The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Did Carney Miss the Mark on Antisemitism in Canada?

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

In a special episode recorded in front of a live audience at The Albany Club, Greg Brady joins the Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement to discuss Carney's speech on antisemitism — whether it hit the mark, why he didn't mention anti-Zionism, and whether Israel's actions have contributed to the rising antisemitism in Canada. They then discuss the mood of conservatives in Canada today, the frustration within the Conservative Party, whether Pierre Poilièvre is the right leader, whether Carney is the worst possible matchup for Poilièvre, and the usual round of "Good on Yas." Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Thank you very much for having us at the Albany Club tonight. This is, as we know, the hangout of conservatives in the whole country, the number one hangout for conservatives, started by Sir Johnny McDonald back in the 1880s. And we thought this is actually the first time that we have brought this little escapade to a live showing. We've never done it in person before. It's always been laptop to laptop. That's true. So can I start by introducing former conservative cabinet minister, both federally, and in Queens Park, Tony Clement, whom you may have heard of.

Hello. We have, okay, save your standing ovations for the end, please, yes. Yeah, we don't know how well I'm going to do yet. Martha Hall Finley is a former Liberal member for Willardale. She's also the chair, the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. And our extra guest tonight is Greg Brady. Greg, you will know from hosting Toronto today on 640 Toronto Radio. You have a guest who does a little bit of commentary with you every Wednesday morning at 6.20 a.m.

He's not bad. Needs a little work. He's not bad. That would be me. A free hockey commentary. You're usually in shin pads and shoulder pads while you're talking to me. Bingo. And we asked Greg to be here today because he was a candidate for the conservative party in the last federal election, sought election in Ajax.

And it looked very good for his becoming a member of parliament right up until it didn't. And Jennifer McKelvey is the member of parliament today for Ajax. That makes me feel like I did something wrong in the last week, I think. Tony was out. I was door knocking for you. I was just going to say, you two know each other, right? Sure. Because you knocked on doors for him.

I did, and I was proud to do it, and I'd do it again, if ever the moment arose. I have three liberal MPs on the record on the air. Tell me if Donald Trump doesn't win the election and doesn't start threatening us, we have a different prime minister, and I'm an MP. And we have many more off the record. I noticed in the Toronto Star this morning, they do things off the record more than they used to. So I, like, you know, you can't control those. you can only control what you can control in politics,

as Martha and Tony. As I'm sure, you are no doubt shocked to hear, he makes his living on the radio. What a voice. Martha, have you ever been here before to the Albany Club? Oh, yeah, I've been here before, but I have not actually been on this floor. So this is great.

I just said to somebody walking up the stairs, I could spend a long time just looking at the photos and reading the inscriptions. So, no, I've been here for quite a few times, but not up here. You may be the only liberal in the room, room here. Does that disturb you at all? Well, don't forget, I'm looking around.

I wasn't always a liberal and I haven't always since been a liberal. So, she joined many parties. She admitted that on our program. She did actually. Yeah. I mean, I've actually think I've been a member of the Conservative Party longer than I was a member of the Liberal Party, simply

because, not to be clear, because I felt I live in Calgary, because I felt that my vote would actually count in leadership races, more so frankly than in a general election. It gets a bit elopsided in Calgary. And I felt a democratic obligation to participate, if only to help assure we had good leaders in the country, regardless of party.

And so I participated for leaderships. Do you want to say who, you joined the Conservative Party to vote for who, for a leader of what? First one I voted for Michael Chong. Second one, I voted for Aaron O'Toole, and the next one, Jean-Gray. Okay, good to know. Wow. Good to know. There we go.

Can I out myself leadership-wise? I was a member in 2023 of the Ontario Liberal Party, so I could vote in the leadership, because I thought that was really important. Who'd you vote for? I ranked Naderuskin-Smith at the top of my ballot. So here I am, you know. Whoops. He's had a couple months, isn't he, of interesting things also?

He's having a minute. Having a minute. A few moments, several minutes. And I will tell you quickly, just so I'm not alienating anybody, the very first political rally I ever went to was my... teacher parents taking me to an Ed Broadband rally in 1988. Wow. So I'm diverse.

What about you? How are you going to lock up with that, Tony? How many parties have you ever belonged to in your life? Well, I've belonged to the Progressive Conservative Party since 1975, provincially. Okay. That was when you had a turtleneck. That's right. Oh, we're going to go, already?

We're on about that, the turtleneck. We just saw a photo of Tony a little while ago, and it was sort of. territorial splendor of the turtle-neck era. When I was 16 years old. He was 16 and he was a guest on a TVO show and you showed up with weird hair and a pale blue turtleneck. And we will have to put this in in post because I want people to see the picture of that. So you're a PC party member provincially.

Yes. And federally. Federally progressive conservative. Then Canadian Alliance. I was the founding president of the Canadian Alliance. There's two parties. And then the conservative party of Canada. There's three parties.

They're all kind of. They're all conservative. That's the point. That's much less interesting than these two. Well, I'm very proud of my record, you know. All right, we're going to get started here, and we're just, you know, we have an audience here at the Albany Club, and to let them know, we do a couple of blocks worth of different issues, and then we have sort of letters to the editor, where we get you, too, to react

to stuff that people want to know from you. And then we have a segment at the end called Good Anya, in which we ask you three to say something nice about somebody from the other side of the aisle. So let's start with what I think has been, well, I guess, certainly there are plenty of people in Canada who found this to be an historic address given by the Prime Minister of Canada earlier this week, as we sit here right now. He's been Prime Minister for 15 months. He did something the other day he's never done before as Prime Minister or Liberal Leader, and that is he went into a synagogue in Toronto when he gave a speech about anti-Semitism. And he said, combating the problem starts with an admission that currently Canada is failing Jewish Canadians.

There has been a lot of response to the speech, and I want to get a sense about what you three thought about it. Go ahead, Tony. Start us off. When I heard that he would be at Holy Blossom Temple, I felt that this could be a good, defining moment for him and for the country. I really hoped and prayed. And I must say the context of it is, as we all know, Jewish Canadians have faced historic levels of hate, hate against the Jewish people that have never, in modern memory at least, occurred at this level in this society. And so I went in thinking that this could be a turning point. I'm disappointed.

