The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Dueling Videos -- Carney and Poilievre Take Their Battle To YouTube

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

YouTube is now the pre-eminent TV channel for those watching television. And now it also stars the latest attempts by both Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre to try to influence Canadians. What's behind their dueling videos? Althia Raj and Rob Russo are here with their take. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for Raj Russo? They're coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. It's your Tuesday Reporter's Notebook, Raj and Russo. And we've got lots to talk about, as we always do. And this week we're going to start with, I guess, what you call them, dueling videos, in the YouTube space, which is the preeminent place now in television. YouTube is where people go, by the millions. And both Mark Carney with his toy soldiers and his desk in his prime minister's office,

hoping to gain a lot of viewers with his latest explanation of where the situation is for Canada on the big trade front and the relationship with the U.S., you name it. and in response to what was a heavily produced and edited production by the Kearney team, comes Pierre Polyev a day or two later with a very straightforward, on-camera presentation of what his view is, basically calling the Carney promises an illusion. So they're at it now, not just in question period, when that happens, they're not just at it in terms of speeches,

they're added in a dueling video presentation on YouTube. So I want to get both of your senses of what all this means. And Althea, I think it's your turn to start this week. So go for it. I didn't realize who were keeping tabs. I'm not really. I just thought that would sound good. So my understanding is the Carney team,

thought they would start a series of Prime Minister direct communication to Canadians in the FDR style, the fireside chats. And in a way you can say this is really smart because if things take a very negative turn, he has opened up a channel of communications. He lays out basically what he plans to do. He says he's never going to sugarcoat things. He's kind of laying the groundwork for like, I'm going to tell you potentially terrible news and I'm going to bring you along with me on this plan.

And we've kind of seen this before. If you think back to the way Justin Trudeau communicated with Canadians during COVID, and he got a lot of praise for being transparent about what the government knew. Maybe there was some criticism about being not transparent enough about what the government didn't know and how it was making assumptions, but opening the lines of communications to tell people you know, we're all in this together. This is what's being done. This is how we're going to take care of people.

This is, these are the hiccups along the way. And so that is how I see the Carney team attempting to communicate with Canadians. I think the Kupapaliev team basically did not want to miss the new cycle. That's why it did not have the glossy, you know, sit down multiple camera shots, very carefully edited. response. The peer poly-f team has a different challenge. Not only does it want to ensure it's in the conversation, but it is also trying to plant the seeds of an argument that they're hoping will bear fruit in the months and potentially years ahead, which is this Mark Carney guy, he might have a great CV and he might know exactly what should be doing, but actually he's not

doing what he should be doing. And, you know, we should not be. And, you know, we should not be, blowing up our relationship with the United States. So much of our trade is dependent. We can survive Donald Trump. They're trying to build a new narrative. And so sometimes I think Pierre Pueleu's message sounds completely disconnected with the current message jeure. But if you see it in that way, you can understand, you know, that has been a very

successful strategy for him in the past. And they're hoping that that will bear fruit again. Rob, what did, what do you make of it? I agree. I think you've both made notes of style. I'll get to substance in a second, but I think the style is important. Mr. Kearney's, the prime minister's video, looks like it's relaxed, deconstructed. It's actually not in the prime minister's office. It's in some nondescript office with books lining the back wall. He doesn't wear a tie, which is not always usual for him. This is a man who doesn't. like to take off his suit jacket when he's campaigning. They tried to get him to do that during the campaign and he said absolutely not. He likes sort of buttoned down attire. They got him to take off his tie and to sit in a more relaxed way. The intercut imagery in the Carney

video is important, I think. What did we see? We saw clips of Canadians at war, Canadians exploring frontiers, Canadians during the pandemic. We saw roiling stock markets and we saw a brief clip of him as governor of the Bank of Canada. Those images are important because he and his team are clearly trying to convey a message of urgency, of crisis, and perhaps even of award time leaders. So I think the thrust of Roosevelt talking to his people at a time. of war and crisis is by design. And the whole notion of Brock as well is key to that,

because who was Brock fighting, he was fighting the Americans. And defending Canada against the Americans, what crisis, what war, we're in a trade war, certainly. But getting us ready for grim times perhaps ahead. I agree that Mr. Poyevs was unusual. missing production. It was a straight shot of him reading for more than seven minutes gazing into the camera.

