blue-sky (verb)
: to offer ideas that are conceived by unrestrained imagination or optimism.
Hosted by Erin O’Toole, President and Managing Director of ADIT North America. Erin is the former Member of Parliament for Durham and former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. The Blue Skies political podcast explores issues facing Canada and the world in a format that brings together thought leaders for an informed and engaging conversation.
Hon. Erin OToole
Welcome to Blue Skies. We're kicking off 2025 with a Canadian outlook. We're also kicking it off with a guest that I think is one of the smartest minds in Canada to help us look as Canadians at this crossroads we're at. We're recording this a couple of weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump, the second inauguration. We're recording it just a couple of days after the New Year's surprise resignation of Prime Minister Trudeau or the slow resignation, you might say, because he's still the prime minister. So today we have a doctor, a colonel, public opinion expert, a patriot, the author of five Canadian bestselling books, two with the great John Ibbitson from The Globe and Mail, The Big Shift and Empty Planet. We're fortunate today to have the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, the global CEO, Darrell Bricker. Welcome to Blue Skies, Darrell.
Darrell Bricker (00:58.27)
Thanks for having me on Erin. It's a real pleasure to be on with you.
Hon. Erin OToole (01:02.028)
Well, and I've appreciated your insights, your analysis and your friendship over the years, particularly your great work as an honorary colonel with Canadian Armed Forces. Why don't you talk a little bit about that and your own personal experience right off the gate growing up in a family with a father who served.
Darrell Bricker (01:22.014)
Yeah, so I come from a military family, have an identical twin brother who's still serving in the Canadian Naval Reserve. So he's still a serving captain. I grew up in an Air Force family. My father was a non-commissioned officer who worked as a radio tech. And we lived in Greenwood, Quebec City, Seaforth Ontario, Clinton. Never did get overseas, but...did a large number of postings in central and eastern Canada. So I've always felt a real affinity to the Canadian Armed Forces because that's the environment I grew up in and I had the real honour of being nominated as an honorary colonel by Peter McKay when he was the Minister of Defence for one of the largest units in the Canadian Army, the Queen's York Rangers, which is here in Toronto, one of the oldest units in the Canadian Army and I did that for about a decade. And really for your listeners and viewers,
What an honorary colonel does is you're basically the chief, I would say community supporter for a regiment. So you do things like raise funds to support soldiers in ways that the Defence Department doesn't necessarily pay for. You make sure that they're well connected in the community. You make sure you help out soldiers if they get into difficulty in their personal or maybe even military lives. You're there to support them. So you're part of the regimental family and in fact you're one of the leaders in the regimental family.
It was a great honour to serve in that capacity. I'm now out. I served three terms. That's enough for anybody. As our Prime Minister learned, you you do have to renew organizations after a period of time. So I stepped out, I think, at the right time at the Queen's York Rangers. you know, who knows? I may at some point serve the Canadian military in another capacity.
Hon. Erin OToole (03:06.702)
Well, listen, you were well regarded by not only the regiment, but the wider military community. got to first know you through true patriot love and of course your brother Cal. And then as veterans minister, I was once in Kitchener, Waterloo. I had the good fortune of meeting your father at an event that he, Harold Albrecht had, uh great family. But let's talk about natural transition time, Darryl. You alluded to it. You served three terms as the honorary Colonel. Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, 2019, narrowly in 2021.
Now that he's gone.
Darrell Bricker (03:38.164)
Stop there, just stop there for a second, Eri, because I think people need to appreciate that. You came so close. Three points more in the 905, you would have won more seats than the Liberals. Now that doesn't mean that the Liberals and NDP wouldn't have gotten together just as they have in 2019 and 2021 to deny the winner of the popular vote and that election opportunity to govern, but you came very, very close.
Hon. Erin OToole (04:08.11)
Horse shoes and hand grenades, as they say, Darrell. No, it was a great opportunity. We were winning the seat count on Friday, losing it on Monday. The PPC split, it cost us over vaccines, but we're not here to talk about that. Very proud of the ideas we put forward. I often seek your counsel on some of my policy ideas and we may talk about that, but let's look at the landscape for the Liberal Party right now. They're facing a confidence vote in the House, whatever prorogation is ended and when they come back, whether that's right away or after a couple of months, there's going to be a brief prime minister. It brings memories of Kim Campbell a little bit, but with a party that has less money, less strength in the polls, less confidence. What is the landscape right now just because it's so fresh for the Liberal Party entering into this hybrid leadership?
Darrell Bricker (04:57.512)
Well, prior to the Prime Minister stepping down, we had the Conservatives with a 24-point lead. And I can't remember anybody having that type of lead really back into, you know, Jean Chrétien, in which the opposition party for the Conservatives would have been, you know, the Reform Party or the Canadian Alliance or whatever. They were never really in the game in a serious way as a national party.
