The Paul Wells Show - The Paul Wells New Year's party

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

Live from Ottawa! Paul reluctantly makes a New Year's resolution. Writer Ian Williams reads from his upcoming novel You’ve Changed. Strategists Garry Keller, Marci Surkes and Allison Gifford (“The Panel”) talk about the political year to come. Ada Lea performs her songs “Damn” and “Baby Blue Frigidaire Mini Fridge.” Jazz guitarist Jocelyn Gould performs the Paul Wells Show theme music.   Thank you to our friends at the National Arts Centre for hosting this live event, and to WestJet and Meta for their support.   Season 3 of The Paul Wells Show is sponsored by McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy.

The Paul Wells Show is made possible by McGill University's Max Bell School of Public Policy, where I'm a senior fellow. And now, from the National Arts Center in Ottawa, the Paul Wells Year End Show. Thank you all for coming out tonight. I'm not sure when I stopped making New Year's resolutions, but I think it was pretty soon after I started. Honestly, who was I kidding with that stuff? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I ever smartened up about anything, and those occasions almost never coincided with the start of a new year. Sometimes you just realize your hair is on fire,

and I have always found that the best time to put that fire out was as soon as I noticed. There will be plenty of time later to stare meaningfully at the calendar, but job one is get a bucket. Still I do think that while the end of the year is not a particularly auspicious moment for launching major renovations, it is a good time for taking stock. If for no other reason than that most of us have a little time off before it's time to dive back into the vortex. So somewhere in there between all the company and all the cooking, we get a chance to ask ourselves a few big questions. Maybe something like, what's been going on? What

do I know is coming up? And have I been handling it all as well as I might have hoped? Now I think it's fair to say that for the last, I don't know, decade or so, it's been more and more tempting to answer all of those questions with, don't ask. What's going on? Don't ask. What's next? Don't ask. How am I doing? I refer you to my answers on questions one and two. And that's a perfectly fair reaction to these crazy times. But let's see if we can do just a little better. Let's regroup, circle around the block, and take another run at these questions. We must try to be brave. What's been going on? Well, I think one lesson we learned from 2024 is that even when many, many people say very clearly

that they don't want something to happen again, sometimes it happens again. We've also been reminded of something I always used to tell our kids. Everything is on the exam. That thing you thought you could safely ignore, there will absolutely be an essay question about that thing, and it'll be for all the marks. That promise to put 2% of Canada's national wealth towards national defence in a world that gets more dangerous every year, that's on the marks. That promise to put 2% of Canada's national wealth towards national

defence in a world that gets more dangerous every year? That's on the exam. Building a higher education system that doesn't depend on shaking international students down for money in order simply to survive? That's on the exam. Building an economy that rewards work, encourages investment, meets basic tests of fairness. There's a question on that too. Once the crisis comes, it's a bit late to realize, maybe we should have spent more time listening to people we don't always agree with. It's too late to remember that speaking truth to power is never optional.

And that if you haven't been practicing that skill, you might discover that you've forgotten how to do it. So that's some of what happened in 2024. What's coming in 2025? Well there will be an election in Canada, probably, and there will be consequences from an election in the United States for sure. Beyond that it's hard to say. Donald Trump has already made it clear that he wants the kind of presidency that will make it hard for anyone else to make plans. Since we won't have a lot of calm and clarity and certainty to rely on,

we can expect chaos, confusion, and recrimination. Politicians know who to blame when that happens. They blame one another. But it's hard to shake the impression that they kind of like it. And judging by the way a lot of us have behaved during recent elections, it's hard to resist the conclusion that we kind of like it too. Polarization is easy after all. Your guy wrecked everything. My guy will fix it.

If your guy isn't my guy, then you haven't merely reached different conclusions based on different experiences. You have failed as a citizen, which lets me off the hook entirely. See how easy that is? See how easy it is on me? Perhaps you've noticed that I've kind of quietly segued from my second question to my third, from what's going to happen next to how are we doing. I kind of had to do that because on the what happens next question, my best answer is I don't know any better than anyone else. As for the how are we doing question, I think the answer is not great.

