The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Why Canadian Voters Are Split Between a Disruptor or a “Daddy”

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, joins the Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement to discuss how Canadian voters are split between wanting a disruptor that will change things versus a reassuring and calming father figure and how that split played out in the last election. Then, a look at the looming federal budget, if Carney has properly prepared Canadians for what is to come, and Pierre Poilievre at the Blue Jays game. Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBEhttps://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastTWITTERx.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAMinstagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKYbsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social

Martha, you want to know something cool? Yes. One of us, I'm not saying who, but one of us apparently had a meeting recently with a former cabinet secretary from the United States of America. Now, who would that be exactly? Wasn't me. Tony? Yeah, Tony.

Tony, who did you meet? I had a minor conversation with Pete Buttigieg, of course. Oh. Pete Buttigieg? Yeah. Okay. How did that go? It went very well.

I was invited as the sole conservative to be. at the Canada 2020 Pete Buttigieg dinner in Ottawa. Buddha judge had finished his meal. And so we just started up a conversation. I said, by the way, I'm a conservative. That's how I kind of started it. He was surprised. He said, you're here at this event?

And I said, yeah, sure I am. Well, that would never happen in America. And I said, well, maybe that's a little bit of a difference. You know, I can go to liberal events. Liberals can go to conservative events. It's not such a big. big deal. So did you ask him if he's going to run for president next time? He did not say no. Let's put it that way. A lot of his content at this event was here's all the people we lost and we have to get

those people back. And so he's definitely running as a kind of a centrist, I would say. And it'll be interesting to see whether the Democratic Party still embraces centrists at this particular juncture. It will indeed. Well, I think that's my cue to say. It's time to talk about everything political. Everything Political, presented by the Canadian Bankers Association. Delighted to welcome back, Martha Hall-Finley and Tony Clement, the ex-members of Parliament, and this week a special guest. David Colletto is the founder, chair, and CEO of Abacus Data, one of the finer polling outfits in this country. And David, it's really good to see you again.

How you doing today? I'm great, Steve. Great to see you. Thanks for having me here. Not at all. I really wanted to get you on this program because you wrote something recently. I think you did an op-ed in one of the newspapers in which you laid out, I think one of the clearest statements I've ever seen about the nature of politics in Canada today. And I'll just read you one line from your piece and then get you to amplify on that.

You wrote, I think the politics of reassurance versus disruption remain the central fault line in Canadian politics. So talk to us more about that if you would. did you come to that conclusion? Well, it starts with what we are seeing basically at the end of last year in the beginning of this year, what we shift in mindset in the public, right? We're for the last number of years prior to Trump getting elected in November, scarcity was really the mindset of most people. They thought the things they needed in their life were too expensive, harder to get. And if they had them, they were they were going to lose them. Inflation, rising interest rates, housing crisis, you name it. This was the overriding view. And people wanted relief from them.

They wanted actually disruption. They wanted somebody to deliver all of those things with less friction than they were feeling. Donald Trump comes along and shifts that mindset because not only did he threaten at times the very existence of the country, but he upended what most people, including those particularly over the age of 45, who have come to known a world that was ordered a certain way to shift their mindset to what we describe as precarity. And so, you know, Mark Carney comes along at the right time when that mindset was shifting. And I think what we see right now is a public who looks around and says, look, I don't know, I can't predict five years, let alone five days. Because at any given moment, there's going to be a new crisis, a new challenge that is going to make predicting the future, which is always difficult.

And it's never been easy, but even more difficult. That uncertainty of the moment means that I think we're looking at. for stability. We're looking for reassurance. And so when I look at politics in Canada today, I think you can make the same assessment of politics in the United States in the UK right now, in many other countries. There are these almost splits in, and I argue those who kind of have something to lose are looking for somebody to protect them from losing it. And those who have nothing to lose. They can't buy a home. They've worried it. You know, their job prospects look very weak. They want a disruptor. They want somebody to break some stuff to get ahead. And so I argued in my column

that Mark Carney right now best, you know, represents that stability, reassurance frame. And Pierre Polyev is disruptor in chief. And he hasn't really changed that tone or that approach since the election. Okay, Martha, as a frame around which to put politics today in the country, how does that sound to you? I think that makes an awful lot of sense. We saw that in the election. We saw the concerns about Trump.

