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EP668: Ian Robertson - Why Canada Matters
82 Plays10 days ago
“What I want Canada to be, and I think this is where Pierre can take us, is a country that is so full of opportunity that we need to open our doors even bigger to have the best and the brightest come in because our economy is growing.”
In a time when politics, business, and economics feel like a house of mirrors, this episode breaks down why Canada still matters—and what it will take to keep it that way. From affordability crises to bloated bureaucracy, it’s not about ideology anymore—it’s about survival. This conversation draws a sharp line between stakeholder control and individual freedom, between bureaucratic sprawl and a thriving economy rooted in opportunity.
Ian Robertson reflects on lessons from Mike Harris’ era, where clear communication, common-sense leadership, and policy courage turned third-place polls into governance victories. He outlines how Pierre Poilievre’s focus on clarity and urgency parallels that legacy, and why the fight today is not just political—it’s structural. Whether it’s reforming immigration policy or slashing government bloat, Ian argues that Canada must choose between decline or regeneration.
Ian Robertson is a seasoned political strategist and corporate advisor. A veteran of both Canadian politics and Bay Street, he’s the CEO of Jefferson Hawthorne.
Lean more & connect:
Jefferson Hawthorne – https://www.jeffersonhawthorne.com
Also in this episode:
Nicky’s recent appearance with Ezra Levant on rebel News: https://x.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1909372778232377816
Book: Values: Building a Better World for All by Mark Carney
Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
Recommended
Transcript
Canada's Bureaucracy and Public Service Reforms
00:00:03
Speaker
We have a massive bureaucracy in Canada who don't know what they're doing, not executing policy the way that they should be. I think there needs to be massive structural reforms to our our broader public service.
00:00:14
Speaker
A country that has 51% of its population employed by the broader public service is destined to fail. It's as simple as that. Because one thing for the government to set the policy appears in there, you have this massive entrenched primarily liberal left-leaning bureaucracy who's going to fight tooth and nail to resist those changes. So you need to remember that that's part of the equation here as well.
Podcast Introduction by Nikki Ballou
00:00:37
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice.
00:00:55
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:05
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Ballou. And boy, do we have an exciting guest lined up for you today. Today's guest has a unique distinction. He's the only fellow that I've ever interviewed on the show that had the technology blow up and the entire interview disappeared. And it was an incredible interview.
00:01:26
Speaker
And, you know, he's been such a good sport about it that we decided to do it
Ian Robertson's Career Journey
00:01:29
Speaker
again. I'm speaking, of course, of none other than the one, the only, the legendary Ian Robertson. Welcome in. Thank you for having me, Nicky.
00:01:37
Speaker
So brother, um for the benefit of the folks who did not get to listen to your amazing introduction when you and I originally did it, tell us your backstory. How'd you get to be the great Ian Robertson?
00:01:50
Speaker
Well, you're too kind. i yeah I have to humbly say there is no great Ian Robertson. There's just a bunch of people who I worked for who helped me have a successful career. um i have two distinct chapters to my 25 year long career now.
00:02:02
Speaker
ah The first one I spent working in politics, started working out for a really great leader, Mike Harris, working with his cabinet, a number of leaders there. I've worked for basically every conservative or reform leader over the last 20 years in some shape or form.
00:02:18
Speaker
um you know I grew up cutting my teeth on the books and the leadership of Preston Manning. Followed the Mike Harris legacy, the Stephen Harper legacy, Brian Mulroney, all of those guys.
00:02:29
Speaker
um I pivoted ah in about 15 years ago, had an opportunity on Bay Street. I developed what I thought was a completely useless skill set in politics, which was I was able to convince people to vote a certain way.
00:02:43
Speaker
And what I realized was there was a need for that in the capital markets, doing proile proxy fights, hostile takeholders, shareholder activism. um So I spent the last 15 years working on Bay Street's ah with with CEOs and boards of directors.
00:02:57
Speaker
In both of those chapters of my life, what I found was a couple things. Number one, ah it's the same pattern of predictable and preventable problems ah if the leaders only have the capacity and foresight to get their hands around those.
00:03:11
Speaker
So what my skill set has sort of developed over the years is to two things. Number one, ah helping de-risk problems. i you know In politics, they said I was a fixer. um I just looked at myself as a guy who liked to try and help out when there was complex problems that need solving.
00:03:25
Speaker
And on the flip side of that is a lot of leaders just don't have the bandwidth or capacity to really think through the challenging issues that they have on their plates because of the volume that's coming at them these days.
00:03:35
Speaker
So I try and help leaders sharpen their decision making and accelerate the decisions that they make and make them better. I like it. I like it. So let's unpack a bit of this. Sure. um What made you decide to get into politics in the first
Political Insights and Economic Policies
00:03:50
Speaker
place? How did you get connected to Mike Harris back in the mid 90s?
00:03:53
Speaker
Well, i am ah I'm probably an outlier. I came from a family of teachers and I married into a family of teachers. So you can imagine in the mid-1990s, you had Ontario was going down the drain. that Ontario had suffered through, ah you know, four or five years the Bob Ray NDP government, where, you know, I saw in that period when they were elected in 1990, a lot of promise, a lot of hope that was delivered to people.
00:04:20
Speaker
ah And just like every utopian vision, it turns out to be a myth alive and practice everything falls apart. um I came i started became a teenager when there was massive unemployment, um you know, a lot like today, right? ah Affordability was a challenge.
