The Decibel - What Pierre Poilievre’s landslide victory means for Canada

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

In case you missed it: listen to Menaka’s conversation with columnists Robyn Urback and John Ibbitson about the Conservative Party’s new leader, Pierre Poilievre. They explore what Poilievre’s win says about the Conservative party, what Poilievre stands for and how other federal parties will have to respond to counter his popularity.This is a recording of a live event broadcast on Twitter Spaces on Monday, September 12.

Hi, I'm Mainika Raman-Welms, and you're listening to a bonus episode of The Decibel. We wanted to bring you this conversation I had with Globe political columnists Robin Erbach and John Ibbotson. We talked about Pierre Polyev's conservative leadership win and what it means for Canadian politics going forward. This conversation was live on Twitter, and we're giving you the full discussion here, too, complete with a few questions from the audience. This is The Decibel. Today, I've got two Globe journalists with me to dissect everything here. We've got Robin Urbach, who's the current affairs columnist

at The Globe in Toronto. And we've also got John Ibbotson, who's a writer at large at The Globe and a columnist in Ottawa. Robin and John, I think you're both here. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks. Great to be here. So let's get started talking about the convention night itself on Saturday. And I want to talk to you about this first, John, because we actually, you and I chatted ahead of the convention night itself on Saturday. And I want to talk to you about this first, John, because we actually, you and I chatted ahead of the convention for an episode we did last week, and you totally called the result. You said Polyev was going to win on the first ballot,

and sure enough, he took it on the first ballot. But I'm curious, did anything that you saw on Saturday at that convention, did anything surprise you? Well, the size of it. Yes, I said he would win. Yes, I said he would win on the first ballot. That's not rocket science. There were a whole lot of people who could tell from the fact that he'd signed up 300,000 members and that the membership had jumped over 700,000. The only one interpretation for that, which was that Pierre Polyev had signed up hundreds of thousands of members and was going to win on the first ballot. But 68% of the vote, that's surprising.

Anybody who's written a column or commented about the Conservative Party being split by Pierre Polyev, no, it ain't. If you look, if you think, all right, what's going to happen with the red Tory vote? Well, if the red Tory vote was Jean Charest, it was 16% of the vote. And if you're saying, well, what about the social conservatives? They need a voice in the party. Well, Leslie Lewis represented the social conservatives. She got 10% of the vote. So the man who's leading this party is someone who got more than two-thirds

of the support of all the party members. Whatever else happens going forward, the party is united. This is an interesting thing to note. And we will talk about party unity as we go on. But Robin, I want to talk to you about one thing that actually I noticed that stood out to me as I was watching that convention on Saturday night, as I do, as I'm sure both of you did as well. After the results were announced, Pierre Poliev and his wife, Anna Ida, actually took to the stage together. And his wife actually spoke first and introduced Pierre before his victory speech. And so, Robin, I'm wondering about the decision to have his wife speak there. What can we learn

or kind of read into that decision? Well, first off, she's a firecracker. Like, she's worked within the Conservative Party for years, and she's really well liked within the party. And I mean, there's a joke that when when you have like a strange man, usually you look at his wife and his wife kind of normalizes her a little bit. And I kind of think that's what Hannah does, to a certain extent. She is not the typical sort of like, I hate to say trophy wife, but that's kind of what we see a lot in politics, where there's, you know, the wife or sometimes the husband on the side, who's just kind of silent and clapping and kissing and holding the babies. And that's it. Like she is a conservative firebrand. She speaks so well. So she's kind of like his hidden, not hidden weapon in a way and I think I mean I hate to be

so crass about the identity politics of it but that's what you know a lot of politics comes down to we know and I'm sure we'll talk about it in a bit that the liberals are going to try and paint Pierre Palliev as white supremacist and catering to the right wing and what have you. Well, his wife is a Latina woman from Venezuela, and she moved with her family to Montreal. And Pierre Palliet even talked during his victory speech about how his kids are going to learn French first and then Spanish and then English. So it's something that he kind of has to deflect against those accusations.

Like, you're a pretty crappy white supremacist, I got to say, if you marry a Latino woman. And her French is also amazing, I will say too, right? You heard her speak French there as well, saying she grew up in Montreal. So that's got to be something that they're thinking about as well. John, let's go back to you. You talked about the kind of the numbers there about Pierre Polyev winning with 68 percent, a big number. We also saw Stephen Harper win on the first ballot with a big number like that. I wonder what you think about, I guess, the similarities there. Well, of course, Stephen Harper won on the first ballot at the creation of a new party because the Conservative Party had just been formed from the union of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party.

