The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Will Foreign Policy Shape Canada's 2025 Election?

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Whether it's Canada's trade war with the U.S., NATO spending, or our relations with China and India, whichever party forms Canada’s next government is going to have a slew of challenges to deal with.   To better understand where the major parties might take Canadian foreign policy, host Steve Paikin chats with: Richard Shimooka, Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and contributing writer at The Hub; Stephanie Carvin, Associate Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University, and author of: "Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada's National Security;" Bessma Momani, Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and Adam Chapnick, Professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, and co-author of: "Canada First, Not Canada Alone: A History of Canadian Foreign Policy." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Richard Shamuka, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a contributing writer at The Hub. In our nation's capital, Stephanie Carvin, associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University and the author of Stand On Guard, Re-Assessing Threats to Canada's National Security. In Waterloo, Ontario, Bessma Momani, Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and Senior Fellow at CIGI, the Centre for International Governance Innovation. And here in our studio, Adam Chapnick,

Professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and co-author of Canada First, Not Canada Alone, A History of Canadian Foreign Policy. And it is great to have you four here on our program for a very timely discussion. And I wanna ask a bit of an odd first question. Richard, to you first on this,

Canadian elections are almost never about foreign policy. They're almost always about something else. This one clearly is about foreign policy. Does that make this election particularly intriguing to folks like you? Well, absolutely. It's our 15 minutes of fame. No, I mean, certainly this is really unique geopolitical times. The way that the Trump administration has repositioned the United States has really basically undermined the foundations of our system of foreign policy for maybe 80 years, if not more. So I think that it's really brought a lot of people to kind of think about, well, what's

important? What are the things we can hold onto? What do we need to do more? How can we sort of better position ourselves for the coming future? And that's sparked quite a bit of debate all across the political spectrum. Stephanie, if you're into foreign affairs, is this your time? It is and it isn't. I always find with Canadian elections that increasingly we are talking about issues with international salience, such as, you know, back in 2015, there was the Syrian refugee issue. You know, 2021 was about the pandemic.

Obviously, right now, we have the bright orange light that is Donald Trump and all the kind of chaos that is going along with that. But at the same time, I feel like there is a lack of serious discussion about what we need to do. There's a lot on tariffs, there's a lot on infrastructure building, but how are we going to actually diversify our trade? Who are we going to do it with? What institutions are we going to use? This is largely absent, and what Canada's role in the world should be

in a world where there is a retrenching United States also seems to be missing from the conversation. Bessma, do you share that concern that something's missing even if the accent is on foreign affairs in this election? Yeah, I couldn't agree more with Stephanie, so no surprise here. But yeah, I think there's really a lot of missing details. There's a lot of, I think, broad sketch of what we expect. I think a lot of analysts and scholars can probably read between the lines, but I think for a lot of Canadian voters there's a lot of mystery still on what are the actual policy positions. And I think that's actually by design. I think what has been very troubling for a lot of Canadian politicians is that when these issues do come up, it's often not a very big

concern for Canadians. I think this election is gonna be a bit different that way because we do have the trade war going to be looming over us. But I think in general, because it's not a high priority for most Canadian voters, polls after polls often tell us that, that I think this time in particular, there are a lot of contentious issues. And so I think that the sort of political landscape wants to avoid on the specifics on purpose.

Adam, what say you on this? I think we're talking about the world a lot right now, but I don't think the election is really about policy because the elections are about choices. And I don't think the leaders are that far apart on, for example, response to the United States. In both cases, we're going to respond with counter tariffs of some sort.

So I think what the election seems to be about is who can lead us to this new place and this new world order and this need for Canada to look out for itself in a way that's different. And I think that's different than the details that Stephanie and Bessma are looking for. I don't think Canadians are asking for them as much as they're asking for who will make us most comfortable figuring those details out. So am I reading between the lines accurately when it sounds like you are unimpressed so far with what you've heard from the major parties as it relates to specifics?

Well I think it's more that I'm not surprised. It makes perfect sense for our political leaders to respond to our needs and we aren't asking for how many consulates are you going to close in the United States, are you going to move them to another country. We're asking will you make us feel confident that we will be in a good place if you are leading us into this unstable, insecure world? Stephanie, what are you not hearing that you wish you were hearing from, let's just take the two major parties, which the polls would suggest are the two that have a shot to win this election. What do you wish you were hearing?

