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Front Burner Transcript for January 27, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi, everyone. It's Jayme. If you're listening to this because you searched for a podcast about any one of the wild news stories that seem to break all the time now, why not give us a follow? We cover the biggest and most interesting stories of the day, five times a week. So please hit that follow button. Okay, thanks. Here's today's show.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Hey everybody, Jayme here. So there is lots to talk about today in the land of Canadian politics. Not only is the Liberal leadership race well underway, but Doug Ford has said that Ontario will be headed to the polls as early as February 27th.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: Right now, there's a lack of leadership at the federal level. We don't know who's going to be the next prime minister. Right now, we need strong leadership in this country, we need strong leadership in this province, and we're going to deliver that strong leadership for the people of Ontario.

JP: So we have convened a political panel to talk about all of this and more. We have three astute political minds here, each with ties to one of the three main political parties. Vandana Kattar is a former advisor to Justin Trudeau and a political strategist. She is also one of the hosts of Race to Replace, a podcast about the Liberal leadership race. Vandana, hi. Thanks so much for coming on.

VANDANA KATTAR: Hey, Jayme. Thanks for having me.

JP: It's great to have you. Dennis Matthews is here. He is the president of Creative Currency, a national advertising agency, a Conservative strategist, and former advertising director for prime minister Stephen Harper. Hey, Dennis.

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Hey, thanks for having me.

JP: And Mélanie Richer is a principal at Earnscliffe Strategies and former director of communications for the NDP and Jagmeet Singh. Hey, Mélanie.

MÉLANIE RICHER: Hi, how are you?

JP: Good. And I'm so grateful that you guys have taken time out of your Sunday to make this happen for us. So speaking of Sunday afternoon, I think we have six candidates who say that they have submitted their papers in time for the Liberal leadership deadline that they had to hit Thursday and that we know are currently running. Those candidates, in no particular order, are Karina Gould; Ruby Dhalla, who was a Liberal MP from 2004 to 2011; Mark Carney; Chrystia Freeland; Jaime Battiste, current Liberal MP; Frank Baylis, Quebec businessman and former MP. And Vandana, let me start with you. How do you see this race shaping up so far?

VANDANA KATTAR: It's really interesting for me. I find that a lot of people are assuming that Carney is the front runner, and I think he's had a good week of caucus and cabinet endorsements. I do think Karina Gould still had the best launch. It was a clean hit. She's able to actually punch and she has been consistently punching above her own weight, which I think clears a really good path for her. But I think at the end of the day, as much as endorsements and caucus endorsements and all that is good, they're not all weighed equally. I think at the end of the day it's about memberships, and who actually is able to deliver those memberships and persuade liberals to actually get out and vote.

JP: And I'll just say, since you mentioned it, Karina Gould is actually coming on to the show tomorrow. So if people want to tune in, I think that will be a great conversation. But Mélanie, let me ask your thoughts there. So, Vandana mentioned that Carney has gotten all of these endorsements, pretty high-profile cabinet ministers like Sean Fraser, Anita Anand, Patty Hajdu. Notably from Quebec: Mélanie Joly, Steven Guilbeault, François-Philippe Champagne. And I believe on Sunday Carney did an event in Shawinigan with Champagne. What do you make of all of these endorsements? You know, I take Vandana's point that membership matters, but do these guys have the ability to kind of push people to vote, right?

MÉLANIE RICHER: Mm, totally. I think if it was a longer leadership race, you may get into the questions of, oh, was this a good idea to have, you know, these cabinet ministers, these MP, you know, supporting Mark Carney. I think because it's such a short leadership race, you need those members, right? You need those folks to come out and to vote for you. So it may be a better way to get that membership number quickly. I think the Quebec cabinet ministers -- Mr. Champagne, Minister Joly, Steven Guilbeault -- while those are folks that, you know, the opposition may have a fun time criticizing, those folks are massive organizers as it relates to Quebec. So for Mark Carney, I think that that's probably good. But I just want to point out that there's kind of two things that you need to accomplish. One is you obviously need the Liberal members to vote for you, and that's what we're in right now. But then you'll need Canadians to vote for you. And I think the, um, the harm perhaps of having all these cabinet ministers who are so closely tied to the prime minister come out and back Mark Carney, is it'll be really difficult to say your agenda is different to the Canadian public. Particularly when you're getting attacked by the opposition. So that's kind of the thing that I'm looking for now. Who is with who, but also, is that going to be harmful in the second part of this really important process.