But it goes back that far that we've seen this type of lead. Even in 2015 when Justin Trudeau defeated Stephen Harper, he only did it in single digits. I mean, I think it was eight or nine percent. So this level of lead is unprecedented, and it really does speak volumes about the degree to which people were tired of the Prime Mini but also tired of the Liberal Party and the administration of Justin Trudeau.
What we've seen in our more recent polling since the Prime Minister has stepped down is that there hasn't really been a change in the prospects for the Liberal Party. They're about where they were before he stepped aside.
Hon. Erin OToole (06:05.438)
And you see all the conversation now amongst liberals and a lot of the newscasts and podcasts now talking about, they pick someone from inside or do they need a change agent to give anyone a chance? You probably don't have any data on this, but in your experience, when there's a brand that's so tarnished, can someone step in from outside under a short timeframe? and resurrect that brand? we talking Hail Mary passes here or what's your initial take on whether an outsider could fix things?
Darrell Bricker (06:41.876)
Well my expectation is that a contest, leadership contest in the Liberal Party, just as it did in the Conservative Party when you ran for leader and when Andrew Scheer ran and when Poilievre ran, led to a bit of an increase in support for the Conservative Party. I expect that you're going to see the same sort of thing for the Liberal Party. The problem is the gap that they have to close is historic.
I mean it's really, really big. Poilievre could give the Liberals back half of his current lead, which is in the mid-20s, could give them back half of that and still win a majority, and quite a comfortable one. So the gap that has to be closed is considerable.
Hon. Erin OToole (07:21.544)
And on that gap, let's go there. I alluded to your five bestselling books here in Canada. We're going to focus a little bit on two of them. The biggest one being the Big Shift and really the Laurentian elite and the concept of historically Canada was governed by the Laurentian region. And I'm to read a quote from an op-ed you wrote, but maybe before that, because some people may not
know the term Laurentian elite, why don't you define it? Because it really was you and John Ibbitson that coined that term.
Darrell Bricker (07:58.706)
Yeah, was actually really John. I was happy to write along with him on that when we were writing the book together. But the words themselves are John's. The Laurentian Consensus is really about an approach to governing Canada.
and also an election strategy. So the Laurentian Consensus was really one that was created post John Diefenbaker's defeat in the early 1960s and with the rise of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, in which the overriding issue in Canadian politics was national unity. And national unity focused on maintaining the position of Quebec as part of Canada and a strong united Canada. So right through the 1960s, 70s,
90s up till
basically the turn of the millennium, this was the overarching issue in Canadian politics. And it also was reflective of how one won elections. So you swept Quebec and then you picked up whatever else you could in the rest of the country, but most importantly in the province of Ontario, and you were good to go. And this was something that was not exclusive to the Liberal Party, although they were the ones who benefited from the most, but conservatives who were able to knit together the same strategy, the same
Laurentian consensus strategy were also very viable national political options and the best example of that being Brian Mulroney. Now so that's the consensus. The elite are all the people who believe it and they mostly live in the downtowns of the major cities of central Canada and they dominate our political institutions, our cultural institutions, I would argue even our business institutions, particularly multinational corporations and major Canadian corporations. So it is kind of the received wisdom of that group.
Darrell Bricker (09:43.343)
Now, they may not necessarily see themselves as being focused on the Laurentian consensus, but that really does define their political outlook.
Hon. Erin OToole (09:53.224)
Laurentian consensus is combination of urban elites versus rural perspective with also the history of Canadian politics post-Steven Baker, you said, two referendums, Meech Lake, the sovereignty debates and the act to the Supreme Court about the succession reference. It was generations of
of obsession over keeping Canada in confederation, repatriating the constitution. So does it have aspects of both this rural urban divide we see around the world that's underlying some of the populism we see with the sort of Quebec question and the Ontario-Quebec dynamic built into it?
Darrell Bricker (10:43.272)
Yeah, it's really a good point to raise because what's happened, and I know you're well aware of this, is that...
The Laurentian elite and the Laurentian people talk less about the consensus and more about the elite has really become almost like a reference for people who are kind of political insiders, corporate insiders, the elite of the country. They dominate the media, people of that nature, and they tend to have kind of a progressive type of orientation, very central Canadian oriented. It's almost for conservatives taken on a pejorative in terms of how the term is used.
John and I were writing The Big Shift, we saw it as more of an historical phenomenon.
really referred to that specific point in time that really focused on national unity questions. it's taken on a different definition in its contemporary context, really very much, I would say, created by what I would call the 21st century conservative party. It's not the progressive conservative party of the Laurentian elite days. It's really the 21st century conservative party, and it has more of an ideological perspective in its way of winning elections.
and I know you and I have talked about this a lot, is by winning in Western Canada and representing those values, but combining them with the values of people who live in the car-commuting major suburbs of the centre of the country. So that's the other way, which didn't previously exist in Canadian politics, to win a national majority. And Stephen Harper was the one who put together that strategy, and I would expect if Pierre Poliev wins the next election, and looks like it's a pretty
Darrell Bricker (12:23.488)
good chance that he will, that he will win the same way. So it's not about sweeping the province of Quebec and picking up whatever else you can in other places, it's really basing it out of Western Canada, rural small-town Canada, but more importantly the car commuting suburbs of the major cities.
