The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Canada, Carney and The Iran War

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Within hours of the US and Israeli attack on Iran and the assassination of that country's leader, Mark Carney was out with his initial thoughts on the conflict. Since then there's been some clarification on what he meant but there's also been some concern in Liberal circles. Chantal and Bruce have their thoughts on this and a lot more on this week's Good Talk. 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 good talk? And low there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Bruce Anderson and Chantelle-A-Barre. It's your Friday Good Talk. And as we say, always lots to talk about. We've got to start on the fact that I got a lot of mail this week on a lot of subjects. But, you know, one of the leading ones was Chantel's doodling that we brought up last week. That's what she's doing now, right? You can see if you're watching us on.

our YouTube channel she doodles. I'm taking notes on the depth of what you're saying. Don't look for too much depth in anything I say. Anyway, people actually are intrigued by this. And they all offered to pay real money if there was an auction on Chantelle's doodles. So you should keep that in mind. I'm sure Bruce can find a charity that could benefit from this.

Absolutely. Interesting. I have a couple of would have asked already. Yeah, for sure. Okay, we'll get at that. All right, topic one. I think it's fair to say that now that we're almost a year into Mark Carney's prime ministership, that he's had a pretty good run for a year.

No major stumbles. And I'm not sure this week was a major stumble, but I think it's fair to say there was a bit of a stumble out of the gate on Iran. and there's been a continuing period of days where there's been an attempt to clean up on aisle 3, and it continues again today with a virtual meeting of the Liberal Caucus. I don't think Mark Carney will be there. He may dial in, who knows,

but Anita Anon to Foreign Affairs Minister is going to try and take it, and this is to try and get some members of the Liberal Caucus who are a little unsure of how Mark Carney came out of the gate pretty quick. in support of Donald Trump's moves on Iran last Saturday. So I want to start on that and try and get a sense from you as to how serious a problem this is, if it's a problem at all. I mean, this comes the same week as I'm sure Bruce will mention, where the polls look pretty good for the liberals.

But this is a key issue, at least in this moment. And so I want to start with you, Bruce. How do you react to what happened and what has happened on the prime minister's statements about Iran? Well, look, I don't know exactly what went into the prime minister's calculation in terms of the initial or the subsequent thing. So I'm really just speaking from a distance. How do I interpret what we've seen over the last several days? And for me, it's a continuation to some degree of a disconnect between the instinct that all of us who pay a lot of attention to politics want to have, which is to follow and analyze politics in 10-minute

increments almost, and to assume that the public is doing that as well. And so that something that seems like is discordant with what was expected or it might be a drift from public opinion immediately gets discussed as a major flub or a minor flub or a flub of some sort that's going to result in a public opinion problem for Mr. Carney. And then every time we have one of those episodes, it turns out that the public is reacting somewhat differently. Now, in my view, what we saw is a prime minister dealing simultaneously with a number of

different important priorities. One important priority is we're at a critical juncture. in the Canada, U.S., Mexico trade discussion. And it's evident to everybody that Donald Trump is quite willing to say, I'm going to threaten you with this or that or the other thing, at a moment in time where I think a lot of Canadians, a lot of different Canadian industries are counting on Canada, not to do anything that will cause the latest in the series of Trump threats.

I think I read a piece this morning that identified the six, the six or seven times that Trump has threatened additional tariffs on Canada and not followed through on them. So this is a recurring theme. We saw the way that President Trump dealt with Kier-Starmer, Prime Minister of Great Britain. And so, you know, I think it's fair to assume that that's part of what's happening in the government's mind as it initially reacted. The second thing is question that Canada has been on the record saying the Iranian regime is responsible for a great trauma to the people of Iran and great risk to the Middle East and to Middle East peace. And so the assertion that we support that goal, I don't find was surprising.

