James Moore

So we, by then some of the big cultural files for the conservative movement, particularly the long gun registry and other things, um, we, we had to move on like in the first quarter of that government, if we didn't, then all of our credibility would go with the base.

By default, our system is wired culturally and structurally towards majority governments, right?

Six of the last eight elections have yielded minority parlance, but culturally, frankly, whether it's through the French Catholic tradition in deference to church leadership or on the English side, through the Westminster model, et cetera, and the way in which things have been approached, and also in provinces, almost every province in this country,

um is is a binary choice and therefore almost every provincial election yields a majority government of one color or the other and they're and they're all unicameral in and in their in their approach to things i mean quebec has had a different tradition but but basically all unicameral and and so and so people are wired that if i vote a certain way that's what i'm going to get and they're in control and they drive the car for a couple years and then i'll judge them and see what the alternative is

And federally, it's been starting to stop.

In 2011, in 2008, Stephen Harper tried.

In 2011, Stephen Harper succeeded.

And really having to explicitly say to Canadians, because of the global recession and coming out of it, we will have a focused federal government that will, a steady, stable majority government that will focus on the economy.

Like he had to beat that drum, like very deliberately, deliberately.

20 times a day to every camera that would say it a steady stable majority government that would focus on the economy and it was because of the circumstances and because he had demonstrated that he wasn't a radical uh you know and reactionary prime minister that people said okay given the context given what we've seen and given that you've explicitly said that you're going to focus on the economy i will concede to you a majority government

And that dynamic with Donald Trump, Iran, trade, all that sort of stuff, and Mark Carney's personality as Canadians have now seen it, to Jerry's point, people go, okay, I will concede to you a majority government because it's very hard to earn a majority electorally.

The circumstances have to be aligned.

You have to get that mandate.

And Donald Trump and the way in which Mark Carney has approached it and culturally has aligned and approached things, Canadians seem to be prepared to say, please have that stability on this side so that we can deal with these crises.

He also benefits from from another cultural shift that's happened in our politics.

And we've talked about it before, but it's worth reanimating here.

Right.

Which is we have a parliamentary system, but we have presidential style politics.

Yeah.

So our system, you know, how many seats and which ridings and polls and, you know, the pizza parliament versus... Like, all that's true, but in part because of the diminishment of media capacity, in part because of the shrinking attention span, frankly, of the public and the scrolling and, like, all of that.