The Paul Wells Show - The Panel: Jason First - For a Change

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Campaign Week 1, featuring an assist from Danielle Smith   The original Conservative on our Panel, the great Garry Keller, won his nomination battle in Nipissing—Timiskaming. Now he’s off trying to get elected to Parliament. (Note to readers who worry that this corner might be endorsing somebody: Please vote for whoever you want!) So, in a move reminiscent of Season 2 of Bewitched, we’ve got a new Darrin: Say hi to Jason Lietaer, the veteran of Harper-era campaign tours who is now President of Enterprise Canada.   We’ve got a lot to talk about, because this is the first of five (or six) weekly Panels as we follow the election campaign. Joining Jason are our Panel veterans, Allison Gifford of Clear Strategy and Marci Surkes of Compass Rose. On the menu: ballot-question framing, campaign performance, and Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s decision to tell Breitbart News that Pierre Poilievre would get along much better with Donald Trump.

Hi panel. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. Pleasure to be back. Hey Paul. Uh, I know for a fact, sir, that you are not Gary Keller. Um, so since we joined last week, Gary Keller, uh, who used to be in that corner, got himself nominated as the conservative candidate for Nipissing to Miskaming.

And so I want everyone to welcome Jason Leder, who is the new conservative on our panel. Jason is the president of Enterprise Canada, but don't send him complaints about your rental car. It's a different Enterprise Canada Jason Thanks for joining us. Yeah. Thanks for having me. And yeah, you know, I'm not Gary because I'm not you know traipsing through North Bay and Shaking hands and trying to get myself elected So I think Gary's very foolish for for putting his name on a ballot but good for him and good for everybody That's put their name on the ballot during this election campaign. Everyone knows everyone, I assume.

Yes, very good. So there's an election. This is why I decided to have a panel. About a year ago, I thought, man, we're gonna have an election, we're gonna need a panel. So now training wheels are off, now we're doing it for real. And Jason, what do you make of the first few days of this campaign? I think it's been, um, I think it's been, uh, an interesting one.

We've got two, you know, parties vying for power. I think the NDP, we can talk all we want about them. They've had a tough, a tough last few months, but we've got two parties vying for power, trying to fight for the frame of this campaign and, and couple of things have been noteworthy, I'd say. Number one, you know, Poliev's team trying to sort of recapture that magic of they won the affordability war over the last year and trying to recapture that magic and try to, you know, beat off and win a different argument, quite frankly, than the one that they've been arguing. And then we've got this guy who's been like prime minister for a couple of minutes, who, you know, barely nobody knows all people only have a little bit of a, a little bit of knowledge about this guy. He's got

a resume, they know his resume, they like his resume. But you know, Carney's been, you know, had a good start from the polling perspective, and winning some of the framing discussions. But I think it's been an uneven performance from him for the first couple of days. So whether or not their frames are going to come through with this sort of inexperienced, you know, sort of uneven performance, but is I think the, you know, the question for the next 30 or 40 days. And anybody that tells you that they know exactly what's going to happen hasn't been through an election campaign anymore or before and this one's going to be an unpredictable one and the

stakes are incredibly high. Marcy, it feels like a bit of a framing war in the early days. Save Canada as the liberal kind of proposition versus make a better Canada for a change on the conservative side. How do you think they're doing in this framing battle? I actually think the framing is pretty clear, whether you're watching this very closely or not. It is very clear that Mr. Carney is framing himself or trying to define himself in a number of respects.

Certainly he is trying to define himself as not only a manager of the economy, but a visionary on the economy and economic matters. I'm sure if you try to word cloud what people had to say, and I agree with Jason, I mean, people don't really know who Carney is, but if you had to word cloud it right now, the economy would be the word that popped. And I think that's probably not ideal for the conservatives at this early stage, but that is the early return for Carney in terms of anything that anybody knows or appreciates about him.

The Liberals clearly have its two frames. It is the economy, vision, second frame. It saved Canada, absolutely, but also be oppositional to Mr. Trump. And the Liberals feel very confident that if the ballot box question is, as we believe it may be, and again, like Ruth Jason, campaign is going to shift everything a little bit on its head, if the ballot question is who is going to stand up against Trump and be stronger against Trump, that is where the Liberals believe they have the winning formula in Mr. Carney.

