Front Burner - Jason Kenney’s case for a Conservative government
Episode Date: April 9, 2025Today our guest is Jason Kenney, the longtime federal Conservative MP and former United Conservative Party premier of Alberta. Kenney worked closely for many years with now-Conservative party lea...der Pierre Poilievre, and he has been outspoken on the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. So today we’re having him on to talk about tariffs, the Canadian election, and tensions within the Conservative movement.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts
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Hi everyone, Jamie here.
Today my guest is Jason Kenney, the former United Conservative Party Premier of Alberta.
Before that, he spent decades in federal politics.
He started as an MP in the erstwhile Reform Party, which, if you don't remember it well,
was a Western Canada-based Conservative populist party led by Preston Manning.
And he eventually became a cabinet minister in Stephen Harper's Conservative Party.
We wanted to speak to him today in part because under Stephen Harper's conservatives, he
worked alongside Pierre Pauliup.
And because in a moment where there's a lot of talk of tensions within the conservative
movement in Canada, talking to someone who's seen those up close at both a federal and provincial level has a lot of value.
But also in the last couple of months, Jason Kenney has been very outspoken about the trade
war with the US, about Trump and Trumpism, and about the kind of unified front he believes
Canada and its provinces need to be showing right now.
That's where we're going to start our conversation today.
Jason Kenney, thank you very much for coming onto the show.
Good to be here.
It's a pleasure to have you.
So you have been very outspoken on the US
Canada trade war and Trump's tariffs.
How important do you think this moment is for our
country right now?
How big of a threat do you feel Canada is facing?
Yeah, I think with the exception of the civilizational threat during the Cold War, it's the greatest
threat we faced in decades and since the Second World War economically, so like materially,
but also politically the greatest explicit threat to our sovereignty. And I'm not one of these people who dismisses the seriousness of the president's repeated
assertions of his intention to effectively annex Canada and to destroy our economy as
his strategic path to doing so.
So this is, you know, quite bizarre. I think of the old-school Canadian
nationalism of the post-war era, which was informed by a kind of
anti-Americanism that was in our political DNA, Canada being founded by
the United Empire loyalists who fled the American Revolution, of course, and their
loyalty to the crown and a different kind of a different set of political
values, and also by French Canadians who were very purposeful about and their loyalty to the Crown and a different kind of a different set of political values.
And also by French Canadians who were very purposeful about preserving their language
and culture in a sea of Anglophones. So we always had this a certain anxiety,
I won't say fear, but anxiety about the huge power to our South. But we moved past that in the free trade debates
because we saw the huge economic advantages,
a path to greater prosperity
by becoming more closely integrated
to the world's largest economy.
And that worked very well for us, let's be honest,
for most of the past 35 years, but suddenly, all
of that is gone and the old anxieties are back.
Last month, you wrote a post.
I'd like to read part of it to you now.
We Albertans have long pleaded with central
Canadians to understand the importance of the
energy industry in our economy.
Well, now we have to show Ontarians that we share
their outrage with this betrayal and stand in
solidarity with those whose livelihoods and
communities are in real danger.
Let's not allow Trump to divide Canadians.
What sort of divisions do you worry about in this
trade crisis in this country?
Many divisions.
The country's economy is quite radically trade crisis in this country? Many divisions.
The country's economy is quite radically different
in different regions.
And so the effects of this massively renewed
American protectionism is hugely different
in different regions.
I often say that Alberta is the most Canadian province
because it has received by far the highest number
of Canadians moving
there, inter-provincial migration. And so if you go door-to-door in Fort McMurray
or Lethbridge or Calgary you'll find every other home is somebody who moved
to Alberta from another province. And so there is I think actually on the ground
a greater sensitivity to the economic challenges faced by let's say central
Canadian manufacturing, by the auto industry, by say East Coast fishery and so forth. We
don't always feel that that is reciprocated in other parts of the country
and that has come out in the debate about how to best to deal with Trump. I
think some Albertans and Westerners, when I say Westerners, I really mean Western people
who live in Western resource industries.
