Trudeau, Poilievre, And 2025 (with David Coletto)

Transcripts Of A Great Convo

(I was fortunate enough to have David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data and one of the smartest thinkers about Canadian politics, on the Scrimshaw Show this week. I’m running the transcript of that conversation here, mostly because I understand that I get significantly more traffic here than on the podcast, but do listen. It’s an hour long convo about the state of Federal politics, Trudeau’s future, and more, and I’m so grateful to David for his time. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity but never for intent, and you can listen for yourself.)

Evan Scrimshaw: Hello and welcome to this week's edition of the Scrimshaw Show. My name is Evan Scrimshaw. Um, we're changing it up a little bit this week. which is to say that I actually, you know, I'm not just going to have one of my buddies on to shoot the shit. I have the CEO, is that your title? Sure. You know, David Coletto, you're the Toronto Star's pollster. You are one of the best bolsters in Canada, you're a, you know, friend, internet friend of mine at the very least, you're a big supporter of your work, you're a fan of mine. Uh, thanks for coming on, buddy.

David Coletto: Great to be here. And, uh, thank you for those kind words. This is going to be fun. Yeah.

Scrimshaw: So it's been a busy, busy time in Canadian politics. We've obviously had a fairly big sample now of what the post, uh, Trump landscape looks like. We've got a bunch of, we have the Liberals polling somehow getting worse federally, which honestly did not think was possible to a certain extent. not just in your polling, but in basically everybody's polling since Trump has gotten elected. Things have gotten worse. What's your, like, what's your, what's your like big sort of like big picture takeaway of Canadian politics and the like last month, the month ish we've had since the election, like what's your takeaway? What are you seeing in the data? You've been in the field a lot, just high level. What are you seeing?

Coletto: Big takeaway for me is if we didn't think this mindset of the public, their view of particularly the incumbent and the prime minister wasn’t firm six months ago, or even a year ago when we started to see, you know, this big, close to 20 point lead open up, I think, I think we have to say it probably is now you know, because you've had a budget, you've had endless chances and attempts by the government to reset, refocus the public, you now had, you know, Trump's election, as you said, you've had the, even the GST holiday announcement and nothing, nothing has moved any of the metrics that we have in terms of, you know, views towards the prime minister, the government's approval rating and, and vote intention. In fact, the only thing that's kind of moved and again, the wrong direction, if you're the incumbent is the sense of, is the country headed in the right direction and now it's as low as I've ever measured at a 22%.

And although it's numerically lower, it's still symbolically, it's numerically lower than those in Canada who think the U S is headed in the right direction. So, you know, to be able to say that more Canadians think the U S is headed in the right direction than they think of their own country goes against everything that we've understand, you know, even Canadian perceptions of, of us versus them over the last basically, you know, decade, I think basically the start of Trump 2016, I think Canadians have been a pretty sour mood about what's going on south of the border. And now there's some who think they're maybe going in the better direction than we are.

Scrimshaw: Yeah. I mean, that's mostly a function of the fact that you know, distaste with Liberals is incredibly high and the liberals seem stuck in the low twenties in by all of the metrics that you guys run, right. Personal favorability for the prime minister, government approval, right track, wrong track, the vote share for the Liberal party. This isn't a case where, you know, we'll touch briefly on, on, on provincial politics, Ontario at the end, but like, you know, Bonnie Crombie, she's in, I think 25 in your latest poll, but like her favorables are okay, sort of have some room to maneuver you know, things can, can go up and down. Trudeau, nothing, everything is stuck in the mid twenties or low twenties, right, and his disapprovals, wrong track. They're all in the 60, if not, you know, touching 70 at this point. Is there like, is there any dig at this point that is going to suddenly have a, have a come to Jesus, have a road to Damascus revelation that actually Justin Trudeau is great, or are we just staring down the barrel of the electorates locked in and it's not changing.

Coletto: I think it's, it's, I don't think it's going to change. And I think one, one of the important things about that 23% who have a positive view, only about a quarter of them have a very positive view. Right. So Justin Trudeau actually isn't that polarizing, right? Like sometimes you'd see political leaders that have a lot of people don't really don't like them, but there are, they're, they're big, big fans. Trudeau doesn't have a lot anymore. Only 7% of Canadians have a positive view of them. So, you know, that's a really hard base to build a political movement off of when 41% have a very negative view of you. And, and, you know, when you look at Trump, for example, United States, very polarizing, lots of, lots of fans, lots of opponents. That's not the case for Trudeau. And I think the longer things go on, the more firm this view gets. I always say it's, it's very hard to change someone's impression of you when you have an, when they have a negative one, you know, you can, you can damage your reputation really quickly, but rebuilding it takes a long time. And again, over the course of the last year and a half, I see no evidence that the prime minister has been able to change the trajectory of how Canadians are feeling about him right now.

