The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- A New Pope In A World Of Trump, Carney and Chaos

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Carney sits down with Trump, Poilievre fights to hold on to his leadership. But we start with a new Pope.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there. Welcome to Friday. Welcome to Good Talk. Peter Mansbridge here along with Chantelle Bair and Rob Russo. Lots happening this week. These past few days have been a chock-a-block with all kinds of interesting things that impact Good Talk on this week. And you know what? We're going to start, where are we going to start? We're going to start in Rome with the Pope. Leo XIV is the new Pope. And you wonder, okay, so why are we talking about this on Good Talk?

Well, because there's an interesting kind of political side to this story in some fashion Well, because there's an interesting kind of political side to this story in some fashion on that choice of Leo XIV, an American, born in Chicago, spent a lot of time in South American Peru, a progressive. So tell us about that, Chantel. You start us off on Pope Leo XIV. Why is this one important? Well, first I want to say that I wish we were doing this live from Rome. Yes.

That would be so nice to be there. It's three for three that Donald Trump and his movement have managed. And by that I mean progressive winning elections. Canada, Australia, just recently, and now a pope that airs on the progressive side of the ledger. Two things about this. First, I noted yesterday, I went to see some comments, and I noted that this is this first pope from the United States who was born in the United States was fairly poorly received by Catholic members of the Make America Great Again movement.

Actually, poorly received is a polite way to put it. Why? Because he already has a history of standing up to the interpretation of, for instance, charity by the likes of J.D JD Vance, who is apparently a Catholic who believes that charity begins at home, as opposed to the larger view of the church on charity, likely to stand up for migrants and others. There were some interpretations of the advent of this first American pope that it was a sign that America was losing prestige in the world. So there were no fears of having an American pope that would

enhance that prestige. I think it's a bit different. I think the Catholic Church is anything, if not political, and it was a quick election. I think there was a realization that there were in the conversation that this has been led by Donald Trump, if you can call it that, there was a real usefulness to having an American pope who could fight back or argue back against some of the moves of the Trump administration from a position of more moral authority on United States voters than might otherwise have been the case. But that's just my take. And do not take this as a sign that I am a specialist

of papal affairs, I'm not that. No, we're taking this simply to mean that you wish we were all in Rome. Oh, not for religious reasons in my case, but for the larger reasons. And it's such a great time of year to be in Rome, to be anywhere in Italy for that matter. But let's focus back on, because in this new pope, still in his 60s, he's, you know, barring some kind of health emergency, he's bound to be around probably for a couple of decades. So this is an appointment of consequence for the Roman

Catholic Church, which for, you know, for the past few years has been trying to establish a relevance in a world that's changed quite drastically. Rob, what's your take on this and what difference this new pope could make in kind of the global picture and the impact of Trump on that picture, the impact of MAGA in the United States, all of that, what's your take? Well, it does seem that President Trump has a tendency to help elect progressives. This is, as Chantel said, he's three for three. I'm more interested in the role he

might play in Canadian politics, not directly, but maybe indirectly. We don't really talk about the faith of our leaders in Canada very much. And Mark Carney is a man of faith. Mark Carney is a man who plays a large role at his parish, St. Joseph's here in Ottawa parish, I know a little bit about.

I got married by the priest at St. Joseph's. Was your mother there, Rob? No, she was too busy cutting deals for her ad revenue from future appearances on Good Talk. Stephen Harper was said to be a man of faith and kept that very, very low profile. And you wonder what impact that plays in terms of their public policy. I think it will play a role for Mark Carney. Again, I go back to a sit down interview I had with him about a year and a half ago, and I asked him who are the leaders he admired the most.

I wasn't surprised when he said John Petty. I wasn't surprised even when he admired the most. I wasn't surprised when he said John Pettyant. I wasn't surprised even when he said Stephen Harper. He admired both of those men for their discipline. I was a little surprised when he said Pope Francis, that he was a great admirer of Pope Francis, and he listed why. It wasn't discipline, but it was for his world vision. And it wasn't the usual kind of boilerplate statement

when Pope Francis died. There was clearly he had a connection with the pope that went beyond the political. And his statement when Pope Leo was elected, the same. Suggestion that Pope Leo is going to play a role beyond the role that we're used to the pontiff playing. And I hearken back to a time when I was a young reporter and John Paul II played a role globally that was critical.