00:04:35
Speaker
And when I looked at the things and sort of ah looked at the landscape, you know, I i wasn't partisan. I was inspired by ideas. And when I looked at the very common sense ideas that Mike Harris and his team were putting out, you know, it just made sense to me. It made sense to me that at the end of the day, the closer you can put decision making and economic power to the individual and allow them more freedom of enterprise, the more successful you're going to be as a society. So that resonated with me.
00:05:01
Speaker
um I started out banging in lawn signs. My first one went on my parents' lawn, and they still tell the story when they came home ah ah from ah from teaching, and there was a Mike Harris lawn sign on their front porch. At the same time, the teachers union were rallying to stop them.
00:05:15
Speaker
That's pretty wild. That's pretty wild. That's awesome. Okay. So... Talk about why you think Harris got elected, because the NDP government of Ontario was the first time Ontario had elected an NDP government. It was an absolute shocker. Nobody expected um David Peterson's government to be defeated by the NDP.
00:05:37
Speaker
And when Bob Ray got in, I don't think anyone was more shocked than Ray himself. And he proceeded to absolutely destroy um Ontario's economy. And um The Tories in that election in 1990 had come in third, right?
00:05:54
Speaker
The NDP came first, the Liberals came in second, and the Tories came third. So how was it that in five short years, Mike Harris was able to turn the tables and defeat the socialists ah under Bob Ray and bring happy days to Ontario again?
00:06:13
Speaker
Well, look, I think this is a timely conversation. I think there's many analogous situations to where Canada finds itself right now. So um number one, I think, as I said, ah the the myth of this utopian society that can be created by these socialist ideologies was exposed to be a myth, right?
00:06:32
Speaker
um You didn't have, ah you know, a growing ah wealth for everybody, you actually had shrinking wealth. There was not employment for everyone, there was employment for very few. So step one was to have that myth exposed and the reality start to set in on people.
00:06:48
Speaker
um I think, you know, in 1995, what it became then a choice was the NDP, it was not the NDP, but between the liberals and the conservatives. um And if you look at the polls pretty much right up until the end, it was the liberals, the liberals, the liberals are going to win.
00:07:01
Speaker
um But what I think ah people weren't seeing ah was ah three things. Number one, ah the conservatives under Mike Harris ah had a very simple message, right, which was common sense for a change, right? They're going to change things by making common sense decisions and putting individual people back on the in control of their lives.
00:07:24
Speaker
One of the reference points that they used for that was ah Workfare. So there was a lot of ah you know money going out the door under the NDP to support the social welfare state. you know Unemployed people were getting paid more than some working people.
00:07:38
Speaker
So ah the Conservatives made that a focal point of their campaign and that became a wedge issue. Workfare became a wedge issue that really said, whose side is this government going to be on? Is it going to be on the side of the working people or is it going to be on the side of the lazy people who take the wealth from others?
00:07:53
Speaker
So that became a really great focal point. The second thing is um Mike Harris and the way he communicated ah was very clear, consistent. He spoke truth. um A lot of the message he had to deliver were not comfortable ones.
00:08:06
Speaker
People weren't going to like them. He was going to have to do a lot of unpopular things. And i remember hearing polling and looking at stuff around that time and he got credit because he was being honest with the people, with the situation they're in and the steps that were going to be taken ah to change that around.
00:08:23
Speaker
And then the third thing is Mike did a really good job of recruiting recruiting an excellent class of candidates around him. right So it was about making sure that you have people who were not from government for government, but having real people with real experience who could take government and turn it around.
00:08:40
Speaker
um One of the quotes I have many, Mike here, I wouldn't call them quotes, but tidbits of knowledge I've learned from him over the years. One of them was ah that when you start acting like the government you were elected to replace, it's time for you to go.
00:08:54
Speaker
So that was always inspiring to me. And I've always said, you know, I'm not, I'm in politics. I'm not in government. Yeah, man. I really liked that. I remember that time very, very well.
00:09:05
Speaker
um I lived at Young and Davisville then, and um the Tory candidate came to my door, and I recognized him from his signs. ah he He was the former chair of the TTC.
00:09:19
Speaker
i think his name was, I forget God, Al al Davis or something. um And he was an older guy. And as soon as ah as soon as ah he knocked on the door and I opened it, i yeah i i i said his name.
00:09:33
Speaker
And he said, You know who I am? I go, yeah, I'm voting for you, man. now i'm I'm all over you. And he was like so shocked because, you know, I guess he had to have a lot of conversation to try to convince people in the building. I said, you got to win.
00:09:44
Speaker
You know, um I wasn't in Ontario in 1990. I was ah in university doing my master's at Georgetown ah in Washington. And I was shocked that we had elected an MVP government.
00:09:57
Speaker
Absolutely shocked. Flabbergasted, as a matter of fact. And I said, no, we've we've got to get these bastards out of here because they are the devil. I mean, socialists, in my opinion, are are are the antichrist and the devil.
00:10:09
Speaker
And ah I don't think it's as simple as they're just, ah you know, folks who are well-meaning, but their ideas are are misguided. um I don't think that. I used to think that. I don't think that anymore.
00:10:24
Speaker
And Mike Harris was able to go from being third place in the polls to winning that election because he came across as being honest.
Comparing Political Strategies: Polyev and Harris
00:10:32
Speaker
He came across ah as ah being ready to tell the hard truths that people didn't want to hear necessarily.
00:10:39
Speaker
And yeah, i remember workfare was a huge issue. um And the other thing that was an absolutely huge issue was um the fact that for the first time,
00:10:50
Speaker
ah In Canadian history, at least since I'd been alive, most of the key recruits were people who were business people. I remember Al Palladini.