I don't think that Mark Carney met the moment, and it's partially because of the words and partially because of the deeds. We're going to come back to what you wish you had heard and didn't hear in a second, but I want to get just sort of the flavor of what everybody else thought. Sure. Martha, your view. I would actually...

There has been that level of hate before. My father landed on D-Day, so it was part of World War II. and stories from my parents about some of the conversations that they would have with some of their friends and colleagues in those intra-war years and even during the war were pretty appalling. So I don't think this is the first time we've seen this. Were they firebombing synagogues or anything like that?

Maybe not physically doing that, but they were supportive of what was happening in Germany, which frankly, pretty awful stuff and pretty embarrassing to know that those were sentiments that we had on this side of the ocean at that time. But I would just, whether you're supportive of wanting to be more supportive of the Jewish community in Canada or not,

it is so important that every, everybody remembers that Jews are not the same thing as the government of Israel. And I am not a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu at all. And unfortunately, I think he has contributed significantly to some of this anti-Jewish sentiment. And that to me is wrong, but also if you want to be supportive of the Jewish community, but critical of the Israeli government, government, that also has to be possible. And it just ends up being, they end up conflated so often. I don't know how he could have made anybody truly happy. In fact, if you look at Israel,

hundreds of thousands of people before October 7th were in the streets demonstrating against him. So some of his biggest critics are Jews. Yes, but that doesn't translate over here, actually. It's a lot harder to make that distinction I find in the communities here. Greg, your view. Well, I think I would intersect probably between Martha and Tony and that, yes, there's these old bubbling hatreds and biases that are coming to the forefront that maybe older uncles would have had or grandparents would have had people born in the 1910s, 1920s. But the concept seemed to be to get to what Tony was saying, you park that. You talk about what you want, I can't police what anybody's saying in their own home. I can't police anybody's biases.

But I do know when it gets out in the street. I think you would have been considered the oddball at a party somewhere to make some kind of joke with me growing up. Kid born in the 70s growing up as a teen in the 80s and then you become a more of an adult in the 90s. You would have been an odd ball. It would have been called out for someone to make a joke about a Jewish person. And that was just a joke then. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen a society

conflate the actions of a government with a religion and ethnicity, a skin color, a sexuality. I've never seen anything quite like it. We would never... There was an effigy of Vladimir Putin hung in a Toronto street the other day, and there was video of it that circulate online,

and I'm still like, we're not doing that to the Russians. We would never do that to the Russians. We would never do that to Iraqis who came here while Saddam Hussein's gassing the Kurds. We have made an exception for Jewish people in this country and a very, very aggressive, violent and totally unacceptable exception to get back to the Carney question. I got to be honest, I wanted to hear the prime minister say just a little of what I just said as opposed to we're recognizing this and we're seeing it. And I just didn't hear any tangible solutions to do things about it. Well, let's go back to you, and what didn't you hear you wish you had heard?

Yeah, I think in terms of the words, he didn't mention Zionism, didn't mention Israel. Why is mentioning Israel important? Israel is the Jewish homeland. There is only one place on earth that is the Jewish homeland. But they did make clear in the speech that this was going to be about domestic issues, and it was not going to be about foreign policy. Yes, but the fact is, that anti-Zionism is being normalized and equated with Jew hatred.

Okay? So it is all wrapped up. I know Martha said, well, you know, Netanyahu, yeah, I get that. He's a head of government. He won't be there forever. But the idea of a Jewish homeland, which is the definition of Zionism, that you believe there should be a Jewish homeland somewhere in the world that was dictated by God, where that was.

would be, that is elemental to the Jewish faith. And so the fact that Carney didn't mention Zionism and that anti-Zionism is part of the problem, I think is a missed opportunity. One of the things, obviously, we've all been talking to other people about this, and one of the things I've had fed back to me, Martha, was that the speech took place in a synagogue rather than in parliament.

That's right. And some of the people that I spoke to said, you know, if he wanted to give it that, extra bit of umph and legitimacy, that's a speech you give in Parliament. And can I say this? I think that would have been more courageous of him because there are some people in his caucus, I would argue, who are probably anti-Zionist. And so he would be staring down his own caucus. It's a lot safer to say those things at Holy Blossom than it is on the floor of the House of Commons, but he didn't take that opportunity.

There is nothing preventing him from doing the same thing in the House of Commons. And I would say there's no question that there are members of his caucus who are anti-Israel, in the sense of anti-Israeli government. And that also ends up being anti-Israel. It's even wrong to conflate a government, not just with the religion of the people, but to conflate a government with a country. To your point, you know, Putin is not the Russians. and so there are people in his caucus

who are absolutely anti-Israel. I sure hope they aren't anti-Jewish, but I can't speak for them, but certainly they've been very open about being anti-Israel. What's to prevent the Prime Minister from doing a speech in the House of Commons along the same lines? I hope he does. I think that would be great.

I mean, maybe if anybody's listening to this podcast, hey, Prime Minister, maybe take it to the House. I think the concern, and I think you're both echoing it, is that there are people potentially in that caucus. I'm certain this has been brand damage also for the new Democrats in the last couple of years. Federally, certainly, to some extent, provincially too, is to your point, Martha, not only are they anti-Netanyahu,

anti-Israeli government, they're not sure Israel should have a government. They're not sure Israel should have a country. And again, how do we police that? How do we weed that out? Well, you can't in people's homes, and you can't when people are out having a chat at a restaurant or sharing text messages. but you sure can't ask for the people that represent all of the country to prevent that.

Let's try this, though. Before the Prime Minister spoke, the rabbi at Holy Blossom, whose name is Jael Splansky, she said, just as people of color cannot fix racism, just as women cannot correct misogyny, Jewish citizens cannot rid the country of anti-Semitism. Only government can govern. Is it government's responsibility, ultimately at the end of the day, to do something about this?

I think government should strive against the normalization of Jew hatred. And that is what is happening in this country right now. It is being normalized and expanded and extended. And may I now get to deeds? Because the big deed as a result of this seminal speech was to strike a committee. Advisory council. An advisory council that is going to do the same kind of spade work that the Senate of Canada just finished doing and published a report just a couple of weeks ago.

