The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Game On, Pipeline or No Pipeline

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Everyone knew this was coming, but now we are here. It's the great pipeline battle playing out between Ottawa and Alberta, and between Alberta and BC. What's at stake? Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson are here to discuss this and what it means for Mark Carney, the upcoming budget, and the future of the country. And, Donald Trump's "war within" makes the discussion as well. 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, along with Chantelle-A-Bear and Bruce Anderson. It's your Friday Good Talk, a lot to talk about today, as always. I should probably say where everybody is. I've been in Calgary this week in Alberta, but I'm back in Toronto now. Bruce is in his castle somewhere, and Chantelle. And, you know, if you had to choose where did you want to be on a day like today, Banff, Alberta is not a bad place to be.

One of the most beautiful places in our country. We're lucky we have so many, but Banff is certainly one of them. Okay, that's a good place to be this week, given the pipeline battle that's about to be underway. I mean, game on, right, between Alberta and Ottawa and B.C. All the big issues surrounding pipelines and tankers, you name it. They're all in the equation now. So I want to get your opening thoughts on this and what you're hearing because it clearly is game on.

When I talked to Danielle Smith in June, she told me at that time, as she's said all along, maintained that she has a really good relationship with Mark Carney. I said how much time you're going to give him to deliver on the expectations that have been raised, and she said, well, you know, October. Well, it's October. And this week, she put her chits on the table, I guess, in a certain way. Chantelle, you start us. You're in Alberta.

Tell us what you're hearing. Okay, so you talk about chips on table. Well, that would not be the biggest table that she put the chips on, because $14 million when you talk about exploring and putting together a, pipeline project, $14 million will buy you a shed for the tools that maybe you will need in one location one day in the future. This is not the kind of investment or the kind of process that will lead you to present the federal government anytime soon with a shovel-ready, remember that's one of the

criteria, a shovel-ready pipeline projects. there is no at this point private promoter and Ms. Smith is clear on the fact that she doesn't want to be paying the entire bill or most of the bill out of taxpayers' pocket that she is trying to act as a facilitator and asking Mark Kearney to join her in facilitating. But what does it actually accomplish this 14 million we are going to put in place everything

that allows a promoter to put a project in place. The plan, without a route, is to have a pipeline to the north coast of British Columbia. If that sounds familiar, is because the plan, as it is into that now, sounds like the northern gateway ghost being resuscitated. Northern Gateway was a very controversial pipeline plan. that eventually was killed by Justin Trudeau over the objections or as a result of the objections of both the government of British Columbia, municipal authorities in that province and indigenous groups in the area. And when Justin Trudeau vetoed that project, said it's not going ahead, it was followed up by

what is called a tanker ban, i.e., along the coast, the oil that would flow to tide water along the coast that the ships with tankers would have to take, there is now a tanker ban. So Ms. Smith is literally asking the federal government to lift that tanker ban. And as we saw this week, to do so over the objections, strenuous, strenuous objections of British Columbia, its current government, and the indigenous groups of the area. I don't know if Mark Carney is up for that fight. He has said repeatedly that he would never impose a pipeline project on a non-willing province.

But I do wish him good luck in the endeavor, because I cover a Northern Gateway. And what people tend to forget is that by 2012, with the Harper government squarely behind it, the government of British Columbia did not want it to go ahead. and that government was not a new Democrat government. It was a liberal government, i.e. in B.C., the equivalent of the conservatives and the liberals together. So the political class in B.C. was squarely against it, as was public opinion. I'm not convinced that the word Donald Trump has made that change. But what I do believe that Ms. Smith is accomplished this week is to force Mark Carney at some point to fish or cut bait.

you cannot be flirting with the idea of a pipeline to the West Coast and at the same time flirting with the idea that you'll maintain the tanker ban you've got to pick a lane on this and at some point I think many liberals, many Canadians and many people in the government of Alberta want to know what that lane actually is are we still going to keep that tanker ban or are we going to lift it?

