The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Do Canadians Care About Alberta?

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says the federalist side is dragging its feet in organizing for a likely referendum on separation in Alberta.  There's a lot happening on the Alberta story, and it seems to get messier by the week. Bruce and Chantal have their Good Talk thoughts on this and more. 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 hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. I'm in Scotland today. Bruce Anderson's in London, England, and Chantelle-A-Barre is in Montreal. But in today's world, no matter where you are, we're all plugged in. And so we're anxious to have our little talk because, as usual, we've got a lot to talk about. I want to start with Jason Kennedy, the former Premier of Alberta.

Who this week said, Canada's got to get its acting gear because they're not ready. They're not taking part so far in the discussion in Alberta. Now, the discussion revolves around whether or not there'll be a referendum this fall appears likely that there will be, likely on separation, although we don't know what the question is, which is always a part of the equation on these things. It's probably slated for October, but nothing's definite yet. But that's not good enough for Jason Kenney. He figures that the federal side should be involved in this discussion

because the discussion right now is being led more or less by the separatists in Alberta. What are we make of that sort of cry for help in a way? Chantelle, you've got more experience with referenda than just about anybody. So tell me. Thank you. Certainly us too. I wasn't planning to add a lot of experience to it, but who knew? I understand Mr. Kenny's point. I do think, though, that it's a bit, it's not early to for, and when he says that, I can't help but think,

Jason Kenney, former Premier of Alberta, a former Stephen Harper minister, is that, saying you guys in general at the federal level need to defend federalism. I'm assuming that first and foremost he has to mean his own federal leader, who is an MP from Alberta, and who has been very silent compared to his usual capacity to prosecute just about any issue. There has not been the same amount of zeal on the part of Mr. Puelev, or is caucus because Mr. Playa also is the leader of the party federally that has the most seats by far in Alberta. So one would presume, and I say this from the Quebec experience, that the

first defenders of federalism in Alberta would be Alberta MPs and Alberta voices. That is the logic. I'm sure Jason Kenney did not mean. for Minister Melani Jolie or for the finance minister who is also from Quebec to suddenly spend their time in Alberta arguing for federalism when there are so many able voices with democratic legitimacy by virtue of being elected to plead that case. All of that being said when it comes to the federal government, I think it's a bit early for the federal government to suddenly have what used to be called an operation unit. Why? Because a lot of things are in flux in Alberta that are Alberta matters. What has happened, for instance, to the electoral list of Alberta that was accessed by groups

that shouldn't have with people's names and addresses made public by groups that are associated with the separation camp, that is a serious internal matter that is not related directly. to the defense of federalism. But it means, one, that there is doubt as to the integrity of the petition calling for this referendum. Two, there is ongoing litigation in Alberta by First Nation groups from Alberta, challenging the constitutional legitimacy of holding a referendum on separation under the current terms of engagement. So the process is basically stalled by the course and at the same time that it's a pretty messy situation. So if Mr. Kenny means that the government of Alberta has not been enough to the job of defending federalism, he is probably right.

But you cannot supersede the government of a province and say, well, you know, we're going to take over this situation. I know we will get back to that. What I found really interesting this week with the Prime Minister saying F and when there is such a referendum, it will have to be held within the bounds of the Clarity Act. That's the act that was passed by the federal government after the Quebec referendum. There seems to be a misguided perception out there

that this is a Quebec-focused law. It actually applies to all provinces who want to hold referendums on separation. And before anybody says, well, this is great, it means the federal government is going to be doing something about this. I'll just point out, and we will come back to that, that if this is where it's going, it's going to be a very fragile period for the federal government

to be leading the argument on the clarity act, against the backdrop of a Quebec election campaign next fall. There's so many balls in the air on this one, whether it's, as you say, discussion about the Clarity Act and how it will fit into this, what the date's going to be, what the question is going to be, who's interfering, if anyone is interfering. The RCMP seems to suggest this week that there is no American interference on this,

but there's clearly some discussion on what the Americans are saying or not saying. No criminal. No criminal. Exactly. That is what the RCMP looks for. And I'm not doubting that they didn't find it, but the line for discovery for the RCMP is a bit different than the line for discovering manipulation and disinformation. Exactly.

