The Ben Mulroney Show - This Week in Politics - The Friday Panel

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

 Anthony Koch, Managing Principal at AK Strategies and former National Campaign Spokesperson for Pierre Poilievre - 514-519-0798Jaskaran Sandhu, Co-Founder of Baaz News and Board Member of the World Sikh Organization of Canada - 647-990-8720 Jennifer Hollett, Executive director of The Walrus  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

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us. And I want to thank my This Week in Politics panel for being here today. We've got Anthony Kosh, managing principal at AK Strategies, former national campaign spokesperson for Pierre Poliev. Jessica Aronson, co-founder of Baz News and board member of the World SICK Organization of Canada. And in studio, my former colleague and current friend and also someone who I'm

going to be spending the evening with in a week or so from the Walrus. She's executive director of the Walrus and we're celebrating. What are we celebrating with the Walrus? We have an annual fundraiser and it's to celebrate Canada's conversation and all things Canada so looking forward to it. And I've already I've already ordered the beef so I'm looking forward to it. You know why it's a vegetarian then. Well guys so I thank you to my friends on the phone thanks for Jen for being here. I want to start with you just Karen because I was talking earlier today about a piece that was written in the National Post about the CBC's evident bias towards Mark Carney on election night. And look, my

I don't have a problem with the bias. I can I can overcome somebody's bias. And I read enough from enough different sources. It all evens out for me. I get the lay of the land. I'm not worried about that. My concern is that they don't believe they have a bias. And that to me is fundamentally is the thing I think that rubs people the wrong way. What do you think? I'm going to start with a quick bias.

Least nation baby. Least nation. Do you believe Ben? Do you believe? No, I listen if it makes if it floats your boat, go for it. But I'm a Habs fan. I think I think Anthony's a Habs fan as well. I'm not gonna like that.

No look, CBC the panel they panel they had going on election night, you can't call that a liberal panel. Like, Coyne is not a liberal. They had Jason Kenney on it for long stretches. Obviously, they're going to come with a whole host of viewpoints. But the theme of the election was the Conservatives bottling it, a strong lead and a strong projection to form government and having it fall out of their fingers That is a story. So obviously it's gonna sound Negative towards the conservative party and positive towards the liberals because the liberals are not supposed to win that election

Yes, that changed a little bit and we're all victims of recency bias Over the course of the four weeks of the election because of Donald Trump Well, we gotta remember the two years leading into it and that was the story. And I'm sorry that's a tough pill to swallow for some conservatives but that's what that was going to frame the whole conversation and it's going to sound negative. Anthony I want you to weigh in here I suspect you'll have a different take. Yeah I was really happy to see Jason Kenney on that panel I think he did a pretty bang-up job, all things considered. But I mean, CBC's bias is not a new topic of conversation. It's something

that's been discussed a lot. Now, they want to be very clear. There are some really great professional journalists who work at the CBC that do a fantastic bang-up job. I'm thinking of a few of them right now. I think it's more so the broadcasting team that a lot of people take issue with, two hosts in particular, who I will not name. But in terms of the coverage on the night, I have to do somewhat agree with Jasker on this, which is obviously the fact that the Conservatives started off this campaign. Now again, 25 point leads, a bit distorting. At peak, the Conservative Party was polling an average of around 45%. And then they ended up landing at around 42% of the popular vote when all was said and done. So when you say that

there was a 25 point collapse, it makes the numbers seem a little bit different than how it actually played out on the ground. But yes, it's very clear that for about two years, everybody was assuming there was going to be a slam dunk conservative majority. And then that's not what happened on election. Anthony, I take your point. but that to me isn't really the issue. Like sure, that's the story. And if you're, if you're a conservative, then you're going to hear in that something negative.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the tone. I'm talking about the choice of words. I'm talking about like it to me, it's, and again, Jen Hollett. I don't have a problem with people having a bias I have no problem with that. I have a problem with people having that a bias but claiming they don't Claiming that they are the tip of the sword for fair and balanced news I was in Edmonton for election night and I started the night off in a pub where they were playing both hockey And election night coverage.

I started with CTV coverage. And then by the time I moved home, because it was an exciting election night and actually spilled over to the next morning. So then I moved to CBC coverage. I didn't notice the bias. I'm also aware of my own biases. One comment that did stand out was the comment on how notable it should be to accept election results.