So we're going to reinvent the wheel. And then there's the membership of that committee, one Jew out of seven on the committee, and there are a couple of committee members who are very controversial because of past actions. Let me play devil's advocate here. The committee is not specifically looking at anti-Semitism alone. It is supposed to be an advisory committee on anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, other things of that ilk as well. That's a mistake.

We have a particular problem with anti-Semitism. What percentage of hate crimes in this country are directed at Jews? Think about two-thirds, actually. I thought it was 70%. Okay. Well, we're 4% apart. We're not going to quibble over 4%. But, you know, so this is a particular problem

that needs a focus on it. You can't just lump it all together. We do have other forms of hatred in this country. not seeing we don't. And to the extent that Islamophobia exists, that's a problem. And we've seen how mosques have been targeted by individuals in our society. And that's wrong. However, he went to Holy Blossom Temple to talk about anti-Semitism, which has metastasized and grown and snowballed. And that is the problem that needs to be solved right now before people get hurt and people. people are killed, which is, I think, inevitable unless we denormalize this again in our society.

I don't know a person, to your point, Tony, that doesn't see a Bondi Beach in our future. I don't know a person who isn't ready for it at some point in time. There's been police, thank goodness, R.C.M. have foiled a couple plots before here in Toronto, here in the GTA. One quick distinction I'd make to from, you know, talking about again, our grandparents or even our parents. My parents had very, again, they were very left-leading. They had very strong views about Israel.

I'd say, God, why would someone get, why would a woman get on a bus in Jerusalem and blow herself up to try and get, because she thinks there's no other solution. It's a little like after 9-11. I got Jewish friends when I was living in the States when 9-11 happened. I'm on the air doing a 9-to-noon shift

when 9-11 happens. The second plane flies into the building, and you got to fill time on the air until 12 noon talking about this and taking calls. And I did say, there's a big difference between justifying something and explaining it, but when callers would say, how could they do this?

How could they fly? I'm like, I'm going to give you the motivation that's not the justification. And some of that is how they feel Israel's policy has treated elements of the Middle East for decade after decade. Don't make it right. It would never make it right.

But I want to draw the distinction between what we're seeing on the streets isn't grandpa or grandma or people born in 1910. These are kids in college and university. and young professionals who have everything going for them, and they'll make a post on social media, a pretty dangerous place to be a lot of the time, right, minefields.

And they're losing a job and a career at 27 or 28. What for, to make a statement about a foreign conflict that matters? But that's, I don't know how we, those people aren't just going to die off anytime soon because they're old and crotchety and they've got 10 years left to live. These are the future leaders. These are the kids coming out of university right now. My kids are in school with some of these kids.

My kid's in second year at Western, and I said in residence, I go, you know, you be my eyes and ears. Tell me what you hear. And he's like, it's bad. Like, it's bad stuff about Jewish people. He's heard jokes. He sure never heard in high school growing up with me and Ajax. Martha, take the last word on this, and then we'll move on. I would just say, I'm a big fan of having people read history.

And I'll go back to they were young people who were the same age as my parents, who were very, very, very comfortable saying appalling things and encouraging appalling behavior. People weren't firebombing in downtown Toronto, but people knew that there was some horrible stuff going on. So I just say, you know, we have to recognize, we suffer from presentitis a lot. And I think it's really important that we recognize we've been here before. How did we get away from it? And how did we certainly not in the last 80 years we haven't been? Not in the last 60 years. No, no, but a bit, okay, but 60 years is not a whole long time in human history, and we do see the circles. The other thing that I would really hope to see is when you have a prime minister who has all these different obligations, we know that

there's a significant community in Israel that is furious at Netanyahu, wants to get rid of them, but we tend, I see, with, if Mark Carney does what he feels he should do as a country in calling out some of the behavior of the Israeli government, we cannot then say you're anti-Semitic. And unfortunately, that does happen. And so I think that's what I tried to say at the beginning. We need wherever you are on this issue, we owe it to ourselves and to every.

everyone else to make sure we don't conflate, and I recognize it's extra important as the only homeland for Jews, but I stick to this. We can't conflate the activities of a government with a people. Understood. We'll be back right after this. Every story here starts with someone wanting a deeper understanding of the world. So should the AI you turn to. That's why Anthropic built Claude to be ad-free. No sponsored answers. No third-party deciding what Claude shows you. Claude is built to expand your thinking, not hold your attention. Try Claude for free at Claude.a.ai slash Paken and see why problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. Moving on to Block 2, we are in the Albany Club. The conservative home base, if you like,

for all of Canada, which seems a pretty good place to talk about the mood of conservatives in the country today. 13 and a half months ago, I suspect I don't have to remind the people in this room that we Not again. We're going to talk about 13 and a half months ago. We had an election, Tony, in Canada. You may remember it. That the conservative party looked poised to win.

Party got a very respectable 41.3% of the total votes cast, which is normally enough to win a majority government. But not this time. The liberals under Mark Carney got almost 44% of the vote and came within a few seats of winning a majority government. which they have since successfully managed to get through, depending on your point of view, democratic chicanery or MP saw a better deal somewhere else,

and they went where their values were. Okay, they're not the only party to have done that, just saying. That is true. That is true. The Prime Minister's approval rating in the meantime has gone up quite a bit. I want to know, and Greg, I'll start with you on this. We'll go in inverse order because, as we say, A little over a year ago, you were knocking on tens of thousands of doors trying to get yourself elected in Ajax. What's the mood of conservatives in Canada today?

There's frustration. There's no doubt. And I'm not sure I will say. I went out to Calgary for the convention end of January. You feel like kind of obligated to do that. How'd you vote? How'd I vote? Yeah. Oh, to support Pierre Paulyev to continue on as leader. But I will say, I think it's hard to be in oppositionally. I think times have changed. You wrote this amazing book on John Turner, right?

And I think it's also very difficult to be, he was prime minister for a hot minute in the summer of 84, you know, just was able to get settled in, put the clothes in the drawers, knowing he was going to take them out probably in the fall. It's hard to, I think it's hard to be an opposition leader for six or seven years, and that's what we'll be calculating. If we don't go again until the fall of 29 potentially or even extend this out any further. So there's frustration. There's like, what can you do differently? You mentioned the 41.5%. I'll just give you some math. I'm not, I support Pierre going again.

