Transcript
Shannon
0:06
Welcome to Balance of Power. I'm Shannon Phillips. I'm Leah Ward.
Shannon
0:09
And Annalise is off this week, but that's okay. We have a very special guest and one Kyla Ronellen-Fitt, who is joining us today. Kyla is a pollster data scientist who's worked in Canada and the United States, and she's also the president of Relay Strategies. And we're very pleased she can join us today. Welcome, Kyla. Hi, Kyla. Great to be with you.
Shannon
0:28
you so um we are in victoria leah and i are because it's vc budget day which we're not going to talk much about i think um there's not much
SPEAKER_00
0:36
much to say no
Shannon
0:37
no there's not a lot to say uh honestly um it's uh they're trying to position themselves for economic growth i think is what we can say about this budget and it's a tough situation i
Shannon
0:49
i think they did a good i can say they did a good job of sort of uh softening the ground like a lot of uh pre-interviews and sort of um yeah like like premonitions about a bad news budget and of course that it always helps when you exceed or don't meet negative expectations so yeah
Shannon
1:07
yeah they did a good job of that they did a good job i think of of uh say you know like we have a growth plan like a plan to grow the economy but um and uh we'll see how it goes but uh of course lots of things i think got overshadowed
Shannon
1:22
overshadowed by the events in tubular ridge last week and it's uh being out here in bc really kind of you kind of get that uh i i think um uh it will seize the business of government for some time i think that's fair to say uh and uh that's probably a good thing because um i don't know about you folks because I've been thinking about it and I don't know when the right time to talk about it is but
Shannon
1:48
but like obviously it wasn't last week but I've been thinking a lot about mental health services like not just in urban centers but in rural centers too and like I think almost everyone knows someone who is you know or has a family member or has a friend of a family or something who
Shannon
2:05
who is deeply troubled and just does not get the help they need especially in rural areas so I I don't know when the time to talk about that is. I
Shannon
2:13
can talk a little bit about it. There's probably things that'll
SPEAKER_00
2:16
that'll come up as time passes and more is revealed about what happened. I think, you
SPEAKER_00
2:22
I've been away from the kids in my life since that event happened.
Shannon
2:27
And I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the parents who lost
SPEAKER_00
2:32
lost kids and how impossible it is to imagine what
SPEAKER_00
2:35
what they're going through. And
Shannon
2:37
And I'm also thinking a lot about the trans community right now who are
SPEAKER_00
2:43
are experiencing a huge backlash and violence because of right-wing disinformation
SPEAKER_00
2:51
disinformation and campaigning to make this an issue that targets trans people. But to your point about mental health,
Shannon
3:01
the whole thing is just deeply tragic. It
Shannon
3:04
So, yeah, Kyla, that's the view from out west here. And we're going to keep it out west. We're going to kind of talk a little bit about... There's
SPEAKER_02
3:11
views in the west.
Shannon
3:13
Well, we are at the very further point of west here in Victoria, but we're going to move to Alberta a little bit. And, well,
Shannon
3:21
well, first, we're going to look at the polling and issues around three things that Kyla's done some work on and that just so happened to dovetail nicely with some of our headlines this week. week
Shannon
3:29
immigration where the young kids are at these days and another terrible no good bad week for uh pierre polly ever but
Shannon
3:36
but first um apparently we have to talk about the separatists every week every time uh us albertans uh open our mouths we can't uh not talk about them and
Shannon
3:44
and one story that i felt like people didn't see i think it was because it came out on
Shannon
3:49
on the day that the prime minister and uh the other leaders went uh out to bc um
Shannon
3:54
um it was actually really shocking and it was It was reported
Shannon
3:57
reported by NBC News, and
Shannon
4:00
and essentially it said that separatist organizer Dennis
Shannon
4:04
Dennis Mowdry said he attended three meetings with the U.S. State Department on April 22nd, September 29th, and December 16th. He said there's another meeting in the works for
Shannon
4:15
that the meetings took place at the State Department's headquarters in Washington. The
Shannon
4:19
meetings covered what would happen in a potential transition to a country with
Shannon
4:23
discussions around border security, the Canadian pension plan, taxes, national debt,
Shannon
4:28
the process for converting U.S. currency, a
Shannon
4:30
a $500 billion line of credit if necessary. I thought we were going to be so rich. I'm not sure why we would need a line of credit.
Shannon
4:38
according to Mr. Dennis Modry, Alberta will also need its own military. And would the U.S. be willing to work with Alberta in the development of an Alberta military?
Shannon
4:49
So that's mildly frightening.
SPEAKER_02
4:51
I don't know what you mean. It's business as usual. These are all normal things, normal headlines.
Shannon
4:57
We were wackos for being concerned about this.
SPEAKER_00
5:00
Isn't that what other headlines said since we last chatted?
Shannon
5:04
Yeah, yeah, hissy fit. it. So, Kyla, tell me about the hissy fit. Jamil Javani, of course, for those who have been living under a rock, talked about how Canadians
Shannon
5:12
Canadians were throwing a hissy fit for being worried about the trade relationship. Tell us about how
Shannon
5:17
how that's been kind of going over and if people have been putting that together with some tolerance
Shannon
5:22
tolerance for separatism, because
Shannon
5:24
because I think certainly in Alberta they are.
SPEAKER_02
5:26
Yeah, I mean, to the hissy fit comment specifically, I mean, I don't know if we yet know how it's going over. Like, obviously, we know in the media and how it's being portrayed. I know know how I
SPEAKER_02
5:35
I assume it will be portrayed assuming people hear about it right like I it
SPEAKER_02
5:39
it was my mom it is my mom's birthday today so I was chatting with her right before this and doing the classic politico mom check of like oh well have you heard have you heard this story yeah and uh and she hadn't but you know who knows the other moms are maybe she was sick so maybe maybe she's catching catching up but um
SPEAKER_02
5:56
um but the idea of down or or putting a label like hissy fit on how canadians are reacting to this i really can't think of anything
SPEAKER_02
6:07
anything that is more tone deaf um
SPEAKER_02
6:10
um like i feel like canadians are feeling and most canadians are feeling a sense of you know righteous indignation righteous anger and
SPEAKER_02
6:19
and to have that be dismissed not just just it would be bad enough it was if it was dismissed as home at home if it was talked about as a hissy fit doing
SPEAKER_02
6:28
doing that in the u.s on right-wing media is politically
SPEAKER_02
6:34
politically insane i don't know what he could have possibly been thinking i it was he was already on thin ice and then to um
SPEAKER_02
6:41
um you know cross that line he kind of got away with it okay up until that point right like his
SPEAKER_02
6:47
trip to the u.s i feel like there was a
SPEAKER_02
6:49
a mix of interpretations obviously a lot of criticism as well but it was not so bad um at the outset and then to do this is truly phenomenal but
Shannon
6:57
but do you think there's consequences for qualia's handling of it i mean he sort of tsk tsk wag fingered um
Shannon
7:07
at giovanni and you know explained to him that That Canadians are, you know, we're actually kind of upset and actually have a good
Shannon
7:14
good reason to be.
