Craft Politics

Eight months ago Dave Cournoyer told us the pro-Canada side in Alberta had no leader, no campaign, and no ground game. It became our most-listened-to episode ever. On Monday that side won three to one, so Dave is back — solo host this week, both of us nursing colds — to explain how, and why the Premier's week got harder after the result.
Dave has covered Alberta politics for twenty years at Daveberta, the Substack I turn to for Alberta.
What we got into:
Ten ballots, ten boxes, no tabulators. Why the count ran into Thursday and why one First Nation ran out of ballots.
The nine questions few polled. The government expected all of them to pass at 60 or 70 percent. Immigration scraped through; the constitutional questions all lost. Dave on the $4 million ad campaign that was "long-winded, vague, and confusing" at the same time.
"I voted to abolish the Senate. I lost. I'll take the L." Why nobody outside the political-nerd caucus had the Senate in their top ten.
Half a million leave voters. A message to Ottawa, or the real base? How the separatist pitch drifted from draft constitutions to "let Albertans decide."
Who knocked the doors. The NDP ran a get-out-the-vote operation; the governing party, as far as Dave could tell, didn't to nearly the same extent
The Premier's November problem. Thousands of members at the convention, a push to make separatism party policy that lost by one board vote last year, and a leader who just told her most active organizers to park their beliefs or leave.
Also discussed: Calgary-Shaw as the warning sign, why Thomas Lukaszuk deserves more credit than he's getting, Pollara's finding that separatists think Smith is a federalist and federalists think she's a separatist, the Quebec playbook (start a party, or take over the one you're in), and following ten counts from a Halifax hotel room at 1 a.m.
Dave's call: the next big moment in Alberta politics is the UCP convention in late November. We'll have him back once the Premier is through it.
Find Dave at daveberta.substack.com and on the Daveberta Podcast.

Six weeks ago Ginny Roth told us there’s a magic button in Canadian politics: press “Trump” and watch your numbers move. Carney pressed it. Doug Ford pressed it. Then Quebec shrugged, and B.C. seems to be shrugging too. So we opened a beer to work out what changed, among other things.
No guest this week. This is the first “At the Bar”: the two of us catching up on six interviews and one B.C. IPA, after a listener (hi, Barrett) said he missed the beer reviews.
What we got into:
The last one percent. Graham Lanktree’s point that a Canada–UK deal only touches what CPTPP left behind caught Joseph flat-footed. Andrew on where the real barriers are, and why a British teacher can work in Auckland but not in Surrey.
Is Reform Thatcher’s party? Darren Grimes said no. Andrew agrees, and thinks the one making the Thatcherite pitch in Britain right now is Kemi Badenoch.
“Win back the right.” Ginny’s advice to the Tories gave Andrew a visible reaction on air. Now he explains it: five seats lost to Reform, dozens to the Lib Dems, and you can’t out-Reform Reform. There’s a can of Coke in the argument.
The Trump button, provincially. One in 10 B.C. voters put tariffs at the top of their list. Andrew’s read from the doors: voters can smell an election called for party advantage. “It’s just not cricket.”
Alberta votes Monday. Why a 25 percent separation vote is a bigger problem for Danielle Smith than for Ottawa, and what Brexit and Scotland say about movements that lose and don’t go home.
Also discussed: why Darren’s council in Durham has shed councillors since he was on, Andrew’s unfinished kitchen, Joseph’s 20th wedding anniversary (china, apparently), $30 French butter from a Surrey strip mall, the beer club’s feelings about Margaret Thatcher, Andy Burnham’s Brexit habit, a curry-leaf beer that failed twice, and four days of someone else’s curry delivery.
Predictions: we both say the B.C. Conservatives pull it off on Oct. 24.
The beer: Coast Mountain Brewing’s Hopganjola, 6.7 percent. Andrew lands it between 3.75 and 4 on Untappd. Citrus, tropical, slightly dank, and faintly of curry.
Next week: the Alberta referendum, with a returning guest.