That's a really good point. Let's bring Bruce in here before we go deeper and some general thoughts, first of all, Bruce on this. situation with Jason Kenney. Yeah, I agree with everything that Shantel says. Maybe a little bit different on the very last point about the relationship with Quebec, but that's more a function of I'm not as convinced as I was that there will be a referendum in Quebec. And so I'm a little bit more tenuous on that point.

But the first point, which is that Jason Kenney is doing a little bit of God's work on this issue, I think is absolutely right. He's raising questions, raising concerns. He's putting his kind of name and reputation. and voice on the line in defense of what for me anyway, and for most Albertans and most Canadians, is kind of a common sense perspective on what exactly would be achieved by independence.

He's also right that there are too few other voices involved. I agree with Chantal's interpretation of what he probably meant by that, which isn't really about are there enough federal ministers, including the prime minister, making an issue out of this. I think the first person who's failing on the job is Daniel Smith. I think that the notion that you can be a premier of the province and not feel as though it's your responsibility to explain just what would happen if this conversation about

independence or separation became part of the discussion in financial markets around investment in the province, became a dynamic. in terms of relationships with indigenous groups and the challenges that would pose to the major projects that she and the federal government are interested in. The fact that she's not really doing that, I think is an abrogation of responsibility and one that she should be held to account for by Alberta voters.

I think Pierre Pahliav is not anywhere near as active in using his voice. The survey work that we did suggested that for that 13% of Alberta, burdens, typically younger, urban and suburban, people who are kind of on the fence about what would be the economic impact of separation. Pollyev and Harper are important voices for them. They tend to be conservative voters, not as categorically conservative or as far right as those rural, older grievance-oriented separatist voters in Alberta. They're on the fence. And they do want to know what Pierre Paliov thinks about it. And they do do. want to know what Daniel Smith thinks about it, and they especially want to know what Stephen Harper thinks about this idea. So all of those voices, being Alberta voices, should be more active in this conversation and should be heard from more. The last couple of things for me,

you know, Alberta is typically the part of the country where we hear the most from knowledgeable people, especially in the business community who say investment is fragile. investment depends on political stability. It depends on a line of sight to regulation and government and its role in the economy. And we shouldn't mess that up. And typically that's voiced as an expectation or a demand aimed at the federal government. Federal government is making it too complicated, too difficult, too uncertain about how to, in terms of how to attract investment.

But this is a giant question mark that is starting to become more noticeable. to the investment community at a time when most of the business community seems to be saying, well, we want to draw more investment into Canada. We want to increase our relationships with other jurisdictions. We've got this investor summit coming up in September, where investor pools from around the world are coming and taking a look at what they can invest in in Canada. It's a moment where businesses in Alberta really should be out there front and center, not waiting on a federal prime minister to explain the complexity of it.

I'm glad that he did that. But they should make an economic argument to Albertans about what's really at stake by letting this conversation develop as though there's no complexity to it, as though it could happen on the basis of a 50% plus one number, that it's almost as simple as, and it wasn't simple, as Brexit. I mean, Brexit was a country deciding no longer to be involved with. other countries. For Alberta to separate, I think Andrew Coyne kind of made the point pretty well, which is that anybody can decide to leave. You just can't decide to take it with you. This is very, very different, very complicated, and it needs to be discussed that way. Okay. You've both raised things I want to pursue, but first of all on that one, on private companies. Why would they be

kind of sitting this out right now. Why aren't they being more dominant in the discussion? What's their advantage to say nothing or very little? Well, you know, I think that we see a version of this in the United States over the last several years where large corporations decide that they want to stay out of political fire except when it's specifically in their interest to get involved. So they think that they have a fiduciary responsibility to say a carbon price on oil that would add essentially pennies to a barrel is a no-go situation, is something that would destroy investment interest in Canada, which I think is an exaggeration for sure, especially given what's been happening to oil prices.

