The Decibel - Pierre Poilievre’s problems with corporate Canada

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Throughout his campaign, Pierre Poilievre has taken an antagonistic attitude towards Canada’s business elite – a historically uncharacteristic approach for the Conservative party. During a time of economic uncertainty, Canadians are looking for a leader to protect them from a trade war with the U.S. and business leaders are hoping to show a united front with the next Prime Minister.The Globe’s business columnist, Andrew Willis, and Report on Business reporter, James Bradshaw, recently took a look into Poilievre’s relationship with corporate Canada. After speaking with nearly 30 senior people in the business and political worlds, Andrew Willis breaks down what Poilievre as Prime Minister would mean for Canadian business.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

I've never seen someone so antagonistic towards Bay Street and towards business leaders in general. Andrew Willis is a columnist for the Globe's Report on Business. He's talking about conservative leader Pierre Poliev. So maybe the Bay Streeters are not happy, but that's okay because I don't work for Bay Street. For years, Andrew's been following how Poliev interacts with Canada's business leaders,

including one of the few times he spoke directly to them in public in December, 2023. The C.D. Howe Institute speech for Pierre Poliev was a really big deal because by his own admission, he doesn't come to Toronto very often. He doesn't like to give big audiences with business leaders. So the C.D. House speech became this big event and it was packed. It was about a little over 200 of us. There was the heads of a number of the pension plans were there. There's a lot of bankers there. There were a lot of lawyers there. I would have told you as an extremely

important crowd for Poliev and he opened up by saying, I don't like Bay Street. This is an unusual scene for me. I almost never speak to crowds in downtown Toronto or anywhere close to Bay Street. Too often, corporate Canada has focused on printing glossy ESG brochures and seeking lunches with politicians at the Rideau Club to tell us what we should be doing. This kind of adversarial relationship

between the leader of the Conservatives and Canada's business elite is unusual. They're supposed to be pro-business. They're supposed to believe that small government is the answer because that allows free enterprise to prosper and Pierre Poliev loves to say those sorts of things. But if you're gonna say those sorts of things,

you would think you'd want the bosses onside. Everyone is worried about the Canadian economy these days, as the US president continues to threaten massive tariffs. But does it actually matter if someone who is competing to be the Prime Minister has a good working relationship with Bay Street? Andrew Willis recently looked into Poliev's relationship to Canada's corporate leaders, along with Globe reporter James Bradshaw. They spoke to nearly 30 senior people in the business and political worlds about what Poliev as Prime Minister would mean for Canadian business.

Today, Andrew's here to tell us what they found. I'm Maynika Ren-Welms, and this is The Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Andy, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, a thrill to be here. So Andy, to start, why is it important to understand the relationship between federal politicians and prominent corporate leaders on Bay Street. Like, why does that even matter? Look, in Canada, nothing exists in a vacuum. For business to do well, government has to be supportive.

And for the society to do well, you know, you have to have cooperation between political leaders and government officials. And look, that relationship should be tense because the goals of each group are different. But at the end of the day, Canada works best if there's a cooperation or at least mutual respect, mutual recognition between politicians and business leaders. That's part of the social compact. And historically, this country has been able to get that right more times than not. The situation that we're finding ourselves in now is one where the relationship between government and business isn't great, but there's a real need

for a Canada First strategy, for a strategy that to help Canada overcome a lot of challenges, some of our own making, and then a lot of them external through the election of Donald Trump and his trade war with Canada. Yeah. When we're talking about Bay Street, Andy, what exactly are we talking about? We use that as a shorthand, but what does it mean? Narrowly defined, it just means the bank about? We use that as a shorthand, but what does it mean? Narrowly defined, it just means the bankers and the lawyers that work in capital markets. And that's actually not how I'm trying to describe it.

What I'm talking about when I say Bay Street is more the business leaders across this country, the CEOs, the CFOs, the individuals who are making decisions on who gets hired, on where we build factories, on where to allocate capital. I know those sound like lofty sort of ideas, but to get into the trenches, when you've got a company like Couchetard, they can go out and make a $40 billion acquisition of a retail store chain in Japan, or they can work on consolidating their base in Canada and do deals here. One of those options, the Canadian option,

will create jobs in Canada and create a stronger Canadian economy. The other one sees a lot of money put into foreign markets. What happens amongst corporate leaders really influences jobs for Canadians, Canadian prosperity and the overall strength of the economy. When I talk about Bay Street, I'm using that interchangeably with corporate leaders and I'm talking as much about the folks in the oil patch in Calgary or the financial sector in Montreal as I am, anybody who works within a couple of blocks of us here at the Globe and Mail in Toronto. Okay. Can we talk about the current situation and kind of use this as an example, I guess, to understand it? Like if we look at the economic uncertainty we're currently facing with the US, how could a good relationship between a prime minister and the country CEOs, how could