SPEAKER_00
7:15
But do you think given what we're seeing in polling or maybe what you're seeing, that that'll be enough for Canadians?
SPEAKER_02
7:22
Again, going back to I don't know if this will break through entirely, but it was an insufficient response. Like the idea, one, that you have to explain to someone on your team, actually, I
SPEAKER_02
7:34
I hate to catch you up on the last almost year and a half, but Canadians are quite pissed about this. Like that is an insane thing to have to catch up one of your, you know, quite prominent members of your caucus on. And then to just it kind of it
SPEAKER_02
7:50
it kind of reads like a
SPEAKER_02
7:54
a conversation that you have with a child that like actually it's quite rude to like tell that person they look fat. Like that is kind of the feeling of it is like this should go without saying this is a crazy thing to say. and so no I don't think that it felt forceful
SPEAKER_02
8:08
forceful enough but it comes down to what we keep seeing over and over again that you know if I put myself in their shoes as strategists and where I see the data like they are in a very difficult position and that's why it's been so difficult for them to navigate it is
SPEAKER_02
8:23
is because they have a contingent of their base who probably does think that we're kind of throwing a bit of a hissy fit um
SPEAKER_02
8:30
um or we are you know they would if not for tariffs maybe be okay with trump and are good with lots of parts of his of his agenda and
SPEAKER_02
8:38
and so it's a complex story to tell right and so how
SPEAKER_02
8:42
how strongly what we've seen over and over again is polyev is not going to go strongly um
SPEAKER_02
8:46
um not be terribly strongly critical about trump um
SPEAKER_02
8:50
um and not be he's
SPEAKER_02
8:52
he's he's not going going to buttheads with anyone that is in that further right
SPEAKER_02
8:57
right group of his coalition. So,
Shannon
8:59
So, you know, I think we kind of got going on a side quest of Giovanni, but I do think it comes back to, are we being a
Shannon
9:11
a bit too, I'll use this word advisedly, histrionic about, you
Shannon
9:17
you know, the separatist threat, the threat to our economy from Trump, because it's all of a piece, right? Right. Or it feels like it's of a piece. Certainly separatist discourse feels like it's of a piece with with, you know, kind of MAGA priorities. And nowhere is that more the case than
Shannon
9:37
The separatists are talking about how they want control over immigration. And Danielle Smith talks about this, too. That's sort of the sanitized version. version.
Shannon
9:44
But what they say out loud, the separatists, in a much less sanitized version, is that Albertans
Shannon
9:51
Albertans are being replaced by immigrants. There's been an anti-hate network complaint from a town hall that Mitch Sylvester and Jeffrey Rath did. They're
Shannon
10:00
They're two of the Alberta Prosperity Project Stay Free Alberta organizers.
Shannon
10:05
organizers. They also said that Christianity will soon be a a crime in Canada. White Albertans shouldn't have to apologize for themselves.
Shannon
10:15
I mean, the replacement one is straight out of white replacement theory, right? And then in
Shannon
10:21
in two, three years following statehood, they also said their vision of
Shannon
10:25
of Alberta is a place where only citizenship rights are granted only to people who are born here.
Shannon
10:32
this is very MAGA, right? It's It's straight out of the mega playbook. And certainly it gets some traction here
Shannon
10:40
here in Alberta. But I think even in Alberta, that
Shannon
10:44
that stuff is pretty far outside widely held views.
Shannon
10:51
I'm interested in what data is telling us about immigration, Kyla, and about some of these trumpier visions of immigration.
SPEAKER_02
10:59
Yeah. I mean, I think as a starting point, it's really I mean, this is such a challenging issue, but it's one that it
SPEAKER_02
11:08
it is worth taking the care to really unpack, because I think most or a lot of Canadians fall. I would say that this is the anti
SPEAKER_02
11:18
anti-immigrant sentiment or concerns about immigration in this country is,
SPEAKER_02
11:23
is, I would say, like a wide spectrum, but that a lot of people fall on to. So concerns about immigration are quite widespread. I can't tell you how often I've been doing focus groups with young people, young first generation immigrants, first generation immigrants of all ages, where I'm talking to center left voters, like people that would be progressives, right? And they bring it up. But it comes up in very different ways. So you have the stuff that you're talking about, which is like a very xenophobic, classically racist point of view. And
SPEAKER_02
11:56
And then you have a lot of people that are talking about immigration as like a logistics problem, like the
SPEAKER_02
12:02
the Trudeau government allowed in a lot of people and we already have a shortage of housing and doctors and all of these different things. And they will go
SPEAKER_02
12:11
go out of their way to talk about like it's not – we
SPEAKER_02
12:14
we are a country of immigrants. They are proud of immigration. They are – they want, you know, social cohesion and harmony and all of those things. But it's like literally how do we manage that? And
SPEAKER_02
12:26
relates to, you know, and we can go back to how this manifests, I think, on part of the conservative spectrum. But I think this general feeling like things
SPEAKER_02
12:36
things got out of control around immigration, like that feeling of a lack of control is deeply corrosive on immigration, on
SPEAKER_02
12:45
public safety, on cost of living, like any of these issues. As soon as people start
SPEAKER_02
12:49
start to feel like things have gotten out of control, like that is scary. And that is where you are probably not going to like the electoral consequences. Like it's hard to turn the dial back on that.
