The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Cuts, Cuts, Cuts.  Will They Even Come Close to Ottawa's New Spending?

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Recent polls suggest Canadians are now more concerned about basic economic issues than they are about the Carney-Trump talks.  Housing, affordability, inflation and government spending top the list.��All this in the run up to an expected October budget, but also at a time when hugely expensive "nation building projects" are on the table. How do you square cuts and spending is up for discussion with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantelle-A-Bear and Bruce Anderson. It's your Friday Good Talk. And as always, lots to talk about today. This is, actually, this is really our first one for season six, although we were on last Friday with a kind of summer special on it. did extremely well, which is good to know. It was last season. It's gone.

At least someone is keeping track. Yeah. And I am, you know. You know, I crunched those numbers all the time, and it's all very interesting. Anyway, let's get started with a new list of topics. There were a couple of polls out this week, which suggested, and there's been kind of a pathway to this over the last little while, that it's suggested. that Canadians are more concerned about economic matters right now

than they are about, even though they're somewhat connected, even though they are about the Trump-Karney discussions on the trade war. But they're more focused on issues like inflation and affordability and housing and, you know, the list, which places more emphasis on the upcoming budget, which should take place in another month or so. and much talk about that and cuts and austere programs and what this is all going to do in terms of, you know, government spending

and the breadth of government in terms of the future and how much money can be actually saved. So I want to get a sense from both of you what you're hearing, how much emphasis you're placing on the budget whenever it comes, probably sometime in October. Chantelle, why don't you start us? It's a bit of a dog's breakfast, I think, on the way that this is being communicated from one person to the next.

Clearly, this is going to be a budget for the ages in all kinds of ways, in the same way that Paul Martin's 95, 1995 budgets set the country on the path to eliminating the federal deficit. But I think the resemblances stop there in the sense that Jean-Cretti and Paul Martin had spent their first year, year and a half in office, kind of putting down the groundwork to get to this budget, which they were before someone says, but this is different, Mark Carney is in a more complicated political predicament. No, he is not.

Let's just agree that bringing in the Palm Martin 1995 budget was rather bold in the months leading up to a Quebec referendum. So yes, you can bring difficult budgets, but you do have to do an advance, a post-sales job, but also you have to do the advance properly. This week, what we saw from both, and for different reasons, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance did not add up to a great messaging performance. Let's start with Mark Carney. Mr. Carney was away over the past decade for much of the time in the UK, but he has surrounded himself with people who are familiar with Quebec politics,

and he does owe his strong minority to Quebec voters. It seems no one has walked them through recent political history in Quebec, which saw the last liberal government of Quebec spent four years trying to explain that its efforts to keep a tight reign on public finances was rigor. And the opposition party successfully in Quebec turned that into austerity and made the word austerity in Quebec a really loaded word politically. And there is Mark Carney, who comes to the microphones and he's asked, so what kind of budget should we expect? He's asked that in French. The first word out of his mouth literally is Ostegete. I can tell you that in this province,

people who are not liberal have been having a field day with Osteigate and with how there was a hidden agenda in the last campaign that he never mentioned Estegite. some former Quebec ministers who are now in and around caucus and by the way the former finance minister of Quebec who endured all that is sitting on the

back bench of Mr. Carney's caucus Carlos Litoe asked Mark Carney afterwards whether he was aware of the background to the use of that word and the answer is no he wasn't but that has happened and then

enters the Minister of Finance, Mr. Sampang, who is well aware of what he is stepping into, and tries to cover it up with a soup of words of all kinds, to shed very little light on what's coming in the budget, except that there will be cuts. But also does not inspire a lot of confidence in, you know, here is the path forward, and this is what the prime minister meant,

and this is where we are going. So not a great week, guys, and need to do better, because this is a minority government. And yes, the NDP is in trouble. We may talk about that later, but there are limits to what those NDP MPs can swallow before they decide to simply leave the government to its fate and not show up for a vote.

