August 20, 2025 • 49 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Stephen Adler of National Pubic Relations and a conservative about his article on: “Leadership review is a defining test for Ontario Liberals”. Stephen is the Senior Director of National Pubic Relations and discusses the upcoming Liberal Party convention in Ontario and the required leadership review vote that follows every convention or election. He wrote an article analyzing the situation from a conservative perspective, focusing on the lack of discussion about the numbers and strategies needed to win for the current leader. Stephen notes that Bonnie Crombie needs to secure a strong majority to remain leader. He compares Bonnie's situation to Joe Clark's 1983 leadership review, where Clark received 66.7% of the vote but stepped down. Stephen explains that Crombie's chances of retaining her position depend on her ability to convince delegates of her leadership, as there are rumors of potential candidates including Karina Gould, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, and Marco Mendicino. Stephen outlines strategies he would recommend both to the Leader who wants to keep her job as well as what he recommends potential candidates if there is a new leadership campaign do.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio
r SO. The Liberal Party in Ontario has got a
convention coming up, and after every convention or after every election,
there's a rule that the next convention you got to
have a leadership review and vote. If there's a leader
that gets defeated, you got to have a vote on
whether you want that leader. And I'm not gonna, for
(00:38):
potentially obvious reasons for people that know what my last
name is, make any comments one way or other on
how I think people should vote or what I think
is going to happen. But Steven Adler wrote a really
interesting article that I read about what he thinks, and
the fact that he's a conservative that ended up commenting
on this, I think it makes even more interesting. And
he's going to, i think, talk about some examples from
(00:59):
the past in regards to Joe Clark, other candidates that
have gone up for other leaders that have gone up
for leadership review, and also potentially some examples and comparisons
with Pierre Paulieff Steven Adler I've had the privilege of
interviewing before. He's a senior public affairs strategist with a
twenty plus year track record of helping organizations navigate government,
manage crises, and communicate with authority. He's a senior director
(01:21):
at National Public Relations, Kenna's leading strategic communications firm that
Stephen leads complex files for high profile clients across sectors.
Translating risk into resilience and policy into progress. That's great,
leading translating risk into resilience and policy into progress. I
love that. What a great line, Steven.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I'll let you borrow it if you would like. Brian,
there's a good.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Line, Steven Adan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me. And it's great
to be back and it's great to be talking politics
again with you.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So tell me why did you write the article. You're
a conservative, why are you writing an article about the
liberal leadership?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So, first of all, I'm a political scientists to begin with,
and I find it fascinating from the education point of view.
But I really wrote the article because it seemed to
have become the public discourse potential leadership candidates versus the
current leader without any real discussion of what has to happen.
(02:20):
You know, you have a group trying to unseat the leader,
but they're really not talking about what are the numbers,
how can it be done? Hasn't been done before? And
that's what led me to write it And it was
fun to do the research and fun to write it
as well.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So tell me a little bit about the research. Who'd
you talk to? Would you do? So?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I spoke to some old time political people who've been
around forever. I also did desktop research and in my
research I found out that we've had a prime minister
who won a majority government but lost the seat in
Mackenzie King. I didn't know we had had a prime
minister who had lost their seat. We always think of
opposition leaders losing their seats in an election. And in
(03:06):
my research I went all the way back to Joe
Clark in nineteen eighty three, where and I remember sitting
and watching the convention with my late father. Joe Clark
received sixty six point seven percent of the vote and
everybody thought, that's great, he's gonna stay on. And he
takes the stage and goes to the podium and says
(03:27):
it's not enough to lead the country, and that became
the benchmark you need to get over sixty six percent
in a leadership review and it really got me thinking
about what number does Bonnie Crombie need to not win
but lead And there are two different things. The number
(03:48):
as you win the leadership part is controlling caucus in
the party.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But in you know, the leadership convention, which was what
you're to go, she got what fifty one percent and
it was only after three or four ballots, and so
you know, she didn't get that even on the first ballot.
So why is sixty six point seven percent such an
important number in a leadership review when fifty one percent
(04:15):
on the fourth ballot was okay?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Because in between, the people of Ontario have spoken and
the people of Ontario didn't elect her to a seat
in Mississauga where she had been mayor for a decade
or so, and the people of Ontario kept the party
at the third place party. We can get into the
(04:37):
why how it happened, but the main difference, as I say,
is one is based on party members looking to the future.
The leadership review is party members looking into the past
and were we good enough? And it's really two different questions.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Now, what's the Joe Clark you know experience. Would the
history is that he ran again and lost to Brian malroney.
Baroni went on to win the biggest majority in Canadian history,
I think it was, or if it wasn't the biggest,
it was almost the biggest majority in Canadian history. So
that would say that the Conservative Party and Joe Clark
(05:16):
made the right decision for him to step down. But
if he hadn't stepped down, probably he would have had
a good chance of becoming Prime Minister again, right.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
He might have, But this is also a case where
you know, it was a different generation. Joe Clark did
the honorable thing. He stepped down and then became a
candidate in the next leadership convention, And you're right, Brian
mulrooney wins the biggest majority possibly ever in the House
of Commons. And one of the first things that Brian
(05:46):
mulrooney did upon becoming leader of the Conservative Party was
to appoint a Joe Clark loyalist, Eric Nielsen, the number
two in the House and the opposition benches. Then, of
course he welcome Joe Clark into cabinet as Secretary of
State for External Affairs the right hand to Prime Minister mulrooney.
(06:08):
Where I'm going with this is there wasn't caucus disunity
funneling and fueling a second fight. You know, mister Clark
said it wasn't enough, he tossed his hat in the ring.
It was a legitimate fight, and then the caucus unified
around the new leader. What we're not seeing provincially with
(06:31):
the Liberal Party is the party and the entire caucus
publicly and privately rallying around the leader.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So I'm going to challenge you on that. I actually
I thought the caucus had rallied, but it was the
party that's the issue, or at least some former candidates.
So how do you separate out caucus versus party and
former leadership competitors.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So what I mean by the caucus not rallying around,
They're doing and saying all the right things, but no
one has an example step forward to offer their seat
to in a by election. Yes, the party and former
leadership candidates have thrown in their hats in the ring
and are muddying the waters. But just from my outsider
(07:16):
looking in, I don't see the overwhelming love in that.
We saw a year and a half ago when she
was first elected leader of the party.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So what do you think is gonna happen? What's your
sense of things? You've talked to lots of people. Give
me your analysis.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So you know, if if I could predict the future properly,
I would be in Vegas betting on next year's Super
Bowl before the NFL season begins. I don't want to
sound point when I say the following Miss Crombie is
either gonna get seventy five eighty percent or it's gonna
(07:54):
be below. I don't have a read on the delegate
tracking and where it's going. I will say this, it's
a horse race and the end result could be a
big victory for the incumbent leader. But to get those numbers,
Miss Crombie has to work every single hour of every
(08:17):
single day convincing the delegates that she deserves the right
to continue as leader. If she doesn't work hard, and
I'm not saying she's not, but if the work isn't
put in, then the number will creep up those against her.
And we're hearing names from everywhere. We're hearing former federal
cabinet ministers potentially being bandied around we're hearing current Liberal MPs,
(08:43):
We're hearing former provincial Liberal MPs all being asked if
there's a leadership fight, will you run. You're not asked
those questions unless you're putting things together in a potential
leadership fight.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
So tell us some of the names that you're hearing.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So I'm hearing Karina Gold, We're hearing Nathan ernsting Smith.
We're even hearing Marco Mendoccino possibly throwing his hat in
the ring. There are enough names being spoken about that
makes me think there is a grassroots movement that is
more than just aligned with one candidate who are displeased
(09:24):
with the results.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I'd heard I think the former mayor of Barry and
had heard the former Minister of Science and Technology Coret.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I've heard those names as well. I mean, one thing
we have to remember is that when a new leader
is elected, you want to get the leader into the
legislature as quickly as possible. That didn't happen. Then the
Liberal Party looked for ridings where she could run. Saint
Paul's was talked as a possibility of one, amongst others.
(09:54):
The former mayor of Mississauga runs in a Mississauga riding
and loses. We can discuss the fact that Patrick Brown's
mother in law won the seat. The Conservatives put a
lot of resources into it, but at the end of
the day, the former mayor couldn't hold the Mississauga seat,
and I think that's what's leading to a lot of
(10:15):
the concern amongst party members going into the leadership review.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest, Steven Adler of National Public Relations,
talking about the upcoming Liberal leadership review that's at the
Liberal Convention and what he thinks is going to happen.
Stay with us, ey one back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Stream US Live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Welcome back and going to the Bran Cromby Radio Hour.