So they don't mind getting involved when their argument is the federal government needs to do something different to make our shareholders do a little bit better with their investment. but getting involved in something that touches on that kind of line of grievance that we see in parts of Albert. And I don't think we should overstate how big it is. It's a meaningful size, but it isn't everybody and it isn't a majority. It's a smallish minority. They don't want to do that in the same way. I think that a lot of businesses in the United States decide that they don't really want to get involved in something that feels like a culture war argument or a debate that,

will turn some of arguably their strongest supporters into people who question whether or not they're taking the right position on a political issue. Shantel, what can we or should we learn from the 95 Quebec experience at this point in the story? Is there something that Alberta Federalists, Jason Kenney's of the world, could be learning from what happens?

in the run-up to the 95? Quebec referendum. It's very hard to take anything that happened in the lead up to 95 in Quebec and apply it to what's going on in Alberta at this point. The 95 referendum was totally driven by a collective sense of grievance after the Meach Lake failure and the refusal from a large section of the rest of Canada to recognize, but it's obvious to most Quebecers, that Quebec is different by language, by culture, and that that is a good thing that should be recognized in the Constitution.

So we are somewhere else altogether. I think Mr. Kenny's goal, ideally, would be to avoid that referendum altogether. And that is another major difference. The current government of Alberta does not have an electoral mandate to hold a referendum on separation. the Quebec government of the time did. It campaigned on having this vote, and then it held that vote. I certainly would not have missed Daniel Smith campaigning for office by saying,

if you elect us, we will be having a referendum on separation. So the messiness of what's happening in Alberta complicates matters. for federalists in the sense that it is not clear that the government can articulate a position one way or another without blowing itself apart. Because a section, a strong section of the people who voted for Daniel Smith are actually part of the yes movement, let's separate. They are a minority overall, but they make up a good chunk. maybe more than half of the supporters of separation among UCP voters.

So try to imagine that a Quebec federalist government would want to ask Quebecers if they want to separate. Very interesting. Usually a government that asks a question is supposed to campaign for the yes side to that question. That's the point of a referendum. But if that federalist government at the same time was split in half between those who want to go and those who want to stay and try to figure out the mechanics of even a campaign on that, I suspect Mr. Kenny's best goal would be to avoid the exercise or at least to push it forward a bit. to Bruce's point about business in Alberta. It's hard to compare, but the success rate of corporate interest intervening in the Quebec debate is nil.

It's actually always helped the yes side and not the no side to have business people and usually at great cost to their personal credibility. But we can also ask yourself whether some in the oil industry, who are possibly interested in the U.S. interest in Canada and having more control over some of its resources, so are not necessarily appalled by the notion that there are these ongoing divisions. But by and large, I think that they are focused, the oil industry, more focused on what Mark Carney and Daniel Smith are discussing on the business side of the equation, the notion of a new pipeline of deregulation, then they are focused at this point on the conversation

as to whether Alberta stays or goes. So Mr. Carney, Ms. Smith, have to come to some resolution on that. Could the federal government come to something that is, you know, that does make Daniel Smith happy on the pipeline front, but in exchange, say, do you want to have a referendum on nine questions? That is, which he said she wanted to do, that are not separation on October 19th. But the trade office, you do not ask that other question. Given the mess that the process is in, you do not ask it then or you ask it later.

Mess is, by the way, the right word to describe what's been happening there with the whole, you know, privacy scandal and all that. that's been happening in Alberta. Things are very messy right now. Bruce, you wanted to add something to what Chantel will say. A couple of quick points. I think that, you know, I referred to business, and I sort of alluded more particularly to the oil and gas companies,

and I think Chantel's point is well taken, that they may have mixed feelings, given where some of their head offices are about the relationship with the U.S. and the whole geopolitics of oil. I should have included small and medium businesses across Alberta. I think that a lot of those business voices, to the extent that they've had grievances with federal governments in the past,

