Transcripts
Dan Brock: Welcome to the view from the lobby, I'm Dan Brock.
Speaker:The federal election campaign is well underway, running as it is against the backdrop of a growing tariff war between the United States and,
Speaker:well, everyone else in the world. With less than 20 days to go to Election Day,
Speaker:we thought it would be a good time to speak with our Fasken political experts to get their perspective on how the contest is unfolding and
Speaker:what to expect between now and April 28th.
Speaker:Joining me for this discussion from the Fasken Government Relations and Political Law group are Alex Steinhouse,
Speaker:Andrew House, and Guy Giorno. And joining from the room here in Toronto.
Speaker:Our special guest, David Lametti. Gentlemen, welcome to the lobby.
Speaker:Alex Steinhouse: Thanks. Thanks for having us.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Alex, I wanted to start with you. You know, except for the massive change in the polls when Mark Carney took over.
Speaker:Since the writ has dropped the the trend, the polling trend has been pretty consistent.
Speaker:The liberals. Now, depending on which aggregate aggregator you look at as somewhere between a seven and a ten point lead nationally,
Speaker:and that lead seems to be solidifying.
Speaker:So I wanted to know from you what what from your perspective, with half of the campaign period now through what from your view has been noteworthy in
Speaker:the campaign so far?
Speaker:Alex Steinhouse: Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Look, Trump is obviously the story of this election campaign.
Speaker:And you know, it's as he likes to be.
Speaker:But I thought I could talk a little bit about two unintended spin offs from Mr.
Speaker:Trump. One of them that I've been really fascinated by are well-trodden assumptions about our federation are just completely falling by the
Speaker:wayside throughout this campaign, and we were all following it.
Speaker:And we'll see what the final product looks like.
Speaker:But we're talking about having finally an internal free trade agreement by Canada Day across this country.
Speaker:And this was after many years of failed overtures in that respect.
Speaker:But really even more surprising throughout this campaign has been this budding consensus for sort of an east west energy corridor.
Speaker:And that would include Quebec. Now we'll see how this plays in the debates.
Speaker:It'll be an English and French debate next week.
Speaker:But as things stand right now, the Bloc Quebecois has been campaigning against the inclusion of Quebec and it hasn't been gaining
Speaker:traction. And the Quebec premier has been open to it.
Speaker:And so you have both the Liberals and Conservatives and seemingly Quebec open to an east west energy corridor.
Speaker:That's a shocking development for me.
Speaker:You know, the same goes with fast tracking energy and resource projects.
Speaker:It's hard to see much of a difference between the Liberals and Conservatives in this respect. Both are campaigning on it and the provinces are pretty
Speaker:mum in opposition to it. It kind of leads me to just the entire environmental agenda.
Speaker:And some of you may have seen this, but CBC sort of has this political compass that they do throughout election campaigns,
Speaker:and they've done an early assessment of what voters are fixated on.
Speaker:It comes as no surprise as Trump is, number one, the economy is number two.
Speaker:But way down the list now is the environment at number eight.
Speaker:There was a top three, top five concern in previous elections, and it's just not there for Canadians.
Speaker:The second thing that's sort of struck me more generally about this campaign as a spill-over from Trump,
Speaker:are just a provincial political dynamics.
Speaker:You know, we've all been following and most of you are in Toronto, Premier Ford with with the call with Pierre Poilievre,
Speaker:you know, Pierre Poilievre finally calling him asking for help.
Speaker:And Ford responding that his caucus and his party apparatus are just too busy to help him kind of thing,
Speaker:while inviting Prime Minister Carney to that nice little diner on the corner of his street in Etobicoke.
Speaker:Having Chrystia Freeland smiling for the cameras at his swearing in.
Speaker:That's a major provincial dynamic. That's that's stark.
Speaker:The Premier of Nova Scotia, Progressive Conservative, wrote a long Facebook post where he glowingly
Speaker:talks about Prime Minister Carney. You have Premier Legault in Quebec politically weakened as he is compared to the last election,
Speaker:but he's not dipping his toes into these waters.