I'm chatting tonight with Stephen Adler. He is a a
senior director with National Public Relations. He advised his companies
on politics, on public relations, on what's going on. He's
been active within the Conservative Party. How long, Steven, how
long you've been active within the Conservative Party.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So I got my first membership when I was twelve,
and that was in the Well that was nineteen eighty
three and former MP Decker's brother is the one who
got me my membership when I was that young in
the Hamilton area. I grew up with the stories of
Lincoln at Alexander and Sean O'Sullivan and Ellen Fairclose. So I'm
(11:35):
a conservative because of three trend centers in the Conservative
Party from days gone by.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, you and I have something to common. I got
my first membership when I was twelve years old too,
and voted in a Liberal leadership campaign where my second cousin,
Bob Nixon, was running for leader of the Liberal Party.
My great uncle is the leader. He was the premier
of Ontario in nineteen forty three and nineteen forty four,
(12:04):
the last Liberal leader for something like forty three years
until David Peterson became leader again.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And Steve Paikin goes out and meets with your cousin
every year or so, and they have lunch with the
former treasurer. And it's one of my favorite things to
watch is that interview with mister Nixon.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, Bob Nixon is a great guy. So I thought
it was interesting that you chose to write an article
about the Liberal leadership when you're a conservative, And why
did you Why did you decide to do that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Part of it is because going back to the election,
there's all this rhetoric coming out that it was a surprise,
surprise election. Because it was a surprise election, the Liberal
Party of Ontario wasn't as ready as they needed to be.
It wasn't a surprise election. People knew that the premier
was thinking about going before a federal election. History shows
(13:01):
that we have one party in power provincially in Ontario
and a different party in power in Ottawa. The surprise was,
you know, the prime minister resigning a Liberal leadership prime
Minister Carney, then Mark Carney becoming Prime Minister and going
to the polls. And so I was reading the rhetorican
spin about how part of the reason the Liberals weren't ready,
(13:23):
weren't prepared, was it was a snap election. And then
I remember watching the riding and it was a targeted
riding for me to observe because you have the mother
in law, Patrick Brown against the former mayor of Mississauga.
And I started hearing rumblings in week one, week two
(13:46):
that the numbers were close, that the Liberals were behind,
that it was all going to get out the vote,
and I was shocked because, in my opinion, on paper,
if you're the mayor of Mississauga running in a Mississauga ward,
you should be leaps and bounds ahead based on name recognition.
(14:07):
Then I started hearing things like the Consertives had sent
an a team in to run the campaign, and the
Liberals were struggling to get volunteers and were reallocating resources
to that riding. And then you know, the successor mayor
of Mississauga mayor Parish didn't openly endorse Bonnie Crombie, and
(14:33):
you had some counselors who were Liberals who were not
openly endorsing Bonnie Crombie in that riding. And I started
watching it. And then election night, the returns come in
and my WhatsApp is blowing up with numbers showing that
the Conseratives are winning it. And that's really what got
(14:53):
my thinking towards this leadership review was election night, in
the days and weeks leading up to it, and then
after the election, no one was thrown under a bus.
And in Canadian politics, we like to win, but we
like to blame someone if we lose, and no one
was thrown under the bus, which has now brought us
(15:16):
to the leadership, and that's part of why I wrote
I wrote that column.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So compare her situation if you could, with Peer Poliev.
So are you suggesting that you know Peer Polyev and
her both increased the vote chair, both increased the number
of seats, and both lost their writings. So why is
it different for her than Peer Poliev?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I think one of the biggest reasons is that the
grassroots of the Conservative Party overwhelmingly support mister Polyev is
the leader, and you had some disgruntleness that the election
was lost, but it was never a giant question of
whether or not mister Polyev would can continue as leader.
(16:02):
Election night, you had an MP step down and offer
his riding to mister Polyev as soon as a by
election could be called. And that is a big fundamental difference.
Kocs supported, the party supported, and there was a by
election quickly announced for him to run in. What do
(16:22):
you think is going to happen with mister Polyev or
with Bonnie with.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'd be interested in your opinion on both.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So I look, this longest ballot crusade of two hundred
plus names is hysterical on one side and disgusting on
the other side. You have to write in the name
of the candidate in the federal by election. I think
mister Polyev is overwhelmingly re elected or elected in the
(16:55):
Alberta seat. I think that whether he gets ninety percent,
seventy or sixty percent, it is a large mandate to
continue to lead the Conservative Party of Canada from inside
the House of Commons, where you need to be if
you are the leader of a party. I think, provincially,
(17:16):
if Bonnie Crombie secures the leadership with sixty five to
seventy five percent, and it is enough to continue, Bonnie
Cromby has to find a by election and get into
the House, the Ontario Legislature. No more leading from the outside.
(17:36):
If Bonnie Cromby doesn't secure sixty five percent of the vote,
then I think the party needs to go to a
leadership review, leadership contest and needs to get someone into
the Ontario Legislature to lead the party.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, a lot of those people that you mentioned Kree
of Gold and and Erskine Smith and now Debans and
you know, et cetera, et cetera, they'd have the same problem.
They're they're not in in in the legislature and so
they still have to run somewhere, win and get elected.
I've heard, you know, contrary contradictory points of view. I've
(18:19):
heard some people say that this is the worst time
to have a leadership, that we should focus in on on,
you know, putting forward the policies to combat to doug Ford,
to build up the party, to raise money, to do
all those things. And then other people have said, no,
leadership is the best way to rebuild a party and
get more people involved and get you know, more dynamism,
(18:40):
you know, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you come
out on that? Is is is a leadership review and
convention helpful to build a party or harmful in building
a party?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
It actually depends on the results. So if Bonnie CROMEI
can get seventy percent or more in the leadership review,
she's freed up to recruit, rebuild and move forward and
that will allow the Liberal Party of Ontario to stop
being a follower of what the government is doing, but
(19:13):
maybe introduce some policies and try to be out front.
We always say a leadership convention is to rebuild the party.
You don't need to rebuild the party if you have
a strong leader with a strong mandate, both of caucus
and of the party. You know, it's the real question
(19:35):
in my mind is will the people see the number
to be high enough? Because optics matter, numbers matter, and
momentum matters when you are a leader, and the leadership
review can put a nail in the discussion of do
we need a new leader and allow missus Crombie to
(19:56):
move forward as leader, or it's going to rip open
wounds of past leadership battles and keep that discussion going.
At the end of the day, if Bonnie Crombie doesn't
come out as a strong leader of the Provincial Liberal Party,
the winners are the NDP fighting for the left side
(20:19):
of the aisle votes, and of course Premier Ford, who
will continue to see a split opposition arguing amongst themselves
as he moves forward implementing his mandate.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So let's talk about rebuilding the party. You know, I
understand she's come out with a video where she actually
you know, talks about a couple of things that went wrong,
and you mentioned sort of the late nomination of a
bunch of candidates. You know, there's some criticism of the
central Party that they may not have had enough focus
on specific ridings, and they therefore, unlike the NDP that
(20:54):
concentrates their their attention and their their effort and their
vote and make sure that they're therefore delivered seats equal
to the votes. The Liberals did the opposite, try to
sort of be everywhere. So from the outside, what's your sense,
does the Liberal Party need to rebuild itself or no,
It's got everything, honky Dory.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
I think there are systemic flaws with how the Liberal
Party has moved forward. You know, in twenty eighteen, when
the election was lost, it could be argued that the
people of Ontario wanted a different party to come into power.
In twenty twenty two, it could be argued that it
(21:37):
was a bit hard to recruit some candidates because you
had been in the wilderness for four years, and you
had been in government in twenty twenty five. You had
issues recruiting candidates, raising money because now you'd been in
the wilderness since twenty eighteen. They the Liberal Party of
Ontario can't afford to have four elections in a row
(22:00):
where they are not able to nominate candidates, are lacking
on policy development and lacking on the operations to implement
a good campaign and that's really the biggest challenge. Will
it be a drive for four or will the ship
be righted? As a conservative, I don't mind if the
(22:21):
ship remains a bit wobbly in different ridings across Ontario,
But for the leader of the Liberal Party, the caucus
and the members, they need to write the ship for
it to have a fighting chance moving forward.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You know, Stephen del Duca won fifty on the first
ballot and people were shocked that he did so. I
think a lot of people were surprised that he did
so incredibly well on that first ballot. Bunney Crombie won fifty.
I think it was on I can't remember. It's either
the third or the fourth ballot, And so she didn't
(22:59):
have as much early support as Steven del Duca, but
she did better than del Duka. So what's the answer there,
what's the finding there? What's the implication? You know?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
But yes, she did better and there were also some
traditional seats that they were not able to win. Again,
the answer is every election is different, and Delduca did
better in some areas and worse in others. Then you
rebuild the party for four years, and expectations were high
(23:31):
amongst liberals that I was talking to that at worst
they were going to be official opposition, that the NDP's
goose was cooked. And it didn't happen. And so the
why is strategically, you know, every party identifies a ranking
of ridings from the easiest to win to the hardest
(23:52):
to win, and that's how you allocate resources. Your biggest
and best ridings should not be where you're putting in resources.