And it wasn't the best produced video because normally he produces videos that are highly produced. Again, they look like they're deconstructed. There's a lot of animation in some of his videos, lots of charts, and there was none of that. So there was a sense that it was rushed. Um, that, that might, that might have been deliberate though, right, to really contrast against the highly produced, probably very expensive, uh, Carney video. Um, you know, I, when I watched

Polyev, you know, the, the old TV, uh, in me, um, you could see what happened. He was trying to do it all in one take and he did it all in one take, but by the last minute or two, he, he was running out of gas. He was stumbling here and there. but kept it. And probably the argument was, well, it's natural, you know,

that's what happens to people. Don't worry about it. Well, the other one I thought was to the, on the verge of being over produced. Some of the edits were really tight, weren't natural. But anyway,

whatever, that's just production. It was, it was, they did a multiple camera shoot with Carney. Oh, yeah. You know,

you saw him interspersed. But, But, you know, like in the days of YouTube, is that kind of unvarnished production? Does that work? I don't know. Like this. We're unvarnished. Yeah.

Yes. Apart from the team of the makeup artists who work tirelessly overnight trying to make me look like George Clooney. I don't notice that. Right. I mean, the makeup. Different styles, clearly. And in terms of the message, different messages as well.

And I think this is important. I actually think it's a good thing for democracy. I do wish that this kind of debate happened inside the House of Commons. But if it's going to happen this way, we have two clearly distinct paths. And that gets us more into the substance, which I think is far more important. And into some critical things as well. The only looming thing happening in the next little while are the trade talks. They're not going well.

I thought the New Brunswick Premier Holt, quoting Dominic LeBlancelon yesterday, said there is motion, but no movement in the talks, is how she described, or quoted him describing the talks. That's where they are. They're not going well. and you know, you've got the truculent bellicose, Howard Ludnik saying we suck. So if they're not going to go well, and I think they're not going well, in part, because we don't necessarily want to make a deal right now

with Donald Trump. We're dragging our feet by design, and right now it's not looking like a bad strategy. I think the prime minister wants to prepare us, for that. We have that versus Mr. Poitliev who's saying, listen, we are not going to be able to resist the pull of gravity. It's the reason why Canada is as prosperous and secure as we have been for the last 150 years is because we live in a pretty good neighborhood. And up until now, our neighbors have been a benefit to Canada when it comes to our security and our prosperity.

And we have to look beyond Trump. So I think that's an important debate for us to have now. We can discuss whether or not one's right or one's wrong. I don't think we're going to know for a while, but that's the debate that's been cast. And I think it's a good thing for our democracy that that debate is happening in this way. Okay, well, one way to look at this is that people have stopped if they were ever really watching for years now,

a question period. I'm sure in day one there were more views of these two videos than question period gets an example. year. Should we assume that this is actually going to be a new series of fireside chats, call them whatever you want? Or is this being a one-off? What do you think, Althea? Well, the prime minister said in his message that he planned to come occasionally, I would say, not frequently. You know, FDR had about 2830, I guess, depends how you count fireside chats.

I listened to one of them last night, which was about the banking. I mean, that was like non-banking. That was a real crisis. But I think what we need to stress is what, you know, FDR was trying to do, which is bring comfort. Like one of the key benefits that Mark Carney exudes for the Liberal Party is trust. And you saw him, yes, maybe he wasn't wearing his suit jacket,

but he was wearing his Order of Canada pin. And, you know, when they shot, they show the shot of him as the governor of Ban Ki-Canada, the message is this is a man that you can trust. And one of the things that the president was trying to do in those fireside chat was to quell rumors. This is what I read off the library's website last night. And you can see that in an era of so many different news ecosystem and influencers on the internet that, you know, if things do not, go well with trade talks, for example, to Rob Russo's point, Mark Carney might want to say things and cast it in the most favorite polite for the government. I think that's important. The other thing that's

important for us to note is that mainstream media, journalism, outlets like mine, the Toronto Star, we are banned from Facebook and Instagram. So because of the government's own legislation, you cannot read news, trusted news content, on meta's platforms, but you can watch Mark Carney's video. Last night, I have 470,000 views. I think he was at. Yes, Peter, you're probably right.

That is more people that watch question period. But I think it's a direct chat to Canadians where they're at in a way that unfortunately, mainstream media is not. And I think for them, it's a wonderful strategy to have your message delivered as you would like it for 10 straight minutes and have Canadians listen to it. And what more could you ask for if you're a politician? Your remark about the order of Canada pin.

