What I enjoy most about subscribing to Paul Wells' (Wells's?) substack is when a panel interview ends up being so full of insight with well-presented points that are not talked about anywhere else (that I've seen or heard). This one was exactly that. The point mentioned a few times: what will happen with Poilievre if the Conservatives lose, and especially if they lose the popular vote percentage? Is the entire Canadian electorate more squeamish than we (speaking for myself) Conservatives want to believe when it comes to PP presenting as "Trumpy?" Are there fewer of us than we want to believe? And, of course, what happens to Canada regardless of whom we have at the helm of the ship of state after Monday? Will this election divide us further? Great work, Paul. Please keep doing what you do. With the Wellses, Kapeloses, Ivisons, Glavins, and others like them, journalism is still alive and vibrant in Canada.
Kory Teneycke was being excoriated for openly and publicly questioning Jenni Byrne's strategy (if it is indeed hers and not PP's own). Even I questioned it. But perhaps he was right. I want to believe all other Canadians are as concerned as I regarding the cost of living and the increase in crime after the Liberal decade, but perhaps not? Maybe Trumpy scaremongering was the way to go?
I don’t know either, and I have zero experience in politics so these things aren’t my expertise. I was reflecting on the podcast and upon your comment about what might be next for Mr Poilievre should he fail in this campaign, and it lead me to thinking about the back room folks also.
I was aghast to read about a Conservative MP getting a text while talking to a reporter. That’s gestapo type levels of central control. But equally dismayed to read in the past years about the Katie Telford’s PMO and Ministers not being able to meet and talk amongst themselves without PMO staffers being present. That’s an evil level of disrespect to the intelligence of your Cabinet.
The ‘war’ mentality and rigid control of communication might win elections, but it is horrible for governance.
There is just something very toxic it seems these days about the folks running campaigns, including but not limited to, Ms Byrne. Maybe they are very good at what they do (organization, strategy, tight messaging, control) but the end result is toxic, and we are all poorer for the ‘skill’ they bring to their positions. I can’t imagine any of them got into politics with the dream of setting up spy networks to ensure MP’s don’t speak to the wrong reporters.
You're right, Greg. It's a dark era of Canadian politics. In answer to that, my hope would be that Poilievre, if elected, would whittle away at the changes that we've seen in the PMO over the last 15 years. Yes, 15 years. It was similarly dark under Harper, who also had an iron grip on the ministers under his leadership during his majority government - which is part of the reason the Conservatives lost in 2015. He was a different leader before 2011. That Harper's Conservatives could lose because of an overly controlling PMO gives me hope that the same is true of Trudeau's and Carney's Liberals - that they will taste the same defeat as Harper and maybe one worse than his. Don't get me wrong: I admire Harper's leadership and brilliance. And his leadership and Flaherty's got us through the 2008 recession. So, perhaps being in power too long corrupted him? I don't know. But it immediately corrupted Trudeau. Carney arrived corrupted. My point? As Princess Leia said in the first Star Wars movie in a hologram projected by R2D2: "Help us Obi Wan. You're our only hope." Yes, our Obi Wan is PP. :)
The Liberals ran a campaign very well suited for the occasion:
- Immediately after getting the PM job, Mr. Carney undertook some token Prime-Ministerial activities (duly covered by MSM), even visiting the King.
- The Liberals invoked the threat of Donald Trump, abetted by MSM (which never misses an opportunity to fabricate a headline), realizing that this would divert attention away from parties' policies. Before anyone hyperventilates, please note that Canada survived 120 years without free trade with the U.S.
- The Liberals neutralized the Conservative platform by copying it, beginning with axing the carbon tax, leaving the campaign question, "Which candidate do you personally like more than the other?" -- which leads to a riddle: What's the difference between a Beauty Pageant and a Canadian Election?
...... In a Beauty Pageant, the prize for personality is not called "First Place".