And I think the day when Mark Carney needs to pick that lane and accept whatever consequences because whatever decision will come with political consequences and costs has gotten nearer as the result of the actions of this week, much nearer than the advent of a new pipeline. All right. You've given us a great overview of how we got here and where we are today. Bruce, is there any indication that you're hearing that the prime minister is close to picking a loin? Oh, no, I guess so. I guess that wasn't the question I thought I was going to get, so I don't think so.

What did you think you were going to get? Or maybe I'll refer. My perception of the issue and the points that Chantelle raised. Okay, I'll give you a 30 seconds on the on the Northern Gateway Pipeline. So I remember that history very well, and I agree with Chantelle about the characterization of it. You know, the public opinion and political landscape

has changed quite a bit in some ways, but in other ways, it still hasn't. So I have trouble with what Ms. Smith is talking about, first and foremost, because I can't tell whether or not this is really about business or about politics. Because if it was about business, I think there would be a proponent by now. There's been plenty of conversation about whether or not there should be, could be, would be acquiescence to the idea of a pipeline or support for the idea of a pipeline.

But all of that conversation has been met with some kind of questioning of, well, who wants to build it? And what is that plan? And that has been going on for months. And still, no company has stepped forward to say, we would like that. to build it. We would only like to put a lot of money into it if we had some assurance that there would be political support, which is fair enough for companies to say. But in the end, absent that proponent, this feels like the government of Alberta pumping air into a conversation that is important for their political purposes, but which may not have much behind it in terms of

a business or a group of businesses that are interested in the economics of another pipeline. second thing for me is I know you said I only had 30 seconds so that was my first 30 seconds just go for it if I were Ms. Smith and I really wanted to make this pipeline happen this is not how I would go about it I would first understand that public opinion in Canada is open to a pipeline Not enthusiastic about it, but open to it, more so than was the case at the end of the Northern Gateway situation for a variety of reasons. But that public opinion has always been, we'd be willing to go along with this on the condition that the BC government was okay with it and that indigenous people were okay with it. Now, I haven't heard any significant effort by Daniel Smith to solve for those problems. It's almost as though she's deciding that she wants to provoke the kind of reaction that we saw from Premier Eby.

And if you do that, any company that might want to build a pipeline will understand that that pipeline will not happen. Because, you know, as Chantal said, the prime minister said, he won't. impose a pipeline in a province that doesn't want it. So I don't think he really has a choice to make. First of all, because there's no proponent. Second of all, because the Premier of British Columbia has said it's a non-starter. So I don't see the effort by Ms. Smith as being a serious effort to try to create the conditions politically and in public opinion terms to make a pipeline implausible. And so my only conclusion is it's part of an ongoing effort to kind of rally people who want to be angry at the federal government, who want to imagine that the federal government is

going to be the enemy of its economic opportunities. And I think that's unfortunate because there has been some progress, I think, made in building a better economic and political relationship. And I would rather see that track pursuit. Well, if that was the objective on the part of the Alberta Premier this week, and I'm not saying it was, but You're suggesting it was. Is that not a dangerous game to be playing right now, especially in Alberta? Or, you know, like, why would she do that?

Well, up to a point, I think, and I saw some analysis that is from Alberta and not from Central Canada, that she feels that it's a win-win, that's either Mark Carney will take this on or else that she will. will look like she has stood up to Ottawa and has not become, you know, some puppet in the hands of Mark Carney.

You could almost see the joy emanating from a conservative leader, Piaopo Liev, over this development, which allows him to say to the federal government, get out of the way, get rid of those, of those regulations from the Trudeau era. And if you look at it carefully, if you look at what Ambridge had to say about it yesterday, I believe, the Conservatives, Daniel Smith, in the end, the bill is the same as it was two weeks ago, we want all of those regulations, those climate policies gone the way of the individual carbon tax. So the ceiling on gas emissions, the tanker ban, there's a list. and it keeps coming back. But to Bruce's point, if you really wanted to try to find a path to resolution,

you would probably want to be talking to the Premier of BC rather than making an announcement of a group of people that are only from Alberta. I'll give you an example. Imagine that Francois de Gaulle, who's not doing so well in the polls, called the press conference this week with Hydro-Kabec and announced that he was going to be.

