The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Has Mark Carney Had It With U.S. Trade Tactics and Insults?

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

The Prime Minister keeps his cool in public, but he's said to sometimes lose that cool in private. This week we saw him come close to bluntly telling the Americans to back off with the demands and get with the program on trade talks. That's just one of the things up for some Good Talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson this week. 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 Bruce Anderson and Chantelle-A-Barre. It is your Friday Good Talk. And as we like to say, there's always lots to talk about. And there is again this week. So why don't I get started? We're going to start. You know, the word itself sounds boring to me, Kuzma, Canada, U.S., Mexico.

It's the trade talks or the trade negotiations or the trade. discussions, whatever you want to call them. Here's my problem, because there are all kinds of threats and insults and demands, you know, going mainly from south to north in these discussions, but not solely south to north. I'm trying to decide because we don't really know if they've even started. It's not like there's going to be a, you know, a gun go off and saying, okay, they're at it. We don't know. So how much attention should we be giving to all the back and force that seem to be going on here that have reached the heights?

You know, the prime minister even was kind of into it this week in terms of, I mean, we'll get to it later, but in the sense that enough's enough. What do you, Bruce, why don't you start us on this? How much attention should we be playing, they're paying? to the kind of stuff that's going on right now. Well, let me just start by saying, as I say to you in a note, Peter, I have a bit of a chest cold today. So if I, you know, stop at some point in Mike, Mike,

so that you don't have to listen to too much hacking. More Chantal time is in store for people this morning. And they'll be happy. It'll make the weekend work better. Look, I mean, people should pay attention to what they want to pay attention to. But if you ask me whether or not that most of this is real and meaningful, I would say not really. I think those who want to prosecute the government, whose job it is to criticize the government, hold the government to account. So I'm not being critical in saying that.

They have, you know, every right to say, we want to know more. People on the government side are also right to say, we're only going to say what is in the country's interests. and then the critics say you need to tell us exactly what, you know, is happening in the conversations and the negotiations and the government's position, I think, is no, you know, we can understand that that might be frustrating for people and we might take some political scar tissue for it. But describing what's actually been going on is, again, not in the country's interest because it's clearly not a simple, good faith.

negotiation of let's open up the hood of Kusma, let's tweak some things, let's have, you know, some back and forth. Trump's administration decided a long time ago that the way that they were going to negotiate would be through this performative, insults, bullying, not just to us, but to other countries as well. And so for me, it is, it is, it's disappointing for me to watch Pierre Poliev stand in front of a microphone every day and pretend that it's simple. If only Mark Carney would do what I would do right now.

I understand why he's doing that. I understand why the media have to play that out. But it isn't honest. It isn't something that is going to be persuasive to most people, but it isn't honest. It doesn't make sense in the circumstances in which we are. I think that the U.S. administration has a list of irritants, the Canadian government has some.

They've exchanged ideas about them over the months. And at a given point in time, I'm not sure exactly when that's going to be. It's inevitable that the Kuzma process will formally start. And those conversations will happen. Now, I think some people are anxious because they have economic pressures. I get that. But it still, I think, is the case that government, can't negotiate in public, doesn't want to sort of agree to some concessions only to get to

the table and have the Americans say, thank you for those concessions. We want some more. And so it's a bit of a phony war playing out in the Canadian political scrums. Everybody doing what they're entitled to do. So I'm not criticizing that. I just think it's, yeah, it's a lot of air and doesn't mean that much. Shonto. Well, does anybody remember fentanyl and how we're mandating the U.S. with it and that's why there are tariffs? Does Donald Trump even remember fentanyl, which we never hear about? Or does he remember that he negotiated the deal that he's seeking to unravel?