Right. And to be fair to Adam, I agree, it's not surprising that we're not hearing these things. It's just, you know, the academic in me is maybe slightly out of touch with the common person in Canada who's just wondering what the price of fruit is going to be in six months from now. So what I would like to hear is not so much the specifics

about closing consulates, to be fair, but we have heard skepticism, particularly from the conservative party regarding certain international institutions. And I don't see this in a politicized way, but some international forums, they take a more skeptical view towards the UN, towards groups like the World Economic Forum,

almost certainly. So what is their idea for the right forums that we should be going to? Who are the allies? The government has an Indo-Pacific foreign policy. Is that something that they want to continue both parties? And so it's interesting, Mark Carney, when he was the prime minister for, I guess, a week, you know, one of the first things he did was actually go overseas to the UK, to France. He has said that rather than increasing trade with China, he would like to work more with like-minded allies. That was kind of a hint towards the approach that he would like to take. I would like to hear more from the conservatives, like in broad strokes, what is their approach to international institutions, alliances, etc. going forward.

Richard, you write for a publication that is known for being a center-right publication, The Hub, so do I infer from that that you are pleased that, for example, defense policy is getting a place in the spotlight as almost never before in elections in this country? Well, I would say that I think from what we've seen of the Conservative Party platform and certainly what the Liberal Party has released, essentially there's not that much difference with the existing policy in R&R, strong and free. So, you know, to Stephanie's point about looking for details, it's what details have been released doesn't really transmit a real break

from what currently exists. And I think there has been statements on a broader level to say we want to reorient towards Europe or we want to look at sort of broadening out our foreign policy, but the reality of what has been, what few details we have gotten, has not transmitted any sort of alacrity towards making that sort of dramatic shift away from the United States. Well, Besmend, let me put a specific policy to you and you tell me what you think.

The Conservatives have been on the record as saying they think we're spending too much on foreign aid and they would like to see that redirected towards defence spending. What do you say on that? Well, I mean, I think if you talk to any defense experts, including the Canadian Armed Forces, they'll say, that's not a good thing. We want foreign aid, they want foreign aid, because it often makes the job,

particularly on the international front, especially if there's a deployment, that much easier to do. It gives us connection to civil society. We're uplifting people to prevent conflict in many ways. And I say that with the modest point that I think over arches this is that we do not put a lot of money towards foreign aid. So it's almost negligible in the big scheme of things. And even what we do, I think does really, really well. We do punch above our weight in some cases. IDRC is one that stands out, which is kind of foreign aid and with research. I think that, you know, we

should not be moving away from that. We should be increasing it, especially in the climate where the Americans are cutting vastly in their foreign aid, USAID and other parts of the Department of State that do issue a foreign aid. I mean, it's a real disaster in many countries. People are not getting their treatments for AIDS. We're seeing hunger on the rise. I mean, there's a lot of fragility out there. And I think in that context, we need to be, I think, more giving rather than less. I understand and why a Conservative Party would say that, partly because it also doesn't resonate with

Canadians. You know, it's not a big issue. And I think in the Canadian mindset, there is this imagination that we put so much money towards foreign aid, we do not. It's really put into the big scheme of things. And countries that are of similar size and GDP level put in way more than us. We are not big on giving. So there's lots of room to go up, not down.

And down, I think will hurt us both strategically, politically, and most importantly, diplomatically. Having said that, Adam, do you appreciate the fact that we seem to be talking about defense policy more than we have in almost any other election of my lifetime? Yeah, and to be fair, I should be clear that although I'm employed by the Department of National Defense, all of my views are my own and they don't represent the department, I think it's refreshing that we're being forced to grow up a little bit and be a little bit more serious about our place in the world, even if the discussion itself is rather shallow

and not filled with the details that some of us might be curious about. The fact that we're acknowledging that the world is not always a safe place and that Canada won't be able to lag behind anymore is refreshing and it is something relatively new for an election campaign. Stephanie, should we give President Trump some credit in as much as he has both bullied and

embarrassed his NATO allies into getting their spending up? We haven't spent 2% of our GDP, which is the target. I mean, has it been since World War II that we spent that kind of money? We're nowhere near close to that. Is he right to kind of name and shame us that way? I don't want to give President Trump much credit for anything. I will say that previous administrations have also asked Canada to spend more money. They've tried to gentle parent us in a lot of ways towards increasing our defense budget because, you know, it's not that they

see Canada as bad, they see Canada as really good and they want more of us, right? This is something that we've often heard our allies say. But the way it's being done, it's almost fear-based in what we're seeing coming out of Ukraine right now, the threats to withhold intelligence, arms, these kinds of things. And it is interesting, we're seeing this dynamic, right? Just before the election was called, it was announced that Canada will be participating in this new European effort to develop and rearm that will possibly be excluding the United States going forward, right? And there was a report by Reuters today that the United States is not really happy.

