Let's Talk Politics

Ep 22: Polling the Shift - Carney’s First Days as PM (Part 1)

• Julia Pennella • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Prime Minister Mark Carney's early days as Prime Minister have been defined by bold moves and high-stakes diplomacy. Joining us today to unpack the fast moving political scene, is Dan Arnold, Chief Strategy Officer at Pollara Strategic Insights. 

The Prime Minister's first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump provided a defining moment when Carney firmly but diplomatically responded to Trump's jest about acquiring Canada with "You're in real estate, and there are some things that aren't for sale. And Canada’s Not for Sale." This exchange, which went viral across social media platforms, reinforced Carney's image as someone who can effectively represent Canadian interests while maintaining a productive relationship with an unpredictable ally.  In today's politics, these visual moments matter enormously - perhaps more than policy details for many voters who consume their politics through social media clips rather than traditional news outlets.

Perhaps most fascinating is the dramatic demographic realignment revealed in the recent federal election. For the first time since 1930, both major parties, Liberals and Conservatives,  cracked 40% of the popular vote, with Conservatives making significant inroads with younger voters while Liberals performed unexpectedly well with white male seniors. This role reversal challenges conventional political wisdom and suggests deep shifts in how generational cohorts perceive the major parties. 

Meanwhile, growing separatist sentiment in Alberta presents perhaps Carney's biggest challenge moving forward. Unlike Quebec separatism, Alberta's movement stems from economic and political alienation - a sense that Ottawa doesn't respect the province's industries and priorities. As an Alberta-raised Prime Minister, Carney has unique credibility to address these concerns, but navigating this national unity challenge while implementing his broader agenda will test his political skills in the months ahead.

Quick heads up—this episode was recorded May 18, 2025, so while the news may have changed since this conversation was recorded, the thoughts and ideas still remain relevant. 


Julia Pennella:

Welcome back to let's Talk Politics. Before we get into it, here's a wrap-up of the latest headlines making news. First up, prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a slimmed-down cabinet with just 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state. But that's not all. He's streamlining. Carney is shelving Trudeau's individual ministerial mandate letters in favor of a single, focused seven-point priority list for all ministers Short, broad and no frills.

Julia Pennella:

And in a week already packed with symbolism, canada's head of state, king Charles, made a special appearance at Parliament to deliver Canada's throne speech that some are calling a diplomatic mic drop, channeling patriotism and power. The King closed the throne speech with, as the anthem reminds us, the true North is indeed strong and free. Of course, no political week would be complete without a mention of President Trump. On his Truth Social platform, the US president claimed Canada could buy its way into the Golden Dome for $61 billion or join the US as the 51st state for free. The prime minister's office quickly fired back Canada is an independent, sovereign nation and it will remain one. All of this on the same day. King Charles reaffirmed Canada's autonomy and Carney pledged support for a major European defence rearmament plan. There's a lot to unpack on the political scene, and I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest, dan Arnold.

Julia Pennella:

Dan is the Chief Strategy Officer at Polaris Strategic Insights. He loves data and spreadsheets. Dan has a master's in statistics from the University of Alberta and has spent years helping political parties, governments and business understand what Canadians really think. He was the Trudeau Liberal's lead research strategist and helped shape campaigns and map out paths for the party's victory strategist and helped shape campaigns and map out paths for the party's victory. He also served as Director of Research and Advertising in the Prime Minister's office, digging into what mattered to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. At Polara, dan helps clients cut through the noise and make sense of what the data's really saying.

Julia Pennella:

In this episode, we break down the latest federal polling numbers, what Carney's new cabinet signals to Canadians and MPs, and what's next for the Conservatives as their leader waits on a by-election. Quick heads up. This episode was recorded on May 18, 2025, so while the news may have changed since this conversation was recorded, the thoughts and ideas still remain relevant. There's a lot to unpack, so let's get into it. I have a very special guest today, dan Arnold. He's the Chief Strategy Officer at Polara and we're going to be diving into cabinet picks, what happened on the election trail and a lot of data and polling in between. So, dan, thanks so much for joining us.