But it's okay to notice that and admit it. In fact, that's what stock taking at the end of the year is for. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Just like our leaders, we've been hoping some important things wouldn't be on the exam. Things like listening and cutting other people some slack and holding ourselves to higher standards. Somewhere along the line, conversations became too uncomfortable for too many of us. So we all had a fun decade coming up with long lists of people who didn't deserve the luxury

of our attention and respect. I don't think the results have been what we hoped. Fortunately, I think people are already starting to figure this out. In a few minutes, I'll be joined up here by Ian Williams. He'll give us the great gift of reading from his next novel, which is coming in 2025. But Ian also just finished delivering the CBC Massey lectures on the theme of conversation. He's very clear that conversation includes listening, and that the obligation to listen is not one that I can put on you, but only on myself. Here's a radical brain-splitting thing to attempt in a difficult conversation, he writes. Try to loosen your grasp on your convictions,

lay down your defenses, and instead inhabit the other person's perspective completely. defenses and instead inhabit the other person's perspective completely. Who among us thinks our political leaders are ready to do that? It's a trick question. The obligation to listen is not one that we can put on our leaders, but only on ourselves. Just as all the obligations and challenges of citizenship are, first of all, a burden we must put on ourselves. Perhaps I've talked myself into making a New Year's resolution after all. I hope that in 2025 I can be a good citizen. There's no time like the present. Hey, who wants to hear some tunes?

Ada Leah's second album, One Hand on the Steering Wheel, The Other Sewing a Garden, was long listed for the Polaris Music Prize, and Stereogum called it one of the best of 2021. That's when I got on board with her music. I love her lyrics. She has got a fantastic work ethic. She writes a lot of tunes and she just finished teaching a songwriting course at Concordia University in Montreal where she lives. I am so happy to introduce her to a new audience. Here now with a song that pretty much sums up this year for me, please welcome Ada Leah and her song, Damn. guitar solo The years started at the back of a train of thought

Facing the air, faded in an hour Everyone drunk off their faces, just singing our praise Wanting in on the magic side Midnight on the second block and a door While you were in the corner joking about how it would be less how it would be less while we were outside having a smoke i heard you asking around here could you find me some cold care for years just a little bit darker and the darker gets darker, then it's dark as hell By now you don't need a good reason

You climb up to the highest of trees And you left yourself clean Yeah, you left yourself clean Back inside where the party had started I shut the door Really feeling ecstatic Feelings coming to go Someplace a little higher, a bit close In case a good friend is a good friend

Sometimes a good friend ain't enough to grab you And pull you out Damn the work, damn the music Damn the fun that's missing Damn the drugs, damn the friends Damn the phone that's missing Damn the drugs Damn the friends Damn the phone that's ringing Damn the night Damn the party

Damn the song that's spinning And trying to lift us up But it only drags us down The year started at the back of a train of thought Facing the elevator in an awkward way Made a call from the side who made mark and I come home soon Lying on the floor in the bathroom I've had it with this place, we're all going in this

I've had it with this place Oh, you've been feeling lost now Living in the background and with a rough crowd, thinking of the times you had it all forgotten. Now everyone is pastel blue, we're on the edge now, ideas and effigy waiting to come down. I've had it with this place, we're all gone insane. I've had it with this place, we've all gone insane Damn the work, damn the music, damn the fun that's missing Damn the drugs, damn the friends, damn the phone that's ringing

Damn the night, damn the party, damn the song that's spinning Damn the route, damn the street, damn the scene they're singing Damn the home, damn the dark, damn the planet watching Damn the mood, damn the people Damn the door that's closing Damn the temp, damn the ride Damn the draft that's missing Damn the home, damn the dark Damn the life that's winning. Ada Leah, ladies and gentlemen. I love that line.

Every year is just a little bit darker. Then the darker gets darker. Then it's dark as hell. Kind of sums it up. But not for our next guest. Our next guest has had quite a good year. He came out with a fascinating new book of poetry, Word Games. Then he delivered this year's CBC Massey lectures under the title What I Mean to Say, Remaking

Conversation in Our Time. In those lectures he asked us to explore what makes a good conversation and how to connect with people even when you disagree with them. It's an important message and as you might suspect it is one that is close to my own heart. But I asked him to join us tonight because tonight is partly about looking ahead and I am most curious about what comes next. He is here to read an excerpt from his new novel which will be published in 2025. It's called You've Changed and it comes out in August. Will you please welcome Ian Williams. Thank you, Paul.

