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190. David Coletto: What Will Decide the 2025 Federal Election?
A Canadian Polling Expert breaks down the upcoming 2025 election. David Coletto joins to discuss the key factors shaping the race, including Pierre Poilievre’s challenges, Mark Carney’s rise, Trump’s influence, affordability concerns, media dynamics, and shifting voter mindsets with host Aaron Pete.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron Peet. What is going to happen in the next election? I'm speaking with the CEO of one of Canada's leading polling firms. We discuss Pierre Pommier, mark Carney, the Trump tariffs, new media versus traditional media and what will happen in the 2025 federal election. My guest today is David Coletto. David, you have previously been recognized by the Hill Times as one of the most influential people, one of the top 100 most influential people in Canada, and it's a privilege to have you on the show. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself?
David Coletto:Well, thanks, Aaron, for the introduction and welcoming. I'm David Coletto. I am a dog dad, a husband, born and raised in Toronto but live in Ottawa. I am a political scientist by training, got a PhD in political science from the University of Calgary, but my day job is getting to ask thousands of Canadians hundreds of questions every week. As the founder and the head of polling firm Abacus Data, which we have offices in Ottawa, Toronto and Halifax and I've got a great team of almost 20 people.
Aaron Pete:Wow, okay, we have to start with some of the most pressing questions. What is happening in Canadian politics federally right now, from your perspective?
David Coletto:What isn't happening, I guess, is the question. It's a fascinating moment. Look, three months ago, aaron, if we were doing this interview, I would have been pretty certain that Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives were going to form the next government. You fast forward, you know, two and a half months and we're going to have some numbers out soon. That shows the horse race between the liberals and the conservatives continuing to tighten, like other pollsters have shown.
David Coletto:We see the broader, I think, public opinion landscape really shifting, where you know, donald Trump and his administration as a top issue is now up to number two on our list.
David Coletto:50% of Canadians put it in their top three issues. It's up 11 points in two weeks, and I think he and what he is doing and saying and threatening is really, I think, focusing most Canadians' attention on that and has completely reshaped the political landscape, along with the fact that Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and I don't know, by the time this airs, maybe officially no longer the prime minister of Canada, and that, too, has given people the opportunity to imagine voting liberal again. I think he was like this dam that would just prevent them from getting past it, and so we're in an environment now where I think you know, we could be in a federal election in a few days. It is going to be a very competitive election. It's going to be one, I think, that Canadians are paying very close attention to, and you know the entire trajectory of our country. It feels like could be completely switched in the course of just 60 plus days.
Aaron Pete:You described those three issues, one of them being Trump's approach to Canada. What are the other two?
David Coletto:So the other biggest issue is affordability. The cost of living remains the top issue. 61% of Canadians put it in their top three issues. It's been there for a long, long time, and the other sets of issues are all kind of bunched together. The economy, housing and healthcare round out the top five. But really, you know cost of living is holding, but that Trump factor is really pushing up and you know it's got momentum right now, More and more people engaged on it, thinking about it, angry about it, and so that's the mix of issues I think Canadians are thinking about as we likely head to the polls soon.
Aaron Pete:What happened with Pierre Polyev, why are, like I understand and maybe we can dive more into people being able to reconsider the Liberal Party, but like what is the decline in their momentum?
David Coletto:I think it's a few things I mean. One is he was a very effective leader of the opposition, and he is a very effective leader of the opposition. He convinced Canadians, when Justin Trudeau was the prime minister, that it was time for a change. You know, we saw, you know, close to 85% of Canadians at the height of that number, which was near the end of 2024, just before Trudeau resigned of people who said they wanted a change in government. He was very effective at making that case, but in his story, you know, justin Trudeau was the villain.
David Coletto:People were deeply anxious about cost of living.
David Coletto:I describe it as, like you know, a scarcity mindset had taken hold in the country. People thought the things they needed in their life were more expensive, harder to get, and if they had them, they might lose them, and so Pierre Paglia spoke directly to that. What happened, though, in the meantime is, you know, one villain left the stage and a bigger, badder, more scary villain entered, one that was external to the country. That, I think, has made it hard for him, or harder for him to figure out, to make himself the hero in that story. Right, he was the hero in the previous version of that story, and today he's not, and so he's trying to figure out, I think, how to offer himself up as a candidate for prime minister, as somebody who's going to lead our country at a time when that scarcity mindset that I talked about, that had been basically the view for two years, has become one where I describe as almost precarity, broader uncertainty, deeper uncertainty around the world that's being driven not by things happening here, but by this external force, donald Trump.
Aaron Pete:That's really interesting, particularly the scarcity mindset that's set in. Is there something about his approach that people don't feel like he's the person to potentially go up against this bigger, badder villain? I see the Liberals putting out ads basically saying that he would be a puppet to, that he would be more aligned with, that he wouldn't be able to stand up to. Is that playing into this in some significant factor?