Dan Arnold:

It's been a crazy couple of months in politics, so we got a lot to talk about.

Julia Pennella:

Absolutely. I think that's an understatement sometimes that I feel like we're always in the twilight zone, never knowing what we're waking up to. So, really looking forward to the conversation and you know, yesterday Prime Minister Carney assembled his cabinet I would love to get your take on what's different in this cabinet, maybe compared to the Trudeau era, and what we can maybe expect from the new cabinet ministers coming out from that pick and what we can maybe expect from the new cabinet ministers coming out from that pick.

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, it's a very different cabinet, you know, just in numbers it's very different and there's a lot of factors that go into making a cabinet and I've been tangentially involved in some of these discussions before. But you're looking at demographics and region and political abilities and hopefully competence figures into the equation somewhere. Abilities and hopefully competence figures into the equation somewhere. And I think the overarching thing that Carney used as his North Star to kind of guide himself in those decisions was change. It seemed like he really was looking to put his own stamp on this cabinet to bring in new ministers.

Dan Arnold:

You know, you look at people who were dropped. For example, jonathan Wilkinson, clearly one of the 38 most competent people in the Liberal caucus you know he's not in cabinet right now. Nate Erskine-Smith, karina Gould like great communicators, connect with young people not in this cabinet. And I think Carney was definitely looking to get his own team together, his own people in there, and that makes sense. Like he's a new prime minister, he wants to make sure it's the Carney team and not the Trudeau team. So that's, I think, why we see so many new faces in this cabinet.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, well said. And you're right, the three names you mentioned really heavy hitters, so it's unfortunate not to see them in cabinet. I'm wondering if they'll have maybe some sort of separate role. Time will only tell what that plan looks like. But you know what is Karni's cabinet pick signal to you? You mentioned there's trying to distance himself a little bit from the Trudeau era. To you, you mentioned there's trying to distance himself a little bit from the Trudeau era. We're already getting criticisms from opposition about this is a bit of a recurring pattern with some same ministers. But I'm curious does this signal anything different to you?

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, it's hard to say if you want to read too much into it. Certainly, change is what they were trying to signal. And look, ultimately, cabinet making, I think, is more of an HR exercise than a PR exercise, like let me news stories for the next three days about what this means and regional snubs and all this sort of stuff. But you know, at the end of the day you're just trying to get the best people into these jobs, people you have confidence in. I don't know if I can look at this cabinet and say like this is a ideologically signals a swing left or right or anything like that. But I think it's really just about getting people that you trust in there, who you think are going to do a good job, and you put the right people in place and then you kind of let the government speak for itself in terms of what that means afterwards.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, well said, and I think even just the tiered system of it of having more secretaries of state and ministers in that division. So it's going to be interesting to see. It's going to be interesting to see, like you said, that ideological piece of where people stand. You know there's always the blue liberals or maybe the little bit more left liberals. So we'll see. But I want to talk about we mentioned some of the names that maybe weren't reoccurring cabinet ministers this time around what happens to those MPs who were dropped from cabinet or not?

Dan Arnold:

selected yeah, I think it'll be different for everyone. Elected yeah, I think it'll be different for everyone. There were a couple ministers who decided just not to run again when they were dropped from the pre-election cabinet from Carnies, and I would imagine some of these ministers who or I guess former ministers who weren't invited back here are people who've done a lot in their careers probably don't have an appetite to sit as backbenchers for a long time. We saw this after 2021. Mark Garneau very accomplished, had been Foreign Affairs Minister. Trudeau left him out of the post-2021 cabinet. He didn't resign the next day, but within a year or so he resigned and there was a by-election. So I think there'll be a couple of by-elections coming in our future. That would be my guess for some of those people. But then you also have other MPs who probably have a lot to contribute and are looking to stay around and we talked about a few of them, like people like Nate Erskine-Smith, karina Gould, and I don't know if they want to stay or not, but if they do like those feel like people you want to use in some capacity.

