Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives face a 30% support collapse in Alberta (69%→42%) and Saskatchewan since 2019, with Liberals surging to 29%—not from enthusiasm for Trudeau but voter disillusionment over O’Toole’s avoidance of key issues like cancel culture and pandemic policies. Polls reveal his strategy of distancing from Western leaders backfires, while Trudeau benefits from media compliance during COVID-19. Rebel News marks six years of defiance against government-funded outlets, celebrating staff resilience amid censorship battles, from mask mandate exemptions to banned coverage of Hong Kong protests and Israel-Gaza reporting, proving independent journalism thrives despite systemic suppression. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through a new poll by the innovative research group that's headed up by Greg Lyle.
What's so interesting to me is not the general numbers.
You can probably guess Aaron O'Toole is trailing the liberals, but just how far O'Toole has plummeted in the West, in Saskatchewan and Alberta, down almost 30%.
Then you might say, well, who cares?
I mean, you can win a place with just, you don't need to win a riding with 69%, but I'll show you what isn't happening that I think O'Toole should be concerned about.
That's ahead.
Before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's our premium content.
That's this podcast in video form.
So for example, today I'm going to show you a bunch of charts.
I'll describe them to you with my voice, but boy, I'd love to show them to you.
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Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, a new public opinion poll suggests that if an election were held today, Aaron O'Toole's conservatives would be cracking up.
It's February 16th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Don't put too much stock in public opinion polls.
They're just a snapshot in time.
Things can quickly change, and sometimes there are flaws in the methodology, or sometimes people don't always tell the truth to pollsters.
Sometimes people say things, I don't know, because they're shy or they're private or they say what they think the pollster wants to hear them say.
But still, let me show you the new poll from a pollster called the Innovative Research Group.
I used to know their boss, Greg Lyle, way back in the day.
He used to work with the Conservative Party, so I'm not sure if he still does.
Anyways, I think he's a pretty serious pollster.
He published this poll the other day.
Here's the main graph.
Keep it up there for a while while I look through it.
It's the basic ballot question.
If an election were held today, which party would you vote for?
And as you can see there, I mean, I'm not sure if you can make it out, but the small numbers at the bottom, that's dates.
So the very far left of the graph is the year 2008.
That's when Stephen Harper was prime minister and Stefan Dion was the liberal leader, if you remember back then.
Good times.
You can see the conservative vote, that's the blue line.
Up in the high 30s, the liberal line, that's the red one.
It's in the 20s, really, for much of that time.
Then about a quarterway through the graph, Harper runs and beats the liberal named Michael Ignatiev.
And then the thunderclap.
Right in the middle of the graph, the NDP vote, that's the orange one, just collapses.
The left of center vote coalesces around Justin Trudeau.
And it's enough to beat Stephen Harper in 2015.
Then he retires from politics and the party selects a new leader in 2017, actually, Andrew Scheer, who has about five minutes of popularity in 2018, which is great, except the election wasn't until 2019 when he got trounced.
And then came the pandemic in March of 2020, and that has not eroded Trudeau's popularity.
His numbers have actually grown a bit.
Now you could say that's in part because the conservatives were leaderless for much of that time and the media party was completely submissive to Trudeau and that's all true.
The conservatives selected Aaron O'Toole as their new leader in August of 2020.
That's six months ago now.
And in fact the conservative numbers have dipped.
They've gone down.
There has been no honeymoon for Aaron OHU, as I call him.
That's sort of what he calls himself in a way.
His new TV ad is asking people to Google him to find out who he is.
Fair enough, I suppose.
Every new leader has to do that a bit, except Trudeau.
But O'Toole isn't actually new.
He's been an MP for almost 10 years.
He first came to parliament through a by-election in 2012.
He served as veterans minister under Stephen Harper.
He's been party leader of the Conservatives for six months.
He's had almost a decade in parliament, and he's asking people to Google him.
And he's sacking the one conservative MP everyone already does know, Pierre Polyev.
Anyways, I don't think I've told you anything that's surprising.
The first 90% of that poll chart was simply history.
The good old days under Stephen Harper, the collapse of the NDP vote into the Liberals in 2015, the shellacking of Andrew Scheer in 2019, an election he should have won.
But my main point is that Aaron O'Toole didn't have a honeymoon after he was elected leader.
In fact, he is now falling in the polls.
And I want to zoom in on that for a moment.
He's had an un-honeymoon.
The party was actually doing better with no leader than with him.
But let's look a bit deeper in the poll.
This is from the details innovative research group.
So just FYI.
The poll was taken from January 7th to February 1st of this year, sample size 2,000 people.
I just want to pause on this page here.
Decided vote by region, okay?
Let's start at the right and go to the left.
The Atlantic, always a liberal stronghold.
Same thing now.
Liberals at 47%, Conservatives at 26%.
In the entire region in the last election, Conservatives got just four seats out of 32.