It would have been surprising if we said, well, we really think the Iranian regime is a problem, but we don't believe in doing this about it. Now, then circumstances evolved. And I think what we also heard was the prime minister saying we weren't consulted. We didn't know the nature of exactly what it was that Israel and the United States were going to do. And then the final phase, at least to now, is an assertion that we're not going to rule out participation with our allies in any circumstance. we're going to maintain a certain degree of flexibility to assess the situation and deal with it as it comes. And I think that some people will think that's the wrong approach to take,

that they want some more kind of hard lines and principled stance that's taken. That's not the choice that the prime minister has made. And it's also, I think, fairly clear that, and I'll finish on this point, that he's also not inclined to make up his policy position based on public opinion. He's going to describe what he sees as the situation and what he thinks is the right position for candidate to take, and he'll take what comes in terms of the public opinion reaction. All right. I'll get to Chantelle in just a second.

I mean, I think that the bottom line for you is it was okay. There were no problems in what he said. No issues about international law, nothing. No, well, I think that was okay. If you're asking me, do I think that it was politics conducted in a way that people like to imagine politics can be conducted, that there's never a moment where you find yourself on the opposite side of changing facts? Yeah, I mean, the facts on the stage have changed. The idea that the regime is a problem, I don't think that's changed. I suppose, you know, you open up by saying, is this a major flub or a flop?

Right. But you didn't seem to believe in either. Was it a bit of a flub? Could it have been taught through a little more carefully? Well, you know, everybody wants that instant reaction. And without knowing what exactly the United States was planning to do and Israel was planning to do, you put a reaction out and then circumstances give you different signals. is kind of how I read the situation.

But do I think it was a major flood? No, I think it's a major conversation that is a flood. Yes. Okay. Chanto. Well, if we're going to talk about analysts rushing to judgment, let's talk about the prime minister rushing to judgment. I've been on those trips.

You have to. In the middle of a Saturday and a weekend is when you have the least pressure to get a reaction from the prime minister, which, by the way, came the, a statement that came before any other statement, and that was very short on all of the mitigating facts that Bruce is now putting forward. Now, I'm assuming that, yes, Cosma is important, but we're not starting to get browning points by applauding President Trump before we even know where he's going or whether he knows

where he's going, which is exactly what happened at this point. Then the three-day silence over the trip, not meeting the media, while it became more and more obvious that whatever the U.S. has in mind does not really involve a lot of well-taught-out ideas about where this goes from here. It's also inexplicable. I would tend to say that none of this would have happened if the Prime Minister had not been on the road and a different time zone. That you do on the road things that are long distance.

It's day for night, so you're sending instructions. Probably you're not calling your allies or having chats with them because they are sleeping while you're awake. And so at some point, you jump in. But I've also been on trips that involved substance and practice. ministers, and one of those very long trips was the free trade election in 1988, which took us across the country and which, for a rare moment in an election campaign, was about substantial issues as this is for the entire time. And on that plane, as you may remember, there was a press

secretary with a strong foreign affairs background and a heap of staff with an equally strong background on free trade. And when Brian Mulroney set out on a limb, or as I believe Mark Carney did over the weekend with his initial reaction, or someone claimed something about free trade, one of those two persons would come to the back of the plane and actually provide background context to whatever the prime minister or whoever else was saying about free trade. That is how Mr. Mulroney won the free trade battle. But I go back to Mark Carney, substantial trip.

He's got people on that plane with foreign affairs knowledge. They are not in a different time zone. If they realize that that statement is really short on specifics and actually not surviving the light of day and the reality test of what's really going on with the Trump administration, they can go to the back of the plane and provide that. Instead, what happened for three days was a game of hide and seek with the Prime Minister landing in Australia with no events

and no time to actually provide context on his own statement and his own stance. I believe that that was largely mishandled. Do I believe that there will be damages? a result of this to the Liberals or Mark Carney? No, I don't. I believe that this conversation for now is a conversation and on this Bruce is right that we are having, but it's not percolating at ground level. Can I see what came out without context again that could hurt the liberals over the long term is the assertion that you can't rule out boots on the ground or military, participation in whatever is going on.

Because if that turned out, and I never for one second believed that the prime minister meant that he was going to join Donald Trump in this operation, but that was not said. But if Canadians came to see that happen, or the liberal caucus, I believe it would not only hurt the prime minister greatly in the liberal party in public opinion polls, but I believe it would tear apart this caucus. But I don't believe this is where this statement was meant to land. It meant that if NATO was going to get involved, if NATO countries are going to be under attack,

and they ask for support that we will provide it, which is a completely different statement. But again, if you're going to have these statements on the fly with no context, do not be surprised at every leading publication in this country in both languages, titled had this on the front page because it sounded like we were not ruling out and barking on an Iraq-like adventure. Now, if the prime minister and a staff

do not understand the context where this lands and the memories this brings back, then they need to hire more people with more political sensitivity about recent Canadian history, and where Canadians are at on those kinds of ideas. You wanted to jump in there, Bruce? Yeah, just on one thing.