Dan Arnold:

There's lots of ways you can use MPs who aren't in cabinet. They can be caucus chairs and they can be committee chairs. A parliamentary secretary still haven't been named yet which is kind of like a. I know this cabinet has junior cabinet ministers but I guess parliamentary secretaries are like the junior, junior cabinet ministers to some extent. But if you pair up a minister with a parliamentary secretary who can kind of help them sell the government's agenda, that gives you a pretty big value add.

Dan Arnold:

And I think right now the Carney team is probably going through a list of like who are the five or 10 people who we think are not in cabinet, who want to stay around, who can bring a lot of value through their political skills, through their communication skills, and then you try to match them up with a minister where it makes sense. You don't want a Quebec parliamentary secretary or the Quebec minister and you want to try to find people who compliment each other. But you know, if you're talking about someone like Karina or Nate, they'd be, I think, a great pair for Sean Pagnot Finance, who's a rural Quebec MP and a bit more business-focused. But then you get somebody who can sell the government's financial agenda to young people and actually connect it to them and what they're going through. I've got a friend of mine.

Dan Arnold:

Corey Hogan was elected as a Calgary MP. I think he'd be a great matchup for Tim Hodgson at Natural Resources, because you've got you know, obviously very unique energy issues in Western Canada and Corey's somebody who's got a good political IQ and Tim's a political rookie and again, that's a nice kind of pairing there. So I think the government's looking for those matchups and looking for the people that they can put in those roles. And we've seen before, like Sean Pang started as a parliamentary secretary, sean Fraser started as a parliamentary secretary. So if there are some rookies who have star potential, it's a great way to train them and get them some experience and maybe when there's a shuffle in the future, they get their big chance.

Julia Pennella:

Then yeah, well said. And a few other names too that come to mind which I was really proud to get some a bit more senior recognition was Adam VanCouverton I know he'd been really pushing to get more involved in the cabinet table on sports. So, really well said. And I've worked for Adam Vaughn, who was a very, you know, vocal parliamentary secretary. But, to your point, they helped do that navigating and that representation, whether the minister is not available or connect to a different audience. So I really resonate with that and I want to ask you a bit more of a technical question and maybe you can share with our listeners, because I'm not sure what the answer is Do cabinet ministers need to be elected officials or can they be outsiders? And I think too, for example, the US Donald Trump's cabinet. He's very notorious for helping out some of his buddies and getting them into those more senior positions to be his advisors. But yeah, is there a difference in the Canadian system, like, do they have to be elected officials?

Dan Arnold:

Technically no, but conventionally yes. So you know, I think Stephen Harper appointed a senator to cabinet after, I think, the 2008 or maybe the 2011 election. He didn't really have a big Quebec caucus or any Quebec caucus, so he appointed a Quebec senator to cabinet as a way to make sure Quebec had some representation. We've also seen sometimes people will get named to cabinet before they're an MP. So I think Stéphane Dion came in this way they Chrétien appointed him to cabinet and then he ran into by-election subsequently to get into government. So maybe if one of these people resigns and there's a by-election, you could, in theory, see somebody appointed before they run into by-election, but I'd say, by convention, in Canada it is almost always people who are MPs who end up in cabinet.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, I've noticed that and the reason why I bring this up is I think sometimes there's maybe frustrations from a public perspective of maybe having a minister of health who doesn't necessarily have like a strong health background, whether they're a physician or have been in the field, or same thing with finance If someone's never been necessarily in the financial or private sector. So I was just curious about that. So I appreciate you providing a bit more clarity around that. I want to go into Prime Minister Carney. He's really proved himself from the last election of coming in as a political rookie and really, you know, unseating two other party leaders.

Julia Pennella:

But the big question and a lot of people were looking at was his interactions with Trump and last week he had his first face to face with Trump and you know, let's be honest, everything from the handshake to the Oval Office photo op was under a microscope, because we've seen other world leaders come away from those meetings a little bit bruised. I want to point to a piece you you wrote about on LinkedIn how Prime Minister Carney was elected to deal with Trump and this was the first time voters will see him in that role. First impressions tend to stick. So I want to ask you like. How did you think that first impression landed, and do you think Carney held his ground?