So it was a brand new party. He was its leader. He remained its leader for more than a decade until he was defeated as prime minister in 2015. The party then, I think, looking back in retrospect, maybe went into a bit of a no-man's land, where it took forever to elect Andrew Scheer at the 2017 convention. And we saw the really deep divisions inside the party. Maxime Bernier walked out of the party not long after. We saw Aaron O'Toole take several ballots to win a few years later. And, you know, again, the party was divided. When Aaron O'Toole pivoted, when he tried to do something on environment, there was a lot of discontent. And ultimately, he was ejected by his own caucus.

This is conservative history. The Conservative Party has been divided more often than it has been united since the days of Johnny McDonald. But now I think we have a Stephen Harper moment. I think Pierre Polyev has taken the party leadership by an emphatic margin. It's a different kind of agenda than Stephen Harper's agenda. Although it has Stephen Harper's seal of approval, he did openly endorse Pierre Polyev. So I think we're going to see a party that is animated behind one leader with a very strong message. I think some will say it's an extreme message. We'll see to what extent that message resonates.

But I don't think, and it's really a shame, because if you have nothing else to do, you can always write a column about divisions within the Conservative Party. Stop spilling our secrets, John. ashamed because if you have nothing else to do, you can always write a column about divisions within the Conservative Party. Stop spilling our secrets, John. The Conservative Party has never been more divided. We can't write that anymore. That's an interesting point to make as well.

If you're just joining us, we are talking to Robin Urbeck and John Ibbotson, both of The Globe and Mail, of course. I think, Robin, I'll turn to you for this next one. Maybe if people haven't really been following Pierre Polyev's career, they might not know him so well. I guess let's do a little introduction here. What, I mean, what words would you use to describe him if you were talking about him? He is a pit bull. That's really how he

rose within the ranks of the Conservative Party and really fortified his reputation. He was on the offensive in the House of Commons, basically as long as he's been in the House of Commons, which is close to 20 years. He was elected at, I believe, 25 years old in 2004, and he quickly climbed the ranks. When Stephen Harper didn't necessarily want to get his feet dirty on certain things, or was skippy in the front row, willing to spit venom at his political opponents, sometimes it got him in trouble. Oftentimes, it earned applause from his colleagues. And that's sort of how he has defined himself as a politician, really. He has a compelling personal background as well,

a story he likes to repeat often because I think it humanizes him, but he will say how he himself grew up very middle class. He was born to a 16-year-old unwed mother whose mother had just died before she gave birth. And he was adopted by two school teachers, grew up in Calgary and lived a very middle class life. And that's something that he references now when he was on the campaign for the last few months. And I assume it's going to be something that he's going to talk about going forward, just the opportunities that were afforded to him, even coming from a very middle class, modest background. Those opportunities aren't necessarily afforded to people who were born

10 years after him, even. He talks a lot about how difficult it is for young people to afford to start a family or buy a home. And it seems as though he can relate to that in a way. I mean, if you take a step back, I don't know how much someone who earned his full pension when he was like 31 years old can really relate to the struggles of a millennial today. But that's a bit besides the point. But that's something that he references a lot. And I think it's brought him a lot of success just being able to speak to those economic struggles that a lot of particularly young people in Canada have today. I'm glad I'm glad you brought that up, Robin, because I think that's what a lot of people have seen of him throughout the last few months of this campaign, especially he's talking about affordability issues. And the other thing that people may associate with Polyev is his support of the trucker convoy in Ottawa earlier this year. People may remember there were pictures of him circulating,

taking pictures with people down there in downtown Ottawa. And John, I want to throw this to you because, of course, you were in Ottawa when all of this was going on. Do you think that Polyev's support of that, do you think it helped him in the race? Do you think it hindered him? What's your read on that? It probably helped him in the leadership race, and now it's going to hinder him in the larger context. The liberals are certainly going to try to portray him as an extremist. He played footsie with the convoy yards in Ottawa, although

we always condemned any illegal actions. You could argue the entire convoy itself was illegal. The entire occupation of Ottawa was itself illegal. He also plays footsie with the conspiracists to reference the World Economic Forum, some kind of vast global conspiracy. He said he wouldn't allow his cabinet ministers to go to their Davos meeting. He doesn't actually join with them,

but as I say, he plays footsie with them. And the liberals are going to make hay of this. They're going to portray him as a wingnut or a guy who consorts with wingnuts as a conspiracist or someone who consorts with conspiracists. And that's going to be something he's going to have to figure out. But there's one other thing I would say in that context. The liberals were very good at portraying Andrew Scheer as intolerant and dangerous, you know, a threat to women's rights. Scheer could never really, it seems, shake that off. In the end, they did a pretty good job of demonizing Aaron O'Toole as well, because