We saw people actually, it was almost palpable, like actively, I just need somebody who can be dad, right? Or mom, but in this case, dad. is Mark's a guy. But I really do think so how you describe it, reassurance, comfort, protection. Oh, it was, and especially just even in the last, you know, the three weeks of the campaign, I think there was a little bit of the disruptors wanting to come back a little bit. Like I think it did, and David, you would know this better, but I think that the numbers went like that and then kind of did this a little bit. So who knows how long it would.

have taken for the disruptors maybe to have taken over. But I think that's a great description of the, of what we're seeing. Tony, what say you? Especially for Canada. I'm not, I'm not sure I would translate that to what's happening in the United States, not yet. But that's certainly how I would have, I think, felt it in Canada. Tony. Yeah, what David described as what I saw with my own during the election campaign, as I think I've mentioned on this program, I worked in 15 different ridings across Ontario. And sure, you know, it was one of these things where if the person who answered the door at the doorstep was over 55, it was game over. I knew that we would not have a realistic chance of getting their support unless they were a stalwart or something.

But, you know, under 45, really, really good response. And, you know, people who want, wanted change, that they saw this as a change election, and they didn't want the status quo. So that that accords. And of course, we know that Pierre Pollyette did very well with 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 and even pretty well with 35 to 55. But after that, it was it was not very good for the concerted party. So all of which to say, I think David's on the right track. It's going to be very interesting, though, because Mark Carney now has.

promised something which may not be possible. Which is what? I promise you stability. We live in an unstable world, folks. Inside Canada, outside Canada, on our continent, outside our continent, to deliver on stability. That's a pretty high mark for Mark Carney to reach. So the proof is going to be in the pudding. He's the guy in charge.

He won the election fair and square. Let's see some results. Where are the results? As we're recording this, as we know, Mr. Carney's in Washington, D.C. So this will be interesting to see how that goes. But that's only a small part of a wider issue. And even a wider frame than that,

it's not only Canada-U.S. issues, which is what a lot of the folks who are concerned about precarity are concerned about. But even if that were solved tomorrow, everything's solved with the United States. We have some very deep-seated problems in this country, folks, in terms of the productivity, in terms of cost of living, in terms of our GDP per capita tanking, in terms of housing costs, grocery costs. These are not going to disappear if Donald Trump loves us.

And so that's going to be the longer-term issue frame. for Pierre Pollyev to make up some more ground. Well, just before I go back to David, let me fire off a statistic I heard, which is that over the last several decades, Canadians have fallen behind in terms of income by about 30%. So if you want to know why so many Canadians can't afford a house today, it's because their income has not kept up with the price of housing. And, you know, whether you bring the price of homes down or you bring the income levels up,

something's got to give there if we're going to get this next generation in. But David, you know, I look back at the, results of the last election that took place earlier this year. And Mark Carney came in with, what, about 43% of the total vote, and Pierre Poliev got 41.5% of the total vote. I mean, that's a pretty, that's a pretty even split. So would you suggest that we're still sort of trying to figure out in the country right now, whether we want more reassurance or more disruption? Because we seem almost evenly split between those two options right now. Yeah, and I think, I mean, my argument is we are split between those two frames.

and that's why the election was as close as it actually was. And, you know, Tony, you outlined the generational kind of dynamic here, which is if you are, one of the biggest swings in the election was those 55 plus, particularly men, which, you know, Aaron O'Toole in the previous federal election won by 26 points, the Conservatives lost them by six in our, you know, post-election survey. So that's a huge swing of what had been a pretty. reliable demographic for conservatives through, you know, all of Tony's time in Ottawa and beyond. And they left because they had something to lose. They have a home which they've likely

paid off if they own it. They have maybe some investments. And Mark Carney wouldn't have appealed, I think, to them or maybe not as well previously because they weren't asking that question, which was who's going to best protect my investments, the value of my, the value of my home. And so when you look at the split in the electorate, part of it is partisanship. So there's always going to be conservatives and liberals on either side. But we've seen also a realignment. So part of what I think Pierre Polly of was very successful at doing is bringing along people who feel precarious about their jobs, in particular manufacturing, trades, people who felt that the folks in Ottawa who are in power didn't understand them, which is part cultural, but also

