Craft Politics
Craft Politics
Podcast Description
Join Craft Politics, where politics meets business over a pint. Hosted by a former politician and a seasoned political staffer, this podcast translates world events into actionable insights for business leaders. With populism on the rise, understanding this intersection is more crucial than ever. Why beer? Because the best political discussions happen with a pint in hand. Joseph Lavoie and Andrew Percy bring decades of experience in politics and business, offering concise, targeted insights to help you navigate the political landscape. Cheers to making politics work for your business!
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on the intersection of politics and business, covering a range of topics such as polling dynamics, the Conservative movement in Canada, economic tariffs, and the influence of American politics on Canadian affairs. Episodes include in-depth discussions like the implications of Trump's tariffs on trade relations and insights into leadership changes within Canadian political parties.
Craft Politics is a cross-border political podcast, which sounds grander than it is. Mostly it’s two friends — Joseph Lavoie, a Canadian public affairs strategist who used to work in a Prime Minister’s Office, and Andrew Percy, a former UK Conservative MP — asking the experts who’d know the answer to one sharp political question. Canadian listeners get the UK context they’re missing. British listeners get a Canadian lens on their own politics. Everyone comes away slightly better informed.
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.
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