Hon. Erin OToole (12:40.716)
Yeah, the infamous 905. And to crack the 905, you also had to be able to articulate conservatism in a way that appealed to new Canadians. First, second generation new Canadians, whether from India, whether from China, whether from anywhere in the world, that 905, that component, which historically, as new Canadians viewed the Liberal Party as their home,
I used to encounter people that would say, the liberals let us in. And then you'd ask them when they arrived in Canada, and it was right smack in the middle of the Mulroney government. Well, no one let you in specifically, but if you came in the mid 80s, it was not under Pierre Trudeau, but there was this mythology about it. So Jason Kenney's work, Stephen Harper's work, that was allowing them to have that Western base and then crack the 905. Was that an important part of the calculus?
Darrell Bricker (13:34.132)
100 percent. mean, so when you go and take a look at where new Canadians settle.
They don't settle in the downtowns of the major cities. In fact, the downtowns of the major cities tend to be fairly homogenous and they tend to be more affluent people, people who are better educated, people who have fewer kids, by the way, and also people who are disproportionately born in the country. If you want to go find the entry communities for Canada now, go to the car commuting suburbs. In Ontario, that would be a place like Scarborough. So you have to be able to speak to new Canadians in order to win in that part of the
the 905, the car commuting suburbs, the political parties and political leaders who can figure out a way to do that have a much better chance of winning. But that would not be following the Laurentian consensus or the old Laurentian strategy of the past. That's actually following the Stephen Harper strategy of 2011 and what has proved to be pretty effective for the Conservatives over the space of time that even
When Justin Trudeau was the Prime Minister, he had to win in the 905 in order to win a national election, lost the popular vote. And one of the things I would argue, Erin, is that we've really only had one liberal government since Jean Chrétien.
Syria, you know, one that could govern without the support of other parties. And that was Justin Trudeau in 2015. The last two governments have basically been an amalgamation of the Liberals and the NDP. With the Liberals moving so far to the left, they basically subsumed the NDP. Which is why what we're seeing in the polling right now is that if the Liberals, normally what we would see, and I'm sure you remember this well, is when the Liberals go down, the NDP go up. Well, they're both going down now. Why? Because people see them as the same thing.
Darrell Bricker (15:23.548)
And the benefactor to that is Pierre Poilievre.
Hon. Erin OToole (15:27.47)
100%. We're seeing that in the polls. So look, you wrote the big shift. In some ways you said, this is locking in a new consensus where with the West and the 905 suburbs, if the conservatives can keep them out, they're going to be increasingly competitive. They're going to keep winning. Now Justin Trudeau broke through that in 2015. But as you said, 2019, Andrew Scheer, 2021 myself, we're still back to sort of solid 32, 33%.
holding the popular vote, but not the win. But I want to refer to something you and John wrote in November. So in the fall, just as the year ended and it's a bit ominous. So I'm just going to read it out and then get your comments on it. We only know this, the Western conservative base continues to grow. The progressive base in central Canadian downtowns continues to shrink relative to the immigrant rich suburbs. That's the big shift in action. We'd be tempted to say we told you so.
except we're alarmed by something we missed completely when we wrote our book, something that is only now becoming clear to us and to others as well. Canada under the big shift is dangerously unstable. When I read that, I put my coffee down for a moment. So you're seeing this change, but is that combining with some of the populist forces maybe from the U S and a rejection of hyper progressiveness?
What do you mean by the dangerous, unstable big shift?
Darrell Bricker (16:59.4)
Let's start with the first point, and that is that pride in Canada has never been lower. So one of the implications of having Justin Trudeau in the Liberal Party in power for the last decade has been a huge decline in Canadian pride. And there's been a whole series of surveys that have shown this, including our own at Ipsos. So that creates a problem.
We're now also in a position where we're seeing the rise of sovereignty intentions in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan that didn't previously exist to the degree to which they exist today, and a direct reaction to the way that they've been treated by Ottawa under Trudeau.
And then the third thing that we've seen, and there's going to be an election in October 2026 at the latest in the province of Quebec that's very likely to be won by the Parti Québécois. So we've got this weak sense of national attachment at a time when there's a real disaffection from particularly the federal government.
There's a lot of Canadians, in fact we showed that, think it was in the mid-60s if Canadians agree with Poliev, that Canada is broken. At the same time we're seeing the emergence of sovereignty movements again and we weren't even talking about what the United States and Donald Trump has been saying over the last few days. So that's what we're very concerned about. That's the instability that we're concerned about. There's an instability in Canada.
that's taking place is the same as there's an instability across the border relative to us. Now it's not the first time we've experienced this in Canadian history. Our history is marked by this. In fact, our country was created because of it.