Three in New Brunswick, one in Nova Scotia.
If these poll numbers hold, I'm pretty sure even a couple of those four are going to be handed back.
The Quebec numbers, they look pretty similar to the last election.
Frankly, I just don't know enough about the lay of the land to comment there.
But move over to Ontario.
A 15-point lead for the Liberals over O'Toole.
In the last election, the hapless Andrew Scheer kept the Liberals to just an eight-point lead.
That was enough to win 36 Conservative seats there.
But if Trudeau doubles the size of his lead over the Conservatives, if he holds a 15-point lead, I think you could see, I don't know, 10, 20 Conservative MPs lose there for sure.
But so far, so what?
I mean, polls that go up and down.
Well, for O'Toole, they just seem to be going down, but I'm sure there'll be some variation.
But really, really, I want to show you this next part, the prairies and Alberta.
The part of the country that the Conservatives could always take for granted.
Prairies, that's what they call Man, Anitoba, and Saskatchewan together.
Conservatives are at 41% there, and the Liberals are at 26%.
Now, that looks like good news for the Conservatives, but it's actually good news for the Liberals.
You see, in the last election, the Conservatives got 45% in Manitoba and a whopping 64% of the vote in Saskatchewan.
If you average that out, it's about 55% in the prairies.
Liberals got 26% in Manitoba and just 12% in Saskatchewan.
If you average that out, that's only 19%.
I know this sounds nuts, but looking at the new numbers, I think the Liberals could actually pick up a few seats in the prairies, a few in Manitoba for sure, maybe even one in Saskatchewan or two.
But look at Alberta.
In 2019, under that goofy Andrew Scheer, the Conservatives won 69% of the vote to just 14% for the Liberals.
Now, if you can go by this new poll, the Conservatives have plummeted to just 42%.
And the Liberals have more than doubled their support to 29% in Alberta for crying out loud.
I note that other is at 6% too.
I bet if there was a separatist option in the poll spelled out, it would be in double digits, frankly.
So what's going on here?
Well, the first thing I'd say again is don't put too much stock in one poll.
It's just one poll.
And polls do not predict the future.
They're just a snapshot of the day.
And there's always a margin of error, et cetera, et cetera.
But I believe it.
I believe that the Conservatives have fallen by nearly 30% in Alberta and by 20% in Saskatchewan.
I believe it.
And yes, some of them are parking their votes with the Liberals in this poll, but I don't think people have suddenly fallen in love with Trudeau, whose hatred of the West has never been deeper.
I think they just don't see in Aaron O'Toole someone who is their champion.
They don't even know who O'Toole is.
And if they do know who he is, well, they're not thrilled.
I mean, they know who Pierre Polyev is, but Pierre's sacked now.
In fact, the O'Toole campaign project, trying to reintroduce himself to people, isn't actually fighting against people not knowing anything about him.
It's fighting against people knowing something about him that's not great.
Aaron O'Toole is big on cancel culture.
He's big on cowering before the liberal media.
And he really isn't fighting the big fights of our era.
It's trying not to be controversial.
It doesn't say anything about lockdowns.
It doesn't say anything about cancel culture.
I mean, he does cancel culture.
But trying not to be controversial doesn't work in times of controversy.
We need our leaders to take sides on the big issues.
And O'Toole just isn't.
That's not just my opinion.
I think it's the view of Westerners in general.
Now, as we mentioned last week, the CBC and a bunch of Ottawa lobbyists believe that to win, Aaron O'Toole has to turn left and to disavow Jason Kenney and Derek Sloan and Pierre Polyev and Rebel News in order to appeal to voters in Ontario, former liberals.
I understand the strategy, but I can also see that it's not working.
O'Toole has succeeded in backing away from the West and Western values.
Okay, got it.
But that hasn't bought him any new support in Ontario.
It just hasn't.
Look, if they want a liberal in Ontario, why wouldn't they vote for the real thing?
I just don't think you can turn your enemies into friends by saying, look, I treated my friends as enemies.
I think we're going to have a spring election.
And I think Aaron O'Toole is going to be crushed.
Now, that in itself could be a healthy thing.
Except, really, is there even anyone waiting in the wings of the Conservative Party?
Back Away From West00:02:18
stay with us for a minute.
Well, as I think I told you yesterday, it is our sixth anniversary, or yesterday was.
So today is the first day of our seventh year at Rebel News.
And we brought all our staff together from the far-flung parts of Canada.
We had Drea Humphrey come in from Vancouver, Kim Becksty from Calgary, Sheila Gunn Reed from Northern Alberta, Yankee Pollock came in from Montreal.
It was a great gathering.
And we had a birthday lunch, and we had some fun videos that we watched.
Was just a bit of a get together and say hi to everybody, because you know, I have to say it's lonely enough being a rebel in this media world where everyone is left-wing and everyone's on the take of Justin Trudeau's bailout.