O'Toole had a hard time defining himself. Pierre Polyev is very good at defining himself. He knows exactly who he is. And when I was watching that speech at the conference on Saturday, I hearkened back to something that I had written in 2013, when Justin Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party. I said, you know, we can talk about policies and we can talk about this and talk about that. But in politics, either you've got it or you don't. And Justin Trudeau's got it. I think for the first time since Stephen Harper, I would say if the question is, have you got it or don't you have it? I think Pierre Polyev has got it.

What is it? I don't know. You just know it when you see it. You talk about him playing footsies maybe with parts of the certain segments of the far right and things, John. Would you call Pierre Polyev a populist? Oh, absolutely. Yes. He is part of a movement around the Western world in which conservative parties successfully have taken the working class vote away from the progressives. The working class vote used to be the basis of the Democratic Party, the basis of the Labour Party, Great Britain. Democrats could count on the working class or the United States. But at some point in the fight for social justice and in the fight to protect the environment and the fight against global warming and the fight against racism, in the midst of that, somehow, working voters came to believe that the progressive parties

were more interested in these things than they were interested in the guy on the line. And the conservative parties of Britain and of the United States became good at taking that vote away from the progressives and putting it into the conservative party or into the Republican Party. Absolutely, Pierre Polyev's goal here is to appeal to working class voters, voters who might once have thought about voting NDP, who might once thought about voting Liberal, and saying, no, we're the guys who have your back because we understand the struggles of people who are just trying to fill up their gas tank of their truck, by the way, who are just trying to buy a steak for the barbecue, by the way, trying to live ordinary, everyday lives, and are having those aspirations thwarted by inflation and taxes and the like.

That's going to be his message. It has worked elsewhere. Now we're going to see if it works here. Robin, John's, of course, discussing, you know, Polyev's playing footsie or flirting with far-right sentiments here of the party. What's your take? Is this just, you know, courting votes, or does this actually reflect his values and policy that we're going to see from him?

I think it's a little bit of both. I think certainly it was advantageous during the leadership campaign to engage voters who aren't, never mind don't vote conservative, but didn't vote at all. And we heard that at basically every rally that Pierre Polyev hosted, there were people there who for whatever reason, maybe they bought into his like, footsieing about the WEF conspiracy theory, maybe they liked his economic plan, whatever it was, he was able to engage non voters and to get them excited. And we know that a lot of his victories due to that. So I don't think it's something that it's going to, he's going to necessarily leave by the wayside, because it's been so effective. But I think we

got a glimpse of the direction that he's going to go now. During his speech, there was one line in particular, during his victory speech, where he said, Canadians don't need a government that runs their lives, they need a government that can run a passport office, which is pretty good. And I mean, he's good at those like one-off lines and alliteration and what have you. But I mean, that's what he's going to focus on. It's going to be meat and potatoes issues, issues that affect the everyday person's life. The average person probably can't rattle off the year by which the liberals said they're going to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent. I think it's 2030, but even I don't know. I think you're right, but even I'm not 100 percent sure on that.

So, yeah. Exactly. But the average person does know how much their weekly grocery bill has gone up. And, I mean, it's hard to say. Let's say the next election is in 2025. And maybe Justin Trudeau is leading the liberals, and maybe he's not. Right now, there was an Ipsos poll, I think from about a week ago or so, that that polled both conservative voters and Canadians and asked them their impressions of Pierre Polyev. And I think like 40% of Canadians have no opinion of him at this time. So neither good nor bad. And that's a real opportunity for Polyev. And it's a great opportunity for the liberals as well. And surely with a couple of really expertly designed and attack ads, which liberals are very good at, they'll be able to change that. But I think on a very granular level, again, if you think about an election happening in 2025,

