The Paul Wells Show - The Panel: Liberation Day pre-sale!

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

The election campaign heads into its second week, and everything feels brand new. The Liberal campaign plane finally has the Liberal logo on it. Mark Carney has a candidate he should probably drop. Pierre Poilievre is having a very hard time moving the debate from the issue he can’t win on to an issue he might win on. And Jagmeet Singh would just like to be noticed. We’ve got Allison Gifford, Marci Surkes and Jason Lietaer to break it down for you.

Welcome once again to the panel, Jason Leader, Alison Gifford, Marcy Serks. Thanks for joining me. It's time for the traditional disclosure of interest. Is anyone here going to be running for parliament? Ever since Gary traumatized us, I feel I should check. You're all staying on the sidelines? Not a chance. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Too long or up deep. Yeah, no. Okay, very good. It feels like we really needed that first weekend of the campaign because by the end of the, or some people needed this first weekend of the campaign because by the end of the first week, there were a flurry of stories about turmoil, wheels off the bus, infighting in the conservative campaign. And one of the things that strikes me is, my God, it's early. Like there's still a month to go in this thing.

And so I'm wondering, maybe Alison, did you have the same reaction I had, which is holy cow, like usually the wheels off the bus stories are in the last week of the campaign, not in the first week. What do you think is going on and how significant do you think it is? I don't know that I had necessarily the same reaction. I think, I mean, I'm not a conservative,

but I'm friends with some. And I will say that if you're friends with some conservatives, to me, it's very common that you'll have people identify themselves as, I'm a Doug Ford conservative, or I'm a federal conservative. that if you're friends with some conservatives, to me it's very common that you'll have people identify themselves as I'm a Doug Ford conservative, or I'm a federal conservative, I'm not a Doug Ford conservative.

So those camps have been around for quite a while. And I think in some ways, you know, the Harper government had a bunch of fabulous people of all different kind of stripes within that large coalition. And to me, it does seem in a way that all different kind of stripes within that large coalition. And to me, it does seem in a way that they've kind of split for the last couple of years. So I wasn't really surprised.

I mean, Corey's not wrong in that if Poliev actually, if he's going for prime minister, he is going to need to have an approach to Canada-US relations. And that that's a huge pivot because I think up until now, I've sort of seen him still running against Trudeau and he's just not there. And so that's tricky, especially when it was so successful for so long. But he isn't wrong that that that Poliev does need to pivot a little bit. I will say that, you know, I think Polyev has enjoyed

a bit of an artificially inflated lead for a very long time because Trudeau was still in office, and when Trudeau left, that lead came down to earth, whereas Mark Carney, I think, has a bit of an artificially inflated lead right now because he's really just running on his resume, not his personality, not his ability to connect with Canadians and not necessarily on a political track record. So that's a bit inflated because he's meeting a moment right now that I think maybe Polio isn't. So, you know, 28 days is a long amount of days. There's a lot of events that could happen between now and then. The one thing I'll say is it is always a shock to see people airing their dirty laundry so earlier on, whether you're a party strategist or the premier of Alberta, never really helps.

So I think that's something you got to get in under the tent and fight with the family, but not in public. Jason, I know you're delighted to come out here and comment in public about... My friends are arguing. Yes, I love it. Yes. Um, but Alison's got a point. I know to a lot of progressive voters, all conservatives are the same, right? And, and you're running against a sort of

mass of conservative Trump, but when you're in the, when, when you're in concert, when you're conservative, there's a lot of variety and clearly, um, a lot of different personalities with a lot of different agendas. Uh, what did you do in the, when you're a conservative, there's a lot of variety and clearly, um, a lot of different personalities with a lot of different agendas. Uh, what did you make of the multitude of stories, uh, with anonymous people saying they don't

like Jenny Byrne? Um, well, I mean, listen, I, first of all, I wanted to say, you know, I ran, uh, I ran campaigns with Jenny, um, you know, not since 2011 with Jenny, you know, not since 2011. But we're friends and I'm friends with Corey as well. So again, as I joke, like these are these are two friends who sort of airing some disagreements in public. I'll say this, obviously not, I'm not gonna pretend that those are good stories going