So I'm going to read to you from the future here, from next year's novel. And it's called What You've Changed. And it's all about the parts of our identity that can be changed, right? What can be changed, what can't be changed, all told through the tight frame of a marriage that's in decline. And marriage is the perfect place for this because in marriage, you're encouraged to change in some respects, and some changes are unwelcome, and some are just flat-out deal-breakers.

So we're getting this couple now, Beckett. I'll read from his point of view. And he speaks to his wife. That's the you that you'll hear. And they're at a therapist's office, their first time. The therapist's office was painted navy and dimly lit. The therapist herself wore large jewelry and a loose black gown that she had to hold up so it wouldn't drag as she walked to her throne. A sleek black Doberman lay at her feet. It all felt like ancient Egypt. She had no eyebrows or lips. She must have worn them down from years of talking to people like us. Five minutes into her session, I hadn't said anything apart from hello. She had introduced herself as if she was reading off a business card. Clara Simmons, registered psychologist, communist, political activist, social agitator. I didn't ask where you had found this therapist.

Dr. Simmons said she was used to having one partner eager to be in therapy and the other reluctant, so she'd like to check in with us about our feelings. I most certainly was not going to respond to that pablum, not first at least. Later you said that I had rolled my eyes at the question. I denied it. You said that I rolled my eyes internally. You could see it. It was my idea, you said to the therapist. He doesn't want to be here. Why are you here, Beckett? I scratched my neck and said nothing. She's speaking to you, you said, but you, don't ignore a woman when she speaks to you. Don't pull that patriarchal act like we're below your consideration.

I addressed the therapist for the first time. I'm sorry, what was the question? Why are you here, she asked flatly. She might have been on narcotics. To fix me. What do you mean by that? I didn't reply. I was tired of the questions already, the upward lilt of her voice like a slam poet. I understand that you don't want to be here, she said. You're not going to be here forever. Sometimes in two or three sessions, we can get everything out on the table and think about how

to move forward with honesty and transparency. I like to tell my clients that we can take an hour and have a difficult conversation now, or you can go home and spend a lifetime fighting. How does that sound to you? I open my palm, a go ahead gesture. Do you want to start by telling me about your own parents? Dead. I'm sorry. Pandemic. Yeah, but I'm not here to talk about my parents, I said. You opened your mouth, scoffed a few times,

then leaned back and folded your arms, trying to out-silence me. You can't out-silence a Quaker. My whole childhood was silence, girl. After a few moments of the therapist looking between us, you pulled out your phone and started scrolling. I thought that you were being childish, beyond childish, extremely rude to the therapist, but she did not look offended. She reached down and stroked the head of her Doberman, then got up, went to her desk, and returned with cue cards and Sharpies.

Here, she offered us each a card. I want you to write down your preferred relationship status. Do you see a future together? Do you want to stay married? Again, for the record, I did not recall rolling my eyes, but later you said you rolled your eyes every time she opened her mouth. Let's find someone else. No, Beckett, I chose her. Honestly, though, in that moment, I was simply thinking about the landscaping job ahead of me. You held up your card. The motion felt like you were voting me off an island. I twisted in my chair to read your card.

To my surprise, it said, Married. The therapist asked you to elaborate. I want to be married, you said. I don't care if it's to him or not. Married. The therapist asked you to elaborate. I want to be married, you said. I don't care if it's to him or not. You gave me the card as one would give someone a contract to review and sign. What do you mean by that last part, I asked.

The therapist smiled. I want to be married, you said again. But the to whom is irrelevant to you? You looked at me as if you could not identify the source of my objection. I held up my clasped hands like a prizefighter. Lucky me. The therapist looked at the intake form we, you, filled out in the waiting room. Beckett, am I correct that you had an affair?

I wouldn't call it an affair, I said. Are you and Princess in an open relationship? Your lip involuntarily curled in disgust at the term. I shook my head. What would you call the affair then, the therapist asked me. Friends, I wanted to say. An overlap. But again, I didn't answer. It wasn't just an affair, you said. I looked at her begging. He had an affair with this young, you looked down, silence. Do you feel betrayed, the therapist asked. I feel, you tried to find the words. You were so tense, you were flexing your calves. I came back from my trip and he had given Pamplemousse, my cat, away to this person, this person, this woman, you finally said. He's romping away with her and he doesn't even want to touch me. I knew it. I could hear it in his voice when he called me in Costa Rica that he was with someone. that he was with someone. Your tone, Beckett.