Darrell Bricker (18:46.772)
and John A. MacDonald, although we love to topple his statues, and you know, we do need to really question what happened with the policies towards Indigenous people, but he was a political genius, and he was able to put together this country in a way our national leaders seem to be failing at right now. So that's what John and I were really talking about.
Hon. Erin OToole (19:07.726)
Let me drill down on a few elements of that because I think, you know, I want to really understand both the demographics, your expertise, and the convergence of events. So going back, like, as a patriot, as someone that wore the uniform, you wore the uniform of the Kingdom of Forces, you grew up as a military brat, you and Cal. I'm shocked that we're seeing patriotism at an all-time low. Now, is that heavier with younger?
sort of millennial Gen Z or is it across the board breakout where that is because certainly as an ex or and my parents I don't see any of that with them.
Darrell Bricker (19:46.665)
especially among younger Canadians who by the way are more multicultural so their attachment just by dint of the cultures that they've been growing up in
would be weaker. mean, it's something that you grow over time. You don't develop immediately. But also, we've had a government in Ottawa that's, know, Prime Minister Trudeau, soon after he was elected in 2015, did an interview with the New York Times in which he talked about Canada being a post-national country. And we saw over time what he meant by that, which meant that, you know, historical things that were important in Canada that used to bind us together were all of a sudden things that we should be ashamed of.
So we always found out what they really didn't like about Canada, the settler oppressive country that we had somehow inherited over a period of time, or created over a period of time, and we never really heard from them what they liked about Canada. I mean, we'd have the flag in Ottawa at half-mast for months at a time. Apologies all over the place. Statues being toppled, exhibits being shut down, buildings being renamed.
you know some of these things were the right thing to do but there never seemed to be anything on the other side to balance it off to say this country was a good place and well worth celebrating and as a result of that guess what it's had the corrosive effect that the same approach has had in other countries as well and you will see people who are more patriotic in their view start to push back and that's what we're seeing now
Hon. Erin OToole (21:18.43)
And let me build on that as well, because you've said, okay, more emphasis on younger voters. There's going to be both their cultural background, know, higher levels of newer Canadians, less, you know, attachment. The post-national state, I was going to work that, you beat me to it, Daryl. And then the cancel culture and the lack of pride and the sort of national hand-wringing. But let me ask you something because...
I was one of the first people to fight on the cancel culture narrative, Sir John A. MacDonald statues. I even opposed the renaming of Langevin building. And anytime you did that, the media, what you might call the Laurentian consensus in print, would attack you for it. So, you know, I was in a real quandary as opposition leader when I was slowly trying to say,
Hey, can we put our national flag back up, please? It doesn't mean we don't have deep regret for what happened in the early days of our country in a horrific chapter of residential schools. But you don't fix the past by erasing our history and trying to write a new history today. Where does the media play on this? Because even in my first letter as conservative leader to Justin Trudeau,
I brought up Western alienation and national unity concerns that I had. And it was mocked by some members of the media who from their perch in Ottawa or Toronto didn't see the national unity struggles that many of us already saw back in 2020.
Darrell Bricker (22:58.196)
to our regret now. I mean, they should have been listening back at that time, but maybe the country wasn't quite ready to hear that at the time. We were just coming off of Black Lives Matter. There was a bunch of things that were going on that contextually made it more difficult to make those arguments back then, I would say. But just like anything where there was a need for a reckoning on some of these questions, absolutely, you can take things too far. And the problem with the Liberals is they took it too far.
at some point you will run up against public opinion and that's exactly what they run up against. And now what you're seeing is the reaction to that. What hopefully this will lead to is more of a centering of what is where our natural inclination is on these things as opposed to pushing back way, way hard on the other side because that would be equally bad. But at the moment what it has really cost us,
what the Trudeau administration has really cost us is that at a time when we need to bring this country together as we're being challenged like no other by internal problems but also external problems, it's precious little that holds us together in terms of what we identify as being truly Canadian. Less of an issue honestly, Aaron, in the province of Quebec. Really a big issue.
in what you might want to call English Canada, English speaking Canada, predominantly English speaking Canada, which by the way is also the home for most of the immigration that's come into the country. one of the big issues that Pierre Poilievre is going to be dealing with when he comes in, I think he thinks he's going to be dealing with axing the tax on the CBC and all sorts of the things that he's been articulating over the space of the next while, but those are not the questions that are going to confront him.
The that are going to confront him are the three big things that any prime minister needs to deal with. And the first one is dealing with our own sense of national unity and potentially dealing with some real
Darrell Bricker (24:55.396)
not just philosophical disagreements with what's going on in Ottawa, actually some, potentially some sovereignty activity in some significant parts of the country. The second thing that any Prime Minister has to deal with is with our relationship with the United States. You will be judged on your performance on that. Those are the two biggest issues that confront any Canadian Prime Minister. Mr. Poilievre is going to have his hands full. And then the third thing, which supports those other two, is building a
sense of Canadian identity. Now maybe Donald Trump pushing back against us on that or pushing hard against Canadian unity and Canadian identity will help to spark the creation of that but then you ask yourself what is it going to what are the what's the kindling it's going to build from? It's certainly not going to be post-national identity politics. It's going to be something else. But we've spent the last decade at least
Hon. Erin OToole (25:49.518)
Mm.
