The Paul Wells Show - The Panel - Quiet Out There. Too Quiet.

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Surely by now you've learned to mistrust an empty schedule. Time for my weekly campaign meeting with The Panel — Marci Surkes, Allison Gifford, Jason Lietaer — to discuss the strangest federal election in many years. On paper, it’s a quiet week. Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement was last week, the leaders’ debates are more than a week in the future. But while we’re still lousy at predicting surprises, I think we’re better than we used to be at realizing surprises are bound to happen. This week’s instalment ends with bonus minority-government speculation. Who’s got friends? Who can keep them? Will the NDP even control the balance of power?

Monday, April 7th, beginning week three of this debacle. Hello panel, how are you? Good. Hi Paul. Recording from home today because I didn't manage to get out of the house because I spent the night watching the Nikkei plummet as one does. And I guess the first question,

Marcy, the question on the group chat, what I said was, this has got to be a crucial week. This has got to be the week that makes or breaks leads that sends one party into the debates next week, pretty desperate. And yet it didn't look like there was going to be any sort of external event to influence this week. There's no debate. President Trump wasn't planning any further announcements, but maybe the stock market is the external event. I don't know. How do you read this

race going into the third week? So I agree with your premise. This week is going to feel a little bit like the mushy middle of the campaign. I noted the political newsletter this morning called it hump week. I think we are all going to feel that to some extent as we are closely watching the machinations of the different camps. But a few things to keep in mind.

First and foremost, yes, external events are going to continue. What is happening, the turmoil that we are experiencing collectively on the global stock markets is going to continue and that is going to start to be felt in a much more tangible way by Canadian voters. Those who are looking at their portfolios, those who are lucky enough to have portfolios, but even those who are just invested in pension funds, public pension funds are going to start to feel that depreciation if they are

actually taking a look. I for one am opting not to look at it. That's a real factor here that people are going to feel. The other thing that's going to be felt much more tangibly is the beginning of temporary layoffs. And we know already that some of the auto plants are already closing and they're forecasting other closures. And so that pain, that pain point is going to start to really permeate the campaign in a way that it hasn't to date. It's been kind of building to this.

And I think that is what is gonna start to play this week as the leaders are out on tour. Those are the external influences that I do think are very germane to how this week will unfold. And to your point, Paul, set us up for the milestones that come next. On the campaign itself, there are a couple of milestones, pieces that are really key that are happening in the background that we're not seeing as clearly. First, where

we are seeing a little more clearly today, we discussed last week is the last day to add or replace candidates names on the ballots and so there'll be a flurry of additions today and then what will ensue is that candidates who are removed for various reasons and one would anticipate more candidates departing for different reasons including other parties forcing their hands in different ways through opposition research and other tactics, will start to fall off the ballot. And that's always very time consuming for a campaign that is all about ensuring that your opponent is not talking about what they want to be talking about, and instead dealing with a candidate who has to be misplaced or displaced. But the real milestones that are coming and that I'm sure is what most of the leaders' plans are around this week is starting to prep in real time for

those debates that are coming. Those are really critical and there are both, there are preparations in terms of policy and making sure that the leader has digested the policy. We haven't seen from the three main parties the full fully costed platforms just yet. In some cases, those may come before the debates and other cases that may be held. Those platforms are being finalized. The leaders are grappling with that policy. I suspect in the case of for sure Mr. Carney and Mr. Palyev, they are spending a lot of time with their teams working through that policy set

and then actually preparing themselves for the debates, which right now is probably the consumption of the policy and the answers, questions and answers that they have to be prepared for. And that will have this arc toward the end of the week where they're actually beginning to do simulations and real debate preparation. And so while those of us watching from outside of the campaigns are seeing one morning event,

a policy announcement, pronouncement, and then maybe just an evening rally, those hours in between, it's not just travel. Those hours right now are absolutely packed with preparation for what comes because I truly believe in this campaign, those debates are going to matter perhaps more than they have mattered in the last few campaigns. Has anyone heard anything about who's playing the various leaders as surrogates in the debate prep? Does anyone have intelligence on that? Even if I had intelligence, I couldn't tell you Paul, but you

