Is it time for Poilievre to be replaced?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:05]Welcome back. And welcome back to Max and Demetri. Uh yeah, what's in a headline, guys? The same the same poll um uh that was um that was looked at by the Star and the Globe have completely different headlines. The Globe says more than half of conservative voters want PyV to lead the party into the next election. Same story in the Star poll suggests more more conservative voters now want to replace Paulv as leader. And then the Star also has Mark Carney would likely keep his majority if an election was held now. Um I I thought he got his majority so we wouldn't have to worry about an election today. Demetri, >> um you can always worry about an election. Uh obviously uh the prime minister now with his majority has even less justification uh to calm election.

[00:00:52]Uh but beware I take you back to the president of 2000 when stock darede to calm election and Jean Kesh called this bluff called an election and won another majority government. So the biggest mistake right now would be for the opposition to dare Mark Carney any opposition leader to dare Mark Carney to calm election. Listen, what what these numbers are showing is a slow and steady decline poll after poll of uh conservative voters um that wish to see Mr. Palev um continue on as leader in the next election. Um it is entirely in his hands uh to convince them to change their mind. Um, and I can tell you that this is these are these are the types of polls uh that caucus members and and I guess it's John Cretchen day but he used to call them nervous nellies. Um, caucus members look at and influence their their mind frame.

[00:01:45]>> Max, your thoughts?

[00:01:46]>> Yeah, I think to Demetri's point, there are probably a lot of nervous nellies in the caucus right now and that's who Mr. Polyv should be worried about. I I don't think he needs to worry about voters or the base. Uh, he certainly shouldn't be daring Mark Carney to have an election.

[00:01:58]And I think I think that would be a bluff that would be called instantaneously. But you know this routine now where he's going after Mark Carney's economic credentials. Yeah. Um if you're a more moderate member of the caucus, if you're any member of the caucus, you have to look at that and wonder what he's thinking, what he's embibing, um who is advising him, because that is to me that is the path to uh a conservative vote share that starts with a two, not a three uh in the next in a future poll. And and that's when I think things get really bad.

[00:02:27]Well, what what I I what I I just don't get that argument. Like I you can you can attack the results of his policies. You can attack his um you know how he how he gets to a place where he thinks that you know Canadians are better off today than they were a year ago. But but to to suggest he's not well educated, I would say, you know, as well educated as you are, we still need you to do some work that make that helps Canadians. And thus far, we as conservatives don't think you've done that work. I I I don't I don't I don't understand the logic behind attacking his credentials which uh Dimmitri are sort of unassalable.

[00:03:05]>> They are. And what a beautiful opportunity to turn his credentials against him. Instead of saying that Mark Carney is uneducated uh economically, instead of saying that Mark Carney um has no economic knowledge, why not say you have so much knowledge, you are so well educated from the top schools in the world. um why aren't we seeing the results? Take his his strength and play judo with it rather than try and convince Canadians that an undergrad, a master's and a PhD in economics from Harvard and Oxford compared to Mr. Palev who has a an undergrad in political sc from the university political science from the University of Calgary and that he wants to compete him compete with him on that. I call this political judo and it seems that Mr. Polyv literally just punched himself in the face on this one.

[00:03:52]Well, from political judo to whiplash for an entire province on Friday, Max, I don't know if this news made its way out uh to Alberta, but we were we were told by the Toronto Star that uh the the progressive conservative government of Ontario had purchased a private uh a private jet uh for official government use. And then by this morning, they were uh Doug Ford had done what he's done before, which is walk something back and say, "We're going to sell it now." Um I I don't know what you think about it there. You can make a case that the that that the government needs to be able to get places and government officials need to get places where they can uh where they don't have to rely on Air Canada where they can have confidential meetings on a plane. Uh they need to be able to get there on a moment's not. You can you can make that business case. Uh, but this this this whiplash is uh I think we we're all whipped into a frenzy and then and we're getting nothing out of it except probably the cost of of selling this plane at a lower cost than what we bought it for.