Darrell Bricker (25:51.826)
not supporting that, not building it, not telling people that it should be valued. And maybe this time of crisis is going to create a desire among Canadians to resuscitate some of those things.
Hon. Erin OToole (26:04.507)
Well, you've jumped ahead to what I wanted to conclude with, but let's get right into this now. No, no, no. Listen, I share a lot of your worries. So we're facing our lowest ebb of kind of Canadian nationalism, of patriotism, of pride, particularly with the folks that are going to be the foundation of the workforce in the next 10, 15 years at a time that we see Donald Trump. So we've got national malaise and a bit of
Darrell Bricker (26:07.348)
Sorry.
Hon. Erin OToole (26:32.814)
some other madness with some of the tweets and claims about the 51st state, these sorts of things. Are you worried though, Darryl, that we may start trying to describe our nationalism and our identity as not American rather than describing our own history, our own culture, our own identity today?
Darrell Bricker (26:55.668)
Well, we've kind of gone through a couple of phases with this over our history. So the first phase was the kind of the empire, the imperial phase, when we were part of the British Empire plus Quebec. It's interesting when you see George Grant write about Canada and its differences between the United States, it's Canada plus the French element. He sort of saw it as something a bit different than what was distinctly Canadian, although he did see it as distinctly Canadian, interestingly enough.
but not as part of that kind of British-oriented type of culture. So we went through that and then we replaced it with the Laurentian Consensus. And this was the point that Grant was making in his Lament for a Nation, which was we abandoned our kind of imperial identity and we took on this personian, internationalist, pro-American type of identity that dominated things through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And what he was missing though was the Laurentian Consensus part of it, which was really something that Pearson
and the Liberal team at the time got right. And so did Brian Mulroney, which was, it's also about the Laurentian consensus agenda, which was trying to find a way to keep the country together, especially the province of Quebec. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives blew all that up because that was representative of the old country, and there was a new way to win now, and a new identity that was starting to emerge. That's what we've really struggled with. And frankly, Stephen Harper struggled with it too. I mean, he had kind of a Northern orientation. He really celebrated that.
Canadian history around our military, but it didn't really graft in well, it didn't really take well, it didn't really have a sense of modernity, it had more of a sense of nostalgia associated with it. So never really created anything different. And then Justin Trudeau jumped in with both feet and basically said everything about Canada that existed was essentially wrong. And in fact we weren't even a nation, we were post-national. So now the opportunity is to create something new. Where you start,
That'll be a very interesting question, but that is the challenge, the fundamental challenge, apart from our relationship with the United States and national unity, that Pierre Poilievre will be staring right at the face. So yeah, we can get rid of the carbon tax, Canadians support doing that. You know, can challenge the CBC, you can get rid of the gatekeepers, you can create a fear-free nation, but none of that stuff smacks of Canadian identity. So if we're going to put Canada first, what does that mean? That's his challenge.
Hon. Erin OToole (29:17.952)
Yeah. Yeah, no. I think in some ways, in fairness, Stephen Harper and some of the things that I continued from the Harper time, he was a bit ahead of the curve on the Arctic on defense spending. Although after Afghanistan, he did let it drop and a number of us were critical in caucus, but even on Ukraine and early support, you know, to Putin get out of Ukraine. He was a bit ahead of the curve on these issues.
I do a lot of work on the Arctic now, Darrell, and I often use a line that always resonates. I can tell what the crowds when I'm speaking to them, say, for Canadians, we the North should be more than just the Raptors playoff slogan. It should be part of our identity, especially at a time where we see Russian imperialism, we see Chinese expansionism, having that presence. think even if you live at University Rosedale,
Darrell Bricker (30:00.872)
Yeah, that's good.
Hon. Erin OToole (30:15.022)
or in the maritime, you should care about our North, its potential, its people. Can you see that crafting part of the narrative? And what would fit with that younger demographic who are the most kind of in the malaise right now? What do you think would appeal to them about Canada when they're seeing not getting the same fair shake as their parents on housing and other issues?
Darrell Bricker (30:37.886)
Yeah, really figuring out what the Canadian exception is. So what makes us, as George Grant called us, an exceptional species in North America? What is that? What constitutes that? Justin Trudeau couldn't figure it out. As I said before, history will remember him as somebody who didn't really understand or appreciate or even value Canada. So how's Pierre Poilievre going to pick up this challenge?
Justin Trudeau did it poorly and this isn't even an opinion. Go look at the data and tell me Canadian Pride in 2015, how it compares to Canadian Pride today, and it's down double digits.