Last week of the campaign, what we saw in the
last provincial election was ridings that maybe shouldn't have needed resources,
had actual resources going in that hurt in some ridings
(24:13):
that were very very close. So what do they need
to do. They need to rebuild, they need to lead,
and they need to end the infighting and the bickering
and have it done.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The day before election day, Doug Ford, the Premier, I think,
went to a big Polish church in her riding. I
had a big rally. She's Polish in her riding. That's
sort of like overkill, isn't it. That's almost not that's
almost not nice. Like that's to go to your own church,
(24:46):
your own ethnic church in the in the in the
in the other leaders riding, Like that's like a dagger
through the heart, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I would flip it around. Why were the polls and
the support for the Liberal leader in her own riding
not strong enough that the Conservative rass said we're not
sending the premier there the day before the election. The
last couple of days before an election, party leaders go
(25:16):
around to secure the vote. Rarely the troops. They may
go to a riding where getting the premier or the
leader there will move it from a tie to a win.
And so I thought it was great. That was to
me one of the times where yeah, this is as
(25:36):
close as everybody is saying, if the premier's going into
that riding and go and behold, the Conservatives won the riding.
So him going in there was a brilliant piece of strategy.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's an interesting point of view. We're going to take
a break for some messages and come back in just
two minutes with Steven Alder of National Public Relations talking
about the upcoming leadership review at the upcoming Liberal convention
in Ontario and what he thinks is going to happen.
He wrote a really interesting article that I read and
asked him to come on the show. I'm trying to
be completely objective and not have a point of view
(26:08):
on here for obvious reasons because I share a last
name with one of the ken one of the individuals involved,
the individual involved. So I'm not gonna make a comment,
but I'm interested in what Steven's got to say. Stay
with us, Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA
nine sixty am dot C A.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour. My
guest today is Stephen Adler. We're talking about the upcoming
Liberal convention where there's going to be a leadership review.
Steven Adler is a senior public affairs strategist. He's got
over twenty years of experience helping organizations navigate government, manage crises,
and communicate with authority. He's a senior director at National Publications,
one of Canada's leading strategic communications firms. He's a long
(27:04):
term conservative and I read this fascinating article he wrote,
where here's this conservative that's analyzing the Liberal leadership review
and assessing what he thinks is going to happen. Stephen,
you know, I got the sense that that politics was
a lot more antagonistic in this last campaign than it
(27:24):
has been in the past. You know, Patrick Brown his
mother in law, and I guess you've got to support
your mother in law. But his mother in law was
running against Bonnie Cromby. But they Patrick Brown and Bonnie
were Bonnie Cromby were in Parliament together at one point
in time, I believe, and and and they were mayors
of neighboring cities. What do you take of that? Has
(27:46):
has politics become far more adversarial?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I think it has. You know, a generation ago, you
would see cabinet minister and an opposition member in the
House of Commons yelling and screaming during question period at
each other, and then after you would go to the
members dining room and you'd see them sitting at a
table together, laughing like old friends. I don't see that anymore.
(28:10):
I don't see the cross party friendship, both on the
staff level but more importantly on the elected side of it.
And I think that is one of a big change.
We've gone from attacking the idea to attacking the person
and that's really the big difference. As far as you
know Bonnie Crombie versus Patrick Brown. My opinion is that
(28:37):
I think it goes back to Peel regional politics. You know,
when Mayor Brown and Bonnie Crombie was mayor Mississauga, there
was a lot of talk about breaking up Peal Region.
There's always been talk about does Brampton give get everything
in return for the money they give into Peel Region?
Mississauga the same thing. And I wonder if a lot
(28:59):
of that has to go back to sitting around the
pure regional council table and arguing on behalf of the municipalities.
And you know, I know Mayor Brown. Mayor Brown is
a good, smart, honest politician, but more importantly, he is
a good person. And personal attacks, I'm sure, I'm sure
(29:23):
personal attacks bothered him and upset him. Moving to the
provincial election, we also need to remember that it wasn't
an initial I'm going to run in this riding by
Bonnie Crombie and the Liberal Party ridings were gobbled up
by other Liberal candidates and lo and behold it seeing
(29:45):
this was the only riding left for her to run
in in Mississauga or Toronto. And I think that, yes,
Patrick Brown's mother in law sought the nomination and won it.
But let's not forget she is a very good candidate,
a very strong candidate who comes from a political machine herself.
(30:06):
Her brother is an MPP in the Conservative caucus as well,
And I think it was just, you know, a lot
of different issues up play, bringing people to support the
Conservative Party and Sylvia the candidate, but also to work
against Bonnie Crombie, both because of municipal personality conflict and
(30:29):
then of course Conservatives wanting to take down another party's leader.
We've been on the receiving end before of our party
leader losing their seat and having to run in a
by election, and I think it was an opportunity to
rewrite some history for some older Conservatives who remember our
(30:51):
party leaders losing election results as well.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So is it like a Patrick Brown vendetta against her?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That was an I don't think it was a vendetta.
But let's also be very honest. Patrick Brown is one
of the greatest organizers our country has ever seen when
it comes to political organizations. He mobilized giants loss of
communities to come out and go door knocking and to
do lip drops. And that's what elections are all about. Yes,
(31:19):
it's identifying the vote so that you can make sure
you have one more voter than your opponents, but you
also have to get the people to the polls and
remind them. And what Patrick Brown, specifically in the Conservative
part of Ontario did was they mobilized enough people to
work across the riding to get that done. And you know,
(31:43):
whether it was a personal vendetta or not, I don't know.
I've never asked Mayor Brown that question. I doubt I
ever will. But whatever the reason for volunteers to get
active in that riding on behalf of the Conservative Party
of Ontario, it worked.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You know, it was the only riding I believe that
didn't have an incumbent, So it should have been easier
to win, shouldn't it have it in paper?
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Yes? On paper you have an individual who has represented
a city federally and municipally for decades, has the name recognition.
It should have been, in my opinion, an easy victory.
It wasn't, and I think that's what is leading to
some questioning by rassroots members of the Ontario Liberal Party
(32:32):
heading into the leadership review. Where will Bonnie cromb be
run for a seat and can she win? You know,
if in my research I found out the willamline Mackenzie
King led the Liberal Party to an election of a
majority government of the House of Commons, but the Prime
(32:53):
Minister lost the seat he ran elsewhere. That's about different.
That was in the thirties and forties and times were different.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Then remind us what happened. Tell us what happened. Did
he run in a by election and win and get
and still become still remain Preme Minister?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
He did? He did? He lost his seat in the
general election, ran in a by election. I want to say,
he ran in Ontario in the by election and was
Prime Minister of Canada after that by election. So we
do have situations where party leaders have lost and been
(33:29):
elected in by elections. We have situations where men and
women are elected leaders of a party without a seat
and wrapped the first opportunity. The first one I remember
is Brian mulrooney running in Nova Scotian Elmer McKay's seat
in eighty three so that they could get maybe it
(33:51):
was eighty four, so that they could get mister mulroney
into the House of Commons as the leader of the
opposition that seat to Elmer's son Peter many years later,
and we have many instances of that. You know, Ernie
Eves leaves the Ontario Legislature, is elected leader of the
(34:13):
Ontario PC Party, runs in a by election, and returns
to the legislature. It is shocking to me that there
hasn't been a bigger push for the leader of the
Liberal Party to be inside the legislature.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So there was a push when Milton had a by election,
and Milton is obviously a neighboring riding and city to Mississauga,
which was after her election as the Liberal leader, before
doug Ford called the provincial election, And there are some
people that said that she should run and get in
the legislature and that that would have been positive, and
(34:51):
other people said, no, don't because Milton's not Mississauga. You're
not going to have the name recognition, you're not going
to have the name awareness, you're not going to have
the big push that you would in Mississauga. And if
you then lose, you're out of luck. And it's a
real problem. What do you think should she have run
in Milton?
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I do Look, had the provincial election results been different,
we wouldn't be talking about her needing to get into
the Ontario legislature. I'm a firm believer that leaders should
be in the legislature, whether it be the House of
Commons a provincial legislature. I've always thought that I think
(35:31):
that there is importance to stand across and ask that
first question on behalf of your party to the government
of the day, and get the media clips and whatnot
from that. Obviously, those inside the Liberal Party looked up,
pulling in a number of other things and made the
decision that Milton was not the correct place for her
(35:54):
to run in a by election. Okay, fine, but staying
out didn't get you official opposition and didn't win a
government for you. So therefore I look at it and say,
maybe they should have taken that chance, because at least
there would have been an incumbency in the general election
(36:15):
running for re election rather than looking for a seat.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So if the Ontario Liberal Party hired National Public Relations
and Steven Odler to advise them today, what would you
be telling them to do?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
So? I don't think they could. They would hire us
because we don't do that partisan work. But let's just
say for a moment that I was having a drink
and someone asked me my opinion of any of the parties,
My opinion would be the leader has just won a
party leadership contest. But a party leadership contest is not
(36:50):
the general public, and the general electric the first opportunity
get into the legislature. When it's a by election, you
can vote all of your resources to that one area.
You're not competing against twenty five or thirty other seats.
