The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Peak Carney, the End of Orban, and the Future of Red Tories

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

The Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement discusses Hungary voting out Viktor Orban, if populism is waning, if we have hit “peak Carney,” the history of ���outsider” Prime Ministers, and American influence on Canadian politics. They also discuss Alberta and proportional representation, the cynicism many feel in politics, declining economic prospects, and what happened to progressive conservatives in federal politics.   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] 

Okay, you two. Here's what I want to know off the top here. I know when you were elected people, you probably got, you know, thousands, if not tens of thousands of questions, queries, criticisms, responses from members of the public. I want to know how often, Tony, you first, how often did you actually see something from somebody and it moved you to actually call them back or write them back or respond in a direct fashion? Well, if they were constituents of mine, I did that all the time. You know, I would, if they left a phone message, I would call back on the phone message. If they wrote a letter, they would get a letter back. If they wrote an email, they would get an email back, usually personally from me, from my own email account. When as a minister, the volume is quite overwhelming. But the worst was being Ontario Transportation Minister. Everybody thinks they are the Ontario Transportation Minister.

Believe me. You know, the curvature of this interchange is off by five degrees. What are you going to do about it? Seriously. So that was a challenge. So you obviously have a correspondence unit. But what I would do, I would get signing books and signing books and sign. You did a lot of correspondence signing, at least I did anyway.

and for those that were signed by me, not by an auto pen, I would actually date that letter myself rather than have a stamp date on it. So I always knew which letters I had read and had written back to. So that was, I thought, very important for me to be accountable. And if something slipped through the cracks and somebody said, well, you read my letter, but you didn't do the right thing. I at least knew whether I'd actually read the letter or not, you know? Because, yeah.

So anyway, just a little. Good point. Little point for future, for future cabinet ministers to take that into account. Martha, how about you? How'd you handle those things? The volume even as an MP at the time, I mean, I had, as I said, 136,000 constituents. So the volume was high. Really good constituency office staff are really important as well as Parliament Hill staff.

and I was so fortunate. I had just like, and volunteers and like people who are, who are wonderful, you absolutely want to answer everything. Can you answer everything personally? No, not always.

But I think your question was, you know, were there times when it really moved you to do something differently or whatever? For you guys can see, if anybody's actually watching this podcast, there's a flag that's behind me that's actually a Canadian flag

that was painted by, I think she was then eight years. years old. We're going back like, you know, a lot of, a lot of years now. But this was a, this was actually in gratitude for helping her family. They were Ukrainian and helping them come to the country. And I particularly love one, the effort. We had a wall of thanks, right? People say public office, there's, you know, is a thankful, thankless job. We had a wall of cards and thank yous. And this one really stood out. And I particularly loved how she added the oceans on the, on, on, on, on the on the coasts of the of the flag as it were um there were also but steve i think your listeners

need to know too that sometimes constituents don't realize what we can or cannot do i mean i had somebody who um you know would come to me and say well you know the the flight paths for pearson go over my house like you need to change those and repeatedly i'd say well when did you buy your house five years ago you knew the airport was there right but I can't change flight paths. I'm an opposition MP. I do not have that power. But it's also like the minister can't change flight paths, right?

That's called aerodynamics. It's called weather. And so sometimes some input was incredibly wonderful and moving and you really wanted to help. And some input was just, wow, I just can't help. And those are hard messages to give to. But the engagement of one kind of. another is so important. Tony, do you ever get a email or a letter or phone call from somebody who said,

Tony Clement, you're the worst bloody politician I've ever seen in my life. I can't stand you. And you thought, I'm going to try a charm offensive here and just see if this works. Do you ever call somebody like that back? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I used to do that. And they would be shocked, absolutely shocked that I would do that. Do you ever change any minds?

Yeah, no, they were quite civil when you actually phone them and talk to them, right? as long as you're not yelling at them, which I did not do. I remember going to door to door. And in a couple, not very many, but in a couple of instances, I remember saying, well, I really hope you vote. I'm just totally okay if you don't vote for me. Yeah. Well, I ask these questions.