So if you don't understand me, you can't protect me. And I wanted somebody who was going to go in there and break down the structures that I think are holding me back. So if you're in the oil and gas sector, why don't I feel like, you know, the federal government was making progress on some big projects or policies? Why do we always feel like we're pushing against a wall? If you're a young person, you know, the number one issue for young people today is either housing or job security. And it felt like basically for six, or seven years that Justin Trudeau kept talking about the issue, but not ever doing anything. And so they really, I think, pure polyb appealed to a different demographic who simply, now, if you'd listen to his rhetoric, it was very clear, you know, there are gatekeepers preventing you from achieving the kind of quality of life, standard of living you've come to expect. I am going to come to Ottawa and basically break stuff, you know, and that's going to make things better for you as opposed to the status quo, which Mark Carney represented in other way. So, you know, it's not, it's not as if everyone was seeking reassurance, but it was sufficient

enough, especially when you went from in December of 2024, Steve, only 12% of Canadians believing that the liberals deserve to be reelected to within a few months than winning the largest share of the vote that I think the liberals have won probably since 1993. And that is, you know, in large part because of that shift in mindset. The old expression, a week is a lifetime in politics was never truer. Martha, come on in. Well, I'm going to take exception to some of that. I mean, I like the framing, the reassurance and the disruption.

But Donald Trump is probably the disruptor in chief, right? And there is no question. I mean, we're waiting to see some, you know, concrete action. But there's no question. Mark Carney is not the same government as the one we had under Justin Trude. And so I think it'll be very interesting to see over the next little while, things have disrupted, right? Things are all, you know, things going to hell in a handbasket right now in terms of economy. Yes, our Canadian economy has been nosediving for quite a long time.

I would say we've actually lost more like a quarter century. It wasn't just the last 10 years. We really haven't built things. We really haven't focused on infrastructure for trade purposes. our productivity numbers have been plummeting. That hasn't just been the last 10 years. So we have some problems in our economy, for sure. I think the disruption that Donald Trump has created is also making people nervous.

And so it'll be interesting to see if the reassurance shifts from reassurance vis-a-vis Donald Trump and that disruption, or whether it goes, we're now actually. looking for reassurance to be able to move forward. I'm not convinced that the idea of I'm worried about my job, I'm worried about whether I can ever buy a house, is going to be solved by more disruption. If I could just- You know, on the other, yeah, David, please. Sorry, we released a poll on Sunday that goes to that point, Martha, and it really shows that the more people believe that Mark Kearney's government is like Justin Trudeau's government,

the less they like them. So among those who say Mark Carney's government's different, and I think that's a good thing, 70% would vote liberal today, right? And so it goes to the point that he was reassuring in part because he wasn't Justin Trudeau. And so this is where we're starting to see his numbers fall because the promise of reassurance

doesn't necessarily yet show the outcomes. And he's going to have, I think, more time I think there is some realism in the public mindset, but if two years from now, people are feeling either worse off or as bad as they feel today, I think they will come to say, well, maybe we do need to break some things. And that's where they will come back to a more disruptive kind of frame. Yeah, I was going to, I was going to chime in and take exception to part of what Martha was taking exception to. How many exceptions are we on now? Anyway, but the point that she made that this is a different government than Trudeau. And, you know, on its face, she's absolutely right.

It's Mark Carney doesn't look like Trudeau, doesn't act like Trudeau. I get that. However, I think Pierre Palliev and his team are at least accumulating some evidence that there is a lot of continuity despite the sheen of change. And it's very interesting in the last couple of weeks in Parliament. I know these are tactical things that most of the universe is not concentrating on. But it is interesting that Pollyev and his team are focusing in on bail reform, crime, our cities are still in chaos. That hasn't changed.