If you have a caucus of eighteen, you can have
(37:11):
eighteen polls a day, canvassed by your elected members on
behalf of the leader. You'll bring in volunteers from all
these ridings and other ridings. They should always run as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And if they asked you today about this upcoming leadership
but review, what would your advice be.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I would be saying, fight tooth and nail. Meet every
delegate of the party and ask them for your support
and convince them why they should support you. Don't go
ahead make the assumption that they will support, Ask for
their vote and ask what was done wrong and what
(37:57):
should I try to correct moving forward. It's all about trust.
It's all about having the people trust you and vote
for you. If they don't, it doesn't matter if they
like you. They need to trust you to vote for you.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We're going to take a break. We're going to come
back in just two minutes with some final concluding comments.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
to six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
We'll come back. Everyone to the Brian Crimby Radio ar.
I've got Steven Adler of National Public Relations, a conservative
activist who's written a really interesting article about what he
thinks is going to happen and should happen at the
upcoming Liberal leadership review in the province of Ontario. And
I've tried very hard to stay completely objective and just
ask questions because I don't want to get involved in
(38:58):
this issue at all, but I'm interested in it because
I've been a lifelong political hack and uh and and
and a liberal actually, though I try to be uh
non partisan of late Stephen. You know, I've had some
people tell me that the Liberal Party tried to out
conservative the Conservatives in the last election by moving to
(39:21):
the right and that was a mistake. And other people
said no, that cathyin winn And people took the Liberal
Party way to to the left and coming back to
the center was the right strategy. So what's your what's
your sense is the Liberal Party right when it goes
right or right when it goes left.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
I think the Liberal Party traditionally was the centrist party,
and I think the Liberal Party spent too much time
trying to show that they were the anti PC option
rather than coming forward with policies that resonated to the
people across Ontario. You know, you don't change what is
(40:04):
working for you. So the question of is the Liberal
Party too far to the right or too far to
the left is because they've lost re elections in a row.
Mister Ford, the premier, has done a brilliant job in
reaching out to population segments that are not traditional Conservative voters.
(40:26):
You don't have to look at the unions, the private unions,
the non public sector unions overwhelmingly supported the Progressive Conservative
Party of Ontario and that is because of the great
work that former Minister Monte McNaughton and Doug Ford did
to listen to what they were saying, react and introduce
(40:47):
legislation that may not have been traditional Conservative legislation, but
it's what was wanted. So the Liberal Party needs to
find their groove. I hope they don'ts do not take
my advice. I like having a Progressive Conservative government, but
they really have to move beyond being the anti PC
(41:08):
option to being having a vision that is positive and
is moving towards the future of what the people want.
If they can't do that, it doesn't matter if it
comes from the right or the left, they won't be successful.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Okay, let me ask you one last question if I could,
if you were advising Nathan Nurskin Smith or Kreen of
Gold or whoever some of these people are that are
potentially it would see rumored, it would seem by rumors
are thinking about it. What would your advice to them being,
Because if they're too aggressive and out there, then they
(41:45):
they look disloyal and they risk, you know, having a
blowback against them. But if they do nothing, then they
have missed that opportunity. So what's your advice to somebody
that was interested?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
First of all, I'd have them redefine the question of
turning it away from the individual candidate to the betterment
of the party. Doing this for the future of the party.
Take the word I out, take the word me out.
It's for the team. And then turn the reviewal into
the review into a renewal. Show how every riding from
(42:27):
across Ontario from thunder Bay to Odawa up to the
North has a voice and why their voice is important
and that they would listen to the actual issues of
concern and represent all Ontarians and all Liberals. If you
can turn it from review into renewal, then the leadership
(42:50):
discussion answers itself because the people will support that candidate.
If it's all me, me, me, I can do better,
vote for me, me me instead of her her. You're
not showing a vision of why the party should take
a step into a different direction.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Stevendland has been an interesting conversation. I really appreciate it.
We'd have to talk with you maybe the day before
or the day after the convention. It'll be interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Thank you for having me on and I love talking
politics with you, Brian, and I look forward to coming
back to talking to you and to your listeners again.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That's our show for tonight, everybody. Thank you for joining.
I remind you on every Monday through Friday at six
o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can steam me
online from across Ontario and Canada and the world at
Triple W Saga nine sixty am dot CA. I put
all my podcasts and video casts up on my website
Briancromby dot com. And on social media, and on YouTube,
on a YouTube channel, on numerous different podcast servers as
(43:48):
soon as the radio show goes to air, So there's
lots of different places that you can hear Stephen Eller
and myself and none of my points of view because
I've been completely objective tonight and not committed one way
or the other. But you can hear Steven others very
interesting comments. Thank you, sir for joining us. We really
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
See I wanted to chat for just a few seconds
after the end of the show with Steven Aldler talking
about the upcoming Liberal leadership review at the Liberal Convention
that's going on, because I think it was interesting because
it puts really into perspective this review but also the
review of Pierre Paliev I think some of the reviews
and or leadership contests in the past. And he talked
(44:30):
about a few things that I think are critically important.
He talked about how caucus needs to come together, how
the party needs to come together, and I think we
need to ensure that the leadership, whether current or new,
ends up being that galvanizing force that brings a party together,
(44:53):
and I think that's key. And his comments about how
critically important that is. I think are kind of interesting
to hear from from a Conservative party that has eaten
some of its own in the last couple of years
federally and provincially. He talked about how critically important is
for renewal, and I really wonder whether the Liberal Party
has gone through the renewal that it needs to go
(45:13):
through after the demise of the Liberal Party's government, you know,
very successful with Dalta McGuinty and then even you know,
a majority government Kathleen win, but then the big defeat
and then a defeat with Steven del Ducan, then a
defeat effectively in the last election, and so you know,
even though the Liberal Party has increased it's seek count
and its vote count fairly significantly, if you don't win,
(45:38):
you've got to go through some deep thinking, and renewal
is a key. Doesn't mean you have to change a leader,
but I think you've got to go through that renewal.
He talked about team and how critically important that team was.
I talked about this fair amount in the conversation I
had with David Peterson yesterday. And if you get a
chance and you haven't listened to my interview with David Peterson,
the twentieth Premier of Ontario that I on yesterday and
(46:01):
his thoughts about teamwork and leadership. I think that that's
helpful and ensuring that you've got a leader that can
create that team and that teamwork I think is critically important.
He talked about how critically important hard work is. That
you've got to have someone that's willing to do the
work traveling the province, meeting with the people and going
to church basements and going into the different living rooms
(46:21):
and meeting the people at the barbecues. And it's a
lot of hard work because that's what you got to
do if you've got to reach out to and listen
to the grassroots. And he talked about listening. Leaders got
to listen. They want to have followers, they've got to
listen so that they get the followers and so that's key.
And then he talked about how critically important was to
get in the legislature, and you know, I think that's important.
(46:45):
So therefore, whoever the leader is, and you know, I
think that some of the people that have been rumored
that are thinking about leadership that aren't the current leader
have got the same problems. They're not in the legislature,
and so you know, I think that whatever the deliates do,
they got to think about what's the best way to
get a leader that's going to be in the legislature,
because if you don't have a seat in the legislature,
(47:06):
you're going to be really harmed from your ability to
hold the government to account, which is what's your job
when you're in opposition, and to develop policies and argue
those policies, to try to influence government policy now toward
those policies, and or obviously to have an opportunity to
present those policy to the electorate so that they know
where you're coming from. So I'm not taking any position
(47:29):
on this Leadership review. I don't want to, but I've
tried to put forward a couple of ideas that I
would appreciate it if people that are participating in the
Literacy Review would give some thought. You know, David Peterson
made a lot of good comments about leadership, and we
talked about that yesterday. I think Steven Adler has certainly
got some comments that we talked about just now. Tomorrow,
(47:52):
Wendy Seeker is going to talk about AI and innovation
and I think that's critically important because I think that
the innovation agenda, the prosperity agenda to the productivity challenges
that Ontario and Canada have have been to a certain
extent neglected and forgotten. And if AI is as important
and innovation is as important as I think it is
as Wendy Sukier thinks it is, we need to have
(48:15):
a provincial premier, a provincial government, and a leader of
the NDP and the Liberal Party as well as the
Conservative Party that really are focused on that, because if
we're going to compete in the world long term, we
need to adopt AI, adapt to AI, and make sure
that we're innovative, productive, and therefore hopefully prosperous. And so
(48:37):
I think that that's gonna be really interesting conversation. And
then on Friday, I've got Roberta Tevlin talking about electoral
form because I'm very passionate about the need for electoral
form and I ran across her, introduced to her by
another Liberal. She's just an activist, she's not terribly involved,
but she's really working hard to try to stir up
a lot of interest in passing a resolution in regards
(48:58):
to electoral form. Because she's convinced at the first past
the post system doesn't work and that we need to
have some sort of form of proportional representation. And we
talk about other issues in regards to electrical form as well.