And you were never home, always in your truck out somewhere. And I was like, princess, all of that good energy is not for you. Everything that was supposed to be mine, you gave to somebody else. He gave this woman my cat and then called me to make a joke out of it. I was still looking down at my shoes. I said, I got Pamplemousse back. The Doberman looked at me like, is that the best you can do? I responded by saying that I would say what I would say if I were on a talk show. It's the only time I've ever done something like this. I don't know what got into

me. I want her a dress princess, the therapist said. I want you to trust me again, I said, remembering her recent restraint. You quoted me. The only time? The therapist responded, looking at me, not you, with a line out of her poetry slam, Shadow Life. Sometimes, the only is only the first. Possibly I did roll my eyes here, but I was looking down so nobody saw me. Her voice became stern. Is the affair over? Yes. Did you end it? Yes. Tell Princess how and why you ended it.

I erased her contact info, I said. True. Before you came back, I met her outside her building. Not so true. And said that my wife was coming back. True. And I needed to take care of her. Implied. and that the affair was a lapse of judgment not completely true and I hoped she would understand mostly true I didn't reveal to you or the therapist the last words that gluten

and I exchanged because they were irrelevant untrue because I wanted them only for myself true the therapist said I found that in these situations, the offended party often needs certain information before they can go forward. To be clear, going forward doesn't mean steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation. It can sometimes mean that the offended party decides to sunset the relationship based on the information they have. So what do you need to know, princess? I already told her everything I said. The therapist ignored me. Princess, what do you need to know? Princess asked, did you talk about her with me? No. Wrong move. You were hoping that I flooded gluten with

information, that I couldn't stop talking about my wife this, my wife that. So I added, I told her you work at the gym. I don't work at the gym, you said. I'm a personal trainer. Are you a handyman or a contractor? I have a degree. Princess, the therapist said, he's being honest with you. You held your shoulders back and refused to apologize.

I scratched my nostril with my pinky. Did you enjoy being with her more than you enjoy being with me? No, I said. Sexually, you clarified. I paused to consider you didn't want to hear yes, and saying no would open a can of worms about my motivation. And don't say I don't know. Finally, I said, about the same. I glanced to see whether he believed me. The therapist's tone changed when speaking to me. She said, all actions come with consequences.

She said that like I needed a moral education. I knew that already. The consequence of my actions was my memory. Thanks. It was fun watching the audience while you read. Just about everybody was wincing. I very much enjoyed your previous novel, Reproduction, and it seems to me that you like to spend a lot of time

at the intersection between hilarious and excruciating. Right, I mean, the sort of funny makes those unbearable situations possible, right? Like how does a reader get through someone's death or get through like an affair or a marriage that's crumbling? And it's got to be in these really clear things to us, like that kind of irony, but that aren't really clear to the people in the romance. So yeah, it's this kind of thing where you kind of nudge the reader and say, you could probably do better than this in your own life, no? Right?

And they're like, yeah, for sure. And then in your real life, it's just a disaster, so. This year you came out with your first book of poetry in some years. You were working on a novel all year. I bring greetings from your editor, Ann Collins, who was my editor. I called her up and I said, do you think I could get Ian Williams? I'm doing this weird thing. Do you think I'd get... And she said, he would absolutely say yes, don't ask because I want

to make sure the novel's done. And you did the Massey lectures in between. Working on all those various registers at once, is it confusing, dissipating, or does it become like a force multiplier for what you're trying to say? Yeah, they come out all at once, but they're actually worked on in these separate compartments, right? And we kind of stagger the release of them

or combine the release of them. But no, when I'm writing poetry, I'm pretty much in poetry mind, right? And when I'm writing fiction. And for the Masseys this year, that was all I could do, right? To get that right. And it's been great hearing the conversations you've been having here. And I think so many people are feeling this.