So that generally excludes metropolitan Vancouver
but the interior BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan,
much of Manitoba have for decades,
since their founding have felt
that central Canadian political elites
haven't always fully appreciated the
importance of those industries and now we see them in stark relief with you
know because the the entire American trade deficit quote-unquote with Canada
is attributable to our large oil exports primarily from Alberta and yet the
impact of right now of most of the Trump tariffs are on Ontario and Quebec
through aluminum steel and auto. And so, you know, we have to, my point is we can't allow him to
divide and conquer. I don't think we can afford to regionalize ourselves in the debate about how best
to defend ourselves. As Abraham Lincoln said in the American Civil War, quoting from
scripture, a house divided against itself cannot stand. That's why I have said,
contrary to some in Alberta, that everything has to be on the table, including oil and gas exports,
and for that matter, electricity, and potash and uranium, and those things primarily made in the West which are the most important Canadian exports to the United States and
when
Central Canadian manufacturing is hit the heartland
We Westerners have to understand the huge impact the anxiety the anxiety that we've often felt
Mm-hmm, and and I really I really think this is a critical moment like not for just
Some veneer of rhetorical unity, but actual sense of deep patriotic unity.
I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about your beliefs there, because that's
clearly a real point of tension in your province, right?
This idea that everything should be on the table, including perhaps an export tax on
Alberta energy or restricting energy exports.
Yeah.
You know, I think that it's just totally imprudent
when in dealing with a hyper aggressive counterparty
like Donald Trump to start taking your biggest cards
off the table, that's his favorite metaphor,
the one he used with Volodymyr Zelensky,
you don't have any cards to play.
Well, the biggest cards, the highest cards we have to play
are the fact that 20% of the oil consumed in
the United States is produced and shipped from Alberta. That is a massive
impact on the American economy. Just think back to the mid-1970s, the OPEC
oil crisis, when OPEC restricted supply and spiked prices, it caused a near
economic catastrophe in the United States.
And Canada is now filling an equivalent role
to what OPEC did then.
We export five times more to the United States
in terms of crude oil than all of OPEC combined,
10 times more than Saudi Arabia itself.
And to just completely take that off the table
as a card to be played, but only in extremists. I'm not
suggesting that would ever be one of the early measures is I think rash and imprudent. It shows
weakness. The one time we seemed to get Trump's attention was when Doug Ford threatened this
tariff on American electricity exports, on US exports on electricity. That's what I mean by keeping all of our cars. Potash, we could shut down American agriculture.
Not that we want to, for God's sake.
The farmers need it, yeah.
Yeah.
These are the high cards.
Now, I actually, as a technical matter, I don't think reducing supply is, except in
the most extreme situation, plausible.
And so we'd be hammering ourselves.
Um, and I think in export tax, there's, there's
lots of rational arguments against it, but my point
is in extremis, everything should be on the table.
So your words, um, when you made them, I think it
was, well, it was recently, uh, they had been
interpreted by some as digs
at the position of Danielle Smith, who became Alberta Premier after you stepped down. Just
before I ask you about that, I just want to recap some of her positions for our listeners
here. So in January, Premier Smith refused to sign a joint statement from all other Premiers
and former PM Trudeau, vowing a collaborative approach to terror. She specifically has taken the issue of bans and exports of energy off the table.
Last month, after meeting with current Prime Minister Mark Carney, she put out a statement saying that whoever is the next prime minister will have six months to roll out policies friendly to Alberta's energy industry or face an unprecedented national unity crisis,
which was interpreted by some as kind of a threat.
And last week she described the fact that Trump hadn't slapped any new tariffs on Canada as a big
win for Alberta and Canada, which many took issue with since, as you've mentioned, several Canadian
industries, particularly in Ontario, are being hit hard by the existing tariffs. And what should
Albertans and Canadians read into the different
things that you and the current current premier
are saying?
Well, I've avoided now and since I left office,
I've purposely avoided criticizing my predecessor
because I just don't think it's helpful for
previous office holders to sit around as an armchair
quarterback. So I'm just stating my own view and principle on this, which is
this. There are real tensions and real frustration in Alberta, in particular the
West in general. I'll just say the resource regions of the country in
general, towards a set of policies emanating from Ottawa that have hampered
the country's largest and most productive
industries. When I say most productive in terms of means of national wealth, tax revenue, employment,
etc. And there is deep concern that if the current government is re-elected that the core
those core policies will continue. However, and by the way, my view is this, the talk of separation,
this recent poll that shows some, you know, growing support for that. Yeah, in Alberta,
on a bad day, you can get roughly a third of the population to say that they would notionally
it's in some way support separation in a referendum. There is a core, let's say around 15% of the
population who actually think that.