MSM also keeps pointing to polling aggregates with Ekos et al, which have been repeatedly debunked. They're crowding the zone with accommodating polls, intentionally adding misleading noise to the real signal
338 gives letter grades to all the pollsters but aggregates them all, even the ones with known credibility issues, one-to-one. If you go to Poliwave, you can remove discredited pollsters and see the trends more clearly. Basically, junk data in, junk data out.
Thank you Sean. I appreciate the link to Poliwave. It is good to access a variety of information sources. It is interesting that in a number of the ridings that I am following, Poliwave and 338 are the same or very close. As well, there are significant difference in a number of ridings. We will know soon which has the better process and outcome. Thanks again for the link.
Here's an incident from yesterday's news (subject to correction) that may contribute to mistrust of the MSM:
Immediately after newsclips of Poilievre discussing the Conservative platform were shown, a clip of Carney calling it a joke was shown. I read on the-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter that the Conservative numbers where independently audited by 2 persons, but that the Liberal platform was not audited. Why didn't the MSM mention that?
As Poilievre was speaking yesterday about reducing the federal work force through attrition, at one third the rate of departures, hiring two new workers for every three that left through retirement or taking external employment. In an age of AI, an extreme snails pace. The CBC Newsworld scroll. “Poilievre proposing to slash federal work force.”
I just remembered an incident from yesterday evening. Usually when a network wants to discredit someone, they find a person with contrary views and a job title and they post a video of them expressing their opinion.
Yesterday, I guess they couldn't find such a person, so they got David Miscrop and introduced him as an "expert".
I can't find the (re-?)post, and I don't recall names being given. I think one of them was chief economist at StatsCan for decades. If so, he's not a fan of Mr. Carney, and if you can find an interview of him on the Financial Post website, it's a good listen.
Great podcast. One thing I don't understand is why no one is talking about how the NDP is paying for their 'Supply and confidence' strategy for the last two-plus years. When JT left, Jug was left holding that emotional baggage, and everyone ran away from him, not from the conservatives. The peak conservative polling support was at 45% in January of this year. If you look at Mainstreet polling, they are roughly still there +-3%. It wasn't the ceiling for the conservatives that changed, it was the floor for the NDP. Jugmeet should have resigned the day that JT did. I guess his ego got the best of him. You know the Libs are sticking to their progressive base when the NDP ONLY puts $100B on top of their promises and not more.
I am not sure if the NDP are paying for the S&C agreement. Conservatives wouldn't have voted for them anyway and many centre/centre left voters agree with the programs that have been introduce through the S&C agreement It seems more that centre and centre left voters are voting strategically to prevent what many see as a too far right government of Mr.Poilievre from being elected.
Poilievre hasn't changed his platform in almost two years, and there were a lot of people earlier this year willing to at least tell pollsters that they were going to vote for him when it was a pure play contrast to JT/Jugmeet. So you're saying all those voters were 'far right' then and aren't now. It doesn't make sense to me. A lot of people gave Carney the benefit of the doubt. The libs knew that he had a shelf life, and that's why they called it the shortest election in Canadian history. The polls have been showing significant momentum back towards the conservatives as people discover who Carney actually is (brutal platform) and realise that this country has more than one issue to sort out.
To be clear Sean, I wasn't saying that Poilievre's support was "far right" and now it is not. I am saying that some of Poilievre's support previous to Trudeau stepping down was fatigue with Trudeau. We know that people don't pay any attention to policy until an election rolls round and even then not that much. Due to the impact of social media, people are even more influenced by sound bites than ever. I wouldn't say the polls are showing significant momentum back toward the Conservatives but I will say that Monday can't get here fast enough.
The longer the campaign, the better. It helps all the 'chicken littles' get it out of their system before making the big decision of the next 10 years.
Steve's comments at the end are very helpful. Our parliamentarians, as elected, need to learn how to listen to one another, and to talk to one another, each one being a representative of their constituents. Legislation put forward can't be sacrificed for partisan points, it needs to address the needs across the population, including the conservative voters or the liberal/ndp/green/bloc voters who make up the opposition. Freeing up of votes would be a big step. "Not part of the government" does not equal "not elected".
