Constant questions about Carney and Poilievre...

Asking about Carney and Poilievre's futures is the ongoing chatter among politicos.

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A rainy Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and some political gossip.

What could be better?

Not sure what it is like where you live, but this morning as I start to write it is cool and rainy here in Toronto. That’s a welcome change after another stretch of dry, heatwave weather.

Regardless of the weather, or what part of the country I’m in, there are two questions I keep getting asked this summer.

How is Carney doing?

And...

What’s going to happen to Pierre?

They are somewhat related questions with very different answers, though answers that for both of them are just speculation at this point.

How is Carney doing?

If you’re a Liberal the answer is that he’s doing great, things haven’t been better, the party is back! If you are a Conservative, you’ll likely admit that he’s saying the right things, and you hope he delivers but you’ll wait and see.

For the average swing voter, the folks who can flip between red and blue, the people who decide elections – it's probably somewhere in the middle.

People are absolutely willing to give Carney the benefit of the doubt still. He’s saying many of the right things; he appears to be moving us back to fiscal sanity, and he’s a big improvement from the last guy we were all so sick of seeing.

Justin Trudeau’s parting gift to Mark Carney, or whoever replaced him, was that he had lowered expectations so much that any change is an improvement.

Eventually though, Carney will have to deliver more than just words.

Trudeau’s team spoke about delivering for Canadians, they even paid a fortune of our tax dollars to bring in experts from Britain to train them on “deliverology” a new way to deliver results. It didn’t work and too often, there wasn’t much to be delivered after the news release had been sent, the announcement made because to them, the announcement was the policy.

Carney needs to start delivering by the end of summer.

He should have his list of major projects ready to be announced shortly after Labour Day and before the House of Commons reconvenes on September 15. That list of major projects needs to include a pipeline, or pipelines, for oil and gas if he wants to show he’s serious about boosting the economy and tackling Western alienation.

Our new PM and will also need to deliver a budget this fall with some sense of urgency about getting us back on track. That will be a difficult task given reports that the deficit is expected to hit a record $92 billion and at the same time Carney’s team are claiming they are going to be serious about cutting spending, red tape and the size of the civil service.

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A deal with The Donald…

Finally, Carney has to do what right now might seem impossible and deliver a trade deal with Donald Trump.

One Liberal explained how difficult this is by telling me, “It’s like we’re wrestling in the dark with a gorilla.” He may have had a few more descriptive phrases in there, but you get the sense that this is a tough, if not impossible job.

Too bad, it’s what you signed up for, and you told the electorate that you were uniquely qualified to deliver on this.

Canada should have had a deal already, we in fact were close as I was reporting in early June ahead of the G7 in Kananaskis. The Americans were asking for a deal that was very high level, broad strokes and we were pushing for greater detail.

Then just as it looked like we might get something, Trump and Elon Musk had their spectacular break-up, and things haven’t been the same in the talks either.

I’m not sure what impact the Trump-Musk feud had on the talks, or if it really was that we were pushing for longer, deeper deal that then Americans wanted, but here we are more than a month later, no deal and Carney trying to soft-sell the public on accepting that tariffs with the Americans is the new normal.

As I wrote about the other day, that’s a view that I’ve been dealing with and talking about since my trip to Washington last February and now it looks like that is where we have landed.

This last bit of news will be difficult for Carney to handle and sell based on what he has said in the past. Of course, he always has the option to sign something and then revert to an elbows up, anti-American stance to whip up public sentiment for his government and against the Americans.

That would be cynical though, and a politician would never be cynical.

Bottom line, Carney is getting some slack right now, most people like the change in tone, but between September and December, he’s got an awful lot to deliver on to keep the public on his side.

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Now about Pierre...

Pierre Poilievre faces two big tests between now and early next year.

He’s got the by-election in Battle River—Crowfoot on August 18. The official list of candidates, as of writing, is over 100 long and neither the Liberals nor New Democrats have a candidate on that list.

This longest ballot BS has to be shut down and there are simple ways that Elections Canada could do this. It won’t happen in time for this by-election, but it needs to happen soon.

The test for Poilievre isn’t whether he wins this by-election – he's finished if he doesn’t - the test is how much will he win it by. Damien Kurek won this riding back in April with 82.8% of the vote, much higher than the 71.3% that he got during the 2021 federal election.

And that is the playground that Poilievre is playing in to look good coming out of this by-election.

In our multi-party system, there are plenty of MPs elected who don’t come close to winning 50% of the votes and doing so is a commanding victory for most. If Poilievre wins just over 50% of his vote, he will take the seat but be wounded for his next big test, the leadership review.

Poilievre needs to have a solid showing in the by-election, or he will face greater scrutiny come January. And in that contest too, he can’t win just 51% of the vote and say he’s staying on.

When I spoke to Poilievre recently, he told me that when he isn’t campaigning in Alberta, he’s connecting with campaign volunteers from the last election, people who ran local campaigns, unsuccessful candidates, the kinds of people you need for an election and to win leadership. He needs to spend the next few months solidifying his support in the party grassroots.

I haven’t seen anyone organizing against Poilievre yet, but it could be happening quietly. No one saw the gang that organized against Erin O’Toole until just before their made their stance public.

Poilievre needs at least 70% support in the by-election and the leadership review to remain in his position.

A quick comment about Doug Ford...

The Ontario PC Party announced that they would hold their party convention at the same time as Poilievre’s convention, and this stoked a lot of online anger at Ford from Poilievre supporters.

There is only upside for Pierre in the two parties holding conventions at the same time. Anyone who is involved with both parties – and yes they exist – but is more aligned with Ford and his style of governing will stay in Ontario. They will be too busy to bother organizing against Poilievre or to pay attention to the federal convention.

All sides need to get over their paranoia about each other.

Now, when I started writing is was rainy and gloomy, but now the sun is out and it’s time for me to head out too.