It's very clear on the other side, on the Conservative side, that they need their focus to be on change. We all noted the bit of shift in language, Canada first comma for a change. Just anything I guess to have that word change be there and change be present. I agree that the Canadian public was hungering for change. They have now seen a change in Mr. Carney. Mr. Poliev's strongest attack line is the fourth mandate piece. Who wants to elect a government for the fourth mandate? They're going to keep hammering that, I have to assume. The for a change edition, trying to ensure that it is a change ballot. And then their second frame is clearly domestic economic affordability issues, which they have prosecuted incredibly successfully for the last 18 to 24.

I believe that is still very salient for the conservatives to be running on as a narrative. And they have more of an upper hand there. It's just not clear to me right now that that's actually going to be the primary ballot question on E-Day. Allison, I'm a year younger than Mark Carney and I've been trying to learn some new tricks as an old dog and it's real hard. How do you think he's doing as a first-time campaigner?

I think that he's inherited a lot of good fortune so far. If we're looking at the ballot box question as tariffs, sovereignty, geopolitical realignment, all of those pieces, I think that he walks into that probably more readily than any of his opponents. And I think that's largely because I think a lot of them still have a hangover from the last parliament, which was not a good or productive parliament. And it was very domestically focused. And so I think that if we're looking at that as the ballot box question, he already starts

with an advantage just based on having not been part of that dysfunction already. And then also having that global experience, having that economic experience and having those relationships globally. I think where he struggles is I think he needs a lot more media training. I think we saw him get a little bit impatient with the press early on in his campaign and he can't have any more look-inside-yourself rosemary moments. So that he has to get a lot more nimble I think as he exposes himself more to the media, because this lead is just his to lose. It's not going to get easier, and it's not going to get

easier in Quebec either. So I think he's inherited a healthy lead, but to your point, Jason, a lot changes in the campaign. And I do see some of the undercurrents of Poliev's messaging about needing to get our house in order and being frustrated with certain things about Canada. That's something that we heard from the democratic government over and over again in the United States before we had Trump. Get your house in order, get your projects done, fix inter-provincial trade and have some national unity. And I do think that Polyev was attuned to that.

I just think that the messaging and the demeanor and the sort of lack of nimbleness to shift policy, I think there's still such an attachment to the old campaign and the old frame that isn't going to work now. They need to be much more nimble and much more attuned to the moment. Jason, if the Liberals win, it'll be in large part because Carney has managed to convince enough voters that we've turned the page on a decade of liberal government that a lot of people found extremely frustrating. And it's got to be maddening for the conservatives to have spent, what, three years getting ready to run against Justin Trudeau. And then he's not there. And there's this new guy, uh, you know, who comes in with an alibi and plausible deniability. And, um, it, it, it, it's gotta be really frustrating for the conservatives to try and,

to try and that, that shine off of him. Look inside yourself, Paul. Do I look frustrated? No, I'm good. The, the, um, I'll say this, uh, I'm not, I'm not and to try and scrape that shine off of him. Look inside yourself, Paul. Do I look frustrated? No, I'm good. I'll say this.

There's something in that that is, and I think that's one of the reasons I think, Alison, you were just saying, like, you know, it's hard to pivot. And I'll say this, you know, there was such a dislike amongst both my party, but Canadians generally for Mr. Trudeau, that it is hard to get off that frustration with the guy.

And this frustration that you look and the band's still playing, right? You got Krisha Freeland on guitar, Champagne on bass, Wilkinson back there on the drums, and you pull in the new Sammy Sammy Hagar I guess and you know Is he gonna be any good and so you change the lead singer? Is that any good? and I will say this like the

It's frustrating for sure, but like that's past and I think like I'd encourage anybody in my party to think like that's past It's done. It's a new question. It's a new problem. You're trying to solve and I think The one the one thing that does frustrate me though Paul like it's funny. I've got my prop here. I've got Mark Kearney's book I've been trying to solve. And I think the one thing that does frustrate me, though, Paul, like it's funny. I've got my prop here. I've got Mark Kearney's book. I've been trying to read after what he believes in. And I'll say this, the truth about this guy is he's campaigning on a couple of things

he doesn't believe in at all. And that kind of stuff, not only is he inexperienced, but campaigning on things you don't believe in at all, like getting rid of a consumer carbon tax, for example, those are the kinds of things that actually show up during a campaign. You actually can't pretend. And authenticity really matters in politics. For example, I believe that Mark Carney wanted to get rid of the capital gains changes that

Justin Trudeau and Christian Freeland brought in. I don't believe that Mark Carney wants to get rid of the consumer carbon tax. And I don't believe that Mark Carney wants an oil pipeline across Canada. I believe he might try to build one, but I don't believe he wants to do it. I believe that. So those are the kinds of things that really actually frustrate conservatives is when he's saying things he obviously doesn't believe in. Because guess what?