David Coletto:It is, and I think it's part of the problem that he has as Conservative Party leader in that you know if I'm going to visualize, you know the way that his coalition was built right. If you looked at even up until the last few weeks, close to 40 to 42 percent of Canadians said they were going to vote Conservative. That reached 46, 48 percent at the end of 2024. That group was made up of the core Conservative base, which I think is about 34, 35 percent of the vote in this country, and new voters, people who had not voted Conservative in the last two, three elections, maybe people who have not voted before the last two, three elections, maybe people who've not voted before their younger, particularly young men had come to that Conservative coalition. The thing that was holding it together think about the glue was a dislike for Justin Trudeau, a desire for change, and so almost no matter what Pierre Polyev did, he was likely going to get those people to come to his side because that was the primary motivator. But as Trudeau sort of continues to be in the rearview mirror, that glue is weakened, right, so it's it's it's it's weakening that that coalition together, the thing they all agreed on, is no longer there and then you basically get donald trump as this like, like, like spike, that kind of smacks right into the middle of it and breaks this coalition open.
David Coletto:Because you see this, even today, even though Donald Trump's negatives have reached a record high in Canada, one in four conservative supporters still like Donald Trump. They have a positive impression of him, but two-thirds don't. And so I think, polyev, you know it's not to say that you know he has demonstrated any love for Donald Trump, but the perception in people's minds is that he is somebody who would have been cheering on Trump in the last presidential election versus Kamala Harris, and there's too much similarity there. So I think that is what's caused him problem. That's why I described, you know, polyev, having a Trump problem in that, in the old, old version of Canadian politics, justin Trudeau was this like wedge breaking liberal supporters apart. They've now all come together because they all agree on one thing they don't like Donald Trump. And that same thing is now causing problems within the conservative voter coalition.
Aaron Pete:There's something interesting. You also said, and it just makes me think, that for a period it felt like Canadians were angry In a similar way maybe and you can correct me if I'm wrong that they were angry with Stephen Harper when he was leaving, that there was just a strong frustration and a desire for significant change. And now, based on how I'm understanding what you're saying, there's a fear. There's a fear of what the future looks like, and I think Pierre is doing his best to look like for lack of a better term an alpha male. He's wearing tighter shirts, he's got the aviators on, he's bringing this energy to alphas. In that sense, I don't know if that comforts anybody. I think we're hoping that cooler heads prevail.
David Coletto:I think you've nailed it on the head right. I think that, again, that what people, the job people were hiring for three months ago is different than the job they're hiring for today. And I think you know that shift from anger and real, deep frustration with how things were working in Canada with the cost of everything you know, that shift from anger and real, deep frustration with how things were working in Canada, with the cost of everything you know, and the carbon tax was that perfect issue that exemplified that and all the decisions that Justin Trudeau's government were making, that just made people angrier and angrier every time they tried to do something To a world now where actually a growing number of people are looking for that sense of security right. Who can guide us through this? I like to think of the analogy of like the captain of a ship through a rough storm, and we actually asked Canadians between Polyev and Carney who do you think best fits that description, and they're basically tied on that right. And so that's an indicator to me that that's what this election, when it comes, is likely going to be about. It's going to be about who can represent my interests, who can protect me, who can guide us, brand that being that vehicle for that anger that you described, aaron.
David Coletto:But Canadians aren't so angry anymore at the federal government or at Canadian political leaders. They're really angry and have a deep sense of betrayal at Donald Trump and the US government. And so Carney comes along as somebody who is not a politician, who has no elected political experience, which in some cases could be a vulnerability, a liability, but in this case I think people are like they're kind of sick with all politicians, and so he has this perfect opportunity, in a way that the storm that the perfect storm that's been created, actually is made for a Mark Carney in this environment. And so he's got the experience on paper, he's got the calm, quiet, boring, bland demeanor that I think is appealing to a lot of voters, maybe not enough, maybe not all of them, but enough at least to make this very competitive politically.
Aaron Pete:I'm not a politically biased person I suspect you're the same that we understand that there's ebbs and flows and, as we've just watched, one political party is popular and their ideas are popular one day and that changes the next day depending on the circumstances and, from my perspective, great voters adapt and understand those changes. Growing up, I've spoken to people who've gone. I voted for those people and they didn't deliver on the things that I wanted them to. So I'm never voting again and it's like OK, but like there's lots that goes into this political process that's far more complicated, that shape how people make decisions.
Aaron Pete:But one thing that I have as a criticism of the Conservative Party that I like your feedback on is they don't ever, from the ones that I've interviewed, they don't come across as compassionate. Even on issues they care about and they say that they care about the best interest of Canadians they lack compassion. The one that I would raise personally is the mass grave story for Indigenous people. I'm First Nations, I'm a First Nations councillor. I understand the arguments being put forward by conservatives that we are not unearthing the bodies and therefore we are not providing physical evidence of their claims, and that makes us vulnerable to their critiques, and I'm alive to that.