Hon. Erin OToole (31:19.342)
Yeah. think Pierre's own personal story and then Anna, his wife as a newer Canadian and a compelling story has the opportunity. I used to say one of the most remarkable veterans I ever met as veterans minister, Darrell, was a colonel named Ernest Côté. He was a French Canadian whose family were Franco-Albertan because the voyagers that went out west.
Darrell Bricker (31:20.722)
I mean, there you go.
Hon. Erin OToole (31:49.23)
There were lots of little Franco communities in rural Alberta. He then was attached to the Van Duys as a Westerner because of his name and his language. He was the last living Canadian that knew the plans of D-Day before June 6th. He went on to be a deputy minister. But that story of a Francophone family in Alberta, that's the exceptionalism that I think the two founding nations with Indigenous peoples, that is a really neat story.
Kvaliev, growing up in Alberta, has an element of that. Can we use some of the traditional challenges of Quebec and the Laurentian consensus, turn them on their heads and make it a differentiator on how Canada is not just a tapestry in all this lovely language CBC might use, it's actually helping us win. It's helping us define who we are. It helped us forge the rivers, climb the mountains, settle the north.
and set new national challenges for us to do that today. Can you see that being woven in?
Darrell Bricker (32:54.386)
Absolutely. mean if you're everything you're nothing. So we need to figure out what we are. And we're not a post-national country. It was a ridiculous thing to say. And it's been a destructive way to approach Canadian identity over the space of the last 10 years. And as I said before, you don't have to have that opinion. You can disagree with me. But show me the data that says that it wasn't. So however we're going to put this together, there's going to be a lot of work.
Hon. Erin OToole (33:15.512)
Mm-hmm.
Darrell Bricker (33:19.782)
And if there's the challenge that's coming from Donald Trump, and also as I said before from internal sovereignty movements, it's going to be required.
And I'm not saying that you need to be a of a paternalistic, nativist, nationalist type of individual in terms of Canadian identity, but there is something that's different about this place that's worth celebrating that back in 1867, the people who put the structure together for this country, along with the Indigenous community that allowed it to happen, that accepted the process that went on, felt was valuable and different from what was going on in the United States.
So what is it that makes us that today and who's going to be that new parent of confederation, that new driver of confederation, because that's going to be one of the national...
responsibilities for the Prime Minister, but not just the Prime Minister, but for the government and also for provincial premiers too. Because it wasn't just John A. Macdonald who pulled it together, was a, they call it the Fathers of Confederation, they were all men at the time, but it was a group of people who got together and said, you know, there's something unique and different about this part of the North American space that we need to pull together to keep it together because if we don't, we'll lose it. And I don't want to be too alarmist, but we are at a bit of a breaking point.
in the future of this country. we could get luckier. Maybe the defeat of the Liberals, if they are defeated in the next election campaign, reduces some of the heat in Western Canada. That would be a good thing. Maybe the PQ doesn't win the next election campaign. That would be a good thing. Even if they do win the next election campaign in the province of Quebec, even though they promise that they're going to have a sovereignty referendum,
Darrell Bricker (35:02.096)
Only 35 % of Quebecers, 30 % of Quebecers today think that Quebec should be an independent state. Maybe it's not possible for them to grow it. That would be a good thing too.
so we can work on our national unity. Maybe Donald Trump doesn't go ahead with this 25 % tariff or there's modifications over time or whatever. Maybe we can find our way through this. But all of this will require us to have a pretty good sense of who we are and what it is that we're protecting and what we're going to value for the future of this nation that Canadians need to rally around. And that's going to be the requirement of all of our political leaders to stand up and do, just like they did back in 1867.
Hon. Erin OToole (35:44.234)
Let's close a few thoughts on that before our final section. agree with you. I think Doug Ford has been providing more leadership than the federal liberals lately in terms of at least defining things. He talked about a North American energy pack, something I've been pushing for several years. And that actually might reduce the sovereignist threat in Quebec because with Donald Trump and the 25 % tariff, and he's going to take back over the Panama Canal, Greenland, you know, all the rhetoric. Why in heavens, Quebec choose a left of center sovereignist government to isolate themselves even more from the U.S. market when they could actually be a leader within a lower carbon North American energy mix and grid. So there could be some dynamics change on that sovereignty piece as a result of a united response to Trump. So maybe he will make us pull up our socks a little bit and become a bit more patriotic.
Darrell Bricker (36:46.244)
I don't want to give him any credit though. I mean what's going on in the United States right now is anti-diluvian. It's the kind of thing that we thought that we were out of. It's like the world is returning back to the colonial eras of the 19th century and early 20th century and that led nowhere good.
So maybe there might be an opportunity here to build a bit of a response in terms of our own identity, but what's going on in the United States and the type of rhetoric that is coming out of Donald Trump is nothing to build anything around, I would say.
Hon. Erin OToole (37:06.997)
I agree.