Scrimshaw: I mean, that is certainly my experience with this government as somebody who has been offering suggestion after suggestion to this government of things they could do. Many of which focus on, you know, humanizing Justin Trudeau and having him, you know, apologize more, acknowledge the faults, you know, somewhere in my column archive from, I think this fall, you know, there's the, there's a column I wrote literally entitled the speech Justin Trudeau should give, suffice it to say Trudeau has not given that speech or anything close to it. He has decided not to shuffle his cabinet just by the fact that he keeps sort of like he keeps the, the, the potential possibility of a cabinet shuffle hanging over people, but he hasn't pulled the trigger on one yet.You have, you have cabinet Deadwood in there that perpetuate the idea that he's, he's out of touch. You have the government havinglost two by-elections in seats that they've held, they're going to lose a third next week, unless you somehow think that they're going to win Cloverdale Langley City, which they're not. Things are bad. And I think a lot of people have pinned their hopes on the idea that, Oh, but Pierre Poilievre is, you know, terrible in their view, but we, we don't really see that right. It's favorable in your polling or, you know, bounce around, I mean, is this idea that Poilievre is going to be a drag? Like at what point do we have to give that one up?

Coletto: I mean, I think there's still a chance that, that his negatives could go up as more people, actually, like those who aren't tuning in right now to politics.. We should expect his negatives to go up, but as long as he's holding 40% positive, that's sufficient. And you don't actually have to like them to vote for him. Although there's a strong correlation between the two. I think just first on Trudeau, I think one of the other things that I have a theory, it's hard to test that, like his hanging on to the leadership actually is making more and more people, you know, reinforcing why they don't like them. So the longer he tries to keep things together, the more it's impossible to turn it around, I think. And I, and I don't know how to prove that, but I feel like, you know, it comes a point where people, you know, like, he's like that, that friend who comes over and just doesn't want to leave at the end of the night and he actually doesn’t.

Scrimshaw: The anecdota of me, my circle. And I have like, you know, uh, various sort of, you know, sounding boards. I have to get a more sort of less engaged political audience. People are done with them and it's like, why aren't you going? People are done. And I, and yeah, I think the fact that he has his head so clearly in the clouds, I'm trying to be polite because I have you on the podcast, um, it's not going well. And it sometimes feels like, you know, like the people who are data literate and acknowledging reality.

It kind of feels like sometimes we're just losing our minds because it, it seems very apparent to me and to a lot of people that this is not going well. And I don't really understand why. I don't really understand how, how that message isn't breaking through.

Coletto: I mean, I, I think that message has maybe not fully broken through. I think the challenge is what's next. And, you know, I know the limits of, of the tools that I have at my disposal to understand how Canadians might react to whoever replaces Justin Trudeau. I still am of the view that I think it releases a bunch of pressure in the public that allows them to at least start to think about the future that could include a new Liberal leader could include, you know, them coming back and saying, well, maybe I will vote liberal, but doesn't necessarily mean that will happen. But I don't think that happens with Trudeau as the leader of the party headed into the next election. So I think there's some hesitation about the risk around changing them, but I don't think you can, you can honestly say whether you believe Abacus' data or not, like across the board, we're all saying the same thing. And then the by-elections are actual proof points that the polls have been right. And they are measuring a deep dissatisfaction, even in some of the most liberal friendly parts of the country have, have largely rejected what, when they've had the chance to.

Scrimshaw: Yeah, for sure. Also, isn't, you know, the whole existence of Kamala Harris pretty consistently polling badly when she was VP and a hypothetical presidential candidate, and then suddenly polling significantly better. Like, I just feel like you can hypothetically poll Chrystia Freeland or you can hypothetically poll any of this, you know, any of, any of the people you might want to put into this leadership conversation, right. Carney, Anand,, whoever else I’m not here to do that, but like, I think you would agree, polling hypotheticals and then pulling the actual reality of whoever that theoretical new leader would be are two very different instruments.

And we should probably have some humility about being like, well, Chrystia Freeland would do X and Trudeau would do Y. Like, I think the error band on what we can hypothetically poll or, or, or get data for is fairly large.

Coletto: Well, and I don't even think it's useful asking those questions anymore because, you know, six months ago we put out data and this was my entire point of doing it that showed like when you show people a picture of all of those folks that are being rumored to run, wanting to replace them, you know, even in the case of Chrystia Freeland, only about three in 10 could recognize her in a photo. So if you can't recognize somebody in a photo, okay, maybe you recognize the name, but even then, like how real are your perceptions and impressions of somebody? So I, I, I don't think we actually know and, and that is both a huge risk for changing Trudeau, but it's also like the blank canvas that the party can paint and, and, and get the country focused on what the future looks like, as opposed to is rehashing constantly in people's minds about why they, they feel they're in the, the jam they're in and why they believe trust, you know, rightly or wrongly, Justin Trudeau's decisions have got them there.

Scrimshaw: Is it really that big of a risk if you're pulling at 22% or whatever?