Speaker:He's certainly not helping the Conservatives, not helping the Bloc. You know, it's an opening for the Liberals. Then you have
Speaker:the NDP Premiers. It's remarkable to see Carney have beautiful photos with the Premiers of Manitoba and British Columbia at their legislators
Speaker:during an election campaign. Normally, they're supportive of their federal cousins,
Speaker:but they're, you know, seen a lot with the photos.
Speaker:And then the last Premier of note is is in Alberta is Premier Daniel Smith.
Speaker:And while she's obviously not directly helping Carney, indirectly, it's a whole different story of every time she comes out in the campaign.
Speaker:It's leading to a lot of pain and trouble for Mr.
Speaker:Poilievre.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Andrew, let me bring you in here. So we talk about the polls and, you know,
Speaker:it's hard not to see the trend sort of heading in one direction.
Speaker:What's happening inside the Conservative campaign?
Speaker:Andrew House: Well, we've moved from a place where there were a lot of processed stories about infighting and disagreements and leadership.
Speaker:And I think, thankfully for the Conservatives, those stories have gone away.
Speaker:The campaign seems to have found its footing.
Speaker:The polls, though they are not rosy for the Conservatives, are improving.
Speaker:You know, if you're looking at trend lines and you want to look at the polls in a certain way, things are getting slightly better for the
Speaker:Conservatives. What's probably happening is that more and more voters are digging into their positions and you're getting flat,
Speaker:more flat trends forming. So if you're like me, you obsessively look at the the vote aggregators,
Speaker:and I don't want to cause any more people to do that than are already doing that in the in the world of those interested in politics.
Speaker:But right now we stand at 191 for the Libs in terms of seats and 125 for the Conservatives.
Speaker:That, again, is not a rosy picture, but you've got a debate forming about about quantity versus quality of support.
Speaker:And this is where the rallies come in.
Speaker:And we're also hearing endlessly about Mr.
Speaker:Poilievre's rallies, especially one in which Mr.
Speaker:Harper, the former Prime Minister, was the introducer and there were 15,000 people in attendance.
Speaker:That's not nothing that stands for something.
Speaker:It means excitement. It means that that base of support is energized.
Speaker:And you can have trendlines going in a number of directions.
Speaker:But but the poll that counts, of course, is election day.
Speaker:And if your get out the vote team is already benefiting from a very, very motivated base of voters who are going to go to those polling
Speaker:stations, you can put a huge dent in otherwise polls.
Speaker:That may be not inspiring at this point, and we still have time left in this campaign.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Okay, Guy, let's bring you in here. From my perspective, an interesting campaign in many ways,
Speaker:but most notably for me was you have a sitting prime minister, admittedly without a seat in the House of Commons yet,
Speaker:but a sitting Prime Minister not once but twice, basically suspending his election campaign to return to Ottawa to convene a committee of
Speaker:his special committee dealing with Canada, U.S. relations, to coordinate calls with Premiers and to take a call or make a call,
Speaker:depending on who you talk to with the president of the United States.
Speaker:So is this unusual? How unprecedented is this kind of crisis and campaign happening at the same time?
Speaker:Guy Giorno: So it's not unprecedented. And in fact, you know, while there's an election campaign and there's no parliament, Parliament's being
Speaker:dissolved, the Prime Minister is still the Prime Minister. Ministers still have the responsibilities. And while the caretaker
Speaker:convention prevents them from using the tools of government for partisan advantage,
Speaker:they're still supposed to do their jobs. And that means that the crisis there is and there's precedent for Prime Ministers to to pause their
Speaker:election campaigns. We've had prime ministers like Paul Martin, you know, leave in the middle of a campaign to attend a G7 summit because that's the
Speaker:nation's business. During the 2008 campaign, Stephen Harper didn't interrupt his,
Speaker:his, his his public activities. But he absolutely, you know, spent a lot of time dealing with the the fallout from the financial crisis.