There is some method to my madness because I actually want to see now that you're no longer politicians, how well you respond to the emails, phone calls. faxes, Facebook messages, messages on X and so on and so forth, that we get for you now as a result of your participation in this program. Because after all, what do we talk about here? Everything Political. Happy to welcome back for this special. No extra guest, just responding to your correspondence. Former Member of Parliament, former Member of the Ontario Legislature, Tony Clement, and former Member of Parliament Martha Hall-Finley, he of the Conservative Stripe, she of the Liberal Stripe. And without further ado, folks, let's get to this. We've

got some wonderful questions here that really cover a wide variety of subject matter area. So let's get to it. Here's Evelyn Chisholmour, who reached us on our Facebook page and said, Hungary voted Victor Orban out, despite all that he did to control media, messaging, and democracy. Is the tide changing is populism no longer in fashion? Tony, how about you first time? So here's my take on that. An excellent question, by the way.

I actually don't think by the end that Victor Orban was a populist. I think he was corrupt. I think that Hungary had the worst economy in the EU. And so people were hurting. And so a populist doesn't allow those things to happen. So I think he was actually displaced by a populist. You know, Peter Magyar, who is part of his coalition, leaves the coalition, creates his own party and talks about the issues that people really cared about. And by the way, on the issues such as immigration or

being tough on crime, there was no space between him and Orban. So he didn't allow that to become the issues he wanted to talk about, you know, about affordability issues and issues like that that were affecting Hungarians. So I would argue that the populist won and the corrupt authoritarian lost. Martha, your view on whether populism is now no longer in fashion? Well, great question. And Tony, thought of it that way. So that's very interesting. I mean, my immediate reaction was positive. I think we need Hungary to be much more in line with the European Union, especially given what's happening with Russian Ukraine, the war there. So at first blush, very positive about it. But there's a sinister side to this in my own brain, and I hate the fact that I've gone there. And it is, and it's part of the

question despite the control of the media despite the control effort at the at the at the at the judicial system he's still lost so that can be a positive or if you're a real autocrat but going forward those who are autocrats or who want to be um might look at that and go i might just have to do more to control the media i might just have to do more to to ignore the justice system i might have to do more to get the army because guns speak volumes. It'd be a terrible lesson to take from all this, wouldn't it? I know, I know. Isn't that awful?

But as I said, that's like, I kind of went sinister in my own mind. And I thought, ooh. So I don't know. I'm going to work with the positive. I think this is a good thing. And I'm really hoping it turns out to be good in terms of all of the geopolitical challenges we're facing. Great.

Evelyn, thanks for that question. The next one is from Alex Gill, who again got to us on Facebook. you know, you two have both heard of peak oil. Here's a cute question. Alex wants to know, Martha, you first. Are we currently at peak Kearney? Well, he did just get his majority officially. So, you know, is the question, does he have anywhere to go but down? My hope is a Canadian? I don't care what color stripe you wear. My hope is a Canadian is that he takes this opportunity and does what we need for this country. We need infrastructure. We need economic prosperity. We need to deal with our productivity numbers. Like there's a heck of a lot to do.

I think that if he actually, he and his government actually get some of this stuff accomplished because we're hearing out the right things. I think if he starts showing actual progress on some of this stuff, then maybe not. Maybe he has he has room to be perceived even better than he is now. As I said, it's not my, it's not party. It's not color it as a Canadian. I'm hoping he's going to be able to do. He and his gang, he and the government are going to be able to do what's needed in the country. Tony, are we at peak Kearney right now?

Well, we're, I guess, a year in. Steve and Martha, you may remember when Paul Martin unseeded Jean Crecheon as prime minister. And I think he went up to 70% popularity. I don't think I'm grabbing that. out of the air. I think it was actually high 60s or 70 or something like that amongst the Canadian population. And shall I say, it was all downhill from there, right? Things didn't go very well for Mr. Martin as prime minister. And so, yeah, we don't know the future. Nobody really knows. As I said, on another podcast, every day that passes is one day closer to Mr. Carney, not being prime minister.

That's just, you know, we live in a temporal world where time marches one way and not the other. So that is going to be an accurate statement, whether it's one year, three years, 10 years, 50 years, I don't know. But he is closer to being defeated or retiring than he was yesterday. David Frum has a great line about that where he says the most important currency ahead of government has are minutes. and every minute they are further in the job, they are, in his view, losing currency and losing, you know, because you're losing time. There's only so many minutes you get in these jobs.