Coletto: You know, like the, the, the 15 liberal MPs who are actually safe beyond that, you know, that, that I don't think should be that risky because right now, all the evidence, there's no indication that this, these numbers are going to get better at any circumstances. And I actually think 2025 will become riskier. You know, we've seen rising unemployment rates, you know, we're going to maybe move from a anxiety built around inflation and cost of living to one around job security. And that is just as troubling for a government that's doesn't have much money and nor has political capital to both stimulate the economy and convince people they're doing that for the right reasons.

So I want to dig into Poilievre’s popularity. You were one of the first people to identify the sort of, oh, I can't believe I'm about to say this word out loud, youthquake in favor of Poilievre’s popularity. Obviously that, you know, leads it to housing and immigration as a sort of component of demand and everything else. One of the arguments that a lot of people, and I'm going to admit fairly badly made, myself included, against this youth quake truly happening is, yeah, but Poilievre just doesn’t have a policy on climate. And the argument that was made was that young voters care more about climate change.

Therefore, climate change will act sort of a glue to young voters and progressive parties that can alleviate or sort of counterbalance to ‘Poilievre may be saying some decent things on housing’ or whatever. Your latest poll has 18 percent of Canadians overall listing climate change as a top three issue.

That number is 16 percent for 18 to 29s and 30 to 44s, 24 percent for the elderly. Obviously, to some extent, this is young voters are more conservative, older voters are more liberal [in this poll]. So that's part of what it is. But climate change hasn't really registered as an issue. The Conservatives have won St. Paul's, which is very, you know, which is an old city of Toronto. It's the kind of seat where more people are going to bike as a general rule. It's the kind of seat where, you know, walkability and all of that stuff are more highly sought out.

Coletto: And Josh Matlow is the city councillor.

Scrimshaw: Josh Matlow is the city councillor, right. Yeah. Carolyn Bennett was the MP, was the MP for like 30 years.She even won in 2011, which is a proof of the disaster Liberals are walking into. But why isn't climate hurting the Conservatives with younger voters who, in theory, should care about the issue more and who in the past have called climate change a bigger problem? How come Poilievre is this able to sort of glide on the fact that he doesn't have an emissions reduction plan other than Axe The Tax, which is, again, is not an emissions reduction plan?

Coletto: I think you chalk it up to it's not as big a priority right now. So so when you unpack it, you know, young younger Canadians are just as likely as older ones to think climate change is a real problem, that it exists, that it's going to be create more anxiety, scarcity in the future.

But the way that I chalk it up is like right now, if you're under the age of 40, really, and you don't own your home and you don't have like a six figure job, well, the world seems really hard to meet basic needs, paying the rent or the mortgage, feeding your family, feeding yourself, paying to get around, whether it's by transit or car. And so those material needs, that short term, what I call scarcity that people are feeling. Overrides that concern that climate may for some is a real short term scarcity now, it's creating short term scarcity, but for most, it's still a medium to long term problem that I can get to solving at some point.

But I need to first figure out how I deal with the day to day. And so Poilievre has been way more effective at speaking to those anxieties of younger people, primarily younger men, but there's a large number of young women, by the way, that say they're going to vote conservative and they like Pierre Poilievre, just not to the same extent as younger men.

But I think it goes to that, Evan. It's not that, you know, young Canadians have had a complete flip in their views on climate. It's that from time to time, other issues become the focus. And that's why as long as these younger Canadians are saying, look, the most important issue of my life is housing or it's the cost of living or it's the things that I believe are making those two things worse, which for some they point to immigration, then they're going to vote for the party and the leader they think is best able to handle that. And right now, the Conservatives are just crushing the Liberals on housing and the cost of living and even on health care. And that's a more issue that more older Canadians are focused on, but they're winning the game on those three. And that is why they are 20 plus points ahead. Yeah, I. OK, I have that argument, though, like I don't think I don't know, you know, I don't believe climate's important. I just think they're willing to say not now.

Scrimshaw: Yeah, it does make sense. And I think that's one of the things I'm trying to - I'm trying to do a lot of thinking about and part of what I want to have you on is because a lot of us made a lot of us in progressive spaces made a lot of assumptions. And if you would like to read those assumptions at the time they were made, scroll back two years in my Substack. They're all there. A lot of them don't hold up particularly well. Whatever. I don't care. It's not like I'm going to go and delete them. You can read them and whatever. But obviously, Trump winning the popular vote, you know, has sort of shocked the political system. And I think it should be a warning sign for progressives that you can't just take political truisms, especially political truisms written in 2017 and 2018, in a pre pandemic era, we can't just take those as true anymore. And I think that, oh, you know, conservatives have to be very real on climate change to win back youth voters, I think, has been one of those truisms that has been and is going to continue to be shattered by events in the next few years. We didn't see it in the UK, but in fairness, the UK conservatives were a tire fire.So it's not like we really were in a position to discern any meaningful trend out of that election. You know, minority voters in the in the US obviously move pretty substantially right. Minorities as a general rule in the US are younger because minorities tend to be the only people in the US who are having kids still.