It's a good conversation. So four shows this week all
sort of focused on leadership, reviews, on leadership, on renewal,
(49:18):
on where Ontario it has got to Go. I hope
you listen to some of them. Thanks. It's Brian Comby
for the Brian Crombie Radio Hour on SAGA nine sixty.
You get on my podcast and videos on my website
Brancromey dot com, on social media, on YouTube, et cetera.
Thanks good night.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot Ca.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Cromby Radio
r SO. The Liberal Party in Ontario has got a
convention coming up, and after every convention or after every election,
there's a rule that the next convention you got to
have a leadership review and vote. If there's a leader
that gets defeated, you got to have a vote on
whether you want that leader. And I'm not gonna, for
(00:38):
potentially obvious reasons for people that know what my last
name is, make any comments one way or other on
how I think people should vote or what I think
is going to happen. But Steven Adler wrote a really
interesting article that I read about what he thinks, and
the fact that he's a conservative that ended up commenting
on this, I think it makes even more interesting. And
he's going to, i think, talk about some examples from
(00:59):
the past in regards to Joe Clark, other candidates that
have gone up for other leaders that have gone up
for leadership review, and also potentially some examples and comparisons
with Pierre Paulieff Steven Adler I've had the privilege of
interviewing before. He's a senior public affairs strategist with a
twenty plus year track record of helping organizations navigate government,
manage crises, and communicate with authority. He's a senior director
(01:21):
at National Public Relations, Kenna's leading strategic communications firm that
Stephen leads complex files for high profile clients across sectors.
Translating risk into resilience and policy into progress. That's great,
leading translating risk into resilience and policy into progress. I
love that. What a great line, Steven.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I'll let you borrow it if you would like. Brian,
there's a good.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Line, Steven Adan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thank you so much for having me. And it's great
to be back and it's great to be talking politics
again with you.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So tell me why did you write the article. You're
a conservative, why are you writing an article about the
liberal leadership?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So, first of all, I'm a political scientists to begin with,
and I find it fascinating from the education point of view.
But I really wrote the article because it seemed to
have become the public discourse potential leadership candidates versus the
current leader without any real discussion of what has to happen.
(02:20):
You know, you have a group trying to unseat the leader,
but they're really not talking about what are the numbers,
how can it be done? Hasn't been done before? And
that's what led me to write it And it was
fun to do the research and fun to write it
as well.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So tell me a little bit about the research. Who'd
you talk to? Would you do? So?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I spoke to some old time political people who've been
around forever. I also did desktop research and in my
research I found out that we've had a prime minister
who won a majority government but lost the seat in
Mackenzie King. I didn't know we had had a prime
minister who had lost their seat. We always think of
opposition leaders losing their seats in an election. And in
(03:06):
my research I went all the way back to Joe
Clark in nineteen eighty three, where and I remember sitting
and watching the convention with my late father. Joe Clark
received sixty six point seven percent of the vote and
everybody thought, that's great, he's gonna stay on. And he
takes the stage and goes to the podium and says
(03:27):
it's not enough to lead the country, and that became
the benchmark you need to get over sixty six percent
in a leadership review and it really got me thinking
about what number does Bonnie Crombie need to not win
but lead And there are two different things. The number
(03:48):
as you win the leadership part is controlling caucus in
the party.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But in you know, the leadership convention, which was what
you're to go, she got what fifty one percent and
it was only after three or four ballots, and so
you know, she didn't get that even on the first ballot.
So why is sixty six point seven percent such an
important number in a leadership review when fifty one percent
(04:15):
on the fourth ballot was okay?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Because in between, the people of Ontario have spoken and
the people of Ontario didn't elect her to a seat
in Mississauga where she had been mayor for a decade
or so, and the people of Ontario kept the party
at the third place party. We can get into the
(04:37):
why how it happened, but the main difference, as I say,
is one is based on party members looking to the future.
The leadership review is party members looking into the past
and were we good enough? And it's really two different questions.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Now, what's the Joe Clark you know experience. Would the
history is that he ran again and lost to Brian malroney.
Baroni went on to win the biggest majority in Canadian history,
I think it was, or if it wasn't the biggest,
it was almost the biggest majority in Canadian history. So
that would say that the Conservative Party and Joe Clark
(05:16):
made the right decision for him to step down. But
if he hadn't stepped down, probably he would have had
a good chance of becoming Prime Minister again, right.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
He might have, But this is also a case where
you know, it was a different generation. Joe Clark did
the honorable thing. He stepped down and then became a
candidate in the next leadership convention, And you're right, Brian
mulrooney wins the biggest majority possibly ever in the House
of Commons. And one of the first things that Brian
(05:46):
mulrooney did upon becoming leader of the Conservative Party was
to appoint a Joe Clark loyalist, Eric Nielsen, the number
two in the House and the opposition benches. Then, of
course he welcome Joe Clark into cabinet as Secretary of
State for External Affairs the right hand to Prime Minister mulrooney.
(06:08):
Where I'm going with this is there wasn't caucus disunity
funneling and fueling a second fight. You know, mister Clark
said it wasn't enough, he tossed his hat in the ring.
It was a legitimate fight, and then the caucus unified
around the new leader. What we're not seeing provincially with
(06:31):
the Liberal Party is the party and the entire caucus
publicly and privately rallying around the leader.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So I'm going to challenge you on that. I actually
I thought the caucus had rallied, but it was the
party that's the issue, or at least some former candidates.
So how do you separate out caucus versus party and
former leadership competitors.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So what I mean by the caucus not rallying around,
They're doing and saying all the right things, but no
one has an example step forward to offer their seat
to in a by election. Yes, the party and former
leadership candidates have thrown in their hats in the ring
and are muddying the waters. But just from my outsider
(07:16):
looking in, I don't see the overwhelming love in that.
We saw a year and a half ago when she
was first elected leader of the party.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So what do you think is gonna happen? What's your
sense of things? You've talked to lots of people. Give
me your analysis.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So you know, if if I could predict the future properly,
I would be in Vegas betting on next year's Super
Bowl before the NFL season begins. I don't want to
sound point when I say the following Miss Crombie is
either gonna get seventy five eighty percent or it's gonna
(07:54):
be below. I don't have a read on the delegate
tracking and where it's going. I will say this, it's
a horse race and the end result could be a
big victory for the incumbent leader. But to get those numbers,
Miss Crombie has to work every single hour of every
(08:17):
single day convincing the delegates that she deserves the right
to continue as leader. If she doesn't work hard, and
I'm not saying she's not, but if the work isn't
put in, then the number will creep up those against her.
And we're hearing names from everywhere. We're hearing former federal
cabinet ministers potentially being bandied around we're hearing current Liberal MPs,
(08:43):
We're hearing former provincial Liberal MPs all being asked if
there's a leadership fight, will you run. You're not asked
those questions unless you're putting things together in a potential
leadership fight.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
So tell us some of the names that you're hearing.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
So I'm hearing Karina Gold, We're hearing Nathan ernsting Smith.
We're even hearing Marco Mendoccino possibly throwing his hat in
the ring. There are enough names being spoken about that
makes me think there is a grassroots movement that is
more than just aligned with one candidate who are displeased
(09:24):
with the results.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I'd heard I think the former mayor of Barry and
had heard the former Minister of Science and Technology Coret.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I've heard those names as well. I mean, one thing
we have to remember is that when a new leader
is elected, you want to get the leader into the
legislature as quickly as possible. That didn't happen. Then the
Liberal Party looked for ridings where she could run. Saint
Paul's was talked as a possibility of one, amongst others.
(09:54):
The former mayor of Mississauga runs in a Mississauga riding
and loses. We can discuss the fact that Patrick Brown's
mother in law won the seat. The Conservatives put a
lot of resources into it, but at the end of
the day, the former mayor couldn't hold the Mississauga seat,
and I think that's what's leading to a lot of
(10:15):
the concern amongst party members going into the leadership review.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest, Steven Adler of National Public Relations,
talking about the upcoming Liberal leadership review that's at the
Liberal Convention and what he thinks is going to happen.
Stay with us, ey one back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Stream US Live at SAGA nine am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Welcome back and going to the Bran Cromby Radio Hour.
I'm chatting tonight with Stephen Adler. He is a a
senior director with National Public Relations. He advised his companies
on politics, on public relations, on what's going on. He's
been active within the Conservative Party. How long, Steven, how
long you've been active within the Conservative Party.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So I got my first membership when I was twelve,
and that was in the Well that was nineteen eighty
three and former MP Decker's brother is the one who
got me my membership when I was that young in
the Hamilton area. I grew up with the stories of
Lincoln at Alexander and Sean O'Sullivan and Ellen Fairclose. So I'm
(11:35):
a conservative because of three trend centers in the Conservative
Party from days gone by.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, you and I have something to common. I got
my first membership when I was twelve years old too,
and voted in a Liberal leadership campaign where my second cousin,
Bob Nixon, was running for leader of the Liberal Party.