that actually help our situation? Yeah. I think right now a healthy relationship between a prime minister and the country CEOs, how could that actually help our situation? Yeah, I think right now a healthy relationship between government and business is essential because we're going to go through some very difficult times. A lot of really important Canadian industries like the aluminum industry, like the steel industry, they're massive employers in Ontario and Quebec and they're about to be broadsided by Trump's tariffs. There are going to be layoffs, auto parts makers are going to get shut down if Trump moves forward with these tariffs on the auto sector. You're going to need COVID level cooperation between government and business to avoid real personal tragedies. We're going to have to cushion the impact,

we're going to have to help Canadian companies pivot to foreign sales, we're going to have to help Canadian companies rebuild their relationships with American customers. That can't just be a corporate or a government thing. It's going to take cooperation between business leaders and political leaders. Everybody in Ottawa now recognizes it. Actually, executing is very, very difficult. Okay. So, we know that Pierre Poliev doesn't speak that highly of Bay Street and corporate Canada, at least in public and even to their faces, I guess, at this event that you were at. But I guess I wonder, is that a consistent message? Like behind closed doors, do we know if he actually feels the same way?

Well the interesting thing about Poliev is he is in Toronto a lot doing these fundraisers. And there's a number of individuals who, first of all, they're staunch conservatives, and they're attempting to help him build a network, help introducing him around. Where things fall apart, and this is where he's consistent, is he's got the same sort of hostile attitude towards business leaders and towards bosses in private

as he does in public. He really, really believes, I think, that business leaders have lost touch with their workforces. I don't think that's true in most cases. He believes that decisions are being made not for the interests of workers or for the Canadian economy as a whole, but for shareholders, which is rather nebulous. I think most business leaders in this country are extremely patriotic, but they are forced to, by a lot of different factors including the relatively small size of the Canadian economy. They're forced to look abroad for growth and they're members of a, if you're a CEO of a

large Canadian corporation, your peers are probably global, not domestic. So you go to Davos for these international meetings. You are part of a New York crowd because that's where you go to do your investor relations meetings. The idea of globalist I think is something that Pierre Poliev likes to run against. He really often mentions the fact that Davos is an anti-Canada kind of a phenomenon. This is a big economic conference. Yeah. Sorry. Davos is an annual gathering of the world's political elite and it's become kind of symbolic of this larger globalist thinking that led to a lot of manufacturing jobs being moved to the lowest cost providers like China

or Vietnam. When you lose massive amounts of manufacturing jobs in Canada, that creates unrest and that's the sort of thing that Pierre Poliev honestly wants to address. That's admirable. I just don't think you do that by opposing or being hostile to business leaders. Okay. So, it sounds like in public and in private, he is kind of saying the same things about people on Bay Street. Can we look at a specific example here, Andy, just to really understand the kind of rhetoric he uses, like a specific time maybe where he picked a fight with a CEO or someone in corporate Canada? The thing that most CEOs will point to when they say, look, we're not sure we can work with Pierre

Polyev is a situation that played out with CTV and its parent, Bell Canada. Because CTV quite wrongly put together some clips that made it look like Pierre had taken a position around some healthcare programs that he had in fact had not taken. It was a weak job by CTV. They apologize for it and the individuals who made those mistakes, I don't think they work at CTV anymore. This was just this past fall actually. This is pretty recent. Yeah. And Polyev in response didn't just say, look, CTV, you screwed up and you seem to be showing animus towards me. He made it personal with the CEO at Bell Canada, Mirko Bibic. And Mirko Bibic's relationship to what gets put on CTV news every night could not be more distance. he's running a telecom company. He has no idea what CTV is doing. But Pierre went after

Mirko over compensation, over some strategies that Bell right now that aren't playing out too well. Bell's got a little too much debt, which Mirko would be the first to tell you. And making it personal that way really threw a scare into a lot of other CEOs. They thought there, but for the grace of God go I. They realized that this conservative leader is always going to come out with his elbows up. He's going to make it personal. He's going to name names and everybody knows that they could be the one in the line of fire next. I have to make this one thing clear about Poliev. To him, everything is political. He is a political animal. He sees things through a political lens. Even one of these CEOs posing for a selfie with Trudeau, to him, that's an endorsement

of the liberals and all they stand for. I think that's simple minded and probably wrong, but because a lot of that crowd I know are conservatives by nature and conservatives by the way they vote. They also see an individual who is a career politician who doesn't really understand what it's like to make a payroll, to try and run a company, to make hard decisions around hiring and firing and things like that. So there's a distrust that goes both ways right now, partly because Poliev does tend to make things, he's an attack dog. He makes things very personal and that scares people. Okay. so you say he makes things personal. I guess let's get into why is this?