know, as someone who's done that job in the past, I played Trudeau in the past with with Aaron O'Toole and I can tell you that that's one of the weirdest jobs in the world, right? Trying to get in someone else's head, but I don't know and and the hard part, you know, to your point is trying to get the person with the right demeanor and who will actually go at the leader and just like the other the other Group will do my experience has been a debate prep is almost even harder than the real debates The real debates a lot more is a lot more

gentlemen leaves the wrong word because you know, but but it's like there's there's a little less fireworks in the real debate than there is in The in that prep, but I don't know who's playing the who's playing Carney for the you know You got it. You're playing Carney for the, you know, you gotta, if you're playing Carney, you gotta get somebody that doesn't speak French in the French debate. So the conservatives, they've got a really tough, tough choice to make there. Melissa Lansman told me once that in 2019,

in preparation for the McLean's debate, she played Paul Wells, and she made a point of asking questions about Brexit because in the Andrew Scheer Conservative Party at the time, I was seen as the nutcase who thought that Brexit was a bad idea. Jason, even earlier than that, you were involved with the conservative campaign in 2008, which turned out to be an election about a banking crisis in large measure. That really blows a cannonball through campaign planning, I assume.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. So I see, I see a lot of what we did in 2008 in what the liberals are doing now with a hint, a dash of what we did in 2011, right? So they, um, you know, essentially for days on end, shutting down the campaign, you know, trying to quote unquote, look serious, be in government. Um, use the, frankly, the, the, quote unquote, look serious, be in government, use the, frankly, the office of the prime minister

and the government sort of incumbency as an advantage. We did things back in 2008, Paul, if you remember, I think we sent Jim Flaherty in the G7 finance ministers meeting. You know, we had a bunch of government briefings, we had the prime minister on the phone with G7 leaders, all of those kinds of things. So you can see the kinds of kinds of activities that the liberals and, you know, you know, I think that for the most part, for the liberals, that sort of crisis, that sort of economic war, that sort of the stakes are so high,

that kind of discussion really helps them. And I think that's what they're going to try to continue to facilitate this week. The interesting thing for them is, you're talking about what's this week for the campaign, the hump week, whatever it is. I sort of feel like it's like the summer doldrums of the campaign, even though we're nowhere near summer, where we've got that week where we're getting ready to get ready for the thing that could break this thing wide open. You mentioned who's getting desperate. The NDP is getting desperate, right? And as a result, the conservatives get desperate

for the NDP to do better, right? The NDP is at seven or 8%. If they don't start to break out of that mold, if they just don't start to make inroads and get back up into the teens, that's going to be a concern for the two of them. And then the Bloc Québécois as well. I mean, you know, they're at a point where, you know, they're losing and losing significantly in Quebec. I will say, as a conservative, we've always convinced ourselves we're gonna win a few more seats in Quebec. We hardly ever do.

We always get that, you know, that 10, 12, whatever seats around Quebec City. What is gonna happen over the next little bit is, I think Bleschet's gonna be able to get that home team advantage and try to eat into Carney's lead as it becomes clear that, Carney's French is a little weaker

than we would have expected before the campaign. And Carney's gotta be, we talked about, Marcy, you talked about people getting worried about the debates. I think what your viewers might not understand is just how much pressure is on these men and women before they go into these debates and how hard it is with the weight of the campaign on your shoulders.

The Carney will go into this debates probably with the lead. And I've seen Harper in 2011 go into the debates with the lead and know that if he performs well, he probably wins and probably wins the majority government. Not necessarily the same dynamics now for Carney, but the pressure can crush you as well. It's the first time Poliev's gonna be in it. Now, Sing's old hat, he's performed okay in the debates, but he can't ever translate it to electoral success. Blais-Chet, it's his first language.