Aaron Pete:But the way they say it is not at all compassionate, as people perhaps on the liberal or left side are where they're like. Maybe we don't have all the information. We're willing to learn more. We want to work with you to figure that out. On issues of the LGBTQ community, they come across so harsh that it's hard to have an understanding or a common ground because they don't sound compassionate to the issues, and I think Pierre Pauliev is guilty of this challenge as well that it doesn't come from a place of compassion and for Canadians that feels like an important, key piece of the metrics in making a decision on who's going to lead the country. Am I off base here? What are your feedback on what I've had to say?
David Coletto:I don't think you're off base. I think we shouldn't overemphasize, though, that what you describe is what all Canadians want, right. I think we have to recognize that we, although we don't see ourselves as polarized and divided as say the United States, there is still very different views on a lot of those issues you described that animate people on both sides, but where I think the Conservatives now find themselves in a weaker position, exactly as you describe it, is because, prior to the moment we're in right now, I think, while they may not have demonstrated compassion in the word you use to a lot of people, I still believe Pierre-Paul Yves felt empathetic to the anxiety around scarcity, that people were feeling right, and I'd like you to about like what scarcity does to the average person.
David Coletto:It basically, if you think about that, you know hierarchy of needs, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that triangle right, and the items at the bottom are physiological security and personal security. Can I feed myself, Can I house myself? You know, do I feel safe? So many Canadians, over the last two years, have basically moved down that list and so it's in their minds. It's not because they are less compassionate, it's and I'm not saying the Conservatives, I'm saying Canadians, the public, it's that they're not able to think about things like Indigenous reconciliation or social justice, or even climate change, frankly, has fallen down as people's material concerns have become front and center, right, and so pierre poly of, I think, was very good at connecting with people, enough people at that level, and so he could ignore all those other things and they could, and he didn't have to, you know, smile very often, or he didn't have to demonstrate a warmth, um warmth and a compassion, I think, as you described.
David Coletto:But in a world today where that anger, that frustration has shifted to, as you perfectly described, as fear, we are actually seeking a compassionate set of hands, right, somebody who understands what this uncertainty is doing to us. Right, like when Donald Trump first announced his plan to bring in 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada. I am certain that almost every Canadian household you know if you live with somebody else we're looking at each other and asking ourselves what does this mean for me? I don't know. I need somebody to help guide me, and I think you know. In Ontario anyways, we saw a provincial election there, where Doug Ford has this interesting ability to be both at once compassionate, showing that he cares, at the same time as being tough and able to stand up to the bully, and I think he, for enough Ontarians, was the kind of leader that they were looking for and hence why he was easily re-elected, despite being a conservative, in that election.
Aaron Pete:How much does scarcity play a role in elections overall? Because within my community we face this and I've called it famine mentality. I think scarcity mentality is probably a better term and you just see that when we're doing something for some people, they feel like they're getting less or that that's somehow taking away from them and there becomes like a competitive mindset that there's not enough to go around and so how are we going to divvy things up? And it can really stop progress in communities in a significant way, Totally and it's what some call zero-sum thinking.
David Coletto:Right, it is exactly as you described. So if I have something and you don't, I'm going to be protective of it. I'm not going to share, and if I don't have something and you do, I'm going to want it. I'm going to be protective of it and not going to share, and if I don't have something and you do, I'm going to want it. I'm going to want to support leaders or anything that helps me get a piece of that thing that we believe. It's very perceptual, I think in your community might be more real than it is in other communities in Canada, where you know we've never been wealthier as a country than we are today, and yet the perception is we're not, and so that perception is everything and it drives us to fight over these scarce resources. So I think I do think it's changed our thinking.
David Coletto:But again, what Donald Trump has single handedly done is reset that mindset in so many people who said look, you know our country isn't that bad. Our country actually is pretty great, and I am going to rally around our flag and I'm going to look to a more collective response to this. I'm going to do my part. I'm not going to buy American products. I'm not going to travel to the US anymore, and so that collectivism, I think for many, has taken over the individualist fight for scarce things, because now we're all in it together, we have a common enemy, and that common and I'm using that term more symbolically I still hope we don't think he's an enemy but nonetheless that common enemy in our framing unites us right and brings us together. So I think it is changing that mindset, which is why I think it's going from scarcity to precarity.
Aaron Pete:We talked about how Justin Trudeau leaving has perhaps given a sigh of relief to Canadians, the Liberal Party community, and I'm wondering how much has it played a role that Mark Carney is now the leader. Who is Mark Carney from Canadians' perspectives?
David Coletto:Well, I think many Canadians have gotten to know a little bit about him. But I would say, you know he's going to become prime minister, probably as the least familiar prime minister we've had in a really long time, in the sense that there's close to a third of Canadians who probably know nothing about him. They haven't been paying attention to the leadership race, they don't remember him or weren't alive when he was, you know, bank governor of the Bank of Canada, and so he's very much a blank slate. But I think what many people, even if they only know one thing about him they know he's an economist, they know he's led, you know, the banks in Canada and in England and I think they're projecting on him a hope that he can figure this out Right.
