Left East to West

Nikki and Tom celebrate six months of Left East to West with a retrospective on federal politics, federal-provincial relations and shifts in provincial politics across the country.

The overriding federal story is continued Liberal strength. But polls show a drop in Mark Carney’s net approval score. Can Pierre Poilievre or Avi Lewis benefit?

In federal-provincial relationships, alignment between provinces and with federal government seems better. But has it come at the cost of having any climate policy and enforcing the Canada Health Act?

Provincially, many premiers face sagging support. Can they successfully increase perceptions of the risk of change? Can opposition leaders lower voters’ perception of the risk of change? Nikki and Tom look at different strategies for addressing risk perceptions.

Nikki gives some love to properly-done long-term land use planning. Tom heaves pollsters who claim decimal-point accuracy or to know the reasons behind poll changes that may not even exist because they don’t exceed the margin of error.

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Carla Beck, leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, sits down with Nikki and Tom to talk about her strategy to defeat Scott Moe and her economic plan to spur Saskatchewan growth.

Carla launched her Grid and Growth plan more that two years before the next provincial election, due in October 2028, just before leaked information from inside SaskPower showed premier Scott Moe's coal-generation electricity plan would cost billions more than admitted and modelling proving it was the most expensive energy option. Carla also talks with Nikki and Tom about help the federal government can give to her Saskatchewan plan, and the significance of Scott Moe's cooling relationship with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Also, Tom talks about new StatsCan data showing a stagnating Alberta average wage despite oil companies pump record volumes and high prices. Nikki reflects on the heat dome that sent temperatures soaring five years ago, leading to 619 deaths, and the unfinished work of preparing for another heat emergency.

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Economist Jim Stanford discusses the cost of Trump’s Iran War to Canadians and Mark Carney’s economic agenda. Jim estimates the direct economic cost of high fuel prices will reach $50 billion and go higher if it  prompts the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates to reduce inflation. Jim also explores the investment banker vision of Mark Carney and concerns that his proposed “sovereign wealth fund” will be a mechanism for privatizing airports, ports and other public infrastructure.

Nikki looks at the series of federal-provincial deals from the Build Canada fund but questions why Nova Scotia seems to have no plan in the works to get federal assistance for provincial priorities.

Tom digs into some new data showing the sales margin for food and fuel retailers is growing at twice the rate of inflation, pouring money into the accounts of food billionaires like the Weston family, who are now using their wealth to fund a new media platform. 

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Stefan Löfven, former prime minister of Sweden and now president of the Party of European Socialists, talks with Tom about the Nordic model, the key role played in it by the labour movement, and its ability to deliver strong economic and social results.

Nikki dives into the results of the B.C. Conservative leadership race and how Kerry-Lynne Findlay will shape the contest leading up to the election in 2027.

Tom looks into a recently promoted success of Mark Carney's Major Projects Office and finds it has little to do with creating jobs or speeding permits for projects and a lot more to do with buckets of public money for G7 priorities. 

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Shauna Sylvester, Founder and Lead Convenor of Urban Climate Leadership, sits down with Nikki and Tom to talk about Canada's city halls, convening nascent economic sectors, and long-term change that creates jobs, increases energy efficiency and helps people.

The Urban Climate Institute is currently convening those who bring social capital -- skills, knowledge, production, finance, policy -- to switch many urban apartment heating systems to heat pumps. The initiative brings air conditioning to many tenants who don't already have it while reducing total electricity demand and the need to spend on more power plants. Shauna sees the approach as a model that can be used to develop other sectors.

Shauna has worked as a convenor in other transformation projects, including Canada’s World, which worked to help decision-makers other countries see a modern Canada, and in that a potential partner an friend.

Below the Fold

With municipal elections happening in several provinces this fall, Tom connects with Saman Tabasinejad, executive director of Progress Toronto, for an update on her city's civic elections.

Tom also gets the details on the recent Smith-Carney oil and gas MOU from The Breach contributor Desmond Cole, who reports that key environment groups are raising concerns Carney has agreed to cut the industrial carbon levy so deeply that private sector investment in the promised carbon capture and storage plan -- The Pathways Project -- will never happen with just private money.