JP: Right. Dennis, maybe you want to chime in on that because certainly that's something that Poilievre and the Conservatives have been picking up on. I think it was Sunday that Poilievre released a statement asking Carney to commit to banning Trudeau's ministers from his cabinet if he were to become the leader. What do you think about that?

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, I think it's that the backdrop of the Liberal leadership race is sort of a preview in a way of the upcoming election. And it's a bit of a question around who can sort of authentically present change. When you take a look at the polling, you know, I think... there's an Abacus poll right after Trudeau had resigned. Only about 12% of the public is looking for the Liberal government to be re-elected. And so if you're looking to change that, you've got to change yourself somehow. And that's where we've seen this week sort of this melodrama here. Who's an insider, who's an outsider. And it's kind of like a proxy for the real question of like, who's different than Trudeau? [JP: Right.] And, you know, that's something really hard for many of these candidates to do because they either advised or served in the government or were closely aligned to [it]. And so how do you find a way to show that you're different without being too different to offend current Liberal Party members? It's a, it's a really tough sort of Rubik's cube to turn around.

JP: Just going with this insider/outsider stuff a little bit more, I want to play you guys a clip from an interview that Chrystia Freeland did with my colleague Catherine Cullen late last week. And I just, I really cannot wait to get your reaction. But let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: It is certainly looking like Mark is the choice of the Liberal establishment. It is certainly looking like he is the PMO's candidate, and--

CATHERINE CULLEN: The PMO's candidate?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And that--

CATHERINE CULLEN: Can you explain that?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: And that is okay with me.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Can you explain that?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: I am really happy to be running against the Ottawa establishment.

SOUNDCLIP

CATHERINE CULLEN: We are completely out of time, but you made an allegation there -- PMO's candidate. Can you cite one piece of evidence that that is the case?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: I said it certainly is seeming that way.

JP: Okay. Vandana, do you want to go first?

VANDANA KATTAR: Sure.

[laughter]

JP: What do you make of her assessment that she's running against the Ottawa establishment and that Carney is the Prime Minister's Office... the candidate of the Prime Minister's Office? But also you can say anything you want.

VANDANA KATTAR: [laughs] Okay sure. Of course. Chrystia Freeland, she's been here. She's been here and she's very much part of that Ottawa establishment. I would say there's a lot of strong people on her team who also, people would say, are the Ottawa establishment who are supporting her team. So I think... while I think it's supposed to be a dig at Mark Carney, I think the problem is if you're trying to run with Liberals, this is a gross underestimation of like how people feel about the prime minister. I think for the most part, Liberals still like him. They remember him as someone who has brought us from third to first and did good things. Maybe they did feel like it's time to go right now, but they don't think they want our dirty laundry, you know, being aired that way, like that insider baseball, family drama. Like I don't think that negativity is going to help. I also think for the most part, it's wrong. And I think a lot of Liberals will see it as wrong, and I don't think it'll help her case. She's better off focusing on what she's done with Donald Trump. And to Dennis' point, it's hard when she's been here for so long, and was in lock and step with the PMO and with the policy ideas that they had put forward together to say that, I'm going to be different. So it's going to be a hard threat for her to follow through with.

JP: Mélanie, I see you nodding vigorously...

MÉLANIE RICHER: [laughs] Yes.

JP: [laughs] Do you want to just chime in?

MÉLANIE RICHER: Totally. I agree, I agree with all of that. I think, you know... and again, I'll go back to the, you're speaking to Liberal members and you're speaking to the Canadian electorate. She's not yet speaking to the Canadian electorate, right? You're speaking to Liberal members first. And at least what I know as a partisan, is whether I like the leader or not, when you take shots at the leader publicly, that pisses me off because you're taking shots at me publicly, right? So the, you know, punching on the prime minister, punching on the PMO, you forget that you're punching at the Liberals and you're harming the Liberals when you do that. And I think that that's something that will be hard to forgive from, you know, the resignation back in December, but also hard to forgive now if you continue to do it. The second thing is, you've signed off on the majority of the things that the prime minister has done in the last, I can't remember--

VANDANA KATTAR: And publicly defended them.