Nobody thinks that Ronald Reagan ended communism on his own. He had help. He had help from a guy who apparently has a connection to celestial powers. And we all know the role that John Paul II played in Poland. It is more than possible. I think it was Henry Kissinger who dismissed the Pope, who once said, if it wasn't Kissinger, it was somebody else who said, how many divisions does the Pope command? But we know that somebody who does have particular political skills can mobilize forces beyond the control of politicians. And this pope, given where he comes from, in the United States could play a role in tempering, let's say, the tendencies of the Trump administration if he chooses to do so.

I'll be watching for that and I'll be watching for that, and I'll be watching for the role Mark Carney plays with his pope to make that happen. So a few notes on this. I'm told that the prime minister would really like to find a spot in his schedule to attend the first public mass of the new pope. And it's going to be a challenge to find that given how many events are on the

prime minister's calendar that I can't miss. I know that Rob doesn't mean that the pope would have an influence on social policy in this country. No. Mark Carney is not someone who hides the fact that he is a man of faith. He's gone to church by my count, if not every Sunday of the campaign, just about every Sunday of the campaign. And he talked about praying for the Pope in his message yesterday to congratulate the new Pope.

So it is, but it is going to be part and parcel of the larger world conversation. I totally agree about that. The thing that is fascinating, and I'm going, steering a bit away from the pope here about Mark Kearney, is that he's been very upfront about the fact that he goes to church, that he's a Catholic, that he takes it seriously, but he has been just as upfront about his views on abortion, same-sex marriage, and other social policies that the Catholic Church doesn't like to talk about. And for that, he was rewarded by the vote of a significant by the vote of a significant majority of women

in the last election who did not shy away from voting liberal because here was a Catholic prime minister who kind of put it right out there. And what about abortion? And I did find that completely fascinating. The difference, I guess, between Stephen Harper fascinating. The difference, I guess, between Stephen Harper, who did not lead this party into, you know, going onto the abortion minefield or other places where social conservatives wanted to go, is that Mark Carney has inherited a party that has finally resolved that question to Justin Trudeau's decision to say, you are going to run for the Liberals,

you can believe as you wish, but you will never vote for measures that go against the charter rights of women or the same sex marriage issue. So that allows a lot more freedom to a liberal leader than a conservative leader. I think I saw this week that more than 50 of the conservatives coming back to the House of Commons re-elected or new hail from the social conservative wing of the conservative movement. So it's always harder to, especially if you're Mr. Poitier in this current predicament, to lead a caucus that's got 50 or more, that's a high number of MPs committed

to actually changing social policy in Canada. If I could be a fly on the wall, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when the news trickled into the Oval Office about the white smoke signaling Leo XIV, because here's Donald Trump who claims to have won the Catholic vote in the US election in November, claims to have religious Americans on his side.

He's also the same guy who made a mockery of the Catholic Church by putting out a picture of himself, an AI-generated picture of himself and a people, well, dressed as as the Pope during this election process. And also as a guy who has been the object of a good degree of disdain from Leo's background when they search his social media over the last years, he's gone after Trump on a number of issues and he's gone after JD Vance much more recently. So you have to wonder how that's going to play out or how it's played out or whether he even cares one way or the other about who the pope is. If we can go back to the issue of abortion that Chantal raised and I can connect it to what you're asking. I think you're asking, why would Catholics in the United States

support somebody like Trump? Why would evangelicals, why would people of faith support somebody whose morals are clearly not always moored to scripture or to the Ten Commandments? And the answer to that question is Supreme Court justices. He gives some justices on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade. He delivered for them politically, even if he didn't deliver for them in terms of the Gospel. So there is a political victory for people of faith, including Catholics, who have very strong feelings. Still, in the United States, the issue of abortion has not been resolved.