I think it's a bad look to have a fifth different leader in a fifth straight election. Then you look like a sports franchise that keeps changing the coach in GM and you're like, is the owner any good or the players any good? Toronto Maple Leafs. That could happen too. Yeah. Well, yeah. I was wondering where he was going to get that in.

Didn't take that long. But I see it as people have documented this giant choke job on other sports parlance to talk about the conservatives. I never saw them polling more consistently than at about 44, maybe 44.5, 45%. To your point, they finished at 41. People were talking about 50% supermajority. I'm like, park the bus on that. So the NDP, I'll give you an example. In my riding, they went from 14.1 in 2021 to 2.7.

So maybe it wasn't such a good idea for the leader of the conservatives to demonize the leader of the NDP so much. Keep JogMeet Singh around. Like you say this in the media too. We have a competing station. And when I was at 590, there was a sports station crop up at TSN and we're like, we want that to last. We just don't want them to be very healthy. Keep them sick.

Don't kill them off. And that would have been great for the NDP and Jugmeet Singh. But to bottom line this, they went from about 44 to 41 and a half, about one out of 40 people decided to change their mind from those polls and not vote for Pierre Paulihev and the conservatives. Our writing went 26 to 39 and a half percent. Tony was out there with me. He heard some of the change, but we also, we could feel that sort of frustration and that slippage. It was Donald Trump, scary guy. You would look at people on the doorstep, smart people, educated people, and they look at you and like, they look at you like you got three heads when

you're like, what do you mean that he's going to invade us? Like, they really thought that was going to happen. They really thought he wants our land, he wants our water, he wants to conquer us, and I can't criticize Mark Carney for, you know, the goal is to win. It's a zero-sum game. You win or you don't. So I think the mood is of frustration. I will say, I think there's relief. I think an election this year, I don't know how Tony feels about it would have been a disaster. I wouldn't have felt like running again. I don't think we would have gone from 39 and a half to probably the 47 or 48 I need in my writing. So personally, I was relieved not to go, but it's frustrating. And I think Pierre, I will tell you, there are some within the conservative party

that think he's a dead man walking and some who think he's laying the groundwork nicely to just hang on. I'm also not sure Mark Carney's going to run again. I mean, I can talk a lot more about that. I've had a lot of that conversation. This is a one-off. He's out of here in 2009. That's my perspective. I've also heard that too. Different discussion for a different moment. Tony, the state of conservatism in Canada today and how your troops are feeling. Yeah, so when I was door knocking and Greg's right, you know, I hated going to a single family dwelling with a Canadian flag in the window. That was my worst nightmare there because usually that was a conservative voter. Not this time.

Not this time. These were never 51 people. These were the elbows up. boomers, anybody over 55, there was a, we saw it at the door. Absolutely. They were renting all these Mike Myers movies. It was terrible. Hey, I was watching, so I married an axe murder.

Why are you bothering? But, you know, look, first of all, there's a lot of good that came out of the election for concertas amongst young people. You know, concerted parties around the world don't do very well with young people. We did with union. households with millennials who voted, I remember in 2015, they voted on mass for Justin Trudeau. We did very well with millennials. So there's a lot of good news in that. I'm putting that lipstick on the pig, I know. But there are some things that we should hold on to because they

represent the future of the country. Well, okay. But let's... Now let me talk about the present, because that was your question. And I, look, this is the thing about politics, which is a little bit sorted, I know, but you can't start winning until the other guy starts losing. And we are in a recession. I've never heard of a technical recession, by the way, until a week ago. We are in a recession.

Next quarter we might be out of a recession. I don't know. But right now we're in a recession. And I do know that people are hurting. I do know the grocery prices are killing people. I do know that housing prices, especially in the GTA, are killing people. So these things haven't gone away, is what I'm trying to say. And for better or for worse, Pierre in the election, I don't think he had any alternative.

I'll be honest with you. He stuck to those issues primarily. And they could come around to bite the prime minister. So I think our concert is frustrated. Yes, they are because they see the current state of our country, and it doesn't merit the prime minister getting a 50%. He's not wearing it. He's not wearing any of it.

So I think my advice to concert is keep calm and carry on. This just like, and we saw this with Paul Marlowe. Martin, Paul Martin, when he took office, was at 70%. Predictions of 220 seats. Yeah. So this is, I've seen this movie before. That's what happens when you've been in politics since 1975. But I would say this.

So we have to keep moving. Does Pierre have to keep looking at what's going on to see what the issues that people care about are? Absolutely. Hold that thought because I'm going to come back to that. Okay. So, but generally, to answer your question, yes, there's frustration, but I think that we're starting to see what could be the right momentum and the right messaging for a future election.

And we'll be back right after this. Martha, I'm very interested in your take on this, not to say I'm not interested in what you two guys had to say, but of course, you come to us today from Alberta where there is a whole other entire set of issues being discussed right now. So give us your sense about how, conservatives feel about Canada and their prospects at the moment? Listen, if you're a house with a

Canadian flag in Alberta now, like it's actually a good place to go, right? You're safe. You're safe. I do think that there was a concern about, clearly it was

concerned about Trump, and that fed into whether it was hyped or not, there was a concern and I think that concern is still there. and it's legit. And people just saw who's going to be able to deal with this better.

And I don't think, frankly, it had a whole lot to do with the color of the party at the time. I think it had an immense amount to do with we want, we're so glad we got rid of the other guy, right? I mean, that was a... Trudeau.

That was, you know, we dare not speak his name. Sorry, bad joke. But that was a huge part of the success, right? That was a huge part of the success. success of the Conservative Party. A couple of things that were very interesting to me, just a little in terms of background.

I was, we were all surprised that the Conservatives started to pick on the NDP for exactly that reason. What were you thinking, right? That's not going to help you, and it didn't, clearly. The other thing that I was really struck by, and so the piece of advice for the next time,

next time, the conservative campaign plane should say conservative. The conservative campaign plane said Pierre Paulyev. The minute you do that, the minute you have a person there who's not necessarily matching up with the alternative, you deny the benefit of the party. And so just a little, I was actually really surprised.