Trudeau promised stuff and it never happened. And here we are with bad people out on parole, sexually assaulting, or murdering people. So that is a pretty good indicator that things haven't changed. That that's something that people can buy into very quickly. So it's not the only thing they're talking about. They're also talking about, you know, saying, you know, that the other parts of the carbon tax have not been repealed. Various legislative pieces are still in place despite the rhetoric on the of the Carney government. So all I'm saying is they are trying to build the case, not for today, not for tomorrow, maybe it is one or two years down the line, that there hasn't been so much

change after all. I was going to actually ask David to speak to what might be the opposite side of the same coin, which is I wonder if the prime minister is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, you know, I think you've made a great case for why he campaigned on reassurance and safety and being, if you like, Prime Minister Dad, to take us through the disruption of Donald Trump. But on the other hand, he's certainly promising disruption as well. He is trying to say we need to do things absolutely differently in this country. We need to go at breakneck speed and do things in a way we didn't do them before. Oh, and incidentally, I'm not like the last guy. So if you want the last guy, I am a complete disruptive comparator to him. Is he trying to have it

both ways in your view? I think it's, I think in some ways. But I also think the tone on which he comes at those doesn't signal as much disruption, right? I think what we, what I see in, in the research I do when you ask people, like, who is Mark Carney? Like, what is he about? He is still very much seen as part of the, quote, ruling class, right? He is, in part, that's why he was hired for the job. People saw him as an expert, an elite. Like, elite wasn't a bad word as it had been for the last four years when it came to Mark Carney. In fact, I think people wanted somebody with a PhD in economics from Oxford, who, you know, had run central banks in two large G7 countries. So, yes, he is, he's talking about disruption, though, from like a technocratic perspective,

which I think is very assuring maybe or reassuring to like bond markets and investors and Bay Street. But I'm not quite sure it's getting down to explaining to Main Street what it's going to mean for them. And I'll give you a perfect example, right? Like the National Projects Office, I have seen research that I've done that shows, yeah, people believe that, you know, if we start to move on these big projects, we're going to see macroeconomic benefits. But there's a lot of skepticism about how that's going to affect their own lives. And I think that's Mark Carney's biggest weakness is his ability to connect the macro to the micro in the same way that Pierre Polly's weakness is connecting the micro, which he's.

he does so well to the macro. And so they're often, and that's where I, again, I see these kind of dueling, almost mirror-like images of leadership styles and communication styles. That means, yes, he may be disruptive at the core, but he doesn't come off as feeling that, which is why I think he'll find limits to his appeal with some audiences. Martha, come on in.

I'd much rather have results than be able to do the micro. Like, to your point, David, you said in a year or two, if people don't see economic results, and they are economic results, right? You know, the economic pores pulls the social cart. If we do not see improvement in investment, if we do not see improvement from, you know, those Wall Street people, those Bay Street people, we will not get those jobs, that job security, those house opportunities for younger people. So I don't care how great you are at micro if you don't actually manage to improve Canada's economy, and it's not just one person, it's how it's leadership, it's how you get people rallied, it's how well Mark Carney can encourage other parties in the house to actually support some of these big things. We're not going to improve our economy if we don't get these big projects, some of these big projects off the ground. We're not going to improve our economy if we don't encourage more investment. that might not actually be the message that you need to give to a 22-year-old

who may not actually connect those dots. But man, I would much rather have those results from a technocrat who can then hopefully build on that from a political perspective than have somebody who is extremely good at connecting with younger people. But frankly, to your point, not so sure about how the macro thing. I mean, we're not going to solve our economic problems by focusing on, and appropriately so, but not, we're not going to solve those problems by focusing on bail, right? Like, that's just not the same thing. So right now, especially given Donald Trump,

my hope is that more and more Canadians will realize we need to get our economic house in order for us, not just for Donald Trump. And I'd rather have a government that was focused on that. That was the follow-up question I was going to ask Tony, which is, can that mission be accomplished? while Donald Trump is trying to tariff everything that moves in this country. Makes it a lot harder. And I agree with Martha that bail reform is not the whole economic picture. I get that. She's quite right about that.

But that's what Pierre can concentrate on now because it's an immediate issue. He's playing the long game, in my view, on the economic indicators. And let's be clear, even now the economic indicators are not turned around. They're still bad. And in some cases, such as capital flight, getting far worse right now as we speak. So there's a big turnaround that has to happen. I agree with Martha on that. And Pierre can afford to wait because we're not an election period right now to see whether those economic indicators do improve,

in which case he's got to change his messaging somehow, or whether they're the same old, same old in which he can say, see, I told you, these guys are. And some of his messaging is, you thought Trudeau was bad? This guy is even worse when it comes to the budget deficit. He's even worse than Trudeau. So you're starting to see that kind of messaging out there too. So, yeah, I think a lot of it turns on something we haven't mentioned yet, which is the budget on November 4th. Is that going to be a change budget? Is it going to be a continuity budget?