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, you only get one chance to make a first impression and certainly as somebody who was elected to deal with Trump, the microscope was on him for this first interaction with Trump. And I remember, even when I was in the prime minister's office back in the day, the first time Trudeau had his face-to-face meeting with Trump coming out of the 2016, the first Trump presidency there was a lot of stakes on the line for that trip to DC. This was at a time I remember we were doing research beforehand and people were not that confident Trudeau could handle himself against Trump. They're saying, like you know, trudeau's a nice guy, but Trump's a negotiator, he's tough, he's going to steamroll Trudeau. And this is also at a time when there was a lot of backlash to some of the things that Trump was doing around the Muslim ban and there's the Million Women March and things like that. I was in charge of correspondence and PMO and we were getting thousands and thousands of letters from people that were just like you got to stand up to this guy, you got to put him in his place. So there was a lot on the line for that first meeting and Trudeau went down to DC and held his ground. Literally, there was a famous kind of like 30 second handshake where Trump was kind of like trying to tug him in and Trudeau was very steely in his gaze. And this is why I say things like body language and images become so powerful in politics, especially in these interactions Everything's going to be on TikTok and everything's going to be, you know, seen that way, even if you're not into politics, so Carney's body language and how he shakes Trump's hand and everything like that becomes under the microscope.

Dan Arnold:

And that first Trudeau trip to DC. We did focus groups afterwards and people were saying I remember one group we did. A woman said like oh yeah, trump tried to pull Trudeau in. He looked him in the eyes and he said you're not going to pull Canada around, and I guess you read that from his body language. But ultimately things like that matter in politics more than anything else. So stakes were high. I think Carney did a good job. Like most of the commentary it would say he did a good job and you had to kind of pick your moments. He couldn't he let Trump ramble for 80% of the conversation, but he picked the moments to stand up.

Dan Arnold:

And if there's any one clip that people probably saw from that encounter. It was the Canada's not for sale. You know you're in real estate and there are some things that aren't for sale the White House, buckingham Palace and you know it seemed natural. Trump even kind of nodded along with him too. So anybody who's seen that clip would almost be like, hey, carney put Trump in his place and Trump seemed to actually back down. You know, if you didn't watch the other 30 minutes of incoherent chaos and rambling that followed, so yeah, for people who only saw a glimpse of it, they probably saw a really good glimpse for Carney. So I think, yeah, mission accomplished for him. I think he certainly anybody who voted for him because they wanted him to deal with Trump probably came away from that saying like, yeah, this guy's the right guy to deal with Donald Trump.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, well said and I think as well, like I was holding my breath for that meeting and just seeing how it went it actually went way smoother, as, I think, as smooth as possible it could with Trump. But, to your point about that most notable conversation in that clip and I want to dive into social media and a data perspective but yeah, I think it really made Canadians breathe that sigh of relief, being like we've voted him to do that and to stand up to Trump and be able to hold his ground. So I really thought it was great and really a proud moment for Canada to reinforce where we stand with our sovereignty. But, yeah, I want to talk about social media because you brought it up.

Julia Pennella:

You've been in the data space. How have you seen people interact with politics or be maybe more aware of politics, given this social media element? Because, to your point, everything's clipped. You might not necessarily be a politically engaged person, but it's almost inevitable these days for something to come up on your feed, whether it's someone commentating on it or a news clip like the one we just mentioned with the Trump and Carney interaction. What has that changed, do you think with the political discourse?

Dan Arnold:

Well, I think it has a big impact when it comes to reaching younger people especially, and I'm probably using young as like under 40, under 50 at this point here, because anybody who is under 40, under 50 isn't really watching the CTV nightly news. They're certainly not reading the newspaper the way they were 30 years ago. So you know I do this on in most campaigns, I'm involved with no-transcript their news from TikTok than from newscasts on TV, right. So how things kind of go in that direction, I guess it's in both, both both respects it's out of your control as a political operative, because you don't know how the news is going to cover, but you also kind of don't know what's going to happen virally as well too. But making sure that you at least have the visuals and those clips that can go virally and maybe helping push them out that way, you know that's how you reach young people.