You know, I think, well, two quick points. I do think that probably there was some feeling on the part of the people who were with the Prime Minister and maybe the Prime Minister himself in terms of what they were trying to accomplish in the trip that he's on. Chantal City had no events in Australia. public events. Public events. I mean, I do think that they were working to try to make sure that what people were hearing

mostly about the prime minister's trip was about the trade discussions, the investment discussions, the economic and other partnership work that this trip was meant to do. And I think there was a good amount of progress made and good amount of progress reported on. I think it's entirely fair to debate the way in which the communications flowed out. And the only other point for me, though, is we're dealing with such an extraordinary U.S. administration relative to anything that we've seen in our lifetimes. Both from the standpoint of they, you could imagine and you could tell, and remember last Friday, as we were kind of finishing, up the recording of this podcast. We were saying, what's on your mind?

And I think I said something like, well, it looks like the United States is going to do something in the next 24 hours, which is, I guess, what happened. But it's so unusual to have an administration that's so uninterested in having those kind of partnership conversations with allies, having those signals sent that, you know what, a whole lot of things are going to be destabilized. And maybe you should know about it. Maybe you should work with us or maybe not, but you should at least know about it,

be able to protect your people or whatever. And with this administration, not only does that not exist, but we also have this spectacle yesterday of Pete Hegsteth talking about redesigning the map of the world or at least the northern hemisphere so that there's greater North America,

America, this kind of instability, I think, does, is part of what precipitates, what seems to be an unnaturally inconsistent flow of communication on something like this. And it's not meant to be a political excuse or anything like that. It is just an important fact, I think, as part of the fact base of what we're dealing with right now, is that nobody knows exactly what the U.S. end game is. Are we going to end up with the son of the killed cleric as the new leader? Is that going to be part of some sort of an understanding with America about future relationship with Israel or with nuclear or conventional weapons? We don't know.

And that's very unusual, I think, in the history of the relationship between Canada and the United States. Seems to me like Bruce has advanced a lot of great reasons for taking a breather before you sent out your first reaction. maybe you want some answers to those questions or did we just discover all this about the Trump administration? Did we have any cause on the weekend to believe that in contrast with everything we've seen for a year, this is well taught out and we should sign up with our support. Or maybe pause and say, I know these people, they are not always totally reliable. So maybe we should do what we did, I think, in the case of Venezuela, take a breath. I can hear that as a rhetorical question, right?

Yes. And, you know, make sure that we have a sense of whether any ducks are aligned anywhere, because usually the ducks are never aligned in any way, shape, or form under this administration. So I still think the – I believe Bruce is totally right, that the prime minister and staff wanted the focus on the trade mission, but that is not how life works. And since the prime minister likes to say, we take the world as it is and not as we would wish it to be,

that is also true of developments that happen when you want people to be really focused on trade, when they're focused on the Middle East, exploding thanks to our next door neighbor. All right. Let me just put a little bit more context around this, because that statement came out, you know, literally within hours of the attack being mounted by the Americans and the Israelis.

And it was on, the prime minister was still in Ottawa at that point. He was heading to the plane to leave on this big trade mission. And I guess there was some feeling, I'm just guessing here, I'm presuming, there was some assessment, well, you know, we should get a statement out, get this behind us so we can just focus on trade from here on in. and so they said what they said. I'm sure if they had the opportunity to do it again, given how things were,

and given how we knew, you know, listen, the Americans lie, and the Trump administration lies. It was unclear as to why they'd done it, where they'd done it, who'd led the attack, who was calling the shots, all of that stuff, what the plan was for afterwards.