Shannon
13:00
Do you think that progressives have it right in how they're talking about this, if at all? Are we talking
SPEAKER_02
13:08
talking about it? The only
Shannon
13:11
only real response that I hear out of, you know, liberal New Democratic type, either commentators or, you
Shannon
13:18
you know, in the sort of official discourse is we are a country of immigrants and, you know, we're going to we're going to make sure we get the logistics right.
Shannon
13:27
Like, is that the right place actually to land? Because that's the core of the issue for people. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02
13:32
Yeah, I mean, I think there's, I
SPEAKER_02
13:34
I really do think that Canadians look at these through a couple different vantage points, which is like, pre
SPEAKER_02
13:40
pre-Justin Trudeau immigration, which was always great and perfect and all of those things. And now it is part of our national story. And the idea of us being a multicultural country is a really compelling reason
SPEAKER_02
13:50
reason to love and appreciate our country. like it is you know the
SPEAKER_02
13:54
the the mosaic versus the melting pot all of that like that is a core part of Canadian identity that I don't think is something that has
SPEAKER_02
14:03
has become less real but
SPEAKER_02
14:05
but there is also a recent history so I think sometimes talking about like the
SPEAKER_02
14:10
the broad scale like it kind of misses the point to a certain extent which is like the
SPEAKER_02
14:13
the problem I think for a lot of people is viewed as something a little bit more recent and a temporary or a period of things getting out of control and things looking very differently than they than they once did and so i think on
SPEAKER_02
14:27
on a lot of these things like downplaying
SPEAKER_02
14:29
downplaying someone's concerns about a thing that is valid like i think we saw this and
SPEAKER_02
14:33
and and you know we saw this in the u.s around the border and
SPEAKER_02
14:37
and and you could have disagreements
SPEAKER_02
14:40
disagreements on like what that solution which would be but denying that it is a problem is never a good thing and especially when people are like up in arms about an issue to be like oh actually no No, there's
SPEAKER_02
14:50
there's never a well, actually. That's not good political communications ever.
Shannon
14:53
Like in the States, you see Dems kind of throwing Biden under the bus now. Is that something that people can do with Trudeau here? And does that does that mean a head nod for people?
SPEAKER_02
15:06
kind of. I don't know. I like I do think it has been kind of to
SPEAKER_02
15:10
to a certain extent we've we've
SPEAKER_02
15:12
we've been fortunate or maybe there's been in general some like pretty solidly. like, I feel like the issue has been dealt with.
SPEAKER_02
15:20
There's been moments where I've been really worried that, you
SPEAKER_02
15:23
you know, immediately after the election, I would say Polyev
SPEAKER_02
15:25
Polyev started putting immigration into his litany of issues in a way that I was like, okay, we're going there like that. And he was doing it in a way that I thought was like very strategically smart,
SPEAKER_02
15:35
which was focusing on kids
SPEAKER_02
15:36
kids and focusing on
SPEAKER_02
15:41
don't know if they're saving it again for later or if they backed off because it is explosive, right? Like you can't put that genie back in the bottle. So I don't, we've
Shannon
15:48
we've lucked out a little bit. So it's
SPEAKER_00
15:50
it's not a huge
SPEAKER_02
15:51
huge part of our narrative. Yes. I think, yeah, I would say that he has. And again, maybe it'll reemerge, but
SPEAKER_02
15:58
but I, it's hard to say whether or not, you know, we've dealt with it fully.
SPEAKER_02
16:03
Well, I just think we haven't been talking about it. So if
SPEAKER_02
16:07
this was the topic of the day, then yes, Carney would be talking about all of the failures of, or should be talking about all of the failures of the past government. And this was a problem at the hands of Justin Trudeau. And these are all the ways that we reined it in and
SPEAKER_02
16:21
and have brought back calm and control and, you know, constraints over the system in a way that feels pretty Carney aligned, right? Like he is the reasonable person. He is the calm presence or whatever. So but I don't think that he's actually had to, you know, there's obviously been some communication around it, but not intensively.
SPEAKER_00
16:41
One of the things I think about, and I don't have a solution to this, Kyla, maybe you do, but if
Shannon
16:48
stop ourselves at sort of refuting the
Shannon
16:52
reasons for the problem, I think to your point, we're kind of still validating that immigrants
Shannon
16:58
immigrants themselves are part of the problem. um
SPEAKER_00
17:01
um you know why there are fewer jobs available to young people why health care is harder to get why housing remains unaffordable and so you
Shannon
17:11
validate that which is not untrue uh
Shannon
17:14
uh we still direct um
Shannon
17:17
um the blame uh
Shannon
17:19
uh even even if we're attempting to sort of say that that's trudeau's fault it is uh
Shannon
17:23
uh it lands on immigrants
Shannon
17:26
immigrants yeah and and and so when i think about like what would
Shannon
17:31
what would it take for progressives to challenge that overall narrative i think we need to be more creative than to than to argue around the mechanics of how the problem arose
Shannon
17:39
arose um and i don't know if you're seeing anything in the data that would suggest an opening into a new a new sort of of narrative frame for that kind of argument. But
Shannon
17:50
yeah, I worry a little bit that we're actually reinforcing the same fears. And what I've sort of noticed
Shannon
17:57
noticed and in things that I've come across, fear actually
Shannon
18:01
actually brings people into
Shannon
18:03
into more conservative thinking. So
Shannon
18:05
So it makes us sort of pull inward and want to protect our own and ourselves.
Shannon
18:10
And where we see progressive arguments do better is if we we can tap into defiance and
Shannon
18:17
again like I don't have the answer on this particular issue but I am curious to explore what it would look like to move away from fear-based narratives
Shannon
18:24
narratives into something that would be a little bit more helpful for for
SPEAKER_00
18:28
for our side yeah
SPEAKER_02
18:29
yeah I would say I've
SPEAKER_02
18:30
I've seen a couple things that I think are interesting I've not tested them myself so I'm not saying this as like a recommendation this is I think the path like I don't know I always feel like I need to see the data until I feel like fully confident. But
SPEAKER_02
18:41
But I think there was, you know, during during the campaign on the times that the
Shannon
18:48
prime minister did talk about immigration, he
SPEAKER_02
18:50
he spoke of it as like an
SPEAKER_02
18:53
an unfairness in multiple respects and an unfairness to the people that we are allowing
SPEAKER_02
18:58
allowing into the country. Right. Like they are also coming here with a promise.
