[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Barrister]

Mark Carney can sell himself, but not in one year.  He's way too unknown in the general public.  We are very politicized here, so BB may not be too far off the truth.  To the common people, if you're not a tv/social media star, you are an unknown quantity.  He's not in active politics, he's not in media, so he's unknown.

Being smart isn't enough to win in politics.

The average man on the street has no idea who Mark Carney is.  The fact he was former Bank of Canada governor 2008-2013, if people knew that at the time, has been forgotten.

People might recognize the name of Chrystia Freeland (or they might not) but she has no public perception or awareness that is separate from Trudeau.

Remember - I'm describing how things are, not how they should be.

Politics came up at our house last night.  Mrs. B said she saw some videos from Naheed Nenshi, the new Alberta NDP leader, and she thought she liked them and would vote for him.  That's fine of course - she can vote for whomever she likes - but she couldn't name a single thing he had or had not done as mayor of Calgary either.  It was the social media videos that she liked.

[crazy canuck]

Canadians are not nearly as ill informed as you think.

[Josephus]

I'm taking BBs side in this one, at least with respect to Carney. I'd argue most Canadians couldn't name the current BoC governor, let alone one from over 10 years ago.

Freeland is a different story but I doubt anyone with a Fuck Trudeau bumper sticker will vote for her

[Jacob]

I gave the same link this morning

  so you did...

[Grey Fox]

I don't think Baylis is a serious politician. He quit a very safe riding in 2019 to go back to his business where he's received multiple industry accolade since.

It's Liberal insiders trying to find names to stick after their previous attempt with Carney didn't work.

[crazy canuck]

I'm taking BBs side in this one, at least with respect to Carney. I'd argue most Canadians couldn't name the current BoC governor, let alone one from over 10 years ago.

Freeland is a different story but I doubt anyone with a Fuck Trudeau bumper sticker will vote for her

I agree that not many Canadians would be able to name the current governor of the Bank of Canada.  But an awful a lot of people know that Mark Carney was.  He has been identified as a superstar throughout is career.

It's why he is always identified as the leading leadership candidate other than Freeland.

And the question isn't whether she would be elected the question is whether she has name recognition. For some reason, BB doesn't think that the citizens of Canada know who the Deputy Prime Minister is.

[Oexmelin]

À 2023 study found that:

57% of respondents (n=1519) could name the Conservative leader.
40% of respondents could name a federal minister.
Half of liberal voters, 26% of NDP voters and 42% of CPC voters could name a minister.
Of those, Chrystia  Freeland was the most named, at 30%. Followed by Joly (15%)

A different study from 2023 had 15% of respondents pick Carney as a favorite to succeed Trudeau. But that was from a list: names were supplied to the respondents.

I'll leave to you whether that's good or bad name recognition.

[crazy canuck]

A different study from 2023 had 15% of respondents pick Carney as a favorite to succeed Trudeau. But that was from a list: names were supplied to the respondents.

I'll leave to you whether that's good or bad name recognition.

You left out one salient fact.  Trudeau got 9%.

And so it had nothing to do with name recognition.

I linked the Globe article when the survey was conducted.  Here is the important part.

Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney are more popular choices to lead the Liberal Party than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to a new Nanos survey conducted exclusively for The Globe and Mail.

Eighteen per cent of respondents said Ms. Freeland, the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was the most appealing potential candidate for Liberal leader. Mr. Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, came in at 15 per cent.

Mr. Trudeau has been Liberal Leader since 2013 and Prime Minister since 2015. He polled at just 9 per cent in the same survey.

[Oexmelin]

That bit about Carney had some elements of name recognition, meaning that some people were able to pick him out from a supplied list of names, as a viable candidate to lead the Liberals. Chrystia Freeland, a minister currently in cabinet, who was picked by 18% in that survey, was, in a different survey, spontaneously named by 30% of those 40% able to name minimally one cabinet minister. Can we assume that Mark Carney, a man who has been out of the spotlight longer than a currently serving cabinet minister, would have scored better in spontaneous identification?

This at least makes me skeptical that a large majority of Canadians know who Mark Carney is, or whether that knowledge of his existence really goes much more deeper than superficial name recognition. I also think it relatively safe to assume that even that superficial recognition would put him in a better position than many current cabinet ministers who are even less recognized or spontaneously named. Again, in 2023, 43% of those respondents could not name Pierre 
Poilievre.

In general, I think people interested in politics tend to overestimate the degree of interest or depth of knowledge about politics in the general population. I am not sure that such a position needs to be moralized, or equated with disparaging my fellow citizens.

