably a little bit too far to the left

to be the liberal leader at this current political context, but fantastic, effective, and pointed, and energetic communicator, not only in English yesterday, but also was probably the best one in terms of the quality of her French in the French debate as well. You know, my another person that we just haven't heard a lot from because if the carnies and the freelance have been taking up

all the sucking up all the oxygen in the room is Mr. Bayless. And, you know, for if you have no expectations of somebody, it's pretty easy for them to exceed them. Yeah, well, exactly. And I mean, the thing about Mr. Bayless is he's a number. He's from Montreal, like I am, and he's well known in the community here for being an extraordinarily successful businessman. It's funny, he was an elected liberal MP from 2015 to 2019. He was a part of that original class.

Yeah. And word on the street was he was a little bit frustrated that somebody of his talent and experience was sort of left to play in the sandbox. Well, a bunch of 20 something year old kids and PMO told him what to do. And I hear this is a common experience in politics. But yeah, Mr. Bayless is an extraordinarily accomplished individual who's also politically bilingual. So it is cool to see him up on stage and articulate. Yeah. And meanwhile, Donald Trump made up about 75% of the topics and it occurred to me during the last segment as I was listening to these things, this, this must make these guys very, very happy because in talking about Donald Trump, there's not much you can say except posturing and trying to show people that you are going to be strong in the face of whatever he throws our way and because he's so mercurial we don't know what that is. So not a lot of meat on the bone when it comes to that. Instead you're getting a lot of posturing which means not a lot

of time left for actual policy ideas. No exactly and you just hit the nail on the head. The thing that I found fascinating you know what were three topics that were not touched at all yesterday Ben? What? Crime, drugs or the border and also immigration. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. Zero. It was a lot of random vague generalities in particular from Freeland and Carney about how we need to have big bold changes on the economy. What are those big changes?

What are those bold changes? We don't know. No, we don't. Maybe tune in next week to find out. Yeah. But what's important is that you know that they're very big and they're very bold. And they have to come from us because as Mark Carney said, the worst person to negotiate against Donald Trump would be a Pierre Poliev because in his words, Pierre Poliev worships Donald Trump. Now, I said in the previous segment, I don't like being lied to. I can I have my eyes, I have my ears, and everything I have read and everything I know completely disputes that claim. And yet again, this is the

liberals fear mongering and saying, don't believe your eyes and don't believe your ears. Believe me. Exactly. And context here, obviously, this is a particularly uniquely daunting situation for Canadians because of Donald Trump. But this isn't really new, right? Yeah, here poly ev is Donald Trump Andrew Scheer was Donald Trump Aaron O'Toole was Donald Trump, you know Stephen Harper was George Bush. Yeah, it's like the classic right people are aware in Canada the average Canadian is not so fond of Republicans in the United States and it's an easy cheap so fond of Republicans in the United States. And it's an easy, cheap attack that the liberals

have deployed to varying degrees of success in every general election that I can remember certainly in my life, that we are the Republicans north. I think Canadians are smart enough to realize that that's not the case in this particular circumstance. You know, in a moment of, I don't know, self-actualization, realization, self-efface, Mark Carney acknowledged that the Canadian economy was weak before Donald Trump threatened

terrorists. I think he might have forgotten that he had a hand in helping craft the policy for a few of those years. A hundred percent. That was the funny part too. The most awkward question of the night right along in line with this was when the moderator Hannah Thibodeau asked the contestants, what makes you different from Justin Trudeau? And basically-

It was a Kamala Harris question. Yeah, basically nobody had really an answer, except for Mark Carney, who sort of seemed to suggest that Mr. Trudeau was not focused on the economy, you know, and among others, and wasn't a hands-on leader. But it's exactly that. How can you in one sentence say that the economy was weak before the tariff threats in the United States of America?