A lot of that became unclear in the hours, you know, following. the attack on the Saturday, and most of which were hours in which the prime minister was on a plane. I'm sure if they had the chance to do it over again, they would have waited until the first stop before he said something. But nevertheless, it is what it is, and it has unfolded the way it was. I agree with both my colleagues that it's probably that it's not a major stumble,

but it was a stumble. And there's a degree of cleanup going on, including today. And I just wondered, before we leave it, is this caucus issue a serious issue? Like are caucus members, some of them, and some old party stalwarts like Lloyd Axworthy has been a critic of a number of foreign policy issues already

by the new government? But is this big enough that they've had to hold a caucus meeting today to explain what the position is? candidate's position? Anybody got a thought on that? I think all of this and the discussion that we're having,

the media commentary about the way that this week has gone, I think the caucus discussion, I think it's all healthy. I mean, I just kind of look at it and say, you know what? It's better that we live in a country where we're all talking about this

and trying to figure out what's normal or what's better than what we're seeing right now or how could this have been handled better? that's very healthy. We don't see very much of that sometimes the border and maybe in other places. I don't happen to think that the caucus is going to end up

deciding that the position of Canada is a problem. Might they voice some of the same kind of thoughts that you and Chantal have had about the way in which it was done? And I think your point about when that first statement went out and the timing relative to the trip and everything else and you're getting on a plane and you're going a long distance, you've got to put something out. And I looked at the wording again.

Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security. You know, in the retelling of it, it was as though he hugged Donald Trump and said, let's, you know, go fight win or something like that. I don't think it was that, but it certainly was interpreted by many people. people that way. And that interpretation led to a lot of debate this week and probably the conversation with the caucus. And as I said, that's all healthy. Any last word on it, Shanto?

Yes, a couple of points. That initial statement was a lot more supportive and a lot less ambiguous than the first comments from France or other European countries to start with too. I don't know if the prime minister is an aeroplane member, but I get to communicate from a plane. So this notion that you need to put something out before you get on a plane because you're not going to be able to reach anyone when you're on the prime minister's plane, I find that slightly dubious.

But be that as it may, I also believe that the caucus meeting was deemed to be useful. and then became essential after the prime minister would not rule out military participation in whatever unfolds. Because at that point, I believe that lots of caucus members would make sure that they are heard on the notion that they are not supportive of, which is not on the cards, but they would want to make sure that we're not supportive of anything that looks like signing up for Donald Trump's bid on Iran we are

if Canadians and the Liberal Caucus then would not trust George W. Bush on Iraq do we seriously think that this liberal caucus would say you're such a great person, Mark Carney, that we trust you to sign up for anything Donald Trump does that will put Canadian soldiers in harm's away? I suspect not. Okay.

Let's take our first break. Come back and we'll talk about the flip side of liberal fortunes, which were the polls that came out by the end of the week. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. I'm Peter Mansbridge along with Chantelle-A-Barre and Bruce Anderson. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167.

Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have you with us. Okay. So more polls this weekend, you know, we like to say we don't, you know, we don't really watch the polls, but then and again, we always end up talking about. You always like to say that. And then you raise it. We've still been fast for like 40 years.

But here's there. But since it's there, we wouldn't want to cook to be unhappy about all that we're going to waste. Yeah, right. Listen, it's been a long time since one party. had almost half the support of the country in terms of polling, whether it's polling in between elections or whether it's polling and election. I think it was Brian Mulroney, it was the last one, at 50%. And that would have been in the 84 election.

But it's 49% for the liberals in this latest Leger poll, and other polls haven't been that high, but they've been high. And there's been a spread, you know, significant spread between the liberals and the conservatives. And the NDP is just like not in the game, even though they're in the middle of a leadership race. Which leads me to this question, whether or not you believe the polls,

are we, you know, I think Bruce used the term last week. We're in a two-party system here plus the BQ. Is that where we are? I mean, the numbers would suggest that. But is that where we actually are in the country? Are we heading towards that a two-party system plus the BQ in Quebec? You know, one of the things that I've been most surprised by in the last few years is the instinct on the part of some who do the same kind of work that I do in the polling business

to predict the future. We all fall victim to it. I'm sure I've done it sometimes, but, you know, You know, I feel like if we, the instinct to sort of say, because we've seen something happen over the last several months, it will continue to happen going forward. It's not a great instinct in this business. And that's just because you want people to buy more polls,

although, you know, that's certainly part of how the industry works. But it's just, there are so many different dynamics. And they're not the usual dynamics. It's not like everybody is watching, you read the news on the CBC, or, you know, occasionally people would watch CTV, as I recall it, but you were always like the Oracle of the news or reading, you know, where are we going here?