If change, what sort of change? Is it real change? Or is it just jiggery, pokery, and how the numbers are presented? All of these things are going to really tell the tale on Mark Carney and the economic future of the country. You have very nicely dovetailed or allowed me to segue into exactly what I wanted to get to next, Tony, which is, and David, I don't know if you've got some numbers to share on this or maybe just some observations on it. This budget coming up in less than a month is supposed to be a big time, heavy hitting, hard budget, right? We know that the prime minister has asked his departments to find significant savings within the departments. We have been told that this is a budget that is going to make significant steps towards getting the operational side of government more into balance, not the capital investment, but the operational side more into balance.

And the complaint that I have heard from people who watch this kind of stuff and may know something about it is that the prime minister has not done, and this is from liberals as well as conservatives. the prime minister has not done an adequate job yet in stealing Canadians for what is to come. David, what can you tell us on that? Well, I want to agree, based on my observation, that the government hasn't yet, if it will, found a cadence and how to communicate what it's trying to do and socializing the public. Although there's been our research, we asked some questions a few weeks ago to understand, like, has the public been primed? and in some cases they have, but I think on the deficit and how big that number and what that

number means to people, I think remains to be seen. Like I got a maybe an unorthodox theory on how this all plays out, though, because I wrote a piece on my substack where I argued that a really large deficit, let's say it's 90, 100 billion people have thrown that number out maybe too often, sets up a conversation back to where we started, Steve, around reassurance versus risk or disruption and that if it is a huge number and Mark Carney can find a way to demonstrate, I've made some savings, I've found some ways of pulling back that operational spending. He's going to have to make that very clear to people so they don't feel like it's the same government that it was. I think he can debate Pierre

Pauliev around who do you trust more to get us back to balance without hurting you? because I think there's a risk for Polly. I call it this trap where if he creates and in part, and thanks to the parliamentary budget officer and a bunch of other people, a real crisis around the deficit. Then the question actually changes for voters. Who do I trust to get us back to balance,

but do it in a way that doesn't break the things I want reassurance around? So I'm not convinced that a huge deficit number, maybe immediately is bad news, but longer term, plays into Mark Carney's strengths in a way that Donald Trump did. Like, it's just a different crisis requiring somebody who, when put against each other, people still say, and we asked the question during the election, who would you rather manage your household finances? You know, Mark Carney would win that over Pierpoli back then by eight or nine points. And I think that's a signal about also who people might trust to manage the country's finances. Martha, what about that issue?

of whether or not the Prime Minister is adequately prepared or primed Canadians for what is expected to be a really tough budget in November? Yeah, I agree with David again. I don't think, I think the Prime Minister has primed, and the people around him and other people in the policy world, yours truly. I mean, many of us have been saying we need to do things differently in this country. We do need to actually spend money. We need to spend money on national defense,

on national security. We need to spend money in terms of trade infrastructure, major projects. Those things will actually take money. And I think there has been a fair bit of conversation in the country about those needs. And so the fact that we're going to have a big budget is probably not going to come as a surprise. And I think that's where Mark Kearney will probably work it, right? Because on the other hand, somebody will say a year from now, well, we just, you know, went into so much more debt. That was all Mark Kearney's fault. But I think he actually has some really good reasons for that. He has a lot that he can build on to say, we had no choice. These were real investments in the future of the country.

They're not in, they're not more spending in operations. They're investments in hard infrastructure, in the things that we actually need to do to improve our economy. And then I think David has a really good point. If Mark Carney can avoid that you're the one who got us into this massive debt, why should we trust you? The answer would be that was actually on purpose because we needed to do that as a country. Now we're starting to reap the benefits. And yes, you need somebody capable on the numbers side to be able to then take us forward.