You're quite right. Whenever you see Mark Carney, you see the order of Canada pin. Now, you know, for men who have received the order of Canada, it's expected that if you're wearing a suit or a sports jacket, you should be wearing the pin. Because most people don't know what that pin is. When I wear mine, more people come up to me and say, what's that pin?

You know, what does it represent? Then people come up and say, oh, you're in the order of Canada. That doesn't happen. So, you know, the fact that he's wearing it, I think, is not a prop. He actually believes in the theory that you should wear it and show it. I think it is also sending a message to Canadians for whom that means something. Absolutely. Well, Polly Evel get his order of Canada.

I mean, these things happen. Justin Trudeau still doesn't have one, but he will get one, and he'll be at the highest order, the companion, which is one above, actually, what Mark Carney said. He'll get companion. When I wear my Sandy Hill Ice Wolf's pin,

it's using the high of mustard state. Anyway, I think it's been an interesting, I think there's a turning of the page that's happened here. I agree with Althea. It's going to be interesting to see how often these are. But I think when they see that kind of access they're getting to public viewing, and it's been positive so far for Carney, at least those comments are that you see online.

We'll see how it plays out over time. Okay. And we should also note that he's going over the heads of reporters. And as a reporter, I'm not sure I like that. It may be an effective method of communication, but I think that it's a way of going over the heads and around the people who are supposed to be asking pointed and pesky questions that he might not always like. And clearly, he doesn't like at times.

And I think that those of us who are still scribblers and babblers and standing in the place of taxpayers should continue to petition for the right to ask. those questions at times that are pointed, that are polite, but persistent. And I think we need to make note of that. What is the, what's the current access to the prime minister in terms of questions? Does he stop and scrum? You know, what is the access to both of them? What would you say it is now, Althea?

Well, he's not having press conferences in the National Theater, but he never promised he would be doing that. He had a press conference last Tuesday following the by-election wins, where he had a lengthy question-and-answer session. Usually he scrums on the way to cabinet Tuesday mornings. Occasionally he'll scrum on Wednesday. days in or out of caucus, or not so much into question period.

But in terms of questions, mostly it's whenever there's a government announcement, especially across the country, which means that outlets that have reporters like the Canadian press or the CBC can feed questions that are perhaps more of an Ottawa press gallery in nature, less local, more national. when he travels, there is a standard where you have, you know, journalists have paid a lot of money to travel with the prime minister, that they have access to the prime minister. But we saw on the trip to India, for example,

he waited four days before he had a press conference. So I'd say the record is a bit mixed. He wouldn't say that he's not accessible in the way that, like, Stephen Harper was. We don't have a list of preferred journalists. I get to ask questions. But it's not as accessible as, let's say, Justin Trudeau was, especially in the early years of the Trudeau government.

Yeah, I would say it could be better. You're never going to hear someone like me complain that we have too much access to the PM. And they certainly are mindful of over exposure. But that's their problem and not mine. I think he's probably accessible once or twice a week. And as Althea says, with preferred backdrops, backdrops that he would prefer. The trip that I was on to China, Qatar, and Davos,

there were two or three days when he was not available. And I think there was some legitimate grumbling by reporters about that. There might not be a preferred list in the way Stephen Harper used to do it, But it's in effect reporters agree among themselves that, okay, we only got 20 minutes. So you didn't get a question this time. So last time, so you're going to get one this time. And because time is limited, often, there is discussion about making sure that we cover all the bases and ask pertinent questions across a broad spectrum in a way that tries to give everybody a chance.

So there's not an overabundance or even an abundance of time sometimes to ask the prime minister's questions. And reporters are mindful of that as well. Briefly, how does I compare with Paul Yev in terms of access? Well, with Poitv during the campaign, I went to one of his campaign stops. And there was very, very little access in comparison, I would say. He made sure the local reporter always got a question. The local reporter was often armed with a question, it seemed to me. It was often a question that was on an issue that Mr. Paulyev wanted to talk about.

At the news conference that I went at, the reporter came in thinking he was going to ask one question, a local radio reporter, and he was encouraged to ask a question about crime rates. He ended up asking that. So Bottom line, who's more accessible? Lcia? I think it's really changed. It has changed.