Alex, thanks for that one. Here's Brandon Totsow, who got to us on Facebook as well, and he asked the question, have any other prime ministers had no prior experience in the commons or in government? That's a really, I think we know the answer to that question. The answer is no. This is the first prime minister in Canadian. in history, who has never been elected to do anything else ever in his life. And his first job in

politics is Prime Minister of Canada. That's pretty amazing. With a majority government now. Yes, I believe we can say that. And I think he's the first one as well to wear an order of Canada on his lapel. Oh, that's interesting. Now, the second part of the question here, Brandon says, were there any other outsiders that became prime minister? And I think this question allows for a little bit of nuance here because, of course, you know, how much of an outsider are you really when you're the former governor of the Bank of Canada or former governor of the Bank of England? That's not much of an outsider. But if the question focuses more directly on, you know, has anybody else had this job without having had a seat before? You know, yes, we've had three

prime ministers who actually became prime minister without seats. And one of them, guys, was in our lifetime. I mean, John Turner won in 1984. He did not have a seat. He did. He did. been in parliament in parliament before that in the 1960s and 70s in pure trudeau's government but when he won the leadership of the party he didn't have a seat does it seem to either of you like the lack of parliamentary experience or the lack of the fact that he hasn't been elected to anything before has really held mark carney back at all martha i don't think so but i think that speaks more about mark carney than who he is i mean michael ignatiaf was uh a stranger right in the sense of new to the game.

Hadn't been in Canada in 33 years when he won the liberal leadership. Yeah. Brian Mulroney was pretty close to being, you know, relatively new to the game. And of course, did an extraordinary job for the most part, I think, as prime minister. I look back at the Mulrooney-Cretchen years as being among the best in modern Canadian history. So that's me making a non-partisan comment. But yeah, I think the point about Michael Ignatia, if everybody thought that Michael would be what Mark Carney has proven to be, is somebody who could come in and be well-to-known and do all this stuff. The fundamental difference, I think, is that Mark Carney brings a huge amount

of substance with respect to the challenges that the country is facing, right? As an economist, as a bank governor, and two, both Canada and the United Kingdom, you know, if it had been somebody else? I don't know. I think Mark, he didn't, he doesn't have that order of Canada in on his lapel, up on his lapel for nothing. So I think what he brings to it is also important, not just that he's not there or not. And I would say if I actually think one of the, the things that Pierre Poliev struggles with is the impression that he's only ever been in office, right? So I think it depends a lot on the person. Tony, it's going to be very interesting. You know, obviously I can't deny that Mark Carney has a wealth of experience outside of the halls of parliament,

but close to, adjacent to the halls of parliament or to the halls of the European Union or the Bank of England. But I don't know. We will all see together whether at some point, Mr. The Kearney exhibits a tin ear when it comes to what people are going through, the struggles that they have in their lives and, you know, the help that they need. He dropped the excise tax on gas the other day. Yes, yes, at Pierre Polyev's assertion and urging. Yes, he did. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just saying. I don't have any evidence of that. this yet. It'll be something that we'll be keeping an eye on. But I don't think, I think the point

I'm trying to make is innately, does he have the instincts of a politician? Maybe that's why he was elected because he doesn't. But we'll all learn together whether that's good enough when this country is facing such challenges, both internally and externally. Brandon, you got us going on that one. Well done. Let's move on to Liam Mitchell, who is a supporter on Patreon. We appreciate that. Liam got his question to us on our Patreon website, patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. And I guess he is asking you too for a prediction based on your experience of watching Parliament for many years and sort of sensing how these things work out. The question is, will Pierre Pahliav still be leading the Conservative Party of Canada

when the next election arrives? And by that, I presume Mr. Mitchell is wondering whether the Conservative Caucus will use its right under the Reform Act to request a vote of caucus to see whether or not caucus still wants Mr. Pauliev leading the party going forward.

Tony, what do you think? I think Mr. Poliyev will continue to be leader and will represent the party in the next federal election. I worry that if this discordance continues,

that it'll split the party apart. I actually think that if somehow Mr. Paul is removed by some members of caucus and were plunged into a leadership campaign. I'm not sure the Conservative Party of Canada as constituted by Peter McKay and Stephen Harper and many others who wanted that. I'm not sure it'll survive this. I really think.