Glen, I wonder if that ship has already sailed? With social media changing how we access news (is Substack social media?) and current events, and TV and radio taking a distant back seat to that, the cult of personality is increasingly the determinant of whom we pay attention to and why. Politicians now preen and talk in sound bites (bytes?) to give their media teams snippets for later posting on social media. Our HoC and parliamentary democracy has become less relevant, and that was never more evident than during COVID when they all worked remotely over Zoom. It saddens me, but unless there are bills introduced that prescribe and hold accountable the acceptable behaviour of parliamentarians, I cannot see this changing in my lifetime (I am hoping for at least another 20 or 30 years given that I was born at the dividing line between Boomer and Gen X). And even if that prescription were to be scribbled on a notepad, what would it comprise? Penalties? Shaming? I'm not sure how you change it.
You are probably correct, too little too late. What I can't wrap my head around is how any competent adult, a career person with intelligence and ambition, would get involved in a political party, hoping to pursue some ideal of civil service.
Am I really supposed to assume that, basically, they're all joining a personality cult? What have we done to our political parties?
For those few of us still allergic to podcasts, would it be possible just to cut/ paste that machine-generated transcript right into SubStack, perhaps lightly edited? Thanks Paul for your humour and hard work- looking forward to some jazz posts when the campaign is done and dusted!
Particularly agree with your last point, there, Bruce. I'm new to jazz and appreciate insights and tips on musicians and bands to follow. I stumbled into it because I heard a band on a cruise that sounded like the music they played at my favourite college pub at York U when I was a student there back in the early 1980s. I later found out they were inspired by Dave Brubeck, and that is the type of jazz I like.
Phil - By coincidence, my first experience with jazz included a concert with Jamal. Superb. It was also my first time on an "airplane", as a friend and I flew from Montreal to NY in the summer of 1968. Before Jamal we heard Dizzy and Art Blakey and his jazz messengers (shortly after Shorter's departure) at the Village Voice. I forget where Jamal played. I do remember getting mugged somewhere near the corner of what was then 125th Street and Lenox. We were staying at Columbia, and were lost. Music for me was changed forever.
This podcast is enjoying a parallel life on my Youtube channel, where you can actually see the panelists, and where hundreds of mostly negative comments are saying we're all good examples of why the media deserve worse than whatever we get. I am ambivalent about Youtube, but it's quite a show.
While a very welcome and enjoyable conversation, I must take issue with Paul's observation about political media. People distrust the MSM. It is all well and fine to say that items like the debates require MSM, which isn't strictly true from a technological perspective.
It took Holly Doan of the independent Blacklock's Reporter to cite Rosemary Barton's misinformation regarding residential school burials. Don't recall a CBC televised correction. Don't recall an objective article in the Toronto Star. Try and explain damning articles on the Conservatives and nothing but praise for the Liberals as journalism. It seems to have escaped journalists' notice that the carbon tax is still law, only removed, perhaps temporarily, at the gas pumps—individuals using natural gas show that the tax is still reflected on their bills.
If Paul wishes to see more respect for political journalism, government subsidies have to end. I tire of listening to commentators' word salads as they twist facts. Yes, there is an argument for CBC Radio and Radio Canada to reach the parts of Canada that commercial radio finds cost ineffective. As for television, with only four percent of the country watching CBC as currently constituted, why are taxpayers paying for it? Eliminate the subsidies for a healthier news industry.
Brilliant conversation. Thank you so much for this. I fervently hope that whoever becomes Prime Minister will immediately meet with the other leaders, ask them to contribute to prioritizing Parliament's agenda, call a meeting of the Premiers to do the same thing and insist on Parliamentary decorum. (Yup, I am a dreamer!)
Hmm. Why did that 51st state talk from Trump pause? We all know that the Harper/Poilievre Conservatives have been well represented at the annual US CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and that there are ties there, including policy and strategy ties. It’s not a huge leap to assume the WH got the message that Trump’s threats were not helping Canadian Conservatives.