SPEAKER_02
19:01
promise. And this is also an unfair fair way to live right like they come here think
SPEAKER_02
19:06
think of all of these um
SPEAKER_02
19:07
students that come with the promise of a good education and the opportunity that comes with it after and
SPEAKER_02
19:13
and finding that not to be the case and also that they can't afford to live here when they come here um
SPEAKER_02
19:17
um like and i think that there's something to that that feels more
SPEAKER_02
19:23
less in the hands of that individual person right and and approaching it with some empathy and then what i've also seen be interesting is talking
SPEAKER_02
19:31
talking We're talking about the corporate interest, the corporate element of this, right, is like the business community. And they still are, you know, fighting tooth and nail for this
SPEAKER_02
19:39
this program and its
SPEAKER_02
19:41
use. And, you know, let's have a conversation about, you
SPEAKER_02
19:45
you know, the price of labor in this country. And I feel like that's, you know, that is probably my guess around where there's a strong progressive argument. event.
Shannon
19:54
We'll talk about this a little bit more in our next topic, but I just want to remind people that we were talking to Kyla Ronellen-Fitch. She is an amazing pollster. She does both quantitative and qualitative work and is a great sub-stack, which is just under your name, Kyla?
Shannon
20:15
she publishes a lot of her work there as well. You've done some polling on young people and
Shannon
20:24
some analysis on the differences between young Canadians and young Americans. And I want to talk a little bit about this because, you
Shannon
20:31
you know, Polly Everett really put a lot of his stock in the young vote. And, you know, to which us old progressives kind of at the time were like, ha, ha, ha, you know, best of luck with those turnout rates. you're much better off uh
Shannon
20:46
uh with older voters because they turn out to vote in much higher numbers uh but um but he really did make a play for them they've invested organizing resources like to their credit right uh where it does seem like other parties are kind of still flailing about going how do we reach people how do we reach people the conservatives are actually doing it um
Shannon
21:05
you know leaving aside the merits of the content when they get there but
Shannon
21:08
but they are actually doing the thing um
Shannon
21:11
um so i'm but i'm interested in is
Shannon
21:14
is it working is that real uh this pop up among you know gen z especially gen z men uh
Shannon
21:21
uh in canada and kind of where are we where
Shannon
21:24
where are we at uh in canada on uh uh you
Shannon
21:28
you know what we're what we would call essentially like younger voters i'm going to assume like under 25 or are you taking it more like an under 29 kind of thing i
SPEAKER_02
21:35
i often look at under 35 but some posters will look at under under 30 but I mean depending on depending on where you are I feel like that's either young or not we're still not young or
SPEAKER_02
21:51
Humboldt Saskatchewan 35 I'm 35 and from Humboldt Saskatchewan originally so I I say this to uh allow myself to be young forever is it looks different in Humboldt than it does in Ottawa one totally
Shannon
22:04
totally so tell me like where are the youngs at these days yeah so
SPEAKER_02
22:09
think this is i'm uh currently
SPEAKER_02
22:11
currently working on an article on this that includes like a lot of writing all in caps caps lock that's just like we
SPEAKER_02
22:18
we are getting this wrong like i'm so sick of this narrative that young people are like overwhelmingly conservative like i feel like this um
SPEAKER_02
22:26
um this argument sort of it
SPEAKER_02
22:28
it took hold about a couple years ago before when justin trudeau was still prime minister of the country.
SPEAKER_02
22:34
And that's when it would have looked like an absolute genius play, right? Like
SPEAKER_02
22:40
Polyev, one, he was leading with everyone. So we focus so much on like how unusual it is that young people are also moving. But like, they're
SPEAKER_02
22:47
they're also voters, they're also responding to the circumstances, why wouldn't they move?
SPEAKER_02
22:53
and also, if we looked at, you know, young men, particularly at that point in time, like some polling that I had from September 2024 had
SPEAKER_02
23:01
Polyev literally winning a majority of men, 52% of men.
SPEAKER_02
23:04
And he would have also been leading among young women. But
SPEAKER_02
23:07
But this dynamic has completely changed and our kind of the way that we talk about it hasn't really. And part of that, I think, is we can read like endless articles about the
SPEAKER_02
23:17
the rightward shift among Gen Z. And a lot of this is like kind of American content, right? Which is probably not even generalizable there. But you find these, the internet serves up all of the like like tasty treats
SPEAKER_02
23:29
treats of public opinion and all the way it manifests. So we all latch on to like this trend that is happening. And it could just be, you know, in the broad scheme of things, niche, still potentially very problematic, but niche in in in broad terms. And like what we what we see today is the liberals leading, you
SPEAKER_02
23:49
you know, leading among young voters. It kind of depends on the upholster and depends on the period of time but at least by you know a few points if not you know deeply competitive like it just is not this dynamic where they're leading double digits and leading among young women which everyone of course is very um i
SPEAKER_02
24:08
i don't know well i don't know depends who you were disturbed by fascinated by um what have you so it's you
SPEAKER_02
24:15
you know to go back to your question of whether or not this was a good strategy two years ago it was a brilliant strategy and it It probably still
SPEAKER_02
24:20
still is to a certain extent. Like, is he creating lifelong conservatives? Would they have actually been at 15% and not 33? Like, all of these things are kind of a little bit unknowable. And he definitely has, if you go
SPEAKER_02
24:33
go to one of his rallies, like, he's
SPEAKER_02
24:34
he's definitely fostering some affinity that probably didn't exist for the conservative party before him.
SPEAKER_02
24:39
So it's kind of a mixed bag. But this idea that this is just an overwhelmingly conservative and, like, social conservative generation is just not the case. Right.
Shannon
24:48
Right. Why do you think that young people are comforted by the liberal message or movement? I would say lack of on on
Shannon
24:57
on the affordability stuff. I mean, I I think
SPEAKER_00
25:00
think there's a general understanding of the last election of being sort of two main ballot box questions. If you were young, the ballot box question was on affordability and housing. And if you were older, the ballot box question was, you know, Trump.