My great uncle is the leader. He was the premier
of Ontario in nineteen forty three and nineteen forty four,
(12:04):
the last Liberal leader for something like forty three years
until David Peterson became leader again.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And Steve Paikin goes out and meets with your cousin
every year or so, and they have lunch with the
former treasurer. And it's one of my favorite things to
watch is that interview with mister Nixon.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, Bob Nixon is a great guy. So I thought
it was interesting that you chose to write an article
about the Liberal leadership when you're a conservative, And why
did you Why did you decide to do that.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Part of it is because going back to the election,
there's all this rhetoric coming out that it was a surprise,
surprise election. Because it was a surprise election, the Liberal
Party of Ontario wasn't as ready as they needed to be.
It wasn't a surprise election. People knew that the premier
was thinking about going before a federal election. History shows
(13:01):
that we have one party in power provincially in Ontario
and a different party in power in Ottawa. The surprise was,
you know, the prime minister resigning a Liberal leadership prime
Minister Carney, then Mark Carney becoming Prime Minister and going
to the polls. And so I was reading the rhetorican
spin about how part of the reason the Liberals weren't ready,
(13:23):
weren't prepared, was it was a snap election. And then
I remember watching the riding and it was a targeted
riding for me to observe because you have the mother
in law, Patrick Brown against the former mayor of Mississauga.
And I started hearing rumblings in week one, week two
(13:46):
that the numbers were close, that the Liberals were behind,
that it was all going to get out the vote,
and I was shocked because, in my opinion, on paper,
if you're the mayor of Mississauga running in a Mississauga ward,
you should be leaps and bounds ahead based on name recognition.
(14:07):
Then I started hearing things like the Consertives had sent
an a team in to run the campaign, and the
Liberals were struggling to get volunteers and were reallocating resources
to that riding. And then you know, the successor mayor
of Mississauga mayor Parish didn't openly endorse Bonnie Crombie, and
(14:33):
you had some counselors who were Liberals who were not
openly endorsing Bonnie Crombie in that riding. And I started
watching it. And then election night, the returns come in
and my WhatsApp is blowing up with numbers showing that
the Conseratives are winning it. And that's really what got
(14:53):
my thinking towards this leadership review was election night, in
the days and weeks leading up to it, and then
after the election, no one was thrown under a bus.
And in Canadian politics, we like to win, but we
like to blame someone if we lose, and no one
was thrown under the bus, which has now brought us
(15:16):
to the leadership, and that's part of why I wrote
I wrote that column.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So compare her situation if you could, with Peer Poliev.
So are you suggesting that you know Peer Polyev and
her both increased the vote chair, both increased the number
of seats, and both lost their writings. So why is
it different for her than Peer Poliev?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I think one of the biggest reasons is that the
grassroots of the Conservative Party overwhelmingly support mister Polyev is
the leader, and you had some disgruntleness that the election
was lost, but it was never a giant question of
whether or not mister Polyev would can continue as leader.
(16:02):
Election night, you had an MP step down and offer
his riding to mister Polyev as soon as a by
election could be called. And that is a big fundamental difference.
Kocs supported, the party supported, and there was a by
election quickly announced for him to run in. What do
(16:22):
you think is going to happen with mister Polyev or
with Bonnie with.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'd be interested in your opinion on both.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So I look, this longest ballot crusade of two hundred
plus names is hysterical on one side and disgusting on
the other side. You have to write in the name
of the candidate in the federal by election. I think
mister Polyev is overwhelmingly re elected or elected in the
(16:55):
Alberta seat. I think that whether he gets ninety percent,
seventy or sixty percent, it is a large mandate to
continue to lead the Conservative Party of Canada from inside
the House of Commons, where you need to be if
you are the leader of a party. I think, provincially,
(17:16):
if Bonnie Crombie secures the leadership with sixty five to
seventy five percent, and it is enough to continue, Bonnie
Cromby has to find a by election and get into
the House, the Ontario Legislature. No more leading from the outside.
(17:36):
If Bonnie Cromby doesn't secure sixty five percent of the vote,
then I think the party needs to go to a
leadership review, leadership contest and needs to get someone into
the Ontario Legislature to lead the party.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, a lot of those people that you mentioned Kree
of Gold and and Erskine Smith and now Debans and
you know, et cetera, et cetera, they'd have the same problem.
They're they're not in in in the legislature and so
they still have to run somewhere, win and get elected.
I've heard, you know, contrary contradictory points of view. I've
(18:19):
heard some people say that this is the worst time
to have a leadership, that we should focus in on on,
you know, putting forward the policies to combat to doug Ford,
to build up the party, to raise money, to do
all those things. And then other people have said, no,
leadership is the best way to rebuild a party and
get more people involved and get you know, more dynamism,
(18:40):
you know, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you come
out on that? Is is is a leadership review and
convention helpful to build a party or harmful in building
a party?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
It actually depends on the results. So if Bonnie CROMEI
can get seventy percent or more in the leadership review,
she's freed up to recruit, rebuild and move forward and
that will allow the Liberal Party of Ontario to stop
being a follower of what the government is doing, but
(19:13):
maybe introduce some policies and try to be out front.
We always say a leadership convention is to rebuild the party.
You don't need to rebuild the party if you have
a strong leader with a strong mandate, both of caucus
and of the party. You know, it's the real question
(19:35):
in my mind is will the people see the number
to be high enough? Because optics matter, numbers matter, and
momentum matters when you are a leader, and the leadership
review can put a nail in the discussion of do
we need a new leader and allow missus Crombie to
(19:56):
move forward as leader, or it's going to rip open
wounds of past leadership battles and keep that discussion going.
At the end of the day, if Bonnie Crombie doesn't
come out as a strong leader of the Provincial Liberal Party,
the winners are the NDP fighting for the left side
(20:19):
of the aisle votes, and of course Premier Ford, who
will continue to see a split opposition arguing amongst themselves
as he moves forward implementing his mandate.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So let's talk about rebuilding the party. You know, I
understand she's come out with a video where she actually
you know, talks about a couple of things that went wrong,
and you mentioned sort of the late nomination of a
bunch of candidates. You know, there's some criticism of the
central Party that they may not have had enough focus
on specific ridings, and they therefore, unlike the NDP that
(20:54):
concentrates their their attention and their their effort and their
vote and make sure that they're therefore delivered seats equal
to the votes. The Liberals did the opposite, try to
sort of be everywhere. So from the outside, what's your sense,
does the Liberal Party need to rebuild itself or no,
It's got everything, honky Dory.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
I think there are systemic flaws with how the Liberal
Party has moved forward. You know, in twenty eighteen, when
the election was lost, it could be argued that the
people of Ontario wanted a different party to come into power.
In twenty twenty two, it could be argued that it
(21:37):
was a bit hard to recruit some candidates because you
had been in the wilderness for four years, and you
had been in government in twenty twenty five. You had
issues recruiting candidates, raising money because now you'd been in
the wilderness since twenty eighteen. They the Liberal Party of
Ontario can't afford to have four elections in a row
(22:00):
where they are not able to nominate candidates, are lacking
on policy development and lacking on the operations to implement
a good campaign and that's really the biggest challenge. Will
it be a drive for four or will the ship
be righted? As a conservative, I don't mind if the
(22:21):
ship remains a bit wobbly in different ridings across Ontario,
But for the leader of the Liberal Party, the caucus
and the members, they need to write the ship for
it to have a fighting chance moving forward.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You know, Stephen del Duca won fifty on the first
ballot and people were shocked that he did so. I
think a lot of people were surprised that he did
so incredibly well on that first ballot. Bunney Crombie won fifty.
I think it was on I can't remember. It's either
the third or the fourth ballot, And so she didn't
(22:59):
have as much early support as Steven del Duca, but
she did better than del Duka. So what's the answer there,
what's the finding there? What's the implication? You know?
Speaker 3 (23:10):
But yes, she did better and there were also some
traditional seats that they were not able to win. Again,
the answer is every election is different, and Delduca did
better in some areas and worse in others. Then you
rebuild the party for four years, and expectations were high
(23:31):
amongst liberals that I was talking to that at worst
they were going to be official opposition, that the NDP's
goose was cooked. And it didn't happen. And so the
why is strategically, you know, every party identifies a ranking
of ridings from the easiest to win to the hardest
(23:52):
to win, and that's how you allocate resources. Your biggest
and best ridings should not be where you're putting in resources.
Last week of the campaign, what we saw in the
last provincial election was ridings that maybe shouldn't have needed resources,
had actual resources going in that hurt in some ridings
(24:13):
that were very very close. So what do they need
to do. They need to rebuild, they need to lead,
and they need to end the infighting and the bickering
and have it done.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The day before election day, Doug Ford, the Premier, I think,
went to a big Polish church in her riding. I
had a big rally. She's Polish in her riding. That's
sort of like overkill, isn't it. That's almost not that's
almost not nice. Like that's to go to your own church,
(24:46):
your own ethnic church in the in the in the
in the other leaders riding, Like that's like a dagger
through the heart, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I would flip it around. Why were the polls and
the support for the Liberal leader in her own riding
not strong enough that the Conservative rass said we're not
sending the premier there the day before the election. The
last couple of days before an election, party leaders go
(25:16):
around to secure the vote. Rarely the troops. They may
go to a riding where getting the premier or the
leader there will move it from a tie to a win.