build a hydro line to Manitoba, but didn't call Ontario to ask Premier Ford, do you think that's feasible? And then Lugo would announce a long list of certainly very able people at Hydro, Quebec and in Quebec, to lead this project. And then you would say, well, where are the Antarians? Where are the Manitobans on this? That is basically, I'm not even offering a caricature here. That is what happened this week as a group of serious Albertans got together with their

premier to tell the federal government you are going to force this to BC come hell or high water or else Canada doesn't work. Yeah, there was one or two other quick things that struck me. I was

interested in how Premier E.B. talked about the tanker ban And the way he characterized it wasn't as much about a protection of the environment kind of mindset. It was that the fact of a tanker ban had allowed for the development of a lot of projects in BC because it secured an agreement, an understanding with indigenous people that allowed those economic developments to occur. I thought that was quite an interesting way for him to characterize it. I mean, everybody can look at a tanker ban and say, well, we can understand the value of a tanker ban if we're worried, for example, about oil spills. But that wasn't the way in which he made the case for understanding the tanker ban. And the second thing I want to say is that, again, back to the point of if Daniel Smith was really embarking upon a strategy to make this happen, I agree with Chantelle, she would be talking to David E.

And I think the articulation of what's in it for people other than people in Alberta, whether Albertans like to hear that or not or feel like it's fair, if it only sounds like the argument for a pipeline is Alberta has grievances with Ottawa and grievances with Canada, it's not much of a charm offensive. And again, I know there are going to be people and they're going to howl at you or howl at me through you, Peter, for saying this. this way. But this is difficult politics. And so, but it's not impossible politics. It's impossible politics if you, if you kind of approach it this way, I guess is how I would look at it.

Okay. Let me, I want to try and understand the pathway or the pathways that are possible for Mark Carney at this point on this situation. Listen, we can question his, his, his, his, his knowledge of how to play hardball politics, simply because he's only been in it for a year, basically. But we can't question his kind of business acumen and his understanding of, you know, how the world works on that front. He's not a stupid guy. It's not like he walked into this blind.

He knew all along that the big issues were going to be tanker ban and emissions cap and a few others on this. But he did allow the whole issue of pipelines. to be brought up again in the, you know, in the last six months. It's been out there. There's an expectation on the part of certainly, you know, some Westerners. I mean, I was, you know, Shantel's in Alberta right now. I was in Calgary earlier this week.

He met with a couple of hundred people from different sections, agriculture, energy, banking, the whole bit. And the constant question is, what's he going to do? You know, like I was intrigued by the way he campaigned and the things he was saying and the possibilities that it could mean for us. But now it's, you know, it's delivery time. What's he going to do? What's the path he's going to choose, given these different obstacles that are in the way,

if you want to describe it that way? Sorry, Shantel, go ahead. You are making it sound, and I understand from the coverage that that is inevitable, that the entire bid to have major projects rests. on the litmus test is a pipeline. I bring you back again to the proposition, shovel-ready. Or are we saying that the only project of national interest that will ensure Canada's economic future is a pipeline?

And if that's the case, then we are going to hang in there for a while because in the best of circumstances, you do not have a pipeline tomorrow or the day after or maybe even during the tenure of Mark Carney. it's an interesting conversation, but it is so focused on one single issue when the entire plan of the federal government is actually to diversify. But let me give you a look at the politics of this as it stands now, which I'm sure Mr. Carney understands. If you want to resuscitate the NDP, you should say I'm getting rid of the tanker ban, and I'm pushing for this pipeline because where will the NDP come back first and foremost? It's going to

be Western Canada, BC in particular. And it's not an accident that the three candidates that have declared to date are all from Alberta and British Columbia. So go ahead, take all those votes that the NDP lost to the liberals and send them back to the NDP. That's first step. Second step, tell Quebecers that you're into pipelines. The Transmountain pipeline was in a Quebec pipeline, but it did not play well the notion that the federal government was taking it on in Quebec. I am not convinced that Mark Carney can hold this cabinet together if he goes the route of going all in with Daniel Smith.

But I repeat again, for a non-project, $14 million buys you a crisis that tears apart the liberal coalition to the advantage of the conservatives. That's a really cheap price. How much do you spend in a campaign if you're a major party federally to win the election? Think of it. It's nickel and dimes to have what looks like a major crisis for the liberal party if you walk into that trap, which in French we called a piege a horse, a bear trap.

