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Front Burner Transcript for February 26, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

[Music: Theme]

JAYME POISSON: Hi, I am Jayme Poisson, and I'm here with my colleague, Aaron Wherry. Hey, Aaron.

AARON WHERRY: Hey, Jayme.

JP: We have just watched the only English language Liberal leadership race debate. There were four candidates that faced off: Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gold, Frank Bayliss. And we are going to talk about what happened, right? Also, we're going to talk about what happened during the French language debate on Monday night. The winner is going to be chosen on March 9th. They will go on to become, for a time at least, the Prime Minister of this country in a time of crisis, and will go up against Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives in the next election. The frontrunner up until narrow by really a mile has been Mark Carney. So, Aaron, why don't we just start there? How did Carney do on this national stage tonight? Do you think that he met our expectations?

AARON WHERRY: I mean, I guess it depends on what everyone's expectations were. I don't think, you know, that he, you know, ran circles around everyone on stage and, and blew everyone went away with his command of, of political forum. I think he was fine.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Canadians have been telling me that they want change. They want positive change that builds this country. I can bring that change. I know how to manage crises. I know how to build strong economies.

AARON WHERRY: You know, he is a central banker. He's not a natural politician. He, I double checked before we started this. He's now sort of officially been a politician for, I think, about 39 days. And it shows he, at least in English, did better than he did in French. You know, his, the reviews for his French performance were not super kind. They weren't, you know, terrible. But he has some work to do when it comes to speaking French. I think he, you know, he did what he needed to do. I don't think anything that happened in the English debate sort of upsets the basic structure of this race. And, you know, now he needs to, you know, not only focus on finishing this race, but sort of getting better at sort of commanding a political stage, you know, in time for the general election.

JP: How did we see the candidates interact with each other? Did they go after each other? Were there really any standout moments?

AARON WHERRY: Well, the second night was at least more interesting than the first. I don't know that there were really any cross words exchanged in the French debate, really. In the second debate tonight, the English language debate, you know, Karina Gould said right off the top...

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: Tonight, I am going to raise the tough questions we need to confront as liberals have an honest conversation about where we stand on the big issues we face as Canadians and present a clear...

AARON WHERRY: That was clearly what she set out to do, and that's what she did, primarily aimed it at Mark Carney.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: I think your question was actually about the cost of living for Canadians. It wasn't about, you know, the macroeconomic picture, which we know...

AARON WHERRY: I think it's an interesting tact on her part. You know, these, these sort of intraparty leadership debates, you know, we call them debates. But, you know, it's, the incentives are not always on the side of there being debate because, you know, first of all, obviously these, these guys are all in the same party and they agree on most things. But they're, but they're also very conscious of the fact that if there is conflict, if they do tear each other down, then they're just providing fodder to the other parties to use against them in a general election, right? We've seen that happen in the past where a leadership candidate has a bad debate, they go on to win the race. And then, and then, the footage of it gets used against them in the general election. So, you know, there is a, there really aren't a lot of incentives for them to go after each other. But as much as they can, I think Karina Gould, you know, tried to do that in the English language debate, specifically with, with Carney on a on a few, sort of, big points.

JP: Yeah, I know. One, for example, she went after him saying that...

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: I'm glad to hear, you know, my colleague talk about housing. It's one of the first times I've heard him talk about it during this campaign.

JP: She criticized him for his promise to get to 2 per cent NATO spending by 2030.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: Mark, you talked about reaching NATO targets, but of all of us on stage, you plan to reach those, not until 2030. But the imperative to do that is now.

JP: Why didn't Freeland go at him even a little bit harder than she did? You know, I feel like this was really her final chance to try to take him, right? Considering that those two were, were thought of as the frontrunners.

AARON WHERRY: It does. It is an interesting question of strategy on her part. I don't know whether she has calculated that it's, it's just not in, in the party's interest. I don't know if she has calculated that his lead is so significant that maybe, you know, it's not worth her trying to take him down. It's not worth her trying to kind of undercut him. I don't know if she, you know, just genuinely doesn't see much to take on with him. I mean, it's, it's a very curious strategy because she is sort of the presumed sort of, you know, second place runner at this point. And if she was going to try to kind of upset the, the basic running of the race at this point, this would have been the moment to do it. And she didn't do it.

[Music playing]

JP: Talking about performances today, I know we talked about Carney, but the other three, how do you think they did? Like, who came out of this really well. Did anybody really blow it?