especially liberal ones, it's been around the idea of governments being kind of indifferent to how business operates and what kind of public policy conditions it needs to thrive. A lot of these businesses will face, economic risks, even if it's indirectly in terms of a lack of flow of investment into the province. And they should be more, in my view, there should be a lot more public conversation among small and medium businesses with their employees, with the community, not to say, look, you can't even think about this, or this is a kind of an illegitimate idea. I think that, you know, the prime

minister was clear that people are, you know, people can think whatever they want and we have a process. I think that's fine. But that argument needs to be made because not everybody will understand that argument inherently that if you all of a sudden have gone from describing yourself as the most business-friendly operating province within Canada to the one where the biggest questions exist around the regulatory and political and public policy framework, that that is going to cost people jobs. It's going to cost businesses opportunities. And nobody that I can see right now, with the exception, perhaps, of Jason Kenney, is really driving that message home.

And I think it should be. Last point for me is the nine questions that Chautel mentioned. I remember when, well, we all do because we're all old enough to when René LeVec put his question on Sovereignty Association on the ballot. And a lot of people looked at it and said, well, it's a pretty soft question. It's hard for people to feel like they're putting themselves at maximum risk if the proposition is that you'll have sovereignty, but you'll have association. And it was a legitimate criticism of the question to say, well, but how could you be sure that you'll get association once you have sovereignty? Well, Daniel Smith's questions make René Levex question look like the hardest red line question ever written. And these are soft and squishy questions.

They are designed to give Albertans a chance to say, yes, I want Alberta to punch Ottawa in the nose a bunch more different ways. Well, you know, for a lot of people, there's no negative consequences to saying, I want to give Alberta a little bit more power. Or I want Albertans to feel as though they've given more leverage to the provincial premier. But they don't mean anything as far as I'm concerned. They don't apply any direct pressure on policy questions. They only apply this kind of inferential pressure for this premier at this moment in time. And I don't think it's good public policy to run questions on that. And I'm where Jason Kennedy is.

The idea that this referendum should go away is the best idea. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the right to have one, and they probably will. But it's a mess for sure, to use your word. But the dynamics between the federal government, government and the province of Alberta changed dramatically. The second you add the separation question. Why? Because the prime minister is said at that point that the Clarity Act would kick in.

What is the Clarity Act? And why do I say it might be something that the Patskybeco would dream of having unfold during a Quebec election campaign? Basically, the Clarity Act says that on a question of separation, the federal government must have been. approve the question that is going to be asked to make sure that it is clear enough and must decide whether it would accept the result on the basis of what percentage of the votes. Now, after the Clarity Act was passed, which was a way to give not only leverage to a future

federal government in the case of another Quebec referendum, in this case, Alberta, but also to send a message to people interested in the separation that it was going to be a bit harder to determine the circumstances of the question. The last referendum question, by the way, it was a paragraph long. It was all but it wasn't clear in any way, shape, or form. You have to have a Google to see the references in it and Google back to what it actually meant. But since then, the UK has had a referendum in Scotland. And in that case, the Westminster Parliament did approve the question posed to Scottish voters,

but it also agreed that if it carried that 50% plus one, there would be negotiations leading to independence for Scotland from the UK. So that precedent kind of forces the federal government to say, well, 50% plus one. It's going to be very hard to argue that what's good enough for a Brexit, what's good enough for Scotland independence, would not be good enough for a provincial secession result to be recognized. The Supreme Court has also said that it is constitutionally possible to leave Canada. there is nothing that in the constitution that says you can't have it

but it is also said that you would be obligated to negotiate in the case of a yes victory but there is no expectation that it would come to a positive outcome so you could talk about you know yes you want to separate let's discuss the terms everybody comes to the table but that doesn't mean that you must arrive at a resolution that leads to separation so But why I'm saying, I'm looking at the calendar.