Now, some bears do fall in traps. It happens. Bruce. Yeah, I agree with Chantelle. I just don't see this as being, this is kind of sitting there like the most obvious trap, the easiest trap to avoid, one that was poorly thought out,

poorly strategized. I don't for a minute think that there's any real pressure on the prime minister to answer this at this point i do think at the end of the day i don't think there's a lot of political math being done about it in ottawa but if there was um if the question was how many votes will the liberals lose because david eby blocked this pipeline i think the answer is very few uh i don't think that canadians um at least most canadians in Alberta and certainly most Canadians outside will ever get to a point where they say

damn it we need that pipeline even if the province of BC doesn't want it I just don't see that happening in public opinion I think people understand that there's a certain kind of discomfort in our federation with that kind of thing that doesn't mean that they won't prefer that it happen in many cases and wish that it could happen,

but they won't want a federal government, I don't think. To force the situation, especially if they look at the sector and how it's been able to increase production, increase exports over time. And so they won't really look at it as being kind of solving an economic crisis that exists in the oil patch in Alberta. And without a proponent standing there to say, there's huge economic opportunity,

this is how big it is, and this is why we want to put our, money on the table to seize that opportunity. Again, I don't see why the federal government needs to agree to escalate this conversation to the level that maybe Ms. Smith wants, especially when there are all these other projects that are in discussion or kind of in the planning stages. In terms of the proponent thing, I mean, there were companies alongside her the other day to a degree, right? They see the, you know, economic benefit down the road, they say, but they're not saying they're willing to put up any money.

Yeah, if they're not going to pay for it. Even if it gets passed, they're not willing to put up money. Exactly. They are not saying that. I saw some statements. I think it was Transmountain that basically they would consider maybe participating if all obstacles were lifted. There was no commitment. No. They weren't along. I mean, some of the others have suggested the same kind of thing. I have no doubt that if the governments were to completely de-risk the project for companies,

I'm sure there would be companies that would invest in it. But I think the question of why should that happen and whether or not that's a good use of public funds, is the question that Albertans would have some point of view about and Canadians as well. Okay, let's take a break and come back and talk about a related subject. We'll get to that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Bridges Friday edition, which is Good Talk, of course, with Chantelle A Bear and Bruce Anderson.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks. We're on your favorite podcast platform. or you're watching us on our highly successful YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us wherever you're joining us from. Okay, in a way, the thing everybody's looking at is a month down the road, and that's the budget on November 4th. And they're looking at it because where's the money coming from?

How much is the deficit going to be? Where is the money going? Is it going into some of these major projects? Where will they be? Will we find out anything more? But perhaps the biggest question about November 4th and the budget is can this minority government get it passed? Because we all know what happens to a budget that doesn't pass.

We all end up going back to the polls. So where are we on that discussion? Not what's in the budget because we're going to get bombarded with leaks and counter leaks over the next month. But in terms of support for it, I mean, the block came out this week, right? Didn't they say we're out of it? We're not there for them, for the liberals, where the deficit, rumored to be, is anywhere from the $60 to $100 billion. So that leaves the NDP and the conservatives. Somebody's got to support or somebody's got to not turn up to vote.

What are we hearing on that? Bruce, why don't you start us on this realm? Yeah, I think it's a, you know, it's customary in a situation like this to, for opposition parties all to want to establish the reasons why they want to be against the budget before it happens. Because they want their supporters to understand that they're playing some sort of a checking role on the government. They're doing opposition politics in the best sense of the, word. They're opposing government. That's often, you know, more performative than real because they don't know what's in the budget and because what they're doing is trying to make sure that if one party has to support the government in order to avoid an election, that maybe it won't

have to be them. But to the extent that they're all attuned to public opinion, they will know that most Canadians do not want an election based on this budget, although, you know, with the caveat that people don't know what's in the budget, but I asked the question in a survey that we just finished last night, and I'll put the results out in the next couple of days, but the choices I gave people is, what do you want the opposition parties to do? Do you want them to allow the budget to pass and the government to continue to work on its policy direction, or would you think it would be better for the opposition parties to vote against the budget and cause an election?