They're glad we're rearming, but they want us to buy their equipment. At the same time, they seem to be threatening us. So it's a very odd series of contradictions. So I'm not sure Trump gets the entire credit, but I agree with Adam very much that it is important that Canada has grown up conversations about defense spending and it's good that it is part of this election. Richard, what about it? Should we give Mr. Trump some credit for the fact that he's bullying Canada and other countries

into improving their defense spending? I think we'll have to wait and see a little bit. I think if you think about the two percent, the trajectory towards two percent in Canada, that really, you'd probably point Biden a little bit more towards giving a bit more credits, just because I think about on-sap and the direction that we're going right now. There's quite a bit of talk that the NATO guidelines

will probably go up to 3% or there'll be negotiations to push towards that threshold. That you could probably push to Trump because of his efforts towards burden sharing and sort of pushing allies to spend more while the United States sort of withdraws, especially in Europe. So I don't want to give him too much credit at all for this current spending bump,

because again, there's also Ukraine, there's a bunch of other geopolitical factors at play, but going forward, possibly that might be the case. You mentioned Ukraine, so let's go there next. Besma, we know that Canada is home to one of the largest diaspora Ukrainian populations in the world. I think more than a million people of Ukrainian descent, including the former deputy prime minister of the country, Krista Freeland. How big a factor do you think this country's commitment to that war is playing in this current election campaign.

Well, there's definitely unison in all three parties, major parties, in terms of who's the perpetrator of all of this, which is certainly Russia. And there's a lot of sympathy for Ukraine. Certainly the three parties might approach things a little bit differently, but I think it's really a good thing that we're seeing all of our parties united on that because it is a unifying issue, both in Canada and I think across our allies. But the sort of elephant in the room and back to the analogy that Stephanie noted, the big orange elephant here,

that is Trump. That is not what Trump thinks. Trump is certainly a lot more sympathetic to Putin and has done a great deal, frankly, since he came into office just a short few weeks ago, to damage the alliance, in particular basically giving Russia everything it wanted in negotiations and setting the threshold for what was to be given up as a very high one for Ukraine. I think just completely unacceptable.

So this is a really interesting time, because often our defense and foreign policy tends to, I'm not going to say completely mimic the United States. We have our own characteristics, but we tend to recognize that they are our ally. And so if we don't overtly agree with them, we quietly disagree with them. And that, I think, is a real departure here.

What does that mean for the future? We know that certainly the Americans are the largest supporters, at least on a country basis. When you add the EU together, it's a bit different picture. But armament to the Ukrainians, that's going to change. So I guess my bigger problem here is that what does this mean if the Trump administration fully pulls out and leaves it to the Europeans and us

to try to defend Ukraine. And I think we're going to be in a really, really difficult spot. The Europeans have spent a lot of effort at warp speed to get their capacity up, which is great, but there's still some lapses there. And I think we're going to have to address some really tough questions internally

if we're going to help Ukraine even further, particularly with armaments and not just in training troops on the ground and not just in supporting presence in Latvia, which we've done in the past. Adam, maybe you could give whoever forms the next government of Canada some advice here on whether we should be mirroring sort of more a, let's call it a former Cold War approach where we want to do whatever we can to assist the Ukrainians in fighting off the Russian aggression, or whether we should be taking a more Trumpist approach, which is to say, let's get the hell out of there and figure out how we can end this thing

ASAP. I think for Canada, this is very much open and shut. We benefit from a world that has some rules, and the Russians have attempted to throw all those rules out the window. We have to stand by Ukraine, not necessarily just because there are a million plus Ukrainians here, but because if the rules get thrown out, it becomes a world of might,

and we don't have the might to compete. So we have to be there because we need those rules. We need to create stigma around breaking them, and we need to try to maintain their resilience and integrity. Stephanie, how about you on that? I very much agree. This is going to be a real challenge.