But beyond that, it's largely a proxy for their frustration, which should not be dismissed.
So I think the Premier and others need that, that part of their message needs to be heeded.
However, I am, and I believe the vast majority of Albertans are patriotic Canadians who don't
believe that national unity is conditional.
I mean, we have a higher than average representation in the Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP in our
national institutions.
We are proud of the economy building role that our resource industries have been in
the modern Canadian economy.
If you're going to make a threat, you better be prepared to keep it.
And I see no circumstances under which a majority
of Albertans would actually vote to leave Canada,
to become a landlocked province, to lose
coastal access.
And, and by the way, if we're talking about
trade, we go back to the beginning with zero,
uh, trade agreements, uh, either with the rest of
Canada or for that matter with the United States.
So it makes no sense commercially, but for me a country is
more than a set of commercial transactions. It's a set of abiding
loyalties, of particular meaning, of institutions grounded in history, and for
us that is a Canadian history, and that for me at least, and I think the majority
of Albertans is irreversible. Just to state the obvious here I mean you what you just did there
was was a pretty clear criticism of her approach right and is it fair for me to
say that obviously you and the Premier do diverge quite starkly on this issue.
Well if her condition to Canada is conditional like do this or I'll go, then yes, I fundamentally
disagree with that approach.
If her approach is please pay attention to these concerns because otherwise you're going
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You have just laid out how consequential a time this is for Canada. Of course,
it is happening in the middle of a federal election. So I want to ask you now about that.
We know from polling that one of the most central questions on voters' minds is which
leader will do a better job dealing with Donald Trump and navigating us through these uncertain
waters, very unpredictable waters.
You, of course, are supporting conservative leader, Pierre Polyev.
And in your opinion, what makes him the best candidate for this moment?
Well, I think what makes him the best candidate, and by the way I've known
Pierre since he was 16 and he was an intern for me and I mean I
obviously work closely with him in Ottawa, so
I know him just about as well as I think anybody in politics, so I think I'm
qualified to say that he's one of the
smartest people I've worked with in 35 years in political life.
He is, I think, a tremendously strong leader.
And here's the thing. I think that in terms of dealing directly with
the Trump threat, I actually don't see a vast difference between his position and
that of Mr. Carney in terms of reciprocal tariffs. In fact, I think rhetorically,
everybody keeps saying that liberals are running hard against Trump, I think
rhetorically Pierre has been perhaps even tougher on Trump.
But-
That's interesting, how so?
Well, I mean, I don't hear Mark Carney actually using very,
I don't hear him using strong language.
I mean, he's, you know,
we are going to fight the Americans as far as he goes. And we were, as Pierre, for example, has
referred to Trump's economic vandalism and so forth.
Like, I think he's been more, but I think broadly speaking, they are
actually fairly aligned in how to deal immediately
with the Trump threat. But what is the bigger deeper issue in this
election for me is what we do here domestically to make ourselves more
resilient. That is for me, perhaps has to be the key issue. We're not going to get
out of this obviously with a tariff war. Inevitably at the end we lose a
tariff war against an economy 10 times our
size. That's not, by the way, I don't think we should at all surrender. I think we need to,
as I say, keep everything on the table. But, you know, Mr. Carney was a key economic advisor
to Mr. Trudeau, wants to basically continue the same direction of economic, energy and environmental policies which have led to the lost decade, to Canada
having the worst per capita GDP record in the developed world over the past
decade. And what he's proposing to do in the energy sector in particular will
further impoverish this country. I think we'll not get us out of this downward cycle
in terms of competitiveness and productivity,
this massive flight of investment.
The fact that he's simply an economist
doesn't magically change that
if the policies are fundamentally anti-growth.
And so I think we absolutely,
as a matter of national existence,
as a matter of national existence,
as a existential issue,
have to get out of this decade long decline
in national wealth and productivity,
and that's going to require urgent reform.
I wonder if you could, yeah, sorry,
I don't mean to interrupt you,
but I wonder if you could maybe give me
some specific examples here of how you see that they're continuing what you think is a decade
of bad policies. I mean, I'll note that Mark Carney has canceled the consumer carbon tax.
He's talked about the possibility of an East-West pipeline, West-East pipeline.
Well, first of all, let's look to the record.
The government which he leads effectively killed the energy east pipeline,
by imposing new regulatory burdens about requiring pipeline companies
to be scored on the emissions notionally associated with up and downstream
emissions notionally associated with the energy ship through it, which is bizarre.