I really think it could blow up again, you mean? It could blow up again. I really do believe that. So I hope it doesn't happen. I hope that Mr. Poliyev stays in charge and carries on the fight in the next election because I think the stakes are that high for the future of the conservative party. Martha, your prediction. I'm very much with Tony on this. I think it depends on when. So right now we have a majority

government. So that we might not have an election for another three years or whatever the timing is. But if events change and there is an election, who knows, the liberals might see an opportunity to call one a bit earlier and, you know, solidify the majority. If that, if something like that happened soon, my, my belief is a peer will still be the leader, partly because of a concern that Tony just raised, right? Like getting rid of somebody, it comes with a lot of risks. Um, I think that I think the party did itself real harm by having people get rid of Aaron O'Toole, for example, um, in mid leadership. I thought that was a problem for the party.

So I'm not, I actually think Tony's right. If that happens again, it will be, it could be existential for the party in its current iteration. But if we don't have an election for another three plus years, who knows what can happen in the interim. Liam, thanks for that one. Let's move on to Andy Taylor, who got to us on Facebook again. We seem to have gotten a lot of good comments on Facebook here. And Martha, you're going to get this one first because the question is, if Alberta wants a bigger voice in federal politics,

shouldn't they be advocating voter reform and proportional representation? 100%. That might be the shortest answer I've ever given. I know with interest that at the Montreal Convention, back what are we talking about here earlier in April, the liberals had an opportunity as a party to have their delegates, and there were 4,500 or so who attended the convention, they had an opportunity to debate and vote on whether they wanted proportional representation as some kind of electoral reform, and they turned it down.

So we're not closer to it in that regard. Tony, what do you think? I think that it's one of these, be careful what you wish for situations. I think that if we did have PR in this country, there's no need to have big tent political parties anymore. that the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, to a similar extent, their reason to exist disappears because then you can have, you know, purer parties that then combine for the purposes of forming a government once the dust settles. That's right.

You know, Israel, for better, for worse. It's a great point. It's not just that the conservatives would break. might break in two or three, as they did in the past, but the liberals could break up too. There's not necessarily a lot in common between sort of right-wing pro-business liberals like Martha Hall-Finley and very left-wing liberals like Justin Trudeau. Right. But you know, and don't forget, Justin Trudeau ran on this. And then as soon as he got into government, he didn't follow through.

One of the, but it depends. And Tony, you're absolutely right. Be careful what you wish for. But I think it also depends on what form of PR you choose. So I'm a big fan of the single transferable vote. So and one of the side effects of that would be, imagine you're running in a riding. So I was running in my riding.

If I knew that people were given a ranked ballot, like we like Martha best, but we like, you know, the conservative person second best and we like the, I'm going to campaign, you can bet your boots. I'm not going to be nasty to the next. Well, I'm not a nasty person.

So I wouldn't. But, you know, you're not. you're going to be careful about actually encouraging a little bit more of that big tent attitude because if somebody comes off the ballot, you want that, you know, you want the second, you want the second choice votes to be supportive, right? And so I think from a campaigning and just a political discourse perspective, that ranked ballot approach could be very, very helpful. But let's not kid ourselves. There are writings in this country that have, you know, my writing had the same number

people as all four writings and PEI combined. What does that say about the representational value of a vote? And that in answer to the great question about Alberta, there are problems with how few people that there are, I'm going to say this. The population, the population is not adequately represented by the number of ridings by the votes. And that to me is a problem. You know, a big powerful province and fewer people than the city of Toronto. Yeah. Or the GTA, I guess I should say, including the outside areas. Okay, Andy, thanks for that one.

Let's move on here. This is another one that came in via our Patreon page. And I'll just set it up a little bit in as much as I did an interview at the Montreal Liberal Convention with a member of parliament from Toronto's West End named Kareem Bardisi. It used to be a senior policy guy in the Dalton McGinty and Kathleen Wing governments in Toronto at Queens Park. And I have to say, you know, not a partisan observation, just a personal observation. He gave a very thoughtful, interesting, intelligent interview. That's the kind of guy he is. And a guy named, he spells his name, M-I-C. I don't know if it's Mick or Mike, but he said,

I have such a hard time rationalizing a conversation like this, the one I had with Kareem, which reveals a well-spoken and well-reasoned individual. And the actual outcomes of government, regardless of party, that have overseen what feels like a steep decline in real wages and experienced prosperity for average people. If we have this kind of spirit and engagement in government, why does it feel like all the good things that government and public service once contributed are being dismantled? I found that to be a fascinating question. Yeah, great question. Okay, Martha, you want to try that one first? I would put a time frame into this. I Look, you've heard me say this.