And so I thought it was great. That was to
me one of the times where yeah, this is as
(25:36):
close as everybody is saying, if the premier's going into
that riding and go and behold, the Conservatives won the riding.
So him going in there was a brilliant piece of strategy.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's an interesting point of view. We're going to take
a break for some messages and come back in just
two minutes with Steven Alder of National Public Relations talking
about the upcoming leadership review at the upcoming Liberal convention
in Ontario and what he thinks is going to happen.
He wrote a really interesting article that I read and
asked him to come on the show. I'm trying to
be completely objective and not have a point of view
(26:08):
on here for obvious reasons because I share a last
name with one of the ken one of the individuals involved,
the individual involved. So I'm not gonna make a comment,
but I'm interested in what Steven's got to say. Stay
with us, Everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA
nine sixty am dot C A.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour. My
guest today is Stephen Adler. We're talking about the upcoming
Liberal convention where there's going to be a leadership review.
Steven Adler is a senior public affairs strategist. He's got
over twenty years of experience helping organizations navigate government, manage crises,
and communicate with authority. He's a senior director at National Publications,
one of Canada's leading strategic communications firms. He's a long
(27:04):
term conservative and I read this fascinating article he wrote,
where here's this conservative that's analyzing the Liberal leadership review
and assessing what he thinks is going to happen. Stephen,
you know, I got the sense that that politics was
a lot more antagonistic in this last campaign than it
(27:24):
has been in the past. You know, Patrick Brown his
mother in law, and I guess you've got to support
your mother in law. But his mother in law was
running against Bonnie Cromby. But they Patrick Brown and Bonnie
were Bonnie Cromby were in Parliament together at one point
in time, I believe, and and and they were mayors
of neighboring cities. What do you take of that? Has
(27:46):
has politics become far more adversarial?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I think it has. You know, a generation ago, you
would see cabinet minister and an opposition member in the
House of Commons yelling and screaming during question period at
each other, and then after you would go to the
members dining room and you'd see them sitting at a
table together, laughing like old friends. I don't see that anymore.
(28:10):
I don't see the cross party friendship, both on the
staff level but more importantly on the elected side of it.
And I think that is one of a big change.
We've gone from attacking the idea to attacking the person
and that's really the big difference. As far as you
know Bonnie Crombie versus Patrick Brown. My opinion is that
(28:37):
I think it goes back to Peel regional politics. You know,
when Mayor Brown and Bonnie Crombie was mayor Mississauga, there
was a lot of talk about breaking up Peal Region.
There's always been talk about does Brampton give get everything
in return for the money they give into Peel Region?
Mississauga the same thing. And I wonder if a lot
(28:59):
of that has to go back to sitting around the
pure regional council table and arguing on behalf of the municipalities.
And you know, I know Mayor Brown. Mayor Brown is
a good, smart, honest politician, but more importantly, he is
a good person. And personal attacks, I'm sure, I'm sure
(29:23):
personal attacks bothered him and upset him. Moving to the
provincial election, we also need to remember that it wasn't
an initial I'm going to run in this riding by
Bonnie Crombie and the Liberal Party ridings were gobbled up
by other Liberal candidates and lo and behold it seeing
(29:45):
this was the only riding left for her to run
in in Mississauga or Toronto. And I think that, yes,
Patrick Brown's mother in law sought the nomination and won it.
But let's not forget she is a very good candidate,
a very strong candidate who comes from a political machine herself.
(30:06):
Her brother is an MPP in the Conservative caucus as well,
And I think it was just, you know, a lot
of different issues up play, bringing people to support the
Conservative Party and Sylvia the candidate, but also to work
against Bonnie Crombie, both because of municipal personality conflict and
(30:29):
then of course Conservatives wanting to take down another party's leader.
We've been on the receiving end before of our party
leader losing their seat and having to run in a
by election, and I think it was an opportunity to
rewrite some history for some older Conservatives who remember our
(30:51):
party leaders losing election results as well.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
So is it like a Patrick Brown vendetta against her?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That was an I don't think it was a vendetta.
But let's also be very honest. Patrick Brown is one
of the greatest organizers our country has ever seen when
it comes to political organizations. He mobilized giants loss of
communities to come out and go door knocking and to
do lip drops. And that's what elections are all about. Yes,
(31:19):
it's identifying the vote so that you can make sure
you have one more voter than your opponents, but you
also have to get the people to the polls and
remind them. And what Patrick Brown, specifically in the Conservative
part of Ontario did was they mobilized enough people to
work across the riding to get that done. And you know,
(31:43):
whether it was a personal vendetta or not, I don't know.
I've never asked Mayor Brown that question. I doubt I
ever will. But whatever the reason for volunteers to get
active in that riding on behalf of the Conservative Party
of Ontario, it worked.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
You know, it was the only riding I believe that
didn't have an incumbent, So it should have been easier
to win, shouldn't it have it in paper?
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Yes? On paper you have an individual who has represented
a city federally and municipally for decades, has the name recognition.
It should have been, in my opinion, an easy victory.
It wasn't, and I think that's what is leading to
some questioning by rassroots members of the Ontario Liberal Party
(32:32):
heading into the leadership review. Where will Bonnie cromb be
run for a seat and can she win? You know,
if in my research I found out the willamline Mackenzie
King led the Liberal Party to an election of a
majority government of the House of Commons, but the Prime
(32:53):
Minister lost the seat he ran elsewhere. That's about different.
That was in the thirties and forties and times were different.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Then remind us what happened. Tell us what happened. Did
he run in a by election and win and get
and still become still remain Preme Minister?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
He did? He did? He lost his seat in the
general election, ran in a by election. I want to say,
he ran in Ontario in the by election and was
Prime Minister of Canada after that by election. So we
do have situations where party leaders have lost and been
(33:29):
elected in by elections. We have situations where men and
women are elected leaders of a party without a seat
and wrapped the first opportunity. The first one I remember
is Brian mulrooney running in Nova Scotian Elmer McKay's seat
in eighty three so that they could get maybe it
(33:51):
was eighty four, so that they could get mister mulroney
into the House of Commons as the leader of the
opposition that seat to Elmer's son Peter many years later,
and we have many instances of that. You know, Ernie
Eves leaves the Ontario Legislature, is elected leader of the
(34:13):
Ontario PC Party, runs in a by election, and returns
to the legislature. It is shocking to me that there
hasn't been a bigger push for the leader of the
Liberal Party to be inside the legislature.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
So there was a push when Milton had a by election,
and Milton is obviously a neighboring riding and city to Mississauga,
which was after her election as the Liberal leader, before
doug Ford called the provincial election, And there are some
people that said that she should run and get in
the legislature and that that would have been positive, and
(34:51):
other people said, no, don't because Milton's not Mississauga. You're
not going to have the name recognition, you're not going
to have the name awareness, you're not going to have
the big push that you would in Mississauga. And if
you then lose, you're out of luck. And it's a
real problem. What do you think should she have run
in Milton?
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I do Look, had the provincial election results been different,
we wouldn't be talking about her needing to get into
the Ontario legislature. I'm a firm believer that leaders should
be in the legislature, whether it be the House of
Commons a provincial legislature. I've always thought that I think
(35:31):
that there is importance to stand across and ask that
first question on behalf of your party to the government
of the day, and get the media clips and whatnot
from that. Obviously, those inside the Liberal Party looked up,
pulling in a number of other things and made the
decision that Milton was not the correct place for her
(35:54):
to run in a by election. Okay, fine, but staying
out didn't get you official opposition and didn't win a
government for you. So therefore I look at it and say,
maybe they should have taken that chance, because at least
there would have been an incumbency in the general election
(36:15):
running for re election rather than looking for a seat.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So if the Ontario Liberal Party hired National Public Relations
and Steven Odler to advise them today, what would you
be telling them to do?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
So? I don't think they could. They would hire us
because we don't do that partisan work. But let's just
say for a moment that I was having a drink
and someone asked me my opinion of any of the parties,
My opinion would be the leader has just won a
party leadership contest. But a party leadership contest is not
(36:50):
the general public, and the general electric the first opportunity
get into the legislature. When it's a by election, you
can vote all of your resources to that one area.
You're not competing against twenty five or thirty other seats.
If you have a caucus of eighteen, you can have
(37:11):
eighteen polls a day, canvassed by your elected members on
behalf of the leader. You'll bring in volunteers from all
these ridings and other ridings. They should always run as
quickly as possible.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And if they asked you today about this upcoming leadership
but review, what would your advice be.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I would be saying, fight tooth and nail. Meet every
delegate of the party and ask them for your support
and convince them why they should support you. Don't go
ahead make the assumption that they will support, Ask for
their vote and ask what was done wrong and what
(37:57):
should I try to correct moving forward. It's all about trust.