Dan Arnold:

And I think you know the advice I always give to campaigns I'm involved with is you know, if you're trying to reach a younger audience with, like, a housing plan or something in the campaign, like that's something that you need to think really about. How are we going to get this pushed out digitally? Maybe we're gonna have to advertise it online, because just doing a campaign announcement, having the press gallery cover it, it's probably not going to get you that message to the right audience, whereas if you're increasing old age security then, yeah, maybe that is the way to do it, because you're actually going to reach the people that you want to get that message to, because they will read the newspaper and see the news coverage of how that event goes.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah for sure, and you know, medium is the message, so it really makes it to that point about being strategic. I think there's a lot more I don't want to say theatrics behind when it comes to announcing things, but what's coming to mind as well is when Carney was starting right up on the campaign trail and that piece with Mike Myers at the hockey arena. I think that hit all demographics and that nostalgia, and I think there was a lot of elements to that. But as we're talking about demographic shifts and who's being politically engaged, I want to talk about the most recent election.

Julia Pennella:

We ended up with another liberal minority, but this election felt different. For the first time since 1930, the two major parties both cracked 40% of the vote and the third parties really got squeezed out. We saw the fall of the NDP. A lot of seats lost in Quebec from the Bloc Quebecois to Liberal. So these demographic shifts, as we saw post-election, liberals were dominating with seniors, even senior men, while the Conservatives made a lot more gains with younger generations, millennials, gen Z. What do you make of that when it comes to this new political map?

Dan Arnold:

Certainly, the map really reset itself and the bigger changes, like you said, were probably more demographic than regional, and there were some regional changes that kind of came about because of demographics, like Liberals did really well with older voters and collapsed the NDP votes, they won seats on Vancouver Island, and that was kind of more because of those factors, I think, than just anything that was unique to Vancouver Island, for example. But, yeah, like the demographic shifts. So you go back to the 2015 election, when Trudeau was first elected. Millennials were our bread and butter. It wasn't like every millennial voted for Trudeau, but it was the strongest demographic, if you're kind of breaking it out in terms of where liberal support was, and we saw a big increase in turnout rates among young people at election who wanted to come out and vote for him, whereas in the last campaign, you know, polyev was winning younger voters at least younger men he was winning. And millennials, polyev won. Millennial men, millennial women, were actually a lot more conservative than they've been in past elections as well, too, even if liberals, I think, in the end kind of probably had a marginal lead over the conservatives among them, whereas it was, yeah, old white guys were kind of like coming to the liberals, which is again, if I go back to my experience polling for Trudeau like never a demographic that you would even think about in a campaign as being kind of a group you'd want to target. But they responded positively to Carney, I think as a leader like he feels someone who is very comfortable to that older male demographic, probably because he looks and sounds like them and probably is somebody they feel that level of comfort with. We also saw older voters again a lot more focused on the Trump question. Young people were more focused on affordability and housing and were kind of frustrated with the way things were going, whereas older voters were scared out of their socks about Trump and very confident in trying to handle that. At the same time, polyev, to a lot of older voters, looks very Trumpy at a time when they're not looking for that. So, yeah, we saw the big demographic shift and a bit of a resetting of the vote coalitions and whether or not that's temporary or long term, I don't know, we'll see.