And before we go further, I should correct myself. It wasn't Henry Kissinger who asked how many divisions the Pope commands. It was Joseph Stalin. And I want to draw a distinction between the two men. You really get yourself in the middle of the crossfire on that one. Yeah. Okay. You know, I find it interesting that the selection has so much political relevance in our world today. And I'm glad we spent a few minutes on this.

I want to take our first break early right now because I want to get into the Carney-Trump meeting. I know a lot of people have commented on it already over the last three or four days. So it is Fridays where the audience comes to you too to tell us what it really meant and what we should expect as a result of it. But but first we'll take our break. We'll be right back after this And welcome back segment two of good talk with Chantelleer and Rob Russo. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Good to have you with us. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you are watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have

you with us no matter which platform you are joining us on. Okay. The meeting in the Oval Office between Mark Carney and Donald Trump and their, you know, the Trump sycophants on the one side on the couch. I mean, I just find that whole scene so bizarre. I don't call our group on the opposite couch the sycophants because I don't know, they just don't look like the little noughties that you see sitting next to Trump. Um, anyway, it, uh, it lasted 31, 32 minutes of which Trump as is normal in these kinds of things spoke for almost all of it. I think three minutes is what Carney chose to speak. Not that he didn't try to get in a couple of times,

but I think wisely he backed off. He decided, you know what, I'm not going to, I'll just let him do his thing. I've made my point. The main point he wanted to make that Canada is not for sale, never will be, and moved on. After three or four days of reflection on what happened in that room, what's your sense? What's your take? Rob first this time. Yeah, I, first of all, there was no hemorrhaging. Okay. There was no catastrophe. That was the low bar. And we used to have this discussion in the newsroom at CBC and other newsrooms that I've been in, you know, people, reporters are fond of saying,

if a plane lands safely, it's not a story. If a plane crashes, it's a story. Well, the plane landed safely, and it was a story. It's a story because this is the president of the United States who likes to line the runways with landmines. And so Carney managed to land the plane safely. The other thing that I thought was very interesting that happened afterwards in the press conference atop the Canadian embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue there. Mr. Carney was asked in French, you know, what really did he accomplish,

given that the tariffs remain? And Trump said that the tariffs are going to be there. He paused a second and said the tariffs stay, he said, for now and perhaps not in an enduring way, he said. So that to me suggests that in the more important discussion in the Roosevelt Room over lunch, there was something beyond the bro-check of the relationship between the two guys that was discussed and that officials from both sides have gone to work. Now I don't expect that there's going to be an agreement in any substantive way, but I do think something more beyond the broach check happened, that they are working towards something. We all know that the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement is up for expiry next year,

and that the Trump administration wants to advance those discussions. When I hear Mr. Carney say they are there for now and perhaps not in an enduring way, it sounds to me like they're discussing what could be done to either ease those tariffs or eliminate them perhaps while we work towards an advanced discussion on the Canada-US-Mexico agreement. Chantal.

Maybe somewhere else. Well, I'll start with, you talked about psychophants, is that how you say it? Psychophants. There was a really brief shot of the Canadian delegation on the other side of the room and they looked anything but complacent or happy to be there. Let's not linger on that. I also discovered that someone who has occasionally used body language and my face to send opinions that Mr. Carney does have that knack of using body language to send messages even if he doesn't get to speak. And I think from a domestic perspective and strictly in political terms, this is a prime

minister whose supporters got very little time to test. And I think his performance in the White House was really important in the sense that it shored up confidence in voters that they had not made a mistake, that they were there, that it wasn't just for show. And I think a lot of people were seeking that reassurance. I heard that a lot on the streets here in Montreal this week. We picked the right guy on the basis of what they'd seen. Now, like everyone else, I couldn't be a fly on the wall

at that lunch. But I know that a lot of larger issues, not Canada, US issues, were discussed. And I get the sense that Mark currently, up to a point, is playing a longer game than getting a reprieve on Canadian tariffs or US tariffs in Canada or or a negotiation based on Kusma, that he is of the view, rightly, I believe that this tariff war is not a Canada US war, it's a global war. And it cannot be