AARON WHERRY: I mean, I think Karina Gould, in terms of someone who has improved their standing, you know, in the race amongst Liberals, she would be the one who's done that in the lot over the course of the last two nights. You know, I think people sort of already saw her as an impressive person, but I think she showed a command of things and a comfort on stage and an ability to communicate. You know, I don't know that it's, she's going to necessarily change where she finishes in this race. I don't think it probably changes the final result in terms of Mark Carney winning. But, you know, she sort of has burnished her image and, you know, probably built up a kind of base of support for herself. I think the, you know, not just in the fact that she did well, but, you know, she sort of found, I think, a groove in this debate as being kind of this voice of, of saying, you know, not only do we, you know, does the Liberal Party need to be mindful of its sort of progressive values, its socially liberal values, but also that it can't completely abandon, you know, the, the ideas and the policies it pursued over the last nine years.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: I also just want to say that I'm actually really proud of a lot of the work that we did as a government, whether it was the Canada Child Benefit that has lifted over half a million kids out of poverty, the early learning and childcare agreements, or the work that we did on fighting climate change.

AARON WHERRY: I'm proud that's maybe not a winning hand to play in this leadership race, but as a contrast to Mark Carney and sort of the ideas that he is emphasizing, it's an interesting tact for her to take. I guess you could say she won the debate in that sense. It's again, it's not necessarily going to change the shape of the race, but I think in terms of just sort of the last two nights in terms of who performed well, I suspect most people are going to say her.

JP: Yeah. Just as one example of what you're talking about there with Karina Gould that, you know, she's the only candidate that hasn't abandoned the carbon tax, but I just was watching her in the scrum, and she basically doubled down on it.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: We allowed Pierre Poilievre to take up space on the price on pollution, and quite frankly, to mislead Canadians. What was really happening was inflation. So, my plan is to freeze the planned increase, to cancel the planned increase, to ensure that we can give Canadians that break that they need. But I'm not going to take cheques away from millions of people who rely on that money. So, this is a good policy that does two things...

JP: Expanding on what we were just talking about, like where else did we see in the debate divergences between the candidates?

AARON WHERRY: I think if there, if there was a kind of big split, so to speak, it was kind of on the, you know, sort of macroeconomic issues, I guess that Mark Carney is emphasizing. And then, more on the sort of affordability, cost of living, you know, worrying about poverty and homelessness and those issues that, that Karina Gould and to a lesser extent, Chrystia Freeland were really emphasizing. And I think that is, there's sort of an interesting split here, right? Because the campaign overlapping with the, you know, Donald Trump's presidency has really kind of thrown a wrench into things in that you've got sort of the, the, you know, the pre-Trump, the pre-Trump issues. Not that they've gone away, but the pre-Trump issues of affordability and cost of living. And then, you've got sort of the post-Trump issues of economic strength and economic sovereignty and national sovereignty. And there's a bit of a kind of push-pull between those two issues. And I think you can sort of see that play out a bit on the, on the debate stage in terms of what the, what the Liberal, the next Liberal leader is going to have to emphasize. And I think the, the kind of the ultimate answer is the, the next Liberal leader is going to have to be able to talk about both of those issues.

JP: How did Carney or really anyone else criticize or try to distance themselves from the Trudeau reign and the Prime Minister specifically during the debate?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, so there was this interesting moment at the end where the moderator asked, you know, quite specifically, how would you differentiate yourself from Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, quite conspicuously, first tried to answer a different question and then, came around to trying to answer it in a way, you know, and saying...

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: You know, for me, this campaign has been a personal liberation, and I am my own person. And it is great.

AARON WHERRY: Without exactly quite saying, you know, exactly what she'd do differently. And then, you had again to go back to this sort of Carney-Gould split of, of Mark Carney, saying, I'm going to be laser-focused on the economy. I'm going to be, you know, more hands on...

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Good jobs, people's wages growing faster than inflation. It means getting prices down. It means building homes. It means building a future for this country.