That bad deal was negotiated by him. Best deal ever. So when you look at all of these, you kind of think if you're a normal common sense, person, not one who lives in the world of question period. And I think a majority of Canadians are in that environment. What is, why would we be negotiating with an administration whose main message has been that we see this negotiation as a win-lose proposition. We win if you lose. Most negotiations have to be win-win. And at this point, it is, it's, it's, like you're going to play strip poker, my high school memories, but you are asked to show up

in a bathing suit against people who are dressed for winter. Yeah, right, you're going to do well. You're bound to lose a few hands, so not very careful of you if that's what you're engaged in. I believe the Prime Minister, the Premier of Ontario, the Premier of Quebec, the Premier of BC are on solid public opinion ground at this point. And they're... sense that concessions are not in order. I notice also when I say these three provinces that the federal provincial front is holding. I take with Bruce says about Pierre Paulyev, but I'm not sure it matters in the larger scheme of things to most Canadians. Why do I say that? Because this week they watched Aaron O'Toole, Mr. Paulyev's predecessor, Jean Charray,

former Premier, former Conservative Leader, former leadership candidate, against Pia Pia Pia Pia and Liza Raid joined the Canada U.S. Council that Mark Kearney is put together. And none of them said that they were showing up to kind of set the Prime Minister and the government straight on how to go about this. On the contrary, and when some conservatives attacked Erinotou or Liza Raid for joining, it was Jason Kenney who went on social media to say, what the hell do you think you're doing? This is about Canada. This council, if I can just go on for a couple of minutes on it

and give my friend Bruce time to get his voice back from coffee. This council is a rare strategy used by Justin Trudeau that Mark Carney has now made his own. But the main purpose of this council, and the lead up to if we ever get to serious negotiations, and I'm not assuming we will, is to kind of have a consensus on a Canadian position, i.

no one inside that tent shooting at each other. And whoever wants to shoot from outside, Pierre Puellev, that is you, I'm thinking about shooting at people who are identified with his own movement, the same is true of unions. But there are other usefulness collectively is to be the political caution

to Mark Carney in the sense that whatever the outcome, he will want to have these people on board. And if they are on board, as a similar group was with Justin Trudeau's renegotiation, then it provides the government with very useful political cover, i.e., this will not be a liberal outcome. It's going to be a Canadian outcome. And I think on that,

Piapl-Palliev is playing the very, very few chips that he has compared to the prime minister. Okay, we'll get to the conservatives and Pahliav in particular in a minute, but I want to stay on, I mean, the main players at the table, obviously, are the Canadian government and the U.S. government, as they are currently politically striped. I just sensed this week, the stuff offstage was at a new level of back and forth, including, you know, I found the prime minister was basically, I've had enough, you know,

you're not going to set the details on how this is done. You're not going to demand this or that or the other thing for us from us. He even took a shot at Polyev, he was walking up the stairs one day saying, you know, what have you ever negotiated? My question is, is it getting to him or is it getting to him or is, he decided, I'm not going to take this anymore. What do we think? Well, both is both not possible that it's getting to him,

but at the same point, he has decided that he's not going to take this anymore. I know you want to go back to the YouTube address at some point, but once you make a YouTube address where your role model is a general that actually took over Detroit, but also died on the battlefield, by the way, in the War of 1840. It is quite an example to use in the lead up to this conversation. So I think the YouTube tone set the tone for what happened over the rest of the week, and probably because of provocation from the US side late last week, Howard Lathnick calling our strategy dumb. I think someone now is calling Mark Carney a baby.

Oh, wow, we are in a school yard here. Yeah, I don't think that it's getting to him. I think that part of what's going on is that, you know, springtime in Ottawa, everybody comes to town. There's a lot of political dynamics with the by-elections and the floor crossings. And so people are trying to, you know, in the narrow confines of the House of Commons, it's like playoff hockey is started. The intensity is there. And so everybody sort of raises the intensity of their game a little bit. But it doesn't, outside the House of Commons, for the government anyway, the normal work that's been going on continues to pace.