I didn't notice it until partway through the campaign, I went, no, I don't think that's good. I think there are a lot of people who actually would have continued to vote conservative, but they just didn't see Pierre as the guy who was going to match Carney in terms of gravitas and global experience and all of that. In terms of the party right now, I think you're right. It's a sigh of relief just because an election now would not be good. I'm interested to see how long Mark Carney stays because my view is if he can get what he wants done, he's not there for a long time.

He's there to actually make the country better. I firmly believe he's there for the right reasons. My worry is we all have seen this in politics. He'll get to year three, three and a half, and he won't have accomplished everything because it's really hard to get things done that quickly, and then he's going to fall into the politics trap. And he's going to have advisors saying,

now you need to dole out these, and you need to dole out those, and starting to play politics, so that he can get a second term. And I would be, that would be, problematic for me, but that would be beneficial, I think, to the conservative. Correct. Just the insight, I'll give everybody here.

I think there was a real push, and you sort of feel a bit like you're walking on a cloud. There was a sense the country was obviously ready for change before Trump gets elected. And even in those couple months, you're like, well this ding Pierre, you know, will this dent the car a little bit or the plane with his name on? A little. But not enough to take him down. And then Trump starts threatening us, the Trudeau trip to Mar-Lago. I think Martha's bang on. There was too much Pierre and not enough.

What are the policies? And I'm not sure. I'm defending Pierre and going, I think he sees either the error of his ways, but I'm more inclined from what I know to say they pushed him in that direction, said, we got to make this all about you. Just as an example.

There's a lot I can't do, and there's a lot I'm not good at. But doing media, I can do it. They really, they boxed me in. City TV wanted to come out, do a profile. just on me. Why are you doing this? Tell me about your family. And the party was like, nah, let's not do that. And I'm like,

every little bit helps. Like, I can't change a tire on a car, but I can talk to. They don't want you candidates showing up for debates. Mistakes were made. Yeah, yeah. So, to me, it's a little, I'd use the analogy, if anybody's a music fan. Sometimes you'll see a great band, a great band,

and you'll be like, they're great together, and the singer is an amazing, she's an amazing lead, and has a great voice, or he's a great front man, and then the singer goes so and you're like, where's the rest of the band? This is not as good. I'm not seeing... I think that was spinal tap.

Yeah. It is a little bit. It is a little bit. But I think he's got stars in that caucus. Michael Chong, who you mentioned, Melissa Lansman. I'm still on the mailing list. One of the benefits of joining a party is you can never leave, right? I got to tell, like, here's my advice to you guys.

Not that I'm here to advise the Federal Conservative Party necessarily, although I do like a good... The country benefits from... solid contributions of all kinds. Stop the whining about the Liberal Party and stop focus, Pierre, Pierre, Pierre, Pierre, Pierre, Pierre, whatever you think, the Conservative Party has such a fantastic history and such value to the country.

I would be much happier if I was getting, if I were getting emails that were, this is what the Conservative Party would do instead, right? It's not constructive, it's not, you know. Do you think the media is framing? Not this guy, of course. But do you think the media is framing it a little bit, a little bit that way? I'm just going from the stuff I get from the conservative party.

From direct. Yes. And it's not, it's not, it does not do anything to make me want to change. I mean, there's been lots of, on resource development. We have policies on resource development, on crime and justice and chaos in our cities. We have policies on those. So we do have those things. And then, of course, the media comes along and wants to talk about what's happening in the caucus room.

I get that. That's just part of what they do. They do that to the liberals too. Yeah, they do, they do. Absolutely they do. What are people talking about today? Are they talking about the Prime Minister's AI announcement with Evan Solomon? Are they talking about the chaos, you know, Mark Carney being old yeller at caucus meetings?

You know, so. He yells, apparently he yells. But can I try this here? This is Doug Ford's won three straight majority governments at Queens Park. And one of the things that he has figured out is that when he takes a decision that he realizes was not a good idea. He will come to the microphones. He will say, I blew it, folks, and he has no trouble changing his mind and telling everybody that he did. Pierre Pauliev never does that. There is a kind of infallibility about him that he and his

minions try to project out there. And I, that's not, it seems to me like that's not working, Tommy. Tell me this, though. How do you make a mistake if you're in opposition? How can a party make a policy error if you're in opposition for 11 years? I think what he's done is he's actually changed things. He doesn't say, we made a terrible mistake, although he did come close to that on candidate nominations and how chaotic that was. It's easy here. Close.

No, no, you're a president company accepted. But he has changed the nomination process. He's changed his leadership team. He's doing much more mainstream media. interviews than he did before, not just the podcasts, but also mainstream, you know, CBC, CTV, whatever. So these were all criticisms that were leveled at him.

He's never said, but I blew that. Doug Ford says that a lot, and his poll numbers go right back up every time he confesses. But Greg, he's the premier. He can say that, get away with it, move on, and announce something. When you say it in opposition... What is Mark Stiles supposed to say she gets wrong?

Orrvette? They don't create policy. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, I just think he would... will not get the applause lines from the media for saying, I screwed up. I don't think that they would do that for him. Super quick. Two days after the election, phone rings, no caller ID, don't know who it is, and it's Pierre Pauly. And we talked right after the show. I didn't know who it was, so I ignored it at first. Then he texted me, it's Pia Pauly, but I'm like, oh, sorry,

ignoring that. Another heckler. And I talked to somebody who honestly, it sounded like this guy got hit by a truck. That result that night humbled him. For me, I'm like, hey, we gained 14% big, it's going to take two times. No worries, everybody did the best they could. We need more help from the NDP. I can't imagine going to bed that night. I can't. I can't

imagine going to bed that night. Then you go out to Calgary and Martha will appreciate this. The stories he told at the end of his speech on the Friday night about his family and being away from his son, his beautiful autistic daughter, that's where you connect with people.

But how did the speech start with an emergencies act joke? And I'm telling you, I'm watching that going, stop that. Stop that. Stop pandering about the convoy, about the truckers. It's 2026, not 2022. So he needs either better advice or he needs to say, let me pick the set list. You're going to leave me in charge. I'm calling the shots.