into the weekend. In fact, the opposite, I would say, I will say that there was a little bit of bafflement amongst conservatives generally, you said early, Paul, you know, it's early for this kind of thing. And I will say, I think that there was a lot of that with sort of regular people looking at this who, you know, out there knocking on doors, you know, MPs, for example, who are like, listen, we're a few days into this, what are you talking about? So I will say that there was a little bit of that. And there was, I think, genuine bafflement from some of the war room types that are in there. I'm not arguing with the sourcing of the stories. I believe that some

people said these things. But I will say that when I've called into the war room, what I've got is, you know, actual responses. You know, it seems relatively buttoned down. And in terms of like candidate nominations and tour and that kind of stuff, it seems relatively buttoned down. And in terms of like candidate nominations and tour and that kind of stuff, it seems flawless is the wrong word, but it's been a pretty tight little group. I will say the one impact of this Paul, and I think this is going to be the longest term impact, if they can find a message that works, and I'll get back to that in a second that gets purchased. But this has really

brought people together in terms of inside the group. Like I got a sense of, you know, sort of they look out and they sort of say, fuck this, we better pull together and we got to win this thing to show everybody that we've got this. So that's been the, I think the longer term impact. And in terms of the message, Alison,

I was interested in what you said about Corey. And I read with interest what Coletto and others have been writing about in terms of their research over the weekend. And so it's very interesting, right? Like Cory's suggestion was get on the ballot question, which is Trump. Every piece of research that I see says that that probably is the most important issue, but it's also a clear lead for the liberals. So it's odd actually to give, it's probably possibly right, but also odd to give advice to get on about a question that you don't have the clear advantage for.

And I will say the longest term, Paul, the longest term thing, the things that actually is keeping conservatives up at night is not sort of crappy stories like this, or Paul Li's performance, which has been good so far. It's actually the performance of the NDP, right? When you're sitting in my chair and you read numbers that has the NDP at like six, eight, 9%,

it's almost, it's a presidentialized campaign at that point. They're closer to the PPC and the Green Party than they are to the two main parties. And that's a presidentialized campaign that is very, very, very difficult to win. It's a completely different thing than what you thought you might be going into. And that, if anything requires adjustment,

that's what probably requires adjustment. It's like a 10 or 20% increase in the amounts of votes you need in every riding, assuming large turnout. It's a completely different message to some of those disaffected voters who went from the NDP to the liberals and try to vote. So that's the thing that I think keeps, is in the longterm, keep conservatives like me and others,

Jenny, Corey, all of us up at night. It's funny, I was reading through my, uh, through my voluminous, uh, Jenny Byrne files on the weekend and, uh, just stories that have been written about her in her, in connection with various, um, campaigns over the years. And she wrote a piece for the globe after the 2015, like about a year after the 2015

campaign and said, uh, look, the conservatives need the NDP to be healthy. Um, because then you can win on splits and you can, you know, and she was amazed at the NDP, the conservatives going after the NDP in the 2015 election. That's just a pretty chaotic campaign because theoretically she ran that campaign, but, uh, but it, it does reinforce the idea that you need the NDP to be in the game and so far they're not. So, um, Marcy, what do you, I mean, uh, I've been hearing from liberals saying

that it's going well at the door and stuff like that, but, uh, surely there's gotta be a real concern about counting your chickens before they're hatched. Like there's, as I said, there's still a month to go in this campaign. Yeah, I was like, there's so many important threads to pull out of what both Alison and Jason have said. Let me, let me start with a few things. Liberals, myself included, should not take delight in the challenges that our opponents are facing at the moment, because first of all, it is early days. It is early days. Second of all, anyone who has ever worked a campaign understands that there are ebbs and flows over the course of the campaign,

and Liberals have had their share of challenges in the past, troubles like this exactly in the past. We know all too well what it feels like. We also know how to turn the corner and come back together to win. So I would just caution all of my Liberal friends to exactly not count your chickens before they're hatched or to use the expression we used last time, don't start measuring for drapes just yet. Even though you're still you're in the PMO, doesn't mean you're going to stay in the PMO. I would say that for the liberal campaign right now, the steadiness that they are attempting to demonstrate in terms of Mr. Carney's ability to govern is really the ace in the ace up their sleeves, right? So what the conservatives are trying