They're planning an investor summit of the biggest pools of capital in the world for September in Toronto. They're continuing to work on developing intel around how best to approach the Canada-U.S. trade thing. and I want to add one feature of that council to the two that Chantal highlighted, which I think we're absolutely right. But the third one is that council includes a number of people who are CEOs of major companies. And one of the things that they can do is give you real-time feedback on not the theory of how a change might work, but in practice, could you live with this? Could this work for you?

what if we try this instead? And sometimes the representatives of a collective, a broader group of businesses or a societal group, can't really do that. They don't have access to the same level of information. And so I think it's quite a useful counsel from that standpoint because the dynamics in the supply chains were already going to be complicated enough,

but now they're complicated by the Iran war and the uncertainty about U.S. politics, the likelihood that there will be a change in the political structure in the midterms. Trump is now 17 and a half points underwater in terms of his favorability. Those are super bad numbers. And all he seems to be doing right now is just going crazy on the Republicans who, you know, were his water carriers on social media. I think there's a good number of things that are that are kind of working, even though they look messy, and even though you can always see the things, the insults. I watched the exchange between Alan Lutnik and Senator Gene Shehien from New Hampshire.

A lot of people, I think, saw that. It was a pretty instructive thing, partly because Lutnik tried his usual bombast, but she just gave it to him with a two by four and just said, explain to me why it. insulting this country that brings so much tourism, that does so much cross-border business. How is that in the interest of the people of my state? And he did not have an answer for that. And his braggadocio is wearing thin. And you can get this sense that, again, in the first year, Trump was accumulating political capital. And he could say, the rest of the world is leaching off America.

and people go, yeah, that's probably right. And some people go, yeah, that's absolutely right. I think right now the mood in America is turning more towards, could we turn down the volume? Could we get back towards something that feels a little bit more normalized and a little bit less like every day he creates some new uncertainty, some new frailty potentially in the future of America? Okay. Lutnik did the Canada sucks thing last week, too. quite frankly I find the guy

just I think he's toast I think he's done he's probably on the short list that Trump's got and moving cabinet secretary's out he's stuck in the Epstein thing that keeps popping up popped up again for him again yesterday

yesterday yeah you know let me just close this out with I'm an interested Canadian I'm asking this on those behalf of those interests of Canadians who are worried about their jobs, their future, their kids' jobs, as a result of Kuzma. What should I pay attention to, given what we know and what we don't know about these negotiations?

Chantelle? You should pay attention to the fact that the conflict in Iran is kind of making it harder to get aluminum to markets, and that is a problem for the U.S. The latest proposal to Canada on aluminum was we are going to tweak some of those tariffs if you promised to set up shop in the U.S., which, by the way, is virtually impossible. Why? Because one, you need a lot of electricity for this to pay off. You need to be able to get cheap electricity. It's much nicer to sell high-priced electricity to data centers and the likes.

But that is hurting. I saw this morning fertilizer is becoming a major, major issue for the agriculture sector in the U.S. And now you have statements coming out of the administration, basically linking Canada with countries hostile to the United States as unsafe supply sources. Well, that just tells you that someone is hurting. And the list goes on. So Guzma, NAFTA, and the FTE were never about the U.S. liking us and treating us as a good charity case. Your favorite charity is Canada. And so the one sliver of hope is that pressure is undoubtedly going to grow on Congress, on the president, coming from inside the United States.

it was always the case that this was going to happen because it does happen that the U.S. does need a lot of the stuff that we make and they need it more because of Iran than they did in the past. So there is no quick solution. Mark Carney came to office believing that he could resolve this quickly by offering concessions and then moving on from the tariff war. That did not happen. At this point, to your point on Letnik, you've got. people like him arguing that we need to give something to get the president's attention.

That means they need to show a win to keep their jobs. But to believe that anyone in this country has so much control over the issue, such magic solution that we can resolve this tomorrow, now that's not going to happen. And sadly, it will cost jobs. But so far, the pain is being mitigated, and the Iran war is actually an asset rather than, a liability from the Canadian perspective.

The last word on this, Bruce? Same as Chantelle. I would be paying attention to all of the business and political voices in America that are saying we're hurting here. And these tariffs are not helping. And we want a normalized trade relationship. I think those voices are growing.

And they'll be the thing that in addition to, well, they'll be the principal thing that drives the Americans to a discussion that feels less about the kind of the bullying and a PACs, like America, the champion of the North American hemisphere, but something that works for their economy because they, you know, Trump needs another peace prize or he needs another trade deal. At some point, he's got to start putting some wins as he describes them on the board. Right now, it's a series of adventures that look like losses.