MÉLANIE RICHER: Exactly, publicly defended them. But, and as the, you know, deputy [chuckles] prime minister. And the finance minister, you're kind of the last check there. So I think it's, it's really hard for that to be true, again, with regular Canadians, but forget Liberal members. Like it just feels like that is not the right approach. And I agree that I think the overcorrection here of assuming that because the Canadian electorate is tired of the prime minister, that Liberal members don't like him. I think that that is a mistake. I agree with that. I think it's, you know, time for him to go. But we're still thankful to you for everything you've done. So I think the overcorrecting there is for sure a mistake. And it will be, I think, not believable to the Canadian electorate if you get to that next step.

DENNIS MATTHEWS: I mean, if I could add one thing in there. I mean, when you think about what resonates in politics, it's being authentic. And, you know, there's a real lack of authenticity of trying to distance yourself when you're the deputy prime minister, from the prime minister. It's like the person who shows up to the party with, like, the fake glasses and moustache and they pretend they're somebody different.

[laughter]

DENNIS MATTHEWS: It's like, no no, we know that's Bob. That's Bob.

[laughter]

DENNIS MATTHEWS: It's like, that's kind of the territory we're in here. So I think it's like, it is really fraught with just presenting yourself in a very weird light. Not just the things that we were just talking about here with the Liberal Party members, but the public saying, wait a second, what are you-- who are you? What are you doing here?

JP: So you guys seem to be in agreement that that didn't really work. But Freeland did send out an open letter last Friday calling on Liberal candidates to commit to running in the next election, whether they win or lose. And Dennis, like, what did you think about that? What was she trying to do there, first of all, and do you think that was effective?

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Well, I mean, this whole question of whether you'll run afterwards, it sort of comes up in every leadership [JP: Yeah.] race on all parties. And it's sort of the commitment you make to then... you know, the election's over and you see who actually follows through on it. I mean, Jean Charest is not running for Parliament any soon. I mean, I think he made that commitment. There's a stack of people that make those kind of things. And so, you know, I think it's a little tactic to try to, you know, again, smoke out who's really part of your team and who's not. But I think it's an easy promise for Mark Carney to say he's going to run again. We don't know what seat, I don't think, at this point. But, you know, we'll see who wins and where that goes. I just, I don't know that it's a follow through kind of thing.

[music]

JP: Talking about Carney, I see a Conservative critique of Carney that they seem to me at least to be hitting quite hard, especially over this weekend. And that is the criticism that he hasn't actually laid out any real policy or platform yet. He has signaled that he would find an alternative to the carbon tax. He says that stuff is coming down the line. I'll add, too, he has not sat down and done any real interviews besides the one on The Daily Show. I mean, we were just maybe a bit critical about Chrystia Freeland, but I suppose, to give her some credit, that was an interview that she did and she was asked a question. Do you think that this is going to be a problem for him, Vandana?

VANDANA KATTAR: No, I think... you know, I will say this is what Conservatives are good at. They're good at message discipline and they'll hit it over and over again to try to stick. They're really focused on him. I think they're really worried about the outcome of him leading. I think they were planning to run against Justin Trudeau, and this changes it. So, they're going to change that message discipline to focus on him. I do think it's a bit rich [laughs] to be like, you're not doing media, [MELANIE: Totally.] when [laughter] often they don't either. Sorry, Dennis. But um. But I don't think it's going to stick because it's only really been just about over a week. Right now, if I'm running a campaign, I'm going to be like, I don't want to media prep you, I don't want to worry about what's going to come out of it. I want you to talk to liberals. And I want you to spend -- especially if you're new and you're from the outside and they don't know you. And there had been criticism like, is he like Ignatieff? Is he like this? Does he know how to politic?, etc. So I would want every effort. Like if you have ten minutes, I want you calling these three riding [unclear]. If you have five minutes, I don't want to prep you on how you say something, I really want to focus on talking to liberals. So I do think these things will come later. I also think in terms of all the candidates, the policies they announced so far -- not really exciting. They're all just saying, we're going to do the opposite of what the government's doing. [laughs] Like we're not going to do the carbon tax. You know, we're not going to do--

JP: Backing away from capital gains.

VANDANA KATTAR: Capital gains, exactly. So there's nothing that is groundbreaking to the broader -- to Mélanie’s point -- the broader electorate, right? So I think the internal stuff with membership, that's very inside baseball. But what members are looking for is who's electable and who's going to give us a fair chance against Pierre Poilievre, and that means like testing him with Liberals. That's what I want to prioritize at this point.