So I, that piss me off. Yeah. To, to assume that might be the case in Canada when it has not ever been the case. And they were the ones who posited it in the first place. They, they planted that seed two weeks earlier. That was insane and insulting and corrosive and toxic. But I'm going to argue, if you want to talk to a party that really feels their bias, talk to the greens, talk to the NDP, talk to the Bloc,

because this was a two-party election and I think all of those parties felt squeezed out by the coverage. Okay, well let's move on to the here and now. Mark Carney is moving very quickly on taking a meeting with Donald Trump. To his credit, he said this was a crisis, he's treating it like a crisis. He's going to go down to the White House and he he's gonna start working on, as Donald Trump said, to get a new trade deal. Anthony, I'll talk to you, I'll give it to you first. How do you think this meeting's gonna go?

I don't have the smallest clue, but I hope it goes well, regardless of partisan consideration. I think Canadians have had enough of the nonsense that we've been seeing vis-a-vis trade and threats of annexation from the American president. So I hope for the sake of our national psychology that this goes well. But again, it's still too early to say, I know he said at various points, some nice things about Mr. Carney, that we find out that it wasn't exactly as nice as Mr. Carney made

it out to be that there was more details and all this sort of stuff. But I guess we have to wait and see if he's going to get the Zelensky treatment. nice as Mr. Carney made it out to be that there was more details and all this sort of stuff. But I guess we have to wait and see if he's going to get the Zelensky treatment. Yeah. Well, listen, if he doesn't take that Zelensky thing and learn from it, just Karen, look, I'm not somebody who complains for no reason. And to complain today would be to complain for no reason. Quite literally, Mark Carney hasn't done anything to make anybody upset just yet. So as far as I'm concerned, I do wish him well, because for him to succeed there means everyone in Canada succeeds,

but he has to succeed first. Oh, 100%. And look, we've spoken about this before, in my opinion, that Trump is an irrational actor. So trying to guess how this is gonna go and what Trump's gonna say afterwards is anyone's fair guess. The bigger to guess how this is gonna go and what Trump's gonna say afterwards is anyone's fair guess.

The bigger point, and this is where I think conservatives were correct during the course of the election, that the Trump issue is very important. I think the language that he's using around annexing Canada is ridiculous. The threat that it has for our economy is immense and to America's economy, as a matter of fact. However, it's also distracting from the homegrown issues that we have that we need to deal with.

And so the faster we can clear off the American issue, we can start focusing on the many issues that we have faced in this country that we need to tackle from immigration to health care to the relationship between our provinces. So all this is very important, but we need to first circle the dot, square the dot in the Trump meeting in American Whole People as well. And look, Jen, my contention is, yes, he absolutely is a threat that needs to be dealt with, but the threat is the tariffs. The threat is not annexation. That's the musing of somebody who has never thought seriously about the issue.

If he was forced to think about it seriously, he would realize it's a fool's errand. But that doesn't take away the fact that the threat is real and it's tariffs. We have to deal with that. Donald Trump is very unpredictable. I don't think anyone knows how this meeting is going to go, including Donald Trump until he's in the meeting. And unfortunately, there are a lot of issues that we take seriously that it appears the US president and administration doesn't, but perhaps they do.

And it's hard to tell like what's a joke, you know, what is going to be an ongoing issue. My hope though is that the meeting will go better because it seems like Trump had a real issue with Trudeau dating back to that 2019 meeting where Trudeau, Johnson and Macron were laughing at him. It was very personal for him. So my hope is it's a new chapter, but who knows that's Trump's way of governing is who knows. You could tell that the venom when he spoke about our leader was gone from his voice and that's a good thing. That's not specific to Mark Carney. That would have happened with anybody who wasn't Justin Trudeau.

But now the rubber meets the road. Now we have to get busy fixing whatever problems Donald Trump says we have. When he speaks, we got to take him seriously. And the fact is, he says it's an unfair trade deal that he signed, but it's an unfair trade deal. So let's get to work on that as soon as possible. So as Jessica said, we can turn our attention to the homegrown problems that we created ourselves.

Guys, don't go anywhere. Our political throuple will continue. And we're going to talk about where Pierre Poliev goes from here. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney Show from coast to coast to coast on the Chorus Radio Network. Now during my choice, you can choose up to $1,500 in Nissan bonus or accessory credit or choose three-year prepaid maintenance. Hurry into your local Nissan dealer today. $1,500 applies to Sentra and select rogue models when leasing or financing through NCF.