AARON WHERRY: And then, you had Karina Gould saying, "We don't, we shouldn't be running away from what we did for the last nine years. We need to, you know, remember our values and so on. And, and if we need to do anything differently, it's, it's, you know, staying in touch with the grassroots. It's communicating better." And I think, you know, that's sort of another, you know, interesting divide for the Liberals in that, you know, Karina Gould, it's an interesting argument that if there had been a longer leadership campaign, would have been more interesting to see play out. I think the problem that Karina Gould run ins, runs into is that the record the Liberals had clearly, at least until Donald Trump became President, wasn't enough for them to get reelected. And so as much as she may have a point about, you know, Mark Carney, Mark Carney's sort of focus on the economy and where that may come up short. She's not playing a very strong hand just because it's pretty clear at the end of the Justin Trudeau era that voters were looking for something different. And in that case, for the Liberals, that's Mark Carney.

JP: I just noted, you know, Carney did at one point say that the, the economy has been driven...

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: By a big increase in the labour force, which was largely because of a surge in immigration, is now trying to be controlled. And by government spending that grew over 9 per cent year after year after year, twice the rate of growth of our economy. Okay. So, our economy was weak before we got to the point of these threats from President Trump. That's why we need big changes. That's the reason I'm here.

JP: Which really, I thought was a stand-out moment. It was a pretty direct criticism of, of Trudeau, but also, I guess, of Freeland. Okay. The other thing that I wanted to just take a moment to discuss with you is, is what we heard from the candidates tonight about threats coming from Trump, because I did find it striking just how quickly things have changed. Just to hear all of the candidates talking about our long-time friend and ally like they are now, this menace on the international scene.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: Rather than guaranteeing the rules-based order, the U.S. is turning predator.

MARK CARNEY: We have to recognize that the Donald Trump of today is different than the Donald Trump of several years ago. Then, his objective was to take more of our market. Now, he wants to take our country.

JP: Did you find that as striking as I did?

AARON WHERRY: It is. You know, it's hard. I mean, first of all, I'm not sure whether any American President has ever featured as prominently in a, you know, party leadership debate in Canadian history. Maybe there's a precedent, but I suspect there isn't. It is. You know, it's such a change from, you know, you go back to remember when, when Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, Barack Obama was in the White House and we were talking about a bromance and, and how famously they were going to get along and how they were sort of the same kind of politician and how the, you know, Justin Trudeau, one of the points of emphasis he had in the 2015 campaign was how much, you know, the job of the Prime Minister was to manage Canada-US relations and, you know, work with the president. And Stephen Harper hadn't been able to do that with Barack Obama, and Justin Trudeau would. And, you know, it is it's indicative of just how much Donald Trump has changed the world, has changed the continental relationship. I think it's important to note that it's not just, you know, Canadian Liberal politicians talking like this. It's European leaders talking like this about how it's a new era.

JP: So, we could be in a federal election imminently. Carney, for example, has said that he would consider calling one immediately after becoming leader. Opposition parties have also said that they would bring down the government as soon as Parliament is back, towards the end of March. These debates were really just as much about a general election as anything else, and Poilievre and the Conservatives did come up a handful of times. And what did we hear? What were the candidates trying to accomplish there?

AARON WHERRY: I think for this audience and for these debates, there was, especially from Mark Carney and maybe to a lesser, to a certain extent, Chrystia Freeland, sort of making the point by bringing up Pierre Poilievre that they can, they can. Trying to show that they can take him on, that they're ready to make arguments against him, to criticize him, and show that they're kind of up to that challenge. That seemed to be, especially for Mark Carney, that seemed to be kind of the implicit message behind a lot of what he, he was doing when he brought up Pierre Poilievre. I think the other part of it was bringing him up in the, in the sense of Donald Trump, in the sense of the, the challenges going forward and trying to place Pierre Poilievre within that larger sort of debate.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Let me finish by pointing out one other thing. Who's the worst person to stand up to Donald Trump? It's Pierre Poilievre. He worships the man; he uses his language. He's not the right person for our country at this crucial time.

AARON WHERRY: You know, the leaders were trying to kind of, the leadership candidates were trying to kind of link the two, too. Like, there were a couple comments that specifically, you know, from, I think, Karina Gould and Mark Carney and possibly also from Chrystia Freeland that specifically linked Pierre Poilievre with Donald Trump. So, there's, you know, there's kind of a couple things going on there.

JP: Yeah. Gould, I think if I remember correctly, and she said she's used to dealing with bullies.

SOUNDCLIP

KARINA GOULD: I know how to stand up to people like Pierre Poilievre, who, when it comes to Donald Trump, would rather imitate him than stand up for Canada.

JP: I know also Carney nailed him for not getting security clearance.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: This is the kind of irresponsibility at a time when our country is under threat that we cannot afford. We cannot afford a leader like Pierre Poilievre.