There's a number of different ways you can ask that question, but the answers were 69% saying let the budget pass and let the government continue the path that it's on. That makes sense to me based on my understanding of public opinion over time. So people just had an election. They're generally two-thirds supportive of the direction of the Carney government. They recognize that we're in the middle of a series of economic challenges that are bigger than things that we've seen in the past.

And so the notion that, again, sight unseen, that their instincts are, let's prepare for an election because God, gosh darn it, this government is so annoying to me. And I think they're going to do some things that are so obnoxious to me that I'm going to want these parties to vote against it. Now, last point for me, there's a bit of a quandary in the numbers for the NDP. The NDP, 79% of NDP voters want the budget to be allowed to pass. So the NDP doesn't have a leader, presumably doesn't have money because they took such a beating in the last election that they lost a lot of the money that they would normally be using to prepare for another election. And so the position that they take is going to be conditioned first by their weakness as a political organization, but also by the fact that the people who voted for them this year. year do not want them to cause another election right now. So I think in a way, they're the party that has the most to lose by having an election. And they might be the party that is the easiest

to persuade to support the budget. The conservatives have a different quantity. About two-thirds of conservative voters say, let's drop the government and have an election. But that's only two-thirds. There's another third who are saying that's not what we want right now. So Pierre Polyev is going to say every day he's going to try to take the government down unless until he doesn't. So it'll be an interesting thing to watch how the NDP and how the conservatives deal with this question of the budget in the run-up to it, again, not knowing what the contents will be, but that posturing will be very important to watch. And I think in the end, we won't have a budget that causes an election.

I think we'll have a budget that gets some support from somewhere across the aisle. Shantau. There are actually two questions going around on Parliament Hill. The first is the one you asked. What's going to happen?

What will the MVP do? Will they survive the budget? The other question is does the government want to survive the budget? Or does it see its opportunity to translate, given the numbers,

that Bruce put forward, does it see an opportunity to go to Canadians and say, listen, you know, the adult in the room, that's me, look at all the others, I need a stronger mandate to be able to go forward.

I can't be living through these dramas periodically every time the government tries to move decisively at the time of emergency. I don't have the answer to either question. But I found of Block Quebecois interesting because it's not

if Francois Blanchet's habit to say ahead of time I'm going to bring down a vote against the budget he would usually say I will be considering support for the budget if A, B and C

is in the budget. That has not happened. He is never I've tried to read stories about when he talks about this I have never seen him draw lines in the sand to say if the government reaches this line, we're going to be over the line and will support the government. And I figure that, why do you think he's doing that, Chantel?

I think it's driven by what he sees in the Quebec calendar, right? There was a poll this morning that again showed the Parts-Kibiquot, Mr. Blanch's sister party, well ahead in voting intentions, about 20 points ahead of Francois' outgoing government just to give you an example. So he figures by next spring, we are going to be on the eve of an election that the PQ today looks like it would win. If the PQ wins, it's then going,

according to its leader, who insists he won't change his mind, that PQ government will be devoted to holding a referendum on sovereignty. And here is Mr. Blanchez fear. One, the Black Quebec has always had a harder time at the polls when the PQ is in power because then it pays for whatever decisions, municipal amalgamation, taxes, cuts or a referendum, the PQ. So it pays for the broken dishes that the PQ accumulates in government.

But two, Mr. Blanchet has caused to think if there is really a referendum coming, other Canadians will tend to want to give someone a strong mandate to fight that referendum in Quebec. And that is number two in his calculation. So I think he's trying to shelter the bloc from whatever will happen. Maybe for no reason, maybe it's an insurance policy. There are many scenarios looking at the Quebec election next fall. And one of those is that Paul Saint-Pierre-Plemandon does a poliov of himself. that lead is not built on cement and things could change and the PQ might not win the election.