He's gonna be really at home. So we're gonna see who sort of buckles under that pressure and who rises to the occasion over the next little bit. Okay. Alison, it occurs to me that we were all so excited last week about Liberation Day, and it ended up being the title of the video. In the end, Doug, do you think it's had an effect? And if I'm teasing out a theme from what everyone else has said so far,

this week is potentially about, this week and next week, are about getting back in the game for Paul Yev, who couldn't be prime minister while Carney was being prime minister, for Jagmeet Singh, for Yves-François Blanchet. Do you think anyone's got a chance in the aftermath of Liberation Day to kind of get back in the fight? of Liberation Day to kind of get back in the fight? Yeah, I do. I think it'll depend on how much Donald Trump stays out of the fight for the next three weeks.

You know, he can disappear. And I think one of the big things about Carney is Carney is most recognized as a leader on the tariffs and the Trump situation. But I don't think that the urge for change has gone away and that is something that Poliev can own. So if we see affordability becoming more of an issue and it's not necessarily equated with Trump's impact, that might be good for Poliev.

I think also leading up to the debates, to Jason's point, it's really incumbent on all of the other opposition leaders to get Carney off his game. And I think one of those big things is showing Carney is out of touch and just like the old liberals, and the old liberals failed you for the last 10 years and here you are, maybe, you know, and I think the bigger that Carney gets, there's more risk there that if he's got a big majority juggernaut, how easy is it going to be to bring the old gang back and just go back to business as usual?

That would be something I think I would want to stoke if I was the opposition going after Carney. I watched the Elton John Brandy Carlyle special last night on CBS. And I don't know when the last time I watched any broadcast television was. And the reason this is Jermaine, apart from what a fantastic show it was, the reason is Jermaine, to this conversation, I saw good old Jagmeet Singh three times in an hour and a half in

his sweater talking about how he's neither Carney nor Paulyev. Anyone who wants to chime in on this, it seems like broadcast ads are still. I mean, is this proof that the end piece hopelessly out of touch is broadcast still where a lot of the, a lot of the air game is. It's almost in steady rotation between Karni Singh and Pali Av. So clearly there's still an audience for that. Hard to know, looking into a crystal ball, hard to know whether that would be the case in the next campaign, but they are clearly still there and clearly paying a lot of money for that space. It's all during the main national newscast. So they're finding an audience, I have to assume.

They keep running them. You can always pull an ad if it's not resonating. Paul, one thing that I've noticed over the last little bit is, you know, I think we're not back to like pandemic levels of news watching, but you know, the Trump phenomenon, or I think seniors, you know, and these decisions on the buy, by the way, were made well before the campaign in terms of what you're going to buy. You can adjust during a campaign, but the big blocks of discussion and decisions are made weeks ago because the inventory goes so quickly during a campaign.

There's not much inventory to buy for anybody that's thought about how to buy ads during a campaign. But I will say the seniors vote has obviously migrated back to the liberals and they are one of the groups that's watching broadcast, who's watching broadcast TV for sure. And so the liberals are, I think, counting on some of that. I think you've got the liberals or the conservatives and the NDP trying to buttress that. And I think the more Trump's in the news, the more people are tuning in. It's not Rideau Cottage tune in, but people are watching CNN, people are watching CBC,

people are watching CTV. It's on in the background. Every time you turn around, people are looking up and saying, what did Trump do now? In the interspersed with that, I think you've got a lot of ads and I don't think that's going to change in this kind of, with seniors being so differently voting than they are. We're seeing these demographics change too, right, Paul? Young people are not breaking back for the liberals in the same numbers as, in fact, quite the opposite. They're supporting the conservatives, which is a complete change from

most past campaigns. They're really responding to, I think, Paul Yev's online message, his online messaging, his, the way he's delivering his content out there. A lot of broadcasts, but more more on that. And I think that's having an effect as well. Alison you mentioned about how the other parties are going to want, especially Pauly I was going to want to remind people that Carney is only one man and that almost the entire rest of the Liberal Party sure looks a lot like the Liberal Party and it seems to me that the liberals are conscious of this because they do not ever talk about legacy. They do not ever talk about the success

of their first decade. It's as though the party was just invented or flown in from Europe or something. And other cabinet ministers are not on the stage. We talk a lot about how Poliev isn't playing team. Carney is not playing team either. I mean, this is the most presidentialized campaign I've ever seen.