Right? No, so it's how people are being informed and the degree that they're consuming politics, and at the end of the day, we've got 15% of the population that is at play. You know, two-thirds will vote, one-third won't. Of the two-thirds who vote, 70%? have made up their minds. So it leaves us with 15% who pay attention to politics and whose opinions might migrate. All through last year, I saw people in my business predicting that unless Mark Carney managed to solve the housing crisis by the fall, he'd be in the toilet. Unless he managed

to solve the food cost crisis by the fall, he'd be in the toilet. And I remember thinking, there's no way that that feels right to me. And it doesn't, feel right to predict. So I do think, though, that what we're seeing happening is a significant part of the population who didn't like the Liberal Party for the last 10 years, thinks that this version of the Liberal Party that Mark Carney is articulating is a good fit with their centrism and their slightly more conservative values. And at the same time, what we could have heard predicted and maybe some did, which is that the more of those center-right votes that Mark Carney wins over, the more he'll lose on the left. That hasn't happened. We have not seen that in the

polling data. And that was true regardless of how people reacted to the MOU with Alberta. It's just been true across the cutbacks in government spending. It's been true across a range of things that we have not seen the left decide no this this liberal party is too right for me we need to shore up our left flank option where it goes from here i think does have something to do with who the leader is of the of the of the nDP i don't see any sign in the data and we're gathering some i'll kind of share it with you guys over the weekend we'll put it out it doesn't look to me like avie lewis is going to be the answer to that especially if you can't get a seat and get a soapbox but even even if he tried to use the same soapbox he tried to use years ago.

I just don't see that working in this context. I think that the sense of anguish that many left of center voters have about what happens with ultra-right governments, as long as Pierre Polyev is that conservative leader, those left-wing voters are going to want to have the liberal party if the choice looks like it's going to be between liberals and conservatives. So for the time being in the circumstances we have, it does feel like it's more likely to produce a binary choice, but whether that's true for the long term, I think, is very much up in the air. Chantelle. Let me kind of pick up where Bruce left off.

I believe we're still in the same mode as we were during last year's election campaign. We are still looking at options as voters. picking whoever can deal with Donald Trump best. And I've looked at, you know, the polls. And what you see is in February, for instance, eight different polling firms placed the liberals in majority territory. Four of those polls had the liberals with a double-digit lead than Lerget this week, put the liberals at 49 percent well, well ahead of the conservatives. what happened at the end of January?

The conservative members who gathered in Calgary told Canadians, you're going to have a choice between Pierre Puehliev and Mark Carney in the next election. And on that basis, I believe that people were even more convinced to tell pollsters. If we had to vote today, we would vote for Mark Carney, because they did pass judgment on Pierre Pueleev last year, and that judgment we have seen for months. personal popularity or appreciation index of the two leaders that Mark Carney was well ahead. Now, you talk about the NDP and Bruce talks about progressive voters.

Well, there is no one leading on that left flank. That campaign is happening in a universe that does not in any way, shape, or form correspond to the narrative that is currently deterrent. governing ballot box issues. And Bruce is right. Of the three, it's not just A.V. Lewis. I'm not sure that any of the three major candidates moves that needle. I'm not sure any of the NDP premiers really wants to be working with any of the people who will come out of that box.

I have ideas for A. David Lewis, if he wins and wants to be noticed, if not elected, you should probably run in Rosemont. writing that's going to be vacated by his only Quebec MP. At least people would take notice that they exist and it would send a message that they care about Quebec. But other issues are happening that drive those numbers. The BQ tends to do more poorly in Quebec when sovereignty is back on the radar

and a referendum is on the radar, which it is these days. And so a lot of people, and you see it in polls, are saying, I don't want to have this conversation now. It's not the conversation that if Francois Blanchet wants to lead either, but it reflects obviously on his party. And then in Alberta, a number of conservative voters are looking at their provincial government, toying with maybe a referendum,