00:11:02
Speaker
You remember Al Palladini, Andy Palladini is a pal mine, was a commercial that he used to run on the radio all the time. And you had other folks that were um serious business people, Snowball and John Snowball and folks like that. They came in and they wanted to do good. This was actually a step down for them in life to be a politician, where most of the people that were running for the and NDP and the liberals, this was a step up. They were going to make more money by getting elected. So it it was a beautiful thing.
00:11:31
Speaker
um The time where Mike Harris was in charge of Ontario, I think, was the greatest ah period of governance in my lifetime in Ontario. And I'm i'm just wondering, um do you believe that right now Pierre Polyev is taking a page out of Mike Harris's book?
00:11:51
Speaker
And if so, how's he doing it? And if he's not, in what in which ways is he not? um I don't think it' it's the right way to look at it is is Pierre taking a page out of Mike Harris's book, right? Pierre and Mike are both taking a page out of the people's book and looking at really what they need and then having the courage to speak to it. So I know the left has started to you know push this idea that Pierre is populist, right? They're saying the same thing about Harris but and Pierre is MAGA. Well, he's not. He's just the first guy to show up and actually read the room correctly. right, which is that, um you know, people are struggling day to day, affordability, housing, energy, productivity, right? You know, these are the kinds of ah problems that people are actually dealing with. And I know the left has started to really push back and attack Pierre for still focusing on those when they want to be talking exclusively about tariffs, but that's because they know that those are losing issues for him, right?
00:12:45
Speaker
um And they don't have a solution to any of those things. ah To me, the question here is, you know, it's it's part about um this election, but it's more about, you know, who's going to be able to rebuild Canada, ah ah whoever the next leader is. I mean, we've been so debilitated by ah this Carney and Trudeau model of stakeholder capitalism where...
00:13:09
Speaker
You basically seed growth in every opportunity to a centralized regulatory body to make decisions. um To turn our economy back around, you need ah clarity of focus ah to really understand that tough decisions need to be made and the courage to do them quickly.
00:13:25
Speaker
The thing that I see in Pierre that I saw in Mike is what I call clarity of focus. there is a very clear a viewpoint on what needs to be done, but more importantly, the timeline and the expediency which it needs to be done with.
00:13:40
Speaker
um Mike had a great quote, which was ah to the effect of, by the time we're done, every blade of grass on the front lawn of Queens Park is gonna be trampled by protestors. And he didn't say that as ah as ah as a way to make a joke about it, but the reality was, we're gonna have to do a lot of unpopular things. We're gonna have to cut a lot of spending, especially the popular spending.
00:13:59
Speaker
But if we want to turn our Ontario around, that's what's required. I think Pierre's willing to and do that. I think he's the kind of leader who has not only the courage, but the clarity of focus ah to make that happen.
Elitism and Economic Awareness in Canada
00:14:12
Speaker
um One other thing I just say is you you mentioned the... the um ah the socialist ideology and approach. And what I've observed about this throughout history is that elites, particularly on the left-hand side of the ah political spectrum, have ah have a trick. And the trick is that they try and make the system so complex that the average person who's overworked, underpaid, and exhausted just stops trying to to just stop trying understand it.
00:14:39
Speaker
I mean, if you look back through history, I mean, Egyptian priesthoods would higher ah hide meaning in hieroglyphs. You know, medieval clergy would be chanting in Latin the average person couldn't understand it. When I look at what's happening now you have Mark Carney and Trudeau and all of these techcronnet techco ah technocrats, you spitting acronyms coming out of Davos.
00:14:59
Speaker
And what I see is the the the average person is so confused. They don't know the right questions to ask. And the consequence of that is the elite who are in charge are empowered by that. What Mike Harris did, and I think Pierre is is doing a good job, is is ah cutting through that, simplifying the problems and the challenges. Our problems are not so complex that we aren't able to fix them, right?
00:15:21
Speaker
The system that the left tends to use is actually brilliant. It deflects scrutiny by design because if you're struggling to keep up day to day, you won't have the mental bandwidth to decode you know climate index bond structures and you know integrated ESG reporting.
00:15:37
Speaker
And if you're exhausted, you're just not going to start protesting how the game's rigged against you. And when I look at this election, you know a lot of people have said you know Canadians are apathetic and they're not engaging. I just think Canadians are overwhelmed. and this is what I'm really concerned about because against that backdrop, you know Carney arrives not as a man of the people, but a man who understands how the system works because he helped structure it.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I think the temptation for a lot of voters is going to be, you know, they're weary from economic whiplash is to equate that incomprehensibility on economics with expertise and put a guy like him in charge when that's actually the opposite of what Canada needs.
00:16:16
Speaker
I don't think the voters are going to do that. i think the voters are smarter than that. um i think there's people who are. primarily liberal leaning, who couldn't stand Trudeau. And with him being out, some of those have come back to the fold.
00:16:32
Speaker
I don't see a big drop off of support for Pierre. Pierre's um support has been in that 39 to 44% range throughout.
00:16:44
Speaker
I don't know anybody personally who said, oh, Carney's in, well, I'm not going to vote for Pierre anymore. I just don't think that's a thing. It may be like anecdotally, there's a few examples of that, but I just don't think that's a thing.
00:16:57
Speaker
I also think that the Canadian people right now are very concerned about the future of this country. And the truth of the matter is, most Canadians that are younger can no longer afford um the Canadian dream.
Generational Economic Challenges and Political Style
00:17:15
Speaker
If you're a baby boomer and you already own your own house, you're in good shape because, you know, supporting Carney isn't going to really hurt you too much, right? Your assets or are valued at a pretty high level.
00:17:28
Speaker
You're hopeful that yeah Carney isn't going to damage him too much. You're going to be able to sell your house and have a nice nest egg and buzz off somewhere down south and live out your retirement years. you You're all good if that's something you want to do.