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and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Bowie Rudy Show and welcome back Anthony Kosh, Nisgar Sandhu and Jen Hollett for this week in politics. All right, it's been a very long week for Pierre Poliev and the conservatives. You know, when somebody wins a championship, they don't look in the mirror and ask themselves,

how could I have won better? But when you lose, those are the questions you have to ask yourself. And of course, he is gearing up for what was probably the fight of his life. He says he wants to stick around. But conservatives tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when they don't get what they want.

And his time as leader could be up. Jen, what do you think Pierre Poliev should do? Well, as I mentioned, I was in Edmonton for election night. The last time I was in Edmonton was for the federal NDP convention where Tom Mulcair was voted out by membership. And I remember the gasp in the room. I was going live on TV, the biggest gasping from Mulcair himself. And ultimately, it will be up to the party.

It starts with caucus. it extends to membership. Based on the results, he is still popular with a lot of Canadians and has grown the conservative movement. I just think it's going to be very tough since he won't be the leader of the official opposition and he doesn't have the best track record wanting to do interviews with media. So how does he stay relevant?

And my guess is the listening tour has already started. Yeah, no, I don't dispute anything you said, but just, Garen, conceivably, it looks like if the rumors are to be believed, there is a little bit of horse trading going on by Mark Carney's liberals in an attempt to sway some disappointed members of the NDP into the fold so that they can have their majority. And if that's the case, he's in there comfortably for four years.

That's a lot of time for a guy like Pierre Poliev to listen, learn, adapt and rebuild. Oh yeah, for sure. Look, what was the cardinal sin made by Pierre Poliev during this campaign, if you were to point that one, is that that first week when Trump started going crazy, Pierre Pauliev stayed largely silent. All he needed to do was put a baseball cap on that said Canada's not for sale, and he would have been fined this election on day one. But he did it, and that was partly because he didn't want to upset a certain segment of his base

that liked Trump. And so they kind of sat on the fence and they waffled, and he had to pay the price because the boomers slipped away. The second big issue, and I've heard this from friends in provincial conservative circles, especially out in Ontario, that the problem with Pierre Pauliev and his campaign team was the hubris.

They were incredibly, incredibly confident to the point of hubris and thinking they were going to win and that they didn't need anyone else. And I think some of that is just Jenny Byrne style of management. But part of it is just that this overconfidence killed them. They didn't think they needed to go reach out to Doug Ford proactively. They didn't think they needed to reach out to Houston out in the Maritimes proactively. And a lot of other conservative circles that didn't see eye to eye on every element of

the ideology that Pierre Paul see eye to eye on every element of the ideology that Pierre Pauli always tried to. Let me bring Anthony in because yeah, he's gonna have to answer some pretty tough questions. And the fact is in the face of a loss, there's gonna be some really fair criticism leveled at Pierre and his team. Yeah, so I could say right now, at least, there is no concerted effort or desire among caucus, party membership, or otherwise to remove Pierre-Paulie as his leader. But there's a lot of frustration with some of the people that make up his entourage. And some of the decisions that were made, you know, Jos Garand decided to name some

of them. I won't, but you know, put the two and two together, everybody can have a jolly grand time. And I think that's going to be the essential part of this. I think there's been an effort by some conservative strategists for very obvious reasons to sort of brush over this election very quickly and say, Oh, well, we got the highest percentage of the votes since Brian Mulrooney. True. Yeah. Right. And we had all the, these are all positives and they're good. But at the end of the day, a loss is a loss. Pierre Kholiab is not prime minister. We do not form the government. So I think there's a lot of people saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's slow the roll down here. If your

point is basically, we couldn't have done anything different, we just need to reroll this next time and we'll definitely guarantee to win the next election. People are saying that's not what we want to hear. We want to actually have a full conversation about what went wrong, what we could have done differently. And most importantly, what are saying that's not what we want to hear. We want to actually have a full conversation about what went wrong, what we could have done differently, and most importantly, what are we going to do differently in the future in order to make sure that we actually do take government next time. So I think Mr. Poliev is safe. I don't think there's much frustration directed at him personally. I haven't heard it from anywhere. I think there's a recognition of his popularity within the movement and what he represents, but I think there's a lot of frustration with some of the personnel or entourage around the leader

Anthony let me let me just follow up with you real quick and then i'll bring everybody else back in But I mean I listen I I heard from doug ford there was some pretty pointed stuff Uh towards uh pierre and tim houston, uh said that there was no communication And I think he name checked Pierre. So there is a little bit of that. And then you had Jamil Javani coming out and leveling his own attacks. I mean, it feels, and I've said this before,

conservatives love airing their dirty laundry in public, and it weakens them publicly. Well, we have our popcorn out following it. Yeah, this is, when it happens in the Liberal Party, it's the exception that proves the rule. This is the rule for the conservatives. Just Karen, what do you think? I mean, this is this type of thing that should be happening behind closed doors.