Shannon
25:16
older people tend to vote more. So this sort of went that way. But we're seeing like Abacus recently is showing sort of a real closing of the gap on the affordability question.
Shannon
25:27
And I'm curious if you know anything about why that's the case, especially for young people. yeah
SPEAKER_02
25:33
i think it's a i actually think there's a couple things so one is we
SPEAKER_02
25:38
we have an expectation well
SPEAKER_02
25:39
well for us who are obsessed with politics we have an expectation of voters in general that they um care
SPEAKER_02
25:45
care about anything that they are actually coming from this with like a reasoned point of view um
SPEAKER_02
25:52
um which is not to downplay that they are unreasonable it's just that we We are weird and we pay a lot of attention to politics. And so I would describe young
SPEAKER_02
26:00
young people, this would extend into other age groups as well, but per young people, I would describe them as more disillusioned
SPEAKER_02
26:06
disillusioned than like passionate, you know? Like they, you
SPEAKER_02
26:10
you know, maybe they're moving on.
SPEAKER_02
26:13
think if they're moving with Carney on cost of living, they're probably just moving on Carney. Like
SPEAKER_01
26:18
Like some of these things are very
SPEAKER_02
26:18
very related to one another.
SPEAKER_01
26:20
another. This man seems competent.
SPEAKER_01
26:21
competent. Yes, yes. And
SPEAKER_02
26:23
And I think he's doing a kind of a good job. and like
SPEAKER_02
26:25
like throw some clips
SPEAKER_02
26:28
but they're not but they're not boomers like who are enthusiastic and love Carney yeah yeah these look different um
SPEAKER_02
26:35
um one of the most I had done a huge study so like over 2,000 um young voters in November and I had done kind of like the cross section of people who have a of their impressions of both Polyev and of Mark Carney and the this is is one of the most interesting data points that came out of it is that a plurality of young people are actually kind of fine with either of them. And we think of everyone as super partisan. So it's like 44 percent of people say they have a favorable or neutral opinion. Neutral is a key part here, but
SPEAKER_02
27:07
but of both Polly and Cardney, like they are not a hyper partisan generation. And I think, again, going back to the American example, the
SPEAKER_02
27:13
the environment is obviously much more polarized in the U.S., but there's also a reason for people, for young people to be extremely politically politically engaged in the U.S. in a different way and particularly on the left. Right.
SPEAKER_02
27:24
Whereas that leftward, like I describe it as like if
SPEAKER_02
27:30
if you are a young voter and this is like very hard news for a new Democrat. But if you are a young voter in Canada, one,
SPEAKER_02
27:37
one, your only political real political experience is Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh.
SPEAKER_02
27:43
you've kind of had your progressive itch scratched. Like they are. That
SPEAKER_02
27:46
That feeling is very different from from the U.S. where they
SPEAKER_02
27:52
they just keep being disappointed and keep being one also are like losing bodily autonomy, but are dealing with a dynamic where Donald Trump is their president and where the Democratic Party never listens to young people and the kind of people that they want to be led by. And so I think that is that That is very different, and we cannot one-to-one this generation across the border.
Shannon
28:15
Yeah, it really seems like 10 years of declining relevance of the federal party and then culminating in the confidence and supply, which essentially hitched them to the Trudeau brand,
Shannon
28:27
brand, really just kind of consigned
Shannon
28:30
consigned them to irrelevance at a time when young people were just starting to figure out like
Shannon
28:36
like kind of who's who, whose values I support, what are my friends doing? You know, like what is, if at all, if we're talking at E-3 about who we're going to vote for, you know, kind of what the main frames are with the New Democrats kind of wrote themselves out of that with the confidence and supply i feel like because they were just a hitch to a really unpopular guy and the only time it became decoupled was when kind of you know then trump over overwhelmed tsunami everything and
Shannon
29:06
and so there's no vantage point right there's no there's no uh
Shannon
29:10
point at which they went oh okay the new democrats were relevant they were putting forward something that i liked that i didn't have to look around pierre or justin trudeau to see right
Shannon
29:20
right i i i didn't see a John Clayton and like I'm kind of going okay like here's a here's another way of thinking about Canadian politics it just it seems like that has been a lost decade and
Shannon
29:33
and as a result we're sort of trending towards a two-party system at least among that's where something that that jumped out from your work that I saw in Young Voters is that they just they don't even know that the like they can't spell ndp they don't know that it exists well
SPEAKER_02
29:50
i don't want to be like i mean i don't know it could be totally doom and gloom it could potentially not be young voters are if anything and this was always the case fickle as hell so yeah yeah um so with a compelling leader with you know like they are the most likely to move in a big way and
SPEAKER_02
30:06
and there could be you know some
SPEAKER_02
30:09
there could be obviously there could be discontent with with carney's government and and what will will be the solution to that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02
30:17
But right now, I think it goes back to one of your earlier points, Shannon, which was when
SPEAKER_02
30:21
when people are feeling
SPEAKER_02
30:24
feeling anxious or are starting from a point of fear, then
SPEAKER_02
30:28
then they often will latch on to more conservative. Maybe Leah said this as I'm saying it. I'm like, I think it was Leah.
Zain
30:36
I would never say perfect. Yeah.
Carter
30:39
But that they will revert
SPEAKER_02
30:40
revert to you kind
SPEAKER_02
30:43
a more conservative feeling or a conservative ideology. Not that I'm like describing Mark Carney as a conservative, but like he feels like a safe space, I think.
SPEAKER_02
30:52
To give one anecdote, I was doing up for the study, doing a ton of in-depth interviews with young people. And this is literally like case study of one. It could just be this one person. But I was interviewing an indigenous woman from, I think, Kamloops, who
SPEAKER_02
31:07
who was like a liberal voter, but, you know, know not particularly engaged and I was asking her about pipelines and she was like I
SPEAKER_02
31:13
don't know like the economy and I was like okay like this would make Justin Trudeau's head literally explode right like that as a um
SPEAKER_02
31:22
um you know an emblem of a voter is just like it feels unimaginable 10 years ago right and
SPEAKER_02
31:29
and and I think it just goes back to you know what what trade-offs will we make and and what will we sacrifice in periods of time where there's truly a sense of desperation like Like, the
SPEAKER_02
31:40
the feeling that young voters have around the economy and their economic fortunes is so depressing
SPEAKER_02
31:48
for a reason, right?