00:17:40
Speaker
But for folks that are under the age of 50, the Canadian dream is not something that they see being within their grasp.
00:17:51
Speaker
And I don't think those folks are going to be taken in by the carny lies for one moment. um I think that the polls right now are being skewed deliberately in a particular way to dishearten the right so that we won't push hard to get rid of the liberals.
00:18:09
Speaker
That's what they tried to do in the United States when Kamala Harris took over for Joe Biden. Joe Biden was losing to Donald Trump and losing badly. Kamala comes in. All of a sudden, the polls go up. Oh, my God, look, Kamala. Everybody loves Kamala. But I'm going, i don't know anybody who loves Kamala.
00:18:24
Speaker
Nobody thinks Kamala's great. I don't know anybody who loves Carney. Nobody thinks Carney's great. Now, is he smarter than Trudeau? Yeah. Is he smarter than Kamala? Sure. But is he somebody with a massive following?
00:18:36
Speaker
Heck no, not at all. And those commercials he made with Mike Myers, ah a man who is now admittedly an American citizen and pretending to be a Canadian are a joke.
00:18:47
Speaker
They're an absolute joke. What I think the Canadian people are seeing about Pierre is that he is... Honest, Honest Mike, we had Honest Mike, now we have Honest Pierre.
00:18:59
Speaker
He's telling the truth, the hard truths that the people need to hear. I think he's doing that. And there's an authenticity to him. He doesn't come across as a typical politician, even though he's been a politician for 20 years, he doesn't come across as a typical politician.
00:19:13
Speaker
And if you look at the rallies that he's been hosting across the country, He's been getting huge turnout for them. This is kind of like Trump rallies in the US.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I'm looking at these rallies and I'm going, you're telling me Pierre, who's drawing between four and 10,000 people to each of his rallies, which for Canada is unprecedented, is going to lose to this dry, boring, lying banker who's being more and more exposed as the days goes on. I just don't see it.
00:19:41
Speaker
Your comments, your thoughts. Yes, oh like I had a bunch of thoughts on this. You know, your comment to about Mike Myers kind of goes back to what I was saying about, you know, the elites creating this system, this structure. I was reminded of, if you've ever seen the Hunger Games, Cornelius so Snow ah presides over, ah you know,
00:19:58
Speaker
to do to press conditions for the populace. And he sits above the the the the crowd as the game maker and he has, you know, in my mind, if that's Carney, he's got Greta Thunberg on one side and Mike Myers on the other.
00:20:09
Speaker
And it's all about distraction, right? It's distraction. It's don't focus on what this is really about. it's It's distract the people and get through. um the ah The equation that's a problem, and i've been I've been hurt on so many conservative campaigns because of this, is that the NDP, again, aren't living up to their side of the bargain, right?
00:20:28
Speaker
They simply need to get to sort of 15%, 16%, and they're not doing that. The consequences are all those men. The latest poll I saw is the NDP is at 14%. they got Yeah, they got to get it up higher, even at two more points. Right.
00:20:40
Speaker
And what's the consequence of that? Well, Jagmeet, why is that happening? Well, Jagmeet has propped these guys up for for years. Right. It helped to manage the decline of Canada.
Conservative Voter Dynamics and Financial Influence
00:20:50
Speaker
ah It was very transparent in terms of why he did that so he could kind ah get his pension.
00:20:56
Speaker
But they have brought forward no new ideas. ah They've brought forward a very poor slef set of candidates. um So all of these issues help contribute to ah the and ah the Liberals ah bolstering their their support on the left.
00:21:09
Speaker
um They've also, I mean, the Liberals are fighting a three-way war because they also have to deal with ah the Bloc in Quebec. um When I look at the numbers and stuff, you mentioned the polling. What I always looked at was, ah first thing is there's a view amongst some pollsters, and I subscribe to this, that conservative voters are are usually underrepresented because they're actually at work. They have busy lives, right? They're blue collar.
00:21:35
Speaker
They don't have time to pick up the polls and comment on stuff, right? They're also highly suspicious. So there's a little bit of a theoretical discount you can put into the polling model um as part of that. 3%. three percent 3%. Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
um But I also know that conservative voters, um and this is why Mike was so successful at winning, was because he would turn out the the base portion of the conservatives at a higher rate than others. So a lot of this is going to come down to GoTV and who can actually turn out their vote, who's passionate and motivated at the end of it.
00:22:06
Speaker
And what i look at is as an early indicator for that is not only the pull ah ah the early polls, but also the dollars. Where's the money going, right? And by that calculation, the conservatives are doing very well. Lots of donations are going forward. Of course, Carney has had ah you know his elite technocrats ah step up once he was elected and his banker buddies. so um But that says that's just like $1 from from you know a bunch of wealthy people.
00:22:30
Speaker
If you look at though what the Conservatives have done over the last few years, I think they've really built a war chest based on individual motivation. And historically that turns into votes. I don't know anybody who's passionate about Carney. I do know a lot of people who are passionate about the Conservatives. And I think that's going to translate into ah people actually turning out to vote on election day.
00:22:54
Speaker
I think that's going to happen in a big way. And I think that conservatives are going to come out and vote early, too. I mean, i got a bunch of emails from the conservative um brain trust saying, bank your vote now, bank your vote now. And I'm probably going to do that. I'm probably going to go and vote early ah and and get it done.