We don't do that for the, for example, OPEC tankers that come into Eastern Canada, or the
energy in it. They cancelled Northern Gateway, Mark Carney
explicitly supported that they did absolutely nothing,
nothing to fight Joe Biden's cancellation of Keystone XL,
which would be producing 10 tens of billions of dollars
of Canadian economy by now if you've not done so.
The emissions cap is a production cap
on the country's largest industry,
the third largest oil reserves in the world.
And we're basically going to walk away
from further production or growth in that,
which will mean a further massive flight of capital
going to other energy producing areas of the world,
not reducing emissions,
a massive increase in the industrial carbon tax which will hugely affect our trade exposed
industries and cause further carbon leakage with capital shifting to the US and other countries
that don't have that kind of policy. By contrast, I see policies like Mr. Polyev's deferral on
capital gains for investments in Canada, I think would unleash a boom of new venture capital for startups, of new rental housing
stock, etc.
I think he's much closer to a pro-growth tax agenda and most importantly, a rapid deregulation
agenda, a regulatory reform agenda to expedite major projects and obviously huge and unequivocal support for energy exports and market
diversification. What do we produce that the world most needs? Energy and
commodities. And the way to get those to global markets is through
infrastructure like pipelines, also an expansion of ports and so forth. And
liberals have had a decade to get that right.
Mr. Carney's been on the wrong side of that and I think we need a fundamental change of policy. I mean just you mentioned those pipeline projects. We had Andrew Leach on the show yesterday. He's
economist, I'm sure you know him at the University of Alberta, and he was talking about how a lot of those projects were
languishing in the regulatory process before the Trudeau government ever got elected, right? And Mark Carney certainly is talking about
using some flexibility in Bill C-69 to do like a one project, one approval thing,
right? To streamline the process for approvals. That's what he was talking
about the other day. Okay, thank you.
These are all fair questions.
Let's say, Professor Leach is wrong.
Like he was on the retail carbon taxes,
which everybody except like a handful of economists
now admit.
Right, he's a proponent of the consumer carbon tax.
He was one of the key proponents, yeah.
No, they weren't languishing.
Northern Gateway had gone through the process
and the proponent, Enbridge, had spent like a billion dollars
through a seven year process,
extensive indigenous consultations that received approval
with conditions from the National Energy Board,
the regulator, and then from the Canadian government.
The Trudeau government went back and retroactively, politically cancelled it by fiat. Energy East wasn't, wait, I mean it was a
slow process which is part of the problem, but it was going through the process and TransCanada
Energy had put 800 million dollars. Like when, this is the point, why has capital been fleeing
by the tens of billions of dollars? I tell dollars? I was just at the world's largest mining
conference in Toronto about a month ago and the big mining companies are
saying like why would we we pulled out of investing in Canada because you don't
have a functional regulatory process. That's what they observed with these
pipelines. So Professor Leach is exactly wrong.
And in terms of Mr. Carney's support,
I'll remind you that as premier,
I challenged the constitutionality
of the Impact Assessment Act Bill C-69,
which I'm the guy who coined as the No More Pipelines Act.
And one massively at the Alberta Peel Court
and then on a five to two decision
at the Supreme Court of Canada,
refining it to be unconstitutional violation of provincial jurisdiction and
they've made some Trudeau government has made some minor minor technical
amendments clearly the the act is still unconstitutional and Mr. Carney has
announced he's not going to change it so I think he's completely on the wrong
track here here. One of the main criticisms you hear of Mr. Polyev in the conservative campaign
right now is that they have failed to adequately pivot their focus as Canadians' political
concerns have shifted.
Numerous conservative insiders have told reporters
at both the Globe and the CBC
about infighting within the campaign.
Many of them said that the messaging has remained too focused
on attacking the liberals and not enough on the trade war.
Do you think that the poly-up campaign
is meeting the moment right now?
Were they meeting the moment before?
Well, I think they are now.
And yes, I would say they were before.
I mean, listen, in some respects,
Pierre Polyev is a victim of his own success
and effectiveness as a leader.
I mean, he's this guy, remarkably, first of all, was I think
hugely responsible for effectively driving Justin Trudeau out of office. I
mean that consistent 20-25 point conservative lead in the polls created
the political conditions that led to Christie Freeland and others as they, to coin an Australian phrase, tipping, spilling, spilling the leader.