But I think he's looking ahead and thinking I can shelter my party from the storm. I don't think that the bloc would do badly in an election tomorrow in Quebec. And I don't believe that there would be a significant backlash over the fact that there was an election. Now, the other thing I'll say is, you know, in 79, did anyone imagine going into that first Joe Clark budget that the government would fall? No one had seen that hike at the pump come in, but also the liberals were changing leaders. They were – by the way. Yeah, so – He was the only one, I think.

Yeah. Yes. So when you say it's easy sometimes to drop the puck in a budget on small stuff that becomes big. Think of the political financing stuff in the fiscal update that Stephen Harper brought in 2008. We just had an election. Suddenly we're talking about the coalition government to house Stephen Harper, who's just being elected, over political financing of all things. So I understand that Canadians, by and large, are not keen to go back to the polls. I know that Mr. Poilev doesn't want to look like an enabler of Mark Carney, but also possibly doesn't want an election right away that could lead to a majority liberal government.

But it looks very uncertain. And if I were the government, I would be very careful in looking. at all the smaller items, those that catch fire. Think of the culture cuts in 2008. The conservatives had a majority in the bag, thanks to Quebec. They did minor stuff on culture. And they lost Quebec, not just for 2008, for the rest of the time to this day. So it's easy sometimes in the big picture to forget that there's the small stuff that makes you sweat.

Those comments on culture or what really did him in from getting that majority. And, you know, Corey tonight still talks about how he missed the opportunity in the back of a limo, going to a speech to talk Stephen Harper out of that saying those things. Anyway, nevertheless, it's a little like Groundhog Day. I always end up talking about the 79 election. Let me just add to what you said to it. sure the liberals were without a leader they went into the vote that night

and the conservatives convinced that they could hold on to power even though the numbers were against them and some of those in the Tory party understood that but not obviously the leadership however if you back up a week from then before that vote

there was a Gallup poll which was kind of the standard of that day came out showed the liberals ahead by 10 points. And those were in the days when 10 points was like you couldn't recover from a 10-point deficit. And I remember the House leader for the conservatives. Remember Walter Baker? Walter Baker came out and said,

we're not worried about that poll. That is the one in 20 that's out. It's wrong. That's definitely not going to be the case. Well, they lost by, I'm not sure it was 10 points, but it was close to that and the liberals came back with the majority government

with guess who was leader, Pierre Trudeau, welcome to the 1980s. Anyway, that's a long way of getting around to. My other quick question on the PQ and, you know, Chantelle warns us carefully.

Don't assume anything yet. It's a long time before the election and as we've just witnessed, things can change in an election campaign. When Quebecers are, asked if they want another referendum vote? What's the answer? No. A resounding no? Yes, a significant no. And when they're asked, how would you vote if that referendum came about? It's about 60, 40 for the no side. What people, and I understand, the new generation of Patskyby-Westrategist,

rejects that proposition, as did many pickists back in the day. But what gave momentum to the second referendum in 1995 was the Meachlake Accords failure. An event triggered that. In every single vote since 1995, the notion of a referendum has damaged the PQ rather than helped it. Remember, Lucien Bouchard, who was re-elected in 98, strong premier, stronger campaign than Jean Chaget ever launched. But in the end, Jean Chalier won the popular vote because of the prospect of another referendum. Pauline Marois, when she campaigned, thinking that she was on the verge of a majority,

did not say she would hold a referendum, but recruited a high-profile candidate who raised this fist and talked about sovereignty and a referendum. and what happened to the PQ as of that day, suspicions that it wanted to have a referendum brought the PQ back to opposition. So the idea that this promise of Paul St. Pierre Plamondon is putting win in his sales, I am not convinced.

I don't see, sure if you're a sovereign test who voted for Mr. St. Pierre Plamondon's leader, you probably want this. Even sovereignists, like, Lucien Bouchard has warned, and he's been dismissed by the PQ leadership, has warned that it's a bad idea if you do not have, you know, some momentum, some feeling on the ground that, yes, it's time to do this. So imagine with the kind of speeches I was thinking this week, listening to Donald Trump and the fact that he's sending soldiers in Democrat cities. And I'm thinking, does that really help the sovereignty project to think that instead of being part of a larger ensemble, suddenly Quebec would stand alone staring at this kind of neighbor to the south, much bigger neighbor. I'm not convinced that many Quebecers are thinking, yeah, the answer to Trump and to everything that ills us at this point is to secede from Canada.