maybe a referendum on separation, maybe not, and thinking that's not the conversation we want to have. And that reflects on the standing of the liberal. in Alberta. So at this point, you've got kind of a perfect alignment. And like Bruce, I believe that as long as the alternative to Mark Carney is Pia Puelev, I don't see that changing in the same way that like Bruce, I did not believe that the cost of living or housing issues were going to suddenly

transform the political landscape to Mark Carney's advantage last fall. Bruce. Yeah, I just wanted to pick up a couple of threads. So one thing that I do see in a lot of. a polling that hasn't been reported a lot, but I saw another company see the same thing and kind of put it out there. The Liberal Party federally is becoming competitive in Saskatchewan and Alberta, which is almost an unheard of thing, but isn't really surprising.

If you look at the agenda that the Carney government has had and the relationship building that the Prime Minister has done with Premier Mo of Saskatchewan, who's been, I think, on a couple of these trade trips and it was a big win for the uranium mining company a chemical from Saskatchewan and the India trip. I think those relationship efforts and the efforts to talk about unshackling a little bit our resources sector, I think those have paid off in terms of mainstream voters in those two provinces in particular saying this is a version of the liberal party that we can get behind. I agree with Chantelle that the question of sovereignty and a referendum is reshaping Quebec politics a little bit, different effects at the federal level, but we're seeing a tightening

of the race between the PQ and the Liberal Party of Quebec, presumably mostly because one of those parties wants to have a referendum that voters don't want to have. I think our data show that 86% or something of Quebecers would agree with. something that sounds like I might like the idea of sovereignty, but I don't want to vote for it now. That's a pretty overwhelming obstacle for a party to be kind of running at in the context of all of that kind of Trump thing. And the last point is we saw a version of Pierre Pauliev at, I don't know whether it's the Empire Club or the Canadian Club is, you know, one of those clubs in Toronto Club. Economic Club. nonpartisan

non-partisan and then everybody obviously you know saw the interview or heard the interview that you did with him and there was a lot of discussion about this is a different Pierre Pauliap and

and I think that you know those were two for him pretty successful communications initiatives and then I saw some of the coverage coming out of his trip to Europe this week and especially the clip that was put out yesterday where he talked about net zero as grifting and bullshit.

And for the life of me, I couldn't understand why he would put himself in that situation, especially after trying to establish a different frame of reference for himself. Now, why do I think he does that? Because I think he can't quit the bots. All of the kind of the rage farming instincts are still there. and nothing so excites that hard-edge conservative than talking about climate change. But, I mean, the reality is that even if America is changing,

it has changed its position on climate change under Trump, something like 83% of the world's GDP is produced by countries, 138 or so of them, that have net zero goals, that of the biggest companies in the world, presumably companies that Canada, even under PolyEv, would want to attract investment from companies like Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, all have met zero goals.

So he wants to wrap his arms around this orthodoxy of climate denial. At the same time as he wants to portray himself as a steward, a better steward of the economy than Mark Carney, I don't think those two things work together. I think he made a big mistake. And that, again, tends to reinforce over time that sense of, well, one guy is really serious about this, and the other guy is playing a role, and it's a role as a politician.

To go to that trip, I also talked that there was a lot of Pierre Puehlief that we have seen since he became leader. that it was like, you know, almost every day a bit more of that fresh paint was kind of peeling off and the real person was coming back to light. But I noticed mostly, I saw that interview, he was in a comfort zone with like-minded people who happen to be usually a minority. But I saw his comments in Germany as promised that if he were a prime minister, he would get rid of every single obstacle, environmental or otherwise, that would stand. on the way of pipelines.

And I thought to myself, I'm not sure he understands that the more he says that. The more he is building a kind of dynamics and Nixon to China dynamics for Mark Carney. That is, if Canadians are going to come around to the notion of more pipelines, getting more natural gas or oil to tide water

so that it goes to Europe or other sections of the globe, they're more likely to trust the liberals to do it. because they have some, I'm not saying great credentials, because I don't want you to be swamped by climate policy people who tell you, why are we saying this? But they're more likely to trust liberals on this than they are to trust the conservatives. Neither choice is perfect from a climate policy perspective or always totally coherent. But if you're going to say, I'm going to have a bit of a leap of faith here and give someone a pass to build more of those pipelines, you are not going to do it for the guy who says, I don't care what the problems are.