So I mean for six years the first five years of that it was lonely enough being a rebel, but then, in the pandemic times well, I feel like we've been almost.
You know, I can count on one finger's, one hand's fingers, the number of other independent media in this country that have been standing up for civil liberties, TRUE North Spencer, Fernando and I'm almost out of examples Black Locks out of Ottawa.
So it was great just to see everybody again and a couple of our editors, Efron and Mocha, put together this reel now.
Yesterday I showed you sort of a highlight reel that we're still working on.
We haven't perfected that one yet.
Here's another one.
We're working on it, but I want to show you the version that Mocha and Efron showed to the team today.
It made me feel pretty neat.
So this is a little bit of a pep rally, but you know, we have survived six full years in this media environment without a dime of government money and we're growing and I think we're doing more important work than ever.
That's my view, at least.
So let me share with you this highlight reel of the last six years.
Again, it's a work in progress.
We'll probably put a revised version of it out on YouTube later, but for now, let me show you what we looked at when we had our birthday lunch today.
So I'll say goodbye now, but actually I'll come back in a second to read the letters, but let me show you now the birthday highlight reel that Mocha and Efron made.
You wanted to leave them, arrest them or go away.
You said that there's, arrest him or go away, mate.
Just arrest him.
Arrest them or go away.
Highlight Reel of Survival00:05:13
Okay, my colleagues, you're not listening.
You're not listening to the lawman.
I am mourning the loss of the son.
Best job I ever had, most amazing colleagues, most passionate viewers, most loyal friends.
But now what?
It's day three of our trip here to Israel and I'm standing well right across from Gaza.
These people are blowing right past us right now en route to Akiyukan.
Yeah, I am in Israel for almost 10 days.
We're in the central district of Hong Kong.
We came here to report the story and it turns out we need to clean up the place's mess.
If you're already a rebel news follower, then I'm sure you recognize this building behind me here on this beautiful day in downtown Colbert as I'm back with you here in Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto.
I don't have a billion dollars a year in corporate welfare bailouts like the CDC gets, so what can I do?
This is the second year in a row I've been banned from doing journalism from within the conference, but that's not going to stop me.
There's police walking along there and what we're seeing is the crowd is heckling them.
I've never seen anything like this.
China is asshoes.
Quite peaceful until I'm out of here.
I have the right to speak.
What's on my heart?
Mainstream media has decided to sit this one out.
Nothing to see here.
Folks, Line with the oath that you took.
Do you feel like it's lining up pretty well?
I don't condemn the violence.
I hope we can protest peacefully.
Do condemnation.
I do not condemn the violence.
It does allude to the fact that exemptions exist and they should be respected, and that no one has to prove that they are exempt from the mask mandate.
So why is that not being upheld here in Peterborough?
Rebel against the smug mainstream media who think their ideas reflect the national consensus.
You don't trust the CBC?
I don't trust any of them.
Where have you guys been?
Where have you been, Jordan?
You have been in all the, where have you guys been for the whole year?
Ezra, thank you so much.
Congratulations on Rebel News.
I know you take a lot of abuse up in Canada, but you do a great job.
We appreciate it.
Shame on you for what you censorious who bugs.
This is Ottawa, Canada, 2020 because I watch Rebel Media every day.
I mean, I tell my crew, who are great.
I say, this is how we should do stuff right here.
You're a real media.
We're so thankful.
Our family's so thankful that you're doing this and helping us out.
Because we're not just wanting to do this for my mom.
We're also wanting to do this for all the thousands and millions of people around the world that are going through this nightmare.
It's not just us, it's everybody.
We got you covered, Robbery, okay?
We're gonna try and muster the courage then.
I thank you so much for reporting this.
Like, Rebel, you're the best.
Rebel media is Abu News.
Shame on you.
the show last night.
Bruce writes, if silence is golden, speech must be platinum.
Apart from my MP, Shannon Stubbs, I can't think of one I like.
I'm especially upset at Aaron, he, him, O'Toole, for caving to leftists and the media bombsters.
Oh, come on, please don't tell me Aaron O'Toole uses his pronouns.
I won't be able to survive learning that.
Please tell me you're just joking.
Dorothy says, tired of Ottawa and their garbage.
Yeah, but you know, don't blame the whole city of Ottawa.
There's 900,000 people in Ottawa.
Don't blame them all for what.
That's a trick the media does.
If there's good news from the federal government, it's Trudeau does this or liberals do that if it's good news.
Trudeau, liberals.
But if it's bad news, it's Ottawa does this.
So it's a bit of a trick that I've caught.
The bad news is always the government, the feds, Ottawa.
The good news is always Justin, Justin.
Joe West says, happy birthday, Rebel Media.
Well, thank you very much.
We are now in our first day of our seventh year.
Feels pretty good.
Well, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.