As a Brampton man, I love Domeel Dohani, like just flexing as a fellow Brampton man. Pure Brampton culture right there. I love that. I had a great laugh. And again, I'm friends with PCPO guys. I'm very good friends with PCPO guys. And obviously, I think Ford did a great job on that. But I thought that was hilarious as an objective observer. And I love the fact that, you know, Anthony, my buddy, is the diplomatic one on the show right now. It's me throwing the grenades. So look, I think long story short, there needs to be a bit of a come to Jesus moment for

the Pierre Pauliev and look around his crew and say, what could I have done better? I, you know, we had a heated debate once where I said, you know, Pierre kind of has to soften his tone a little bit because I's all put into some folks. And we heard, I think it was Benzie shared it that, or it was Fife. Well, one of these journalists who did a story recently of how conservative MPs at the door were hearing, hey, we love your policies. We love what you guys are saying. Someone's holding truth to power here, but we just don't like the tone, uh, from Pierre

and his camp. And I think that's something that really needs to be accounted for. And the one, the one incident I really stood out for me and I, and not everybody may remember this, it was a Twitter little debate, uh, between will lead Solomon and Jenny burnt. And I had someone that was observing that and I had huge respect for someone like we'll lead. So that huge respect for that man. And I was watching that and I'm like, Jamie Byrne, look at those tones,

what are you guys saying? Cause Aaron O'Toole gave a gracious thank you and goodbye to a fellow parliamentarian. Are you kidding me? Like Canadians will look at this stuff and say this is unbecoming of anyone in power. Hey, Anthony, let me ask you about Bob Fife's reporting that suggests that as the conservative caucus

is meeting to select an interim opposition leader There are concerns that the liberals are trying to poach disgruntled conservative MPs Yeah, so listen There's gonna there's a lot of members of this conservative caucus who've been around for a while Who are not planning on running for reelection who had the tail end and twilight of their political career? And if they were to get offered something like the speakership that comes with a nice fancy house, a driver, an increased salary and an increased pension, it might sound pretty nice to them. So that is a legitimate concern for the conservative

party. I don't think we're gonna see any floor-crossers or anything like that but again Elizabeth May is a de facto liberal MP so add her to the 168, you're at 169. You get a conservative to be Speaker of the House. Now you're basically de facto at 170. And then, you know, God bless the NDP, but they have no money, no leader, and they're completely disreputable, they don't even have official party status. So I don't think they're going to be standing up to the Liberal government anytime soon, right? I mean, they barely got even as many votes as the Bloc Québécois. So again, I think some conservatives are spinning themselves into believing that this is like a very weak parliament. Anyone who thinks that we're getting an election anytime soon, for any other reason, other than

Mark Carney thinks it's advantageous for him to go early, is drinking something that I'd very much like to participate in. Jen, what do you think of floor crossers, of being elected on one ticket and then if you get a better deal, you say, oh, I've changed my mind, I'm now a liberal or of this or that? I have a hard time understanding them. Again, pull out the popcorn. We always enjoy the drama.

I'm thinking of like Belinda Stronach comes to mind. But ultimately, I do think it comes back to representing your constituents and what they want. If we're really going to the true motivation of politics, but of course it's a power play and who doesn't like to be courted? Yeah, well I want to thank Anthony Kosh, Jessica Aronsandu, Jen Hallett. Thank you, all three of you, for joining us. I've always had a problem. I've always had a problem with, oh, the music has kicked in. I've always had a problem with the idea

of crossing the floor. I appreciate the motivation, especially for people who are at the tail end of their career. But to me, it's like, you know, if you don't wanna sit as a member of your party, sit as an independent till the next election or something like that but that's that's just me i don't have to make those decisions thanks to all three of you for joining us when i found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from winners

i started wondering is every fabulous item i see from winners like that woman over there with the italian leather handbag is that from winners or that beautiful silk skirt. Did she pay full price? Or those suede sneakers? Or that luggage? Or that trench? Those jeans, that jacket, those heels. Is anyone paying full price for anything?