the Liberals release an attack ad about Polyev supporting the convoy, by which time I think most of us, it'll be a distant memory, or they release an attack ad about him shaking hands with Jeremy McKenzie, who most people probably don't know or will have to Google or try and recall what that whole thing was about. Meanwhile, Polyev is out there talking about people's grocery bills and how much they're paying in taxes and how much it costs to fill up their gas tanks. I think fundamentally, we are creatures of self-interest. And although maybe some things about his past will rub people the wrong way, but I think it's foolish to believe that those impressions will be more powerful than

the tangible promises he's making to improve people's lives, whether or not he actually has the solutions. And that's a whole other discussion, but he's making these promises in ways that really affect people day to day. And I think that's, that's a really powerful thing. Yeah. And Jeremy McKenzie, you mentioned, of course, is the leader of an accelerationist group. So on that, that right edge of the spectrum there as well. If people are just joining us, we're talking until about 2.30 with Robin Erbach and John Ibbotson here of The Glow. And I just want to go back, Robin, you were just talking about kind of the people getting to know Pierre

probably ever, not really knowing him before and kind of starting to understand who this guy is. One of the things that he did throughout the leadership campaign was he seemed to work social media pretty well. He made some videos even, you know, where he pretended to have breakfast and talk to Justin Trudeau during the campaign about affordability and things, which really stood out, especially among the other candidates running for the leadership. How effective, Robin, would you say his use of social media was during that campaign? I think it was really something that we haven't seen from anyone else. He harnessed the attention, especially of young people on social

media really well. And he got astronomical numbers for pretty long videos. So those of us who have worked in social media or online, we know that like, if you put out like a five minute video on economic policy, which like, that's what Pierre Polyev was basically doing. You can only dream to have the kind of numbers that he would have of people who would watch these videos. And somehow he did it. So I think what he was doing with his social media, his videos in particular, was sort of harnessing the anger that has been unacknowledged in Canada for the most part from politicians. So the anger about the cost of living about housing about lineups at passport offices and lineups at the airport, he went to the airport and talked about a rive can and wearing a mask and all sorts of things. And throughout those

videos and speeches, what he basically said was like, I hear you, and I'm going to do something about it. And again, whether he actually has a plan to do something about all these things, that's debatable. But he created a visual representation of the things that you or I or anyone else is experiencing in our lives that is frustrating us, whether it's going out for breakfast and seeing how expensive it is, or lining up to get our passport, which is something basic, we expect that our government should be able to do. He harnessed our attention really well. And I think it was through social media that he was able to reach those unconventional voters or the people who otherwise might not be engaged in the political process, because that's how you get them, right? You get them through Facebook, and you hope that people are sharing those videos or Twitter

or YouTube, that they're sharing it and expanding it to the rest of their network. And that's how people who normally don't care at all about politics are seeing messages from this guy named Pierre who has a funny side part, but is saying things that actually matter to you. And I think that was really key for expanding his support throughout the campaign. It's certainly something I expect that he's going to continue to do now as leader. John, I want to bring you back into the conversation here. Earlier, we were talking about party unity here. So let's go back to that. This is the third leader in as many years of the party. We've had Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole, who both didn't really last very long. And we've talked about how PolyEF has reached out in a populist way. But I guess, what about Conservative members who are centre-right, kind of the, you know, the so-called

red Tories? Is there a place for them in this party under Pierre Polyev? Well, that's up to them. I mean, one of the things that Pierre Polyev has done, as Stephen Harper did well, is define the party. He's defined the party as, well, first of all, his party, and that it's the party of Pierre Palliet. Just as in 2013, Justin Trudeau took up a bankrupt third-place Liberal Party and rebranded it as the Justin Trudeau Party. And it's been the Justin Trudeau Party ever since. It will be a challenge for the Liberals if and when Mr. Trudeau leaves to find a leader who can get over the fact that it's really just a private personal property of Justin Trudeau. The Conservative Party is now the private personal property of Pierre Polyev, 68% of the vote for crying out loud.

So if you're a red Tory or if you're a social conservative, if you're to the right of Pierre Polyev and you want the Conservative Party to fight for the rights of the unborn, for example, you have to decide for yourself. Am I a red Tory who can live with Pierre Polyev? And if not, the Liberal Party awaits me. Or am I a social conservative and I cannot tolerate the fact that Pierre Polyev is LGBTQ friendly and supports the right of a woman to choose? And if you can't tolerate that, then well, Maxime Bernier's People's Party awaits you. If you decide that, you know, social conservative issues matter to me, but broader conservative values matter to me, or if you decide that the brokerage politics of the Red Tory movement, the socially progressive but fiscally conservative politics of the red Tory movement are important.