That's true. Like, Pierre Pollyov during the election, we didn't travel on the plane with them. We had to chase him around the country. It cost us a lot of money. When we got there, like, I never got to ask a single question during the entire time I went to Pier Pueleo's events. Neither than any Toronto Star reporter that I can think of.

They did pick reporters, because the press conference was accessible to the reporters who bothered to show up, but also the people who called in. And so sometimes you'd have a reporter from, I don't know, some outlet I'd never heard of instead of the people who showed up at the press conference because they wanted to avoid certain questions. We see, and there's videos of this on the internet, they handhold now at some press conferences, the microphone to pick the reporters that they want to.

to ask the question. There are no supplemental questions. So usually you get a question and a follow-up because the politician doesn't answer usually the first time around. And if they somehow do answer, often you use a follow-up to ask a different question. We've seen that here probably of just kind of has done away with the follow-up. I think in some part, partly that is our fault as journalists because we have agreed at times to forego the follow-ups to allow more reporters to ask questions. We've seen that, for example, after cabinet swearing-ins, I believe Mark Carney the second or first time around, there were more reporters who wanted to ask questions, so they just all got one question, then there were no follow-ups. So, you know,

we ourselves are somewhat to blame. I would say the prime minister, I don't know. When Pierre Pueleva is out on the road, he is taking questions. He's doing media roundtable, especially with ethnic media, I think. There's less control from the prime minister. I'm more concerned if I can be so blunt about the prime minister not showing up to question period than us not having enough access to the PM directly. Okay. We've got to take a break. Let's take it right now.

We come back. There's two other issues I want to get to. So let's deal with that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Tuesday episode of Reporter's Notebook. Althea Raj, Rob Russo with us here to talk about a number of different issues. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel.

Our question of the week this week, by the way, for Thursday's your turn is, what are you worried about these days? Is it Canada-U.S. relations? Is it war? Is it affordability? Whatever the issue is, tell me what it is in under 75 words. Just one issue, please. get it in by tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern Time to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com and include your name and the location you're writing from.

Okay, topic two for this week, Althea and Rob is the prime minister is expected today to name a new Canada U.S. Trade Advisory Council. I guess that replaces in some fashion what had been in existence for a little more than a year that had been named by the former Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. What should we make of this, especially at a time where, well, things, Lutnik, as Rob said earlier, said Canada sucks. He's really elevated his language, apparently, from his Epstein days, but nevertheless. What should we make of this new council, what it means, what it can achieve?

Who wants to start? Elsie, I want a new start. Well, one of the things that the former Prime Minister got a lot of kudos for was the advisor counsel that he had appointed in a way of expanding the networks of contact that the government had access to, the different inputs that they would get, and basically like tripling their reach. And I think that that is one thing that kind of, um, Mr. Kearney has been criticized for. So I think that's a recognition that, you know, this work before, let's do it again. I also think that when you have more people in the tent, you're less likely to get criticized by those people. So it's smart politics too. Like I

wholeheartedly expect that there will be conservatives, well-known conservatives on the list that is named today. We saw in the past, you know, there were former premiers on that list. There were people of different political stripes. And so you really do get the sense that. that this is a national unity effort, that this is a pan-Canadian effort, and that is what Prime Minister Kearney has tried to tell Canadians, not just in the breadth of floor crossers he has welcomed to his caucus, but also in his messaging. So I think it fits in that prism. I also think it's a way of kind of insulating themselves against the criticism that they have received, that not much is actually happening on that front, which they have, to Rob's point, I think,

actually kind of acknowledged. Like last week we had Dominique LeBlanc, the point person for the government on this file basically suggests that, well, there's like conversations are happening and, you know, that the door is open and we're still talking, but yes, clearly nothing seems to be moving in the same way because we have Mexico there to compare ourselves against in the same way that things seem to be progressing with Mexico. Rob? Yesterday, the premiers and territorial leaders, three or four of them were here,

and one of them was Doug Ford. And he was asked by the CBC's Catherine calling about the relationship he has with Mark Carney. And the first meeting that they had at that restaurant, that diner in Atobico, and he kind of pulled back the curtain a little bit, which he says he's low to do, but he was eager to do yesterday,

perhaps because he needed a channel changer. But he said the first thing Mark Carney said to him before they, as they were sitting down for breakfast that morning at their initial meeting, was Mark Carney saying this, Doug Ford, I'm more conservative than you are. And so we shouldn't be surprised. We shouldn't be surprised if there are conservatives. I think Tom De McCharles, the Toronto Star,

has done some pretty good reporting. overnight suggesting that Aaron O'Toole and James Moore may be on this panel. And that is an attempt, clearly, to expand support and maybe put a little pressure on Mr. Poilliv as well. Although we should note that there is not as much daylight in terms of the thrust of the posture, the posture more than the thrust, of the, of the, the two leaders' positions on trade with the United States. I think Mr. Carney's disdain for the previous group of his advisors was clear.