00:23:13
Speaker
um I went on Rebel News yesterday. I was interviewed by Ezra Levant. I think the interview is coming out today, fingers crossed. And I made the case to the Rebel News base, which many of whom are likely um PPC voters. And in fact, I got to tell you, for the first time in the last election, I voted for the PPC because I was disgusted with Aaron O'Toole. I thought he he he and there was no daylight between him and and and Justin whatsoever.
00:23:40
Speaker
um But I just think that voting for the PPC this time risks ah electing the liberals to a fourth term. And as much as I love Max, I think he's great.
00:23:52
Speaker
And I think it's important that he's there and he's forcing the conservatives to be more conservative, which I think is a good thing. The Overton window has moved because of him. this is too important election for people to waste their votes. It just is.
00:24:06
Speaker
And that's why I went on, on a rebel news. And I said, Hey guys, I know you um are a little disappointed in the Tories and I can appreciate that, but now's not the time.
00:24:17
Speaker
Now's the time. to find out who your 80 percent, 90 percent friend is. You don't have to have ah the Tories ah agree with you 100 percent of the time. But if they agree with you 80, 90 percent of the time, if they're about ah tightening up bail laws so that ah criminals don't get put back on the street the very day after they murder people and rape people, if you're about um tightening up the border so American guns don't come into Toronto, if you're about axing the carbon tax, if you're about reducing income taxes by 15%, if you're about um an extra $5,000 in TFSA because ah you're ready to invest that money in Canadian corporations, if you're about building pipelines so we don't have to rely on
00:25:03
Speaker
the United States being our one and only major international customer, and we can start to have them be one of several big customers. If all of those make sense to you, Pierre Polyev's your guy, because Pierre Polyev's actually got a chance of being the next prime minister, and Max Bernier does not.
00:25:22
Speaker
He has admitted he's not going to be elected prime minister this time. He understands that. And he's attacking Pierre pretty hard. And I appreciate that. This is politics. You've got to try to make your point and draw distinctions between you and the other guys. And that's his job.
00:25:35
Speaker
And we can't fault him for that. But what we can do is we can talk to a lot of his supporters and say, hey, guys. Maybe this time, if instead of 6% of the vote going to PPC, 3.5% goes to the PPC, and 2.5% of that goes to the conservatives, that can be the difference between a fourth liberal term and a conservative government that will...
00:25:59
Speaker
honestly put Canada first and make Canada great again. and I think it's ridiculous to call Pierre a MAGA guy. MAGA is about America. It's make America great again. Pierre is about make Canada great again, if you
Polyev's Moderate Conservatism and Political Debates
00:26:11
Speaker
want to say that. So, you know, he says Canada first.
00:26:14
Speaker
So it's ridiculous to call him a MAGA guy. And I think the liberals ah really, they they need to shut up about their supposed patriotism because there's nothing patriotic about how they've governed this country for the last nine and a half years.
00:26:27
Speaker
Quite the opposite. In fact, I think it's borderline treasonous what they've done to Canada. yeah Yeah, you know, the the whole idea that Pierre is a radical, that the left started to push that. I mean, he's not proposing some sort of, you know, far right revolution. He's simply proposing a return to reality.
00:26:44
Speaker
And I guess right now that's radical enough for some people, given the state that we're right He's a middle of the road conservative, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um you know, when I look at sort of the trajectory of this campaign, first of all, the reality is most people are not paying attention to this campaign yet the way that you and I are.
00:27:01
Speaker
um And i think I think the Conservatives have the right message. I think they just need to stay disciplined, stay focused on what actually matters. Because if you look back through the polling, right tariffs suddenly spike for obvious reasons.
00:27:15
Speaker
But the pocketbook issues that he's been talking about for three, four years, they they remain there. right Those are going to exist after the tariff issue it goes off the front so front pages. They're going to be actually probably worsened after that. Right. So I think he's got the right message. He's staying focused.
00:27:29
Speaker
Um, the polls will break in the final couple of days. That always happens. Uh, you know, everyone likes to put a big spotlight on the debates. Um, this, this could be an interesting, uh, debate, uh,
00:27:40
Speaker
Because first all, you have five people up there, two of which probably have no business actually being on the stage. I'm not sure what Jagmeet's actually going to be adding to this conversation. But when you look at the contrast between ah Pierre and Carney, I think you're going to see a couple of things.
00:27:57
Speaker
ah Number one, Pierre is going to be a straight talker. He is going to speak to the person at home and tell them some unpopular truths. ah But if you're willing to make some tough decisions, there's hope at the end of the rainbow.
00:28:11
Speaker
ah And I think that's going to go a long way. Carney, on the other hand, is going to preach, right? His model is to preach and explain why his ideas, ah why centralized authority, um why that is the right way to go. And I don't think that's going to come over well.
00:28:26
Speaker
um The second thing is Pierre is an experienced political operative. He's an experienced political debater. I first met Pierre when I was 22 in university. and You know, this is a guy who is very adept at explaining complex ideas simply.
00:28:41
Speaker
And also not letting left wing politicians advance arguments on false premises. So I personally am looking forward to the debate. I think Pierre is going to destroy Carney.
00:28:53
Speaker
I think we're thirty to, ah you know, trip over his complexity and get exposed. um You know, I yeah i say this ah not to be an alarmist or extremist, but I think that a lot of the ideas that Carney is putting forward are very, very, very dangerous to Canada.
00:29:09
Speaker
If you look at this model of stakeholder capitalism um that he's been advancing for for years along with the World Economic Forum, if you've ever read his book Values, it's very clear that he does not believe in a ah capitalist market where there is opportunity and free choice.
00:29:28
Speaker
ah His model is to centralize control, ah limit opportunity and distribute it as he sees fit. And I think that is very, very dangerous for Canadians. um If they say, OK, well, you know what, let's ah let's forget the people and look at the policy ideas.