And I'm just fascinated by this because it's it's something that we've sort of known to be. It's something that's pretty clear from the data. You know, young voters, 50 percent of 18 to 29 have housing, affordability and accessibility as a top three issue. Thirty three percent of 60 plus.Thirty six percent of 18 to 29 have immigration as a top three concern.Thirty one percent of 60 plus do. Health care, only 29 percent of young voters have them as a top concern. Fifty three percent of the old again, logical given age distributions and need of these services.

The immigration stuff is fascinating to me again, you were you were one of the first people to really get on this point. And to point out that there was sort of a hidden Canadian consensus that the political class were not getting right away. Do we think the damage is done politically to the Liberals, despite the fact that they are actually enacting a quite restrictionist immigration policy for the next few years?

Coletto: I think it is. I think it's a too little too late or even if it's a lot, it's still too late. You created the problem. This was a decision your government made. And again, I don't believe that most of the anti-immigration sentiment is actual, you know. I think it's about quantity, not quality of the people coming, it's the too many we just let in too many growth is population growth has become a bad word in most parts of this country. People who believe their community is growing quickly are 20 points more likely to think that community is headed in the wrong direction. And young people who I think have experienced the perceived effects of this, and I say it's perceived because everything we're talking about is perceived when it comes to public opinion. They believe that it's harder to find an affordable home, that the jobs that they need are harder to get. You know, youth unemployment is very high.

And they believe that that's because our government made a decision to welcome millions of people over the last two years and didn't have a plan to house them and find employment, even though when they made that decision, it did appear to some that there were major labour shortages. So I think it's a proxy for everything else. It's when you ask this kind of question, there's parts of it that are the problem, which is housing, affordability and accessibility. And then immigration for many is the cause or at least partially the cause. And so, yeah, I think the government had to act in order to stem the pressure, but I don't think it's solved their political problem.

Scrimshaw: I honestly think there's a metaphor for the fact that the generally consensus opinion that Sean Fraser is the best minister in the government right now, that he is having to solve a housing crisis that has been significantly exacerbated by the actions of the former minister of immigration, who is, of course, Sean Fraser. Fraser was the immigration minister who, you know, loosened the TFW rules, you know, who has overseen the who is who helped oversee the sort of boom in international students post-pandemic once we started letting people back in. And now he is the housing minister who is having to solve the problem that created when he was immigration minister, there is a tidy metaphor for for this liberal government in a whole as a whole in that. Do we think a cabinet shuffle would do anything?

Coletto: Why? Because unless unless you bring in a group of people who signal to people who don't pay deep, deep attention to politics, so you've got to find a way to get to the next level of the public who aren't listening to your podcast or, you know, subscribe to my newsletter outside of kind of that that core audience, they need to feel that it represents a substantial change. And I don't think, first of all, there are people in in the caucus who are well known enough in order to create that perception, nor do people even actually know who most of the cabinet members are right now. So I don't think a cabinet shuffle actually does anything to solve the government's problem.

Scrimshaw: Even if that shuffle is firing Freeland and Stephen Guilbeau and hypothetically dropping Carney in finance?

Coletto: Maybe, but it'd have to come with some significant changes in policy. So, you know, if you drop Guilbeau, do you put a hold or a freeze on the carbon tax? Right. Like it’d have to demonstrate that because at the end of the day, right, most people still consume politics and believe that the guy at the top, the person at the top is all that matters, gets to make all the decisions. The CEO.

And if the CEO is still the same, what changes? You know, and again, Mark Carney is not a household name. Mark Carney might signal to some perhaps seriousness of the economic crisis maybe that the country is facing. But I don't know if it actually solves the problem. I really think that which is why I've argued like Evan and like taking some flack for it, that I look at this data and say the only real thing that's going to shock the public out of the mindset that it's in is if the prime minister announces I'm done, I'm not running again. Because barring that, I don't know what else, you know, creates that kind of jolt that everybody talks about, that everybody will say, OK, now what a cabinet shuffle does not create that. And the last version of that proved otherwise, proved the point that most people didn't know it happened and actually probably had the counter effect in demonstrating that actually the government wasn't changing.

Scrimshaw: I agree with that. But I just want to ask, because some people think a cabinet shuffle is a magical elixir that will save everything. I wrote a column the night of the Toronto-St. Paul's by-election or I guess the morning after, technically, because I think that went up at about four or five a.m. because I committed myself to staying up for the entire thing. I wrote that piece and made the case pretty forcefully that Trudeau needed to go and that for all of his good and for all of his time in office, his continued leadership of the Liberal Party would waste valuable time and leave the party stuck in a morass that it would be difficult for them to get out of. It is now December 9th. I wrote that on the very early mornings of June 25th. It is now December 9th. Would the Liberal Party be in a better place today if they had gotten rid of Trudeau the week I wrote that call?

Coletto: Well, look, I don't know.

Scrimshaw: What's your gut?