to do and why, you know, what do and what these stories are actually doing, I would say I would extrapolate from the immediate term concerns in terms of the campaign. And what these stories are doing is they are planting question marks in the minds of voters as to whether or not Pierre Polly-Eve is actually a leader who can handle what is going to face him if he were to be successful in forming government. That's the real challenge. I agree from a tactical perspective

here concerned about the NDP and needing that vote to be less suppressed than it is but from a longer term perspective what I'm hearing from folks and I know liberal canvassers are hearing from folks are people saying they had planned to vote for Poliev, but they are now questioning whether or not he's ready for prime time. Don't forget, this is a conservative leader in a conservative party that had been bellyaching for an election for two years.

And now the election is here, and suddenly it appears like they aren't ready to go. So if you're not ready for prime time for a campaign that you were begging for, how are you actually ready to govern in ostensibly the most complicated circumstance that a Canadian government or a Canadian leader has found itself in? So Liberals are hearing that. That is giving them what they need in terms of buoying their energy and their resolve to continue to present Mr. Carney as a very credible candidate for prime minister. He is prime minister,

but we know it's been a short tenure. So a credible candidate for prime minister. And what the liberal campaign will continue to do, as Doug Ford did relatively effectively in his very recent campaign, is this continued on the campaign, off the campaign. This week, they'll be back off the campaign, I suspect, in order to respond to the Trump liberation day pronouncements on Wednesday. So they are going to keep at that, and that is the most challenging thing, I think, right now for the conservatives

in terms of confronting the Liberal Party, is the benefits of incumbency right now for the Liberals, which looked like it would be an albatross a couple of months ago and is now really the North Star guiding this campaign. Okay. Alison, let's try and get Jagmeet Singh back in the game. How on earth do you do that?

Campaigns usually, this is his third campaign, first campaign for Carney, first campaign for Poliev. Historically, campaigns do pretty well for Jagmeet Singh. He's refreshing, he's amiable, people tend to like him, but he can't get in the game when it's future of the nation stakes and the leadership debate is near the end of the campaign. So people aren't necessarily going to be looking and concentrating on him until very late.

Is the dynamic of this campaign simply not congenial to the NDP leader? I think it's a bit of both. I think we saw, I've seen the message in the NDP campaign pivot a little bit more in a lend me your vote direction of, okay, this guy, Carney, yes, he's a central bank or maybe he can handle Trump and the tariffs and all of these things that were not traditionally branded as representing.

But whoever gets in charge, the liberals or the conservatives, pick a door, same thing. How is your life going to change? How is your health care going to get better? How are you going to have safer communities? And if it's not, your inclination to just go law and order but also investment in communities, you might start looking at the NDP. So I think that their message needs to be,

how much is your life going to be better in all of these other areas, no matter who wins? And we have better solutions at the, you know, the social democratic or the social policy level. I think that Achilles heel here for the NDP is that their social policy has not been as coherent as it has been in the past. It's easy to poke holes in it, and it's hard to represent at an easy talking point level, particularly when everyone else's messages are really easy to absorb and understand and make sense right away.

So I think I would like to see some more pragmatic, bulletproof policy recommendations from the NDP. And I think also, you know what, like the beautiful thing about being the fourth party when I worked for the NDP was that there was no microphone that we were afraid of. There was no media opportunity that we wouldn't take. We were, like I was there. Jack Layton never stopped working, ever. And so taking every opportunity, whether it's in the national media or at the local level where Jagmeet really shines, take it, take it, take it, get on the ground, listen to people and start incorporating that in your message. You'll do a lot better. One question on fundamentals. Was that deal with Justin Trudeau worth, was it worth it?

I mean, everyone, all the Ottawa lifers said, my God, you're, you're, you're gluing yourself to Trudeau. You're denying yourself the possibility of being an effective opposition. And you Democrats that I knew said, just wait, you'll see. When the time comes, we can go to the Canadian people and we can say, we were the only ones providing practical solutions for real change.