Like we want better from our leaders and we want better from ourselves. But the thing that's getting rewarded in our conversations is extreme and polarized and antagonistic. Did you get people saying, well, of course it's polarized, it's polarized between right and wrong and between justice and hate? Yeah, yeah, I get that too. And people want me to take absolute sides on certain issues. And then they sort of send me to a kind of like death camp if I don't do things exactly the way they want to do it. And I think it's particularly painful when you align yourself with a group, say politically, right? If you think about yourself as being in the left or on the right, and then that group savages you, although you share

the same values, but you don't share the same methods. And I think right now that distinction between our content and our form or our methods and our values is in sharp relief. And we're willing to throw out people who hold our values because we don't like their methods. Is this novel in any way a continuation of that sort of meditation of how we talk to one another? Yeah, you'll see like lots of conversations sort of happening in the novel, right? It's the only way we can sort of make our insides known on the outside. But I feel like my work has just been this lifelong tracking of my life. And I think the concerns of my 30s, like reproduction, and you know, should you have children and all

of that worked out there. And now it's about all of this, like identity warfare that we're having right now in public. What are the personal dramatic stakes in that? And how can we actually know what is real and what's not right can we change it physically can we change it internally and what's the payoff of that and to do it in fiction um i think this gives me a little bit more latitude i don't write fiction um that's way above my pay grade but i find writing a book is one of the most lonely experiences that you can have because like you don't know whether it's good enough you don't know whether you're saying what you want to say and then you send it out into the world with this kind of horrified relief is that where you're at right now yeah i think about it kind of

like sending your kid out to like kindergarten or something right like you love your kid for three or four years um and it's just yours right it's so private the thing that you're working on every day you see this manuscript, and then you kind of like put a backpack on it and send it off to kindergarten, you hope other people love it too. But sometimes, like you know, there's a bully in kindergarten,

they'll savage your kid, or their teacher's not very good. But yeah, in some ways you release it and you're constantly like attached to this thing, right? But my distance from say reproduction to this novel, the relationship's different. Right. So yeah,

I can still hold onto this baby a little bit longer, a few months longer. Thank you for letting us get a peep at your baby photos by, by precociously reading from your upcoming novel. Ian Williams, it's a great pleasure to catch up with you and to hear all the various things that you're up to. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I want to take a moment to thank the people who support this show. Tackling the complexity of global challenges demands a different approach to public policy. The Max Bell School of Public Policy's teaching, research, policy engagement,

and public outreach develops the skills and understanding to solve the most important issues facing Canada and the world today. They offer several public lectures and conferences throughout the year on current policy conversations and provide an 11-month intensive master's program to prepare the next generation of policy leaders.

Learn more at mcgill.ca slash maxbellschool. We are lucky to have Ada Leah come back up to sing. Please give it up for Ada Leah come back up to sing. Please give it up for Ada Leah. This next one is a new one that I've only played once before and that I recorded a year ago today in Ontario as well. baby blue fridge a damn mini fridge that i traded last week for a box spring and a pair of sunglasses Took the tiny red bird matches too Tonight I'm looking Not seeing anything like you

Pulse a line at 100 Book of Francesca Woodman's photographs Someone sent to me as a present It appeared on my apartment's front doorstep Tonight I'm looking Not seeing anything like you Waking up and it's fall again Heaven is a place I know

Then the air gets so cold again I wanna know where you are What you're thinking This chair, this window This mountain view Our old time souls On this old time moon The kettle gets to whistling

It's on the cardinals On the porch Needle skips while monk is hammering I let a song go out my heart Neon pothos jigsaw puzzle And I've forgotten every password Cast iron stove, bought from the yard, sailed down the road A bowl of soggy rice Yeah, everything comes at a price Waking up and it's fall again Having this place I know

And then the air gets so cold again I wanna know where you are What you're thinking This jazz window This mountain view Our old time souls This old time mood This jazz window

This mountain view Our old time souls and soul time mood Ada Leah, ladies and gentlemen. Singing Baby Blue Frigidaire Mini Fridge, which is almost a consummate Montreal song title. No holiday gathering is complete in the nation's capital without the deployment of the traditional pundit panel. I am happy to say that Ivan Road testing one of the best. They've got real experience at the highest levels. They are wired to think about how government

works and they are just so darn nice. We argued for months about what to call them so now I just call them the panel. Will you please welcome to the stage Gary Keller who was chief of staff to John Baird in government and Ronna Ambrose in opposition, and is now a Vice President at Strategy Corp. Marcy Sirks, who was Justin Trudeau's Policy Director from 2019 to 2022, what we now call the good years, and is now Chief Strategy Officer at Compass Rose. And Alison Gifford, who worked with Jack Layton in 2011 and is now VP Policy and Public Affairs at Clear Strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, our last act of the evening, the panel.