Tony, me? A little, I think a lot will depend on how that the next number of months are characterized, for sure. Right. And that's where the micro capability or the lack thereof in the current Carney government, but they're also pretty new. And I think it won't take them long to realize or to learn how to actually end up in that communication with Canadians at large. Tony, I wonder if I could get you to sort of look through your historic lens on this, because you, of course, were part of the cabinet during what was known as the Great Recession.

back in 2008 and those years immediately after that. So I'm sure you were part of a budget-making exercise, which had to prepare Canadians for some very devastating news. As you compare what you sort of went through back then to what you're seeing from the liberal government of Canada today, what are you seeing? Well, the first part of it was in the 2008 economic crisis, debt crisis, and then the great recession that followed.

There was a lot of government spending by all governments around the world, including Stephen Harper as prime minister to keep the pump primed so that our banking system didn't seize up and it would have been a full-blown depression. So I think that was the right call and people trusted Mr. Harper and Jim Flaherty, the finance minister, to make the right decisions, which I think they did do. And then part two came after 2011 when I was tasked as the Treasury Board president, president to help get us back into surplus, budgetary surplus for the government of Canada. And that was a four-year process, which ultimately was successful.

But again, we face the issue that David was talking about, you know, how do you communicate that as a conservative government where people think we're mean and nasty people who delight in shopping jobs and cutting programs. And so the decision was made then not to communicate at all. And so I did all of this cutting without nary a press release and said, it'll be in the public accounts, folks. You'll get to see it. Don't worry. So that was the decision. That was above my pay grade. Let's just put it that way to make that decision. But yeah, that's kind of how we handled it as conservatives because, you know, the big, the big knock on conservatives is you're mean and nasty, right? That's always the take on us. The big knock on liberals, of course,

is that they're entitled to their entitlements. But regardless of that, so that's how we handled it, you know, two-stage dealing with the Great Recession and then coming back to balance. With Mr. Carney, if I can just make this one point, yeah, I mean, again, the number The numbers don't lie. The budget will be the budget. The public accounts will be the public accounts. But the messaging, as Martha was mentioning, it's all over the map now, guys. Like, there is no consistent messaging prepping people, as you said, Steve. You know, let's take one example. Just take one example, which is on the numbers of public servants in the system, which grew by 40%, you know, just before COVID and then during COVID and after COVID. he said, no, it's got to be scaled back. And then there was a big flutter in Ottawa, I'm sure in his writing as well. And then he said, oh, no, no, it's only going to be through attrition. Well, it can't be. Trust me, as former president of the Treasury Board, it can't be just through attrition. You can't get there through attrition? You can make some of the cuts you need

through attrition, but you need to review programs. And if those programs are not fit for purpose anymore, they are no longer a program. And that will have an impact on your FTEs. That's the only way FTEs of full time equivalence, like, you know, bodies in government. People, otherwise known as people. People. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I know you're making a point that I don't think they're people, but I can assure you I do. And so, so yeah, I think all I'm saying is it's going to be difficult. It's going to be more difficult than they're communicating is what I'm trying to see. And it doesn't hurt that the prime minister represents Nipian, which has a lot of federal public servants in his riding. So I don't know if we've had a prime minister from the national capital region in a long

time who's intending to cut a lot of jobs in his own riding. It's going to be interesting. No, but we had so, but we did have, he wasn't prime minister, but he, but John Manley is an Ottawa, was an Ottawa MP. And he was very much a part of the government with Great Chan and Jean-Critian and Paul Martin that did what Tony is describing the Conservative Party did in the 2000s after 2008. But that liberal government also was extremely successful in cutting, which was pretty hard and nasty, Tony. Absolutely. But really interestingly enough, because it had been messaged, I think, so importantly, this country was in deep economic trouble by 1993. that people actually wanted to do you have this reassurance or or disruption um john manley got

they all got elected again right they all got reelected after taking some pretty pretty tough measures i mean you know manley and mcclellan mcclellan will tell you they lost like 50% of their departments right that doesn't happen by attrition they were very tough and so i'm with tony it's not going to happen by attrition. But if it's messaged properly and people understand why it's happening, the Canadian public re-elected that gang after taking some really tough measures. That's a fair point. But it all comes back to Steve's question.