I'm thinking if Daniel Smith asked that question for October 19th, and Quebec is going to have an election on October 5th. This means that the federal government would be debating the referendum question in Alberta while the Quebec campaign is ongoing and would be discussing thresholds that may be higher than 50% plus one. Let me tell you two things. is not a provincial party in Quebec, a mainstream one, including the federalist liberals, that have backed the Clarity Act in any way, shape, or form, or the notion that the Parliament of Canada would determine the question that could one day be asked of Quebecers or that would prescribe a

threshold other than 50% plus one. So this conversation that could be ongoing in Parliament about Alberta would probably be one of the greatest gifts to the Parts Quebecoe. who would then campaign not on we want to hold a referendum, but look at how these people are thinking that they can dictate the terms of how we debate our future, our political future. And that's why I'm with Bruce, the best case scenario for Mark Kearny would be that this question is asked later or is not asked at all. Okay.

We're going to move on. But this topic is, you know, is a classic Canadian topic. In spite of the, you know, the references to Brexit and other referenda that have taken place in different countries, this has become a part of our lives, right, for the last 50 years, these questions. And now with Alberta, I just ask one quick one here. there's a sense of does the rest of Canada care about Alberta in a way in the way that Jason Kennedy framed his suggestion that Ottawa gets more involved I mean I remember in 95 you remember it well how there were certain you know pro-Canada groups that came from outside

Quebec came in and demonstrated and sang anthems and wave flags and all that stuff at the end and you can debate whether or not that had an impact. I'm just wondering whether that kind of, you know, like a train from Central Canada rolls into Alberta to wave the flag and say, don't leave. Is that kind of stuff? Would that work in Alberta? Oh, by the way, it did have an impact.

It helped the yes slide this demonstration. So before you go trains and flags, it's not the notion that the other Canadians don't care about Alberta or care about Alberta isn't measured by the number of people who would get on a train to foolishly come and talk about their perspective with the little understanding of where the Alberta movement comes from. But by the same token and in the reverse, treating the Alberta separation movement as just a bunch of crowns that should be dismissed is also terribly counterproductive. And you've seen it in action when Toronto voted for a

a mayor called Ford. What did the established voices of Toronto do during that municipal campaign? They basically said, this guy has a clown, only dumb people vote for clowns. What happened? So if you want to bolster the separation forces, just dismiss the people who are trying to get this question on the ballot as a bunch of Hicks who do know nothing. And it will get you to a higher percentage of people who want to vote yes. Do you want to add anything on there before we move on, Bruce? Yeah, I think that the degree to which Canadians today would be interested, attentive to intra-provincial rivalries is a lot lower than it was 10 years ago, a lot lower than it was

20 years ago. It doesn't mean that there aren't divisions within our society, but they tend to be a little bit more along generational lines. the preoccupation tends to be a little bit more about broader geopolitics in the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the world dynamics, rather than the internal grievances between or among provinces. I think that page has turned somewhat. It doesn't mean that it won't become more visible and more of a preoccupation, but I think the temperature set around this Premier has this to say about that province

is just not what it used to be back in the day, as they say. Second thing I would say is that I think people in Canada generally like the idea of Canada staying together. I'm not sure that they're as passionate about it as I would personally want them to be. But I think that's partly because people become kind of normalized to friction and a sense of there's grievance everywhere and maybe you can't solve for it all and maybe the world is going to change in more ways than we care to contemplate. And so their ability to kind of become preoccupied with how do we keep this particular problem from happening is less than it

would have been at another time. And finally, you know, Quebec had a grievance around the Meach Lake Accord. A lot of people in the rest of the country didn't understand. why Quebec was unhappy with that. Alberta expresses a grievance towards the federal government, and sometimes it sounds like towards the rest of the country, in terms of the financial relationships. I think it's probably fair to say that a lot of people in other parts of the country hear that grievance, but they don't feel like it's entirely merited.

In other words, that they think that, well, you know, Albertans are doing pretty well, and these voices kind of come at the rest of us. as though we're all, if we're not living in Alberta, we're freeloading off Alberta's resources. And that rather than having the effect of kind of warming the rest of the country to no, Alberta don't go, it has a little bit the opposite effect. I don't want to overstate it, but it is different from what we saw in 1980 and 1995. And it's why it's incumbent upon these kind of mainstream political leaders.

to find the right tone, to find the right language, and to center on the right arguments to diffuse this. So it doesn't become some sort of a heated battle of political rhetoric and pugilism because that could go wrong a lot of different ways. All right. If I had time for another question, I'd ask whether pipelines are Alberta's Meach leading up to this. But unfortunately, I don't have time for that.