resolved in a way that really works for Canada until it is resolved in a larger way for other Canada, other American partners. And certainly not along the lines of what was heralded as a great deal for the UK this week by President Trump. Let's be serious. If we ended up making a quick deal with the US, there is a risk, a possibility, a chance that we would become a basal state economically. Why? Because yes, no tariffs, but in exchange, you espouse our tariffs on everyone else. We build fortress North America. That goes against our long-term interest. We would be trading short-term gain for long-term pain. And I think there is a decision in the making

in and around Barclay as to how quickly we want to show results for this versus we want to show results for this versus making sure that everyone is on site. By the way, a deal with the Trump White House is not a trade deal. It's a deal with someone who can change his mind overnight. It doesn't go to Congress. It's not binding. It's not a deal. It's kind of a saving face motion. There is a sense that things are not looking well for the Trump administration in the US. The popularity of the president is down. Within a month or two, the pain of those tariffs

on American consumers will be very obvious. So there is an argument here to take one's time rather than rush to some kind of UK-US style deal. I also believe for obvious reasons, and I know on that, on a monsalvat ground, Mark Carney is not about to drop France, the UK, Germany, Japan on the way to chairing the G7 in mid-June. For obvious reasons, together they are stronger.

What he did secure at that meeting, by the way, was the official agreement of President Trump to show up to the meeting, a meeting that will also feature President Zelensky from Ukraine. So all in all, I think the appetite for a quick fix is probably lower now than it may have been a month or two ago. You know, if I was going to draw the outlines up of what they might be thinking, because Chantal is right, they don't want the UK deal. The UK deal is not ratified by Congress, so it's not overseen by Congress. It is ephemeral. The outlines of the deal might be you want an advanced discussion of KUSMA, we will give you that. We will begin to discuss that. We'll set a date for that and the terms for that,

probably later this year. In exchange, you eliminate or drastically reduce the tariff setter on Canada now. And then we get into what the Canadian strategy was in 2018. Talking to Steve Verheul, and he might come back in some capacity. But in the scenario, the 2018 scenario, Canada did drag its feet. Trump is not wrong about Christopher Freeland being obstreperous by design. Why?

Because 2018 was a midterm congressional election year. And they are looking at that playbook and thinking it might work again. That if you have an agreement that is due to come up in 2026, why would you have an advanced negotiation? Well, you use the clock again. You take the tariffs that are on Canada now, Canada's steel, aluminum, and outside USMCA car parts, you take those off,

we drag our feet, we watch the rivulets of sweat come down the orange makeup as prices rise in the United States, and they are going up for everything from dolls, as the president has noted, to strollers. And he's feeling the pressure of prices rising and very little manufacturing as yet coming back to the United States. So that would be how I would draw the kind of broad outlines of what might be happening over the next year or so. You know, Chantel mentioned a few moments ago

about how the pain is incoming in the United States for consumers that are gonna really start to feel in the next month or two. It's coming this way too. I mean, it's coming the Canadian way as well. And you know, for consumers and for workers who are going to be either laid off or lose their jobs as a result of some of those.

So there's a lot of pressure on them, which leads me back in a way to the question that I was asking last week about what Carney's own role is going to be. I mean, you're right, Chantel, we saw, it was at Dominique LeBlanc and Melanie Jolie on the couch on the Canadian side for those meetings earlier in the week. But you get the sense, or at least I get the sense, given his background, that there's really only going to be one guy in the room for Canada when it gets to the really hard part of negotiations. Sure, there'll be stuff at the officials level, but do you feel that Carney is going to be the one who handles this one more himself than delegating it to a minister?

In the sense that Justin Trudeau did delegate a lot to Christian Freeland. Well, the context is different. Back then, and I'm not saying this to defend Justin Trudeau's economic skills, it wasn't his main interest as prime minister, but back then it made a lot of sense to delegate it to Christoph Freeland. Why? Because the people around Donald Trump were adults that you could deal with, and they would put pressure on Donald Trump to come up with reasonable outcomes.

We know that's not really on this time. It's a lot more complicated. Most of those adults are not in the room and have zero influence or only negative influence on Donald Trump. So by definition, whoever is prime minister was always going to have to take a larger role in this conversation.