I think Canada has lost 25 years, a full quarter century of opportunity. I think, you know, the prior government, so I'm not blaming this just on the last 10 years, there have been challenges for various reasons, none of which were ill-intentioned, to be clear. But I think just in terms of management, decisions being made at particular times, given circumstances, have not fundamentally brought Canada to the place that we should be. Our productivity numbers are terrible. Our economy is losing steam as opposed to gaining. We're doing less well compared to the Americans.

And I think we ever have, maybe since World War II, but maybe even before that. And we're right next door. I mean, that's a management problem. And so we do have their bright people, there are bright people, capable people in the civil service, but we now have a massively bigger civil service. There are management problems. I think the fact that Kareem, who is actually out here, Calgary and I had the occasion to engage in a discussion with him and a few people.

I agree. He's thoughtful and he's bright and he's smart and I don't care what party he is. He's an addition to the government. So my thing is I think we have good people there now. Look, Mark Carney is there now and he's only been there for your Tim Hodgson. I have a lot of time for Tim, is administered natural resources. He wasn't there in the last 10 years, but he's there now. So my hope is that, and again, I keep thinking, you know, as a Canadian, I don't really care what part of they are. But my hope is that we're seeing a fair number of these bright, thoughtful, capable, experienced people now in government. And I'm hoping that they actually help turn things around. So that's a positive spin on a very thoughtful question.

But Tony, I think the questioner's feeling a disconnect here because what he heard in that interview was a really smart, thoughtful, intelligent guy. And yet, you know, he watches the news clearly. He's an engaged citizen. And he sees so much that he doesn't like. And he's wondering how you can. And I know this is all of our experiences here. When you talk to people individually, you see a whole lot more, you know, interesting,

thoughtful people with integrity there. But, you know, in many occasions who don't get a chance to display that because the rules of politics just somehow don't permit it. What do we do about that? Here I am just emphasizing the problem rather than coming to a solution. But I think it's gotten a thousand times worse with social media. And the desire, the urge, the addiction to get that clip that's going to go viral as a politician. That's what gives you a rush of adrenaline as a politician when, you know,

a thousand or 500,000 people have viewed your, your shaking of fist and what have you. So that's, I think, part of the problem because that although gives you an audience, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're coming, we're arriving at solutions. And, you know, today, you know, how many people are interested in solutions? You know, our writer is. but why don't we punish politicians who don't arrive at solutions? I think we're really at an existential point in our democracy here in Canada where, you know, it's been, you know, if I may say about Mr. Trudeau,

he was very good at communicating, feel good announcements. The actual delivering on those announcements, may I say, not so good. And so I guess we got through. years of that, but can we get through another few years of that? I don't think so. I actually think that it is an existential threat to the future of this country. So part of me is an agreement with Martha. You know, we need Mark Carney to step up and his caucus and his government to actually get some stuff done on productivity, on infrastructure, on affordability, on meeting our NATO commitments. these are all mission critical now.

They're not just aspirational. We have to actually do it or we're dust. And so, yeah, I mean, I think the writer really nailed it. And we're all going to see together whether something changes. And we'll be back right after this. You've probably noticed something changing at your favorite restaurant. Maybe it's shorter hours, a smaller menu, or longer waits. across Canada, restaurants are struggling to find enough staff, not because they aren't hiring,

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It's called manyhandswork.ca where you can learn more. That's manyhandswork.ca and see the full story. Here's the next one. This one also comes to us from our Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. this is Febrian Boudiman, who writes, in light of Easter Miracle, that is, Gladu's Road to Damascus-like change

of political beliefs, how did Tony and Martha align their strongly held beliefs with being whipped to vote differently or to endorse policy points they fundamentally disagreed with? Martha, how'd you handle that? Well, I wasn't in politics for very long. That might be actually part of the reason. But it's a super important question.

question because I think earlier in this podcast somebody mentioned you know MPs being trained seals man do we see that a lot and there was one vote that I voted for when I did not support it it wasn't you know a huge issue and it wouldn't have made a difference but I felt hugely pressured by people around the leader of the opposition and people around him because they felt that if one vote destroyed a unanimity that it would have all sorts of horrible repercussions. And so I succumbed. It was the first time I'd done and it was the last time I'd done

because I just felt not comfortable doing it. The challenge of a big tent party, which I support, and Tony, we talked about this just a few minutes ago, is that you have to have the ability to lead with people who don't always agree with you. And my view is you have to lead with, like if you can't persuade somebody that your position is the right one, then you're not, maybe your position isn't the right one, right? Like I'm a big believer in debate and leadership by encouraging people to follow as opposed to the, you know, the typical carrots and sticks.