00:29:44
Speaker
I mean, what I've seen for ah Carney put out, it's a formula to manage the continued decline of Canada. The issues that he's co-opted from Pierre because he knows they're popular and the right thing to do, um those aren't enough to fundamentally change the direction of the kind country. It's enough to maybe get him the election, but it's not enough to actually change the trajectory of the country.
00:30:04
Speaker
i And that's what I'm worried about and I hope people really look at is what are the economic ideas that are gonna drive this? So when you look at um the CPC, this is what this brings me to.
00:30:15
Speaker
ah As again, I've been in the party for for over 30 years. I am always astounded and disappointed at our ability to fight amongst the family and trip over ourselves to get something done, going all the way back to when Preston Manning was trying to advance things federally.
00:30:31
Speaker
So what does that mean? Well, I think a lot of the divides on the right side of the political spectrum spectrum tend to fall on social ideology. um the The way I look at this and where I think Canada is, is we don't have the luxury of debating a lot of these things right now. We have to get our economy turned around, allow individuals ah the opportunity to participate in a growing and prosperous society.
00:30:56
Speaker
And you do so under the belief that the best thing we can do to take care of social interests of everybody else is to create growing wealth and individual choice and individual opportunity for people. So on that basis, when you look at the CPC, I would say, you know what? ah The best way to get where you're going is to get a conservative government in place as quickly as possible.
00:31:14
Speaker
I agree. So here's the quote from Carney's book, Values. western society is morally rotten and it has been corrupted by capitalism this requires rigid controls of personal freedoms industry and corporate funding this is not a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better but temporarily worse this will be a world of severely constrained choice Less flying, less meat, more inconvenience, and temporarily more poverty.
00:31:42
Speaker
Assets will be stranded. Gasoline cars will be unsellable, and inefficient properties will be unrentable. Mark Carney, in his book, Values, Building a Better World for All.
00:31:54
Speaker
This is Mao Zedong. in a central banker's guise. This is a call to arms for everyone who believes in freedom to push this son of a bitch out of politics once and for all and return Canada to the hands of some good old fashioned middle of the road conservative like Pierre Polyev.
00:32:19
Speaker
To call him far right is absolutely insane. You know, to me, Elon Musk is a left of center. I've always thought him to be a left of center guy.
00:32:30
Speaker
You know, it's mind boggling to me that right now they're saying he's you know, a crazy far right guy. He's not, man. This guy is the most pro ah climate change, environmental um agenda guy that there is. He's done more to bring the green agenda to life than anyone in history.
00:32:54
Speaker
I actually don't agree with that. I actually think what he's doing is wrong, even though I invested in Tesla because I think he's a brilliant businessman.
Critiques of Economic Views and Regulatory Capture
00:33:01
Speaker
But if you're calling Elon Musk a far right individual.
00:33:07
Speaker
That says something to me about how crazy far left loon you are and you think. And I'm just wondering what your comments are on that, in particular, as it pertains to Pierre Polyev.
00:33:22
Speaker
Well, ah let me go back to what you your quote that you had ah from values and the comparison to Marxist and socialism. um The difference here, and this is not a good difference, the original ah you know ah communist socialist experiment required the government to seize the means of production, right take over the means of production to control society.
00:33:43
Speaker
Stakeholder capitalism's model does the same thing, but rather than actually physically taking control of the means of productions, they've created a regulatory and ideological capture over the people who control the means of production. And and that's in many ways more dangerous. It's harder to recognize.
00:34:00
Speaker
It's harder to control. um If you think about ah how that is done, it's there's two levers the government uses. Number one, and this is totally true in Canada, just reflect on your know your own experience if you're a business person, is um on the incentive side, you can only be a successful growing business in Canada if you take subsidies. like That is a reality. you've got to get government handouts to be successful because the government has used yeah ESG and social policy to restrict the normal levers of growth.
00:34:30
Speaker
ah energy policy being a prime example, right? All of that's been restricted under the stakeholder capitalism model. On the other side of that, there's a punitive measure the government uses, which is we live in such a massively regulated country that anyone who would think about stepping out of line is going to get a slap on the wrist from the regulators. And if they don't get a slap on the wrist, anything that they want to do is going to get hamstrung and blocked, right?
00:34:53
Speaker
Bill C-69 is a prime example. Nothing is ever going to get built in Canada again under these principles. So when I look at it from this perspective, I don't think that it's very extreme to to liken ah the vision that Carney has to to some of the greatest socialists our world has ever seen.
00:35:12
Speaker
The most notorious, you mean, because there's nothing great about a socialist. That's true. Point taken. You know, stakeholder capitalism is just a new word and a fancy crypto word for fascism.
00:35:28
Speaker
This is how Hitler and Mussolini controlled the economies of Italy and Germany. If you go back and you study Italy in the 20s and Germany in the thirty s The governments in power there started to put ideologically friendly people in charge.
00:35:45
Speaker
And they basically told them that if they want to do business, they need to parrot the party line. And they did. They all did. You know, Krupp did.
00:35:55
Speaker
IG Farben did. BMW did. All those major companies did. And they did the government's bidding. There's no such thing as stakeholder capitalism. It's another word for fascism.
00:36:08
Speaker
Mark Carney is a Mussolini-style fascist. Well, look, here's what I would say. History always ends up the same way. So in every one of those examples you you ah presented, central planning ideology is always destined to collapse on itself. and what happens is you can have a system that can't sustain itself. if you can't generate the wealth and the prosperity to sustain itself, it's destined to collapse.