You're out of time. And it's a bit more complicated than that. Oh, of course it does involve. Of course it is. That's why we have an hour to talk. Yeah, but it does involve you becoming a co-owner of maybe of another pipeline. And at that point, other Canadians will have some thoughts about that. Apparently, you get a plan with another question.

Yeah, right. You went there. We're going to take our break. Come back right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Friday Good Talk with Bruce. Anderson, Chantelle Iber. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Glad to have you with us 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. You know, one of these weeks I'm going to give up trying to figure out what exactly Pierre Pauliev is up to. He gives another speech yesterday to, well, to a group that's clearly on his side, and at least on the conservative side, on the right. side, the right wing side. And he says, as part of his speech, he says, I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying as leader, and I have things to do, things to say, and it's appropriate for me to stay, as if he's conceding that he's in trouble, that he'd even have to say that two months

after receiving whatever it was 87% vote of support from a particular kind of conference in a conservative conference in Calgary. What should we make of this? Is he conceding, I'm in trouble? I've got to keep saying I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving.

Bruce. Yeah, I think he is in some respect. And I think the group that he was speaking to I don't know who is there exactly, but the way that this conference has evolved over the years, it's typically, you know, people who care a lot about the policy aspects of conservative thinking. And he might not be wrong to think that those folks, unlike the 87% of the party membership who voted for Pierre Polyev to stay, are wondering if Pierre Polyev is exactly the right kind of leader for this moment facing this kind of liberal. liberal leader, but I don't want to

overstate that. I can't really speak about the DNA and the thought processes of that crew. What I would say is that here probably from the coverage that I saw said three things that I thought were remarkable but not in a good way. First of all,

he said that liberals in Ottawa want him to change. And the ones that I talk to don't want him to change. They want him to stay exactly the same way that he is because they might say that he should change, but they don't really want him to change because they think they can beat him again if they have another run at him in a few years.

The second thing that he keeps on saying is that Carney is slow, that Pierre Pollyev thinks in fast and Carney acts in slow. And all of the evidence that I see from polling just doesn't look like that. you know, Canadians can want more action on some things always. That's a normal response in public opinion terms. But I don't see any evidence in my data that people think, you know, the thing that bothers me about Carnies, he seems to be kind of asleep on the job. He's just not really getting up and getting at it.

And so I find it strange that he keeps on coming back to that argument, especially given that, you know, the pace of Pierre Paul Yev's political career. has not been that accelerated. Let me put it that way. It's been a long time that he's been in politics without ever having won anything that allowed him to materially change the direction of the country. The third thing that he, I saw he tweeted out,

he said, Canadians want us to fight. That was the extent of the tweet. I just think that's a discordant note. Other than the hard base of his party, I think most other Canadians say, well, that's not really what we want you to do. We want you to hold a governmental account.

We want you to participate in the debate. We want you to maybe throw in some ideas that maybe it'll bother you, but the other party might steal those ideas and implement them. But the notion that people outside the political party membership really want

him and the conservatives to fight, period, full stop, I just think that's out of touch with the time. So I just don't think he has a good feeling for how to make his case to Canadians. And obviously he did were that 87%. But he still seems like a fish out of water to me. And he seems to be not making his case to Canadians, but trying to make his case continually to his party to stand firm on his leadership.

Chantelle? I've read the reviews of that speech to a very, or what should have been. a very friendly crowd. And the words that keep coming back with flat, mood, all, anything but buoyant, less attendance than usual, less of everything than in previous years. And that buoyancy was always present, even when the conservatives were in opposition in the past.