You know, well, and certainly tariffs do look like a loss. I mean, you even hear Republicans talking about that now. Can you see a path where Trump could reverse his terrorist positions? Or is that impossible to consider? Oh, Trump would be able, would be, could potentially do anything and decide that this is the victory of all victories. I mean, there is no expectation on my part that there's a rational line that goes through any of this. It's entirely narcissistic and random somewhat and driven by his temperamental nature, his desire to have flattery.

And so if he ever felt like he was at the point where people were saying, you screwed this up, he would say, he would get out in front of that and say, I've solved this now. And Canada buckled or, you know, that sort of thing. I think we need to be prepared for the fact that the way this probably ends is him saying we bent to his will to some degree and kind of live with his rhetoric on it because I think that's the thing that matters to him. Okay. Let's take our first break and come back and we'll deal with some of the things that are going on inside the Conservative Party right now because I think there's some interesting. interesting stuff happening. We'll do that right after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Friday episode of Good Talk, of course, with Bruce Anderson and Chantel Ebert. Bruce is battling a bit of a chest cold this week. But it's not sounded bad. It's okay. But wear a mask, okay? All right. You're listening on Sirius X-M Channel 167 Canada Talks. You're on your favorite podcast. or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have you with us. The Conservatives, there seem to be hints as the week ends that Mr. Polyev may well have been listening to a good talk over the past months where the suggestion has been from both of you that he's got to do something

about his so-called shadow cabinet. You need some new faces, faces that Canadians would see more often and just might find interesting and attractive in some fashion. There seem to be hints that he's about to do that. What are you hearing on that front, Chantel, and how badly is it needed? Oh, it's been needed for a while, but I'll be more careful

than we were over the course of the Joe Rogan interview and the change in tone. And why do I say that? Because, yes, Mr. Palliev has now created task forces inside his own caucus to deal with Canada-Asia relations and a strategy for a Canada-Asia trade approach, but also on property rights, which he happened to pick a BC MP4,

no accident there. There's a huge debate going on in BC as a result of a court ruling on indigenous rights and under it. But I will believe this. that he wants to showcase his MPs more when he shows up in question period and does not take all of the questions or does not ask them to ask all of the same question.

Because the place where you see opposition MPs in action most is not when he does a news conference and shows you an MP that he is not in the past. It is when those MPs are allowed to extend their wings in the House of Commons. and the first stage for that is question period. And what has been happening is that Mr. Poilev, the question period gets attention

when the prime minister and the leader of the opposition face off. That is totally true. But it doesn't work to showcase your caucus on the time in the week or times in the week if the prime minister Dane's going twice. Mark Carney has not been big on going to QP. If you take over as leader all of the questions, You're basically doing one thing with one hand and withdrawing it with the other.

We have not seen much of Michael Chung, the foreign affairs critic for Mr. Ploulyev, over the years he is an enabled person who can advance issues and who was put on mute over some debates that he, where he should have been from the center, the one about Ukraine that took place some time ago is a case in point. So all of which is to say, we'll see is what I do now with Mr. Poliev does because I was speaking about my short attention span before we went to air. His is even shorter than mine at this point. So we'll see how long that lasts.

All right. Bruce. Yeah, I think that Mr. Poliyev has a few problems. And I don't, I get the sense as John Iverson wrote that it was an interesting piece that people should look it up for, look it up. It's on substack. Andrew shear. You should mention that John writes for the National Post. For 28 years.

Yeah. For 28 years. Yeah. And he was reacting. I hadn't realized he'd been there that long. Anyway, you know, a paper which is partial to the conservatives. Super partial to the conservatives. No, that's not true.

I read this week from conservatives that's a liberal paper. This is it. This is the thing that John was responding to is Andrew Shear saying, problem is the post media just, you know, tilt the scales in favor of the liberals. And I think that was too much for John, who is a fairly conservative guy to take. And so he wrote an interesting piece. And he basically said, I think we can conclude that the experiment in trying to work the mainstream is over, that they've decided that it isn't working or he can't sustain it. And I think it did not last long.