It does seem that President Trump has more respect for Mark Carney's credentials, at least for now, than he did or ever did for Justin Trudeau. So, but I totally expect people like Dominique LeBlanc, who gets late night calls from, is vis-a-vis- Howard Lutnick. Howard Lutnick to be very much in that loop. Why? Because those relationships are important and there are many things you can say about Dominique LeBlanc, but he is really good at building relationships in the old boys club style.

And at this point, that is what we need. Someone who can go and smoke cigars, obviously, Mélanie Jolie is not about to go smoke cigars with anyone. And, you know, kind of have this pally. The way it worked he's practiced this with Doug Ford among others. So I understand the temptation to think that Mark Carney is going to be a one-man show. I do not believe that that is necessarily going to happen but I do expect him to be more on the front line of this one than Justin Trudeau ever was for those reasons. And it is important, Chantal mentioned relationships, that if you do have a decent relationship at the executive level you can get a lot more done. We all remember Brian Mulroney going over the heads of Jim Baker and others, who are chiefs of staff to presidents, particularly Reagan,

and getting things done for Canada because he had that personal relationship. We all remember the exact opposite. Jean Chrétien and George W. Bush had a terrible relationship, and that impeded things. We've seen the Trump-Trudeau relationship impede things. If you have some kind of personal rapport at the executive level, it can help you. Now, is it going to help us with somebody who is as mercurial and transactional as Donald Trump?

Impossible to say, maybe not, but at a minimum, at a minimum, he'll be able to pick up the phone and maybe get his call returned a little bit sooner than Mr. Trudeau would have gotten. Difficult, difficult days ahead, because when I think back of the salad days of that executive relationship, which is Reagan-Molroomi, there were crises right up until the last minute of that free trade agreement. There was like a crisis a month that almost derailed the thing. So one can imagine that it's going

to be far more difficult to try and get some sort of an agreement with Donald Trump. But at a minimum, if you have that relationship at the executive level, there will be talking there that might be able to clear some of the underbrush away. What we all know, Brian Mulroney was a master at building relationships. Yeah.

I think we've seen the likes of Brian Mulroney on that score since he moved on and was no longer prime minister. I also note that, yes, building a relationship with the president is probably important to Mark Carney, but it didn't stop him from calling up his Denmark counterpart, guess, yesterday. Denmark being the place that is defending Greenland from President Trump's delusion that he's going to take over part of the NATO members' territory. And basically putting on social media how great their conversation was, Mark Carney and Denmark, and how they stand shoulder to shoulder. So I don't think he's going to be playing. A lot of people, and everything that Rob said is true about Brian Mulroney,

but a lot of Canadians who are uncomfortable with what they perceive as the proximity between Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan. And remember, and their and US presidents and remember, Jean Chrétien actually scored points by saying, if you vote for me, I won't be going to play golf, which I think he eventually. No, fishing. No, fishing, yeah. That's right. I won't're going fishing with the president. But I won't go fishing. So I don't see.

He ended up playing golf with Clinton. He did. He did play golf with him. Every time he came to Washington. What do we know? He doesn't fish, but he water skis. That's what he does on water, Jean-Christophe Rizzi. So I don't think that Mark Curley wants

to build with Donald Trump that kind of relationship that Brian Mulroney had with Ronald Reagan. I think there are clear signals. This conversation with Denmark was a clear signal that, yes, I want to get along with the president, but I am not going to get along with his every whims, which brings me back to the economic fortress North America idea, very bad idea for our sovereignty, a word we will use again, I suspect, later in this program. You both mentioned earlier in the conversation, the UK-US deal that was announced yesterday, such as it was. I'm in the UK right now as you both know.

And the early reaction to it has not been good for Starmer. He's taken a bit of a pacing on this. But there were times yesterday when both the UK people and the US people saying, well, you know, this could be a blueprint for others. But that seems to be dismissed pretty much at a hand by everyone else. And if that's the case, why is that the case? Well, because it's not enforceable beyond the whims of a Trump White House. It's not as legally binding, It's not an enduring agreement.