Before we get to serious business, I do want to dwell a little bit on the name of the panel. For the longest time, I referred to it as the panel that doesn't swear, which is a contrast to David Hurley's curse of politics panel but that seemed a little reductive and self-referential so Allison was good enough to ask chat GPT what we should call a panel of Canadian pundits and the first things that coughed up were names like the Maple Leaf Brief, Beavers and Briefings. My choice, my choice.

And the Timbit of Truth. Still some work to do on the whole AI thing, I think. Then she asked for ideas based on the panelists being really nice. And so we got the OU first politics panel, all apologies and analyses, and sorry for the insight, which I kind of like. And then finally, Alison asked what we should call a panel of grizzled veterans and the answers that came up included the wise cracks been there debated that and grit grins and grievances so that's why i took an executive decision I'd just call you guys the panel. Question one. Everyone in the last two weeks has been second-guessing the Prime Minister's trip to Mar-a-Lago.

But I am wondering if each of you had been running a PMO on November 25th when Donald Trump announced the 25% universal tariff on Canadian imports, how would you have responded? Marcy, I think I might start with you. Thanks, Paul. If I were running PMO on the Mar-a-Lago trip, so in spite of the fact or despite the fact that they may have actually broken a federal US law, the Logan Act, in terms of dealing with somebody for a state-to-state level who is not actually the administration of the United States. That little detail aside, I do think anybody advising any prime minister of this country, any partisan stripe, period, should have and would have done the same, if given the opportunity. I know there are some who would say it felt as though we were kowtowing or going to kiss the ring, what have you.

I actually don't even care. The most important relationship to Canada is this one. And there is nothing that can be done that is too small a gesture to ensure that that never changes. Gary, do you agree? You've been chief of staff to a conservative foreign minister and to a conservative leader. How should that Trump tweet or truth have been handled? Yeah, absolutely. You have a chance to meet the next president of the United States. Take away the whole Trump business. If you're an incoming president and they make that offer to come down to meet, you absolutely take that. And in the past, that was usually handled

very privately. Remember in 2012, there were people on the Romney campaign who had quiet conversations in Ottawa with people, very quiet conversations, but it was, what if this happens? So look, of course, the Prime Minister had to go take that trip. Now, I guess my biggest beef of the whole situation was, to this day, it seems very slow and very unprepared off the mark. You had the Premier saying, maybe we should meet to talk about this Prime Minister. I mean, we knew there was going to be one of two outcomes on November the 5th. And in both cases, both presidential candidates had said, I'm going to initiate a review of Kuzma and after 2.0.

So we've known about this for some time. We've known Donald Trump is going to be tariff man if he was elected. And it seems like they're building the plane as they're flying it. But as to the initial question, yeah, absolutely. And you do anything you can to try to meet the incoming president or fix a problem. Awesome. meet the incoming president or fix a problem. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump, as we saw in the last presidency, is like the king of shock and awe. And he likes attention. He likes drama. Canada's strategy last time was to make him look like he was winning, but really extracting as much as possible for Canada. And by that, I mean, if you look at Kuzma now versus the NAFTA that he hated and the CPTPP he hated, well, that's basically the love child of those two previous trade agreements, you know,

reincarnated in Kuzma, which is great, according to Donald Trump. So there is certainly part of that theater that I think we've learned is necessary with him. But at the same time, there's a there's a very basic playbook here that I would if I was in PMO, I think this would be pretty surefire. Like, you know, Canadian and U.S. companies need to work very closely together. U.S. companies who have operations in Canada need to have a voice at the table. Canadian companies who have business in the United States need to have a very loud voice. This happened last time. There was such a huge mobilization of business around this, making it very clear that we're