You wrote a book and there's nothing about oil pipelines getting built in the next couple of years here. So that's the kind of thing that frustrates us. And I think that's the kind of thing that will, that will actually start to come out over the campaign and be a little bit satisfying for conservatives to see Carney admit, for example, you know, you have to go to Quebec and try to sell a pipeline or have to go to Alberta and try to sell that he is trying to sell into Quebec. He doesn't believe it. And that's going to be,

that's going to be a bit of where the discomfort comes in for Mr. Carney. That, uh, incidentally, that look inside yourself thing, um, uh, which is what he said to Rosemary Barton from the CBC when she asked a, a, a hard question. Um, or no, he asked it to Stephanie Levitz. Anyway, it's become a standard greeting among journalists in Ottawa. I ran into Steph Levitz from the Globe and Mail, who's another one of the reporters that he got so short with. And I said, like, like you would say, hi, how are you doing? I said, look inside yourself, Steph.

And she said, you're starting from a premise of negativity, Paul. So, Point for now, Paul. Point for now. As well. Um, Marcy, do you have any, does anything about the, about the leader strike you as nervous? One of the pollsters said that the liberal lead is built on, does anything about the leader strike you as nervous? One of the pollsters said that the Liberal lead is built on sand and dry sticks. Is there anything that could threaten to blow that straw house away?

Yeah, I mean, if the foundation isn't strong, anything could blow it away. And I think this is going to be a campaign with more than a few surprises left in it. So anything, any number of things could blow it away. I said an immediate appearance yesterday. I'll say it here. I think the liberals feel more confident than they were feeling several months ago. I feel more confident than I was feeling several months ago, for sure, because at least now it's a race, right?

Like we were looking down the barrel of this thing where it was not going to be a race. As Jason said off the top, this is now a race either of either the Liberals or the Conservatives could form government. I'm sorry to say to my friends in the other parties, I don't think they are going to be terribly relevant on this campaign. But it is a two-way race, which is really good and important for Canadians to have the opportunity to see a contrast of ideas, to see a contrast of leadership styles, to be able to vote and decide which of these visions is the right one for right now at a critical moment. Am I, you know, concerned about the Liberal lead? Like I said on the other appearance, I personally never measure for drapes before we get much,

much closer to the end. I think that every liberal right now should feel confident that they are playing hard and need to play hard. Elbows up, to use the very overused phrase already in this campaign. But I think it would be at the liberal's peril to believe that they have this in this campaign. But I think it would be at the Liberals' peril to believe that they have this in the bag. They need to believe that that lead is, that that lead could be fleeting. That is the best mindset to be in. You have to believe that you could win it. You have to believe that you could lose it. Either way, you've got to go for it entirely. Liberals have a funny kryptonite. It is always the Liberal kryptonite, which is arrogance. And I would urge and caution all of my friends across the party listening to

this that we should not forget that. We need to heed a feeling of caution mixed with optimism and ambition. Okay, now we enter the portion of the discussion that I call exogenous events. There's what the parties are trying to do, and then there's just the craziest damn stuff that the world throws over the transom. By my count, we're up to about four exogenous events, which include Daniel Smith gave an interview to Breitbart.