It doesn't have the protection or the oversight of Congress. It's a way to mollify, for now, critics, I would imagine. But there's still a 10% tariff on UK goods coming into the United States. I'm not sure why the celebration. I know why Donald Trump is celebrating. It's because he badly needed a victory. He promised 90 deals in 90 days, and this is his first one. He badly needed one. But I'm not sure that, well, I know Canadian officials never would have signed a deal like this. It's not a deal. Right. Yeah.

But Trump explained during that lengthy Oval Office spectacle earlier this week, his theory is we're going to give each country a number. And we're going to shake hands with them. That is something that would be useless to Canada to tell you the truth. And I understand the UK post-Brexit is having serious difficulties, but I'm not convinced that this is a model that its former European partners are going to think is really enlightening. Nobody's gonna say, isn't it great for UK that they're no longer part of the European Union because they can make deals like those. That's not happening obviously. You know, the UK... You know, he got a lot, Carney got a lot of calls including

from Denmark after the Trump meeting. Why? Because they want to know how he pulled the pin out of the grenade. That is Trump. That's one of the reasons. How is it? How did you prepare? I mean if you looked at Trump's face even when Carney delivered the line that was clearly rehearsed about Canada not being for sale. Trump had that half grin on his face that said I knew that line was coming. I'm prepared for that line. And yet I got to admit, it was probably well delivered in well time. There was an appreciation for Trump of that line. I thought it was one of the two or three moments of irony,

because Carney kind of looked around at the Oval Office, which now looks like a Las Vegas bordello with all of the gold in it, and said, this place is not for sale. And neither is Buckingham Palace. He kept kind of a straight face, and then delivered the line. Yeah, I'm sure some of those were, as you said, rehearsed earlier on, but they worked,

and they did gain a certain degree of attention from different places around the world. And Trump is a showman who appreciates a well-rehearsed line delivered with good timing. Just to close out the file on the UK situation, they are, as Chantel says, they are still in a mess and still trying to figure their way out, which makes it even more ironic that last week in the local elections here, the party that is led by the guy who pushed Brexit through, Nigel Farage, really did well, like did very well in those elections. And people are going like, this doesn't make sense. Well,

a lot of things don't make sense in today's world. And that was just one of them. Okay, we're going to take our final break, come back and try to figure out what's going on in Pierre Polyev's world. Uh, cause it too has, uh, has issues. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back final segment of good talk for this week. Chantelle and Rob are here. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Good to have you with us. Okay, Pierre Poliev. You know, barely a week after the election result where he lost his seat, lost the election and those questions still hanging around his house situation. But within a week, he was out in Alberta stomping on the grounds of the riding. He's going to wants to run in as a by-election once that becomes available to do. As a sign that he's hanging on to

not only his representation in those comments, but his leadership of the Conservative Party. The early indications were at least publicly that he was going to succeed on that front, and he is in a good position to succeed on that front. Is it that clear when you pull away the the curtains on the on the Conservative Party and look inside to what's really going on? Chantel? Okay, let's start with the seat. I won't need to be spending too much time campaigning there since it's probably the safest conservative seat in the country. It was won on April 28 by the MP who was giving up his seat with 82% of the vote going to

the conservatives. It's hard to imagine Mr. Plyev managing to bring that down to a number that would not see him enter the House of Commons, which he will do with the first opportunity since the prime minister is not going to sit on as he could for six months on calling the by-election. So that settles the seat thing, which is the least of his concerns. Yeah, well, Yev wanted to demonstrate that he still had, you know, alert of political pull and as political personnel, that's not the seat to demonstrate it. It's too easy a test. The other thing that happened this week was that the caucus met. And yes, everyone went in and we all remember covering John Turner after 1984 when he was leader of the opposition. So everybody went in and said how they supported the leader or didn't talk, didn't speak

to cameras, whatever their mind was. But inside the caucus had to make a decision as to whether it would accept the terms of something known as the Reform Act, which is a product of Michael Chung when the conservatives were in government. It's a law that if a caucus accepts it after an election, allows caucus members to vote down the leader at some point. If you accept its terms, give yourself that obligation, it's valid for the entire duration of that parliament. It's not a one-off thing. And there was a vote on that in caucus.