Okay, Bruce, what's your take? Well, a little bit different take, but I mean, I think that the reason I think I approach this differently is that I, maybe I shouldn't be doing a weekly conversation about it because I don't think people are going to measure this on a week by week basis in terms of the general public. I think this is, I also think this is quite an unusual period of time. I take Chantelle's point that Martin's budget was in a difficult context and had its own complexities. But for me anyway, the challenges, the headwinds, the complexities of the global geopolitical situation and the Canada-U.S. relationship are of an order of magnitude greater than anything that I've seen before in my lifetime. So we might just disagree about that. That's fine. So more so than 50-50 or almost, yes, victory in Quebec?

Yeah, for me, yes. Okay, great. Interesting. Because you may revisit that scenario in a year or two, so since it doesn't spook you as much as the current circumstances. Well, it spooked me a lot at the time, and so I'm not trying to minimize it. What I am trying to do, I think, is make the case that...

We could have multiple separatism scenarios in Canada if we don't have a strong economy, if we don't have a path forward that people agree with. So in the order of priorities for me, if the question is, is it more important to try to find out the sources and deal with the nascent separatism feelings that exist in some parts of the country, or to set a path for the economy that will hopefully make people feel reassured about what the future holds, I would come down on the second. But, you know, again, we can disagree about that.

I also don't think that it's right to say, separate apart from the use of the word austerity, for people to say that Mark Carney didn't say that he was going to spend less on government programs, isn't a fair characterization. I know it wasn't yours, but no, it wasn't, he made a lot out of, we're going to spend less on government programs so we can invest more in major projects, infrastructure, the things that will build long-term economic advantage.

And I think the focus, as I see it, is still very much in that direction. And when the finance minister was asked about whether departments were following through with these cuts, I think he used the phrase it wasn't an option. This is something that we're going to do. So whether people will react badly to it or not, I think remains to be seen. Chantelle makes it, you know, a fair point that people often do react badly to this, even if they've been told that is coming.

I don't think that that's what's going to happen in this case. I also think it's, at this point in terms of how I think the government is approaching it, it's not immaterial. Obviously, every government thinks about its political risk. But I think they're on a path that they believe they need to take and not to be too preoccupied with week to week or month to month. What do the polls show about how people feel about this decision or that decision? The last time a government was in a minority was on that path of we don't need to worry as much about our political situation as we need to worry about what we absolutely need to do.

The prime minister was called Joe Clark and Eupris did kill him a neglect of a Rump party that the conservatives made themselves believe would have no choice, but to support the budget. I am just saying that, again, the only reason that Mark Carney is prime minister today is because people who were left of center, women and Quebecers voted for that party. That is the audience. It is not that he pried off a hell of a lot of votes from the Conservatives. The opposite happened. So if you do want to convince those voters that sacrifices are worth the cost,

you're going to have to do better than show up in a suit and tie using the words austerity and talking in language that actually does not do anything at ground level to advance the arguments of the government. In this province, you now hear austerity and Mark Gardney on buses. That is not a day-to-day conversation that goes away. It's a label and a branding that they will come to regret. Okay. You're right about the 7980 situation.

There's no doubt about that. Not helped, though, by the fact that the centerpiece of that budget was an 18 cent, a gallon gas increase, which is what pretty much put the knife into that conservative government. But let's cut to the chase on this. What do we know? if we know anything about what, you know, call it whatever you want, austerity or, you know, a series of cuts or what have you, how is this going to change, you know, my life, our lives?