I'm not going to listen and you go, hey, throw this line in there because it'll just sound mean-spirited. I would venture there's an awful lot of conservatives across the country who are not party members. in Calgary for the convention who are still concerned, right? Who were not convoy supporters, who were not, you know, like the progressive conservative is a red Tories like me, blue liberal, call me what you want.

But I think there are an awful lot of people across the country that would love to see a solid conservative alternative, but it's not coming through because it's all... There's two things. Yeah. Yeah. There's two things to watch. Is Carney a bad matchup? Is Carney the worst matchup?

possible for Pollyev. The party has to decide that. But as I point out to people, name me another liberal that beats him. Nobody can do it. Nobody can do it. We have carnions and walked through that curtain, go on with John Stewart that night. Pierre Pollyev's the prime minister with probably a narrow majority government

right now. No one's come up with a name. So this is good for my therapy. Thank you. It's a lot cheaper. So thanks for going through the mistakes that were made in the election. I think that's important. But we do have to move on as a party. Move on, not in terms of new leadership, but move on and look at the issues of today. That's what Canadians

care about. And I'm sorry, but we're in a recession. I'm going to keep saying that. And there are huge economic issues. Some of them connected to Donald Trump, some of them of our own making. And if we do not make the structural changes necessary, we are going to be in a very, very bad situation, deal or no deal with Donald Trump. So I'm just saying move ahead. That's what I want to do. Who's running this show? As a conservative party, we've got to look to the future, and that's what Pierre Pollyev has got to do with me.

I'm going to take your advice and move ahead. Hey, folks, you know that Ottawa loves a great debate, competition, innovation, affordability, and if there's a policy angle and a panel attached to it, even better. But here's one thing that's really not up for debate. Canada's banking sector is anything but static. Banks are competing every day on service, speed, security and innovation. That competition pushes banks to keep improving how they serve Canadians.

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And now back to the show. Okay, block three, this is the section we call Mailbag, because we do get a lot of feedback on this show. And as I say, it's usually about people saying I'll never watch again, as long as you keep Tony Clement on. But, Tony, I want you to know, here we go. This is from Tyler Firth from Hamilton, Ontario, and Tyler is a frequent correspondent to our website. He says, I really appreciate you posing my question about austerity to Tony in your most recent program.

Although I don't think he addressed it like I wanted him to, in that he simply called my criticism an alternative worldview, I will delve further into his comments about the U.S. dollar being a, quote, reserve currency. He points out that Canada does not have this luxury. He may be right. Stephanie Kelton writes from an American perspective that she uses the concept of a fiat currency in making her case. Canada certainly has a fiat currency, but Tony is correct in that it is not a reserve currency. He has me less confident in my position, Steve. Good for him. I need to read more. Please thank him for me. There you go.

It's not all doom and gloom. Yikes. Thank you. Thank you, kind listener, watcher. As the Lord giveth, he also taketh away, Tony. Tyler went on to say, because, look, I've loved the Toronto Maple Leafs for more than 60 years. Tony, inexplicably to me, is a Montreal Canadiens fan. Who's your favorite team? We were on a show, and I bragged about going to see a goldenized game, and you didn't even know who that was, and I had to say it was PWA.

It was PWA. Yeah, but I kind of meant NHL. Who's your favorite NHL team? Well, I live in Calgary. So you're Flames fan? No, I'm a Toronto Police Fund. Okay, good. Good. Good.

There we go. There we go. You? What's your team? The Vancouver Canucks. I don't know why. I don't know why. That is bizarre.

Okay. Well, Tyler had this also to say, Tony. He says, I must tell you, I could not agree with you, Steve Moore, that as a Leafs fan, I cannot cheer for the Canadians nor the senators under any circumstances. You're absolutely correct. I don't care if either of these two teams is the last Canadian team in the NHL playoffs. I cannot bring myself to root for them. I was glad Carolina knocked Montreal out of this year.

Similarly, I was pleased to see Anaheim beat Ottawa in 2007. I'm with you. I just can't do it. The Western teams are fine, but not the divisional rivals. I have to say, now you're a former sports guy. I find it passing strange that anybody who's a lifelong leaf fan. I don't care if the habs are the last Canadian team in the playoffs, you can't cheer for them.

It just doesn't work that way. Red Sox fan cheering for the Yankees. Impossible. Especially before they won. Impossible. It's never going to happen. It was Canada's team, Steve. I'm very disappointed in you.

Yes, I know. These Slovaks and Americans and Finns who played for the Montreal Canadians were better. Who's our captain? Nick Suzuki. Just a little anecdote when I was first elected and I ended up moving to Ottawa because I was representing a Toronto riding. So I had an apartment in Ottawa. And I said to my kids at one point, I said, this is great because I'll be living in both cities. I could root for the Leafs and the Senators.

All three of my children looked at me going, oh, you're in trouble. Yeah, because they've been well raised. That's impossible. Yeah, dopey. Friends, we are going to do, we're going to do a little Q&A from the floor now. So I'm going to, those of you might remember the old Phil Donahue show,

I'm going to go out there with a microphone. And if you've got to, take a few questions for our panelists here. And, okay, Alex, stand if you would. And let's get started here. This is Alex Barron, Palamine. What do you got to say? Well, I'm going to change up the theme a little bit. So Mr. Carney is now moving towards China and India as trade partners.

Foreign election interference. Does that continue to be a concern? Does it increase in concern? Does it decrease in concern? Your thoughts? Go ahead. Martha, start us off. They're not mutually exclusive.

Foreign interference is painful. Look, I live in Alberta, and right now there's quite a bit of evidence of U.S. government foreign interference in my province. It's not acceptable anywhere. But that said, we are an extraordinarily trade-dependent country. We're always going to trade an awful lot with the United States. We always did, and we can't change geography. But I actually support diversifying our trade

and working with these other countries with our eyes wide open. And are they wide open, our eyes right now? I think for some not as wide as they should be, but I actually do think the prime minister himself, he's no fool on the global stage. I think he's pretty well aware of where he needs to be careful. Tony? Yeah, this continues to be a problem,

and not only China and India, but I neglected to mention in our first segment that one of the actionable items to help Jews and Iranian Canadians feel safer is to deal with a thousand or so Islamic revolutionary guard corps members who happen to be in our society doing, I can only imagine what they are doing right now in terms of interference and threatening people. So yes, this is a problem. It continues to be a problem. I believe in the Trudeau years, we were, the government

of Canada was blind to how invasive it was, despite the fact that security agencies were aware of it. but they didn't want to hear it. And we had a whole review of this. And I'm Justice Hogue. That's right, the Hogue review. And so this is something that has to be tackled. Does it mean we don't trade with India or don't trade with China? No, it doesn't mean that.