Speaker:You couldn't have had a worse convergence of events.
Speaker:Election was called September 7th, 2008.
Speaker:Lehman brothers collapses a week later.
Speaker:And, you know, decisions had to be made before the election, including Bank of Canada liquidity measures.
Speaker:Those were those were mostly implemented independently. But CMHC had to buy back billions of dollars of of mortgages and that to to make
Speaker:credit available for financial institutions to lend. So yeah, you would expect in fact it would be,
Speaker:it would be delinquent. It would be irresponsible of a of a Prime Minister and a government not to take time off a campaign to deal with crises,
Speaker:because that's what. That's what their job is.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Now, again, what's interesting is in some ways it's a normal campaign.
Speaker:The different campaigns are making announcements. I think the liberals are probably making fewer and thinner announcements than some of the opposition
Speaker:parties are. Maybe that's to be expected given the polling, but I can't help but think that the the optics,
Speaker:the news coverage of the Prime Minister attending the government's business is is great from a campaigning point of view for for the liberals
Speaker:maybe to Andrew and and Alex, are you either are you surprised by Carney's popularity and his sustained popularity?
Speaker:I mean, he's the only national leader with a net positive rating, and it's a significant positive rating on the polls.
Speaker:55% favourable, 35% disfavorable. Any of you, either of you surprised that this person who many people know,
Speaker:but he's never been a political actor before, is just sustaining his popularity through through this period?
Speaker:Andrew House: I think he just presents he presents such a contrast to Mr.
Speaker:Trump that I think people appreciate that he brings a lot of the trappings of leadership.
Speaker:Where where he's going to suffer is, I think as we get up to the debate, two debates,
Speaker:one of which will be in a language that he is not comfortable in, which will obviously be dominated by by Mr.
Speaker:Blanchet, the leader for the Bloc. And and Pierre Poilievre is very comfortable in French and is very polished in his debating skills.
Speaker:If there is an opportunity to have an additional turning point, although debates usually don't provide those gotcha moments any more than court
Speaker:cases do, that may be the moment. That may be the moment where Mr.
Speaker:Poilievre finally gets a solid foothold and lays a glove on Mr.
Speaker:Carney in a way that will move the polls.
Speaker:And that's where you'll you'll see the energizing of of his support base even further.
Speaker:While some people who are maybe Liberal Conservative switchers take a second look at Mr.
Speaker:Poilievre. But Mr. Carney Undisputedly ah indisputably I should say has, has,
Speaker:has been very fortunate that he gets to wear a hat that that rests nicely on his head,
Speaker:which is the role of Prime Minister in the midst of what should have been a bare knuckles political campaign,
Speaker:and that that's been to his advantage.
Speaker:Dan Brock: So, Alex, I'll come back to you in a second, but maybe let me use this opportunity to get David into the conversation. So David Lametti is here
Speaker:with us in Toronto. David, you know, Mark Carney, you went to Oxford with him.
Speaker:You played hockey with him. You were involved in the in the creation, helping him organise his cabinet and assisting with his transition and also
Speaker:going out and recruiting candidates. So you know him, but you've known him a long time.
Speaker:You've been a politician. Does any of this surprise you about his performance to date and where he's at in the polls?
Speaker:David Lametti: Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm not surprised in the sense that, first of all,
Speaker:Mark's always been the smartest guy in the room, and he exudes that, actually.
Speaker:He's got that confidence that goes along with it. But but the nature of the campaign thus far has been economics.
Speaker:Trade with Trump, economic matters, economic measures, tariffs.
Speaker:That's his wheelhouse. I mean, he is he's giving answers that don't require him to be briefed.
Speaker:And and people see that authenticity in his answers.
Speaker:So he's really been so far the campaign has been playing to his strengths.
Speaker:Right. So he's he's shown that confidence.
Speaker:Seen it seen it in briefings. But I've also seen it in his public interactions.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Looks like he's enjoying the interaction. I mean, if you've watched him on I.