Well, also in our records, like guys, look around. Who was in charge for the last 10 years? And it's like, it's not only have they forgotten, it seems like they're hoping that we're gonna forget too. Yeah, and well, Frank Bayless also admitted, he said this was a government that was almost entirely focused on wealth redistribution. So the party that was focused on wealth redistribution, taking, are you telling, so the party that was focused on wealth

redistribution of taking from the people who create the wealth and giving it to people to other people, you want us to trust you with creating wealth? You haven't shown that you know, you know, the first thing about creating wealth. No, exactly. It's like, don't worry, guys, I know, I advise the prime minister and everybody who's supporting my leadership race, from Katie Telfer to Jerry Butz to everybody in between. So the Trudeau brain trust, the Prime Minister himself, and I myself was the senior advisor to the Prime Minister. Don't worry, now it's completely different. Yeah, the same cast the same people, but magic one gets waved. It's a

completely different movement. Now, we saw some polls coming out recently, a lot of people excited that the conservative vote has completely collapsed. They've lost a 30-point lead in the polls. What say you to those people? I'd say yeah. You know, your father must have had some things to say for Mr. Turner once upon a time when polls seemed to suggest the same thing after he temporarily became leader of the party before we know the massive majority that occurred in 1984. So what I'd say as well, some of the polling is very interesting when you look at the regionals. Obviously the Liberals are getting a bump whether it's because of

Trump, whether it's because there's some newness in the blood, Trudeau's gone, XC could exit, whatever you want to say. But at the end of the day some of the more interesting stuff is I remember the most recent polling I saw was that only something like 27% of Canadians were actually able to identify Mark Carney if you showed them a picture of it. So this guy's still very much non-entity I think a lot of people are projecting a lot of things onto him Aspirationally, but as as we saw the last two nights for the few political nerds of us that were actually paying attention to the two debates, I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

Well, I also and I've pointed this out before is, you know, I've used the expression before if our listeners have heard it before, I apologize for sounding repetitive, but pressure makes diamonds. And Mark Carney, who has never been a politician and likes to tell us that that is a, as we say in French, un atout of benefit to him. He has not been tested by the mainstream media in any meaningful way. They don't push back, they don't call out the the inconsistencies or the hypocrisies. They aren't demanding accountability from a person who has been thus far unaccountable because he claims he's had no power.

Well power and influence are very similar. And he certainly wasn't tested on the debate stage by the people who should be gunning for him, the current leaders. He is not ready for what is going to happen to him in an election campaign. So even if he starts, he's going to get destroyed. If he thinks this is how debates go, wait till he meets a guy who's been in the arena for 20 years in Pierre Poliev. Yeah, and Karina Gold said the same thing

in her press conference yesterday. She actually said, you know, I had kids gloves on last night. If you guys think this was tough, wait until you get Yves-Francois Blanchet and Pierre Poliev on the stage. But exactly just right, like yesterday, the big story you're seeing this morning is,

Mark Carney swore up and down that when Brookfield moved their headquarters from Toronto to New York City, after Donald Trump was elected president, while he was chair of that organization, he maintained that he had already resigned. Now the information has come out that's proven that that's demonstrably untrue. So these kind of double-speaks and fibs, when you're fresh and clean, these are the kind of things you're gonna start to add up and build a narrative.

And I think people are gonna realize that he's not this angelic figure that some would like to have you believe you. Hey, I've only got a few seconds left, but I was speaking with a very high ranking liberal who's supporting Karina Gould. And he said, because of the ranked ballot situation, and because she is very popular

as everybody's second choice, unless Mark Carney hits that 50% plus one on the first ballot, she has a very real chance of winning. Well, I really appreciate the optimism. And I think it's good that every campaign believes that they can win. But at this point, I would be absolutely shocked if anybody other than Mark Carney wins, and wins big. So I would have to say, I don't see a pathway for Miss Gold, but I obviously don't have access to the data that

some of the leadership campaigns do. So maybe it's possible, but I think that'd be the story of the decade. All right, Anthony Koss, we're going to leave it there. Thanks so much for this update. Thank you. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious. His escapes defy belief. And when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it. His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt, but how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel? I'm Seren Jones, and this is a most audacious heist. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

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