But on the other hand, I hate liberals. I want the conservative to win the next election. Then you will stay inside the conservative party as well. But it's your choice. Here, Paul, although he said on Saturday night that he was opening his arms to all members of the party,

has specifically defined what the party is, the party of his values, the party of his values, the party of his priorities, his party. Do you want to belong to it or not? It's not for Polyev to come to them. It's for them to decide whether they want to come to Polyev. Well, I'm glad you brought up the People's Party of Canada there and Maxime Bernier, John, because I think this is something that's on a lot of people's minds.

And we actually have a couple of audience questions about the PPC. So let's go to one of these now. Somebody is asking about basically Pierre Polyev's relationship, essentially, or I guess negotiation with the support of this party here. On many fronts, he has similar maybe commitments to the PPC. But there's one difference, which is immigration levels. Where do you see Pierre Polyev landing on that? And more importantly, how do you see him pitching it to voters? Maybe Robin, we can go first to you here and then and then John, we can get your take as well. I think well, that's the one thing that definitely distinguishes the PPC from from the

Conservative Party under Pierre Polyev. Or, yeah, under Pierre Polyev, where the Conservative Party under Pierre Pelliev, or yeah, under Pierre Pelliev, where the Conservative Party is going to go, he supports immigration. He's talked about fast tracking immigration processes for people who have the skills that we need here in Canada. So it's something that he is unapologetically in support of. And that could not be more different from what we hear from Maxime Bernier. The People's Party did pretty well, actually, in the last election. I think they got close to 5% of the popular vote, which is pretty good for a relatively fringe party. But I think the PPC's issue during the last election was all about vaccines and vaccine mandates. And I think that's where they borrowed a lot of their support.

It's certainly something that Polyev has talked about. And he says that he doesn't support vaccine mandates, although he supports vaccines in principle. Whereas Maxime Bernier has said he's, well, he says he hasn't been vaccinated. He doesn't plan to be vaccinated um so the ppc provided a home during the last election certainly for people who um opposed vaccine mandates or the vaccines themselves but as we get further from the covid19 pandemic i don't know how relevant the ppc party is going to be anymore. That was basically their big issue during the last election. It also distinguishes those who, it refutes those who believe that Pierre Polyev

is Donald Trump come north. And you see a lot of that, especially on social media. Oh my God, he's Canada's Trump. No, he's not. Trump opposed immigration. In fact, Trump is frankly racist. And Polyev supports high levels of immigration. Polyev supports, as he said, LGBTQ issues. He supports women's right to choose. There's nothing of Trump in Polyev. Maybe Doug Ford, yes, but not Trump. Robin, do you see the same thing? Like, would you draw that distinction between what's happening south of the border with what happened with Trump versus here? abortion or LGBT issues or those sorts of things. Pierre Pagliavili is more libertarian. You can't at once say that you're going to get rid of the gatekeepers and then also say, but we're going to keep the gatekeepers for like these social issues that I don't really like.

He doesn't want to wade into it. And I think it's, I mean, I don't know how much it is his personal values or just the fact that it's pragmatic in Canada. You're not going to win if you're talking about rolling back abortion rights or reopening the gay marriage debate or things like that. Like there is no political appetite for anyone who's going to propagate those issues at all. And I think that was a big issue for Andrew Scheer, frankly, because he would blush and look at his shoes every time someone asked him about gay marriage in 2019. Like, you know, you're about 20 years too late to be bashful about that. So I don't think the comparisons to Trump really stand. They're both populist in that sense. I mean, there's a comparison to be drawn. But beyond that, I think each is his

own animal and you can criticize them independently. But I don't think the comparison really stands at all. We are just after 2.30. We're going to go a few minutes late if everyone's okay with that, just because we have a few more questions that we want to get to. I especially want to talk about the kind of the potential next election, this looming idea that people are asking some questions about here, too. And I want to talk to you both about Quebec, because this is always a key election battleground. John, how do you think the province will respond to a Conservative Party under Polyev? Is he going to be able to build support in Quebec?