JP: This weekend, there was a lot of traction online about a poll that was released by Frank Graves at EKOS. And it showed this really dramatic narrowing in the polls. The Conservatives, according to him, now have a 7-point lead versus a 25-point lead. That's crazy. That's a crazy amount of movement in such a short amount of time. A massive catch up for the Liberals. And Dennis, like, what do you think of this poll? Do you think it's capturing something real? Is it like an outlier? Is it dead wrong?

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Well, it's clearly an outlier. [JP: Yeah.] And we're not having an election tomorrow, so you can never know whether a poll is, you know, totally right or wrong. But it's an outlier and it has the Liberal support at higher than it was at the last federal election. Like that doesn't seem to match anything else out there, either people you talk to on the street or other public opinion polls. And so I'm really, really skeptical of it. What I would say is, you know, Justin Trudeau was a flashpoint for anger and frustration across the country. And I think the prime minister even said this when he resigned, you know, removing me from the equation might take down the temperature in politics a bit. And so, you know, it wouldn't surprise me to see, you know, some changes in numbers over time. But this dramatic of a change without anything else having happened, it's honestly, it's really hard to, it's really hard to explain.

JP: Maybe worth noting here, David Coletto at Abacus Data says that he's still waiting to get a bunch of data back, but so far he saw some tightening. The Conservatives with a 20-point lead, so not a 7-point lead. Still, heavily favouring the Conservatives, the environment. But he did, to Dennis's point, say he's seeing some big shifts, including that fewer people think the Conservatives are going to win the election. Few definitely are less inclined to see a change in government, and more are open to voting Liberal.

[music]

JP: Shall we move on to the Ontario election? Doug Ford said that he is planning to call an election Wednesday of this week. He already has a big majority government. Mélanie, why is he doing this?

MÉLANIE RICHER: [chuckles] I totally think it's self-serving. I've not been shy in saying, you know, I think that Premier Ford's messaging, as it relates to the United States, as it relates to President Trump, has been smart and has been, I think, what folks, particularly folks in Ontario, are looking to hear. And I think with the absence of... or what has happened with the prime minister and what has happened with the Liberal government, the absence of that direct message to voters or that direct message to people of like, we've got your back, don't worry, we're taking this seriously, we're proactive, not reactive, I think has been really heard from folks. So I'll start off with that. But pretending that this is anything other than self-serving in trying to get another mandate, I think is... doesn't pass the buck. Do I think folks care that we go to an election early? I don't think so. I think we've seen premiers in Nova Scotia, we saw... you know, I remember John Horgan went a year early in British Columbia as well, and he got the biggest mandate he, you know, the B.C. NDP ever got. So I don't know that folks will be totally upset, or if they are, that it will last long enough. But he is going because he wants a majority. We heard rumours this summer before President Trump was elected that he was looking to do this, particularly to get ahead of any Pierre Poilievre government in Ottawa. So I think that that's why he's doing this. I think he feels that the Ontarian pulse is with him right now, particularly as it relates to Donald Trump and that immense threat that folks are rightly scared of. And that's why he's going right now.

JP: Vandana, anything to add here?

VANDANA KATTAR: Yeah, I think I, I agree with Mélanie. And I would say that, you know, from the outset, yes, he's looking like Captain Canada, he's saying the right things, he has this cutesy hat that people are ordering. [laughs] And like, he knows how to politic, you know? [CROSS-TALK]

SPEAKER: I likes the hat.

VANDANA KATTAR: I know, so did I! I love the hat.

[laughter]

JP: Just for people... It says "Canada is not for sale" on it.

VANDANA KATTAR: Yeah. Yeah. So you're just... like, people are looking at him and saying, this is great, but it's distracting from the other things that premiers should be doing. [MELANIE: Absolutely.] Just, like, health care and education. Like there was that huge line-up, I think it's in Walkerton, just to get a doctor. And those are real issues. And I think really this is also because, you know, he was... there was a sense of this before Donald Trump and all that. He wants to get ahead of a Pierre Poilievre government, but also ahead of any momentum Bonnie Crombie can have. They are way ahead still at the Conservatives in terms of organization and fundraising, etc. So I think there's a, that he wants to keep that at bay. They've been running these campaigns over and over and those ads over and over again, that are effective. So I think he wants to get ahead of all that, and make sure he has... you know, what he wants to say is a bigger majority, like a mandate, but he has this mandate already. So I agree it's, he should be focused on Ontarians jobs, not his own.