Should we basically give ourselves the power to fire Pierre Proliev, a power that the conservatives gave themselves when Erin O'Toole lost the last election, the 2021 election, and used to house them? And the vote, from my understanding, was crystal clear. About 100 MPs voted to give themselves that power, a bit more than two dozen opposed it. So in clear as of now, the tables are reversed on Pierre Poirier in this caucus. The MPs and the official opposition caucus have the power to fire him if they believe that he is not have the power to fire him if they believe that he is not taking them down a path that would lead to victory. They have given themselves that power at a time where it has been demonstrated in the dying days of the campaign that Pierre Poilieff had become a drag on the party,

that the conservative brand was more popular than the leader. So are they going to use it tomorrow? Why would they? If anyone is going to replace Mr. Pueyreff in time for the next election, that anyone needs time to organize. But should people be thinking of organizing, and I mean outside of the conservative caucus, they now know that they can pull the necessary strings to bring down Pierre Poilier at any time over the course of this parliament. So now you can bet that he will or he will not be leading the party. I am not totally convinced that the next campaign will see Mr. Poliev lead the conservatives. And I believe that he understands that he has that problem. There were inside that caucus room lots of

criticism. Well, there was criticism of Andrew Shearer as interim leader, a protective move, someone who will not become leader, because he has and lost. And there was criticism also, obviously, of Mr. Poliev's chief of staff, Jenny Byrne, who apparently is still is saying, I would bet that if the waters become more choppy for Pierre Poliev's leadership, this is who he would ditch overboard to give the sharks a body. And that won't happen if that's the case for a while. But there is no clear sailing here for the leader of the official opposition.

He is no longer in the position of prospective prime minister who can say, if you don't do my bidding, you're not going to be in my cabinet. Or if you don't do my bidding and your province is in trouble, me as prime minister, I won't be talking to you. So it's a completely different context for him. OK, just before I get Rob's thought on this, just to make sure I understand this right, that vote, if they choose to have it,

could happen at any time in the life of the parliament. Well, the way it works is a proportion of MPs has to require to ask for that vote and then it takes place. But they have agreed to the terms of the Reform Act for the duration of this parliament. of the Reform Act for the duration of this parliament. And it's not a one-off. I'm not saying that they would repeatedly vote to keep or not keep Pierre-Pierre-Pourriere, but they do not need to use it. And even if he called a quick vote tomorrow to establish his moral authority, that doesn't mean that it couldn't come up again in a year. Yeah, that was the most significant thing that came out of the caucus. None of the soothing words reassuring of support for Mr. Poiliev matter. There is now a sword, a very sharp sword,

over his neck. You know, conditions were kind of demanded as well in that meeting, from what I understand, that he has to reach out to people like the premier of Nova Scotia and the premier of Ontario and that they tried to ward off what they knew were coming. This is the people around Mr. Poilier, the demands for changes at the top by saying that, I think the words they used, well, getting rid of people wouldn't be good. We need to enlarge the tent now to bring in more people, which is being taken by some conservative MPs as a signal that they're going to try to dilute

the influence of Jenny Byrne and others. But that's still not a resolved question either. People were thrilled with the the ad that he put out there of him and his wife, and I either walking through the wheat fields because it contains some of the same sloganeering. There was I'm going to grow and learn, but also the, you know, we're going to come back so that you can have beautiful homes on your safe streets. And so there was

a sense that the suggestion that he would learn was negated by going back to the sloganeering. Beautiful visuals. That wheat, it almost looks blue because I'm sure the wheat is blue in that riding as well. There's there's absolutely no presence of opposition whatsoever. And there are people if they're not organizing they're getting ready outside the caucus there there are people who know that they cannot be the ones to wield the rusty shift. know that they cannot be the ones to wield the rusty shiv. But when that shiv, if that shiv gets used, there are people who are going to be ready. What will he say? Let me just ask you this. If he's running in Alberta, maybe a federal seat,

but it's quite likely that he's gonna be asked at some point about the referendum question. What's his answer going to be, especially in a riding that is, Santel says, like 83, 85 percent, you know, hard right conservative. He doesn't have a choice. Yeah. There are no options. You cannot be the Prime Minister of Canada or even the leader of a federal conservative party and start trying to wiggle yourself out of the question of secession for Alberta. And he is landing himself in ground zero