Mark Carney backed out of the larger of the two French debates in Quebec. Um, there's this story in the globe this morning about, uh, India meddling in the conservative leadership race and Pauli's security clearance. And, um, I forget what the fourth one is. I think if anyone wants to remind me, uh, Allison, what's your favorite exogenous event and, and do you think like, pick one and tell me whether it's going to make a

difference. Um, okay. I'll go with Quebec. Um, yeah. Uh, this deciding not to be on the TV, TV, a debate, I don't think it's going to make a difference. Um, TV might be broke, but Quebec or debate. I don't think it's gonna make a difference

TV I might be broke but Quebec or has a lot of money and it's a really odd precedent to start asking Parties to pay for debates. I think as long as Carney participates in the French Consortium debate, it will be fine I don't think that's gonna make a difference. What's gonna make a difference is Carney's approach to Quebec So the man needs to keep working on his French. He needs to be very careful showing that he understands Quebecers. It's not just the fluency, but he has to be careful around pipeline politics. He's got to be careful about proving to Quebecers that he's going to protect their industries. So aluminum, dairy. And I think that it's that connection. I know that he's starting with an advantage in that Polyov has never managed to connect with Quebecers,

but Blanchet can pick up the pieces pretty fast. And if I were him, I'd be getting ready for that French consortium debate every single day, because I'm sure that Polyov and LeBlanc are just gonna needle him. So to me, that's the bigger thing. I think that he'll write out the TV piece personally. Jason.

Um, this guy has the weakest French of a major party leader since Joe Clark. That's 50 years. Um, but the TV, uh, the great people at TV by charging for this debate, they gave them, they gave them a pretext for saying no. Um, once again, the guy, I mean, he's a hockey goalie, but he's pretty fast on his skates. He skates away from this one more time.

Do you think it makes a difference? And then I ask you to address the Danielle Smith interview. Let's, let's deal with the easy one first. The, um, I think that, I think that I'm surprised that Tévié folded so quickly and put out a cancellation notice like yesterday when this sort of broke up. I actually think a couple of more days worth of pressure. Like we saw Kearney's inexperience, right? He's asked yesterday in French, are you going to be in this debate? And he says, Yeah, sure. But why not? Of course, I'll be there. Yeah, like me chicken to debate this idiot. Like, that's the kind of vibe he gave off to the

press gallery. And then later on, you know, his team, like quietly, you know, like, we actually will not be there. And like, let's face it, too, there's a French debate, but there's a Quebec debate. The tabi debate is a Quebec debate. Like, the other one is a national French debate. It's it's a, you know, it's a little debate. The Thibaut debate is a Quebec debate. The other one is a national French debate. It's a little bit different in terms of the vibe. And to your point, his French is awful. It's awful. He can barely converse. He has to sort of switch back and forth. And let's be honest, it's going to be a real... And this is the one thing, the point I want to last make, the point I want to make about Carney.

Carney, Kretsch and Harper, all the best politicians of my lifetime, Ford, for example, in Ontario, have all benefited from being under sort of, you know, expectations being low. They've benefited from low expectations. Expectations are sky high for Mark Carney. Most people have heard that this guy's like an A plus or at worst an A. That's what they've heard over the last little bit, or they've seen like pictures of this guy and he looks like this prime minister straight out of central casting. So they're like, oh, well, that's, that's looks like the Canadian prime minister over there

that we're looking at. When most people see him, I think they're going to be a little bit disappointed, especially Quebecers by the way, when he's fumbling and stumbling over his language. And so I think that's like he's actually, if I were the liberals, the one thing I'd be worried about is that expectations are sky high. There's this idea that he's got to lead in the polls, and then he's like Superman.

And I actually think that when most people see him, they're like, why is he, by so many uhs and ums, and he doesn't really seem to know what he's talking about about that program and his French sucks. So I think that's an issue for them in terms of the Daniel Smith interview. The and the resultant number one, the issue of how close Paulia appears to be Trump is an issue in this campaign. I'm not going to pretend it's not it's actually one of the central issues of this campaign because it's the central liberal narrative.

There's going to be five, six, 10 proof points that the liberals are going to be looking for every single day on how to push that narrative. And listen, when the least popular man in Canada is the orange menace to the south, and he's a conservative, by the way, and he's attacking us. He's attacking our sovereignty. He's attacking all sorts of economic things. So anything that feeds into that is not helpful to the Poliev cause. And he's going to have that yoke no matter who does interviews for the rest of the campaign. And I think it's obviously the biggest danger to the conservative campaign is appearing and to not distance himself generally from the menace to

the South. And I think I will say this though, I think by the end of the campaign, people are going to see that probably both of them have a plan to deal with, with Mr. Trump. And what we're going to see is whether or not Arnie's sort of strength, quote unquote, holds up to scrutiny. And I think Paul Yavs had a good couple of days actually, the way he's personally performed. And I think people are gonna come to the fact

by the end of the campaign that he probably does have the strength, the fortitude and the plan to deal with this guy. And I made the point just to tie the two issues together, sorry to interrupt you Paul, but like if you can't handle the Tevyea debate, how in the world are you supposed to handle Donald Trump? Like seriously, if your team is so scared and like we can pretend, but the liberals can't pretend.