[crazy canuck]

That bit about Carney had some elements of name recognition, meaning that some people were able to pick him out from a supplied list of names, as a viable candidate to lead the Liberals. Chrystia Freeland, a minister currently in cabinet, who was picked by 18% in that survey, was, in a different survey, spontaneously named by 30% of those 40% able to name minimally one cabinet minister. Can we assume that Mark Carney, a man who has been out of the spotlight longer than a currently serving cabinet minister, would have scored better in spontaneous identification?

This at least makes me skeptical that a large majority of Canadians know who Mark Carney is, or whether that knowledge of his existence really goes much more deeper than superficial name recognition. I also think it relatively safe to assume that even that superficial recognition would put him in a better position than many current cabinet ministers who are even less recognized or spontaneously named. Again, in 2023, 43% of those respondents could not name Pierre 
Poilievre.

In general, I think people interested in politics tend to overestimate the degree of interest or depth of knowledge about politics in the general population. I am not sure that such a position needs to be moralized, or equated with disparaging my fellow citizens.

No doubt name recognition had some small piece because obviously if his name wasn't recognized at all, he wouldn't have gotten nearly the support among the survey participants.

His name was put on the list because he is an obvious contender for the leadership.  You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that he came second in that survey (and well ahead of the PM and all other cabinet ministers other than Freeland) simply because his name was on a list and otherwise he has little name recognition.

[Oexmelin]

Well, I have laid out the reasons for my sentiment. In a world where 40% of respondents of a survey cannot really identify the leader of the opposition, despite some prevalent media presence, I find it difficult to assert conclusively that Mark Carney, who was Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, is somehow widely, and deeply known today.

Your sentiment is obviously different.

[crazy canuck]

Well, I have laid out the reasons for my sentiment. In a world where 40% of respondents of a survey cannot really identify the leader of the opposition, despite some prevalent media presence, I find it difficult to assert conclusively that Mark Carney, who was Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, is somehow widely, and deeply known today.

Your sentiment is obviously different.

You are not addressing BB's claim.  It was that neither Freeland nor Carney have name recognition.

Clearly Freeland does given the study you first cited.  It did not mention Carney, but given he placed just behind her in the survey of who should be the leader, clearly he also has name recognition.

[crazy canuck]

More former MPs calling for Trudeau to leave

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-two-former-liberal-ministers-say-trudeau-should-resign-following/

But as Josephus pointed out some time ago, it's already too late.

If you subscribe to the Globe Coyne has a lengthy piece on all the policy blunders that got the Liberals here and why it won't matter who there leader is at the next election.

[crazy canuck]

Another interesting angle from the by-election is the collapse of the NDP and the fact those votes went Conservative rather than Liberal.

In 2021, the NDP garnered 16.8 per cent of the vote in St. Paul's, and that was after the party's candidate, Sidney Coles, resigned over social media posts linking vaccine scarcity to Israel. This time, the party claimed just 10.9 per cent, a nearly 6-point drop, which is a formidable decline considering it actually had a viable candidate on the ballot this time

[Barrister]

À 2023 study found that:

57% of respondents (n=1519) could name the Conservative leader.
40% of respondents could name a federal minister.
Half of liberal voters, 26% of NDP voters and 42% of CPC voters could name a minister.
Of those, Chrystia  Freeland was the most named, at 30%. Followed by Joly (15%)

A different study from 2023 had 15% of respondents pick Carney as a favorite to succeed Trudeau. But that was from a list: names were supplied to the respondents.

I'll leave to you whether that's good or bad name recognition.

I really don't think I have some kind of "hot take" here.

Pierre Poilievre had little name recognition when made Conservative leader since 2022.  In that entire time he's managed to make 57% of Canadians know his name.  It's definitely something, but it's taken 2 years and still a lot of people have no idea who he is.

Obviously Mark Carney or Chrystia Freeland are not complete unknowns to people who follow politics more closely.  But that's a pretty small part of the overall population.  The average "man on the street" - at best might know the name, but otherwise know little to nothing else about them.

The whole point was that the next election is due in a year.  Even if Trudeau resigned tomorrow it would take time to organize a leadership race, after which the new leader (whether it be Freeland, Carney, or someone else) would have very very little time to establish themselves.


And I think I've made this point before - even though Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau are very different people, their one commonality is they were greatly helped in their political careers by insanely high name recognition that otherwise had nothing to do with their political or leadership abilities.