How's that working out? I mean, I think that was definitely the plan. Um, and I didn't work there at the time. So it's hard to say what was happening on the inside and whether that was just what was best for caucus at the time. That seemed like, you know, I don't have all those considerations.

I will say that to me, it does seem unfortunate that the NDP are wearing a lot of the baggage that gets shifted at the sort of left tranche of the liberals, of the last liberals. And I do think that they're wearing that a bit and I think it was easier for Carney to drop for whatever reason. There are probably many. But that's but I think that's also tricky. Okay. I wanna ask the group about this liberal MP in Toronto, Chang, who suggested that it would be good if someone rounded up his opponent

and sent him to the Chinese consulate to collect a bounty. Jason, are you surprised that this fellow is still at, as we speak, a candidate for the liberal party? I'll tell you, you know, Marcy earlier was talking about things that energize the liberals, you know, these stories. I'll tell you this story has got conservatives thinking, you know, has got conservatives thinking, you know, Carney's a fool. Like, the fact that this story came out on Friday and we're on Monday and he's out today, he's gonna face a pack of brain jackals

who aren't gonna accept that it was a joke or that he's apologized. Like, this guy's not gonna be a candidate by the end of the campaign. And so there's one of two things going on in that war room right now. Either the war room's telling him that they're fine and they can white-knuckle it through it, or they've told him to dump them. And and and Carney is saying, I think I can get through this. And and I'll say this. This is an egregious, like, you know,

whatever you think, forget about politics, like I understand that they probably didn't know about this, that it came up, but when this kind of stuff comes up, the people, the effective, John Cratchan would have got rid of this guy in 10 minutes. Stephen Harper would have got rid of this guy in 10 minutes. Doug Ford would have got rid of this guy in 10 minutes. Like, the most effective politicians actually deal with these wounds.

They cauterize them and they move on. Mr. Carney had a pretty good week last week. He had some missteps. Most of those weren't really on. Mr. Carney had a pretty good week last week. He had some missteps. Most of those weren't really covered that much. The Canadian public didn't really see them. The Canadian public is going to see this. And I'll say it's indefensible.

That's the other thing, right? This is absolutely indefensible that the guy said this. I know he's apologized a couple of times. I know he's called the Tory candidate, but the truth is you can't defend this. And so Mr. Carney, it was a test of judgment. It was a test of leadership He's four days in and now he's probably four or five or six days in by the time he deals with this and Marcy's right They're using the the the incumbency, you know to sort of as a shield on this campaign

But the problem is you can't run away from this one and he's gonna to learn that he's going to learn it fast over the next couple of days. If they stick with this candidate, it's going to dog them for the entire campaign. I can't believe that. Mr. Carney didn't see this and I it heartens conservatives and hopefully the NDP who is running against him. I think they're running against him as far as I can tell if we can find jug meets a because you think well if he can make this kind of mistake,

then what other mistakes is he going to make over the next four weeks? Marcy, how do you explain it? I'll just, I'll proactively jump in and say, I generally agree with what Jason has said. I'm not going to defend it. I think we're in this period of the campaign where all parties are going to face questions about candidates who have been perhaps improperly vetted or vetted too quickly. Let's just think back. I mean, two weeks ago, the major parties were all missing more than 100 candidates each,

right? So there are going to be many instances still. This week and next, I think the last day to pull somebody off the ballot is the 7th of April, sometime around there. So there are going to be a bunch of stories that come up. This is not the only one. These types of stories, yes, they are case by case and the folks back at the party on their Greenlight committees need to be able to scrub and provide effective advice quickly on who the candidate is and the magnitude of the offence and what's being found, etc. It's a very