They hid Carney for the last part of that leadership race because they didn't want to making a mistake. And now they're hiding him from a Tevyea debate. You want to send to Washington to go negotiate to Trump, but he can't handle Yves-Francois Blanchet in a French debate. I know that they're different languages, but that's not the only issue-Francois-Blochet in a French debate. I know that they're different languages, but that's not the only issue here. And I think that's a little bit embarrassing to the liberals. Yeah.

I thought of a clever rebuttal, but that's not my job. I'll let Marcy try hers. It's actually, sorry, just one quick point. It's actually not, it's not a rebuttal in the truest sense, but I think a point that's important to make, actually, if we rewound the tape on this program, we talked about the TV ad debate being one of these likely moments

that could be a turning point in the campaign because it has tended to create a favor or opposition in a very real way for leaders. I remember Mr. O'Toole's appearance in the last one, it did not end so well for him following that debate. So it's, I would say it's actually kind of unfortunate that it has turned out this way where the Tevyea debate is now, it looks like, not going to proceed in any event. And there are these different factors, the pay to play, which I think is not a good look,

period, for a debate and was probably an unwise strategy on the part of the network. But I also agree, it gave the Liberals an out, which was probably a nice out to be able to take. My point on this, though, is the consortium now has an opportunity to be better, for those debates to be better. There's only been all of this currency around the Tevyea debate because the French language debate has not lived up to the expectations that Canadians,

or in many cases, Quebecers have about what they want to see from their leaders being tested. So I think there's now a vacuum that the consortium could fill and would be nice to see in both languages that style. The reason why the Tevye debate, for those who haven't watched it before, has been so successful is they call it fas a fas. It's that direct encounter between the leaders. And I, for one, would love to see that. I think the consortium would work some of that format in, in a way that is more resonant and then let this be the end of the debate, so to speak. Let's actually have two

really good debates and we will see if Mr. Carney can perform or not in French, if he's truly tested in that French language debate that will happen. So I'll take that because I actually have some history with debates and I am so happy that the consortium has decided to go with single moderator in French and in English. For the last, especially on the English side, the last two elections it was this ridiculous circus of 17 network anchors and a star reporter, each one profiling to make their organization look better and it it was, it was, it was bad. Um, Steve Paykin alone is better than any seven moderators.

Um, uh, just because he gets to make all of his decisions and similarly Patrice Hua on the French side, although they figured that out, I think a little earlier than on the English side. So I think, I think we are, uh, much likelier to have decent debates in two weeks than we would have been if they, um, if they turned it into debate club the way they did the last couple of times. Um, what are you looking forward to in the next several days? I'm looking, we're about a week away from, um, uh, Trump tariff day two. So we've got a little bit of time to, to kill

before, before he lowers the boom. What's going to matter in the next several days on the campaign trail, uh, Alison. Um, I think the most basic one is just how much, uh, people can get out and meet with different communities and, um, different communities and have that face-to-face moment where people decide you're a really great person and I've connected with you and I think that always matters. The ground game is one huge thing. I'll say for the NDP,

I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more about their policy vision. I thought it was a good move to have the housing announcement, the more that you can actually connect to what people want and move away from the billionaire rich people dialogue, which I don't think really works in Canada. We don't have a ton of billionaires. I don't think anyone feels rich right now. And so I do find it a bit of a polarizing message

and I kind of want to see them go back to some really meaningful, defensible policy. And then you can turn that into a slogan, but it has to be built on a vision that includes a lot of Canadians. So I'm anxious to hear more coming out of the NDP on that and what their vision is, which will be different than the Conservatives and the Liberals at this point. Okay. Jason, what are you looking forward to the next bit? I think, um, I think we're going to see, I think I'll say something for all the main parties, because I think it's important, like Poliev, the momentum that he showed the last couple of