Shannon
31:51
Yeah. Well, having done politics in Alberta, I will reliably report back to you that pipelines equals economy. And so that voter was bang on. That is the sophistication of the analysis, right? And that's how people think about it. So, you know, you just have to kind of, you
Shannon
32:10
you know, chart your way through it. And Trudeau understood that, too, because that's why he bought one for $30
SPEAKER_01
32:15
$30 billion. Kenny understood
Shannon
32:15
understood it, too. And I'll never forget Idiotacy.
Shannon
32:18
Idiotacy. What's the word there? Idiotacy.
SPEAKER_02
32:23
version. One more syllable.
Shannon
32:26
It was so frustrating to see his podium art say, like, jobs, pipeline, economy. he just took people's top three issues and plastered them on his campaign art that became his slogan and nailed it like yeah that was great that was exactly the park it was point yeah i was gonna say i've seen worse slogans like at
SPEAKER_01
32:45
at least it's direct i don't know for
Shannon
32:47
for our hearts over those slogans
Shannon
32:48
but just write the issue set on the podium is apparently how you do it um
Shannon
32:56
like, what breaks through, Kyla, is another thing, you know, because, like, especially us olds, we spend a lot of time wringing our hands about how to reach the youngs.
Shannon
33:07
And so you did a lot of these individually directed interviews, which I think are really interesting way to do kind of qualitative research.
Shannon
33:14
Because they're kind of like a focus group of one, but then you have a whole bunch of tools that you can put them all together, which I love.
Shannon
33:20
um because i find i mean maybe yeah and you the last time i said this to you you kind of pushed back on me so i'm going to say it again um
Shannon
33:27
that sometimes in focus groups you get like uh a bit of a herd thing
Shannon
33:33
right where one person brings something up and so the rest of them go oh yes they're right i didn't think of that and then off they go um
Shannon
33:38
um so that's back on that that's 100 true okay
SPEAKER_01
33:41
okay maybe it was somebody else no
SPEAKER_01
33:43
no there's absolutely that's why i do a lot of individual
SPEAKER_02
33:45
individual individual interviews is because there's a lot of groupthink. Right. And I want to know if I see a trend, I want it to be a trend. Like I want to know, OK, I heard this a few times. Yeah.
Shannon
33:53
Yeah. Which I so I love that. And I I'm wondering what else that you kind of saw that push that punches through to people that might give us some clues on how to reach them.
SPEAKER_02
34:07
Well, a lot of people in politics won't like the answer which is like you
SPEAKER_02
34:12
you have to be interesting like people are um
SPEAKER_02
34:17
like young young people okay so i have i
SPEAKER_02
34:21
i had asked about sources of information like what are young people consuming obviously they're super on social media but only a quarter of people say that their algorithms of young people say that their algorithms commonly feed them information about politics which is wild
SPEAKER_02
34:35
wild because they're not reading the paper so they
SPEAKER_02
34:38
aren't seeing it so the way that we are consuming information is scroll scroll scroll scroll and even
SPEAKER_02
34:45
even for myself it's like my politics like something pops up and then the next thing is about heated rivalry and then the next thing is about cooking and then the next thing and you have to compete in that space and one most of our politicians and our political parties aren't even on tiktok um
SPEAKER_02
35:02
um like giving up that entire space which i think is i mean i'm not a um i'm not a security expert but i think it's just from a persuasion point of view is crazy i
Shannon
35:12
i don't i don't understand why we can't afford a a whole you know box of burner phones like just just do the reach the people anyway i'll leave leave that aside a
SPEAKER_02
35:22
a hundred percent and they
SPEAKER_02
35:24
they have all our
SPEAKER_01
35:25
our data anyway anyways whatever that's a separate thing
Shannon
35:26
we're really out of my area of expertise but i just
SPEAKER_02
35:29
find it's like crazy i
Shannon
35:30
i just don't understand why you'd give up a whole anyway a
SPEAKER_02
35:33
a whole platform and which is primarily um i
SPEAKER_02
35:37
i i mean obviously a lot of young men are on it as well but it is it skews female so then if we're not on tiktok then we're on youtube and instagram instagram also skews female and youtube skews skews mail but youtube seems well at least on the left seems very hard for us to break through on like the conservatives do it extremely well um
SPEAKER_02
35:55
um and so like my stupid answer about what breaks through is like the
SPEAKER_02
36:01
the thing that the prime minister you don't always get an opportunity to do the heated rivalry thing but like that broke through like some of that kind of stuff is like okay
SPEAKER_02
36:08
okay we need to get comfortable with like a subliminal message like what would people have learned from mark kearney from that is like oh he's
SPEAKER_02
36:15
he's tolerant oh he's you know all of these other things that are he likes
Shannon
36:19
likes the thing i like he likes
Shannon
36:21
likes the thing that i like he can he
SPEAKER_01
36:22
can interact with it
SPEAKER_02
36:23
it and engage with it right um
SPEAKER_02
36:25
um and and then you see like polyop
SPEAKER_02
36:28
polyop does his own versions of that which is like he's you
SPEAKER_02
36:32
you know doing crossfit and stuff like that but he's also in those spaces which i i like mock as like a
SPEAKER_02
36:38
a 35 year old woman I don't really mock it as like a strategist fully maybe a little bit but um but you know you're going into spaces where people are and that they would actually come across and so it's like you kind of have to do the things that a lot of especially I would say in the progressive space where we like we're a bunch of like front
SPEAKER_02
36:59
front of the class Yes, people, right? Yes,
SPEAKER_02
37:02
Yes, like it's beneath me to not sound perfect all the time and to not let me show you how smart I am. And that is criminal. Like I think of this often of like, I
SPEAKER_02
37:18
think of this especially in the American context. Like I think our cultures
SPEAKER_02
37:22
cultures are very different around this. Like I think you can only be so edgy to a certain extent in Canadian politics. we we have a strong stronger mocking i think than maybe in the u.s but like i'm