What do we know? Do we know anything at this point a month or so away from a budget? You're both kind of shaking your head here? Well, I think we know that the prime minister has asked departments and ministers to come up with the cuts in within a certain range over a three-year period and that he and the cabinet will review what the submissions are all of that process has been kind of unfolding on a path that's relatively normal and and I think involves a fair bit of diligence and probably inevitably some you know horse trading and a lot of political conversations back

and forth about which cuts make the most sense and at the same time there has been a call for project submissions and ideas for increased spending that will help stimulate the economy so you know this to me is not going to look like an austere budget it's going to look like a budget with a large deficit it's going to look like a budget that involves a lot of government spending but spending on different things than we've seen in the past. And I don't want to, for all kinds of reasons, prolong the slight dispute that Chantelle and I are having on this. However, I don't really agree completely with the characterization of the only reason that Mark Carney was elected was those particular voters, especially if what's being suggested is that what,

they care about is the protection of spending on government programs much more than investment in infrastructure and diversification of the economy and economic growth. I think a lot of those people are centrist voters. I think a lot of centrist voters we're saying we do think government has been spending more than it needed to, has been growing more than it should have. We do want to see more private sector investment. We do want government policies that will stimulate that kind of investment. So I don't think this is a question so much of, will the left be disappointed that Carney is more right than they thought?

There will be some voters who may come to that conclusion. But I saw in my polling and continue to see a lot of voters who say the previous government was too far to the left. Pierre Polyev is too far to the right. What we want is a recalibration around the center, and we want a less, we want a government. that will spend less on government programs and we'll invest more in other things.

Yeah, well, many of those centrist voters came from the NDP and the Blackhevikwa, and one thing they do have in common is a government that cares about climate and the environment. So, so far, I'm not so sure that they're finding it there. I would, if I were the liberals,

and I'm glad I'm not, I would worry that there are more voters who are starting to ask themselves, did we vote for a milder version of the conservative agenda? I'm just saying. I also don't think that, you know, cutting government spending is never a proposition that doesn't cost anything to anyone or doesn't change anything to anyone except the civil servants that you put out on the street. So let's see how you do execute a 15% cut in budgets,

which is more than Stephen Harper ever cut. And he was seen as a slasher. Can you do 15% with attrition? Not over three years. You can do some with attrition, but it doesn't, from what I hear from various departments, This is a really hard rock to push up the mountain to get to the numbers that they are asked to get to. So we'll see.

But I don't think for all the things that people say about Justin Trudeau's government, I don't think that Justin Trudeau's government was so generous that he left that much fat to be cut without pain. I guess where I'm having trouble trying to square some of this stuff, and Bruce kind of outlined it. You know, on the one hand, you got the Cots, maybe 15% across the board over three years. On the other hand, you've got this list of projects, you know, nation-building projects.

And, you know, there's a list floating around today of, you know, 26 of them or something. And, you know, I think we take issue with some of the things that are on the list. but nevertheless, there's a long list. So this would be the long list, I assume, before a short list of what's going to happen. But these are going to be hugely expensive. And at the end of the day, what's saved on cuts is going to be spent on new projects or even more than that, spent on new projects. And so the selling job will have to be, this is going to change our economy.

this is going to make things that much better. You know, Peter, if I can on that, I think that's right. I think that the, I think you started by saying that polls were suggesting that people were more focused on their economic concerns and less on the Trump part. And for me, I see that. I also feel that the concerns that they have about the economy are so integrally connected to how is our relationship going to, evolve with the United States. Are we going to end up in a place that is as good as it was?

Probably not. Is it going to be better than our, you know, some other trading partners with the United States? Probably. But that still leaves a lot of room for disruption and harm to Canadians and Canadian companies. And I think that,

if that wasn't the preoccupation of the government, I'd be concerned. if they stop trying to figure out how to get the best possible outcome with the United States and instead said what we really need to do is to make sure that we don't touch government spending because people might be uncomfortable with that. And therefore, we don't have as much money as we hope we might have to invest in infrastructure. To me, that's a cascading series of lesser choices, I guess. and that the right focus

and I'm not suggesting that this be like some sort of Joe Clark budget where somebody says well we don't really care of people don't like it I think the right choice is to keep on reminding people as much as you can that the starting point is

a tremendous shock is arriving in our economy because of policies taken in the United States, we're not the only country that's dealing with that. But if we don't deal with that, the consequences for us will be greater than they will be for many other countries and that people will not thank their federal government for taking their eye off the ball of what do we do about the U.S. disruption?

