Political strategists discuss the outcome of the Canadian election and what lies ahead for Prime Minister Mark Carney.
VIDEO .
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we're going to start today with the
fallout from Monday's historic election it answered some questions but it also raised new ones the Tories picked up two dozen new seats but leader Pierre Polyv lost his own one he'd held for 20 years the conservative result prompted criticism from conservative premers last time I checked Pierre Polyv never came out uh in our our election matter of fact he him or one of his uh lieutenants told every one of his members "Don't you dare go out and help the PCs." Isn't that ironic but anyways I'm not going to dig deep into this uh the people spoke and I have no say in in who people vote for but uh I'll tell you one thing uh we have a government democratically elected i will hold them accountable i think the um Conservative Party of Canada was very good at pushing people away not so good at pulling people in and I think that they probably saw that in some of the results they had across the country palev meanwhile has signaled he plans to stay on at the helm of the party and one of his reelected MPs in Alberta has stepped aside to allow for Palv to run there across the aisle Prime Minister Mark Carney is now tasked with uniting the country despite more than 55% of voters casting a ballot for another party it depends very much on whether we pragmatic Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney as our prime minister or whether we have environmental extremist keep it in the ground phaso fossil fuels uh author of the book values Mark Carney as prime minister and I don't know the answer to that yet i don't think Canadians know the answer to that yet our Sunday strategy session is here to dig into all of it kathleen Monk is a former NDP strategist and director of communications to the late Jaclyn cory Tanike was Ontario Premier Doug Ford's campaign manager and former director of communications for Prime Minister Steven Harper and Scott Reed is a former communications director to Prime Minister Paul Martin hi everybody feels like it's been forever you were stuck with me for so long over the week um uh thank you very much for making the time i want to go kind of party by party if we could and start off with the government a ton of news Scott late in the week specific dates uh there's going to be a meeting with uh with President Trump in Washington on Tuesday the king is coming to deliver the throne speech first time something like that's 1977 what is your read on what the first few days of this new government uh tells us about what it will be like i think people should take their cues from the press conference jam-packed with news very matter of fact not a lot of hyperbole not a lot of rhetorical flourishes just straight to the facts ma'am and boom boom boom and I do think you're going to get a lot more of that out of Carney he looks like a guy who says "All right I've got the job I asked for now I'm going to do the job I got." And so we got a ton of news we know some key dates he's going to go to Washington next week that's going to be a gigantic event obviously presumably he's going to set the terms and the construct for the you know economic and security arrangements that we're going to try to renegotiate with the United States then he's going to pick his cabinet put that all in place including uh his own office then you know we have a parliamentary session with the king as you say and so there's uh you know no moss growing underneath Mark Carney and I think we can also extract something else from it i do not believe this guy's an incrementalist and he may have had a a a you know election night that produced a a slight minority uh you know a strong minority a slight um you know hold over parliament over top of him i think he's going to move i think he is going to be bold i think it's possible this guy's going to be a radical prime minister the sense is he's not screwing around he's going to get things done and he's going to move and I don't think he's going to fret about whether or not he alienates one party or another i don't think he's wor worrying about whether he needs to form structural packs with other parties i think he's going to put his program into action and uh you know dan the torpedoes that would be a much easier task uh Corey if you had a real majority right he is four seats short of one right now he very explicitly told reporters in that press conference that there would be no formal arrangement with uh the seven NDP MPs for example do you think he'll be able to do what Scott laid out in not being incremental for I think so and uh I I think so for a few reasons one uh none of the uh you know opposition parties that aren't the Conservatives so the BQ the NDP uh and the one green uh uh MP are are going to be anxious to have an election anytime soon so I think he's got quite a bit of breathing room because of that but I'd also say because on some of the agenda items there was a lot of overlap with the Conservative party and I think there is an opportunity to actually ignore those other parties a bit on some of the big items that were in that platform uh particularly around things like energy corridors like I think that the you know why play to the fringes when you can uh play down the center of the fairway and and I think on those things uh there's an opportunity to do so uh and uh you know I I I hope that that's what we see for the good of the country kathleen what are your thoughts on how probable or possible it is to advance an agenda that is aggressive in nature and does the moment kind of allow for it in a way that it might not have at different prime Minister Carney was really clear in his press conference that while during the elections Canadians may have cheered for other political teams but now that there was only one prime minister and that he intended to get the job done move quickly as Scott said but also you know assumed that he has the mandate he reiterated several times the strength of his mandate more votes than have ever been cast for his party the majority in seven out of 10 provinces um he he really believes that he has the mandate to go forward and it's and it's true he does because frankly the block has already said that they basically will give Mr carney and the Liberals a pass for the first year uh the conservatives will be scrambling to get their own leader back into the house and determine who in fact will be the opposition leader because remember Mr carney has a has a you know very heavy policy agenda