Coletto: How could it not be? Or at least the likelihood that it would be better off seems to be higher, right? I try to think of everything in probabilities and you're right, if they had started a leadership race in June and it would have ended in September and you would have had three months of a new leader that presumably had an opportunity to make some significant changes, to signal that this is a new government going in a new direction, they could be in a place where they could be starting to, one, increase the number of people open to voting liberal. I think everyone focuses on the horse race number, but the scariest number if you're the federal Liberals is the fact that fewer people are open to voting for you than they are the New Democrats right now.

How do you start to turn people's minds to the idea that they even consider you, that you're back on their menu of at least options, and then start the hard work of saying we deserve another term? And that might require people to be turned off a little bit more by Pierre Poilievre. It's basically the Kathleen Wynne 2014 playbook. It required Tim Hudak to make a mistake during the campaign, but the fundamentals were there that would have allowed her to win that majority government. That if McGuinty was still running, I don't think would have been allowed to happen.

Scrimshaw: Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people have over-internalized the famous McGuinty white background 2011 campaign ad, where he sort of acknowledges the fear.

Coletto: I love that ad.

Scrimshaw: Oh, it's an amazing ad. He wasn't popular. But the thing is, one, McGuinty is a different kind of politician than Trudeau. I grew up in a very anti-McGuinty household. I met him at a liberal fundraiser once when I was at university.Guy's charming as hell. He is one of the most purely charismatic people you can ever meet. And there is, I think, something about charismatic, slick people - and I don't even mean that as a negative, but charismatic, slick people sort of admitting that they've got it wrong, sort of humbling themselves a little bit. I think people like to see that. But I also think the problem is that that worked one time, right? That worked in one specific set of circumstances, in one election, in a recovering, getting better economy.

I think people have overvalued the idea that incumbents can come back from bad positions, in part because of basically that run in McGuinty came back and came one seat away from majority government in 2011. Obviously, Daniellee Smith blew the 2012 election to what’s her name, Alison Redford in Alberta. And Christy Clark obviously saved the BC Liberals in 2013.

I just think that, like, I just, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to put this in a way that - I want to be clear about this. Did you expect the caucus to have more? Are you surprised that Trudeau has managed to survive to this point? Because I honestly did not think after they lost St. Paul's and that especially after they lost LaSalle in September, I am honestly shocked he's still in fhe job.

Coletto: I am too. I did expect, I didn't expect just how, and I don't know if it's how much, because I don't think it's control I don't think, but how little confidence, I'm going to maybe be tough on some people I know, even in the Liberal caucus, how little confidence they have in their ability to force his hand, right? And just how much power a leader actually has, if especially when they're the prime minister in situations like this, like, as much as he is weakened and his public reputation is as low as it's ever been, caucus just doesn't seem able to balance, you know, that imbalance that exists.

But, and maybe it's because, I get asked this all the time, we chat, I chat about it all the time. Maybe it's because there's no clear alternative to him. There's no, you know, person that's clearly waiting in the wings, ready to go. I don't know what it is, but, you know, it is an amazing amount of, of both probably, he's still the prime minister. He still has a level of celebrity and a profile. And I, and I still suspect, you know, this was, this was somebody who brought the party from third to first in 2015, brought many of the people in that, that room and kept them there for the last two elections.

But it, it, it, again, I, I've never been in that position. I don't know how I would feel if I was there, but being on the outside, I'm still very much surprised that so many members of parliament have, have either resigned to the fact or aren't coordinated enough to realize that, that they're just going down and they're not willing to put up a fight for the things that they have fought for, for the last nine years. If you believe Pierre Poilievre is as bad as they say he is, then what are you doing to make sure that he doesn't win the next election would be the question I'd ask Liberal MPs.

Scrimshaw: That is a question I have written in a column before and as a call to action for the caucus, which is to say that if you genuinely believe that Pierre Poilievre is the threat that you keep bleeding on about, you can't leave Justin Trudeau in the job knowing that he's going to get there. I mean, there are cabinet ministers who, and, you know, I fully respect PJ Fournier, obviously seat projection this far out is hard, but like my home seat of Kanata, which I actually found out is not my home seat of Kanata anymore. I have been redistributed into Carleton by like literally a street block which is funny to me, but, my, you know, the seat I've lived, you know, in Kanata, Jenna Sudds, she's down 18 in Fournier's latest projection. You know, you've got Anita Anand in Oakville down 15 every time I look right. Sean Frazier is down double digits and probably going to lose. Although in fairness, he's probably just going to go run the Nova Scotia Liberals when he loses in, in Central Nova. I just don't understand how you have cabinet ministers and, you know, so what, a hundred something caucus members who are going to lose their seats. Some of them in seats where it's not even close anymore.

You can't even kid yourself that everything's going to be fine. You know, I just, I just can't understand how, how none of these people feel a sense of urgency, you know, put aside sort of, you know, noble notions of national good. How is your own self-interest not kicking it at this point?

Coletto: I agree. I don't, I don't quite understand it. And maybe it's a sense of loyalty to the team. Maybe it's, uh, you know, uh, it's, it's difficult to coordinate, but like if this was in, if this was in the UK and the UK, this was the UK Tories, they'd be, that article you wrote in June would have happened the next week, right? Like it, it, it wouldn't have waited this long.