What do we do to strengthen our own ability? And what do we do to try to get the best possible outcome with them? I think that keeping that in front of people may be stressful for them, but still very important, I think. I would just note that the other countries who are trying to deal with that, I'll name two, France and the UK, do not have governments that are doing terribly well, do they? Or was it this week that Macron's government was about to fall as a result of putting forward a program along the line, of the budget that we are talking about, and let's not talk about labor's position in the UK, which has become extraordinarily fragile.

So the notion that you can just keep people focused on the ball, and it's all going to, you know, people will be reasonable, quote-unquote. Go back to my initial argument. If you're going to do this, you do need to be more careful and better at framing it and this government has so far been. And it's got a month to get that act together in a different way.

It also has a month to decide whether it takes the duct tape off the mouth of people in its caucus and cabinet who are concerned about other issues, like the environment, to name just one. Because if you're going to consolidate the confidence that people have in you, you have once in a while to remind them of why they voted for you. And in the case of Mark Carney, they didn't just vote for the banker. They voted for the banker with progressive ideas.

And there needs to be more showcasing that there is still room in the government for that, because that is not the echo one gets from caucus or even from cabinet. Do you want to take the duct tape off that a little bit and just to tell it? I mean, it's not unusual for backbenchers to be upset about things. a government does. That's not unusual. You see that, government to government. But you seem to be suggesting that at this moment, early on in the time of life of this government, there's an issue in terms of people being silenced in the back, or at least not getting their word forward. I mean, everyone has noticed that this is a government that, including the prime minister,

that never talks about climate change anymore, except to reverse measures from the previous government. And I do believe that one of the reasons that Mark Carney inspired confidence in many voters is this well-grounded perception in this track record that he actually cared about climate change policy. And no one is saying preserving the Trudeau agenda on climate change is the only way to do it.

But to literally shelve the words from every public appearance and to make invisible people like the federal minister of the environment is, I don't think, not the greatest approach to reminding people why they voted for Mark Carney. It was more than just he's not Pierre Paulyev and Donald Trump is a menace. and he is going to need that political capital and every little bank account that he has it in to fructify if he is going to sell Canadians on what's coming.

And Bruce is right, nothing fun is coming. And I do go back to your question. Sure, let's cut 15% across the board. But if you're going to finance the projects that are being discussed, we're not cutting spending no matter how you look at it at the end of the day

we will be spending billions apparently on projects and it can't all come from those cuts so I think a lot of people are going to be confused by how it works and since they're not bankers or accountants

the notion that what matters is spending on one side an investment on the other, and you look at the bottom line on public spending rather than on investment. I'm not sure that it's going to cut it, but we'll see. We'll know soon enough. Do you want to last word on this, Bruce, before we move on? Well, I never want a last word in a back and forth with Chantelle, but it's all yours.

You're safe. Yeah, let's see how long she keeps that. Well, look, I think that a lot of what Chantelle says strikes me as being, you know, fair comment, obviously, and may turn out to be right. I think I'm where she is, which is we'll see, because I don't understand the public opinion environment in the way that she is describing it right now. And it could be wrong, and she could be completely right about that. I think that if it turns out that people are expecting a status quo ante kind of situation that if a year from now, they say, wait, we thought that Mark Carney was going to deliver pretty much the same kind of government, including on environmental issues that Justin Trudeau did, then the government will be in for a bit of a beating. But I don't think that's what people are looking for. I do think that people wanted to have changed,

not just for the sake of change in a personality, but I think they wanted an economic focus that they didn't think was strong enough. I think they came to the conclusion that that was even more urgent when Donald Trump launched all of the initiatives that he launched. I think that people who work in a lot of different sectors

aren't looking at the government from the standpoint of what we as voters think about the policy mix coming out of Ottawa. They're looking at it from the standpoint, of what's going to happen to the jobs in the sector that I work in if we don't have strong economic policy, stimulative economic policy from the federal government. And so I think that's the, I wouldn't call it a wager.