each other's number one trading partner and how much we would be hurting each other by arbitrarily slapping tariffs on Canadian imports. So that's part of the playbook is just mobilizing those other wraparound communities and then also ensuring that we have really productive relationships with Republican lawmakers municipally at the state level, because it ultimately can be more than just one person. Marcy, is there any danger of sort of cognitive dissonance? A prime minister who's been running against sort of now three consecutive conservative leaders as the reincarnation of Donald Trump. And then the first thing he says to the reelected Donald Trump is, can I get you a refill? So yeah, there is a cognitive dissonance for sure. At the same time, if anybody understands politics, it's Donald Trump. I mean, Alison just said, king of shock and awe, king of politics. There may be a real disconnect between

the two leaders in terms of their worldviews. I think that is a real issue that we should discuss or unpack. In terms of the fact that Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party have campaigned in that manner, I mean, I think that is broadly understood in the U.S. political realm. And I don't actually think that in and of itself is what's at issue. Can they work together? It was frosty last time. We all remember that very almost iconic image of the G7 at Charlevoix. Last time Canada hosted the G7 and you had Angela Merkel and all of the leaders of the G7 looking down at Donald Trump.

Basically, you know, Merkel's in a posture where she's clearly arguing with him and he's got his arms arms crossed and is completely unwilling to engage. He left, and he was quite grumpy at how the prime minister framed that whole episode. I think there are moments like that that may be very difficult to overcome. But that's not just the political gamesmanship. I mean, I think that in and of itself is the least of the issues. Okay. Looking ahead, there is probably, not guaranteed, a federal election in 2025. I'm going to ask each of you a three-part question. What should the slogan of the campaign run by your party's leader be? What are the vulnerabilities or dangers that your leader should be aware and afraid of?

And should your leader have a traditional media tour with a bus full of reporters following the leader around at every stop? Gary? Three great questions. In terms of a slogan, I mean, I think axe the tax and bring it home seemed to be working pretty well the last time I checked, but a variation on a theme, I think it's time for a change. Change is the watchword. It's been the watchword for almost every single provincial, state, federal election in the world. There's been a lot of change that's been going on, and the way things have been going for the last little while, I think that's the mood of it captures it perfectly. Two dangers for an opposition leader, especially

when you've been up in the polls as long as you have, hubris is one thing. There's always a potential nature of people in the caucus or around, you know, starting to measure the drapes, saying, oh, well, I'm going to be the minister X or minister Y, and you really have to avoid that. The other thing is, Harold Macmillan, as British Prime Minister once said, what's the thing you most fear? Events, dear boy, events. And you cannot control what happens in the world if there's another, God forbid, a 9-11 situation or mass migration or borders, a tsunami on Vancouver. You don't control those things and you have to be prepared to react to those. Alison, I'm going to throw to you. Campaign slogan, dangers for an NDP leader, and media bus.

I think media bus is the only way the NDP makes money these days, isn't it? Har har. I mean, so, so funny. I mean, like, right now, the only thing that comes to mind is like the only adult left in the room. I don't, you know, I'd have to test that a little bit. But Parliament's been deadlocked since September because of the liberals and the conservatives. I think that that the NDP and Jagmeet Singh is the only party with the national interest that's still showing up to work and trying to get things done. I see a lot of short term political gain clouding out the national interest otherwise. I see a lot of short-term political gain clouding out the national interest otherwise. So something about working for Canadians, which is a bit, I need work on my marketing skills,

obviously. But he sometimes feels like the only adult in the room who's still just showing up for work to get work done. My second question, remind me what my second question is. Dangerous. Dangerous, right. So since time immemorial, there's been this old chestnut that the only way to defeat the conservatives is to vote liberal. This is something as a former NDP staffer I'm very aware of, because in many writings, it's actually the NDP that's second. So that old vote splitting is always a challenge for the NDP. The other one for me would be the youth vote. Like what if the youth vote starts going more and more conservative and that the NDP can't capture that traditional youth vote? And I mean, that's a challenge for Trudeau, too, because he really courted the youth vote.