Scrimshaw: If this were Australia, we'd be on PM number three right now.

Coletto: I guess, I mean, I, I love looking back at like, you do this all the time so well in finding those historical and comparative examples, but like Michael Hesseltine brought down Margaret Thatcher, but didn't get to wear the crown. And so is there anyone senior in cabinet or, you know, who would be willing to do that? I don't, and, and, you know, like, that's what you need, or you'd need 20 or 30 Liberal MPs to say, we're leaving caucus if he doesn't step down in two weeks.

Scrimshaw: The name I've thought about to be the Hesseltine, he's not in, he's not in the party anymore, Scott Brison, I think needs to be the one to, would, would be one of the, cause the thing is like a lot of Chretien and Martin era people have come forward, Catherine McKenna has also done the same, but, um, McKenna's relationship to the PMO, uh, not great (for perfectly legitimate reasons on her end). I will say, um, but like, it just feels like, it's just surprising to me that like none of the four cabinet ministers are still in the job that all, um, they all announced that they're not going to be seeking reelection. I'm surprised none of them have done it. It's just surprising to me that I don't know.

It's just, it's, it's surprising to me that we're, we're just, we're, we're, we're here and we're in this place where, you know, we can name the number of people who have even spoke, who have even vaguely spoken against, uh, you know, Trudeau publicly on one hand, my old boss, Wayne Long, when I was worked on the Hill, Ken McDonald in Avalon, Sean Casey in PEI, Alexandea Mendez didn't even say that she personally wanted Trudeau gone, but you know, she said that her, you know, her constituents are basically the view he needs to go like, that's it. Two of them aren’t recontesting. Like, that's what we're doing here.

That's it. It's flabbergasting because like this is such an arrogant thing to say, and I know it is, and I, and I only mean it like half seriously, but it sometimes feels like I'm the only person in Ottawa who gives a shit about this government surviving. That's not good.

Coletto: You know, as someone who tries to stay as objective and independent, I hear, I, I watch this all and as an observer, I'm, I'm surprised by it. Like I am, I mean, there is something to be said for once this is all done, regardless of how it ends about how he was able to pull this off. If Justin Trudeau is not forced out, um, that is a remarkable resilience to the idea that a party leader who is, you know, particularly prime minister can withstand all of this.

And, and people just don't. I got, I guess as a political scientist, now I raised the question of like, is this actually good for our democracy? That one man, one man can decide alone whether he, um, gets to be the, the head of the party, um, in which we know being a party leader matters so much to vote intentions. I think about that all the time.

Like, is that a healthy place for us to be that, that we have no mechanism really to, to challenge that, that power and that authority that he has.

Scrimshaw: I mean, I am going to be a mass political nerd and say that the decision to go to member oriented elections is actually the culprit and caucus election has a simplicity and a virtue to it, which is that members and the public pressure the caucus, the caucus makes their decisions. And at the end of the day, it is a clean mechanism that, because the thing about internal party democracy is that, liberal members or conservative members or whoever are not representative of their voters, right? They're just not - we see it all the time, polls of Conservative voters in 2020 all said Peter McKay was gonna, was gonna win that leadership on the first ballot.

He lost to Erin O'Toole and honestly came third on votes in that second round. Leslie Lewis was the preferred candidate on, on votes at that, at that point. So this notion of like internal party democracy, it's not real. It's not really representative of the people. It's representative of a very selected group who you can sign up to a leadership race. We don't have, you know, mass member primaries. We don't have a system for that kind of voting. So, yeah, I think the original sin is, is getting rid of the power of caucus because, because caucuses then feel like they are, are hamstrung from executing power that is rightly theirs. Justin Trudeau is the parliamentary leader of the liberal party, and, if, you know, 80 caucus members tomorrow decided they wanted somebody else, they, he would no longer be PM, like just very simple process. But caucus feels like they can't override the decision. Caucus can't override the democratic quote unquote decision of the liberal party and their membership, which is therefore easily manipulatable because then you just don't have leadership reviews at your conventions and no mechanism to call an emergency leadership review.

And then, well, then you're SOL in terms of getting rid of them. I also think the, the, the caucus caution, if you want to be polite, cowardice, if you don't want to be so polite, I will allow listeners to decide probably doesn't say a lot about Christia Freeland and people's belief about, you know, her theoretical prospects, uh, because if people trusted her to do the job, you feel like she would, they would probably have already moved against Trudeau, right? Good point. I mean, I think all of this, all those dynamics.

Coletto’s Yeah. If you believe that, yeah, there's, there's no obvious. And that I think is one of the biggest problems, right.

Is that I don't believe there is a consensus even among cabinet about who should be next. And in the, in the lack of that, then it becomes hard to initiate the really hard thing, which is to push the prime minister out. Yeah, that might be like, if we reflect on this in five years from now, that might be the one factor that, that best explains why this happens, right.