I think it's the choice that the government is intent on making. And it will see, as Chantal says, about whether it turns out to be a politically advantageous choice or a politically costly choice. Okay. last oh look at that she's trying to get in after swearing she wouldn't right she's in spent the last years before he became prime minister telling people that climate change was part of a solid economic strategy people knew that when they voted for him they did they didn't

vote for through the minors or change they voted for someone who actually told them fighting climate change makes economic sense And I'm sure he still thinks that, but we're not hearing it from his government in any way, shape, or form. And I, you know, as somebody of one of the many of us who interviewed him during those years when he was pushing climate change, hard policies, I think he absolutely believed them. I don't think there was any doubt in his mind what he was saying. I guess his argument now is things have changed to such a degree that I've got to change somewhat in the short term. We'll see. As you said, as you both said, we're going to see.

One last quick question on this. We watched Crachian and Martin go at each other over economic issues for years. And it was more than just economic issues. There was political issues. There was the future of the party, et cetera, et cetera. Carney and Champagne, is there any doubt who's calling the shots here? Or you could use Michael. Wilson and Brian Malarone, or you can use Jim Flaherty and Donald Trump,

and you would still get a more equal relationship than the relationship between François-Philippe Champagne and Mark Carney. I think that this budget, this Mark Carney's budget, and someone gets to write it. All right. I can leave it at that. And we'll be back with lots more right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday.

Chantelle Ibert, Bruce Anderson in the House. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM Channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have you with us. Carney Trump, they seem to be talking a fair amount. And those discussions, according to each of them,

well, whether they're not being particular in telling us, they're talking about, seem to be friendly, cordial, and making some ground. Beyond that, what do we know about those discussions? And are they heading somewhere, Bruce? I don't think we know. I think it's good that we don't know as well. I think that the worst way to try to affect the best outcome would be to try to do a lot of public communication about

I said, he said we went down this road and didn't get somewhere, we went down another road and might, you know, all of that kind of stuff that normally would be going on. I think there's, you know, I have a lot of interest in it. I think we

all do. But I also feel like there's a value, especially with Donald Trump, of not putting into the ether things that might require a response from him, provoke him in some way,

better to try to do the work, the hard work of seeing where the two sides can find common objectives and mutually good outcomes. And I think we can take from what we're seeing that it's hard work. The U.S. administration has become more, I don't know if addicted is the right word,

but more attached to this notion, and that tariffs are a great way for them to raise money, even though they're raising it disproportionately from their own companies and their own consumers. But they see it as something that's helping them manage the fiscal problem that they've got, the amount of debt that they're building up as a country. You hear it over and over again in the way that Scott Besant and others talk about tariffs. This is a great way to raise revenue for the government,

which is really an unusual thing to see in part because it's not really challenged that much in the U.S. Although I did listen to a great podcast earlier today where one of the greatest hedge fund players in American history, Ray Dalio, talked about the variety of policies leading to what he sees as being a real debt crisis looming for the United States. there's some conversation about these policies, but not that much. The Democrats aren't doing very much to push an anti-tariff agenda. There are lots of reasons for that. But in the United States, the tariff agenda has probably gone better than many observers, probably including me, expected that it would several months ago.

And as a result, I think that is making these conversations probably. more challenging than they would be otherwise. You know, you hear the odd term being expressed by one of the principles, Trump or Carney, about the relationship. You know, Trump talking about, he's a good guy like him. And you hear Carney saying, don't look for a puff of white smoke, you know, referring to, you know, the Catholic Church and sending up white smoke when they've elected a new pope.

with clear indications that this has got a long way to go when you talk like that in terms of any long-term hard relationship while at the same time you have things like yesterday with the Pan Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General, saying they still got problems on the border, the northern border. So, you know, like it really is hard to figure out.