David Coletto:You know, just, I don't always use individual conversations.
David Coletto:I have, but my mother, who I think is like that typical baby boom swing voter, lives in suburban Toronto and she texted me the other day after watching the leadership convention on the weekend, the little pieces of it, and said you know, maybe because he's not a politician we can trust him more, maybe he'll be more honest, right, which I think that comment goes to the underlying concern that people have about politicians generally, about the fact that they, you know and Justin Trudeau was part of that and Pierre Polyev has been a politician for most of his life.
David Coletto:In a weird way, being sort of that non-politician right now, having very little political experience, may absolutely be an asset for Mark Carney. So I think there's still I wouldn't believe, I don't believe views of him are baked in. I think a campaign when he is front and center, when the stakes are higher, are going to really illuminate, I think, to people who he is and what he stands for. But I'm not sure people really know the guy. Pierre Polyev is far more well-known and people feel more familiarity with him. Like him or not, mark Carney is still someone who I think people's views will be shaped over time.
Aaron Pete:You've talked quite a bit about through almost like a storytelling lens, and I'm just curious how much of the work that you do is taking in numbers and understanding the broader context and putting that in a story form. How important is that in your work?
David Coletto:I think it's essential and I think it's actually not to toot our own horns at Abacus, but I think it's one of the things we become really well known for is right, like it's one thing for me to say, well, 40 percent of canadians think this and 30 percent think this, and drown you with numbers, right, aaron? Like that would be a boring conversation. Um, you probably wouldn't get the the point even, um, and so what I try to do is make sure that my conclusions, my interpretations of what's going on, are grounded in research, are grounded in high quality, you know, surveys, or when we do qualitative research, with conversations with people, but make it make sense, right. And so when I try to find these prevailing frameworks, that or mindsets as I like to think about, I think it helps us understand, kind of, why people are doing what they're doing, right.
David Coletto:If we go to the core of it, I think my number one job as a market researcher is to identify the unmet needs of any audience, whether it's your customer, whether it's your voter, whether it's your employees or team member, and so understand. But it's not enough just to say, well, 60% want this. It's to understand why and how has that evolved over time and so, yeah, it's my favorite part of my job is to sort of ask a whole bunch of questions, look at the data, but then say to myself, like okay, but take a step back. And if I was writing a children's book about this, what would I write? You know, sometimes it's more complicated and you've got to really think about how do you simplify it, but sometimes it's just obvious and we get lost in numbers and so we got to get outside of it.
Aaron Pete:You know where do you learn that skill set, because that is likely not something you learned in school on how to do, and so so do you like, is movies helpful, like how would you stay connected to that and how does that inform where you get that information from?
David Coletto:It's a great question. I don't know how, If I had to go back and say, oh, if I was going to write a book on how to do what I do, I don't know if I could point to the exact moments. Because you're right, and I teach a class at Carleton University in polling and public opinion and if you ask my students, I like drill into them the importance of telling the story, of finding that nugget and making an impact with whatever audience you're speaking to, because ultimately they want to take your research and do something with it. And if they don't know what you're concluding or saying, how can they act on it? Because that's what good research does is it allows you to make better decisions.
David Coletto:But in terms of how I got here, you know, I think it was a mix of just doing this for almost 20 years and learning through practice, right where I would do a work and then I would present it to my clients or to audiences and you know I could tell by whether they got it or didn't. That you know I would just need to keep refining and thinking about the way that you do it. But perhaps the best training for me was public speaking. I do probably like 30 or 40 presentations a year, big audiences small, and it's always thinking about you know, what does this audience need to get away, get out of this? What are the five key things? And oftentimes, the best way to deliver that is not just with a bunch of charts and data, but actually a very clear story.
David Coletto:And so, yeah, you know, I've learned from, like, excellent communicators and speech writers, and I guess it's just, you know, living in the world of politics, uh, and surrounded by it. You learn that way. Um, you know I'm a huge fan of the West wing, and so I, you know, you think about the stories that come out of that, and some of your listeners might be too young to even. It's crazy that I think about the West wing as being like an old, classic TV show, but it, it, it was that you, you know, I think, personification of an ideal political world. That, and the writing was just so good that I always think of that when I think about how to make sense of what's going on out there and make it make sense for people and the consumers of the work we do.
Aaron Pete:Correct me if I'm wrong again, but in 2015, it felt like the main story was a young man versus older individual ready for fresh change, and in this election it feels like younger man not necessarily super helpful to the conversation. Older, wiser man, lots of years of experience is what we're looking for and, like I know, that was embedded in that liberal campaign was exactly where most people or at least a plurality enough people were.