And that nobody was willing to, to, to put their neck out to say it's time to go and I want to be it, you know, maybe Melanie Jolie is starting to do that a little bit, you know, that profile in the New York times, but she's not saying the prime minister needs to go, she's like, maybe I, when he's, you know, when that job opens up, I might consider it, but you know, she's, she reiterated on the weekend. She's got, she supports the Prime Minister a hundred percent.

Scrimshaw: Um, someone, someone should write someone and AKA, this is what I'm probably going to write at some point is did Christia Freeland's Disney+ gaffe keep Justin Trudeau in the leadership of the liberal party through the 2025 election, it's an argument you can make, I'm not sure if it's true. The other thing I wanted to touch on before I, before I let you, I have, I have one fun question at the end for you. Um, but one more, one more serious policy question before I get you out of here. (Thank you so much for giving me all this time, by the way.)

The other sort of key variable for this realignment we're seeing in conservative politics is significant increased conservative strength in working class formerly NDP areas, right? Windsor, London, Northern Ontario, Skeena, Vancouver Island, you know, John Rustad had a great results there. Doug Ford won a seat in Windsor did significantly better there - he won Essex in 2018c he won Windsor to come say in 2022, you know, he won, Timmons. One, what does it say about the NDP that conservatives are sort of walking into this sort of formerly NDP territory and what does it say about the fact that the union tie is not saving the NDP anymore?

Coletto: Well, I think first is, um, this has been an ongoing process, right? If you look at like, you mentioned many writings, you look at a riding like Sudbury, even, and you look at the vote trend over time, you've seen that NDP vote drop conservative vote go up. And, and I think this is, this is something that this realignment is not just an instant one, um, but as one that's been happening for a while, I think it's, I think it's a few things going on. I think the cultural element, um, of, of many of these, and I really highly recommend listeners.

And if you haven't read it, a pollster in the U S, uh, Ruffini wrote a book a year ago that I think basically predicted Trump's election, because he talks about this realignment happening around both, you know, I'm going to call it class, working class, but also among, you know, racialized Americans, black and Latino men, particularly, and basically makes the argument that, that, you know, their identity, as being tied to, this is more for the Latino men in the United States but that their identity as Latino, which then maybe drove them to vote Democrat was being overshadowed by their class identity. And that the longer they're in the U S and the multiple generations have been there, the more they've just become like other Americans. And the, their voting behavior shifts towards what other folks in the same class or situation that they find themselves regardless of their race might vote.

When it comes to working class in Canada, and particularly those in communities where there's high, higher concentrations of private sector union membership, I think Pierre Poilievre, and conservatives like Doug Ford have been very effective at saying the work you do matters. Um, in a way that I don't think progressives, including New Democrats have really done all that well. I think John Horgan did it well. I think he could do it well in, in British Columbia, but Jagmeet Singh has a very hard time relating to, you know, that factory worker in Windsor or, you know, that construction worker anywhere, really, that member of LIUNA right, who overwhelmingly now are embracing conservatives in a way that, that we haven't seen in the past two decades. And it comes back to this mix of both cultural values aligning around this kind of anti-woke, which is much more male dominated, plus a real sense. I think that Pierre Poliev respects them in a way that Justin Trudeau and, and Jagmeet Singh doesn't.

And I think it comes down to that. I'm going to have a piece out tomorrow that talks about this notion of respect. Will people vote for you if they don't believe they respect you? And I think progressives have lost that sense that they actually respect working people.

Scrimshaw: So you're saying, so you're telling me that Pierre Poilievre looks more comfortable in a hard hat and a, there's a better term than a vest, but like the, the orange, the orange vest. Yeah, that Pierre Poilievre looks more comfortable than, than the guy who gets driven into Maserati and wears a Rolex as he's, as he's making a video about how the price of apples have gone up.

Coletto: Yeah, I honestly, I think it's, it comes down to that simple effect, right? Cause most people's interaction with politics is visual. And that, that visual symbol matters a lot. And so you, you know, you basically go, go on Pierre Poilievre’s Twitter feed. Like there, there isn't an instance where he isn't even this weekend or last week, he was in the GTA at factories and, you know, meeting, talking to folks, working in, in warehouses, right. Surrounding himself with people, as you said, with hard hats or in working attire. Right. You know, Doug Ford in the last election said, you know, we're for the people who shower at the end of the day, not at the beginning of the day.

That is by the way, a minority of people when we ask people on a survey, but still, that sends a really strong signal. That we're seeing people who look at politics now and don't see themselves represented there. And maybe never did, but it, you know, the New Democrats historically had the Broadbents, you know, who was an academic, who wasn't, you know, working in a factory, but still you felt, stood for them and, and fought for them in a way that I don't think even if Jagmeet Singh's policies might signal, he does his, his image doesn't.

And that, that's a big, big, big factor. I think what's going on right now.