Are people prepped for this? Because if they're not prepped for this, it's going to be very difficult. If I could just add one more other, I think, key context point, though, is both Tony, you are under a majority government when you make. made those changes. And so was the liberal government in the early 90s. And so the runway you have before you have to face that electorate. And I think Mark Carney is going to want an election earlier rather than later means it's just hard politics all around on this. Fair point. And in fact, I was going to ask, but maybe I'll leave it for a future episode as

we get closer to budget day because the prime minister, he does need a partner in parliament to get this budget passed. And I do wonder at this moment who that's going to be or which three opposition members are going to come down with the flu on budget day and therefore not vote to bring the government down. But I'll leave that for another day. I want to do one more thing. And I won't pretend for a second that this is the most important issue facing the country today. But it is an unusual. It was an unusual moment on social media. And I'm just kind of curious to get you folks to comment about this. Pierre Pauliev and his family went to see the Blue Jays on. the weekend.

Right. And they posted pictures on social media about their experience at the Skydome. Sorry, Roger Center. Skydome. At the Skydome. Okay. Yeah, it's always going to be the Skydome for me. I agree with you.

Tony, what do we think of that? I noticed it in real time as I was watching the Jay's game from my sofa. And I thought he did it really, really well. So it was clear he was in the nosebleed. section. He wasn't in some corporate box surrounded by potentates of Toronto. And there was a lineup of people to get their photo taken with him at the 500 level where he was. And yeah, he posted it. He was there with his family. He had the Jay's jersey on and the Jay's ball cap. I thought it was an 11 out of 10. Martha? How can you not? Right? I mean, I, for

all the reasons that Tony just said, but I will also say you have to be careful about assuming that being in the nosebleeds and, you know, that that's somebody, somehow every person's person. Because at the same time, Mark Carney was over in the United Kingdom. He and Prime Minister Starmour exchanged rugby jerseys, right, to watch the women's final. And he gets criticized for traveling abroad. And so I just, I love, I love the Pierre Poyev and his family and the nosebleed section. That's great. But I also think it's really great that the prime minister is, in fact, engaging in these relationships with the leaders of other countries. Those relationships are hugely important, especially with Donald Trump to the south of us. And being able to do it at a

Women's rugby match, like, I think it's also really important that people be positive about that. It's different, but I think they're both really, really important and really valuable for the Canadian people. And actually, in that case, the, you know, the Brits to also see the Canadian prime minister, the two prime ministers engaging. I would say kudos to both. Yeah, sure. I don't disagree with anything Martha said, but I would just add one other caveat for P.R. it all worked for him because the Jays won. Well, that always helps.

No, if he was there and the Jays lost, believe me, there would be a narrative. What are you doing at the game? You're a bad omen. Stay away. Seriously. Yeah, you're probably right about that sign of the times. Yeah, David, again, I don't know if you've got polling numbers on this, but I mean, these things, as Tony points out, could go either way.

You know, on the one hand, people could say, oh, isn't that nice? He's out there with his family, is enjoying a day at the game. he's sitting up in the nosebleeds, so, you know, not with the corporate muckety mucks. But on the other hand, you know, he could also run into criticism that, oh, look at you exploiting your attempt to be like everybody else. I don't know. How do these things tend to play? I mean, I think anytime you can show the world a part of you that they wouldn't

otherwise see is not a bad thing, especially if it's like a feel-good moment where the whole country is kind of rallying around the Js right now. So I think he handled it exactly as he should have if he was going to go to the game, sit in those seats. And look, like, I'm sure everybody who has a smartphone in that stadium took a picture of themselves there and shared it with their network. So he did what almost everybody did because I had like five friends there and they all did the exact same thing. So it's when it feels inauthentic and kind of fake that people kind of notice it. And in this case, I think he didn't. I think it was a genuine, like, kind of selfie picture with his kids and his wife.

So it was good. And the Jays did win. So everything was right with the world that day. Okay. Let's wave a little tradition here on this program in which we give a good on you to people who did something in public life this past couple of weeks that we think, all right. Yeah, we're happy to see that. Good on you for doing so. Martha Hall-Finley, start us off.

Who's your good on you this week? Well, I actually had to do a bit of looking around because I don't know that we've had a whole lot of that in Canada the last couple weeks. But there was an incident in Virginia where some texts from a few years ago, and I'm not going to say the who, the who, and certainly not what the texts said, because they were pretty awful. But in the age of hardcore Democrat versus Republican, we're dealing with a lot of violence, enough to say that the text suggested approval of significant violence toward a Republican. One of the target of the text, one of his Democratic colleagues, so all of the target of the text, one of his Democratic colleagues, So opposite sides, right, went out of his way to say, while we don't share the same political views, I consider, and I won't say that a friend and an honorable person.