Dan Arnold:

I'd imagine the Liberals will try to recalibrate to kind of help themselves with the groups where they are weaker and we just, you know we talked about, you know, getting people who can communicate with young people as part of your team. I think that's important when it comes to that demographic. You know the cabinet certainly named three ministers from Brampton. So clearly they saw the big drop in liberal support in Peel region among South Asian voters as something they needed to address. So you know, I think they are taking some steps. I'm sure there'll be some other steps with, again, younger men and things like that. But you know, ultimately the parties will try to readjust and even the Conservatives were running as targeted towards old dudes the last week of the campaign. So they were, you know, even within the campaign, trying to kind of readjust there and that will kind of tell whether or not this is a temporary blip or more of a longer term trend, I guess.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, absolutely Well said, and you pointed to a few things that I want to ask you as a segue into my next question about you know, pierre Polyev, really, as we mentioned and saw with the data that younger vote came through for him. But, all that being said, he did lose his own seat and now he plans to run in a by-election in Alberta. So what kind of message does that send when a party leader can't even hold on to their own riding, and does that shake up public confidence for the party?

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, I don't know. It is interesting though, because I was crunching the numbers after the election. It's like Christmas morning when the spreadsheet comes out that has all the election results. You can start sorting things and looking at changes and all that. And if you look at the conservative vote change riding by riding the ridings where they went down the most. The top three, I think, are all in Quebec and largely around Quebec City, but outside of Quebec the riding where the conservatives had their biggest drop was Carleton from 2021 to 2025. So you know, some of that is demographics have changed in Carleton and people have moved from the core to the outer city and some of them are bureaucrats and things like that.

Dan Arnold:

But I do think there was something about Polyev, and my hypothesis would be that this is somewhat convoy related as well too. He was a big supporter of the convoy, which is I lived in Ottawa and not popular here, to put it mildly. So you know, I think there was a bit of a personal rejection from the voters because of that in his writing. Whether or not that people nationally really care about that or not by the time the next election comes around, I don't think so. Like you'll have a seat and it's probably not a big deal, but it does weaken him to some extent.

Dan Arnold:

If the question is, does Polyev stay around or is he going to get kicked out by his party? On the one hand, their vote went up. They want more seats. It's a minority. I think those are all things that work in his favor. On the other side, he did lose his seat. He didn't win an election that looked like they were going to win. He's made some enemies in provincial parties and things like that. So all these things kind of are factors. And if people are looking for excuses to speak out against him or to say he shouldn't stick around, saying you lost your seat is one more thing you can kind of point to as like proof that maybe voters don't really like what you're selling as a leader.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, no, well said. And I think those are a lot of questions. And I think that's where maybe people are confused, like they did well in the polls, with regards to getting a lot of vote out but at the same time their leader's not there. A lot of vote out, but at the same time their leader's not there. A lot of finger pointing of what happened and blaming of some premiers, which has just been interesting to see, all this kind of blow up. But to your point, I think you're right. I think people might forget about this, to be honest, especially if he's being embraced with open arms out in Alberta, assuming that he does win that by-election. We'll have to see and wait for Carney to make that call.

Julia Pennella:

But I want to shift the conversation a little bit more to what's happening in Alberta and this sense of Western alienation that's been happening. You're from Alberta originally, so we'd love to get your perspective on that. And I want to first ask you Polaro has been tracking Western alienation for years now and the numbers haven't been calming down exactly. Can you walk us through what you've been seeing in the data and how has sentiment in Alberta and Saskatchewan maybe more specifically evolved over the last maybe five years. And I want to point out, back in February your organization found that 23% of rural Albertans said they would vote to separate, compared to about 15% in Calgary and Edmonton. So where do you think these numbers stand today and have those dynamics shifted?

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, so Polaroid has done a twice a year study on Western identity for about five years and over that time period, I'd say support for separatism in Alberta and Saskatchewan has usually been around 20% plus or minus. We've seen some other polling come out in the last few weeks that might suggest it's higher than that now, and the fact that Daniel Smith has kind of put it on the table and put the question out there could, by just her talking about it, actually drive up support for separatism. So I think we'll certainly refresh those questions and get something out for media at some point to see how that has changed. Because, yeah, I think this is going to be a thing as a country we're going to have to deal with for the next year or two.