SPEAKER_02
37:34
i'm just like they they
SPEAKER_02
37:35
they professionalize themselves into fascism like they just were so they
SPEAKER_02
37:41
they can they're allergic to saying the thing right like or to being interesting or to you know obviously everyone now in the u.s is like swearing gratuitously but like yeah and so now it's cheesy but just like speaking like a a human speaking like a person going into spaces having going
SPEAKER_02
37:59
podcasts that you think are you know below you like that is the feeling that you get all the time and yeah we just we need to be a lot less precious. That's
Shannon
38:08
That's the challenge of the attention economy right like you do have to do things that are unexpected off-brand maybe like attention grabbing I mean like the the workout out the polyevs workout video like that that is actually perfect i mean the the message
Shannon
38:24
message there is annoying like you know sad about inflation did you do push-ups about it it's
SPEAKER_02
38:31
for them it's that's
Shannon
38:31
how they would mock it to be fair that is like really good
Shannon
38:36
yeah it was it was very annoying yes but
Shannon
38:40
let's talk about polyever a little bit because he had a really bad week he had very bad uh
Shannon
38:44
uh and um like you know i was thinking about this and and really He had the big national stage with his convention and a beautiful result, right? Like any leader would love to have that result in terms of the support of his party. And yet the numbers since then have just tanked and they seem to be getting worse. I mean, I don't know if we'll know definitively, you know, in the next week or two, we probably will as they go back into the House and a few other things happen there. it
Shannon
39:15
it doesn't seem good for him uh that you know his personal favorability is so low in addition to there's there seems to be a party gap uh as well so
Shannon
39:27
um he busts out with his workout video this week he has some internal problems with jamil giovanni as we talked about there's still the question for him on separatism because at some point somebody's gonna have to ask him or what do you think about these guys who are going down to the states to start talking to the americans about an Alberta military. You're an Alberta. You would think so, right? That that
SPEAKER_02
39:47
that question would happen at some point. I'm waiting.
SPEAKER_01
39:49
waiting. Put a microphone
Shannon
39:50
microphone in front of
SPEAKER_02
39:52
Like it's a valid
Shannon
39:54
I mean, hopefully, like, you know, even in rejoinders in QP, people start kicking the crap out of him there because that's going to be tough for him, right? Because he's got some turnips in his caucus, too, that don't haven't quite put it together that they're going to lose their jobs if Alberta separates,
Shannon
40:10
Yeah. You have to run in another seat. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02
40:12
Yeah, yeah. But then they'll be like Like the ambassador to France or whatever. I don't know. Maybe that's not an appealing post. Ambassador to Hungary.
Shannon
40:21
You were the first pollster, Kyla. I think you were on Hurley Burley when you talked about and this was in this was like the height of poll never a mania gripping the nation.
Shannon
40:32
When everybody was like swearing him into Rideau Cottage and it was all great for him and his numbers were fantastic. fantastic and
Shannon
40:39
and I think you you were the first person I heard say say it you were like uh women don't like this guy uh
Shannon
40:45
uh they have there there's some real weakness here like
Shannon
40:49
like tell me about what you were finding then and is like and and what the those seeds kind of portended for him yeah
SPEAKER_02
40:58
yeah I I mean we were also distracted one his polling numbers yes but we were also distracted by how how much people hated justin trudeau right and that was and when you're in a narrative god is it hard like it's impossible to get out of it so you're just um and this is now he what kind of what he's facing which is like story after story that's sort of in the poly
SPEAKER_02
41:19
poly of loser narrative right like everything comes back to so even if he does kind of a pivot or a different tactic it's like well it's
SPEAKER_02
41:26
it's a desperate tactic to do this you know and like that is having been on kind of like the government side or been on the side when you're like it doesn't matter what we do like that is it's a miserable existence but that is sort of the existence he finds himself in right now and
SPEAKER_02
41:41
but it's also like not untrue for the data right so it's yeah it's really like it's kind of no win to a certain extent so i can see why he's
SPEAKER_02
41:52
they seem a little bit like i
SPEAKER_02
41:53
i don't know they're not they
SPEAKER_02
41:55
they don't want to overthink like they don't want to they've done done a lot of communication things that have had risk elements to them. And I don't think that that's necessarily a negative thing, but the workout video podcast, the Greco thing is, um,
SPEAKER_02
42:06
um, another sort of like risky tactic. And then it changes how it's interpreted. Um, everything looks different when you're at the top, but anyways, back to your question about what was I seeing about Polyev is even at that point in time, he was still polarizing and
SPEAKER_02
42:20
and which means that his very favorables and very unfavorables were basically identical, which
SPEAKER_02
42:26
which is not usually the case for an opposition leader because people don't actually usually know who the opposition leader is really. And so it takes time for those negatives to climb up.
SPEAKER_02
42:35
And so when we're all thinking of, you know, Justin Trudeau with a very unfavorable in like the 60s, then
SPEAKER_02
42:42
then like that's the story. But it's like, but also and so but
SPEAKER_02
42:47
but but also, you know, from the side of a voter like we we, what are they supposed to do? Not vote? Like, so they were to a certain extent parking their vote and they were also being, to an extent,
SPEAKER_02
42:58
it put his negatives. It's like, I don't know, when you have a shitty boyfriend, but you haven't had a boyfriend in a while. So you're like, well, look,
Shannon
43:06
now that I know this experience. Summer boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01
43:10
But we'll look past
SPEAKER_02
43:10
past some things for
SPEAKER_01
43:11
for a little bit. Sorry.