of what could become a deep split in the conservative movement. There are people who probably have political ambitions who have already chosen their side. Jason Kenney has emerged as one of the most vocal defender of Canadian unity in Alberta. Pierre Poirier cannot do less than Jason Kenney on this, even if he's running in Alberta, because what would that look like? Think of the optics. Think of the optics in Ontario. So I'm guessing he's going to

say Alberta should get a fair deal, pipelines, etc. But at the end of the day, he does have to take a very, very clear stance on this or risk harming his own leadership even more than it is already harmed. And this is a serious people keep talking about how is Mark Carney going to deal with, you know, a referendum separation. This is a real challenge for the conservative movement. It could lead to a breakup inside that movement and inside the Daniel Smith's own party. I've covered

referendums. You have too. You know one thing. This is, first of all, a conversation between Albertans. That is who is having that conversation. It's not a conversation between some person at Queen's Park or in the National Assembly, it is a conversation amongst Albertans over their political future. And by the way, I don't feel that Canada's cause is not going to be defended vigorously by a number of Albertans, including the leader of the NDP, but also including people like Jason Kenney. There was a poll that came out yesterday, Angus Reid, 65% of UCP supporters, Daniel Smith's own party, support Alberta's secession. So the only answer Mr. Poilyev can have on this question is, those people are good conservatives, but I disagree with them, and I will defend Canada.

That can be his only answer. But it does appear that there is a great risk of Daniel Smith unleashing the Furies. And we have all seen the Furies before. We have all negated them. David Cameron is another example of somebody who unleashed the furies and paid a political price for it. One hopes that it won't be, we

won't get there. And Mr. Carney, by agreeing to hold a First Minister's meeting, the first in-person First Minister's meeting in years, first of all, and the first one I I think, that's been held in Western Canada ever. But there is a great deal of work to be done. We talk a lot about the Trump menace. There is great peril in federal provincial relations over the next little while.

It appears the Prime Minister's decided to make this a priority. I think he has to, because we've all seen it. Like Chantel, I was in Montreal in 1995, and I remember the independence movement during the referendum going nowhere. And then with three weeks to go, he appointed Luce Ampoucheis, his chief negotiator, and the furies were unleashed. And we came within a whisker of Canada breaking

up. So you, you, you do not unleash the furies, uh, in a, in a situation like that in a country as vast and diverse as Canada. And one fear is that the furies are, uh, have been unbottled. Okay. I've only got a couple of minutes left. Um, did any of you find it odd yesterday that Aaron O'Toole, somebody who in fact faced that rusty shiv that you talked about, Rob, after 21 election and lost his job, many believe that that campaign was led by Pierre Paulyiev. But he came out yesterday in an interview with Vashe Kapela saying he should stay, Poliev should stay, he should stay as leader of the party. We have to move forward that way. Any of you surprised that he even choose to say anything and to say that? I've only got a minute or so left.

Well, it's like the question on unity for Pierre Poilieu, you can't not answer. Because it would be Aaron O'Toole won't say if Poilieu should stay, which makes him say that he should go. I don't put much stock in anybody's testimony that Pierre Poilieu should stay for the foreseeable future. should stay for the foreseeable future because things change as we all know and and people evolve and they're thinking. Is that polite enough? That's pretty polite. Rob, you get the last thought. I think he's on probation and the probation is probably merited according to conservatives who say, he blew a 25-point lead because he didn't foresee

the changed political circumstances that a new campaign would require. And then when the circumstances changing were obvious to him, he didn't adapt. He never really embraced the opportunity to take on Trump. He did not go after Trump in a fully frontal way. And he has to be judged for that. And that judgment will happen over months.

Let's not forget, it took four months for Mr. O'Toole to be forced to step down. We're one week after the election. All right, we're gonna leave it at that. Thank you to both Rob and Chantel, great discussion as always. We'll be back in seven days. The buzz will be back tomorrow morning, 7 AM, in your inbox.

You can subscribe at nationalnewswatch.com. Costs nothing. Good to talk to you. Have a great weekend. Thanks, everybody, for listening. And we'll talk again on Monday.