David Coletto:After close to a decade of Stephen Harper right and Stephen Harper for I'm not going to judge his prime ministership, but he was not Justin Trudeau he was very different, more serious, more like steel-eyed, more strategic. And Justin Trudeau came along at a time when people and this is important back to my original story around scarcity people weren't generally feeling that things were scarce, and so, after coming out of the financial crisis and the Great Recession, which didn't hit Canada as hard as it did the US or the UK I think we could talk about gender equity and Indigenous reconciliation and climate action, because we were ready to, we wanted to, it was time, and Trudeau exemplified a view and a belief that we wanted. Canada wanted to be noticed again right, and so it was. You know, even to this day, I would travel to when I was visiting family in Italy on the summer and my like 70 year old aunt, who doesn't speak any English, still knew who our prime minister was. I don't think she knew who Stephen Harper was at any point during his time, and so that, I think, was the dynamic.
David Coletto:And so today, you know, when I look at the zeitgeist of the public. I think you are right. I think they're looking for security. I think that is ultimately what people want, and they're not looking for somebody who's going to eliminate the scarcity. Scarcity is still there, that perception of things, but it's no longer driven by bad decisions in Ottawa. It's being driven by really bad decisions coming out of Washington.
Aaron Pete:The other piece. I'm just Stephen Harper to me. I was not a fan of him as he was exiting stage left in 2015. I had done a criminology degree, learned a lot about mandatory minimum sentencing and the impact it had on Indigenous communities but people more broadly. That it wasn't a strong policy from my perspective overall and so I had negative connotations towards him.
Aaron Pete:Now, in the what I would say wild times we're in, there's something about me that goes maybe things weren't so bad in 2008. We got out pretty okay and things aren't as bad as I thought they were, and maybe we could use some normalcy around here and maybe that approach isn't so bad. And now Justin Trudeau, I would say, is in the same situation. Where he's, there was a visceral dislike for him. There were F Trudeau signs on people's vehicles. They hit a critical mass on their dislike. Is that just common that? Of course they have like a 10-year shelf life. Then over time we look more fondly as years go by. Or is Justin Trudeau's legacy really going to be locked in with with the reflections we have today on him?
David Coletto:I think every prime minister, for the most part, is viewed more favorably 10-20 years later than they are the time they leave. Think of, you know, when Brian Mulroney passed away, it was an outpouring of support and he was one of the least popular prime ministers when he resigned that we had ever seen. So, I think, justin Trudeau, I think history will be kinder to Justin Trudeau, particularly given what he's done in the last few weeks. You know, we even see his approval rating starting to rise pretty quickly as people come to recognize that there were some strengths there. He's a great, I think, and this is my opinion, but I think he and I think a lot of people would reflect this he's very good in a crisis, right. But what he lacked was a strategic vision of where to take the country, and so in between the crises, he could never get things back on track in people's minds. And I think the other thing is that leaders come along for the moment, right. And so, after, you know, a number of years of liberal government, after the sponsorship scandal and this may be way before your time, aaron, but like in 2004 and then 2006, stephen Harper was the, I think, the moment, the guy that people wanted at that moment Stability, strength.
David Coletto:And then, if you remember, in 2011, after the financial crisis, you know they were asking Canadians to give them a strong, stable, majority conservative government, and they got one in 2011. They were asking Canadians to give them a strong, stable, majority conservative government, and they got one in 2011. You fast forward to today and it almost feels like that's what Canadians are looking for as well. Right, the financial crisis was not as severe, I think, in people's minds, as the Trump crisis could be, and so you know, I think you're going to hear both Mark Carney and Pierre Poly of asking for a strong, stable, majority government, because they need that, because people are going to want stability. Minority government isn't stable. A majority government is, and I think they're looking for calm, sensible leadership. And that ballot question is still sort of teetering on like a seesaw between like is this about scarcity or is this about precarity? And it's not decided yet, but I still think the momentum is moving towards a place where Mark Carney is in a more favorable position to win as a result.
Aaron Pete:From your perspective, what are the big political differences between, like boomers, gen X, millennials and Gen Z?
David Coletto:I think that you've got to start with how they get information, I think, before you can get anywhere else, right? I don't think the difference between you know, gen Z or Zoomer I hate that term is with a boomer right now in terms of where they're getting their information right. We know from our research that millennials and Gen Z are far more likely to be listening to podcasts. One in four Canadians under 30 say their primary news source, their primary news source is TikTok. Okay, less than like 10% of boomers are on TikTok, right, and they are much more likely still to be watching mainstream broadcast news and listening to the radio and reading, you know, the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail maybe not in paper form anymore, but still going to those sites and relying on that traditional news source is that you can actually have two people living in the same household across different generations and be living in a very different perceived world. Right that they aren't exposed to the same things, they aren't consuming the same information, they aren't being influenced by the same people in terms of the story. So that's the first point, the thing that I've seen, at least at this moment. So that's the first point, the thing that I've seen, at least at this moment, is the big change in views that baby boomers in particular have had towards the liberals. I think I even wrote a piece that said you know, hey, boomer like, or, ok, boomer like, why? The why the boomers might be the saviors for the Liberal Party. No-transcript CBC News is on somewhere, right, it's just on.