Hon. Erin OToole (37:21.57)
The good thing I was texting last night with a friend in Washington about the situation and you know, Trump loves getting a rise out of the media, getting a rise. So I've been saying to people, don't respond to every tweet. even some, the globe is going crazy on it. That just drives the next set of tweets. You know, when the US did purchase Alaska, for example,
You need a two thirds majority in the Senate to ratify a treaty. The Republicans just barely functioning majority in the Senate. They don't have two thirds. So almost all of this, you know, the president can do unilateral military action for I think 60 or 90 days before Congress has to support a war effort. So I think there's some natural checks and balances within the American Constitution that allows us to breathe a little bit before we respond. But I do think it is concerning in the very fact that Mr. Trudeau resigned giving us three months of basically no leadership following the President coming into office is deeply disconcerting. I'm mindful of your time. I want to talk about
a couple of last things with that younger demographic, Darrell, and I refer our listeners to another great book that you wrote with John, Empty Planet, where you talk about these changing demographics that we're seeing impact China, we're seeing it impact Russia, we're seeing it impact Germany, economic competitiveness and everything that results from a lack of a workforce. know, China won't be able to sail its blue water Navy in another 15 years because of demographic challenges.
For Canada, we're seeing an erosion of the consensus on immigration. We're seeing a massive housing challenge. We tried to flag this in 2021, but it wasn't really until interest rates went up that people really realized how screwed we are in the large urban and suburban centers. How are younger people looking at these issues? is it possible to even have a national solution
Hon. Erin OToole (39:43.734)
When a lot of these things are provincial areas responsibility, might be able to set a national sort of objective of solving the housing crisis. But there's three levels of covenant, one of them not even constitutional. How are younger Canadians viewing this? And do they see a bigger role for government in solving the housing and other challenges?
Darrell Bricker (40:06.888)
Well, it's interesting, the youngest Canadians aren't as pessimistic as the people who are right in the middle of it right now. So people who are a bit older, you're mentioning Generation X or Millennials, people who are in that period where they're trying to make ends meet and raise families and buy their first home or whatever.
They are the ones who are the most negative about the current circumstances. The youngest population, the people who are Gen Z, yeah, they're looking over the horizon and what they're seeing they don't like, but they feel they've got a bit of time on their side and they're not necessarily going through it as directly as the people who are their older brothers and sisters or maybe even if their parents had them when they were younger, their parents. Those are the people who are particularly despondent. And the real...
center of this issue at the moment is the housing issue. And to understand it correctly, housing has always been an issue when we go out and talk to people on surveys about what's the most important issue facing the country. But normally it would be way, down the list and people would be talking about homelessness.
So they'd be talking about people who, for whatever reason, weren't able to find basic housing. What we're talking about now, and why it's risen so far up the list, is actually access to what people felt they would, if they did everything right in their lives, they would have access to, which was middle-class housing, particularly suburban-type housing. That's where people are having a really difficult time right now. The type of home that they were probably raised in, that their parents owned and were able to, and we've heard Poliev talk about this and he's quite correct, they can't even aspire to. And it has left them really wondering, as Poilierve has said, as whether or not the promise they thought Canada was for them has actually been broken.
Darrell Bricker (42:10.254)
That's really what we're dealing with right now. So when you're talking about younger people, yes the youngest young ones, they've got concerns about the future, but the people who are in the middle of it right now, those are the people who are the middle class and those who aspire to join the middle class that Justin Trudeau held up such promise for back in 2015 who have turned the most on him.
Hon. Erin OToole (42:29.838)
Yeah, because they're no longer able to join it. Those working hard to join it, they're still working hard, but they're not able to join it because of inflation, because of the housing boom. Demographically, we also, you may recall, because I got your advice on this for my first leadership race and the Generation Kickstart policy I had where we were going to give young Canadians a huge tax exemption early on to allow them to deal with their debt or allow them to put some
money aside for housing, just let them for five years have a massive personal exemption, lure some back from the US. Are things so structurally different than they were for my parents' generation, for example, that we should be looking at large structural changes to how we tax people, to how the government plays a role in housing? Has there been such a massive change that governments and our policies have not responded quickly enough to it.
Darrell Bricker (43:30.388)
Yeah, so the country that you and I grew up in, we're roughly, we're the same vintage, the median Canadian in the early 1970s when we were still younger too, was around the age of 24. Today they're around the age of 42. We're a much older country.
you know, the fertility rate, the birth rate in the country, which used to be back at that time, replacement rate or a bit better, has now dropped down to an historic low. Next year it's going to be 1.2. To just replace the dying population we have in our country, needs to be 2.1. That's one for each woman, each woman to have for herself and one to replace her partner. We're at 1.2. We're more than, we're actually a whole kid short of what we need to be just to hold our population stable with
without immigration. And you take a look at those two things and throw in the next one, which is over 50 % of the people between the ages of 18 and 35 in our major cities and suburbs in this country live at home with their parents. So they're not getting their lives started.
which means that they're not getting into whatever their family structure is going to be. They're not starting their families. They're not having kids to the degree that they used to be. And they're not going to be the people who are going to drive the economy the way that we needed people in the past to be able to do those kinds of things. So yeah, there's a lot of structural stuff that we're dealing with here that governments need to look at differently than the way that they have been looking at them.