JP: I'll just note for people listening across the country, Bonnie Crombie is the Ontario Liberal leader. Dennis, I'll just bring you in here. You could respond to anything that's just been said. Also, I was wondering if you think that this could hurt Poilievre. If Ontario votes for Ford in big numbers in February, would the province be less inclined to vote for Poilievre, let's say, if we go to a federal election at the end of May? Because I know Ontario has a very long history of doing the opposite of what's happening in the other level of government.

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Yeah. No, I think the two things, the federal Conservative scene and provincial politics in Ontario, are quite disconnected. You know, Pierre Poilievre built a significant lead on a really clear message, you know, the last sort of number of years. So I don't really think there's any, you know, sort of crossover here. What I think when you look at Ontario -- and the one thing we haven't mentioned here is, you know, Doug Ford's brand is as a populist. It's listening to people, it's responding. And things have fundamentally changed. Like, what was three months ago is not what it was three years ago. Like things are completely different. And if we're headed to like sort of a 2008-type financial crisis, like government might have to be doing some pretty dramatic things to respond to whether it's Trump's tariffs or whatever comes next. I mean, this is a very unpredictable U.S. president. We're talking about a February 1st tariff date. We could be talking about that for the next three or four years. And so having somebody with a mandate to do those kind of things, I think there's a reasonable argument for that that'll be made over the next, the next 30 days or so.

[music]

JP: Final question for you all. Doug Ford, as Vandana mentioned, has been positioning himself as Captain Canada in the standoff against Trump. He's really made himself the face of the fight, and he is calling for a united front, right, with provinces and the federal government all on the same page. That hasn't actually been the case. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been campaigning, essentially, to take energy exports off the table. And recently, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Quebec Premier François Legault, they inched closer to her position. And just quickly, how do you all think Canada is doing right now when it comes to pushing back on Trump's tariffs? Mélanie, let's start with you.

MÉLANIE RICHER: I think there's two things. I think there's what is actually happening at the table, and then what is actually happening out loud. And unfortunately, those things need to be very different. So as it relates to what is happening at the table, I'm hopeful that those are good conversations. The out loud, though, I think is really important for folks. I think folks are rightly worried about what tariffs from President Trump could look like. I grew up in Cornwall, a border town. Where stuff stops, where stuff starts, is so hard to understand. So it's really important to reassure folks in times like this that we have their back. So I think some premiers are doing that quite effectively. I don't know that the pulse of people right now is to say, yes, President Trump will do whatever you want. I don't think folks are feeling that way. And I think the premiers who are taking that approach may eventually have to overcorrect a little bit.

JP: Dennis?

DENNIS MATTHEWS: Well, I don't think it's going well. And I don't think it's going well because, you know, Trudeau has mismanaged his relationship with Trump sort of historically, and now he's resigned, sort of leaving Canada in a purgatory state. The thing to do would've been to have an election federally, sort that out, give somebody in the prime minister's chair a real mandate to handle the situation. And absent of that, we're seeing premiers, in different ways -- and actually kind of like what a number of different premiers are doing. I don't think there's one easy answer here. But, you know, I think the real challenge here is the leadership vacuum in Ottawa. And that's not going away. I mean, whoever wins, whether it's Freeland, Carney, anybody, you know, they're not coming in with a big mandate to do anything here. You know, the election is inching down. And so, I just think, you know, we're not in a good position. It's going to be a rough, I think, year on this file, for sure. And hopefully after that, we can get to a better place.

JP: All right. Vandana, final word to you. Trump tariffs, how are we doing?

VANDANA KATTAR: Sure. I mean, I will agree with Dennis's point that it's not going well, but I'll disagree with some things he said. [laughs] But I'll say that I think it's really important now to, on the outside voice, as Mélanie said, to have a united front. I think behind closed doors, say what you want; argue about it, speak for your own province. You all have your own industries that you have to support, advocate for, and I understand that. But I think as a moment in time, we have to look like Captain Canada collectively, and I think that's really important. There is a functioning government. You know, Justin Trudeau is the prime minister. They are going down south. They are having those conversations. But I think publicly, Canadians need to feel comfortable that we are working together. And I think from the American side, you know, from a media perspective, looking like we're working together. Because I want Americans to feel like, how are we going to get hurt if we [unclear] of those counter tariffs, and how's it going to affect us? And that's the only way to deal with these things.

JP: Okay. Guys, this was great. It was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

VANDANA KATTAR: Thank you.

MÉLANIE RICHER: Thank you.

DENNIS MATTHEWS: It's great. Thank you.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right, that is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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