Scrimshaw: And of course, if you are, repetitiveness is important in politics, right, the vast majority of people do not, do not pay attention. The vast majority of Canadians are not watching Power & Politics on a, you know, daily, or even checking in once a week, right. The vast majority of people have no idea who I am, you know. I just sort of like repetitive thing of like, if you see something, you're seeing him sort of talking to regular people.It's very effective. I have no more political questions.

Coletto: I have one on this cause we haven't, we haven't brought it up. And I think it's something I've increasingly believed to explain both what's going on federally. And I think potentially in Ontario is just how much of an advantage those, both the federal and provincial conservatives have when it comes to spending that, that to your point about repetitiveness, we also have to believe that, that Pierre Poilievre is targeting an immense amount of ads at these young, younger men on YouTube, working class people probably on YouTube and other places where they know they are and no one else is. And so in the absence of anyone else contesting or challenging or offering a different alternative, what do we expect to happen? So I think that is probably one of the least reported things about our politics today is just how much of an advantage the federal conservatives have over the other parties when it comes to actually talking to people directly.

Scrimshaw: My favorite, my favorite factoid is that you can literally find when Pierre Poilievre started started spending significant amounts of money in his favorable rating in your polling. 30, 32, 31, 31, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37. And basically they haven't consistently dipped below 35 since.

Coletto: So then I went back and I looked at like historic data over the last 10 years, I have not been able to find, except at the end of a national campaign when Canadians under 30, knew the leader of the opposition, like pretty overwhelmed. I could say, I know him, like, I have an opinion about him, right? Aaron O'Toole was like, no one had any idea who he was. And it's because he didn't spend money introducing himself.

Pierre Poilievre, I believe, because I hear it anecdotally from both parents who have younger kids and from younger, from my students at Carleton and elsewhere, they see his ads on YouTube all the time. And so the effect is, guess what? If you are the only one telling them a positive story about what you're going to do and why the world sucks, they're going to vote for you. Um, and that comes back to our conversation about climate change.

No one's, if no one's raising that issue, then they're, they're viewing their options in that vacuum that only the conservatives right now are creating.

Scrimshaw That is a great note to end the political talk. I have two rapid fire questions for you. One - is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Coletto: It is. Yes.

Scrimshaw: And two, what is your favorite Christmas movie?

Coletto: Without a doubt, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Scrimshaw: That is the worst movie I've ever seen. I, okay. I despise that movie so much. I like asking these questions because people, it tells you a lot. I actually do think you can, you can find a lot of people from that thing.

And you my friend, that is the most elder millennial answer you could have given. But I was pretty sure that's what it was.

Coletto: I am that like elder geriatric millennial, right? Like who literally remembers, and I'll just tell a very personal story. One of my parents, best friends, um, I believe subscribed to, like the, I don't think it's random house. Remember that - Columbia house? We'd get like videos. This is like telling you even like how old I actually am now.

I'm 43 years old, but they had the Christmas Cacation on VHS. And every time we'd visit around this time of year, I would watch it. And I was even at an age probably where it was still inappropriate, probably for me to be watching that.

And, and so it has become the thing that my wife and I watch when we put up our Christmas tree, I can literally recite the words. Like I know every word that's going to come. It's not, you're right.

It's not a great movie, but man, it is like as nostalgic a thing around Christmas for me than anything else.

Scrimshaw: We used to have a tradition. We were, uh, we were a Miracle on 34th Street house, the original. And one year, one year my mother was like, well, everyone loves this movie. So we should, we should, we should try it. We should change up our Christmas Eve movie.

And it's about 20 minutes in and we're all just looking at each other. And we're like, what are we watching? But we're like, no, we're going to keep going. And then about 20 more minutes.

Then we're like, what are we watching? We start like verbalizing this. We're like, no, we're going to keep doing it. And we just, like we just kept watching it and we just kept being befuddled by it.

And like, that is the movie experience where we were all, it was one of those things where it was a great experience watching it with other people, but not because you enjoyed the movie or because you enjoyed the laugh line. It was very, it was a great night in a sense. But I did that movie is that, that movie.

And Justice For All was the other like great experience. Cause it's like this movie is so absurd and I can't believe, I literally can't believe it got made. Thanks for doing this buddy.

Uh, David Coletto, CEO of Abacus |ata. Uh, you have a Substack (DavidColetto.substack.com). You do polls for the Toronto Star. Do you have anything else to promote? And DavidColetto on both Twitter and BlueSky.

Coletto: You find me, just search me. I'm all over the place. Unfortunately.

Scrimshaw: Follow me on Twitter EScrimshaw, follow the Scrimshaw Show on Twitter at Scrimshaw_Show, at EScrimshaw on BlueSky, political writing at Scrimshawunscripted.substack.com. I'm a freelance sports writer. If any of you have any opportunities for me, my DMs are open and you can email me through my substack. I really used to have that podcast intro more tightly honed before events, but I'll figure out a new cadence for that. David Coletto, thank you for giving me an hour of your time.

Coletto: Thanks Evan. Talk soon.