Speaker:David Lametti: Think that I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. So as the campaign goes on, if the issues expand,
Speaker:if if there remains a kind of calm with Trump, then we may see him have to have to pronounce on other issues where which maybe won't be in his
Speaker:wheelhouse. The other thing I would add to what Andrew is saying, I do think the numbers will start to to tighten with the difference between
Speaker:the Liberals and the Conservatives. But the thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is,
Speaker:even if Mr. Poilievre's support solidifies, that Conservative base is much more of a base.
Speaker:That that floor is is a much stronger floor.
Speaker:I think you may see further bleeding from the NDP and the and the Bloc vote as it exists,
Speaker:as people think the Conservatives are getting stronger.
Speaker:Those votes will those Bloc and NDP votes will tend to bleed towards the Liberals.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Historically, the Liberal vote is more efficient.
Speaker:So I mean, I understand don't want to dispute the aggregating machines, Andrew,
Speaker:but a Liberal party polling at 40%, that's a 220 seat majority.
Speaker:I mean, there's just their vote is spread across.
Speaker:That means a collapse of the NDP. So I think that that's you know, that's where we're at right now.
Speaker:I guess it remains to be seen whether whether we stay there.
Speaker:Maybe I'll just. Alex, I'll start with you on this last question, but what should we expect now over the next 19 days,
Speaker:between now and voting day on the campaign.
Speaker:What are we looking for?
Speaker:Alex Steinhouse: This campaign is flying by. The debates, as I mentioned, are next Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker:English and French in Montreal. And we'll be looking for some movement shifts there.
Speaker:But frankly, advanced ballots are the next day, Friday through Monday, Easter weekend.
Speaker:And that's more and more when people are voting and the parties put out their apparatus and get everyone to vote.
Speaker:So you have a you have a situation by next Monday, Tuesday that somewhere of along the lines of 40% of those who are going to vote have already voted.
Speaker:So this next week is going to be critical.
Speaker:Conservatives will try to pivot their campaign into getting to the issues where they're stronger,
Speaker:and President Trump is monopolizing the news space, and it's going to be hard to do that.
Speaker:So that's sort of what I'm watching.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Guy with a ten point lead 19 days to go.
Speaker:Is there historical precedent for a turnaround?
Speaker:Around.
Speaker:Guy Giorno: Yeah. There is a nd there isn't. I guess if you were to look at, like, all the elections from 1984,
Speaker:I think there have been 12 in that period of time won.
Speaker:Exactly one third of them were elections where the party that had a clear lead at the beginning stayed and maintained that lead to the end.
Speaker:Another third were elections, where a party had a clear lead at the beginning and it swept, and that switched and that party
Speaker:lost the election. And then the other third are elections where the lead went back and forth.
Speaker:So really anything can happen. Although, you know, time is running out for there to be that type of a shift.
Speaker:But there have been shifts in the last two, three weeks of a campaign sometimes.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Andrew, before we go to Q and A last word to you.
Speaker:Andrew House: I would watch for the Conservatives to try to correct what was probably a tactical error of the past,
Speaker:which is which was failure to cooperate with the NDP or even bully the NDP into seeing to their own best interests.
Speaker:So watch for everyone versus Mark Carney at the debates where especially on things like tax havens.
Speaker:Past corporate performance. The Conservatives and the NDP have a vested interest in cooperating and coordinating in some way to make sure that that is
Speaker:a really bad night for Mark Carney . If they can't do that, I think this thing starts to starts to be over in a way that is consistent with the polls
Speaker:that you're seeing right now.
Speaker:Dan Brock: Listen, I think that's a good place to end.
Speaker:So Guy Giorno, Alex Steinhouse, Andrew House, David Lametti, thank you very much for joining me in the lobby
Speaker:today.
Speaker:Andrew House: Thanks, Dan.
Speaker:Guy Giorno: Thanks, Dan.
Speaker:David Lametti: Thanks. Dan.