days, um, you know, big rally, uh, sort of smiling, affable, trying to, you know, um, remind people that, um, you know, there's a that there's a vision, there's a plan, and some exciting stuff starting off with the big tax cut and on the affordability side. So I think momentum and the ground game, I think, Alison, you mentioned, but it's pretty clear the first football game is still pretty strong. I mean, 2,500 people turning away 1,000 people in North Toronto, that's the kind of thing that anybody dreams of. And you could see it in Poliev's face, it sort of energizes them. It sort of reminded me of Trudeau

back in 2015, where the crowd sort of energized them, and you could see them actually pick up steam. So I'm looking for that for the conservatives. The NDP, listen, find purchase somehow, right? And like, listen, as a conservative, you know, listen, I'm cheering for these guys, right? Like, come on, you plucky NDP. Like, let's get started here. Let's go. And I'll say, like, they, Singh has been irrelevant for months and looks worse and worse.

He looks like he's sort of burying his dog or attending the grandmother's funeral every time I see him. And he's trying, but man, I got to tell you, it's a tough sled there. And listen, Carney and the Liberals and Trudeau's you know leaving has moved them to complete irrelevance and I just I hope for their sake but obviously for a lot of reasons that the NDP finds some purchase with something like they just haven't been able to do that and like TikToks aren't going to do it. They actually need to find an issue

that resonates into your point, Alison. I just don't think that people are that mad at billionaires. Now, Carney's rich, but he's not that rich. And like, we'll see. And for the liberals, they're lucky in that they get, I think, well, people not aren't paying attention, but the first little bit of this campaign will probably be a little bit slower then,

and it'll build to a crescendo after that April 2nd sort of time period till the end. And I think they've got to get him better. And, you know, some of these mistakes are, will start to add up if people start watching and people start paying attention. But I'll be looking, they're picking up some star candidates for sure, because everybody's flocking back in the oldie Anita and and, like I quit, but no, no, I'm back. Like it looks good now. And I think that what's interesting and the chatter behind the scenes

is like this sort of like Keith chattering, like can Carney hold this together for seven days? Like, you know, because everybody, we've all been part of politics. It is really hard. People, Canadians have no idea how hard it is to front a campaign like this, whether it's like a mayoral, a provincial,

or a federal campaign. People have no idea the pressure that you're under every single day. We saw Carney crumble a little bit at various times, or lose his patience. If he loses his patience, then that could be a house of cards for him. Arcee, what's the next week look like for you?

Two tracks very clearly and we've touched on both. The first is liberation day on the 2nd of April. What I'll be watching for is can the government walk and chew gum at the same time? We are going to see the greatest, greatest opportunity for the liberals in the campaign to have Carney look Prime Ministerial, for the team to look like that is the team that we want in place. I honestly couldn't, if I had to and I've tried, determine who is going to be in Mr. Poliev's cabinet in these key positions where they are going to be the primary interlocutors and

negotiators with the United States. We can say what we want about some of the Trudeau team being tired. I hear it, I get it. At the same time, who are the Poliev interlocutors beyond Mr. Poliev himself? I mean, who can we name that we could imagine dealing with that administration in a way that is constructive for Canada? I think that is, I think what happens post-April 2nd is going to help really paint the picture there in terms of who is not only the Prime Minister, but who is, which is the Ministry that we feel most confident about putting forward at this time with grave consequence potentially. So great

opportunity for the Liberals to showcase that they can be the team, much like Doug Ford did in his campaign not so long ago. Also high risk because we don't know exactly what the President is going to do. We don't know what schedule that those tariffs are going to come in on. If there is a lowering of the boom, as you say, Paul, in a very serious way right out of the gate on April 2, April 3, the impacts that we are already feeling with respect to steel and aluminum, if that becomes more acute, more difficult for Canadian industry, right in the middle of the campaign, forces the Liberals to be more focused on governing, less focused on campaign, that can have a real severe effect on a campaign. Let's be clear, I mean, the campaigns, as Jason said,

they're very intense, they need to be well tended to, well fed, and it is very difficult to maintain your focus on two situations as consequential as that, at the same time. The second piece is we talked about just now, the team, just taking one step back, we see I think Sean Fraser has announced his candidacy, his renewed candidacy this morning in Halifax. Another an end, another an an, the full an an.

Another an an. Holy cow. But, so like the team is, you know, assemble the Avengers, I guess, the team is coming back together. But we really do need to see some new faces. If Mr. Carney is presenting a change team, it cannot be that he is the only change agent on that team.