But there was no feeling to that. And I thought about this argument that the liberals want Pierre Pahliav to change that he put to this room. And I thought, no, it's the people in this room who would they've liked you to change. It's not the liberals. And what you're telling them is basically, not only am I not going anywhere, but I'm not going to change. And that is left, and it's not just at that conference or in that room. And that is leaving many conservatives to say, what can we do about this? It's, you know, and the notion, I picked up something else from the speech that I talked was,

where is he going on this? That he is fighting to keep the elites who are taking over Ottawa from doing whatever nefarious thing that they are doing. elites that are also controlling basically all of the media outlets. So it's all elites who are speaking. I'm thinking, do you really think that this is going to be credible? I noted this week that there was radio silence in large part from the Conservative Party and its leader on the new Governor General, presumably part of that elite that Mr. Palliev was hinting at.

But why is he not saying this is a terrible appointment? I really am sorry that this is happening because if he did that, he would be in significant trouble, not just in Quebec, but in many areas of the country where people tend to think it is a good appointment. So rather than say that, he kind of tries to suggest that some elite that is divorced from all Canadians is in play on Parliament Hill, that frankly sounds more like a conspiracy theory than a leader articulating a vision for the country. So do I believe there is redemption for Mr. Poilev in the short term? No, I think he's playing a survival game. And with three years to go, I don't really see a terribly positive outcome for him. if he keeps on harping with the same messages, Carney Trudeau,

Carnie Trudeau, people have tuned that out because it's not particularly relevant to anything important that is going on. And I had said that in the past, but it has increased over the past month. Increasingly, the Conservative Party is led by Pierre Puev is out of the conversation in this country, the political conversation.

Jason Kenney, this. week and we've just demonstrated that was more of a part of the national conversation than the leader of the federal conservative party who aspires to become prime minister. And that's quite a statement to make at this point. Okay, we take our final break, come back. With the question I've been thinking about lately, I know you'll both kind of dismiss it as an irrelevant question, but that's my job. I just sit here and ask the question. Between two golf games, we thought of this question.

We're not going to know what to do or anything about. Yeah, okay. Wait a breath. Okay, we'll be back right after this. All right, final segment of good talk for this week. Bruce, Chantal, Peter, all here. Let's face it, we've all been around, some of us longer than others. I was looking at that list of prime ministers of Canada the other day,

and I was kind of shocked to realize that I've interviewed half of them in the history of the country. Going back to Defenbaker, he wasn't prime minister when I interviewed him, nor was Pearson, but nevertheless I did interview him. So I got to thinking when we look at the current prime minister who's been there for a year, which is a little early to pass real judgment on, but nevertheless, it's a year he's been active, And certainly in the news, almost on a daily basis. Does the current Prime Minister, Mark Carney, does he compare? And I'm going to choose the word carefully. Compare, I guess, is all right.

But is he like any of the other prime ministers we've had in the country? I don't mean in terms of their policies, but in terms of the job, the role, the being the number one, Are there any similarities between Mark Carney and past prime ministers? There are always similarities. I mean, Mr. Carney's love of history, which is apparent every time he gives a news conference, brings him closer to Stephen Harper, I think, than Jean-Critz. I think they both share that. But when I kind of turned, I knew you were going there. But I kind of turned your question around.

You would have asked the same thing about Pierre Trudeau. Does he compare it to any of the... And your answer would have been no. You could have asked the same question about Stephen Harper, an introvert whose conservatism was grounded in a place that was not John Defenbaker or Brian Mulerone's place. I looked back at the prime minister. I've covered, and all of them had significant differences from the others in many ways.

Think of Jean-Critin, someone who came to politics with very low expectations that he would become the very deft political animal with the instincts that he had, that brought him to be a long-lasting prime minister. Brian Mulroney was a different kind of animal altogether and I think the biggest difference between Mark Carney and maybe Jean-Critzsche and Brian Mulroney and John Turner, if we're going to go there, is I don't think Mark Carney spent his life thinking that the path to the top job in the country

involved being an act of politics that he made this life even more than Brian Maroney somewhere else. Brian Marloni wanted that job. He ran twice to lead the Conservative Party. He spent years making sure that he got there. I know Mark Carney wanted to be in politics, but he did the learning on the job and the preparing outside of politics.