The logical conclusion of the unfolding of events is that Trump prefers Carney over Poilievre, not the reverse, OR that he wanted to get rid of Trudeau above all else, NOT that he prefers Poilievre or the Conservatives. Re-election of the Liberals makes divide-and-conquer much easier for Trump.
Sheila's explanation is the simpler and probably correct one. It seems obvious that the WH sees PP as more of their kind of guy, while MC could be more difficult to handle. So they stopped being provocative as that was helping Carney. Other explanations are more convoluted.
Trumps comments from yesterday not withstanding, can we agree that overall since Carney and Trump spoke, the intensity of Trump's verbal attacks on Canada have subsided?
I have a quibble re "division" and "western Canada" (aka Saskatchewan and Alberta). Fostering resentment (who remembers the NEP? Saskies do!) is a political strategy and SK and AB Premiers beat the drum incessantly to keep the heat off themselves. I live in Saskatchewan and have relatives in the Alberta oil patch - in my unscientific poll, no one is talking separation and oil and gas is not the be all and end all of people's concerns.
Please tell me that the central Canadian media isn't going to spend the next few years worrying about a minority of malcontents and "alienation", and attempting to "understand them". I can assure you that the Conservative Premiers of "the West" do not spend one second trying to understand anyone other than their donors and supporters.
With respect to the American Republican leadership and this election, I think they probably have other matters that they think are more important to deal with.
Steve Murphy's comment that Carney has moved the Liberal party toward the centre of the political spectrum says two things to me: (1) that spectrum is considerably narrower than it used to be and (2) mainstream journalists have accepted and normalized this narrow range. Back in the day, Ed Broadbent labelled the Liberal and Conservative parties "the Bobbsey twins of Bay St." arguing, rightly I think, that both represented the interests of corporate Canada. (And this at a time when the Conservatives still called themselves Progressive.) We might amend Broadbent's comment today to point out that one Bobbsey twin still represents Bay St. while the other speaks for Big Oil. The left side of the spectrum has all-but-disappeared, hastened I would argue by the likes of Broadbent himself and his successors who moved the CCF/NDP far from its "socialist," "mixed economy" roots. The left's refusal to be left leaves voters with the feeling that Margaret Thatcher was right (in more ways than one) when she invoked the acronym TINA: (there is no alternative.)
Israel, along with Italy, is often brandished as a scare tactic against proportional representation but over 130 countries use some form of PR with little gnashing of teeth.
If conservatives don’t get the CPC government they’re wishing for this round I would hope that instead of lashing out with threats of separation they wake up to the benefits of PR.
Also, by electing members of the government from AB and SK, a PR electoral system will incentivize any federal government to take their concerns more seriously.
NZ moved from FPTP to PR in 1992. Kiwis are very clear that they would never return to using FPTP. A number of years ago, a politician who opposed the move to PR stated that it was the right thing to do. Kiwis are certainly happier with the governance that their electoral system produces than most of us in Canada as a recent EKOS poll indicated that 68% of us support a move to using PR.
Only in a crisis, perhaps. After this unusual election people may well revert to, for example, more support for the NDP. It all depends on how the next few years roll out, and how much people will suffer.
This is a great conversation. Thanks for doing this.
What I enjoy most about subscribing to Paul Wells' (Wells's?) substack is when a panel interview ends up being so full of insight with well-presented points that are not talked about anywhere else (that I've seen or heard). This one was exactly that. The point mentioned a few times: what will happen with Poilievre if the Conservatives lose, and especially if they lose the popular vote percentage? Is the entire Canadian electorate more squeamish than we (speaking for myself) Conservatives want to believe when it comes to PP presenting as "Trumpy?" Are there fewer of us than we want to believe? And, of course, what happens to Canada regardless of whom we have at the helm of the ship of state after Monday? Will this election divide us further? Great work, Paul. Please keep doing what you do. With the Wellses, Kapeloses, Ivisons, Glavins, and others like them, journalism is still alive and vibrant in Canada.