Okay. Quick additional point on that, Bruce. the idea of a referendum is almost always a bad idea um it's hard to say that without sounding anti-democratic but i remember bill fox and i did a bunch of research to understand how these things normally work and run up to the charlottetown accord referendum and the evidence is pretty overwhelming that if the yes side doesn't start with more than 60 percent it will not end with more than 50 percent and so starting with 40 uh is going to produce a negative result generally speaking. Second thing is that in the first go-round of the referendum in Quebec, there was a grievance. There was a cultural revolution. There was a sense of incursion by the

federal government that was creating real pressures on the opportunities for Quebecers. I don't see the same sense of grievance underpinning this conversation about a sovereignty a sovereignty scenario now, it's more like let's have a sovereignty referendum because sovereignty in and of itself can be a good thing. I don't think there's that much enthusiasm for that idea. And as a consequence, I think the only risk that I see is that risk that people in Quebec,

as people elsewhere feel, that their institutions across the board are not doing what they want. They're not achieving the outcomes that they want. And so if people are promoting a referendum and they say the end result that we're looking for is not just sovereignty, but it's sovereignty to do these things, which we will do to help you, they might be able to kindle some support. But I haven't seen that be well articulated so far. So I don't see the big risk. You know what?

The more I listen to this, the more I think we should at some point in the next few weeks do a show just on, you know, this is the 30th anniversary, you know, October is the 30th anniversary of the 95 referendum, which was a fascinating story for all of us to be involved in one way or another covering it or helping in the campaigns. So I'd like to do a special show on that. Also, who's going to do 30? anniversary shows, if not the three of us. Exactly.

Well, you know, I can do the 1981, too. I was there for that. You were all still babes and arms. 1980, let me just set the record straight, 1980. What did I say? Didn't I say, 1981, 81. Oh, I don't know. 81 was the Constitution.

80 was the referendum. Yes, yes, as we know. Anyway, nevertheless, let's take our final break. come back and talk about Donald Trump. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back, our final segment of good talk for this week. The War Within.

That's what Donald Trump is warning Americans that he's got to have his military ready to deal with the war within the United States. There were so many ways you could go about that speech in front of the generals the other day, including once again, bringing up, somehow he ended up talking about the 51st state in there as well. But the war within phrase especially caught your attention, Bruce. So start us on that. Yeah. Look, it's hard to, from one day to the next, answer the question, what is the most worrying thing that Donald Trump is doing? Because he keeps on kind of pushing the envelope.

And I noticed that yesterday, and even this morning, he was pushing out memes extolling the virtues of the author of this project 2025, which many of his opponents in the Democratic Party and the candidate who ran against him, Kamala Harris, said, if Donald Trump wins, he's going to embrace this really radical agenda contained in this big document. Trump said at the time, he hardly knew anything about it, didn't really know the people involved.

They weren't involved with him. And now, of course, he's saying in his meme today, that this is the Grim Reaper time. And Project 2025 run by this individual or developed by this individual is the roadmap for the future. there's a lot that Americans will find surprising about that or maybe not surprising because he's lost the ability to surprise it because he keeps on kind of pushing that shock barrier further and further out in the conversation with those military leaders

I don't think that it's not a trivial matter to talk about putting troops into American cities. We talked about using it as training, that sort of thing. But this is unprecedented territory. It's unprecedented to have that degree of effort by the chief executive, the commander-in-chief of the military, to sit people in a room and to try to demand from them a level of not just acquiescence, but fawning. He wanted their applause. He wanted them to understand that if they didn't show enough affection for his approach, that their careers could be on the line. So there are so many troubling things that he's done.

It's hard to single one out, but I think he crossed a different and important line in talking about the way that he intends to use the military might. And it doesn't feel to me as though this is just hypothetical. He's been putting those ICE troops into cities and conducting themselves in a way that really violates this idea of any kind of due process. They've acknowledged that they're spotting people and accosting them based on how they look. They're doing racial profiling, looking for people who they think might be illegally in the country.