David Coletto:Most people your age, aaron probably never turn on a TV or stream any of that content, and so that is a very different experience.
David Coletto:Look, I think there's still a big gap, though I look at what particularly under 40 Canadians are, and I'm no longer there anymore.
David Coletto:As a geriatric millennial in my now mid-40s, I still believe there's this sense that this country has left young people behind, that it's impossible to buy a home, that the employment market doesn't feel that secure and the hope for opportunity isn't there. Add on climate change and a bunch of global insecurity, and I still feel that young people are still in that scarcity mindset, much more than older folks who have the benefit, typically speaking, of more wealth. They've paid off their home, if they own their home, and so they can worry about the big existential crises like Trump, and not be so focused on like how am I going to pay the rent and I still think that's a big problem. So I think we could see a big, a larger generational divide in our politics perhaps, but going the other way than we've typically seen, where younger people are more likely still to be conservative-oriented voters and older folks are navigating towards the safe harbor of Mark Carney and the Liberals.
Aaron Pete:How do you think about that switchover? I know a lot of people are worried when people are getting their information from TikTok, and I know young people who say the Globe and Mail or the National Post are not always that reliable and have gotten big issues wrong over the years, so they're not safe from criticisms either. And I think about it even within the realm that I'm in that I have a fiduciary duty to learn more about journalism, to practice good interviews, to make sure I ask tough questions to politicians if they come on, because we're moving in this direction, which I think is good Longer form conversations, less scripted, more opportunity to connect with a person, but not the same level of standards and consistency as CTV, news or CBC is going to bring to a standard quality interview, and so we have to start to humble ourselves and integrate those pieces in order to make sure that we're delivering key information to listeners. How do we make sure that there's that balance and that one group isn't getting bad information?
David Coletto:Well, I hope, first, that everyone in your kind of position who has an audience takes it as seriously as you do, because I don't think they all do, and I think some have an agenda and push that agenda and you know, what you have able to build with an audience is something that very few can do anymore, which is, you know, people will spend half an hour to 45 minutes listening to an interview you do and they build a even though it's a one-way still medium. They don't get to talk to you, aaron, like I am doing right now, but they still get comfortable with you. I have a number of podcasts that, like I'm so comforted by their voices that they can put me to sleep right, like they're just familiar. I trust them, and with familiarity comes trust. And so I do think that is a dynamic that's happening, that the rise of long form is creating opportunities for people to learn about a lot of new things and in depth, in ways they wouldn't before. But it depends on who they're listening to and who they're and end up building relationships with. And so, yeah, I think, I think, I think it is a responsibility, and I'm and I'm so happy to hear that you, you understand it, but I am worried that not everybody does.
David Coletto:And in a world where you know, for most Canadians, but particularly those under 40, youtube is like the primary platform in which most people get information about everything.
David Coletto:Tendency, if you want it to and I say want, because you keep consuming the same kind of information that you could get locked into both a deep rabbit hole of things that you probably shouldn't be exposed to, but also you can isolate yourself from everything else.
David Coletto:If you're only interested in, like hockey, you can basically surround yourself with content that's only about that and you never get exposed to anything else that's going on in the world. Right, that's different than what it was even when I was growing up, where you still were exposed to, you know, journalism about a number of different things. Right, if I had one piece of advice for every younger person listening to this, or anybody really, and I tell my team all this time read a publication like the Economist every week, if you can. Right, and sometimes it's very technical, but it gives you this broad-based understanding of what's going on in other parts of the world, beyond just even our own borders, and linking the business and politics and society all together. I think we lack context anymore, and without context, we can't have perspective, and I think we've got to find and without context, we can't have perspective, and I think we've got to find a way to get people more perspective on things.
Aaron Pete:I agree. I would add context, and I think maturity is something that I hope we see more of. In the US it's become two teams, and I think we're vulnerable to that here in Canada but an eagerness to seek out the complexity in things, the nuance in complex dialogues, and to not want it to be black or white, for it, to want it to be more complicated and to see that as an opportunity for growth and to learn more. Like when you go into history on anything, you realize that there is so much to know and even this historian did not in this information and there was more to read here, and so, I think, just making sure that we humble ourselves in that sense as well. The other piece that I think is really important from my perspective to understand is the media dynamics with politics is, I think, changing.
Aaron Pete:Pierre Pauliev, I think, started this movement of being willing to go on the Jordan Petersons and do long-form interviews with individuals who he might be more politically aligned with, and we saw Justin Trudeau start to step back from the Christmas interviews and making himself available for the town halls that he had famously started in 2015 and just taking questions from the audience, and that's perhaps my one fear with Mr Carney is that we did see him go on Jon Stewart, that he did have an interest in certain media, just as Pierre Palliev did, and my hope, my dream, would be that these politicians go. I want to find the toughest interview like a real interview, not while Pierre Polyev's eating an apple, but a really tough interview that challenges his perspective, that brings different ideas on how he could approach things, and if he could manage that well, I feel like there'd be a lot more trust in him, and same with Mr Carney, and so I'm wondering how are politicians going to approach new media and old media moving forward?