And what will happen to Jenni Byrne if the Liberals win a majority? Her attack on Erin O’Toole in January has aged like milk.
Kory Teneycke was being excoriated for openly and publicly questioning Jenni Byrne's strategy (if it is indeed hers and not PP's own). Even I questioned it. But perhaps he was right. I want to believe all other Canadians are as concerned as I regarding the cost of living and the increase in crime after the Liberal decade, but perhaps not? Maybe Trumpy scaremongering was the way to go?
I don’t know either, and I have zero experience in politics so these things aren’t my expertise. I was reflecting on the podcast and upon your comment about what might be next for Mr Poilievre should he fail in this campaign, and it lead me to thinking about the back room folks also.
I was aghast to read about a Conservative MP getting a text while talking to a reporter. That’s gestapo type levels of central control. But equally dismayed to read in the past years about the Katie Telford’s PMO and Ministers not being able to meet and talk amongst themselves without PMO staffers being present. That’s an evil level of disrespect to the intelligence of your Cabinet.
The ‘war’ mentality and rigid control of communication might win elections, but it is horrible for governance.
There is just something very toxic it seems these days about the folks running campaigns, including but not limited to, Ms Byrne. Maybe they are very good at what they do (organization, strategy, tight messaging, control) but the end result is toxic, and we are all poorer for the ‘skill’ they bring to their positions. I can’t imagine any of them got into politics with the dream of setting up spy networks to ensure MP’s don’t speak to the wrong reporters.
This is quite close to what I'm thinking as the campaign closes.
You're right, Greg. It's a dark era of Canadian politics. In answer to that, my hope would be that Poilievre, if elected, would whittle away at the changes that we've seen in the PMO over the last 15 years. Yes, 15 years. It was similarly dark under Harper, who also had an iron grip on the ministers under his leadership during his majority government - which is part of the reason the Conservatives lost in 2015. He was a different leader before 2011. That Harper's Conservatives could lose because of an overly controlling PMO gives me hope that the same is true of Trudeau's and Carney's Liberals - that they will taste the same defeat as Harper and maybe one worse than his. Don't get me wrong: I admire Harper's leadership and brilliance. And his leadership and Flaherty's got us through the 2008 recession. So, perhaps being in power too long corrupted him? I don't know. But it immediately corrupted Trudeau. Carney arrived corrupted. My point? As Princess Leia said in the first Star Wars movie in a hologram projected by R2D2: "Help us Obi Wan. You're our only hope." Yes, our Obi Wan is PP. :)
The Liberals ran a campaign very well suited for the occasion:
- Immediately after getting the PM job, Mr. Carney undertook some token Prime-Ministerial activities (duly covered by MSM), even visiting the King.
- The Liberals invoked the threat of Donald Trump, abetted by MSM (which never misses an opportunity to fabricate a headline), realizing that this would divert attention away from parties' policies. Before anyone hyperventilates, please note that Canada survived 120 years without free trade with the U.S.
- The Liberals neutralized the Conservative platform by copying it, beginning with axing the carbon tax, leaving the campaign question, "Which candidate do you personally like more than the other?" -- which leads to a riddle: What's the difference between a Beauty Pageant and a Canadian Election?
...... In a Beauty Pageant, the prize for personality is not called "First Place".
MSM also keeps pointing to polling aggregates with Ekos et al, which have been repeatedly debunked. They're crowding the zone with accommodating polls, intentionally adding misleading noise to the real signal
Sean, could you elaborate on what "the real signal" is? Many thanks.
Sean, I am still hopeful that you will explain, "The real signal". With thanks.
338 gives letter grades to all the pollsters but aggregates them all, even the ones with known credibility issues, one-to-one. If you go to Poliwave, you can remove discredited pollsters and see the trends more clearly. Basically, junk data in, junk data out.