I'm going to come hell or high water, drive a pipeline through your heart to get more oiled or a liquidified natural gas to tight water. even if it means war with the First Nations, war with the environmental movement, war with premiers and provinces that actually care about climate policy. So I'm not sure that Mr. Poilev realizes how he makes it easier for Mark Carney to be the moderate figure on pipelines

by being who he is on this and seeing just black and white. It's a really good point. And I work with a lot of companies in the mining sector and have for years. And there were times when they were just so frustrated with what they felt was kind of indifference on the part of the liberals over the years to their sector. And they don't see that now. They see something different. But they also understand that to follow the rhetoric of Pierre Pauliev would mean that fewer and fewer projects would ever go ahead.

because the rhetoric is so, it's so kind of trying to take us back to a place where the role of indigenous people doesn't matter at all, as opposed to how do we find that progress, that, you know, that symbiosis, which I think is elusive. And to Chantel's point, it's not perfect, and it's never going to be perfect,

including the climate policy mix. But I completely agree with Chantel that Pierre Pali is creating more, more of a sense of, well, at least one party is trying to figure it out. And the other one is just saying, well, we're just going to pretend that these problems don't exist or these challenges don't need to be overcome. I don't think it works. You know, it's funny.

That interview that I did with him last week, once it was over, he got a lot of good press on that as a result of the things he said and the apparent would look like a change in the way he positioned himself on a number of different fronts. And I think, you know, that worked out well for him. It was a smart decision to do the interview. But within a week now, well, first of all, at the end of it, a lot of people, including myself, were left with the question, how real is this? Is this really a new position for Pildiev?

Is this a new guy? I didn't expect we'd have an answer to that in the first week, but some of the things he said on this trip to Berlin and London have made people go, oh, well, obviously that didn't mean anything. Yeah. Everything he said last week. Now, I don't think that's fair either, but I think it did raise the doubts again.

I think one of the great things about your interview with him was that, you know, our old friend Alan Grave used to talk about those moments where you get a glimpse into the soul of somebody is that your conversation with him brought out a kind of an unplugged version of him that we're not really that used to seeing and we're not used to hearing an unplugged version that is kind of aimed at centrist Canada.

Sometimes we hear the unplugged version that's aimed at the base. And there was another clip this week and I don't know if you guys both saw it, which is him talking about the Apple chomping video. And I guess the two people that were asking him the question loved it. And we were like, this was a great moment. You went viral around the world or something like that.

And his response was, yeah, when we did it, we didn't think anybody would notice it or care. It didn't seem like a thing to us. And I remember watching that clip, yeah, and thinking the average Canadian's reaction to it was, why are you being so surly? Why are you being so chippy? There was a kind of a condescension and a smarminess to it that didn't work. And this many months later, in an unguarded, unplugged, with the base kind of moment, there was Pierre Pollyette saying, that was just me being me. I don't know why anybody should have noticed it. So it's an interesting, again, glimpse into the soul a little bit. The people who loved it were the right-wing media

bashing people. They love that. They love that. And then the people who disliked it are those who raise their heads not to be intellectual bullies and not to use their intelligence to treat other people in such a manner. Okay, we've got to take our final break. Come back with some final thoughts right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantelli Bear, Bruce Anderson, Peter Mansbridge, all here with you. Okay.

I introduced this one last week. We've kind of had a free flow of thoughts, spin, what have you, whatever you want to call it, over the last 40 minutes or so. So for the final five minutes, what's on your mind? Like, what is on your mind this week?

As the prime minister comes back to Canada, the opposition leader comes back to Canada, the house will be sitting again. There'll be lots of talk about Iran. Canada's position. What's on your mind? Chantelle, you start.

Okay, a couple of things. The first is by-elections, and why am I interested in federal by-elections, three vacant seats, two in Ontario, fairly safe liberals seats, one in Quebec, Terbon, whose result was canceled by the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago,

because I believe that there is still a general election, temptation within the Liberal Party and those polls that we saw this week probably drive that mood of what if only we could have a general election. The narrative of obstruction in Parliament doesn't work anymore. Pierre Palliab has kind of gotten himself out of the way. But I believe that if those by-elections are called, maybe this weekend or when they are called, will be a signal that the temptation will have been given a pass. So I'm curious to see if that happens.