detailed process. I won't go too far down that rabbit hole. In this instance, I guess the challenge is it is somebody who is a sitting MP who is running for re-election. This is not a first-time candidate, which even makes it a little bit more difficult for the party to skate and say, oh, you know, we didn't know this person, they're new to us. And, you know, sometimes you can wipe those stains away fairly quickly. In this person, they're new to us and you know sometimes you can you can wipe those those stains away fairly quickly. In this case they have to own it as Jason said this is already going on for a few days and it is moreover an opportunity to demonstrate decisive leadership and that opportunity you know is there now maybe still today Mr. Carney I know it is in the GTA this will inevitably be a question that's put to him so perhaps this is an issue that's dealt with today. I feel like resist incitement to bounty hunting

is the sort of advice that didn't make it into the candidate handbook only because nobody thought they would have to say it. Anyway, these are the unforeseeable pieces that we all love so much about campaigns, things that you never thought you would have to confront that you're suddenly dealing with. That would suggest that your opponent should be kidnapped by a murderous regime and put to death. But I guess he didn't suggest the put to death part. It was just implied.

And then down there in the comments, people are going to be saying it was a joke. It was a joke. You people have no sense of humor. Yeah, no, I don't actually have a sense of humor about this. Thank you very much. Heroic defender of Hong Kong, don't send them to the bounty hunters. Now, one more topic before we bid farewell.

It's not Retribution Day, Independence Day, what's Glory Day? What's the Wednesday? Liberation Day. Liberation Day on Wednesday. And I don't have a thing to wear. Allison, assuming that the president hikes up those beautiful tariffs, what's that going to do to the campaign? So I think there's a bunch of scenarios. One of the lines of gossip and gossip is a buffet,

choose what you like. But one of them is that Trump will come out on April 2nd and have a certain timeline before the tariffs are enacted so that the affected countries can strike a deal. What comes to mind is the conversation that Carney and Trudeau had last week about coming to security and economic agreement or something like that. There could be a scenario where there's like a 30-day implementation phase or waiting period or whatever that comes to right after the election. If that's the case, it could create a bit more of a cooling in terms of the diplomatic tensions that we've been seeing, which would be good. But I do wonder if that happens, does that open up some space for the opposition parties to bring things back to other issues? Or will

it be seen as Mark Carney's excellent diplomacy, kind of cooling things down and that will give him a free run. I almost don't think so because in campaigns, you know, a day makes so much difference. So we'll have to see if they do come into place, then Carney is going to have to make some decisions. Do I retaliate, which will further affect the Canadian economy? Do I introduce programming? What kind of programming? Is it going to be supporting workers? Or is it going to be supporting workers or is it going to be very expensive? Programming that's a political win, but not an economic win like rehoming industries which you cannot do in a short amount of time and

Actually might be more expensive than just paying the tariffs So there's a lot of ifs here depending on which way he goes and which way Canadians accept the results and which Which moves Carney wants to make. So again, he's starting at a really high lead, but we haven't tested him super hard yet. So I'll be watching. Marcy, I was astonished by that readout from the, by the president's readout on Truth Social from the call with Carney. He called him Mr. Carney, he called Canada country. He said, uh, you know, we're looking forward to working again. It was almost like someone had ground up some

Xanax and his hamburger. Like, uh, how on earth does, do you achieve that result on a first call? Uh, look, with, with Mr. Trump and I've said this elsewhere, I think, uh, we're all, uh all cautiously optimistic, but there still can be another shoe to drop, and maybe that shoe will drop Wednesday. I mean, Mr. Trump changes his mind on issues more frequently than the Pharaoh, right?

Like, it's who knows which way this is going to go a few days from now. That being said, that initial readout, I would submit, and I think most Canadians who are paying attention, which sounds like most Canadians are paying attention, would feel somewhat reassured by what we saw, because we have not seen the President, first of all, even the dignity of referring to Mr. Carney as the Prime Minister is new to us. The bar is that low that him referring to him as the Prime Minister feels like a great win. I think that the outcome was as positive, frankly, as it could have been.