Did he ever meet with them? I'm not sure he ever even met with them or even acknowledged them in any way. So he clearly has gone in a different direction as Prime Minister than Justin Trudeau. And he clearly thinks that he wants other advice, other kinds of advice. He had very little time for some of the people that were on the other panel. I think the makeup of this will tell us what kind of advice he's going to get. Will he listen to that advice? You know, Steve Verheel, who was our chief negotiator in 2018,

when we came to the agreement that Donald Trump negotiated and now disdains, he said that Canada is quite clearly pursuing a rag-the-puck strategy. and that it's probably working. And why is it working? Well, because things are going badly for the president in Iran. Inflation is taking its toll. The president's political numbers are on a trajectory towards a controlled descent into the earth. And those are all things that are going to hurt the president politically.

by the time the midterms come along. So the strategy appears to be working now, given where we are in the situation in the Middle East, and given that inflation is probably not going to cool by the time people are going to cast ballots, if that's the case, then the rag-the-puck strategy will look pretty smart. But that's not over yet.

We still have six months to go. The rag-the-puck strategy is what we, employed, some would say, successfully last time. I think what's different this time is that the government is actually kind of conditioning us for not having a deal. Like I was struck last week when Dominic LeBlanc had a scrum in Ottawa and he said, I'm going to quote, okay, if on July 1st there is no agreement or consensus between the three parties, the agreement, of course, remains in effect and it goes on for 10 more years with annual reviews.

You know, like it's odd to have the government say it's possible that this will not be what kind of you've been conditioned to expect. And in some ways, I think, you know, back in November, we are told that there was a deal to be had on kind of conditional tariff relief for the major sectors and that the deal did blow apart because. of Doug Ford and the ads airing during the World Series. What was some sporting event? Yeah, it was a real series. Right. Some things I'm not an expert now. And I think one of the early lessons that was, so that kind of kiboshed things,

and the Americans did not want to basically touch Canada. But one of the early lessons that Prime Minister Carney learned was when he gave up preemptively, some would say, the digital service tax. and got absolutely nothing in return. Back almost a year ago in June, when there really was this, it felt like Canada was building towards momentum, signing some sort of agreement with the United States. And then, you know, this was a hindrance that the Americans had talked about.

And Canada was like, okay, great, we'll remove it. Now there's a sense that, like, why are we putting up things that we are willing to give up and get nothing in return? And I don't know that the government has really, effectively made that argument, but it seems to be what they are suggesting kind of behind the scenes. And I think, you know, to loop back to our first conversations, the fireside chats are there in case things don't work out the way people have been conditioned to expect them. And I don't know that we will have a deal or even a clarity on what the path forward is in the next

weeks or months. Do you think Donald Trump even cares anymore? And, you know, obviously tariffs are we supposed to know that? Because, you know, you're supposed to know. We expect Alcia knows. Rob knows. So, I mean, give me your best guess. And I ask it because, you know, there's so much on his plate right now that's going wrong. And he's consumed by it. And he writes about it all the time on as truth social and he blabs away to reporters on the phone or reporters into their microphones on the White House lawn. None of it's got to do with tariffs or trade that he seems consumed by these days.

And you even had the situation with the Windsor Bridge where he was all talk a month or six weeks ago before Iran. And now the word is, don't say anything about it. We're just going to open the bridge. don't worry about it. It seems to be the message coming out of parts of the Windsor area. So, you know, I think it's a legitimate question. Is he just in a pause on this?