Alison, since you raised the point first, that's gotta be super frustrating for the people who thought they were gonna run against a very mixed decade of liberal results. Oddly, I think one of the policy legacies that Carney has mentioned publicly is pharmacare and dental care, which we know was actually the NDP's work. So that always jumps out to me in particular. But yeah, I think he definitely needs to distance himself. Canada was

not in great shape before all of this Trump drama started. And I think that that was largely a result of a very status quo government that was very tired of itself. So I do think that that will be a challenge for Carney to distance himself, but it's going to get harder and harder. The more popularity he gets, the more that old team is going to come back and want to stay. Marcy, have you, like me, noticed that they've put an entire decade's worth of government in witness protection? Not only are they not mentioning any of the major achievements, and there are major achievements, and we can quibble with which ones those are.

I do believe there were a number of policy planks, including the two that Alison mentioned, which were NDP ideas that that liberals took hold of. I also believe that early learning and childcare never pulls well. It's never part of the election, but it is a major social policy success and achievement of the previous government. Not only are they not talking about any of that, they're like actively distancing themselves from the achievements. And of course, we saw Mr. Carney's executive order like presser on the first day the day the cabinet was sworn in, getting rid of the themselves from the achievements. And of course we saw Mr. Carney's executive order like presser on the first day, the day the cabinet was sworn in, getting rid of the carbon tax.

I watched a candidate video last night on Instagram of the candidate at the gas station demonstrating how much less expensive it was to fill up your tank at this point, now that it was 15 or 20 cents less on the leader and I was quite gobsmacked because it really quite possibly could have been an opposition video yet it was a liberal video. So it's not only not talking about it,

it's clearly creating a huge light between what has happened and the next chapter. I have noticed as well that we are not seeing a slate of star candidates being presented, which I have been a little surprised by. And I understand to your point, and Jason made this point last week, it is a presidentialized election. Clearly, it is about the leaders against each other.

But really, it's this funny triangle where it's about the leaders versus Trump, and that's the third leg on the stool, and who's the right leader, right, in that orbit. But I thought we would see a few new candidates being really touted on the liberal side if for no other reason than to demonstrate that there are some new faces on the bench and to demonstrate some additional talent, some seriousness, not only a departure from the past,

but also a vision for the future and a team to be your new lead ministers. We're not seeing that and it feels to me like that's clearly a choice that's been made. I'm interested to see if that changes over the week because there are a few big names quote-unquote running and they are appearing rallies, but we're not seeing them front and center. And I'm thinking about Gregor Robertson in Vancouver, clearly a big name on the lower mainland. Maybe he'll be showcased now that the leader is in BC today. So maybe, you know, watch this space.

Maybe that's what's coming. But other big names, Evan Solomon's a pretty big name in terms of a broadcaster not seeing in front and center. Anthony Germain out in Newfoundland and Labrador, big name, haven't seen him, big name regionally in terms of former CBC broadcaster, not seeing him front and centre in Quebec. Natalie Pauvo got mentioned only because there was a bit of a misstatement there by the leader, but also a household name in Quebec, and we're not seeing her really demonstrated on the Quebec campaign at this point. So I'll be interested

to watch that thread this week to see if those really do take shape or if in fact this is simply going to be about the leaders. And as Jason said rightly, there's a lot of pressure that comes with that on the leaders, but that may very well be the way this the rest of this campaign unfolds. Now I want to skip to the end of this, which is election day and we get we see the results. It's starting to look like it could be a minority government. National News Watch has this thing where they they pull Ottawa lifers, campaign professionals, and ask what the expected outcome is. And there's way more people expecting a conservative minority or a liberal minority than expect a majority on either side. Jason, if I was the conservative,