Shannon
43:13
Pierre Pauly ever was a summer boyfriend for us? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_02
43:16
But like people, they just kind of were like, like well it's
SPEAKER_02
43:19
it's better than this other thing that I've had so you kind of oversee it and then you take away the other thing and it's like oh well you know there are these qualities that I don't like I feel like I also tortured this analogy to death on the early really when I did this and David was just like I'm not going there with you like I don't know um
SPEAKER_02
43:37
there was this foundation
SPEAKER_02
43:39
foundation to him which like I I think that when things are not going your way in the horse race you can sort sort of psych yourself out into thinking like this thing that I see is not real or it's not working and I think that was the case a lot with Trump right like with his successes then
SPEAKER_02
43:55
it made it made us all like very insecure of like how do we go after this guy but
SPEAKER_02
43:59
but it was sort of the same for Polyev which is like his his
SPEAKER_02
44:07
has always been an issue or like his you know the the
SPEAKER_02
44:10
the asshole ishness like it exists we are not crazy we are not just like rabid
SPEAKER_02
44:15
rabid leftists who just hate him personally like there's something there that people respond negative to negatively to but
SPEAKER_02
44:22
but that's not it like that I mean that was that was the flaw that I identified at that point in time was like yeah
SPEAKER_02
44:27
is a personality thing here and
SPEAKER_02
44:29
and then it also so it was that plus then the skill set and competence like there are two parts to it and when that was contrasted with Mark Carney that also put it in a different perspective. So it's like, oh, you mean to tell me you're kind of a dick and you've
SPEAKER_02
44:43
you've never done anything outside of politics? Like in comparison to this guy who actually seems, the way that young people, going back to young people, that the way that he often gets described in qualitative interviews is like a TV dad. So you're going to give me TV dad versus YouTube bro, and that contrast suddenly feels a little bit more clear.
Shannon
45:00
That's exactly. But it's TV dad who's got like very strong accountant energy, right? Yes. He's going to take care of business. Yeah, I have
SPEAKER_02
45:09
have like a whole bank of great anecdotes from the campaign. I was on that campaign of young women who are like, they were so good at doing this. But young women in focus groups who were like, he
SPEAKER_02
45:22
he is like your best friend's dad who has a big job. You don't know what it is, but he'll always ask you about your day. Like it's stuff like that where I'm like, oh, that's a picture, right? Like that explains it. That explains it. And and how. Yeah. How differently that feels to someone who is a career politician with a chip on his shoulder and a harsh tone. Right. Like that looks different.
Shannon
45:47
Well, also, like because he's gone into that, like sort of terminally online stuff, like young people understand like
Shannon
45:53
like the YouTube bro. And they like they understand that their whole like raison d'etre is to kind of be a dick.
Shannon
46:00
Right. And they know that archetype. Like
Shannon
46:02
Like they know it in their bones. it shows up in their algo it's it's part of the discourse well
SPEAKER_01
46:07
well i think it also
SPEAKER_02
46:08
also explains it a little bit of why it's interpreted maybe simultaneously like why it can be embraced or not not responded
SPEAKER_02
46:15
responded to as negatively like going back to that 44 of young people that are kind of fine with either of them like it
SPEAKER_02
46:22
it he reads very differently for a young person than for a senior like he is not the masculine ideal the leadership ideal of a boomer man or woman like this is a very different um portrayal of leadership and Mark Carney actually fits that quite seamlessly like again going back to like the
SPEAKER_02
46:43
the kind of more respectful like that it feels very different whereas young people um
SPEAKER_02
46:49
um there might be like especially young university educated women like Like if there's an issue with young people, that's where it is. And so that's where you get like the scoffing and you get some of the like, oh, like, you know, whatever, mocking of, let's say, the exercise video or whatever. But it also fits into a context for a lot of other young people where they don't really take that much issue with it. Like they don't really or they don't notice. They don't see enough of it. And so when they do see it passively, it's like, well, I don't know. He's like, I talked about cost of living and it's sort of a mix. So it's, I don't know, it's kind of more complex. um but i
Shannon
47:23
think there's like a different quality to reasons
SPEAKER_00
47:26
reasons that people don't like baliev's dickishness like sometimes we
Shannon
47:31
we can recognize that that a leader or a politician is kind of an asshole but we like it right like that's i think that's what happened when we lost the election in in alberta we did a tremendously good job of telling voters that jason kenny was was a dick and they were like yeah that's what we're here for we want a dick yeah
SPEAKER_02
47:55
that was kind of the contrast with trudeau right it's like yeah well trudeau is soft so
Shannon
48:00
well there's a lot of reasons why we lost that election anyway um but
SPEAKER_02
48:03
but also well to go back to like you know another ndv failure but like back to there can be it all comes back to motivation Right. And I think for Polyev, his dickishness can read as because it's politically motivated. Right. Like I have this question that when
SPEAKER_02
48:24
when Trudeau was still prime minister, but we were it
SPEAKER_02
48:28
must have been just after Trump won or looked like he was just about to win. I'm trying to think of when I put when I did this poll but uh
SPEAKER_02
48:35
oh it was just just after he won and then that was when when the Trudeau team had like done the Mar-a-Lago trip all of that and I had had one question that was like Pierre
SPEAKER_02
48:46
like kind of agree or disagree Pierre Pauliev cares more about Justin Trudeau losing than Canada winning and
SPEAKER_02
48:52
and that was like one entry point that I could finally start to see was like around that sentiment um still not enough but it was like like getting at that point in time, like 50% agree, which like we couldn't get anything above like 35, 40 or whatever. And it was like, okay, there's something to that, like that feeling
SPEAKER_02
49:11
and why you're there. And I do think like Tom Mulcair could have been like an asshole for a reason, but then they made him like a teddy bear and it was all weird. But he could have been a fighter, right? In that election, like there's all these like, Like, yeah, kind of strategic choices of like, what do you do with someone who is prickly?
Shannon
49:36
so this week, well, this coming week, we will have an Alberta budget, folks. We will have the follow up from a VC budget. The VC leadership continues on. The House resumes next week in the House of Commons. So we'll have plenty to talk about there.
Shannon
49:51
And Kyla, it has been wonderful to have you. this week to talk about separatism, immigration,
Shannon
49:59
Jamil Javani, of course, because we can't quit that guy either. And a lot of dicks. And
SPEAKER_01
50:02
And a lot of dicks. Just
SPEAKER_00
50:03
Just see, there were too
Shannon
50:04
too many dicks on the dance floor this week.
Shannon
50:11
Yeah, go back to an old Flight of the Conchords reference. And yeah, thanks very much for joining us. We'll be back next week with Annalise.
Shannon
50:24
you've been listening to balance of power pod you can reach us at suggestion box at balanceofpowerpod.ca we always want to hear what you have to say our tech production is by haxum our content production assistant is sydney whiting and our music is by shayla miller