00:36:33
Speaker
If you look at the last 10 years of what's happened in Canada, that's all the proof we need, right? We have stopped growing, right? We have stopped growing. We have chosen to lock up our natural competitive advantages, you know, resources, ah energy in Canada. Those have all been shackled under this idea that we needed to be somehow have this moral capitalist mindset.
00:36:53
Speaker
um But like, let's think about where we're really at on this. So i First of all, stakeholder capitalism didn't spring from the minds of some free market economists, right? This was dreamed up by ah ah ah Charles Schwartz and some Chinese, ah some other state capitalists at Davos.
00:37:12
Speaker
It's indoctrinated. It was created by Benito Mussolini in 1923. Go read your history. Those guys stole it from him. But they get they get the slogan to it. They put a nice new bumper sticker on it. Right, because if you call it fascism, everyone's going to shun you.
00:37:29
Speaker
That's it. They had to chain that to rebrand it. But they are Mussolini's ideas. Yeah, and if you look, so this is really interesting, right? So if you look at this from the historic perspective, the world's polarizing.
00:37:39
Speaker
You have the state-centric models of the east of Russia and China on one hand. You have ah the US under the shareholder-in-chief trajectory going back to the shareholder-centric model and all the free market capitalism that comes with that.
00:37:54
Speaker
Canada, as a small midsize economy, along with a couple other European nations, we simply can't survive under this model that's been proven not to work. So the question is, do we choose to evolve ah ah or or I say, yeah, return to the shareholder centric model that built our country, or are we going to be pushed and prodded and pulled into a vacuum of state centric capitalism because we're unwilling to stand up against these ideas?
00:38:20
Speaker
And when I look at that, the the the choice before voters, this campaign, that's what this is about. It's about what type of economic structure do you want to exist in? Not for the next two or three years, but I think if Carney wins and is able to entrench this model further in our bureaucracy and in our social institutions, it is going to be a 20 year turnaround. Canada will have to have to get out of the hole. He's going to put us in.
00:38:42
Speaker
Well, listen, my family immigrated to Canada and I'm in, you know, I'm a proud Canadian, but, um, We know how to leave a country that's not working. And if we have to, we'll do it again.
00:38:54
Speaker
I'd rather not. I'd rather stay here. I love this country. But we escaped tyranny once. i'm not going to I'm not going to consign myself and my family to living under tyranny again if that is the direction the country goes in.
00:39:08
Speaker
But we need to fight for what we have here. I think it's very important that Pierre Paulyev gets elected. um I've given money to the party. I'm voting for him. I'm doing everything I can to convince people to vote conservative this time around.
00:39:23
Speaker
um Before we land the plane on this episode, I want to ask you about one thing that I think Pierre has not talked about enough, and that's the whole um immigration and migration issue.
Immigration Policies and Economic Impact
00:39:38
Speaker
Let's face it, Canada prior to Justin Trudeau had a very solid immigration system. We brought in really high level people into the country that would make the country better.
00:39:49
Speaker
Under Justin Trudeau, he's basically opened the floodgates, especially the last four years and let in 1.2 million people a year, almost 5 million people in four years. That has been an absolutely massive increase in the size of our population.
00:40:04
Speaker
And I think it's part of what's driving um the problems we have with unemployment and housing costs being out of control. And I wonder what your thoughts are on how Pierre needs to deal with this over the next few years if he gets elected prime minister.
00:40:19
Speaker
Well, what you just described is proof point number one when social ideology trumps good economic policy, right? i I think the model that I subscribe to and I would hope the Conservatives subscribe to is let the economic needs of the country dictate our immigration practices.
00:40:36
Speaker
um That's not about being you know mean or or or you know ah picking and choosing who comes in. It is simply saying that to keep this a prosperous nation prosperous and continuing to advantage all who live here and all who want to come here, we need to take an economically principled a view when we're constructing our immigration policy. It's very simple.
00:40:57
Speaker
I immigrated here, my family. We had to agree to invest a certain amount of money in a Canadian business to be allowed here um and hire a certain number of Canadians um to work for us.
00:41:11
Speaker
And we did that. That was what we had to do in order to be allowed to immigrate to Canada. I think that that's what immigrants ought to do. They ought to be people who are the best of the best And all those folks who've come here on specious premises need to be sent back to their home country. And I think that's about three and a half million people that are here on so-called student visas.
00:41:37
Speaker
They need to be willing to have the largest deportation program in Canadian history. And I think it's not a bad idea to put a moratorium on immigration for at least a year so we can just get let only the very best of the best in. So, you know, we'll make exceptions to it and then we can open up immigration again. And yeah, we should be very much ah focused on who are we letting in? We should pick and choose who we allow into the country.
00:42:02
Speaker
Not everybody should get to come to Canada. You know, one of the things that I think that Trump is doing that is brilliant is this whole gold card concept. You want to be an American citizen? Okay.
00:42:14
Speaker
can pay $5 million dollars for a gold card, and then you can become an American citizen. And It's a lot of money. They sold a thousand of those in 24 hours. A thousand, that's $5 billion dollars that went into the U.S. Treasury. And the people that can afford to buy those gold cards are people who can afford to set up businesses here.
00:42:33
Speaker
And I think that's the sort of thing that might make sense for Canada to consider. We started out by talking about the 1990s and what was going on in Canada at the time. I remember when the NDP um were in charge in Ontario, ah you know, immigration was a big focal point, right? There was a lot of conversation about that that led in part to the to the workfare policy Mike Harris had.
00:42:52
Speaker
And I remember thinking then, and I've seen this play out time and time again over cycles in history, is immigration comes to the forefront ah when there's limited opportunity. Right. And it becomes you know a way to point and say, well, they're coming in and they're taking our jobs.