I'd be a little nervous about that because then if you don't command a majority in the House of Commons, you start looking around for friends and allies. And Jagmeet Singh has already said that he would never support a poly-F government. Is that concerning? I mean, are you just gonna have to try and ride in on momentum or? Yeah, it's a tough one. You know, there's sort of no such thing as a minority conservative minority parliament, unless there are government, unless there is. That's the one thing, right? Like, I will say, I take, and I don't mean this as a slight at Mr. Singh. I don't trust anything he says about those kinds of things.

Like he said a lot of things over the last years. And the truth is you do what's in your interest, right? It depends what the nature of the votes are. The truth is it depends what the seats are. No one's gonna say this publicly in any of the campaigns, but it depends. It depends is it 10 seat majority or Delta? Is it a 30 seat?

Is it a 40 seat Delta between the two parties? And so yeah, if you're a conservative, you do wonder about that. Listen, we governed as a minority in 2006 and 2008. We obviously got a majority in 2011. It's not easy. The liberals have been doing the same for quite some time. And you do have to look for partners.

And it's not as easy to find partners if you have the conservatives for sure. I will say you got to campaign when you're conservative as though you need a majority to get there because you think there's a very good chance that might be the case and that you've got to get there. I would expect we're in the closing phase to your point Paul and I would say what Alison said earlier about the NDP, I started there and I think I'm going to end there because that actually is the story of this campaign in a lot of different ways. Whether or not the NDP can persuade liberal voters who

have decided during a time of quote unquote national unity or economic warfare or whatever, they're going to park their boat back with the liberals. Whether or not the NDP can go to people and say, Carney doesn't deserve unchecked power. We don't know anything about him. He's brand new. He's been here for a few weeks. Maybe just stick with what we've got right now so that we can have some impact. I expect the NDP to, by the debate, if they haven't changed to a message that's like that, I would be shocked. I think that's the last 10 to 15 days of their campaign. Whether or not they're going to persuade anybody. I think they might because I will say, I think the first couple of weeks of this campaign people, Carney was presented. I think people wanted

to believe in something. People wanted to believe that somebody had some answers and ideas. I think right now, not that the rose is off, but I think people have seen what Carney is. He's okay, right? Whether he's a B minus or a C plus or an A minus, depends on your point of view, but the truth is he's okay. But he's not what people presented him as, I would say. And I think that Singh's gonna have an opportunity to be able to say to people,

does this guy deserve unchecked power or would you rather have us riding shotgun again? And I think that's probably where they'll end up very shortly. Also my kind of my nightmare scenario is that Canadians send back a parliament that looks a lot like the last one, give or take you know I mean conservatives with 10 more seats or liberals with 10 more seats but a parliament that is condemned to work together after it has spent a decade learning how never to work together. Is that, that's got to, that would be like the most frustrating outcome.

Yeah, I agree with you. I actually don't think anyone has earned the mandate, earned a majority mandate to govern so far. I don't think, you know, 10 years of liberal government, you know, it had its ups and downs, but I don't, I think we were just done. Like we were so done with the dynamic.

It wasn't serving Canadians at all. And you know, maybe that's partly personality, maybe it's a tired 10 year government, you know, a conservative leader that really wrote in on the change, the change momentum, but then just couldn't deep, make himself less pointy and too Trumpy. And so I don't know that anyone's fully earned it, but the thing that I don't want either is a minority government where we're in a scenario of having an election every 18 months. So I think in some ways

a minority might be good just to hit the refresh button, but it is incumbent on people keeping the national interest front and center and working together. Okay, having terrified ourselves with that outcome, let's call it quits for this week. Thanks once again for joining me and enjoy your hump week, everyone. You too. Thanks, everyone.