Why does Poliev not like base you at that level? I think what you're actually seeing is a reflection of an individual who has done extremely well in the cut and thrust of parliamentary politics. Poliev's background for those who don't know it was as a junior minister in Stephen Harper's government who would

play the role of going after you know any opposition to any of Harper's ideas and saying the things that Harper couldn't say and be prime ministerial. He's a talented, talented debater. He's gifted at the soundbite and the shock value. What we haven't seen to date is Paulie Emeridge as a statesman and with the threat of what Trump's doing, that's I think the great challenge. What we haven't seen to date is Poliev emerged as a statesman. And with the threat of what Trump's doing, that's, I think, the great challenge. They've got to show Canadians that they can bring us together. And I'll be interested to see if he can redefine himself going forward as someone who can unite the country and take the fight to Donald Trump. So is it the idea that, you know, working with people on Bay Street, building consensus with

those individuals, that just kind of isn't in his nature. To date, Pierre Poliev has been extremely successful by talking about what he opposes, by attacking ideas, by attacking initiatives, including initiatives from business leaders. And look, when you sit in Ottawa, every time a CEO comes up to visit you, they're asking for something.

They're asking for a tax break. They're asking for a subsidy. And I think Poliev resents that. He feels that government's role is not to give favors to business. Government's role in Poliev's eyes is to get out of the way, let business do what business does without government subsidies, without taxpayer handouts. And that's a core part of the way he thinks about Ottawa's role in the overall economy. So when he looks at CEOs, he sees people who are coming for handouts, and he wants to stop that. I think it's overly simplistic to refer to it as populist,

but there are elements of populism in that. He wants to be seen as a politician who cares for the working people, not who caters to business leaders. Well, let's talk about that then. Because as you mentioned, he is running as a kind of populist figure. Isn't it politically advantageous to him then to position himself against Canada's corporate elite? Certainly, that was his thinking prior to Donald Trump's arrival.

The issue you have is I think running against the people who make major decisions about where Canadians get hired, about where their capitals get spent, about where factories get built. If you're hostile to those individuals all the time, then you just have to assume they're going to think about investing outside of Canada rather than in Canada. That's an overly simplistic way of putting it. I just don't think, especially with Donald Trump looming as an individual who wants to annex Canada, I don't think you can alienate the country's business leaders. I think Poliev recognizes that. In the last couple of months, as my colleague James Bradshaw and I have been reporting on Poliev, the tone of his fundraising, the tone of his speeches overall has changed. He

does realize that we need to unite Canada to face this existential threat from Trump. And obviously, in purely political terms, which is how Pierre thinks, you're going to have to run the next election campaign, not on an anti-Trudeau movement, which is what he had before, but on how are we going to deal with the US, how are we going to deal with tariffs, how are we going to deal with Trump. And that's a very different kind of campaign than what Pierre probably ever thought he was going to be running. We'll be back in a minute. I want to come back to a financial issue that you mentioned here. You talked about fundraising

there, Andy. Wouldn't he need people from corporate Canada? I mean, those are the people with the big bucks. Wouldn't he need people like that on his side for fundraising purposes? The conservatives right now have a huge amount of money in their coffers. First of all, they have a well-organized grassroots campaign, but there's also a lot of curiosity around Polyev because most CEOs have not met him.

So when he does run these CEO-level fundraising events all across Canada, in Montreal, in Toronto, in Calgary, in Vancouver. Yeah, he gets full attendance. I mean, everybody wants to take a measure of them. What I find amusing is that a lot of the individuals shaking his hand on Monday night are shaking Mark Carney's hand on Tuesday night. Okay. So, he himself is not close to CEOs of big companies. I wonder though, are people on his team close to these CEOs? Like people in his inner circle,

does he have it kind of balanced out by having them have the connections instead? Look, everybody loves a winner. And one of the things that's happening with Poliev right now is he's finding allies, finding a lot of people who really want to contribute to his party because he's perceived as an ex prime minister. And a lot of people, you know, tech leaders like John Ruffalo, who's a big tech fund manager, Jim Balsillie, who was the CEO at BlackBerry. They're really interested in public policy. They're trying to

feed ideas into Polio. The interesting thing about this leader, and this is true of most political leaders, the circle that actually influences is extremely small. It's people he's known for decades. They're mostly Ottawa veterans and they're the people that kind of make the decisions on what the conservative campaign is going to be about, who's going to staff it, who will be in the cabinet, should Poliev be elected prime minister. We don't really know what a lot of these people think about big business issues. We know where they come down on some of the social issues. We know where Poliev is putting his emphasis, which is on tax reform when it comes to business changing the