And I mean, he knocked, he crushed the biggest fundraising records, etc., in Canadian political
history. So he created political facts that led to the change in leadership, A. B. He created a very powerful issue matrix. He set up
inflation and affordability as a central issue with source credibility. His focus on the connection
of those issues to the impact of the retail carbon tax led to its cancellation, etc. So I
think he set up this issue matrix so powerfully, the liberals reversed their leader
and adopted a bunch of these policies.
Now, none of us, I mean, none of us, I think, saw,
I didn't see, I thought we were gonna be dealing
with a request to exempt Canada
from a 10% global Trump tariff.
I don't think any of us saw this 51st state nonsense
or the prejudicial tariffs against Canada.
So I think everybody's been kind of trying to course correct I don't think any of us saw this 51st state nonsense or the prejudicial tariffs against Canada.
So I think everybody's been kind of trying to course correct
and find the right balance to address that primary threat
well, without losing focus on the need
for domestic policy reform for a more resilient candidate.
Given all that though, given how successful you think
he's been in all of those areas,
how is it then that he blew like a 25 point lead?
How did that happen?
Well, I don't accept your characterization
with him blowing the lead.
I think the world changed for Canada dramatically
when Donald Trump decided to launch economic
and rhetorical war on us with deep, with, with
apparently serious threats to our sovereigns.
But then how is it then that he didn't come out in the lead there?
I always I don't think I was alone in this. I always thought that if Mr. Trudeau left before
the next election that the 20 25 point conservative lead would would come back down to earth.
Right. I imagine you did not anticipate that it would turn into what polls are now saying will be
a liberal majority?
No, I think we're all surprised with how significantly those polls have shifted. I think
right now as we speak things might be tightening a bit. I think this thing is far from over. I think
it's very fluid and as an observer very exciting election. But primarily I think what we've seen
Primarily, I think what we've seen is a collapse of support for the NDP, who are terrified, you know, whose older supporters in particular are, I think, understandably terrified of
the Trump threat.
And they just don't see the NDP as having played any credible role to oppose that.
And so, I'll just say, you're correct,
but the conservatives have also shed,
shed voters.
Yeah, you know what, I think on average,
going from like, like whatever,
like 43 to 38, 39.
Let me just say this.
The high watermark for Stephen Harper
in his, what, four elections,
five elections was 39% in 2011.
The last time conservatives broke 40% in the popular vote
was Mulroney in 88, 37 years ago at 42%.
So, you know, he has reassembled
the biggest conservative coalition
in terms of popular vote,
may not be geographically as efficient, we'll see,
with still, I think, some upside growth potential here.
So I think, you know, the pundits who are canceling out, the concertos are
canceling out, the most energized campaign, perhaps ever, if you measure that
by attendance at events, which is remarkable, in terms of fundraising and
in terms of polling. I think Mr. Poliev has found his footing in connecting his
focus on a more resilient and productive Canadian
economy to the fight against Trump and for
Canadian sovereignty.
You know, one thing we haven't talked about yet
is of course, you'll know Mr.
Poliev has been dogged by comparisons to Donald
Trump, which is increasingly seen as a liability
for him.
Uh, the liberals have used this in their attack
ads.
We've also heard it from analysts who pointed to
like his pension for derisive nicknames, his
attacks on mainstream media, his criticism of woke
ideology.
Uh, Corey Tenyke, one of Canada's top conservative
strategists, uh, has also said Poliev sounds too Trumpy. And, you know, we talked about Danielle Smith earlier,
but she also told the right-wing media outlet Breitbart that Poliev was very much in sync
with the new direction in America. Of course, she meant this as a positive thing when she was
giving that interview. Of course, Poliev has pushed back on this, on
these comparisons. He said he's not a MAGA guy. He has criticized Trump's tariff policies
and 51st state comments, as you've said, but I'd love to get your take on this. Do you
think that these comparisons are fair?
No, I don't think at any time Pierre Poliev has intentionally imitated Donald Trump, either
substantively or stylistically.
I think some of those things are now in retrospect.
There is, has been, in Pierre's style, a populist flavor, to be sure.
And he came originally out of the Reform Reform Party and that's part of his own
kind of political background. But stylistically there's also been a populist flavor from the very
successful Doug Ford whose campaign Mr. Trenike managed. And Mr. Kupolev has been very conscious
about assembling a new kind of conservative coalition,
focused more on working people and very explicitly on union working people.