But this is where I come back to this idea that we are going to need allies to do this and institutions to do this. Canada can't create this world alone. It can't maintain this world alone. We're gonna have to make some very strategic partnerships in the next few months, not even few years, the next few months, in order to really ensure

that this kind of world that we have benefited from, and again, not everyone's benefited from this world, we could make that argument, but by and large, certainly Canada has, and we need to shore up rules to ensure that at least the basic systems that we're at least trying to help those countries, those peoples that were in a, you know, worst state, we're at least getting a modicum of help and perhaps even

more help as time goes on. But this is going to be very difficult to do without the United States going forward. This is a huge challenge, requires a lot of thinking. And, you know, again, maybe this is getting a little too much into the details that Adam pointed out earlier, but we are going to need a nimble foreign policy establishment to do this kind of work. There's questions now being asked about whether Canada needs a foreign human intelligence service, something we don't have a Canadian CIA. Do we need something like this if we can no longer depend on intelligence from the United States? And this goes along with all the very difficult military spending questions. All of this will be used, hopefully, to contribute to a world order and norms that we think are

important and will benefit Canada going forward. Richard, what would your advice be to the next Prime Minister of Canada vis-à-vis how we handle Ukraine? Well, certainly we've been delayed on rearming and sort of building up the capacity to support Ukraine. And that's actually fairly true across Europe. You've seen a lot of realization that you had two years to sort of build up armaments facilities, build up production capacity for the sort of munitions that Ukraine needs,

and that the United States would so quickly and fully pull the rug out like they did a couple weeks ago on the intelligence side has kind of brought a real sobering realization to a lot of European capitals that we really need to build up our capacity. And you see the European Union's rearm effort sort of in Germany as well, and a lot of individual companies actually adding more spending. So in Cando, I think that that's a similar sort of discussion needs to happen. What are we actually going to do in concrete terms in terms of bringing together, you know, industry, the military, our diplomatic and also the aid side to sustain Ukraine in the future because there's always going to be a constant threat and the nature of war and the way the nature of how Russia is sort of fighting this grinding war of attrition

Really requires there to be no sort of interruption in the support for Ukraine Otherwise, you're going to have pretty quick reversals in the battlefield which can dramatically turn the overall strategic situation Okay, let's talk about the far north because I suspect we have had more discussions conversations Appearances by the party leaders in the far north of this country. And I guess I want to know from all of you, Adam Stardesoff, have they made Arctic sovereignty and Canada's position there a significant enough part of their campaign so far? I think it's a big step that all of our political leaders have recognized that part of the defense

of Canada and North America and the international system that we believe in includes having a robust presence in the North. We haven't, we've done that politically in the past, but not seriously. And I think at this point, we're getting a little bit more serious. Again, I prefer fewer details in this case, in part because to do the North right, you have to consult with indigenous leaders

and it's much more difficult to do that in the middle of an election. A commitment to do more in the North, putting some money behind it with the details to be determined in consultation with indigenous leaders is probably to me the most prudent way to go about it. Bessma what do you say? Yeah I think this is a welcome change and I think we need more of this agree with with Adam completely on the consultation with indigenous communities but we are seeing you know some interesting statements about the Arctic. Certainly, we've seen from the Conservatives an effort to talk

about the militarization in the way of expanding the base there and to really sort of put more support through the Rangers in particular. And I think that's all welcome. The challenge, of course, is that the Arctic is ever more important right now when we don't have the Americans helping us, so to speak. I mean, NORAD, in theory, is a bilateral security agreement. If, as Carney noted, that this is – we are at the beginning of the fracturing of our military alliance with the Americans, this is really problematic. The Arctic is very much relied – our sovereignty of the Arctic is very much tied into the continental approach of defense. And we partner with the Americans on that.

And that is sorely lacking. We have, I think, neglected the Arctic for a long time, both in terms of radars and sensors. Certainly we keep hearing about more and more investment into ice breaking and really claiming a lot of the northern waters. There are many, many competitors, not just the Americans, which have done some really, I think, outlandish type of affront to our sovereignty in terms of the waters, but also in terms of Russia, which has really tried to plant flags everywhere in the Arctic. China now claims itself to be a member of the Arctic, which is really quite interesting if you look at a map. So there are a lot of threats here and we all know with

global warming, unfortunately, the Arctic will be a very important passageway. It'll be a very important passageway for trade. It will be an important passageway for militarization. And if Russia remains a key threat in the future, which I think it will, we're neighbors in the Arctic on that. So there's a lot to do, and I think there's a lot of now recognition in this era of the Americans posing as frankly, a real threat now more than ever at any time, that we need to not depend on our so-called ally anymore. And we need to really, I think, up our own efforts