that he plans to get through tax cuts other measures all before Canada Day on July 1st so all of that policy uh including a speech from the throne possibly a budget will all be done before Mr polyv even potentially gets back into the house let's switch to the conservatives and where things stand scott because it has been an interesting week uh we were all together on election night when Pierre Palv indicated he would stay on as leader uh you know it made sense because of the increase in you know despite the loss and against expectations in particular but the increase in vote share the increase in seats was pretty historic for for the party particularly where the vote share is concerned the next morning though uh in the wee hours of the morning we found out he had lost his seat we now find out that someone in Alberta has decided to step aside so he can run there caucus meets in person to even determine whether they're going to use the reform act on Tuesday and then there's this fight with all the progressive conservative premers and Tim Houston and Doug Ford i hope I've encapsulated it all where does that leave Paulie Evott well it's been a bit of a scrambled uh breakfast since since election night and you know I I think he'll make relatively short work of the question about his leadership i think he'll seek that bi-election i think he'll win that bi-election i think he'll face down his caucus i don't think there's a real appetite for displacing him and I know for sure there's no strong capable alternative who could take an actual run at him so I I think that drama is going to dissipate pretty quickly he's going to lead the party into the next election i do think however if they're going to be successful in that next election they should stop telling themselves that they won the last one they did not win it and yes they improved their votes and yes they staged a pretty impressive comeback and rally of uh votes in Ontario in particular in the last 10 days of the campaign but they do not sit in government they didn't win and so when Jamil Javanni goes off like a SpaceX rocket or when Andrew Shear tries to persuade you on television that the Conservatives own Ontario and got more votes than Doug Ford and when for whatever reason they think it's more advantageous for them rather than to sit and reflect on the things they need to do the changes they need to make the adjustments they need to embrace in order to succeed next time instead they'd rather fight with Doug Ford and Tim Houston i I don't know i think the liberals are going to make a sandwich sit back and watch the movie because it's absolute gift to them and uh I I just for the life of me I cannot figure out this impulse for intramural warfare on the part of the polyv clan do you think under a polyv conservative party uh Corey that that there is the capacity to mend the riffs that exist for example with Premier Ford and Premier Houston to acknowledge that that is something that would be favorable for them in the future because to Scott's point um you know for example with that interview with Andrew Shear it was you know at the end he said they like bygones should be bygones we should all be together as conservatives but the first like threearters of it was you know literally saying it's a fact that we got more well it's a fact that you're not uh going to be successful if you spend more time uh fighting people on your team than you do uh fighting the Liberal government uh look there was a reason why Steven Harper was successful and uh why Brian Maloney was successful steven Harper spent a lot of time attracting people like John Barrett and Jim Flareity getting you know people from Atlantic Canada who are you know much more red Tories than he is uh like Peter McCay to to run and play senior roles in in his cabinet and to to create a team in which different parts of the country could see themselves reflected that's that's what you do if you want to win and to you know throw barbs at at uh at at Ford and Houston and others and blame them for your problems in the election campaign it's uh it's big- time small D energy and uh I I don't think it's uh it's something that uh is going to is going to help them with the work that that's ahead i think it's it's possible to rebuild those relationships but you got to try and and the way to try is not to uh uh is not to uh uh hurl blame at them uh for your own inadequacies during the campaign kathleen what are your thoughts on on Polyv's prospects as a couple things first of all I think you know I don't think that Ford and Houston are actually Mr polyv's biggest problems frankly uh Premier Mo and Premier Smith sometimes cancel them out in terms of who's cheering and who's jeering for Mr polyv i I think the bigger concern is um is what actually the caucus is going to do for a number of reasons first of all the biggest gift Mr carney Premier Prime Minister Carney gave to Mr polyv uh today was not in fact that even admitting that he's going to call a bi-election as soon as he can so Mr polyv could uh get into parliament the bigger gift was in fact that his meeting with Trump is on Tuesday the same day that the conservative caucus will meet for the first time that is a gift because all eyes will be on Washington and they won't be prying into the room of the conservative caucus because remember it took eight and a half weeks for the conservatives in 2019 to con to kick out Andrew Shear it took 19 weeks uh for the caucus to boil over and finally get rid of Aaron Oul um so sometimes these things take time so I'm not saying it's for certain i think probably you you're starting to see conservatives like Michelle Remple and others unlikely sus suspects frankly rally around Mr polyv um in terms of his leadership calling for the stability to continue to grow the party but I just wouldn't say it's done yet that there's still a possible for fracticide I would I would say it's done I would say it's done I don't see for the same reasons that Scott said there's there's no serious challenger out there to polyv uh for the conservative party uh is even more united behind him after this election in the sense that there are a bunch of new members who've been elected under his banner man you know there are a number of people who were appointed to their candidacy who are are are very strong polyv loyalist so I think he he came out of that campaign with more caucus support than he had going in we'll leave it there for this discussion thanks everyone i really appreciate it kathleen Monk Corey Tanike and Scott Reed our Sunday strategy session
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