He's been endorsed for the first time ever as a conservative leader by a whole whack of unions here.
So I think he's been, you know, he's been trying to change the approach to build a broader, more popular conservative electoral constituency.
And so I think sometimes people take that.
And he's also been in a world where there's been an obviously, obvious decline in audience
and influence of traditional mainstream media.
He became the most effective political practitioner in the world of social media, right?
And so that requires a kind of communication style,
which may be great for some people.
So I think all of those things are true,
but I also think what's true is know that Donald Trump
has at least on three occasions,
has dismissed Mr. Poliev and said he prefers the liberals.
And I actually think he does. Now I know I know that some liberal some people on the left here
think oh that's all some kind of a setup. Yeah like a reverse a reverse a good old fashion reverse
endorsement. Sure so believe what Donald so people in the Canadian left believe Donald Trump when he
says he wants to make us the 51st day but they don't believe him when he says he wants a liberal
government so they choose what he what to believe. I think that's inconsistent. Secondly, you need to understand Donald Trump's
psychology. The Donald Trump's biggest enemies, the people he who take up the biggest room in his head
are conservatives who have refused to to bend the knee. Paul Ryan, the late John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Liz Cheney, Mike Pence, the
list goes on. That's how he sees Pierre Poliev. He thinks, of course he thinks a conservative
leader should be another, you know, should be some kind of extension of Maggie. He knows
that Poliev is not, and I think that's why he'd rather deal with a guy on the left that
he can understand.
I just want to pick up on something you said when you were talking about Doug Ford.
I take your point on the populism, the similarities around the populism.
But what you do hear about with Poliev, far more than you hear about with Ford, is this negativity, right?
Like the derisive nicknames, uh, people
often bring up to me that, that video of him
talking to that reporter when he's eating the apple.
On the, on the topic, I mean, in terms of your
sort of strategy currently, you're obviously
taking the populist, uh, pathway.
Um.
What does that mean?
Well, appealing, appealing to people's, people's more emotional levels, I would guess.
Certainly you tap very strong ideology.
And some people, of course, love that video and think it was really entertaining and smart
in that he dressed that reporter down.
But other people you talk to look at that and think, like, he's just mean, and he's that reporter down. But other people you talk to, you look at that
and think like, he's just me and this is just,
he's just punching down here.
And I just wonder like how you might respond to that?
The people find him too negative.
I, well, I would respond by saying, first of all,
I would respond by saying, first of all, if you think the, apropos Mr. Tenik and all of that, if you think the Ford campaigns have all been sweetness and light, go and check
the ads they ran against Bonnie Cromby and Kathy Muin and so forth.
You know I'm a new leader and they're trying to look at my past record.
Cromby doesn't want to talk about her past record of supporting the carbon tax,
but her anti-affordability agenda hasn't changed.
Ontario residents will get to choose.
Do we want Doug Ford to cut taxes and make life more affordable?
Or do you want Bonnie Crombie to raise taxes and tolls making your life less affordable than ever. They've been very effective at
highlighting the negatives of their opposition. So and secondly, yeah, I as I
said I think there's been some things in Mr. Poliev's style that perhaps some
people find have found grating. And I you know what the the mark of an effective leader is to listen, learn and change as necessary
and I think he's done that. His campaign message here is, you can't, by the way, you can't be an
opposition leader without opposing at some level, okay? So that's a structural, let me tell you,
the hardest job in Canadian politics is being leader of the opposition, because
every morning you got to get out of bed opposing the government. You're not doing
your job if you don't do that. And then you fall...every leader
of opposition falls into this kind of cycle of appearing to be too Debbie
Downer and too negative. That's always a challenge. He's been...and he has
been, I think arguably, the most effective opposition leader in at least a
couple of generations in Canada.
Does that make you a good Prime Minister?
So, he's been effectively in opposition.
And now, suddenly, with the Trump threat, it's a different challenge.
And in a sense, it's about being in opposition, not just to the incumbent Canadian government,
but to a foreign power.
And doing so in a way that is not rashly and imprudently incumbent Canadian government, but to a foreign power.
And doing so in a way that is not rashly and imprudently undiplomatic.
I think he has found the right balance in that.
I think that's a good place for us to end this. Mr. Kenny, thank you so much. This was great.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. All right.
That is all for today.
I'm Jamie Poisson.
Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you tomorrow.
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