Six months ago we had Rudy Husny on to ask whether Christine Fréchette could pull off a Mark Carney-style win in Quebec. The answer arrived Monday night: zero seats, down from ninety, and the premier lost her own riding. Rudy's first words on the result: "Kim Campbell can sleep better tonight."
So we got him back on three hours of sleep and a lot of Coca-Cola. Rudy was a senior adviser in the Harper government, ran twice for the federal Conservatives in Outremont, and now calls Quebec politics for CJAD, FM 107,7, and Radio-Canada. He's also the man who said all campaign that Duhaime would have a target on his back.
What we got into:
Why the PQ should be relieved it lost the majority. Twenty-eight percent of the vote, the lowest share for any government in Quebec's history, and a referendum question that now needs another party's votes. Rudy calls it the best outcome the PQ could have asked for.
Nineteen is the perfect number. Duhaime asked for twelve seats and got nineteen. Rudy's advice: take the whole caucus into a forest for a week before the Assembly sits.
The House of Cards that ended like Veep. The CAQ's foreign-interference alarm, who pushed it, and why Rudy thinks comms classes will teach it for years.
Forty Liberal seats, and a wall at eighty. Why Milliard's result is both a comeback and a ceiling.
Wheels, no engine. The CAQ still has about a million dollars in public funding on the way, a voter file, and no MNAs. Who picks up the vehicle?
The Trump card has expired. Fréchette tried to play it; Andrew and Joseph think David Eby is finding the same thing in B.C.
Also discussed: why Stephen Harper's 2006 Quebec map and Duhaime's 2026 map are the same map, Pierre Poilievre rushing to congratulate a man who once needed his help, PR as the one thing all four parties now want (funny how that works), Quebec solidaire's Politburo keeping the lights on, PSPP's first hundred days, and a short lecture from Andrew on which side of the border one buys beer.
Rudy's verdict for anglophone Canada: forget about the referendum for a while. Seventy percent of Quebecers would still vote No, and nothing about Monday changed that.
Find Rudy on Dans les couloirs and at @rudyhusny.

Graham is POLITICO's senior trade reporter in London, and he covers Britain's trade relationships with Europe, the United States, and Canada. Last month he co-wrote the piece arguing that Carney's middle powers alliance arrived before the middle powers were ready. Days later, Europe sent an invitation.

What we got into:

Warm words and trade flows. Graham on why Strasbourg was a political signal, and why none of this shows up in anyone's quarterly results before 2028.

The Homer-in-the-hedge strategy. Graham's read on how the Burnham government handles Trump: keep the Starmer deal, blame Starmer for its flaws, and hope the president forgets Britain exists. Plus the New York readout, in which the prime minister raised an unnamed company's trade problem.

"Fresh air and clean water." Seventy percent of Britons, including half of Reform voters, want closer ties with the EU. Andrew explains why that number means nothing, and which question would.

Why Labour reopened Brexit. Burnham told conference the next manifesto will debate a customs union, or rejoining. His own business secretary told POLITICO the conversation isn't helpful. Graham sides with the business secretary.

The last one percent. CPTPP now covers 99 percent of Canada–UK trade. The missing one percent comes down to two companies, Canada Goose and Jaguar Land Rover, and a rules-of-origin fight neither side can finish.

Chlorinated chicken, Canadian edition. The issue that sank a UK–US deal under Boris Johnson is the same one blocking Canada, minus the shouting. Andrew's inbox from the CETA years.

Also discussed: Carney's convening power, Canada's new seat at the table on Britain's next fighter jet, why nobody marches for white-collar jobs, and a G20 trade ministers' meeting where the real conversation is Chinese steel.

Graham's closer: Carney and Trump both said this week they think a deal is possible. That's warmer than anything we've heard in a month. Whether it's more than words, the next 90 days will tell.

Find Graham's reporting at POLITICO Europe and on X @g_lanktree.

Sean is editor-at-large at The Hub, was Stephen Harper's senior economic adviser, and is one of the more prolific policy writers in the country. He also spent the last month arguing a position most of Canada had decided was closed.

What we got into:

The deal in the parallel universe. Sean's read of what was on the table on August 21: tariff-free access for 85 to 90 percent of Canadian exports, at a real cost to autos, steel, and aluminum. His question is what the people who called it unsignable would have said if Carney had signed it.

The madness of crowds. A 60 percent consensus is healthy. A 99 percent consensus is something else. Sean's best line: "I don't tend to make good judgments when I'm mad. I think that scales to governments and countries."

What might get Carney back to the table. The investment summit, and the investors who won't commit until the U.S. file is settled. Sean's theory of the catalyst.

Andrew's Brexit rant, briefly. Associate membership doesn't exist and won't, ten EU states still haven't ratified CETA, and Erasmus alone costs Britain a billion dollars a year. Here endeth the rant.

Managed multipolarity. Sean's provocation: Carney may not just be responding to a less reliable America. He may welcome it. The New York Times interview and the reserve-currency line are the evidence.

Winning the ideas, losing the elections. Tax cuts, airport privatization, labour reform, all from a Liberal government. Sean on why the Reform Party, which never formed government, might be the most successful party of the last 50 years.

Also discussed: Sean's drinking game for anyone who can't name the new B.C. Conservative leader (Lorne Doerkson, for the record), Andrew's theory of political breakups, Carney's approval numbers as "Saddam Hussein territory," what "no direct payments" to the EU covers, and the minivan-driving normie in Surrey who has a nine-to-five and better things to do than politics.

Sean's closer: the measure of a conservative is a commitment to ideas, not a temperament. Reagan said he was a conservative but wasn't in a bad mood about it. Somewhere along the way that got flipped.

Find Sean at The Hub and on X @Sean_Speer.