So there have been names that have been rumbling around. We thought maybe Christy Clark was gonna take a stab at it in BC, she made clear yesterday that is not the case. We have heard a number of other names of profile and prominence being bandied about, a few of them starting to emerge. What is that future Carney cabinet consist of? Who are the others around him who we do not already know?

And again, I think on, I think there's more of, uh, for the liberals, there is more of an urgency to define that as well right now. Um, I wanted to cut it off, but Alison, it looked like he wanted to react when, when, when Marcy said, what kind of team could, uh, could Paulie have field? Do you, do you, do you have some names or some thoughts? Yeah. I mean, okay, Jason, I'm going to just do your

talking points for you here. I'm sorry, but I'm also a trade nerd, as you know. So I, I will say for the conservatives, they wrote the major trade agreements that, that got through under the liberals. They did the CPTPP, they did the CEDA, they did a lot of the heavy lifting. They did the CEDA, they did the CED conservatives, they wrote the major trade agreements that got through under the liberals. They did the CPTPP, they did the CEDA, they did a lot of the heavy lifting there. Having

worked in Canada-US relations circles for a long time, I'll tell you there's nobody who works harder at that than Randy Hoback. I'm just going to stand up for him and his substack, which writes prolifically about trade policy, whether he doesn't even get paid to do it. There are people. So and at the same time, I would say with the with the liberals, there were a lot of people who stuck their finger in Mr. Trump's eye and rubbed it in the first time and did things that were just deliberately irritating to to that administration. So I actually I actually think either way there there are going to be some decent people. You could put ankle biters in charge of the relationship.

That wouldn't be great, but I definitely know from experience that, that the conservatives are very good on trade too. So, uh, that is not my NDP hat. That is my trade nerd hat. Um, so I'll just, I will just put that out there. Useful, corrective. And also I remember from, from the early days of the Harper government, being a cabinet minister makes you a cabinet minister.

I remember Chuck Strahl getting up to answer a question in the house of commons and he was just old Chuck for those of us who've been following politics for a while. And suddenly he was minister Strahl and he didn't sound like a genius, but he sounded as good as any minister in his file had ever like, so, um, but it is a challenge for Canadians to

make that sort of conceptual leap. If they haven't been told who's going to, who's coming. I will say this. I honestly like listen, I'll take Melissa Lansman for every, for everybody in that cabinet right now. And I will say like, I think team is actually

a hurt for the, for the liberals. Like I, I know that they think it's, they think while Champagne and, and, and, and Fraser and all these kinds of things. I think the more discussion about that team, the more Fraser and all these kinds of things I think the more discussion about that team the more it gives Paulie of the ammunition to just say these are the people that messed up Canada for the last nine years and these are the people that you were so mad at three months ago and I think it just reminds people that you know you're just changing the

lead singer in the band. I do appreciate Alison what you you said about the team down there. And listen, I actually think both teams can do a reasonable job on this. But the point that you made is the point that I wanted to make, which is the liberals have been really antagonistic against Trump and I think are going to have to be more antagonistic in order to try to get reelected. And I will say that actions have consequences. I'm not saying they didn't do anything right or wrong. But the truth is we do know, Ms. Freeland, for example,

Mr. Trump hates Mr. Freeland, Ms. Freeland. Ms. Freeland can hold it as a badge of honor, all of those kinds of things. It might help the liberals get reelected to be hated by Trump. But I will say, actions do have consequences. And one of the reasons why we're being, it's not the reason why we're being targeted with terrorists.

That's their economic theory and their whatever. The reason why we're being so sort of personally targeted and and they're being such jerks about it is because I think Mr. Trudeau, you know, gave Mr. Mr. Trump and Mr. Trudeau did not get along. And I don't fault Mr. Trudeau for that, but it is the case that that's that that's happened.

And it's one of the reasons why we're still personally he's been so personally vindictive towards him. Okay, I'm calling it. We're going to save all this good talk for next week. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time. And it's one of the reasons why we're still personally, he's been so personally vindictive towards gambling. Okay, I'm calling it. We're gonna save all this good talk for next week. Thanks everyone for joining me and enjoy the rest of your week.

Thanks very much. Thanks. ["Dreams of a New World"]