David Coletto:Well, I think I mean I love your idealism. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic that you know, any political leader of any political stripe is going to see the benefit of engaging more with you know journalists and good journalists than less. And then the reason is for the exact conversation we're having is that that media market has fragmented so much that, from a political marketing perspective, it no longer makes any sense to sit for a 20-minute interview with the host of CBC the National, like you may have done and you would have thought was a win, an opportunity to speak to millions of people at one time. That doesn't happen anymore, right? And so Pierre Polyev, to his credit, knows who his audience is, and so he goes on the Jordan Peterson podcast and we did some research on this knowing full well that the number one audience for that podcast is young men, and he can speak directly to them and you're right in probably a medium that's a little more friendly, more aligned with his worldview, and so it's less risky.
David Coletto:But that's the nature of the environment today, right, and you hear any political strategist tell you today it's like earned media almost doesn't matter in their minds when they're running a campaign. It matters, I think, in terms of good civic literacy and good democratic debate. But unfortunately, it's way more effective to spend, you know, half a million dollars and put your ads on YouTube than it is going and speaking with you know Vashi Kapelos on her show or with any host of one of the evening or late night news programs. So the incentives aren't there anymore and I think I'm a realist and I recognize that, like, the incentive drives the behavior. And so even for somebody like Mark Carney, who should feel comfortable and we should want him to feel comfortable answering tough questions, because it's a tough job that he's applying for and that he's actually going to get in the next few days Um, I still don't think he's going to. So we've got to find other ways, I think, of holding them accountable, which I think is in transition right now.
Aaron Pete:I think that's the wild desire and I'd be interested to see if this is true from your perspective. I don't think we want politicians who are being this strategic about who they're going on. I think we want real people who are coming to represent the people they serve. Idealism to like what I think, what previous prime ministers throughout history would have done that there was this mindset of you go in front of the camera, you look at dead in the eyes and you go. Hey, canada, I have failed you greatly on this approach and I should have done A, b, c, d and I could have done it better and for that reason, I'm choosing to resign, or I'm choosing to move out of this position, or I'm choosing to move that person out of this position. I have made a mistake and I want to hold myself accountable to you Canadians. Is that idealism? Am I lost in the 1960s?
David Coletto:Well, I think it's still idealism. I'm not confident that we're going to see anyone come out and say, well, I'm going to completely change it, but I think you are giving voice to what most people want. Right, when my mother says, I like Mark Carney, maybe because he's not a politician and politicians aren't honest, that's going to fade pretty fast, likely when Mark Carney becomes. He is a politician now and he's going to have to campaign in the environment as you describe it. So I think there's a place for and it's not just out of pure idealism or what is right for that politician who has enough self-confidence to say I'm going to be the person and the leader that people want me to be. And I actually think there's a space for that in Canada.
David Coletto:Still, I don't think we're as polarized as the US. I don't think our media environment is as partisan as it is in the US. I'm just not sure that the people around those leaders are going to encourage them to do it, and so I'm with you, aaron, I hope that that's where we get and I think you know, maybe it's idealism on my part I think that the next generation of political leaders I think we're going to come, hopefully, with that with that in mind, because that's what they want too. They want to hear their whether it's their, their political leader, whether it's their employer, whether it's, you know, the person who owns the company that they do business with. They want to hear from the person and want to be able to hold them accountable or thank them for the good work they've done.
Aaron Pete:Two more brief questions. One what do you foresee in this upcoming election? Are the NDP and the Bloc irrelevant in this upcoming election and how do you process that?
David Coletto:Yeah, I wrote a piece just recently on the NDP. I think they're in deep trouble politically because of a climate that we described on this interview. That is leaving very little room for both of them frankly, both the New Democrats and the Bloc a few months ago in part because even Quebecers, francophone Quebecers, who would probably be the last to fly the Canadian flag rally, are joining in. They're just as anxious and worried and upset and angry at Donald Trump as Canadians in other parts of the country, and so that Quebec nationalist fervor is no longer as strong, I think, as it was. Even Leger, another polling firm, showed that a few days after Trump's first tariff threat, support for independence in Quebec dropped 10 points, literally in like three days. So the bloc is going to have a hard time, but the NDP in particular, I think, is going to be challenged, even though you would normally look at this scenario and say, wow, former central banker, former Goldman sachs executive, this should be prime ndp time to go after the liberals. The liberals are moving kind of to the right and that should create space for the ndp.
David Coletto:The problem is, when we're in a kind of crisis mentality, it has a tendency of making it a binary choice, and I and I you know, for anyone who's listening, who is at all interested in UK politics in the 2017 general election in the UK, in England, after the Brexit vote, you saw an increase in the share of the two largest parties. The third, fourth, fifth parties saw their vote drop as the choice became like pro-Brexit party, anti-brexit party, right, and so I think the NDP is going to have a really hard time navigating that. You know, jagmeet Singh, I can just visualize sort of in the back being like hey guys, what about me? What about me? Because there's going to be such a sharp choice between Polyev and Carney that where does Singh fit into all of that?