It's a really interesting question, but it has a two-part answer. The first is, there is a strategy. Obviously, as you said, his wife is from Montreal. His kids are going to be educated in French before they're going to be educated in English. He believes that the Conservative Party of Quebec's, at this point, relatively strong performance in the Quebec election speaks to a growing Conservative populism inside Quebec as well, which could grow it from 10, the seats that it currently has in Quebec, to more. And that's one path to victory. But let's not forget, Stephen Harper got a majority government without winning very many seats in Quebec

because there's another constituency that's even more important than Quebec, and that is the 905, the suburban ridings surrounding the city of Toronto and the lower mainland surrounding Vancouver. Millions and millions and millions of middle class voters, many of them immigrants, and their values tend to be, especially immigrants, a bit more socially conservative, economically conservative than the mainstream. They have nonetheless gone, or not the mainstream, than the downtowns, let me say downtowns. They have nonetheless gone, well, not the mainstream, then the downtowns, let me say downtowns. They have nonetheless gone liberal in the last three elections. If Pierre-Paul Yves can win those immigrant middle class voters in the 905, he will form government.

If he cannot win the middle class voters in the 905, he will not form government. Although it would be very, very helpful to his cause if he could expand his base in Quebec as well. I want to put another audience question to you. Actually, Robin, I'll pass this one on to you because we were talking a little bit earlier about, Pierre probably talking about affordability, especially in this leadership campaign. Someone's asking, could you touch on how Pierre can make home ownership a reality for all Canadians? He has talked a lot about home affordability. So does he have a plan, a platform, any kind of thing that's, I guess, concrete, really, about how he would do that?

I guess the most concrete thing that he said really is that he will tie federal housing infrastructure to certain zoning requirements. And maybe that that will get it done. I think like nothing's really going to fix the housing situation in some of the big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, etc. So what does that mean, though, the zoning like that's, I don't really know what like zoning requirements means. So it kind of means like there are all sorts of like Byzantine rules in Toronto, for example, you know, that houses cannot be over two stories or three stories or certain areas aren't zoned for multifamily housing. So you need to have a single family home on a property instead of like a four-plex or a six-plex or something that would

allow for more, basically more families to live on a certain site, which increases density and a lot of NIMBYs come out. So not in my backyard type people come out and say that they don't want this because of course it negatively affects their property values. If you have a neighborhood with single family homes, and then all of a sudden, there is what appears to be sort of like a mini apartment complex popping up in the middle of the street. So basically, Pierre Polyev is sort of saying, okay, well, there's all this money all the time from the federal government to go down to the provinces and to the municipalities to build more housing. And we have all of these

resources available, but we're not going to give you these resources unless your city council comes together and one way or another says, okay, well, you know, that requirement in Rosedale that houses can't have six families living in them or what have you, we're not going to give you that money unless that's something that's changed. So it's kind of like a multi-step sort of way of doing things. It's a complex issue. And it's really hard for someone at the federal level to implement blanket policies, because the situation in various municipalities is different, right? Like the situation in Toronto is different from Montreal, it's different from Peterborough, Ontario, and all sorts of things. But that's

one sort of concrete way that Pierre Polyev has said he's going to see to relieving the cost of housing. But I mean, that's something that takes years and years and years to implement. And it's one lever among many that need to be pulled in order to address the cost of housing. There's certainly a whole bunch of other things that he could do, let's say, if he won an election, became prime minister and had all the tools at his disposal. But it's a complex issue that he hasn't really explained thoroughly, nor do I kind of expect him to. Like at this point, he's just having won a leadership race. He's not going to release a very, very detailed housing policy that approaches it in a really holistic way. But I mean, a lot of what he's saying, too, is a lot of what he's saying on all sorts of things like inflation,

for example, that he's going to try and control it. But he also criticizes the governor of the Bank of Canada for increasing interest rates. So it's a lot of promises about how he's going to do things without really explaining the nuts and bolts in a comprehensive way. Yeah. John, here's another audience question that I want to throw to you, because this one's also asking for more about Polyev's policy choices here. So the question is, what is his voting record on the, quote unquote, working guy concerns? So has he voted for increased minimum wage, anything that kind of improves the life of the, quote unquote, working class? He's been around for a while, we know an MP since 25 so what is his record there what's he done well his record is the record of the Conservative Party he has never voted against the cabinet in fact he was a member of the cabinet for a while

under Stephen Harper so his idea of helping out the working guy is and the working woman is to cut taxes reduce regulations and promote employment I mean this is taxes, reduce regulations, and promote employment. I mean, this is the difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals would say, we increase supports for childcare so that people can put their kid