I would only say, particularly with China, that we have to ensure that our trade does not envelop us in areas of critical importance, whether it's national security, health security, food security, these things are sacrosanct to me. So there have to be some walls around trade with China, just like other countries are doing now as well. Okay, guys over to the right here. We're going to try and circle in more questions if we can here.

Vanessa, please. So just want to know quickly how you think Avi Lewis is going to have an impact on Canadian politics. Okay, Greg, start us off on that. He's got a lot of the younger people stimulated. I think there's obviously a very much a counterculture scenario there where you're going against the norm. I mean, you know, we're here in this House of Conservatism tonight.

I'll tell you, I'm the furthest thing, you can probably sense, furthest thing from a lifelong conservative. And some of the things I saw, even as a teenager, that Tony will talk to me about in the parking lot. In the 80s, even with the Mulroney years, I'm like, in the States, I'm like, that looks like the party of censorship. And now I think that's the Liberal Party,

and that's something the NDP I feel like has a problem with is free expression and some elements of freedom of speech. I heard Adam Carolla, the comedian, talk about conservatism, who he's labeled as such, and he's like, well, I'm pro-choice. I don't own a gun, and I don't go to church. So good luck labeling me as a hardcore conservative. But I think he's, listen, I think everyone's looking at what Mammani's done in New York City, and everyone's like he's not going to win, he can't win, he couldn't possibly win.

Well, he won easily. over, you know, again, a bit of a flawed character in Andrew Cuomo, let's be honest. But so far, so good. And if that's the playbook, be reaching the under 30s and 35s, to Tony's point, wrestle them away from where the conservatives are. Again, if you're a conservative, you want to see an element of success for Avi Lewis. I think we're dealing Jugmeet Singh, I think history's dealt him a really bad hand. if he pulls the carpet out from Justin Trudeau in October 24, he's still there. Maybe they got 40, 50 seats.

We're not talking Jack Layton, but we're talking a guy who's still in Parliament, still's leading a party right now. So he's got to correct those mistakes. Quick comment from Tony or Martha? On Avi. Go ahead, Martha. On Avi? I would just say, correct me if I'm wrong, but at the leadership, where he won the leadership, I think there was not a Canadian flag on the stage, but there was a Palestinian flag.

So that should tell us all of some real concerns. And then, you know, nationalizing grocery stores. Yeah, Mamdani for sure. But we had one of our podcasts, we talked about it. It'll be very interesting to see if he, all this stuff sounds great. Socialism sounds good, right? But it doesn't work. What did Thatcher say?

It's great until you start running out of other people's money. Margaret Thatcher. Exactly. Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, Tony, quickly. Yeah, very quickly. Yeah, again, he's got to make some decisions. Is it faculty club or is it the shop floor?

Shop floor right now, conservatives are doing very well on the shop floor. And so he would have to do a bit of a change-up to get in that game again. I'm not sure he's got it in him to do that. Okay, we'll see. Question here, please. Before I ask my question, you're a Red Sox fan?

From before the Blue Jays were born. As a Dodgers fan, thank you for Mookie Betts. I get trolled by Clement on the Leafs. I get trolled from you on the Red Sox. Give me a break, everybody. My question is with the new, I don't know what to call it, the mandate that streamers selling in Canada have to invest 15% of revenue into Canadian content.

I work in entertainment. I think if you're going to sell, even as a conservative, I think if you're going to sell in Canada, you should have a Canadian content component. But I think they're going about it totally the wrong way. I'd like to get your... I'd love to tackle that because I made the analogy this morning on the air. You'd remember, well, I think it still exists,

but obviously CanCon regulations for radio and playing bands and artists that are Canadian. Well, I think that's a good thing, even though, you know, you slice some Americans down a little bit, but there's a lot of artists, tragically, it would be a great example, or 5440 or platinum blonde. Never made it really in any other country. We're not talking Brian Adams or Celine Dion. Problem is the public didn't have to pay money for it. I could slip to another station if I'm like, oh, I'm hearing too many Canadian bands.

But I love that era of music. So I go, if you're digging into the taxpayers' money and these companies are telling you, we're out, like the signal, one of the signal representatives testified this week, and he was like, if we have to choose, that was more about the privacy issue of the encrypted, you know, conversations on what's app and signal. I just, we've picked so many bad battles with tech over the last two years, and I can't figure it out.

Okay. Can I just say, we're in a bit of a tough spot with the Americans right now? You think? This was not the time to bring this out. And so, you know, I'm understanding from folks in Ottawa, somebody realized maybe we should actually be talking to each other before we do this from a governmental level because timing was just terrible.

Let's get one more question in here. Yes, sir. For the state of conservatism, I'm just wondering, do you think it's that Polyev is in some way insufficient or maybe we as conservatives need to get off our asses and participate a little more? Tony. I think that Pierre Polyev's time is coming, and I think that the country needs Pierre's and the Conservative Party's leadership now more than ever.

So that's where I come from. And as you're going to have to continue to evolve and mature? Absolutely. It was his 47th birthday yesterday, so a maturity comes at you whether you like it or not. but no, I think there's there is an avenue for conservatives to talk to Canadians about the issues that they care about. So I think that moment is coming. Also, this is generational divide. There's very much an old versus young right now.

And I'm on the back night of my life, that's for sure. But these kids are angry and they've every reason to be angry. Now, they should be angry and energized to go vote. Watch what's happening in Britain right now. Nigel Farage is, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. And he's going to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom. I don't know how that's going to go, but that tells you when a movement catches, the flame gets lit.