Aaron Pete:Right? Is nationalism good for us, this movement towards nationalism?
David Coletto:It's more of a question, I think, for economists, I think from a public opinion perspective, it can be, as long as it's a positive nationalism. I think we've seen versions of a negative one. I think we've seen versions of a negative one. You can look at some countries in Europe and even Donald Trump's version of nationalism I don't think is a positive thing. It's one that basically says like we're better than everybody else and let's just beat on everybody else, as opposed to we're better than everybody else and let's guide them to a better place, which was like the old American exceptionalism. We now have a new version which was like the old American exceptionalism. We now have a new version which is like bully exceptionalism. But in the Canadian context, I think it is a good thing right now.
David Coletto:I think the public psyche around our own country has been kind of down for the last number of years, that we weren't as proud to be Canadians. There were lots of reasons that we could point to that. People said, oh, you know, our economy's not as strong or you know, and a lot of political leaders were helping fuel that kind of negativity towards our country. But I think in this moment, all being said, I think nationalism is good. I think it's bad when it prevents us from seeing beyond our own borders and recognizing and I think Canada has always been a place where we know we aren't the biggest, we know we aren't the strongest, but we can't really bully people and tell them what to do, and so I've found myself more often these days, you know, in meetings putting a Canadian flag on my lapel, or walk down the neighborhood and see Canadian flags out on houses that you would only see on Canada Day. They're out there now.
David Coletto:Don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's increasing our mood. And last point, I'll make it just from a data perspective Increasing our mood. And last point, I'll make it just from a data perspective For basically two years, barely a quarter of Canadians felt that their country was headed in the right direction. This was like we were in a funk. We were in this us and we're seeing that country in the right direction number starting to go up and moving pretty quickly, and so that's giving me some optimism that this is all not a bad thing to happen right now.
Aaron Pete:Oh, he almost stole my last question. David, you've been able to watch the ebbs and flows of our country in a really deep way as a First Nations councillor. I've done a lot of surveys. We're doing a comprehensive community plan right now and it's been very humbling to be able to see the statistics still. Speak with people and get those anecdotal stories, but really see the vibes and what actually people think on issues and get 113 responses out of 650 and start to get a gauge on what the community actually wants and where we're going and those ebbs and flows of good times 2008 not being a good time and the positive Is there any hope you can leave people with as we look at the negativity and all of this uncertainty? How do we keep that hope?
David Coletto:Well, look, I think you know one of the most fascinating periods of my life was was doing research around COVID, right, and if you remember that, we try to forget that moment, but it was a scary moment for everybody. Um, but in that scary moment, I think we found, uh, we changed some of the values that we had, we changed the way we did things and, I think, in a lot of ways, for the better. There's still a lot of pain and suffering and harm done by by that event, but it left us in a different place and, in some ways, I think, better ways that we haven't been challenged before. I think I see it in the data. I see a renewed interest in us, you know, being entrepreneurial and being builders and makers of things. Again, we see us looking beyond North America and saying, well, there's a bigger world out there. Right, like, let's engage with Asia and Europe. And you know, we released a survey earlier this week that showed like more people think it's a good idea to join the EU than not. Right, that may never happen and probably not a good idea, given the bureaucracy of that arrangement, but that's not the point.
David Coletto:The point is we're now being forced to look beyond that North-South relationship which is, I think, always going to be important when Donald Trump eventually leaves the US will never not be our most important partner. But I think, I hope that you know by saying I'm not going to travel to the United States this year, I'm going to go to Mexico, or I'm going to go to South America, I'm going to go to Asia. That's going to expose people to new ideas and new opportunities. So that's the optimism I have. I'm a glass half full kind of guy all the time and so, as anxious inducing as this world is at this moment, I'm always mindful of that. Thomas, I think Pinker book, you know, enlightenment, now that I am someone who still believes I would rather be born today than I would have. Sorry, steven.
Aaron Pete:Pinker.
David Coletto:Thank you. I would rather be born today than at any point previously, and unfortunately most people aren't there, but I'm going to be the one who keeps telling them and reminding them that there's a lot better reason to be alive today than, you know, 1950 for a whole bunch of people.
Aaron Pete:Mr Coletto, it has been an honor to speak with you. Very rare that I get to speak with someone who's reached what I would call self-actualization in that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because you bring a calmness to these really complicated issues. Of course you have a pulse on what's going on. There's something very calming about how you're delivering the information that I really, really appreciate, because these are very intimidating, scary times for so many people trying to figure out how they're going to run their business under this and how the federal government is going to play a role and all of these never-ending questions. But your ability to share this information and tell us where other Canadians are at, I think, really helps bring the temperature down in the room and I'm just honored to share this time with you.
David Coletto:I appreciate that, aaron, and thanks so much for having me on your show.
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