So those would be my two guesses, an old one and a new one. Marcy? I think it goes without saying, although I'll say it, change definitely belongs to the conservatives this time around. The liberals cannot run on a real change slogan as they have in the past. So just sort of eliminate that from the vocabulary right now. I didn't intend to reference Angela Merkel twice in this podcast, but I do remember a poster from her final campaign, which was very simple. Forgive me, I don't speak German, but the poster basically was,

Die Mitte, which was just the center, right? Hugging the center, right, hugging the center. And I think that the Liberal Party of Canada, if it is going to turn this around, and I fully appreciate that in the time remaining between now and the next election, that that may not be enough time to turn around what we're seeing. But if the Liberal Party is to turn around what is happening, it needs to hew to its core ability to seek out the centre, which the Liberal Party has had an uncanny ability to do for many decades. And that right now, it is not feeling like the Liberal Party is in its traditional centre or the Canadian centre. And I think there are a lot of votes available in the Canadian centre as the traditional Conservatives have moved further to the right.

Dangers, I mean, the dangers are obvious. The party's 20 points back in the polls. So everything is danger. It is time to shake it up and do something different. Because right now, what is being done is obviously not working. And in terms of a traditional media bus, like we've seen the Prime Minister and others in the cabinet really engage in new media. First of all, we are all here tonight, we support independent media. And I hope that independent media play a greater role in the next campaign. And the liberals

have certainly, they're trying to reach out to new demographics, new audiences, through new means, and that will continue. But I don't think you can write off the traditional media busts. Look, even Pierre is using very effectively now Sundays, owning that media cycle, that traditional media cycle, by doing a hit on Sundays. And I don't know if it's been every week. It seems to be consistent. And then owns the beginning of the week.

And that's a traditional media play. We didn't see them doing that previously. They're back on it. I think everyone's still going to play the traditional media game this time around at least can I just we just had an election Nova Scotia where there was no media tour whatsoever they just got rid of the media tour whatsoever the premier made announcements every morning in Halifax and went out and door knocked the rest of them because there's almost no media in Nova Scotia to report on the campaign yeah that was a conversation we were having backstage too that

so many people are just watching the pool now and it's not the same size as it was 10 years ago even when it was like summer camp for journalists on campaigns. Yeah, I've just got a kind of a, I haven't thought it through to what it portends, but it seems to me the state of news organizations in Canada will be a protagonist in this election more than any time we've seen before. And I mean, this is to some extent a

self-interested question, but I'll close by asking Gary, we've got a debate commission in this country built by the liberals. It has two elections in a row, produced an English-language debate that featured Mr. Polyev's friends at CTV and in the CBC. Does he show up for that debate this year? I think they should take the Federal Electoral Debates Commission and fire it into an Elon Musk spaceship and fire it in a rocket towards the sun. I think it's been a terrible, terrible debate system. And I think it's been the way it's been produced. I think there's been way too many hosts.

Mr. So-and-so, you've got 8.9 seconds to respond to that two minutes it just doesn't work I think the best debates we've had so far were the ones the TVI debates we've had recently whereas four podiums and one moderator and no audience and no gimmicks those have produced some of the most the best debates and some of the toughest debates and so you know i think mr polyev he'll probably set some demands to participate and the debates commission won't be able to do it and he'll do other debates uh but uh if i were him i would say let's just fire that thing in a rocket to the sun who could ever produce such a debate in English in this country. Independent media? McLean's? Independent media, not McLean's,

unless the debate's going to be about condos. On that note, I want to thank the panel for joining us tonight and bringing things down to earth in the beginning of what will be just an extraordinary political year. Alison Gifford, Marcy Sirks, Gary Keller, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Thank you. You have been such a patient audience. That is it for tonight. I want to thank you for being here. And I want to say thank you to our hosts at the National Arts Centre. It is always a pleasure to be here. Special thanks to Annabelle Cloutier, Amanda Baumgarten, Peter Keeley,

and the whole audio team here at the fourth stage. I want to say thank you to WestJet for flying Jocelyn Gould here from Winnipeg. And Meta, our friends at Meta, for showing us the future with their funky AI glasses. The Paul Wells Show is produced by Antica. Our producer is Kevin Sexton. Our executive producers are Laura Reguerre and Stuart Cox. Thanks always, always, always to those of you who subscribe to the Paul Wells newsletter. A couple of years ago, I threw myself off a cliff and you guys caught me. I am always going to be

mindful of your assistance. You can learn more about what I do at paulwells.substack.com. you can learn more about what I do at paulwells.substack.com. That's it. Thanks, everyone. Jocelyn Gould, take it out. Thank you.