You want to encourage people to understand why you want a vote to happen in a certain way. And there's a real shortage of that. I don't know what's happening now in Ottawa, but there was a real shortage of that before. It's a super question. And look, you know, for somebody like me who didn't need to be in politics, I didn't need it for a job. I didn't need it. It was a lot easier to be able to say, look, I'm going to operate on principle. It's the same.

Steve, we mentioned it ago. I chose not to run in 2015 when I, you know, stood a very good chance of getting elected again because I wasn't comfortable in that space. But that's, you know, I'm fortunate enough to be able to say that. It's easier for somebody like me who has choices. Some others don't have and they get caught. Tony, how'd you handle a situation? Maybe you can give us an example of a situation where you either did or didn't vote against your party, but you might have wanted to. What was the Sir John A quote? It's one thing to support me when I'm right, but I know. need you to support me when I'm wrong, you know, and that this is sickly the issue.

It was a lot. My issues were more out of cabinet decisions, actually, where, you know, we were going in a direction I was not too fond of for whatever reason. But we had this big debate in cabinet. It always was, under Mr. Harper, a big debate. He didn't crush debate in cabinet at all. and I, you know, on a few of these battles, which I cannot name, unfortunately, you know, I was on the losing side of a particular point of view and I, you know, it would bother me.

But, you know, I was part of a team and you're either part of a team or not part of a team. And I had the opportunity and other issues, it would be in caucus, but I'm talking about cabinet issues where I would be able to put my point of view in front of my cabinet. colleagues and in front of the prime minister in a small room. And I had the, you know, the, the, the, the, the joy of having that position that, you know, people would give their eye teeth for to be in a cabinet room to help make a cabinet decision. So, yeah, I mean, there were, there were a few times. I'm not saying there were a lot of times, but a few times where I was not comfortable with a decision, but we had argued it out. I'd come on the losing end of a particular,

point of view and that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Do you ever come close to resigning on a point of principle? I can't say that I did. No, no. The human brain is very good at rationalizing, Steve. I got you. And we'll be back right after this. Okay, this one's from Rod Philpott, who got to us on Facebook and says, first, it was wonderful meeting you this weekend. And thanks for straightening my Canadian flagpin. Rod, you're welcome. Yes, I did bump into you at the liberal convention in Montreal, and you're welcome. I wanted you to look like a mensch, so there we go.

Here's the question. The Carney Liberal government is, I feel safe to say, much more economically focused than his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. The most recent recovering conservative to cross the floor, Ms. Gladou, suggests the big tent has opened a lot more on the right side. I was curious as to your collective thoughts on how, or even if this may affect a further departure from the Liberal Party's previous course under Mr. Trudeau. Martha, what do you say?

What do you say besides? I certainly hope so. I want to be a slightly more nuanced because I do struggle with the concept of right and left and I don't feel that I don't like the term centrist because that sounds a bit mushy. On a personal level, I feel very strongly about economic issues, business issues, productivity, you know, what we need, the military. I have felt that way for many, many years.

But on the other hand, I'm very proud to be part of a party that has a history of being okay with same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana, you know, pursuing made, although they didn't go as far as the Supreme Court did. But there you go. So on social issues, I feel very strongly one way. And on economic issues, I feel very strongly another way. It doesn't mean I'm in the middle. It means that there are a variety of issues facing our society. and, you know, some of us have very strong views about how to address them. And they don't necessarily fit neatly into a color or a party.

And Ms. Gladu is known for some pretty significant, more social conservative views. I frankly am not very familiar with her economic views. I think it's easier for us to have debates about economics. I don't think there's anybody in the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, that would disagree for the need to us, for us to achieve economic prosperity. We're going to disagree on how. We're going to disagree on the logistics.