It did not last very long. I think the challenge that Polyev has, and I don't think the liberals will be in any hurry to see him change, is that he built his reputation as a divisive, trenchant, puncher, and now we're in a time when people don't want that. They want a uniter. So that's a big problem right there. The second thing is he positions himself as the conservative. answer. But for a lot of conservatives, Mark Carney is conservative enough. And so if you want to win the vote as the best conservative solution provider, you're in a competition with the prime minister on that. And your ideas have to pass the test of not only being better than Carney's

ideas, more conservative maybe, but also presented in a way that looks like you can win support from the public. Those are all really hard things for him to do at this moment in time. Who knows what the world will feel like a year from now? And then the third thing that he's doing, which is completely baffling, even to people in his own caucus, is he's saying, Mark Carney, stupid, and I'm smart. And he's badly educated. And I am well educated. And I think yesterday he used the, he sort of said my education is in the ability to predict the future. Yeah. And I thought, well, that's not an education.

That's some sort of fairy tale. And maybe he was right about some things. And maybe Mark Carney was wrong about some things. But it doesn't sufficiently answer that why did you say he was badly educated? Why do you seem to want to keep getting up and say, this guy seems stupid and listen to me because I'm smarter than him. I don't think that works at all. I think every time he does that,

it's like some Looney Tunes cartoon where one of the characters is just like banging themselves in the head over and over and over again. So, and surrounded by people like Andrew Shearer just continues that cycle. And I don't know that he's going to change, but absolutely, Chantel's right that he should and should have. some time ago. Mr. Puev and his team, the National Post example is a public example in the sense that we were all witnessed to it. The sudden news that the Post is a liberal media that is on the hook for funds from the federal government so they have to lick Mark Kearney's boots.

Ah, well, that's a new concept every morning when I click on their website. I don't notice that bootlicking that much. But it's also happening in private. At this week's caucus meeting, part of the time that Mr. Puelly have used was to shoot at people who were otherwise self-identified as conservatives. And it brought back when I heard the stories about what had happened at caucus. It reminded me of Brian Maroney and you guys will remember towards the end. He would spend significant time ranting against Lucien Bouchard and predicting. that Lucien Bouchard's marriage was going down the drain or that Lucien Bouchard was about to leave

to go on to private sector money. And when leaders are at that point where they are shooting inside in the tent, they look like they're on the defensive to their own members. It does not build trust and confidence within caucus. It does the opposite. Caucus members thinking, let's bite our time, but at some point we will cut this guy loose. And I suspect that, that there is a lot of that possibility increasingly inside caucus, and Mr. Palliev knows it, which is why he will keep Andrew Shear next to him, because he is the last person who would ever drop him. The Dapu Kualev goes down, Andrew Shear goes down.

Okay. That's a good point. All right. I mean, just like the, you know, the Kuzma question, you know, we'll see what the future brings. We'll see what changes, if any, that Mr. Polyev makes within his caucus and the appointments of those who are going to be, I guess, on his front bench in terms of the debates that are still to come and whether he changes his strategy in question period for. Peter, if I can, though, like one of the things that he should do is he should go and campaign for federalism in Alberta. he and Stephen Harper should do that and Jason Kenny should do that. It's not, you know what I see.

Should Mark Carney be doing more of them? Yeah, I think so, but I think that people, but the main event there is going to be, there's 17% of Albertans in my polling anyway, who are hard separatists. They're mostly rural. They're 88% United Conservatives. party voters or something like 76% conservative party voters. These are people who have a

fixed firm view. It's grievance oriented for sure. They're never going to be convinced. The 88% of them think it would be good for Alberta's economy and good for their own economic interests if Alberta is separated. Forget about that 17% in terms of trying to sway public opinion. There's another 12% who typically are young, urban and suburban people. And they don't necessarily like the idea of separation, but they're struggling with the economy. And they're not sure whether or not the economy for them would be better or worse under separatism. That's the group where an Alberta politician talking about the Alberta economy and the risks to it and the benefits to it of holding the country together. That's where the bulk of that work has to be.

and the trusted voices typically are for that 12%. Yes, the prime minister has some trust, but these are people who mostly still vote conservative. They consider themselves on the kind of the center or the right, center right of the spectrum. And so Harper is a big name for them. Polyev is a big name for them. Danielle Smith is.