Tax Act so Canadian companies have more incentive to invest in their businesses. But the broad strokes of the conservative economic policy that remains largely unknown. Poliev has told our colleagues in the Ottawa Bureau, we will get a fully costed economic plan from the conservatives in the election campaign. To date, they're really frustrated because when they come forward with ideas like getting rid of the carbon tax, they see the liberals steal those ideas. I found it very revealing that the first thing Mark Carney said when we elected a liberal leader on Sunday was, oh, by the way, I'm going to get rid of the carbon tax and the capital gains tax, which were two of the big issues for business leaders for the last

nine years. Okay. So we've talked about how Polly of doesn't always have the best relationships with people on Bay Street, Andy. I guess I wonder about other parts of the country though. Like, does he have more support among business leaders in Western Canada, for example? His roots are obviously in Calgary. He comes out of the reform party and the somewhat torturous process that led to the conservatives coming together and eventually defeating Paul Martin as liberals. Having said that, I don't think he's that close to any of the CEOs of the oil companies. I know he's not close to the tech, the telecom, the other Western Canadian companies. They're as interested in getting to know him as anybody else. So no,

I think that the aversion to hanging out with corporate leaders, that's true right across the country. I know you asked Pierre Pauliev for comments on this as part of your reporting, Andy. What did he say to you? So we got a couple of lines in an email basically saying that Pierre Pauliev is working ceaselessly to meet with Canadian workers and to help understand their problems and help them find a better future. So we've been talking about Pierre Poliev's relationship with BaseTreat, but what about Trudeau? How different is that relationship? Well, Trudeau is hated. There's no way around it. There are a number of individuals, CEOs,

lawyers, bankers, they're giving money to the conservatives because they are so upset with the way that Trudeau has run the government in the last nine years, the lack of productivity, the redistribution of wealth. And some of that sounds self-serving, but it's not just about CEOs being upset about paying more tax, it's more that they felt the business issues in the country weren't being addressed. And so Trudeau had basically lost, Bay Street had lost the business community completely. Mark Carney is a completely different animal. He's got strong ties right across the business community in Western Canada, here in the East. His time at the Bank of Canada was well spent. He knows every major business leader in this country really, really well. Like he's part of this community.

Oh, he's 100% part of this community. And what remains to be seen is can Carney translate the way he's been able to make friends and build alliances in business? Can he do that with the average Canadian? He's obviously a member of the global elite. So how is that gonna play with Canadian voters? I'm not sure. So I'll be fascinated to see how Carney plays out

in the coming campaign. But Carney's issues are never going to be understanding what business wants and working with business leaders. That's what he's done his whole life very successfully at the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada. So he is a creature of business like we've never seen running for prime minister. And he's come in here with no political experience whatsoever. Yeah. It's going to be really interesting to see then how this plays out between Pierre Poliev and Mark Carney when they're courting this segment of the corporate vote then. It will be fascinating to see. I mean, Mark Carney can debate with the best of them in a boardroom,

but how is he going to do in a debate with someone like Poliev who's been winning debates his entire life in the political scene? Yeah know, and how are the two of them going to do in persuading Canadians that they're the best equipped to deal with Donald Trump? Just before I let you go here, Andy, I guess I just want to talk about this kind of general moment that we're in, because there's a lot of talk about anti-establishment

and anti-elite sentiment in general these past few years. So I guess I wonder if this, you know, the relationship that we're talking about between Pierre, Polyev and Bay Street and even Trudeau and Bay Street, is this kind of just part of this general sentiment that, you know, the elite has kind of fallen out of favor right now? I think a lot of Canadians are really upset about their lot in life. Inflation was devastating. COVID was devastating. And you need someone someone to blame and a lot of bad decisions were made. Inflation, not just a Canadian problem, a US problem too, but inflation should never have

been allowed to get away as much as it did. Interest rates were kept too low for too long. That kind of anger is understandable and politicians who didn't recognize it and didn't deal with it well, they're getting blamed for it. Pierre Polyiev has been able to take advantage of that anger. When he talks about Canada is broken, he was getting a sympathetic ear because people did feel that their lot in life is not as good now as it was nine years ago when Trudeau first took power. That's the sort of thing that gets governments changed. What's going to be fascinating is whether Poliev and Carney can now pivot and give us a strategy for Canada in dealing with Trump that allows us to be hopeful about the future because no one wants to think about the future and be afraid and be worried that their children are

going to be poorer than them. I'm the father of two and my great concern right now is the wonderful life I've enjoyed in this country. They're not going to be able to replicate. And a politician who can tell me I'm gonna make things better for your kids, that's the person I'm gonna vote for. So yeah, no, I think your question is a really good one. There's a lot of anger right now. There's a lot of fear right now. And what people need is a sense of hope and some strategies that can get you to a better place. We really need an election campaign. We really need a way forward with whatever individual is elected prime minister. Andy, appreciate you taking the time to be here. Thanks so much.

That's it for today. I'm Maynika Ramon-Wilms. Our intern is Amber Ranssen. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you tomorrow.