I think there's already really ugly stuff in the UK right now. I'd like us to avoid that. But he's going to win the next election. I'm just keeping a bit of an eye on the clock. I'm keeping a bit of an eye on the clock here because Tony actually has another event he's got to get to tonight. we're at the part of our program where we do Good On You, where our guests here are going to say something, actually they saw in politics over the last couple of weeks,

they thought, hey, good on you. You're not in my party, but I like what you had to say. Tony, you can do your Good On You, and then you can scoot. So I'm not a member of the BC Conservative Party, so I do want to congratulate Carrie Lynn Finley, my colleague from Parliament. I don't know if this really is. Okay, I knew it. That's not really.

So my other Good On You. Okay, good. I would have kicked him, by the way. Oh, my goodness. You can't get away with anything around here. Matthew Dubay, NDP member of parliament, was one of the McGill ones that got elected under Leighton. And I've just come to know him over the last couple of years a lot better. We did a political panel in Ottawa for the Canadian Meat Council.

Yes, there is such a thing. said very, very pro-meat things to start my remarks. But we did it together with Francis Druin from the Liberal Party. It was a lot of fun. But I just think Matt Dubert is a great guy. I would hang out with him any time. How old is he now? I don't know.

He's like 18. No, I'm just kidding. Not much more. No, he's quite young still, you know, as they all were, the McGill 5, as they were called. And just great guy. And I just wish him well. and he was a member of the NDP. So there he go.

Strange bedfellows, et cetera, et cetera. But I want to give a shout out to Matt DuBay. Well done. And thank you for coming to this tonight at the Albany Club. I know you've got to scoot to your next event. Thank you for coming, Tony. And how about a hand for Mr. Clement as he leaves us tonight. Okay.

Thank you, Tony. Well done. Martha, who gets your good on you this week? Well, it's actually really been fun being in a live environment. And thanks to a conversation that I had earlier, I was reminded of a particular race just recently in the United States because I was asked, well, is it always Canadian domestic politics? I said, no, sometimes we actually talk about people in other places.

I am not a current Republican. Well, I'm not an American, so I can't be. But I struggle with the current Republican Party right now in the United States. Put it that way. And there was an election just recently that, I believe, was the... the most expensive runoff in American history at that level. And Thomas Massey actually had the ovaries to run in a race against the Trump choice.

And it's not an endorsement of his policies. It's not an endorsement of anything other than sometimes just that kind of political, I'm gonna do this, despite the wins that are there, and despite the fact that that guy is endorsing my competitor, I think deserves a lot of credit. So my good on you is to Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey. I might have used the word fortitude as opposed to ovaries, but okay, whatever, you know.

Hey, people laughed. Chequence en Sengu. Okay, Greg, who gets your good on you? I think there's good people in all the parties, like I said. I've sort of crossed and done this, done that. I want to, I'll go provincial and talk about a bill, Catherine Fife from the NDP, who's in Kitchener wanted to get passed about sexual assault victims not being able to get their day in court because we have so few judges and our trials take forever. I can't imagine being a victim coming forward and telling your truth because we know it's something like nine out of ten sexual crimes or assaults are never reported. For some reason, there's shame.

There shouldn't be. And Fife was trying to push the Ford Conservatives to adopt this bill that basically promises we're going to speed up these trials. After two years, if your accuser, by the way, hasn't been in front of a courtroom. And that's why lawyers use all these delay tactics. Oh, I got this lawyer. I'm going to fight. I'll get a new lawyer like the Jacob Hogarth thing, the Headley guy who got convicted, almost got to the two years where we wouldn't have even seen him in court. Again, everybody's innocent until proven guilty at the same time.

I think the NDP have some really good people there. We talk about Martin Stiles, great communicator. I think that party got so hit hard after October 7th. I've been very aggressive in saying she still has to lead a caucus and keep people on the right track. And it should be more about things in the province than things overseas. You're a provincial party. But I think there needs to be more push on the foot. We all want crime and punishment, crime and policing is a big issue for conservatives.

Catherine Fife's more on the right track than some of the people in the Ford cabinet right now. Okay, Greg, thank you for that one. We are going to do a little housekeeping here before we pull the plug on this venture here, and this is the point of the program where I usually say this show is free. It'll always be free. It's on YouTube. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple.

But as you can see, there are some expenses related to dealing with this show and putting it on the air. And I'm happy to say that people have gone to our Patreon site, patreon. Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast, and they shell out a few bucks, and they help us keep this thing on the air. So I want to say thank you to Conan Hoy from Ottawa, who says I'm happy to play a very small part in enabling civil dialogue, which we kind of like here. And thanks to Kevin Lowe from Toronto, who says amidst the cacophony of slogans and screaming headlines, your show has been a refreshing oasis for my political education. Please keep up the good work. Thank you very much to Conan and to Kevin.

Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. All of our shows are archived at Stevepaken.com. You can go back and look at all of them. And I finally, are we ready to go with this, Shelly? We want to bring up just finally as a way of saying thank you. The vice president in charge of fun at the Albany Club, as is her official title, Shelly Lewis, who I believe, have you got some beverages here, Shelly, that we can get going? I want to say, I heard the.

I heard the cork pop. I want to say that Shelley Lewis, how do I say this? Well, look it, you have decided to support this program at the highest level possible. You are, what would Doug Ford say? I'm a sponsor. You are a champion, is what Doug Ford would say. Absolute champion. You are a champion.

So thank you very much. I see them pouring the, oh, we're doing a picture right now. Yes, please. Down in Lee. There we go. She knows my best sides. I see them pouring the, now what are you pouring exactly back there? That was for Tony. He's actually gone, but it's all right.

We don't need a soft drink. Tony's left. You can make these... Leave him the instructions. He's following it to the letter. You can make this... First of all, I do really want to thank you for having us here at the Albany Club. We thank you. This was a... Yeah, this was a first-time experiment for us. We've never done the show in public before.

First time for us, too. Yep. So, oh, really? Is that right? Okay, great. Here we go. What's your name, sir? Dennis. Dennis, thank you very... This is great. Thank you so much. Dennis, you're a great Canadian.

Thank you very much. Better than Tony anyway. Way better than Tony. And with that I say, gang, thank you so much for doing this. This was wonderful. Greg, thank you so much for pinch hitting. Shelley, this was great. Thank you all for coming tonight.

Peace and love, everybody. See you next time on the Paken Podcast.