Dan Arnold:

Trump was the defining issue of the election campaign and what Carney was elected to do. A year from now, the thing that he may be dealing with first and foremost is an Alberta referendum. Like Daniel Smith has lowered the threshold for a citizen initiated referendum to the point where we're probably going to get one in Alberta and anytime there's a separatism referendum, even if it's not likely to succeed like that's a big deal. And Carney from you know, being somebody who is himself from Alberta, or at least lived there for a long time growing up. You know there's an interesting dynamic there. I think that kind of comes into play and it's something he's going to have to put near the top of his priority list, I think, for the next year, because it's a national unity situation that as a country we're going to have to figure out.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, good points, and I'm curious too, from again your perspective, or maybe what the data is showing what do you think is behind this anger and this really push and want to separate? Is there any specific, would you say, issues that we can point to, to look at where this is all stemming from?

Dan Arnold:

Yeah, from the research that the Polaris done, I would say, unlike Quebec separatism, it's not so much a movement that's driven by identity or a sense that there's a unique culture. There is certain people who feel that way, but that's the driving force. In Quebec, it's about our identity. In Alberta, it's driven more by a sense of alienation, feeling excluded, feeling like they're not listened to and more policy-driven, to some extent, feeling that Ottawa doesn't respect Alberta's industries and is misaligned with kind of what people want there. To that end, I think Carney needs to be showing that he is listening. If the biggest kind of problem is people feel not listened to, he needs to make sure he puts the time in and is there frequently and is meeting with people and just, you know, show that there's that back and forth, that he actually is taking local considerations into his thought process. You know, there's going to be a few places, though, where the rubber sort of hits the road and he won't be able to do everything Daniel Smith wants. I mean, she's basically mandating, like she's basically put a list of demands out that is saying, if I was prime minister, this is what I'd like to see. You should do this then, or else we're going to have a referendum for all intents and purposes, and you know, premiers of provinces don't get to decide whether or not plastic straws are banned or not, like, it's just not up to the Alberta premier to make these types of decisions. So there's going to be some things around clean energy and emissions and mandates that Carney's not going to do and I'm curious where it goes from there. Like, is she going to try to fuel the flames a bit more? And we've seen her do this in the past where she gets up and you know says Ottawa's out to screw us over and indirectly is sort of fanning those flames of separatism. So yeah, it's going to be a difficult situation for sure in the next couple of years.

Dan Arnold:

But I think, as a first step to lower the temperature a bit, carney can spend time out in Alberta. I think he's having a first ministers meeting there. He'll be there for the G7. I'm sure he'll go out a few times to go cheer on the Oilers and he'll be at the Stampede in his cowboy hat and he'll be there a lot in the next little bit and I think that'll be a good first step. He's not, if you pull on Carling's personal brand, it's not that bad in Alberta, like he's not the big. So I think people will give him the benefit of the doubt. And while there is that goodwill out there, I think it's up to Carney to kind of build that by putting the time in.

Julia Pennella:

Yeah, absolutely, and very well said. I think you're right Like this concept of him because he has that unique background coming from Alberta, being born in the Northwest Territories I think it gives a bit more of a personable touch. I would assume, Again, not from there, but I think that really plays a factor into it of knowing actually what the culture is in the area and it should be interesting. My guts telling me, or my thoughts around it is because he's from Alberta, he's been exposed to the oil and gas industry. It's not like it's something that's a foreign concept to him. So I think there might be investments in that. I think there's a reality. We're not going to go cold turkey in Canada, especially when we're talking about economic development, tariffs and oil and gas being, you know, one of our main revenue sources. But at the same time, that balance of we'll be seeing more investments in renewable energy and green policies. So I think all of those things are in place. So really well said.

Julia Pennella:

That's a wrap on this episode, but don't go too far. Dan will be back for part two. As we take a deeper dive into Alberta's separatist movement, We'll also explore what the data is telling us what a potential referendum could look like in Alberta and what's really fueling these growing feelings of alienation and separatism. There's a lot more to unpack, so make sure to tune in for part two. I'm your host, Julia Piniella, and this is let's Talk Politics.