I understand there is a major disagreement between the conservatives and the liberals as to the identity of the parliamentary budget officer. But I believe it's incumbent on the government, not to leave that post-vacent. And it has been vacant for a week, which has resulted in we can no longer operate because we do not have someone to lead this office. And it's a really critical post because this is where you go if you're an MP to ask someone independent to evaluate government budget policies.

So I'm looking for that to be resolved. And finally, the Quebec polls, really interesting Quebec polls, that show sovereignty is at its lowest point in decades. And as predicted, and Bruce alluded to them, earlier. The election race is tightening up. Why? Because the referendum plan of the Parts Quebec is dragging it down. And that means that we are going to have a real election campaign next fall whose outcome anyone should be wary of predicting because as Quebecers' resistance to the idea of revisiting the sovereignty issue has never been higher than it is now. And that

is that is how the Quebec liberals, I believe part of the Quebec liberal numbers are based on the popularity of the Keene liberals in Quebec. And the same goes for the bloc, but it's been interesting to watch. I'm curious to see how the PQ is going to handle this and what it does to their referendum promise. Bruce. Yeah, a couple of things for me, Peter. Obviously, I spent a lot of time thinking about these Canada, U.S. trade issues, and I think the resumption of conversations between Dominic LeBlanc, his U.S. counterpart, is really important.

I think an important new dimension to it is the destabilization caused by the U.S. and Israeli actions in the Middle East. And by that, I mean, there are really important trade flows that are hugely disrupted by this. And I think this is going to start to factor into the conversations. A good example is how much aluminum is actually shipped from the Middle East to the United States. And that aluminum is basically is being stockpiled over there because it can't move. So there are going to be dynamics to that trade negotiations that are an outflow of the war in Iran that weren't necessarily part of the conversation before, which I think are important and potentially beneficial for the Canadian perspective, if you like,

in terms of what they need from us that we're already providing to them, that they decided to tariff even though they don't have a reliable source of supply to replace what they would get from Canada. And the second thing is the political dynamic in the U.S. around the competition heading into the midterms. We saw, you know, the first and maybe the most important of the early primaries in Texas this week, where the Democrats chose James Talarico, a really interesting figure in terms of a Democrat who's trying to use faith as part

of his argument to bring some soft Republican voters over to the Democrat side. Most important part of it was the Democratic turnout in that primary was twice what it was the last time. So it's obviously a bunch of energy around those voters who want to see a different house, a different Senate and somebody eventually different in the White House. You know, you talk about the impact of what's going on around Iran, and clearly, the impact on oil is quite significant. Price of oil now up around whatever it is, $80 a barrel, is up like $20 a barrel, U.S. dollars a barrel more than it was before the war. And that's not an insignificant figure.

On the one hand, on the plus side, you know, for certain kinds of oil, like the oil sands, the higher the price, the more beneficial and economical it is to go ahead with projects and move forward on projects like that. On the other hand, of course, is the impact on consumers. We've all seen that the pumps already, a significant increase. That's got the White House panicking, apparently, inside the White House. Trump's running around screaming, you've got to get that price down, how are you going to do that. and they're trying to figure out ways and tax credits and this, that and the other thing. But that'll have an impact on everything, everything in terms of affordability.

So that is, that's a big deal. Okay. Thank you for this. Interesting discussion today, as always. I don't know what Chantelle's do-dos look like this week, but we're working on that. I'm not showing you. I talk too much, so not enough drawings. Okay. Thank you to both. And out there, the buzz comes out tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. in your inbox, if you have subscribed, no charge for subscribing.

You can do that at national newswatch.com slash newsletter. And you'll get some of the articles that I found fascinating this week. They'll help me try to understand what's going on in our world and in our country. So that'll do it for this week. We'll be back on Monday. Janice Stein will be here and with her latest thoughts, obviously, on the Iran story and elsewhere.

Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Chantal. Both of you have a great weekend. Have a great weekend, you too. Yeah. Talk to you soon. Bye for now.