You got any thoughts on this, Shantel? Well, she was talking about human trafficking. Right. I was thinking, can we give a few examples here of what she's talking about, going their way, which over the past years, not all, but most cases of people coming across irregularly or illegally has been coming our way. but it seemed to come out of left field. But I think what we are seeing increasingly, and I can only say this, parsing the various news conferences, scrums from Canadian officials, is we have moved away completely from the idea of a comprehensive deal. And I don't know what is going to happen and what that will mean for Kuzma,

the Canadian, U.S., Mexico. trade deal, the new NAFTA negotiated under the previous Trump administration. But what I thought the prime minister's comments were meant to say was that they're now aiming to maybe get some relief, maybe on the front of auto, or get some relief on the front of steel or aluminum, but not to look for a global solution because that was not going to be in the offing. Possibly because it would be easier to talk Trump into taking a step back on some of those without it looking like he is walking back his own tariff offensive. And there are pressures in the U.S. from the auto industry, for instance. So I'm guessing the federal government

has now gone from let's try to resolve this globally to let's see where we have pressure. points coming internally from on the American administration to see if we can improve the situation on these variety of critical fronts for us. I think Chantelle touches on a number of things that I feel are important here as well, which includes the pressure that American auto manufacturers are feeling from these tariffs is really intense. They're paying a large, large amount of money, hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal government at a time when competition from Chinese auto manufacturers is, you know, an existential

threat for the American auto sector. Now, they haven't been as vocal as one might have expected in the public square, but one has to imagine that the degree of pressure that they are applying through Republican channels is intense. And I think that that pressure will intensify because the – The alternative of them just carrying these tariffs is ruinous for companies that are already in very deep difficulties in many cases. So will that pressure build up as we head towards the midterms, as we head towards the conversation about the renewal of the Kuzma? I suspect that they will. I suspect that similar pressures might build up around aluminum, possibly.

around lumber because the cost of lumber for home building is a very significant thing in the United States. And America can't produce all of the aluminum or lumber that it needs. I am increasingly of the view that Canadians trying to make this argument to Americans is going to be less effective ultimately, although we still have to do it, than Americans saying to American politicians, this is hurting us and we need to do something different. And the last point for me is I watched an interview given by our ambassador, Kirsten Hillman, the other day. I think it was, is it Chris Cuomo?

Is he the politician or is it? Anyway, he did his interview. He's the alleged journalist. The alleged journalist. Her comments on it were really quite on point and very, very effective, I thought. She said, let's start. by understanding the nature of our relationship, which is 99% tariff-free. She used that 99% threshold.

And so, Chantelle, when she said, you know, moving away from this idea of an umbrella agreement, I think that's right. We already have an umbrella agreement. And the sound renewal of that, I think, has to be a crucial priority for the Canadian government. And then she went on to say, we have, America has a trade surplus. with Canada except in the area of oil where we sell oil at a discounted rate that America needs for its refineries

and to keep its gas prices in check. And I think we need to keep on making those points as we head towards U.S. midterms. I think we need to keep on giving those simple facts to more Republican politicians so that they look at the relationship, less from a, I hear that America is being victimized by all the countries in the world or America is subsidizing all these other countries in the world.

And really think about the Canadian relationship from a fact-based standpoint, which Hillman was doing, I thought, quite effectively, and I like to see her doing it, and I know she's doing it a lot. It's tough, though, flooding the zone with facts when the other guys are flooding the zone with the Pambondi stuff, like similar to that Okay, I want to switch back to Domestic Politics for a moment

in our kind of remaining time here Is the NDP dead Or are these signs of life You know, apparent signs of life Those who might want to be interested in running for the leadership Does that indicate that there There is sign of life here

Trantell. I am starting to believe that this might be the most perilous leadership campaign that the NDP has ever undergone. That we are not in the environment of the post-1993 era when remember that when Alexa McDonough took over from Audrey McLaughlin and the party lost party status. And why I say that is overall of the years, decades since then, A lot has happened in a left corner of politics involving identity politics.