The CEO of Ipsos speaks to this and other trends more succinctly min 2:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4PkkUUzqg
Thank you Sean. I appreciate the link to Poliwave. It is good to access a variety of information sources. It is interesting that in a number of the ridings that I am following, Poliwave and 338 are the same or very close. As well, there are significant difference in a number of ridings. We will know soon which has the better process and outcome. Thanks again for the link.
Re: mistrusts of the MSM
Here's an incident from yesterday's news (subject to correction) that may contribute to mistrust of the MSM:
Immediately after newsclips of Poilievre discussing the Conservative platform were shown, a clip of Carney calling it a joke was shown. I read on the-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter that the Conservative numbers where independently audited by 2 persons, but that the Liberal platform was not audited. Why didn't the MSM mention that?
As Poilievre was speaking yesterday about reducing the federal work force through attrition, at one third the rate of departures, hiring two new workers for every three that left through retirement or taking external employment. In an age of AI, an extreme snails pace. The CBC Newsworld scroll. “Poilievre proposing to slash federal work force.”
I just remembered an incident from yesterday evening. Usually when a network wants to discredit someone, they find a person with contrary views and a job title and they post a video of them expressing their opinion.
Yesterday, I guess they couldn't find such a person, so they got David Miscrop and introduced him as an "expert".
Who were the two persons?
I can't find the (re-?)post, and I don't recall names being given. I think one of them was chief economist at StatsCan for decades. If so, he's not a fan of Mr. Carney, and if you can find an interview of him on the Financial Post website, it's a good listen.
Great podcast. One thing I don't understand is why no one is talking about how the NDP is paying for their 'Supply and confidence' strategy for the last two-plus years. When JT left, Jug was left holding that emotional baggage, and everyone ran away from him, not from the conservatives. The peak conservative polling support was at 45% in January of this year. If you look at Mainstreet polling, they are roughly still there +-3%. It wasn't the ceiling for the conservatives that changed, it was the floor for the NDP. Jugmeet should have resigned the day that JT did. I guess his ego got the best of him. You know the Libs are sticking to their progressive base when the NDP ONLY puts $100B on top of their promises and not more.
I am not sure if the NDP are paying for the S&C agreement. Conservatives wouldn't have voted for them anyway and many centre/centre left voters agree with the programs that have been introduce through the S&C agreement It seems more that centre and centre left voters are voting strategically to prevent what many see as a too far right government of Mr.Poilievre from being elected.
Poilievre hasn't changed his platform in almost two years, and there were a lot of people earlier this year willing to at least tell pollsters that they were going to vote for him when it was a pure play contrast to JT/Jugmeet. So you're saying all those voters were 'far right' then and aren't now. It doesn't make sense to me. A lot of people gave Carney the benefit of the doubt. The libs knew that he had a shelf life, and that's why they called it the shortest election in Canadian history. The polls have been showing significant momentum back towards the conservatives as people discover who Carney actually is (brutal platform) and realise that this country has more than one issue to sort out.
To be clear Sean, I wasn't saying that Poilievre's support was "far right" and now it is not. I am saying that some of Poilievre's support previous to Trudeau stepping down was fatigue with Trudeau. We know that people don't pay any attention to policy until an election rolls round and even then not that much. Due to the impact of social media, people are even more influenced by sound bites than ever. I wouldn't say the polls are showing significant momentum back toward the Conservatives but I will say that Monday can't get here fast enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRVgnavv1A
The longer the campaign, the better. It helps all the 'chicken littles' get it out of their system before making the big decision of the next 10 years.
Steve's comments at the end are very helpful. Our parliamentarians, as elected, need to learn how to listen to one another, and to talk to one another, each one being a representative of their constituents. Legislation put forward can't be sacrificed for partisan points, it needs to address the needs across the population, including the conservative voters or the liberal/ndp/green/bloc voters who make up the opposition. Freeing up of votes would be a big step. "Not part of the government" does not equal "not elected".