Or does, do you think he still cares about the Canada trade situation? I mean, I still think he probably harbors certain desires for Canada. I'm not sure the trade thing is at the forefront of his mind anymore, though. Rob? My expertise is in stringing together subject and predicate as opposed to child psychology, but I'm going to try this anyway. I don't, you know, clearly he's a twitch muscle president, but is he going to take note, someone is going to tell him that the Prime Minister of Canada

said that our reliance on the United States was a mistake. And he is going to make a note of that. at some point, and he is going to try and use it against us. I don't think that that troubles this prime minister in any way. He wasn't troubled at all by the thought that he might be provoking Trump at Davos. I actually think he kind of relished it a little bit. Is that a good strategy? Well, right now we have distracted, as you said, distracted and in many ways politically

diminished Donald Trump. But does that mean that he could not be dangerous to Canada? Yes, he could. And in terms of the argument itself, was it a mistake to be so reliant on the United States? It was certainly a mistake to put so many of our eggs into that basket. But I think you could make a pretty valid argument that Canada is prosperous and secure as it is right now

because of our relationship with the United States. And therein lies, I think, the room for debate between Mr. Polyev and Mr. Carney as to which way to go. There will be a post-Trump period. The debate is really, is this permanent, is this a permanent rupture? Or will at some point Americans return to their census? And in the meantime, we have a responsibility as a country to go and, go and increase our trade elsewhere and to begin to assert our own sovereignty through our own defense. But is that a permanent situation? I think that's where the nub of the debate is

happening between Mr. Polyev and Mr. Carney. Althea. I don't have a line into Donald Trump's thinking. I will say that I think, well, from what I know of the Canadian side, I think there is a hope more than a strategy that Donald Trump is too focused on what's happening abroad, that he is going to stop picking on Canada. And that seems to be kind of like the conventional wisdom around the prime minister that he will realize or realizes or those around him realize that having this fight with Canada and the lead to them in terms is not a winning strategy and would cause more harm to Americans than it would do good. But I don't know if that's just them not wanting to embrace the possibility that that's not where the president goes,

or if that's really what they're getting from their inputs that convinces them that that's really, that they should take comfort in that thought. Okay. I don't know who it was, but somebody said hope is not a strategy. Well, a number of people have said that over time. But I think Mark Carney said that. Mark Carney said that, yes. Okay.

Last topic. And I'm not quite sure how to look at this thing. You know, like we'd all like our own jets, wouldn't we? You don't have one here? Pardon me? You don't have one? Well, I try not to talk about it. I've got a few of them sitting on my bookcase walls here.

But other than that, no. But, you know, especially if you're, if you're the premier of a province like Ontario and go back to some degree where a lot of your travel within your province is extensive and you bounce around on little plains to get to places in like northern Ontario

and northwestern Ontario, it takes time. That's always been the case and premiers in the past have suffered through that from the Bill Davis days and so on. So Doug Ford decides in his wisdom And the wisdom of those around him That he should buy a jet To make some of this flying around the province

And occasional times outside of the province Much faster It blows up in his face big time I'm not sure any of us have seen A situation Where a leader has had to reverse a decision within 24 hours because of the backlash, both political and public backlash.

So the Jets back for sale are trying to pawn it back off to Bombarge or wherever they got it. What's the lesson in this story, aside from the obvious, Rob? Many lessons. First of all, beware anything. any news that's announced late on a Friday or uncovered. In this case, I think it was Rob Benzie at the Star who uncovered it. But beware anything like that. This idea should never have been cleared for takeoff in any way.

Can you make an argument that somebody who is at the head of an enterprise that does hundreds of billions of dollars in spending every year, should have access to this kind of travel? Yes, you could. They didn't make that argument. I mean, the argument is politicians get threats these days that it makes absolutely no sense for somebody who is at the head of a government

or of any other enterprise should have to wait hours and hours and hours to get connections into places that they want to go. I did check this plane. is cleared to take off and land at Sudbury, Sioux-St. Marine, North Bay, Canora, Drive. Those are some areas where the Premier needs to go. But nobody made that.

Nobody talked about the cost-benefit analysis of that, buying this, versus chartering at times, jets for Premier's travel. Nobody said anything about how it could be used, as Bill Davis tried to do a long, long time ago, this could be refitted and turned into an air ambulance at times. Nobody said, I don't think that was the case with this jet, by the way, so I want to make that clear. The other problem in this instance is what is Doug Ford's brand?

His brand is he is a man of the people. He isn't a man who reclines into the comfort of Corinthian leather on a Challenger jet. and there's videotape of him in 2019 bellowing how proud he is of himself for not taking a jet like this. So you could have made an argument, you could have made a legitimate argument, it wasn't made,

and it shouldn't have been made by this Premier, particularly at this time. The common sense. Remember the common sense revolution, Mike Harris and Doug Ford tried to, parrot that line at different times. This made no common sense in the way it was portrayed. Althea, your thoughts on this.