I looked at the conditions put forward this week by the NDPs to qualify as a candidate. And those conditions would kind of boggle the mind of most average Canadians, not because average Canadians are against the promotion and protection of minorities of all kinds, people who self-identify as transgender, people who are part of minority groups that traditionally have had more obstacles to overcome. But because the way that they have framed this, if you want to be a candidate for the NDP, well, if I wanted to be a candidate for the NDP leadership, I would, and you guys wanted to support me, I would encourage you to do it really quickly because I can only get

50% of the names on the list of my backers who are from men who were born as boys and still identify as men. I think many Canadians, those who noticed, did not even know about the expression cisgender before they saw it on this. And then there's this breakdown. You need X number from X group and other. I don't know how you check that. If someone shows up with a list of signatures and a number.

And it seems that 55% are from males. How do you ascertain the extra 5%? Are they really not, do they not belong? Because they're actually boys who became men or are they transgender, which one are they? The other issue that I think is going to be a major problem for the NDP. Get over the message that this sense, this way of entering the contest. two things. This is a party that has all these conditions for candidates to run and all these breakdowns,

but that does not actually break down leadership votes to give every region of the country and every riding equal site. And clear, if I find 10,000 supporters in downtown Toronto, I can win this without a single vote from Alberta and Quebec. It's the only major federal party that does not do that. which makes them open to lobby groups organizing to push or promote a cause by electing a leader's second problem. Third problem, I think the Israel-Palestine issue is going to resonate in a major way in their leadership campaign, and I'm not sure how that's going to play out.

But it is going to be a major issue inside the party, and it may become not the main battle line because most MDP members are probably more on the pro-Palestine side. But to Canadians looking at this and whether you get over the line into anti-Semitism utterings is a big question. And finally, I looked at the names

that I saw, the two main names, Avey Lewis and Aether McPherson. And I understand that Avia Lewis is an attractive candidate coming as he does from the more militant side of things with a name like Lewis, his father, the former leader of the NDP in Ontario, our former ambassador to the UN. But I am stuck with the question. Did he actually manage to learn French since the last time I saw him at the convention

where he was working to unseat Thomas Mulcair as leader of the NDP? Or is the NDP not thinking that it matters anymore? So I see all those, and I'm thinking this is going to be a challenge. I want to hear Bruce on this, but I also want to hear our last break before our final segment. And so we'll be back with Bruce right after this. And welcome back, final segment of Good Talk for this week, Shantelli Bear, Bruce Anderson, and Peter Mansbridge with you. All right, Bruce. Yeah, you know, definitely in trouble, a lot of trouble.

And it's, I too was struck by the announcement of those details of the leadership sign-up process as being evidence that they might not be thinking through carefully enough the way in which they had fallen somewhat out of touch. with a lot of voters and again i hesitate to say that because the the kind of intent of putting those rules in place i agree with on the you know if it is to is to assert you know the importance of participation in the democratic process by people of uh of all kinds and um and to respect the fact that there are groups in society that have their rights challenged all the time That said, if I think about the way in which the NDP has succeeded in the past, it's typically happened when a few things were in place that aren't necessarily going to be in place now. One was a strong relationship with the unions to help make the case that this is party for working people.