Love it or heave it 

Nikki is loving that the BC legislative session and the BC Conservative race is now almost over ans everybody can heal.

Tom is loving seeing Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew deal a very public correction to the "fake framing" of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about à recent court case.

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Jennifer Howard, former Manitoba Minister of Labour and Finance, and 2025 NDP campaign director, joins Left East to West to talk about Mark Carney's direction for Canada, the Liberals undoing pharmacare, the NDP's unsolved strategic challenges and building a stronger brand for the NDP on jobs and economic development.

Nikki checks in with James Valcke from Viewpoints Research with an updated on a recent Nova Scotia poll showing a long-term care strike is accelerating Premier Tim Houston's slumping support.

Tom looks at the coal plant controversy in Saskatchewan, where leaked documents show a total refurbishment and operation cost of $26 billion, far more than previously admitted, after Premier Scott Moe shot-gunned the province in to the most expensive option possible when his government wasted time and ran out of runway.

And Nikki and Tom discuss Prime Minister Carney's meeting with BC Premier David Eby and the a tribute to former premier John Horgan.

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Coree Tull, chair of the the BC Watershed Security Coalition, explores the challenges facing Canadian watersheds in our Feature Interview. Canada's watersheds face intensifying demands from industry, including new data centres, while Donald Trump makes unsettling comments about US desires for Canadian water.

Coree believes that to protect jobs and the natural water so central to Canadian identity, Canada needs to think of watersheds as key infrastructure and give them active monitoring and management plans to maintain them.

This Week Below the Fold looks at a couple important new stories that didn't make national headlines:

• Tom checks in with Farouk Karim, Quebec political analyst, about polling shifts after the CAQ and Quebec Liberals picked new leaders and Quebec Solidaire put a focus on affordability
• Nikki takes a look at how Canadians' data security concerns are showing up in responses to the Canada census and the BC Conservatives' leadership race

Love It Or Heave It is about something you love and want to keep, or something you'd like to heave and forever forget. This week:

• Tom loves that he called it right three months ago when he predicted the Ontario Liberal Party old guard would try to defeat Nate Erskine-Smith by any means necessary
• And Nikki is also loving the BC Conservatives claim of 42,000 members doesn't appear to be true, something she predicted a few shows ago

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Josh Bizjak, Douglas Caldwell Layton Foundation executive director, talks with Left East to West about his organization’s movement-building work, the varying themes and challenges in different regions of the country -- and trying to build a national story from them.

A major effort of the DCLF is their series of annual speaker and social events in eight cities across the country. Their region-focused events bring together the broad social democratic movements to reflect on the way forward. Josh discusses the art of pulling together Canada's varied regional social democratic movements  into a united Canadian vision.

PLUS: Nikki gives some insight on how BC’s new gig economy laws and some solid union organizing work could set new labour standards across Canada. Tom explores how the tipping point strategy, which degrades government support on core issues over time, has made the Doug Ford PC government vulnerable.

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Dave McGrane, University of Saskatchewan political studies professor and “Social Democrats of the North” podcast host, tells the history of Canada’s social democratic impulses, and the movements and people that have advanced them.

Through Canada’s labour and farm movements, Dave tracks the women and men who fought to take power from old extractive elites and  democratized and modernized the Canadian economy. 

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Siobhan Vipond, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress, joins Left East to West ahead of the labour federation's policy convention, which opens on May 11 in Winnipeg.

Siobhan talks about the shifting demands in representing workers as Canadians took hits from the pandemic recession and inflation -- and now Trump 2.0. With an economic attack from outside and 1.5 million jobless workers inside Canada, Siobhan talks about the renewed focus on job creation within unions, and how it can help defeat the far-right. She gives some insights on the emerging discussion about how sectoral bargaining can be developed to bring the protection of union membership to more workers.

PLUS: Nikki updates us on the BC Conservative leadership race. And Tom wonders if social democracy -- in Canada, anyway -- has a new populist focus on our experience as consumers.

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