It is a lot harder when you have entrenched positions on emotional issues. And that's where we find the social conservatism versus the social progressive views more challenging. And so to bring in more economically conservative, you know, oriented MPs. I totally get that. I think that's easier to manage. I think it will be harder to manage on the social issues because those are just harder

to deal with and represent a bigger divide, frankly, between the two parties. I'm so anxious to hear Tony's views on this. The interesting thing about it, Tony, is that you wonder whether the four conservatives who've come over to the liberals might have an impact on the party, you know, the bigger parties thinking. But on the other hand, there's two former New Democrats who just came over as well. Yeah. You know, one of them Lori Iddle out who walked the floor. And the second one, Dolly Begham, who of course was a new Democrat deputy leader in Ontario who decided to leave that party and run federally for the liberals. So you do wonder how all this is going to work itself

out in the wash. What can you tell us on that? I wonder too. And I think there are many liberals that you probably encountered the convention that we're wondering as well. So I don't have a crystal ball on that. All I know is that, you know, it helps to be in government. Let's put it that way. I mean, there's very few floor crossers who go from government to opposition, although we had one, Leona Alislev, in our time. But that's pretty rare to go from government to opposition. It's a lot more common to go from opposition to government as a floor crosser. But No, I think that this kind of discussion, you know, you have to look at it from the point of view of the general electorate. You know, all of this stuff, no offense to anybody, but it is a little bit of indoor baseball, you know.

And the ultimately, one or two or three years from now when we next go to the polls, it'll be on the larger issues. And Mr. Carney, again, has an opportunity to write his own story about how he talks about generational challenges. They all do. You know, my litmus test personally is going to be the Western pipeline. Does that ever get off the ground? Or is that just a grand gesture leading nowhere? It'll never happen. It's too many bureaucratic.

things pulling it down and making it a non-starter. You know, what does Mr. Carney do if he believes something is the right thing to do, but it's an unpopular decision? That's the real litmus test. That's the Brian Mulrooney test on the GST, right? That's the test of leadership. Not everything. All you're doing is catering to what is popular.

That's one style of being prime minister, I suppose. but when I look back at Mulroney and even Mr. Kretchen, they didn't always do that. Mr. Kretchen, brutally, harshly balanced the budget. And we should all thank him for that. We should all thank him for that. So that to me is the real test. We haven't got to that point yet,

but we will. There will be something coming along in the next little while where Mr. Carney has to make a decision, where he knows it's the right thing to do, may not be the most popular thing to do. We'll see what happens then. Okay. We got one more that we want to get in here,

and that's from Philip Bird, who got to us again on Facebook, and his question is, what happened to progressive conservatives? It seems like they've all left the party after Peter McKay merged with the alliance. Now, the question here, I'm wondering whether I should let Martha have the first kick at this

and let Tony stew, or it's so obviously a question with Tony's name on it and that he's going to be champing the bit to get out of day. Okay, Tony, you go ahead. You go first. Where have all the progressive conservatives in the Conservative Party of Canada gone? Well, Steve, I have this theory, and it actually has to do with Mike Harris. You remember him. He was a premier of Ontario 30 years ago. And people would ask me at the time, I was an elected representative, but even before

I was in Mike Harris's office, you know, Mike isn't really a Davis conservative, is he? And I, and I would reply, you know, if Bill Davis were premier right now, he would be doing exactly the same thing as Mike Harris. That's my line and I'm sticking to it. We can argue about it. But I think that the times dictate what your policies are going to be. And, you know, the 70s and 80s, yeah, there was progressive conservatism. I get that at the time.

but I actually do believe that the times now dictate a different kind of conservatism. And that's the beauty of conservatism in a sense that it picks up from the grassroots or the people themselves. What style of conservatism should be advanced for the solutions of today? Because when you look at Burkean conservatism, you know, one of our roots, Edmund Burke, the whole point was that conservatism was all about taking human beings as they are, not trying to create new human beings like the Bolsheviks did, the new Soviet human being. We never had confidence as conservatives that human beings could be molded and melded. No, our view is this is human nature.