And in the same way that the Democrats in the United States have lost the position as the party of working people to the Republicans, I think what we saw over the last number of years is that both the conservatives and the liberals were also competing to be the voice of working families, working people, blue-collar workers in the case of Pierre-Pol-Ev in particular, and that the NDP intended to do more of what the Democrats did somewhat to their detriment, which is to kind of fight and re-fight the culture war aspect of left versus right. And I happen to be closer to the left side of the culture war, a divide. But I also know that we have been in a time where people don't want to hear as much about that. They want to hear a greater priority put on other issues that matter more from a day-to-day cost-of-living standpoint, that kind of thing. And the second factor, you know, when I think about success of the NDP in the past, I think about leaders who were dynamic and charismatic and great speakers. Now, Avey Lewis may end up being one of those type remains to be seen in Chantelle's point

about whether or not he's decided that he's going to try to compete in Quebec as well. We'll see. But Ed Broadbant and Jack Layton, those were really powerful leaders from the standpoint point of the way that they could speak to a broad cross-section of Canadians, and they connected with a lot of people. And the NDP has had other Stephen Lewis, for sure, who've been effective that way. But we haven't really seen that very much in the last little while, and I certainly don't know that it's there in the caucus.

So it remains to be seen whether they can find that personality and whether they can decide that they're going to be the voice of the furthest left and the most cultural-war-oriented party or they're going to try to reclaim their place as the party of working Canadians. All right. I do have a couple of minutes left. One of the visual images of the week that kind of stuck with a lot of people was Doug Ford pouring Crown Royal over his shoes and the pavement in his campaign against the the whiskey distributor and their decision to move their packaging plant out of Canada and into the United States.

It was very graphic and it was very well covered and all over the world, literally. I mean, I see the Brits were running it as well this week. Does this kind of stuff work in terms of making your point? I mean, that kind of coverage would suggest it. does, but does it? Bruce? Yeah, stunts are a big thing. And, you know, we maybe have been slow in Canada to go, let's go with stunts relative

to what we've seen in the United States. And I'm not saying I feel great about let's all find a stunt to make a point. And in the case of Doug Ford and the Crown Royal, You know, I looked at it and I had read the story that reminded me that the actual liquid in the bottle that he was pouring out was made, I think, some of it in Manitoba and some of it in the town that I grew up in Valleyfield. I used to get up in the morning and you could have that smell of that. I was wondering where he was going with getting up in the morning. Okay. You would smell it and he would smell it all day.

I think the company that was making it, he's now Diageo. It was Schengley then, but it's the same distillery. And so, you know, a fair interpretation of what happened is that they move the bottling plant, but they still make the whiskey in Canada. So it's not as dramatic, perhaps, as that stunt would have suggested. But, you know, I think people do want to see their politicians push back against these decisions. And I think that pushing back by saying a few words, a good turn of phrase is fine. But if you get a visual that people can relate to or you use some other really combustible technique.

And the most interesting one, and I'll finish on this point for me, the most interesting thing that I'm watching in the U.S. political conversation now is how Gavin Newsom is moving into the terrain that Trump alone occupied. as somebody who was willing to to really kind of say things in a otherwise outrageous way to try to make a point that otherwise wasn't perhaps getting through. And I think it's starting to have an impact for him.

We see some science of that in the polls. He's obviously making sturdy, more traditional arguments as well, but he's drawing attention to himself using unusual means. And I think that's the new world that we live in. Okay, well, taking crown Royal to Gavin Newsom was a nice

leap and it also cost Chantel the final word because we're out of time. Oh, what am I going to do? Makes up for all those shots she took at you early. Yes, I'm... All I will say about Crown Royal is what I remember about Crown Royal as a child was the purple bag, right? That the bottle came in. Yeah.

We could keep a lot of things in it. Yeah, I used to keep marbles in it. Marbles, exactly. When I was going to grade school, carry your marbles. in the Crown Royal bag. Okay, that's going to wrap it up for this week. Chantelle Iber, Bruce Anderson.

Good conversation, as always, with lots more expected in the year ahead as things will tumble out over the weeks and months to come. Lots to discuss, and who better to discuss them with than Anderson and a bear. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Full week next week, with Dr. Janice Stein on Monday and her take on our changing world.

That's it for today. Have a great weekend.