There are many different possibilities to attribute the success of that first outcome to, first and foremost, clearly the disdain that the President held for Mr. Trudeau. That was well documented, well discussed. This is a new opportunity to level set with a new interlocutor who the President appears, at least at first instance, to have more time for. That's a good thing for Canada. That's a great thing for the Liberal campaign. And I would say to Alison's point, I actually think whatever happens Wednesday, if it is some form of timetable or schedule for the implementation of broader retaliatory tariffs for Canada, a 30-day timeframe is exactly, coincidentally, what remains in this campaign and an opportunity for the Liberals to continue to hash out their vision for

a nation-building economic plan. And sure, all of the parties are going to try to do that, but you've got one party with a leader who seems to have even momentarily tamed the bear. And I think that is, to Mr. Carney's credit, I won't say it's exclusively because Mr. Carney isn't Mr. Trudeau. Obviously the nature of the conversation, the approach, and we don't know exactly what happened on the call, but clearly the approach worked. And I'm led to believe it was a fairly good faith call on both sides with a pretty calm and direct tone from Mr. Carney, which was well received

on the other end of the line. Jason, if cost of living wins for the conservatives and the bilateral relationship is not a winning issue for the conservatives, they can't be looking forward to a week with a liberation day in the middle of it. It's gonna be awful hard to yank the issue set over to where Pauliev and Jenny Byrne wanted to be, it seems to me. Yeah, we got four weeks left and I will say like,

I'm bracing for that. I thought Mr. Carney's best day just by process of elimination was when Mr. Trump said, you know, I had a decent call with the prime minister of Canada and for what it's worth as well, whoever wins this election, Carney or Pauliev, I'm a decent call with the Prime Minister of Canada. And for what it's worth as well, whoever wins this election, Carney or Poliev, I'm cheering for them. They actually have to fix this relationship in one way or

another, and put it on different terms. So whatever one takes over and whatever one runs Canada, I will say this, it's clear that Trump hates Trudeau. That much is clear. It's also clear as well, that the Canadian and American auto industry have really gotten together and laid it on the line for Mr. Trump. I don't know if you saw what happened the days before that.

I think everybody was watching. But I will say, it's pretty clear that the Americans, whether it's in Dearborn or other places in Michigan, are starting to lay off some workers. And I think that that has, I'm not saying Mr. Carney did a bad job, but I'm just saying, in addition to Mr. Carney having a decent call

with Mr. Trump, I think Mr. Trump probably went into that call with a little bit different mindset than he went into the previous ones. I think the way your question is framed, Paul, which is how do you get it back to affordability or issues that you went on? I noticed this morning that Paul Yev,

I think brilliantly put out a note, a message that says we need the energy infrastructure. So when you think about affordability generally, and you're trying to get back there. The reason why that's so smart is number one, Mr. Carney doesn't believe it at all. He might say it, but he doesn't believe it. Right? Like I've got I flashed the book up last week, he wrote 400 or 500 pages on getting rid of Canada's traditional energy infrastructure. And it's true, that's what he believes. He spent the last five years, Net Zero Banking Alliance,

UN climate change czar. This is what he did for a living for the last little bit in addition to Brookfield. So I think it jams him a bit. It jams him in Quebec. And it also, Alison, we were talking earlier about the NDP. The NDP needs to attack from the left. They need to prove that Carney's either just lying to progressive voters or that he's a right-wing shill in sort of

a wolf in sheep's clothing, those kinds of things. On the issue of energy and some of these other issues that Mr. Poliam is going to put on the table, if he can force them on the agenda, it's going to force Mr. Carney or Mr. Singh the opportunity to pay the NDP voters. That's what you're voting for. Whether or not he tax right or left, it sort of jams them for both the conservatives and the NDP side. So that's how you get back on message, I think, Paul,

but 100%. Any day that you get to be the prime minister of Canada, rather than a liberal party leader, is a good day for Mr. Carney. And you've got to sort of grit your teeth, I think, of your other conservatives, get through those days and say, okay, but what, what is he going to do? He doesn't believe in the things that he's going to say. He doesn't believe in energy infrastructure.

He doesn't believe in those things. He's just saying them to get elected. And I think we might get there by the end of the campaign as people take the measure of Mr. Carney. Okay, let's break it off there. The first week of the campaign was the longest first week I can remember. Maybe I'm just getting slower than I used to be, but I expect just like you, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the second week holds. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you. Thanks.