This is how it is. We've got to create an economic and political system that takes that into account. and that that's what free market capitalism is to me. It's a recognition that human behavior means that you've got to allow individual choices to be made in the marketplace rather than top-down decisions made by a socialist government. So my view is, yeah, we're progressive conservatives. We're conservatives. We're libertarian conservatives.

We're social conservatives. We're all kinds of conservatives. But the kind of conservatism we need now is what the conservative part. party should stand for. Martha, when I ask you to weigh in on this where what happened to all the progressive conservatives, I know some people out there are arguing, well, he's a prime minister of the country right now. What do you mean where have they all gone?

Well, and I would say, I think I fall into that category, you know, whether we're blue liberals or red Tories. I go back. I hope that, I think if Philip is the person who asked the question, I hope he was listening to the answer to the question just before because of the conversation. about frustration with left and right, but the combination of economic and business orientation market support and progressive social issues, I think is actually where so many of us are. And I will say for the first time in 20 years, it feels as though there's a government that

is actually representative of that. You know, I don't think that the Harper government wasn't necessarily, Tony, don't take this the wrong way. I'm definitely much more of the last 10 years. The last 10 years were, you know, really bad from an economic perspective. But there are many, many, many of us who have felt for many years, you know, the line we've used is, where's the purple party? You know, John Manley and I did an op-ed a few years ago, basically with that as a headline, the combination of red and blue defined that piece that took us forward.

I absolutely do think. I think right now we have pragmatic people running our government who understand the challenges facing individuals, understand the economic challenges, but also understand the economic challenges of the country as a whole and that they can't be separated. I will just say, Tony, I totally with you in terms of that libertarian, you don't want that top down. But there are an awful lot of people who object to the top saying, you know, women don't have a right to choose. An awful lot of people who object from, you know, people at the top saying, you know, two people can't get married or can't be together. I mean, it used to be illegal for God's sake. Then it, you know, those are the questions of yesterday.

There has been a long history of people telling people how to behave. Sure. I agree. And to your point of accepting how people are, let's, I think it's important that we accept how people are and there's sort of a different. I agree with you. I would just say two things. You know, number one, it's hard for me to conceive that a progressive conservative prime minister would have an $80 billion deficit. But that, that's just me. But, you know. And times are what they are now, too. That's a different, we have different drivers. I guess that, I guess that would be there reply to that. But, no, I, I, I guess that would be there reply to that. But, no, I, I, I, I, And look, I think that, you know, Martha made some very good points as well. And I just think that you've made the point, Martha, many times that labels, you know, what do they really mean nowadays? And I think that that's another answer to the question.

What is progressive conservative in the year 2016? I honestly don't know. I don't know what that means now. So we have a new set of problems requiring a new set of solutions. And I'm a big fan of pragmatism. when it comes to solving those problems. And by that, I mean, looking at the world, as Mark Carney has said, as we find it, rather than as we aspire it to be. I agree with Mark Carney on that. I may disagree with his solutions, but I think that is exactly the point where there is a nexus between conservatives and liberals. I've lived long enough to hear Tony Clements say, I agree with Mark Carney on that. And I'm running with that and closing off this show now. I want to thank you, too, for doing. this program. You know, we, um, we do like to end each regular episode of everything political with a

letter from or an email from one of our viewers or listeners. Um, but this one, uh, you know, we've had so many come in that we wanted to give, uh, a whole show over to this. So thanks for playing along. We also like to remind people that if they want to support what we're doing, go to patreon.com forward slash the pagan podcast. And I'm only going to mention one name on this episode of somebody who's chosen to support this podcast. Let me just check my script. here, make sure I get the name right. Martha Paul Finley. Oh, there we go.

Yes. Yes, I know this person. And we're grateful for her support. I've been meaning to do this right from the beginning, finally. We are grateful for her support. Can I just say, as a plug, Steve, one of the reasons I joined was not just because, the obvious. Steve Paken has been doing some amazing one-on-one interviews that you might not necessarily have access to. so it was a real driver.

They said, why are you doing this? Why are you becoming a member? And one of the reasons was because he's been doing some, like I want access to some of the content. So if I, in my humble way, can encourage others to join, there you go. I could not have said that better. Thank you, Martha. That was very nice of you.

A reminder, all of our shows are archived at stevepaken.com. And we always end every show by wishing two important things for this world and for on behalf of the you got a tony you got the fingers up and so does martha ready to go already peace and love everybody we'll see you next time