[Music playing]

JP: I want to talk to you about the polls. We have to talk about the polls, because these two debates this week, they come at the same time that we are seeing some really crazy polling. And I say crazy because multiple pollsters, including Ipsos and Leger, are now putting the Liberals either nearly at par or ahead of the Conservatives in a federal race. This is the first time that we have seen this since 2021. Also, it is a huge turnaround from where they were in January when Trudeau stepped down. Aaron, I know the last time that you were on, we talked about other examples where new leaders got a big boost. Then, lost that boost. So, John Turner, Kim Campbell, but have we ever seen a rebound quite like this before? Because depending on the poll here, this is, what? Like a 30-point rebound?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, I mean I hesitate that we have to say we've never seen it, but I, I'm, I'm struggling to come up with, with anything that compares. You know, talking to someone this afternoon who, who works in polling. The only point of reference he and I both had was the pandemic, where the, if you go back to sort of the polling in February 2020, you know, the Conservatives were slightly ahead of the Liberals. You know, if you think back that far, Justin Trudeau had sort of limped out of the 2019 election, kind of wounded. And then, you know, in a matter of weeks, months, the Liberals were shot up to a big lead. And that was, you know, credited to this kind of what's called the "Rally-around-the-flag effect," Right? When there's a crisis, you sort of rally around the leader. And you know, that, in that case, the Liberals weren't trailing by 20 points or whatever they were at certain points in the last year. For this to happen, I mean, it's striking on several levels, but it you know, it is, I think you can sort of try to explain it in a few ways. One is Trump, obviously, the crisis moment. I think part of it is, you know, I think we may have talked about that about this in that episode was, you know, how much of the of the Conservative polling lead was based on people liking Pierre Poilievre, how much of it was based on people being tired of Justin Trudeau. So, there's probably some of that going on. You know, I think there's, there's sort of overlapping impacts. It's really remarkable to think that, you know, when this leadership race started, the feeling, you know, there was a certain feeling of like, well, are the Liberals trying to pick somebody to win the next election? Or are they trying to pick someone to kind of save the furniture and stick around to lead them in opposition? The, the polling has swung things so dramatically now that now, it looks like you're picking someone who could conceivably not just become Prime Minister for a month or two, but could conceivably win government in a new election. And then, that's just, that was again, that was just implausible two months ago.

JP: Yeah. And some of these polls, when they put Carney at the top, the numbers get better for them, right?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah. And that's you know, and that I mean, I think that really solidifies Mark Carney's argument, right? Is, is he can point at those poles and say, this isn't just rallying around the flag. This isn't just people feeling, you know, differently about the Liberal Party. This is something about, you know, people seeing an appeal in what I'm offering in, in what I'm doing. And, and that's the case for picking me.

JP: So, let's end this conversation on Carney. We talked earlier about how this was a fine night for him. It was fine. But we have also talked about how this debate was low on real debate. It was very polite. It did not come to blows. Everyone agreed with each other a lot. If Mark Carney does end up winning this leadership race, did we get the sense from these debates that he is prepared to duke it out in a federal election so soon with someone like Poilievre, who has been training for this for years?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, I don't think we got an answer to that question, really. I mean, in some fairness, we probably weren't ever going to get an answer to that question until the general election. But I don't know that Carney emphatically answered the question of, of whether he's ready for the cut and thrust of federal politics. You know, with these last two nights, he makes this comment about, you know, I'm not a career politician, and I'm not the usual suspect. So, I think he's to a certain extent trying to say, like, "Look, I know I'm not you know, I know I'm not Justin Trudeau. I know I'm not Pierre Poilievre." But you know, that's in this case that's he's trying to sell it as a, as a virtue. But I think, you know, I don't want to say it's the easy part, but it sort of is. You know, winning the Liberal leadership is, is part one. And winning a general election is a whole other thing. It comes down to how ready your party is. It comes down to how well you can pull an organization together, yourself, and the people you hire. It comes down to, you know, how well can you perform on stage? You know, shaking hands in news conferences, in, you know, televised national debates against, you know, hostile political opponents? We won't really know how well he's able to handle that, and until he actually goes through it.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Okay. Campaigns matter. Aaron, thank you.

AARON WHERRY: Thank you.

JP: Alright. That is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

For transcripts of this series, please visit this page.

Is Mark Carney ready for the real fight ahead? - Transcript

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