We'd like to think that if you put in place a freer child care or free child care or really reduced cost child care, then all of a sudden people will start having more kids. Trudeau did this five or six years ago and the fertility rate has dropped by 0.4 since.
Darrell Bricker (45:14.164)
So it's not just about child care. There's these bigger structural issues that we're dealing with in terms of younger people getting on with their lives that government could help with. And you know, just like we created a national health care program in this country, just like we've done so many other things on a national basis in this country, it doesn't have to be dictated by Ottawa, but it could be put together by Ottawa. This is something that Stephen Harper did very well in this country in which we had, you know, basically federal provincial peace for 10 years. And that didn't mean that we
weren't doing anything at the federal provincial level, but we were able to bring people together around common issues that were important to everybody in the country, and it was facilitated by government rather than directed by government. Again, another problem for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party, carbon tax being a great representation of this. I mean, there are ways ahead, but somebody's got to take the reins and lead the country in that direction.
Hon. Erin OToole (46:10.09)
I think there will be a change and it's not going to be a change of liberal leaders. It's going to be whenever the election comes. think Pierre will be faced with some challenges but also some opportunities to reset things after the post-national state malaise that we've gotten in. I'd refer our listeners to not only your books and your writing with John Ibbotson. had a great
Lament for a Nation op-ed in the Hub last summer as well. That was also a little pessimistic. And this is called Blue Skies, Darrell. And we're two guys blue sky-ing. Yeah. So I'm going to make you end on a positive. I try and do this with public officials talking about something they're really proud of. I had Ed Fast as my last guest and he talked about singing with some of his colleagues and just showing a different side of himself. Canada has tremendous opportunities. So I'm going to make
Darrell Bricker (46:47.028)
Sorry about that, Erin.
Hon. Erin OToole (47:06.478)
you tell me what is something you're optimistic about for Canada in the next few years? Despite these poor numbers of patriotism and our housing challenge and the shaky immigration consensus right now, what is something that you think is a great potential for Canada that if we seize it, we can start to recover from a bit of this malaise? I put you on the spot here, but I want a bit of optimism coming out of the podcast.
Darrell Bricker (47:34.012)
I think that as we identify what the challenges are that we're being faced with, I think that you're going to get people with better ideas and a real commitment to public service.
to come in hopefully into our political and our public sector institutions to kind of guide us in some new directions here. And you know, I think a change in government provides an opportunity to do that. So I'm looking forward to what's going to happen, whether it's, regardless of who wins the election, of somebody being able to revitalize Canada around some of these questions. Justin Trudeau, unfortunately, had a real opportunity to do that and just failed to do it. But I think we're at another
one of those points where we're going to start asking some pretty fundamental questions. And I think with the right leadership in this country and the right dedication, not just from our politicians but from other people, that we have the creativity, the brain power, the resources in this country to come together around solving some of these issues. And that's what I'm hopeful about. And that's why I spend as much time as I do. You I've got a full-time job as well here at Ipsos. But writing and telling some of these stories and making sure that
particularly anybody who's interested in public life understands a bit about our history, how we got to where we got to, how the data plays into all of this, and trying to put it together in a story that people can understand and maybe reflect on. You don't have to agree with it, but maybe take it into account in terms of how you think about the future and how you think about your fellow Canadians and where we need to go. So I'm optimistic in that I do have a lot of
years that confront me where people are looking for this type of conversation to start. So I'm going to keep pushing away at it and I know there many others who are as well.
Hon. Erin OToole (49:27.16)
Study history, study history, study history for in history lie all the secrets to statecraft. Mr. Churchill once said, I'm paraphrasing a little bit there. I agree with you. think what you're saying, you're optimistic because we could use this crisis as a way to help redefine that Canadian identity, to reawaken the Canadian patriotism and your writing and your warnings, but also optimism I think is going to help us.
get there and I know your writing partner, John Ibbitson is now, I guess, officially retired from the globe. So have you guys decided your next topic for book? Cause obviously he's got a little bit more free time now.
Darrell Bricker (50:05.095)
yeah, exactly what we're talking about today is what we're writing about. We've already started.
Hon. Erin OToole (50:10.764)
All right, well, listen, if you ever need someone to add a prologue or an epilogue or just have a beer with as you're bouncing things off, count me in. We all need to play a role in reversing those patriotism numbers and smart longer form discussions like the one we just had. We'll do that, Darrell. So thank you for your passion, your patriotism and for joining us here on Blue Skies today.
Darrell Bricker (50:34.836)
Thank very much, Aaron. It's been a real pleasure.
Hon. Erin OToole (50:37.694)
Thank you for listening to Blue Skies, our opportunities to blue skies issues facing Canada, facing the world. I'm Erin O'Toole. Thanks for tuning in.