The story doesn't make any sense to me. It's off-brand, and you see that Doug Ford is struggling with that, to Rob's point. Yesterday at the Business Summit in Ottawa, he was talking about how, like, there's going to be a council of the federation meeting in P.I. And he was like, ah, do you have room for us? You know, I could just sleep in a trailer and talking about it. and how he's like how he is a sound fiscal manager and so is every other Premier.

So you can see that he's struggling with the hit to his personal brand. He doesn't seem to make any financial sense. As far as I understand, the Premier took a charter plan to go to Texas to that big meeting where he's trumping all the deals that he signed. A charter makes much more financial sense, as in you're not loaded with these costs. The lieutenant governor of Ontario, as I understand it, has a plane that the premier can use.

I'm not a plane expert, but I'm told that there's a lot of runaways where this jet could not land in Ontario if the point is to bring him to smaller communities that have like a gravel runaway so that he can like meet more people and be more accessible. And he's not wasting time between, I don't know, small. charters and long connections at airports. It just doesn't make any sense. Also, does the government own the plane already? Did it buy it?

Yeah, I think they were in the process of buying it. Or is somebody else holding the costs for it? What is the cost to the taxpayer of reneging on this contract? Was the whole point to give a contract to the holder of this plane to use as a a charter? Like, I don't know, follow the money. I'm not a provincial reporter, but this thing doesn't make sense to me. And I have a lot of questions because it feels like at multiple points, advisors should have said, hold on a second. One, do we even really need this? What is the benefit? How much is it going to cost? Are you willing to have all these hits to your personal?

Like, he must have known this was coming. And it seems like this is a thing that has like talk radio and everybody else talking about more than any other issue, like not since the Green Belt, and people understand a plane, like they understand a $16 glass of orange juice, which the whole controversy really was about how she switched hotels so that she can smoke in her hotel room and it costs taxpayers a hell of a lot more money

to have a more expensive hotel room and a driver faring her from that hotel to the meeting rooms. But instead, people galvanated around the $16 glass of orange juice. Now they're galvanating around the plane. I edited that story by the great Jennifer Ditchell. That was way down in copy, the $16 a glass of orange juice. And it was that paragraph rather than the fact that she hired a limo driver to take her one kilometer down the road to switch to a non-smobile.

It was that paragraph that grabbed people's attention. Look, we should all hope that our babies grow up to be bombardier brokers, given what's happening. There's going to be a commission on the sale and the commission on, on the resale. There are a couple of things about this that I think are noteworthy. Number one, the premier apparently is a very nervous flyer. It's one of the reasons why he didn't want a turboprop.

Because they can pitch and yaw and do a bunch of things that jets don't do. And the other thing that I think is noteworthy is Corey Tonight is not there. he's in British Columbia, trying to get another candidate, elected leader of the Conservative Party there. And a lot of people think that he was the guy who would stand up and say, no, this can't happen. Well, have you ever seen the government flip-flop that fast? Which leads me to think that, you know, Althea might be on to something.

There may be a lot more to this story than meets the eye at the moment. for them to, when things turn south, to get out of it that fast, cancel it, do whatever you have to do, get it over with, get it off the page. Apparently it's because it wasn't just the, you know, the opposition that was braying about this and complaining about this. It was conservatives. Conservatives let him and his office know immediately that this was the wrong thing to do.

And they were hearing it. They were hearing it from their own people immediately. Do you have any last thoughts on this, Althea, before we wrap it up for this week? I mean, the Premier has changed his mind. Like, I think back to COVID, for example, there's a bit of whiplash about some of the public guidance about what you were weren't allowed to do based on public feedbacks. I'm not entirely surprised, but I feel like there's more to this. Like, I think we will find out that we're on the hook for a lot more than we thought. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Definitely skeptical. We're all a little bit cynical, I think, and skeptical. But it is one of those stories, as you've both said, that's easy to understand. Everybody can understand this story from what we know so far and start thinking about what else could be involved in it. But it's a pretty straightforward story. All right, that's going to do it for this week.

for Raj and Russo, reporters notebooks. Be good to talk to both of you, as always. Tomorrow we'll be back with another N-bit special. Thursday's your turn. Friday is good talk

with Chantelle and Bruce. Thanks to Althea. Thanks to Rob. Talk to you all again in a couple of weeks' time.