And I've lost the ability to be surprised by how many Americans sort of acquiesce to this or feel like there's nothing they can do. But I think we're heading into very different territory right now. I've lost the ability to determine whether there is a line that he crosses that's going to make any difference at all. Because, you know, it's the classic sort of one or two-day wonders. And then he moves on to something else, crashes through another barrier,

and focus moves to that. But it's a, you know, America startles me every day now in terms of watching what they do. I mean, we have enough things in our country to, you know, to challenges every once in a while in terms of our politics and the administrations that help govern the country. But this is like, it's unbelievable some of the stuff that we see witnessing there. Chantelle? And so if you are so openly willing to send troops, your armed forces against your own citizens, to occupy cities that actually don't vote for you, I don't know what that does to the quiet conviction of many Canadians that the 51st state thing will never move beyond those once in a while sentences that the others. because if you're willing to cross that line, you're going after your own citizens.

At what point do you decide that you're going across the border of that friendly neighbor? That's stuff you want. I was reading this week, and I'm not taking it to be necessarily as serious as it was portrayed in the story, but the notion that there would be some administration officials who would be flirting with the Alberta's government and clearly turning it into an annexation movement. It's not that you want to secede from Canada and create your own country. It's you want to join the other country. To that, I say, you've forgotten something. If that were presented to Albertans, I am convinced that a majority would say are not voting to go and become a U.S. state. That's not going to

happen. But when you look at all those lines being broken, you cannot dismiss the thought that worse things could happen and that our so-called certainties, this could never happen. It's just talk. Should be okay, but let's not take them to the bank. Let's always keep an eye on possibilities because so far, did you ever think that you were going to be discussing Donald Trump sending the army to Boston and New York even a year ago

when he was about to be reelected. You didn't. So let's see what we talk about in a year. This is scary stuff and the way you're, you know, the possibilities that you're putting out there, you know, crossing our border.

You know, you're very cautious, Chantal, you always have been about things you say, and for that to come out of your mouth today is, you know, I find troubling. You know, I saw it in some of the letters this week. The question of the week this week on the bridge was, where are you on gun control in Canada, given the various things that have happened? And there were a lot of thoughtful comments, but included in them, in the hundred or so comments I got, where a couple had said, we need our guns in case they come across the border. You know, I'm struck by the degree to which we're not that polarized around our own domestic politics.

We are to some degree, and I don't mean to minimize that. But I am shocked still when I see numbers like I'm seeing in this survey now. So we got about 80% who say it's really troubling to watch what's happening in the United States. very large majority, people saying, I hardly recognize the United States anymore. Again, we'll put some of these numbers out in the next couple of days. But at the same time, I get almost 30% saying we need a Trump-like leader in Canada. I get 25 or so saying Trump is the greatest leader that America has ever had. And I think that what that always reminds me up, and I see it especially among

younger people, that these numbers tend to be a little bit elevated among younger people, is that a lot of this doesn't feel so new and different because Trump and the Trump effect has been, if you're 25, because Trump and the Trump effect has been upon us now for the better part of 10 years. And the three of us look at this from a longer term perspective and say it's shocking, it's extremely unusual. It's unprecedented, and we don't see any chance that it's a good thing. But because everybody doesn't consume the same media, because everybody doesn't have the same sense of life experience

or the same sense of the history of how these things go, I just think that we need to be really aware that talking about this is important, talking about it in a way that make sure that people don't mistake what he's doing for legitimate actions of a democratic leader because they aren't that. And it isn't a question of young people who feel that way might be right and we should be attended to that. I don't believe that. I think we have to engage in that discussion. All right. I got less than 30 seconds, Chantal, if you want to tie the nod on this. Yeah, just to note that, yes, people don't consume the same media. But when you're

look at the Canadian media, we do not have a Fox News promoting media that is attended by a lot of Canadians. So I think it's like the youth support for sovereignty. Part of it is every generation, you need to be contrarian. And we'll leave it at that for this week. Great to hear from Chantal in Banffelbert today, Bruce in his castle. I'm here in a little Toronto. All right, that's it for this week. Next week, we'll start off on Monday with Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School, the University of Toronto,

and her thoughts on the international situation. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in seven days. Take care of you guys.