I'm not including the names because the texts involved were pretty awful. And at a time when we're really worried about, you know, people condoning violence. But I just was really struck by how long it's been. Because we used to have this. Steve, you and I, you know, we've seen this happen. But it was, while we don't share the same political views, I consider this person a friend and an honorable person. We hear that so rarely now between, you know, from one party to the other. I just, it stuck out for me.

And so I just thought, you know what? Even if we're not naming the names, it's worth it to make the point that somewhere, some places we're still seeing that kind of. support and respect across party line. Good stuff. Tony, who gets your good on you this week? So similar to Martha, I just want to start out by saying we lost a great man last week, Nigel Wright. A friend of mine for 45 years, a colleague of mine when he was in the PMO and I was a cabinet minister and a friend of mine after that period to set to an extent, but to the extent. extent that I actually saw him in London a couple of months ago.

So everybody was feeling, I mean, it really hit hard a lot of people. But there was bipartisan, you know, coming from Mark Carney, coming from his chief of staff, acknowledgement that Nigel was a brilliant, driven, consequential Canadian in Canadian politics. And I think that was, that is as it should be. and I'm sure was much appreciated by Nigel's friends and family. Tony, I don't know if this is, well, I'm just going to ask, I have not yet heard what the cause of death was for what seemed like a perfectly healthy

in great shape, 60-something-year-old man. Do we know yet? I don't know. When I saw him July 30th, I think, is when I saw him on July 31st. he looked at as usual in the peak of health uh you know this is a guy who runs i don't know how many miles at 530 in the morning not an ounce of fat on him no no and he looked exactly as you remember him i'm sure steve um so i'm i'm mystified yeah okay rest in peace Nigel david you got a good on you for us so i am a fan of multi-party politics and so my good on you is to Rob Ashton, who is one of the newest entrance to the NDP leadership race. And he did a really interesting podcast with a competing podcast of yours, Steve, with Altheiraj.

And he's a labor union leader from BC. And, you know, given everything we talked about today, he is firmly in the disruptive camp. And I just think, you know, he said something on this podcast. he's like, I'm going to wear my work boots into the House of Commons and you might hear them hit the wood sometimes. And it was a refreshing, it was a refreshing take. And so, you know, good on, good on him for getting in the race. And I think my sense is he's giving some life to that race, which that party desperately, desperately needs right now. That is the case. Okay, thanks for that. I don't normally join you folks for a good on you,

but I think this, I think this week calls for an exception to my normal rule here. And that is, you know, one of the great parliamentarians that I suspect all of us around here knew was a guy named Jim Bradley from St. Catharines, Ontario. And Jim died from medical assistance in dying at age 80 a couple of weeks ago. And his funeral was in St. Catharines this past Saturday. And lots of people went from all political parties. And it was a great reminder about how much Jim was able to be a great politician at the Ontario legislature. for 41 straight years. He is the second longest serving MPP of all time in public life for 55 years in total because

he started a municipal, he lost in the 2018 Ontario election, and then he returned to municipal politics as the chair of Niagara region. And he had a really wonderful career. And the fact that we saw Tories, new Democrats, and liberals, he was a liberal MPP. The fact that we saw people from across the political spectrum show up at that funeral was a great thing. And I'll give a little special good Anya to Premier Doug Ford, who showed up at the visitation the day before and saw members of Jim Bradley's family. So a lot of good on you is to give out there. And another RIP, rest in peace, to James Joseph Bradley, the best

environment minister, Ontario ever saw and a really super guy. Well, I was environment minister for nine months. So, but that doesn't. You weren't as good as him. No, apparently not. No, you weren't. Sorry. All right. Let's thank David Coletto for joining us from Aviccastata. David, really appreciate your contributions to the podcast this week. Tony and Martha, as always great to see you. If you have comments, we're at the Paken Podcast at gmail.com. That's the Paken Podcast at gmail.com.

And until next time, peace and love, everybody. Thanks so much. Great to see you, David. Thank you all. Thank you.