Glen, I wonder if that ship has already sailed? With social media changing how we access news (is Substack social media?) and current events, and TV and radio taking a distant back seat to that, the cult of personality is increasingly the determinant of whom we pay attention to and why. Politicians now preen and talk in sound bites (bytes?) to give their media teams snippets for later posting on social media. Our HoC and parliamentary democracy has become less relevant, and that was never more evident than during COVID when they all worked remotely over Zoom. It saddens me, but unless there are bills introduced that prescribe and hold accountable the acceptable behaviour of parliamentarians, I cannot see this changing in my lifetime (I am hoping for at least another 20 or 30 years given that I was born at the dividing line between Boomer and Gen X). And even if that prescription were to be scribbled on a notepad, what would it comprise? Penalties? Shaming? I'm not sure how you change it.
You are probably correct, too little too late. What I can't wrap my head around is how any competent adult, a career person with intelligence and ambition, would get involved in a political party, hoping to pursue some ideal of civil service.
Am I really supposed to assume that, basically, they're all joining a personality cult? What have we done to our political parties?
For those few of us still allergic to podcasts, would it be possible just to cut/ paste that machine-generated transcript right into SubStack, perhaps lightly edited? Thanks Paul for your humour and hard work- looking forward to some jazz posts when the campaign is done and dusted!
Particularly agree with your last point, there, Bruce. I'm new to jazz and appreciate insights and tips on musicians and bands to follow. I stumbled into it because I heard a band on a cruise that sounded like the music they played at my favourite college pub at York U when I was a student there back in the early 1980s. I later found out they were inspired by Dave Brubeck, and that is the type of jazz I like.
Check out Ahmad Jamal "Live At The Pershing" and Errol Garner "Concert By The Sea". A couple of iconic piano-centric recordings.
Phil - By coincidence, my first experience with jazz included a concert with Jamal. Superb. It was also my first time on an "airplane", as a friend and I flew from Montreal to NY in the summer of 1968. Before Jamal we heard Dizzy and Art Blakey and his jazz messengers (shortly after Shorter's departure) at the Village Voice. I forget where Jamal played. I do remember getting mugged somewhere near the corner of what was then 125th Street and Lenox. We were staying at Columbia, and were lost. Music for me was changed forever.
Thanks Phil.
This podcast is enjoying a parallel life on my Youtube channel, where you can actually see the panelists, and where hundreds of mostly negative comments are saying we're all good examples of why the media deserve worse than whatever we get. I am ambivalent about Youtube, but it's quite a show.
While a very welcome and enjoyable conversation, I must take issue with Paul's observation about political media. People distrust the MSM. It is all well and fine to say that items like the debates require MSM, which isn't strictly true from a technological perspective.
It took Holly Doan of the independent Blacklock's Reporter to cite Rosemary Barton's misinformation regarding residential school burials. Don't recall a CBC televised correction. Don't recall an objective article in the Toronto Star. Try and explain damning articles on the Conservatives and nothing but praise for the Liberals as journalism. It seems to have escaped journalists' notice that the carbon tax is still law, only removed, perhaps temporarily, at the gas pumps—individuals using natural gas show that the tax is still reflected on their bills.
If Paul wishes to see more respect for political journalism, government subsidies have to end. I tire of listening to commentators' word salads as they twist facts. Yes, there is an argument for CBC Radio and Radio Canada to reach the parts of Canada that commercial radio finds cost ineffective. As for television, with only four percent of the country watching CBC as currently constituted, why are taxpayers paying for it? Eliminate the subsidies for a healthier news industry.
Brilliant conversation. Thank you so much for this. I fervently hope that whoever becomes Prime Minister will immediately meet with the other leaders, ask them to contribute to prioritizing Parliament's agenda, call a meeting of the Premiers to do the same thing and insist on Parliamentary decorum. (Yup, I am a dreamer!)
Hmm. Why did that 51st state talk from Trump pause? We all know that the Harper/Poilievre Conservatives have been well represented at the annual US CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and that there are ties there, including policy and strategy ties. It’s not a huge leap to assume the WH got the message that Trump’s threats were not helping Canadian Conservatives.