and capability to defend the Arctic. Richard, if we don't have the Americans as our allies who can help patrol the Arctic, what do we need to do differently and are you hearing any of that from the major parties these days? It would basically be a completely revision of Canadian defense policy going forward. If you think about NORAD specifically, it is our Air Force essentially cannot defend the North without NORAD, just the way that the networks are built, just the way the our sensors are all working in a sort of collaborative fashion. We've never really put any of the important capabilities that that would allow

us to do it in a individual manner. And we would be looking at a defence policy that's quite significantly above what we're looking at, maybe 3-4% at least, just to sort of build out those capacities going forward. And to be honest, probably not even be close to what the joint system that we currently have that defends the North in this way currently. Stephanie, we heard China mention just a moment ago, so I want to move us to that relationship and also our relationship with India. Two big players on the world stage, India and China.

And of course, our relationships during Justin Trudeau's time as Prime Minister of the country, our relationships with those two countries have really gone downhill. Should our, maybe you can give the next Prime Minister some advice on this, should our rather depressing relationship with the United States these days propel us to either reboot or renew our relationships with India and China? Let's start with India.

There are some actually interesting but very subtle changes that I think are happening on the ground. I am aware that Canadian delegations have been traveling to India. There have been conversations about some of the challenges between our two countries, especially with regards to transnational repression, which, you know, have been very serious allegations here in Canada of that. And of course, of harassment and monitoring of the Sikh population as well. Interestingly enough, we do know that the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service,

Dan Rogers, went to India very recently and certainly would have had discussions with authorities there. So it's interesting, I think that there is a sense that we have to at least repair relations. I would note that like both the conservative and liberal parties have had a difficult time managing India in the past, but I do think that there is a willingness to at least try and restart relations in that way, probably from both parties.

There's a clear also alignment is, interestingly enough, on China. It's interesting again, I pointed out Mark Carney noted that he was not interested in increasing relations with China at this time. And certainly the conservatives have been very critical of China, there was of course the issue of the MP in the Toronto area earlier this week, where he had made fun of some transnational repression going on and had subsequently resigned.

So I think that neither party will be actively seeking to repair relations with China, but I also don't think that's necessarily our fault. If you look how China has been behaving towards Canada, especially in recent months, they've said, yes, we are on a charm offensive. We want to do more business with Canada. But we found out just weeks ago that they executed for Canadian citizens. They put a massive tariff on some of our key exports to China, particularly canola. They'll say that's in response to

EV tariffs, but the timing there is also very suspicious. And finally, we see them taking advantage of a retrenching United States and carrying out hostile military activities near Australia and most recently Taiwan. So I think China's actions will probably constrain Canada from either party reestablishing closer relations in the near future. Okay. Running out of time here, so I'm going to move right to the Middle East right now, and that is, Bessma, let me get you on this.

The three major parties, the liberals, the conservatives, and the new Democrats, have very, very different positions on what this country ought to be doing in the Middle East, and yet, well, for a variety of reasons, I assume, there has not been much discussion about that part of the world during this election campaign so far, although there is a ton in the United States at the moment.

Why not here in your view? Well, I mean, I think it's a hot potato issue that nobody really wants to get into, very frankly and bluntly. And so I think that's the overall rationale. But there are many tough issues that need to be discussed, and I think we're going to have to continue to think about that. The one that, everything from relations with Iran to the upcoming international court decision on whether or not Israel's war in Gaza is a genocide. We have the situation of bringing in the Gulf countries into some sort of wider alliance. And the last point is certainly something that the Trump administration has invested

very heavily on. He took credit for this, in particular with the outreach with the Gulf countries and Israel in terms of a peace treaty. I think we're going to see more investment in that. Trump is going there, I believe, very, very soon, one of his many first stops internationally. And he's really banked on that as sort of a solution to all conflicts in the Middle East, which frankly doesn't take care of the most important issue that really, you know, really absorbs a lot of people's time, which is what's happening

with the Israelis and Palestinians. So I think this is really just a diversion. But the point, I think, here is that there is a change or there are difference between all three. And you know, Carney is probably the one that's most untested, because he obviously hasn't had his views shared and known on the issue. Whereas the NDP and I'd say the Conservatives are more clear on where they land on a few things. I think the Carney approach, which will probably be different than the Trudeau government approach, just knowing that Carney's more of a technocrat. I think we're going to see less rhetoric, which I think really damaged the liberal brand for a lot of people who are interested in Middle East politics, just because

they were always wishy washy. Their statements never pleased anyone. They just tried to do it all in a tweet. And frankly, they failed because they never really took a principled stand either way. So I think we're going to see something different from Carney, less rhetoric, less speechifying and more being generally silent on the issue that doesn't really, you know, in his view, make a difference on the needle for the big issues that he's interested in, which is certainly more on the domestic economy side. And so I think we're going to see a lot less rhetoric from the Liberal Party, which would be welcome because it honestly did them no good either way. Okay. Four minutes to go here.