00:43:07
Speaker
What I want Canada to be, and I think this is where Pierre can take us, is a country that is so full of opportunity that we need to open our doors even bigger to have the best and the brightest come in because our economy is growing.
00:43:19
Speaker
People, we need those mind and we want those people to have here. And I think that's part of the thing that Pierre doesn't get credit for is he has a very hopeful vision of the future, a very hopeful vision for what Canada can be.
00:43:30
Speaker
um Whereas, you know, Carney's view seems to be we need to, you know, ah bolster things, the bolster the fences, lock things down. You know we need more structure and control um as opposed saying we have a great country, great resources that have been tied up. We need to release the shackles and let our people in our country go.
00:43:47
Speaker
I think that's definitely true. But if we don't get a handle on immigration and letting the right people into the country, i fear for the future of the country. You cannot just willy-nilly like Europe did, open the floodgates and let anyone and everyone into the country.
00:44:02
Speaker
If you're bringing people into Canada, they need to assimilate to to the Canadian system, the Canadian set of values. That was what we had to do. And I don't want people coming in here who are not going to adopt our values, who are not going to make this country a better place. I think that's a mistake.
00:44:19
Speaker
And have been a lot of transnational criminal gangs that have brought people into the country. ah And basically, they're robbing Canadians blind right now. And that's one of the things that Trudeau did that I'll never forgive him for.
00:44:34
Speaker
You know, ah it's a terrible and horrible thing that that that's happened. And all of that, yeah it's important that a conservative government say, look, yes, we're all for a hopeful future for Canada, but Canada for Canadians first, let's get the country ah sorted out. And I think it's going to take two to four years to do that. And then we can look at who we let in and under what auspices.
00:44:57
Speaker
Well, let's let's also distinguish here between the policy objections objectives and the actual implementation. We have a massive bureaucracy in Canada who don't know what they're doing, um you know probably are asleep at the switch on a lot of these issues, not executing policy the way that they should be.
Reforming Canada's Public Service and Workforce
00:45:14
Speaker
So whenever we're talking about like reforms and things that need to change, I think there needs to be massive structural reforms to our our broader public service. um It's, you know, a country that has 51% of its population employed by the broader public service is destined to fail. It's as simple as that. It is.
00:45:29
Speaker
ah We need to deal with that, put accountability measures in place, because it's one thing for the government to set the policy of peers in there. But you have this massive, entrenched, primarily liberal, left-leaning bureaucracy who's going to fight tooth and nail to resist those changes. so we need to remember that that's part of the equation here as well.
00:45:47
Speaker
I do remember that. And, you know, one of the things that I think we need is we need Canada's version of Doge. We need to come in there with somebody who has a stature in Canada as a serious businessman or businesswoman who's willing to step away from from their business for a while and come in and reform our government and reform our public service.
00:46:09
Speaker
And that necessarily means cuts. Large cuts, cuts that'll probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 percent of the federal workforce.
00:46:21
Speaker
And I believe that there'll be a lot of hue and cry from um the left on this. But it's the best thing that could happen for Canada. If the Americans could do it, if the Argentinians can do it under Javier Millet, there's no reason why we can't do it.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, this isn't a choice anymore. It's a necessity. We have a massive structural deficit that needs to be dealt with. I will disagree with you on one point, which is i don't I don't like the idea of bringing in somebody else or striking an extra commission to deal with too much bureaucracy.
00:46:48
Speaker
My solution to this is to take a playbook, a page into the playbook from ah public corporations. And what that means is instill say on pay for cabinet so that what they need to do for every cabinet minister in their ministry, they have specific targets and deliverables. Part of that would be cutting the the public service.
00:47:07
Speaker
ah It's transparently measured. If they accomplish it, they get paid. If they don't, they get their pay cut. I guarantee you that will force reforms without having to- about zero pay? How about you get no pay if you don't accomplish it?
00:47:20
Speaker
That's what Warren Buffett said, that if you want the people in charge in Congress to get paid, they've got keep spending to a certain level. And if they don't, they don't get paid. and He said, boy, would they be on top of that in a nanosecond.
00:47:35
Speaker
Well, there's there's versions of it. But, you know, what I've learned throughout my career is performance follows the money, right? The dollars will incent the behaviors that you want. um I'm always very, very worried ah by ah governments, especially conservative ones who get in with bold change agendas, because what tends to happen is ah cabinet ministers get co-opted by the bureaucracy in the early days.
00:47:57
Speaker
ah They get all these really big binders that tell them why it's harder to do the thing that they wanted to do. You couldn't actually do it. Throw the binder away. Yeah. Some ministers will say, hey, I have this really nice car and driver now, and maybe we don't need to go as fast.
00:48:11
Speaker
ah That's always the danger when you have these things. So, you know, whatever the the degree is, I think there's transparency and aligned assessments are now they never a bad thing. Amen.
00:48:22
Speaker
Ian Robertson, man, great to have you on the show. So if people want to find out more about you or get hold of you, what's the best way? You can check me out on LinkedIn or check out our website, which is jeffersonhawthorne.com.
00:48:35
Speaker
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Ian, I got to tell you, this has been a fantastic conversation, different from the type of conversation I normally have, which is very business focused. But this election is too important. That's why I was glad to have you on the show.
Episode Conclusion
00:48:49
Speaker
God bless you, man. Thank you for everything that you've done for Canada and for keeping freedom alive here. And I wish you all the best and all the success. Appreciate you having me. My pleasure. And that's wrap.
00:49:02
Speaker
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