The logical conclusion of the unfolding of events is that Trump prefers Carney over Poilievre, not the reverse, OR that he wanted to get rid of Trudeau above all else, NOT that he prefers Poilievre or the Conservatives. Re-election of the Liberals makes divide-and-conquer much easier for Trump.
Sheila's explanation is the simpler and probably correct one. It seems obvious that the WH sees PP as more of their kind of guy, while MC could be more difficult to handle. So they stopped being provocative as that was helping Carney. Other explanations are more convoluted.
In addition, Danielle Smith expressly asked Trump to stop the Canada is the 51st state rhetoric because it was helping the Liberals.
Weakening the interpretation, yesterday Trump used the 51st state line again...
Trumps comments from yesterday not withstanding, can we agree that overall since Carney and Trump spoke, the intensity of Trump's verbal attacks on Canada have subsided?
Great conversation.
I have a quibble re "division" and "western Canada" (aka Saskatchewan and Alberta). Fostering resentment (who remembers the NEP? Saskies do!) is a political strategy and SK and AB Premiers beat the drum incessantly to keep the heat off themselves. I live in Saskatchewan and have relatives in the Alberta oil patch - in my unscientific poll, no one is talking separation and oil and gas is not the be all and end all of people's concerns.
Please tell me that the central Canadian media isn't going to spend the next few years worrying about a minority of malcontents and "alienation", and attempting to "understand them". I can assure you that the Conservative Premiers of "the West" do not spend one second trying to understand anyone other than their donors and supporters.
I will add that every one of my relatives, who normally vote everything from UCP to NDP is voting Liberal this time. Hell indeed has frozen over.
With respect to the American Republican leadership and this election, I think they probably have other matters that they think are more important to deal with.
Steve Murphy's comment that Carney has moved the Liberal party toward the centre of the political spectrum says two things to me: (1) that spectrum is considerably narrower than it used to be and (2) mainstream journalists have accepted and normalized this narrow range. Back in the day, Ed Broadbent labelled the Liberal and Conservative parties "the Bobbsey twins of Bay St." arguing, rightly I think, that both represented the interests of corporate Canada. (And this at a time when the Conservatives still called themselves Progressive.) We might amend Broadbent's comment today to point out that one Bobbsey twin still represents Bay St. while the other speaks for Big Oil. The left side of the spectrum has all-but-disappeared, hastened I would argue by the likes of Broadbent himself and his successors who moved the CCF/NDP far from its "socialist," "mixed economy" roots. The left's refusal to be left leaves voters with the feeling that Margaret Thatcher was right (in more ways than one) when she invoked the acronym TINA: (there is no alternative.)
We are becoming more American, with a stark two party system. No European style coalitions. Us or them.
I wonder. Having watched a bit of the Germans and the Israelis and the Kiwis in their bizarre contortions, I'm not sure I'd be happier with that here.
Israel, along with Italy, is often brandished as a scare tactic against proportional representation but over 130 countries use some form of PR with little gnashing of teeth.
If conservatives don’t get the CPC government they’re wishing for this round I would hope that instead of lashing out with threats of separation they wake up to the benefits of PR.
Also, by electing members of the government from AB and SK, a PR electoral system will incentivize any federal government to take their concerns more seriously.
This election is making it very clear that ignoring the divisiveness that FPTP produces is a threat to our national unity.
Yes!
NZ moved from FPTP to PR in 1992. Kiwis are very clear that they would never return to using FPTP. A number of years ago, a politician who opposed the move to PR stated that it was the right thing to do. Kiwis are certainly happier with the governance that their electoral system produces than most of us in Canada as a recent EKOS poll indicated that 68% of us support a move to using PR.
Only in a crisis, perhaps. After this unusual election people may well revert to, for example, more support for the NDP. It all depends on how the next few years roll out, and how much people will suffer.
"a pack of dogs".........priceless!