[00:04:53]>> Well, I mean, credit to Doug Ford. Um, he he is very good at feeling when the winds are blowing against him and and acting accordingly. There are other politicians on both sides of the aisle who could learn from that. I I just find this stuff around government planes so frustrating. We had a similar thing in Alberta a decade ago where Allison Redford was using the the beat up old Government of Alberta jet that or plane that Ralph Klein had, you know, covered in in cigarette smoke and all the rest of it and she nearly she got thrown out of office for for using this plane and supposedly abusing it. I mean, if you're the premier of a province, you have important business to do. You have places to go. Um, you are, you know, you are like a chief executive of of a large company and your time is valuable. We have to stop nickel and dime elected officials.

[00:05:38]>> And and treating them like they're, you know, they're priests and uh uh you know uh people who have taken a vow of poverty. They're doing the the people's business. Give them the tools to do it.

[00:05:48]>> Yeah, I agree with and just just so it need so it can be said when Mark Carney travels abroad, I wherever he travels, I want him traveling like the you're right, like the chief executive of a G7 country. I want 21 gun salutes. I want him living in a house that will instill awe in whoever joins him there that he can have host summits and host other leaders and not be embarrassed. Um and and it's stuff like this, it's nickel and dimeming like this that prevents prevents us from having a home that our prime minister could actually live in.

[00:06:15]Uh but but I do think that this this could have been rolled out. uh Dimmitri and you you know with your background in communications I don't know if you agree or not but had they instead of having waiting for the Toronto Star to ask them questions and then them confirming it they should have come out proudly and said this is not 2019 which is and he's being attacked for for going back on his word from 2019. The world is different.

[00:06:38]I need we need to be places and so we've made this this purchase on behalf of the people of of Ontario. this is a a purchase that will uh you know whoever wins the next election they will b benefit from this as well and by extension everyone in the province and instead they were playing catch-up and they were trying to rest control of the narrative that they could have had had they had they just announced it themselves.

[00:06:59]>> Yeah. And I will give you my top 10 reasons and and um but I will start off by saying if we are going to continue being a G7 country we cannot behave like a banana republic. Um and and what I would have done um is number one talk about operational efficiency. Uh cuz this is not just for the premier. It's also for the ministers. They have to manage schedules that are incompatible with commercial flights. Ontario spans over 1 million square kilm. You can fit the United Kingdom five times uh into um into Ontario. Security and confidentiality. senior officials routinely handle sensitive files, labor disputes, public health emergencies, um crisis response and and rapid deployment. So, so governments don't operate on commercial schedules. Um you know, a natural disaster in Northern Ontario, um going to Northern Ontario and and remote communities, uh making it a lot easier. There's also the cost benefit over time. you know on a per trip basis charter or private flights appear expensive but if you actually analyze this it would cost less uh international and interprovincial competitiveness um coordination across cabinet um and also the most important thing continuity of government when Doug Ford is flying on a chartered plane or or on a commercial flight you cannot reach him so in an emergency require the the rapid return of the premier or even communicate him while he's in flight.

[00:08:29]You you basically don't have access to him for 2 three hours. And this is not for Doug Ford and his cabinet. It's for the next premier of Ontario and so on.

[00:08:36]So I I hope cooler heads will prevail and this plane won't be sold because at the end of the day I'm fed up. I remember when we were in government, we used to land at the Commonwealth summit at the Franco summit and countries that receive aid from Canada, the leaders of those countries had the best planes in the world. and we showed up with a plane that we used to call it the flying goose.

[00:08:57]>> Yeah. You know what? That's the perfect way uh to end this. You're absolutely right. There are countries out there that you're right that receive aid from our country and they have they they their leaders live in palaces and they drive around in limos and they and not not to say I don't necessarily want that stuff, but I want our leader to be uh there are trappings. It's we're not um it costs it costs money to run a country and part of that operational cost comes into taking care of the people who run the country. Uh but guys, thank you very much for being here. I hope you have a wonderful week. Thanks so much for watching the show. Now, if you enjoyed what you saw, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode of the Ben Maloney