It's all about having the people trust you and vote
for you. If they don't, it doesn't matter if they
like you. They need to trust you to vote for you.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We're going to take a break. We're going to come
back in just two minutes with some final concluding comments.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
to six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
We'll come back. Everyone to the Brian Crimby Radio ar.
I've got Steven Adler of National Public Relations, a conservative
activist who's written a really interesting article about what he
thinks is going to happen and should happen at the
upcoming Liberal leadership review in the province of Ontario. And
I've tried very hard to stay completely objective and just
ask questions because I don't want to get involved in
(38:58):
this issue at all, but I'm interested in it because
I've been a lifelong political hack and uh and and
and a liberal actually, though I try to be uh
non partisan of late Stephen. You know, I've had some
people tell me that the Liberal Party tried to out
conservative the Conservatives in the last election by moving to
(39:21):
the right and that was a mistake. And other people
said no, that cathyin winn And people took the Liberal
Party way to to the left and coming back to
the center was the right strategy. So what's your what's
your sense is the Liberal Party right when it goes
right or right when it goes left.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
I think the Liberal Party traditionally was the centrist party,
and I think the Liberal Party spent too much time
trying to show that they were the anti PC option
rather than coming forward with policies that resonated to the
people across Ontario. You know, you don't change what is
(40:04):
working for you. So the question of is the Liberal
Party too far to the right or too far to
the left is because they've lost re elections in a row.
Mister Ford, the premier, has done a brilliant job in
reaching out to population segments that are not traditional Conservative voters.
(40:26):
You don't have to look at the unions, the private unions,
the non public sector unions overwhelmingly supported the Progressive Conservative
Party of Ontario and that is because of the great
work that former Minister Monte McNaughton and Doug Ford did
to listen to what they were saying, react and introduce
(40:47):
legislation that may not have been traditional Conservative legislation, but
it's what was wanted. So the Liberal Party needs to
find their groove. I hope they don'ts do not take
my advice. I like having a Progressive Conservative government, but
they really have to move beyond being the anti PC
(41:08):
option to being having a vision that is positive and
is moving towards the future of what the people want.
If they can't do that, it doesn't matter if it
comes from the right or the left, they won't be successful.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Okay, let me ask you one last question if I could,
if you were advising Nathan Nurskin Smith or Kreen of
Gold or whoever some of these people are that are
potentially it would see rumored, it would seem by rumors
are thinking about it. What would your advice to them being,
Because if they're too aggressive and out there, then they
(41:45):
they look disloyal and they risk, you know, having a
blowback against them. But if they do nothing, then they
have missed that opportunity. So what's your advice to somebody
that was interested?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
First of all, I'd have them redefine the question of
turning it away from the individual candidate to the betterment
of the party. Doing this for the future of the party.
Take the word I out, take the word me out.
It's for the team. And then turn the reviewal into
the review into a renewal. Show how every riding from
(42:27):
across Ontario from thunder Bay to Odawa up to the
North has a voice and why their voice is important
and that they would listen to the actual issues of
concern and represent all Ontarians and all Liberals. If you
can turn it from review into renewal, then the leadership
(42:50):
discussion answers itself because the people will support that candidate.
If it's all me, me, me, I can do better,
vote for me, me me instead of her her. You're
not showing a vision of why the party should take
a step into a different direction.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Stevendland has been an interesting conversation. I really appreciate it.
We'd have to talk with you maybe the day before
or the day after the convention. It'll be interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Thank you for having me on and I love talking
politics with you, Brian, and I look forward to coming
back to talking to you and to your listeners again.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That's our show for tonight, everybody. Thank you for joining.
I remind you on every Monday through Friday at six
o'clock on nine to sixty am. You can steam me
online from across Ontario and Canada and the world at
Triple W Saga nine sixty am dot CA. I put
all my podcasts and video casts up on my website
Briancromby dot com. And on social media, and on YouTube,
on a YouTube channel, on numerous different podcast servers as
(43:48):
soon as the radio show goes to air, So there's
lots of different places that you can hear Stephen Eller
and myself and none of my points of view because
I've been completely objective tonight and not committed one way
or the other. But you can hear Steven others very
interesting comments. Thank you, sir for joining us. We really
appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
See I wanted to chat for just a few seconds
after the end of the show with Steven Aldler talking
about the upcoming Liberal leadership review at the Liberal Convention
that's going on, because I think it was interesting because
it puts really into perspective this review but also the
review of Pierre Paliev I think some of the reviews
and or leadership contests in the past. And he talked
(44:30):
about a few things that I think are critically important.
He talked about how caucus needs to come together, how
the party needs to come together, and I think we
need to ensure that the leadership, whether current or new,
ends up being that galvanizing force that brings a party together,
(44:53):
and I think that's key. And his comments about how
critically important that is. I think are kind of interesting
to hear from from a Conservative party that has eaten
some of its own in the last couple of years
federally and provincially. He talked about how critically important is
for renewal, and I really wonder whether the Liberal Party
has gone through the renewal that it needs to go
(45:13):
through after the demise of the Liberal Party's government, you know,
very successful with Dalta McGuinty and then even you know,
a majority government Kathleen win, but then the big defeat
and then a defeat with Steven del Ducan, then a
defeat effectively in the last election, and so you know,
even though the Liberal Party has increased it's seek count
and its vote count fairly significantly, if you don't win,
(45:38):
you've got to go through some deep thinking, and renewal
is a key. Doesn't mean you have to change a leader,
but I think you've got to go through that renewal.
He talked about team and how critically important that team was.
I talked about this fair amount in the conversation I
had with David Peterson yesterday. And if you get a
chance and you haven't listened to my interview with David Peterson,
the twentieth Premier of Ontario that I on yesterday and
(46:01):
his thoughts about teamwork and leadership. I think that that's
helpful and ensuring that you've got a leader that can
create that team and that teamwork I think is critically important.
He talked about how critically important hard work is. That
you've got to have someone that's willing to do the
work traveling the province, meeting with the people and going
to church basements and going into the different living rooms
(46:21):
and meeting the people at the barbecues. And it's a
lot of hard work because that's what you got to
do if you've got to reach out to and listen
to the grassroots. And he talked about listening. Leaders got
to listen. They want to have followers, they've got to
listen so that they get the followers and so that's key.
And then he talked about how critically important was to
get in the legislature, and you know, I think that's important.
(46:45):
So therefore, whoever the leader is, and you know, I
think that some of the people that have been rumored
that are thinking about leadership that aren't the current leader
have got the same problems. They're not in the legislature,
and so you know, I think that whatever the deliates do,
they got to think about what's the best way to
get a leader that's going to be in the legislature,
because if you don't have a seat in the legislature,
(47:06):
you're going to be really harmed from your ability to
hold the government to account, which is what's your job
when you're in opposition, and to develop policies and argue
those policies, to try to influence government policy now toward
those policies, and or obviously to have an opportunity to
present those policy to the electorate so that they know
where you're coming from. So I'm not taking any position
(47:29):
on this Leadership review. I don't want to, but I've
tried to put forward a couple of ideas that I
would appreciate it if people that are participating in the
Literacy Review would give some thought. You know, David Peterson
made a lot of good comments about leadership, and we
talked about that yesterday. I think Steven Adler has certainly
got some comments that we talked about just now. Tomorrow,
(47:52):
Wendy Seeker is going to talk about AI and innovation
and I think that's critically important because I think that
the innovation agenda, the prosperity agenda to the productivity challenges
that Ontario and Canada have have been to a certain
extent neglected and forgotten. And if AI is as important
and innovation is as important as I think it is
as Wendy Sukier thinks it is, we need to have
(48:15):
a provincial premier, a provincial government, and a leader of
the NDP and the Liberal Party as well as the
Conservative Party that really are focused on that, because if
we're going to compete in the world long term, we
need to adopt AI, adapt to AI, and make sure
that we're innovative, productive, and therefore hopefully prosperous. And so
(48:37):
I think that that's gonna be really interesting conversation. And
then on Friday, I've got Roberta Tevlin talking about electoral
form because I'm very passionate about the need for electoral
form and I ran across her, introduced to her by
another Liberal. She's just an activist, she's not terribly involved,
but she's really working hard to try to stir up
a lot of interest in passing a resolution in regards
(48:58):
to electoral form. Because she's convinced at the first past
the post system doesn't work and that we need to
have some sort of form of proportional representation. And we
talk about other issues in regards to electrical form as well.
It's a good conversation. So four shows this week all
sort of focused on leadership, reviews, on leadership, on renewal,
(49:18):
on where Ontario it has got to Go. I hope
you listen to some of them. Thanks. It's Brian Comby
for the Brian Crombie Radio Hour on SAGA nine sixty.
You get on my podcast and videos on my website
Brancromey dot com, on social media, on YouTube, et cetera.
Thanks good night.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot Ca.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!