That makes him a bit different from any prime minister we've had before. None of them walked in the House of Commons for the first time in the job of prime minister. You're going to take a run at this, Bruce? Yeah, I think that the names that I would have mentioned as having some similarities would be Harper and Pierre Trudeau in the sense of both of them were somewhat reluctant about the politics of being prime minister. And that's true for Mr. Carney as well. That's not to say that on any given day, they couldn't be political. They wouldn't be political. They weren't effective in a political sense.

It's just that I don't think it, you know, and reading through the Coots Diaries a little while ago, I was reminded of the degree to which Pierre Trudeau really wasn't a very interested in that aspect of the job. for me the bigger question is compared to when I can't think of a time in the life of our country or the life of the world while I've been alive that's even remotely similar to what we're seeing right now the complete breakdown of the world order and so you know there may have been prime ministers before that world order manifested itself in the post-world war two years where there's something that would be comparable. But for me, what Carney is being asked to do or challenge to do

is to recognize that around Canada and around the world, there are a bunch of different dynamics that require deft and sensitivity and thoughtfulness to a degree that we haven't really been challenged to do as a country. At the same time, as that there are the normal, array of domestic political and public policy issues. Our health care system is kind of beaten up, broken down, not really working that well. There are classic conversations about indigenous rights,

resource development, all of those things. The kind of the normal issue set for Canada still exists. There's just this larger screen. So to some degree, I think that when voters look at Mark Carney, they look at him not so much in the context of just how does he, perform on the regular five items on the report card for Canadian Prime Ministers.

All of a sudden there's a new five item list that is more preoccupying for a lot of people and where it's impossible to know exactly how it's going to work out so really what people are doing is sort of saying well based on what I sense and what I hear and how I think he comports himself

I think he's doing a pretty good job. So for me, the comparisons are difficult because the agenda for Canada is so different from what we've seen before. Okay, two minute warning. What else is on your mind this week? Anything? Well, for me, it's still the, I think the war in the Middle East was on three times yesterday and off three times yesterday. That's only in one person's head. Yeah, it's just a... But Bruce lives in that head. He's not the only one.

I'm not the only one. That's right. No, I think the consequences are so extreme. And I hate all of the side issues, the sense that there's some kind of private casino operating around Trump's utterances, and the people are betting hundreds of millions of dollars on outcomes based on 15 minutes before he says something. It's shocking the amount of corruption,

and it's become normalized. And it's yet another investigation called for, I think, yesterday, around $1.7 billion in trades 15 minutes before one of the latest. You know, this and that it's going to happen. It's completely corrupt. Chantelle? Good news for once I watched the announcement that Eurasia was buying 150 planes from Airbus out in Mirabelle.

It's a big deal. It's $19 billion, but it's also buying an airplane that the Quebec government supported throughout its creation. They're not out of the woods yet, but this was the most

encouraging sign that there is a future there. And what I found really interesting about the announcement wasn't so much that we sold all those planes, but why did we sell them now? in part because that plane consumes less fuel than its comparative rivals. And that should be a signal to people who are saying, well, yeah, let's just do, and it's not just Iran.

Let's just, you know, drill, baby drill, and forever we will do that. That choice was largely based on fuel consumption and a significant difference between the plane. that became a competitive advantage. So before people say we will forever be driving gas cusslers because we're North Americans and we're proud of it and EVs were just an experiment taught off by the left on any given day. Maybe it's time to take a walk to Europe, China and India

and see how those EVs are overtaking fuel-based vehicles across the world. You know, our world is changing. so fast in the last decade, last five years, last year that you never know what's coming at you next. And the airplane announcement in Quebec is another example of that. The reasonings for it are, you know, are glaring. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week. Thank you so much, as always, for your comments and your thoughts and the conversation in general. And our audience thanks you as well. The buzz will be out tomorrow and more. morning 7 a.m. in your inbox.

So if you don't already have a subscription, you can get it. It's free by going to National Newswatch.com slash newsletter. Thanks to both of you. We'll talk again, well, in another week. Thank you, guys. Have a good weekend. Bye. Bye-bye.