So let me give a minute to each of you on this issue. The other significant historic election campaign that the current one is being compared to is the free trade election of 1988, where the conservatives were very pro-America, pro-free trade, and the liberals were very anti-America and anti-free trade. There were definite distinctive differences among the two main parties. That does not appear to be the case as much in this campaign.

Richard, why don't you start us off in this. Has President Trump and his actions somewhat blurred the distinctions between liberals and conservatives in this election? On defense policies specifically, potentially, but I don't know if there would have been that much difference going forward. I think that there is a blueprint right now with war for the defense spending up until 2032 to get to 2 percent and I'm not too sure that they would have really deviated from this path. I think in terms of rhetoric and whatnot potentially I think you see certainly Mark Carney make some pretty strident statements as he's alluded to before about Canada being less able to trust in the end of our sort of close bilateral relationship and I think that might be the case with the rhetoric side but in terms of major sort of policy moves maybe with the rhetoric side, but in terms of major sort of policy moves, maybe with the exception of

foreign aid spending, I don't know if there would have been that much difference between the parties, maybe with the NDP in the election. Okay, how about to you, Adam? The differences between liberals and Tories, historic differences, somewhat more blurred this time? I think when it comes to world affairs, when we haven't been in eras when we've politicized them, Tories and liberals and even conservatives and liberals have been fairly aligned in that it's in Canada's national interest that we don't change our foreign policy too much between elections because we work with allies.

And if allies can't rely on us for more than four years, we're really not of much use to them. So there's sort of been this pull to the middle in action, even if the rhetoric has been different. I think because we're in a serious situation now, you can't use rhetoric because Canadians are looking for more than that. And as a result, it's not that surprising

that we're heading back towards the middle because that's the place where we can be most effective, both for ourselves and as an ally to others. Stephanie? I remember that 1988 election actually. I was living in Oshawa at the time and at broadband was running. And I remember the kind of chaotic atmosphere,

even just in our playground at school. We really did feel it back then. As for today, it's interesting. I would push back on this idea that we're all headed towards the middle. I think honestly, if you scratch beneath the surface, you would see very different ideas about allies, about institutions, about how things should be done.

And this is why I would like to see more in terms of foreign policy, on foreign aid, on what kind of defense spending and with who in this election. And yeah, I guess it's not gonna to happen in a 28-day election, especially with a new leader, and when everyone is, again, focused on Donald Trump. But this is where I do think that there are actually

substantial differences in that Canadians are perhaps at a time, for the first time, looking for options, looking for choices. And they may actually be interested in some of these details. But I don't know if that's just my academic hopes bringing it to Rome. Bessma, put a bow on it for us if you would. Oh, but it's gonna be a sad bow. I'm afraid to say, you know, I agree with Stephanie very much,

and I just quickly add that I think seeing this global movement of the alt-right is really troubling, and I think, you know, not to say that the conservatives have in any way connection to our alt-right here in Canada, but there are a lot of sloganeering and frankly, some statements that have been made that really sound very much connected to this broader alt-right movement. He's appeased, I think very blank butly,

appeased members of Canada's alt-right movement, and that's really troubling. So that's something we're watching, and I think a lot of Canadians, and we're seeing this in terms of the voting and the polling, what we're seeing is really the NDP voters are moving to the Liberals, not I think because they're enchanted by the Liberals, but because they're very afraid of that, you know, playing footsies with the People Party and all the other alt-right members that are frankly showing up in many ways in the conservative movement right now. We really do have that in the back of our mind again as political scientists, personally speaking.

You weren't kidding. That is a sad bow that you're putting on this thing. Okay, Sheldon, thanks. Keep that foreshot up there so I can thank Adam Chapnick from RMC, Richard Shamuka from the MacDonald-Laurier Institute and the Hub, Besmo Momani from University of Waterloo in CG, and Stephanie Carvin from Carleton University.

Great to have you four on our program tonight. Many thanks. Thank you.