Craft Politics28 Mai 2025

What Will It Take for Conservatives to Win Urban Canada?

With Karen Stintz, former Toronto city councillor and 2025 federal candidate

What happens when Conservatives run a strong urban campaign, knock on thousands of doors, and still fall short by 1.4%?

This week on Craft Politics, we sit down with Karen Stintz, a political veteran who nearly flipped Eglinton–Lawrence, one of the toughest ridings in the country for Conservatives to crack. She brings the hard-earned lessons from the 2025 campaign trail—and they’re ones the entire movement needs to hear.

In this episode:

🗳 What Karen’s close race reveals about urban voters’ shifting priorities
📉 Why the collapse of the NDP didn’t lead to a Conservative win
🏙 The myth that urban voters “just don’t get” conservatism—and how to break it
📺 The power of legacy media in big cities (and why it still shapes the ballot question)
🤝 Why it’s time for Conservatives to stop fighting and start making friends and allies

Plus:

🚨 We debate the missed opportunity for compassionate conservatism on homelessness and addiction
🇨🇦 Karen delivers a stinging critique: “How did we let patriotism slip away from us?”
🧱 Should the rebuilding of urban conservatism start at the municipal level?

And don’t miss:

🎤 A surprise drop-in from Andrew Percy, live from being eaten alive by Ottawa’s mosquitoes after attending the King’s Speech
🦝 Joseph’s failed political dreams of running a raccoon-free campaign for Mayor of Toronto
📰 An issue scan covering:
• Charles III’s parliamentary visit
• Carney’s single mandate letter
• Reform UK’s lurch leftward to challenge Labour
• And why CEO turnover is a sleeper political story

🔊 Listen now if you want to understand why urban ridings are still so hard to win—and what it’s going to take to change that.

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