into childcare and both members of the family can work. We increase supports in other ways for individuals who have problems accessing school or university. The Conservatives tend to say, well, we kind of flatten the playing field by reducing regulations, by reducing taxes, by reducing deficits, and then encourage people to go for it, to be as socially mobile as they can be. One of those approaches is offensive to you. If you believe that the role of the government is indeed to intervene to help people who are disadvantaged, then you're a progressive and you're going to vote that way. If you believe the role of government is to get rid of all those taxes that are eating

up your paycheck and keeping you from going where you want to go in your life, then you're going to vote conservative. And Polyev's position is pretty consistently, as has Stephen Harper's position, been very consistently one of fewer regulations, fewer taxes, smaller government, and that people live their lives. We are about 10 minutes over, so I know we're going to have to wrap soon. But I do want to get in one final question, actually, to both of you. Just kind of looking ahead in terms of the reaction to Polyev's win from the other parties. So, Robin, I'll go to you first, and then, John, you can chime in as well.

What do you think the Liberals and the NDP will do now in response to Polyev's win, to the momentum that he's kind of built up here? How will they counteract this? Well, it was funny, and I think Pierre Polyev actually mentioned it in a speech to caucus today that there was a Toronto Star story or something. And it was probably the way the headline was torqued. But it said something like, in response to Polyev's victory, the liberals promised to address inflation or something like that. And he pointed to that kind of jokingly saying like, okay, Polyev gets results already

and I've barely had this job for 12 hours or whatever. I think there's a lot of scoffing, I think from the opposition about Pierre Polyev. I think a lot of people thought that he wasn't gonna win or if he was gonna win, then he's such a polarizing choice that he will be so easy to defeat. In fact, that was Jean Charest's message throughout the campaign. He didn't really offer much by way of a vision for the Conservative Party under his leadership. But he did say,

I'm the only one who could beat the Liberals and Justin Trudeau, like that was his message, basically vote for me if you want to win. And I think the liberals kind of ascribed to that as well, that Pierre Polyev is the beatable one. And John Ture would be the tough one because he was more centrist than Polyev. But I think the smart people among the NDP and the liberals are worried because they see not only that the conservatives seem to be pretty united in a way that they certainly weren't under Andrew Scheer and weren't under Aaron O'Toole. And a united party is one that's much more difficult to come up against. But they also see the political skills of Pierre Polyev. He's a great speaker, whether you like what he's saying or not. He gets in front

of a microphone and he's passionate and he gets his words out and he has this turn of phrase that's easy to remember. Again, whether you like it or not, he coins things like just inflation that stick in your head and he has lines about fixing passport offices and things like that. And those are the things that really resonate with the everyday person. I think he's, again, tapped into the anger that a lot of Canadians have been experiencing, looking around and seeing that nothing really is working. Healthcare is not working. The passport offices are a mess.

I can't get my Arrive Can app to let me into the country, what have you. He's tapped into that. So I think the Liberals and the NDP should be worried about what this means for them. And John, we just have about a minute left here, but you were talking before about how Polyev's got it in a way that a lot of politicians don't necessarily. So what do you see kind of as a response to his win here? I think it's going to be war. The liberals recognize the threat of Polyev that they haven't seen before. A highly popular, populist, confident leader who takes no prisoners when he goes after something and will take no prisoners in his efforts to defeat the liberals. a genuinely ideological contest as well. And Trudeau, who says now he's going to stay, is, I think, going to stay because he wants to take on Polyev and stop the kind of candidate that Polyev represents from coming, just as Stephen Harper would have stayed on to fight

against Justin Trudeau. Both sides will go no holds barred, flat out, not just to defeat, but to destroy the other. We're going to see a demonization of Canadian politics, the like of which we have never seen before. It is not going to be pretty. Wow, that paints quite a picture, John. Thank you for that. There sounds like there's some interesting things to look forward to in the next few months

and the next few years then. So that's, yeah, something to watch. John and Robin, thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with us today. It was a really interesting conversation. And I will say we do have another conversation on The Decibel on our daily news podcast with John from a few days ago, just before the vote happened. But John gives us some more context about Pierre Polyev and about the future of what we can look to for the Conservative Party as well. Thanks so much to everyone who tuned into our Twitter space, and to John Ibbotson and to Robin Erbach for joining me. You can follow me on Twitter at ManicaRW and let me know what you think.

That's it for today. I'm Manica Raman-Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and a regular episode of The Decibel will be in your feeds tomorrow morning, like always.