And if it just becomes, you know, too many federal liberals going in there, I think that it creates a different dynamic and not a particularly helpful. Okay, I know that Chantal wants to... I can see it. I see something on this, but let me just preface Chantel's remarks by reading a couple of lines out of

Don Braids' column this morning in the Calgary Herald. Because yesterday, Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, had a kind of news conference slash update on where things stood in terms of a referendum this fall, and it's still looking like it'll... It's not official yet, It's still looking like October 19th.

Still a little iffy on what the question's actually going to be. Let me just read what he says to end this column yesterday. A huge number of Albertans are saying they want a vote on Alberta's future in Canada. Smith and Company now realize they must get it. She was asked why the government doesn't avoid the complications by simply putting a government-sponsored independence question on the ballot. Well, because my position is that we should remain in Canada, she responded. That's the position of our government.

We believe we should assert sovereignty within a united Canada. This has become a complicated mess with rule changes, new laws, and a general impression that the UCP, that's her party, cuddles the separatists. Caudels the separatists, sorry. Coincidentally, I asked separatist leader Jeffrey Rath yesterday, this is Don Brayde talking, if he considers forming a separatist party

like the Pateekebecoi in Quebec. We've already got one, he said. The United Conservative Party, that's Daniel Smith's party, and kind of aligns with some of the things that Bruce was talking about. The pro-Canada referendum question won't be the worst thing

for Danielle Smith, concludes John Brade. Chantelle. Okay, I'm not going to try to follow the logic of the separatist leader of Alberta. Right. Because if you're serious about wanting to make your province a country, you should be running on that ticket in a general election

and electing governments. And if you're not, it's possible that it's because you can't with the numbers that Bruce showed. So you're much better off holding hostage, the ruling party that includes all conservatives in Alberta. That being said, I would just mention that Jason Kenney has been a voice for federalism already in Alberta. And I do believe that Stephen Harper, if and when he decides to wait in, will be more efficient than Pierre Puehliev. But if the government of Alberta, my understanding from this distance,

Daniel Smith wants to ask almost as many as ten questions, in that plebiscite, many of them dealing with constitutional change that she has built no support for in other provinces. And that just sound like if you want to vent about the federal government, do not vote for separation. Do not vote yes, vote yes to the other questions. And it will be a message to the federal government. That makes the exercise not terribly serious. Why? Because if you're going to ask questions about issues like that, you should be able to be able.

to have a conversation about them, a discussion of what they mean and what they entail. And when you ask that many questions, that can't happen. As for putting a question on a government-sponsored question on the political future of the province, if Premier Smith does not want to be asking a question on separation, which to me makes total sense in the sense that if you sponsor as a government, a question, you should be on the yes side, then she could have used the other group that collected the necessary signatures

to ask, do you want to remain in Canada and campaign for the yes side? That question is available. It has passed all the tests that Alberta has put in place. So I agree with Don Brad, who I read regularly because he really has his finger on the pulse of the province, that this has become a hot mess. And so to your initial point, should Pierre Paulyev be campaigning,

I think both Mark Kearney and Pierre Paulyev are going to be waiting in troubled waters soon. At some point, this MOU with Alberta that Mark Carney signed off on last fall will have to result in something other than an agreement in principle. I don't know what that will result in. I understand that there are many points of disagreement still to be ironed out between the province on climate policy, but also on pipeline future. And there are significant political risks on whether, regardless of the outcome for Mark Kearni. But Pierre-Pol-Yev will also have a problem today that there is or is not a deal, i.e. if he goes, in Alberta in campaigns against the agreement by saying you didn't get enough, and this is Mark Carney promising you a half empty glass of almost nothing, he will look like he's basically

campaigning for sovereignty, for separation. And so while I get the point that he should be at some point in that arena, I don't think that now is the time. I think he should, he too should keep his powder dry. Mark Carney, because if he goes to Alberta, he's, he's, going to be asked rightly, where are you on this? Are you going or not to facilitate the pipeline? When is this happening? Where are those negotiations? And Pierre Palliard, being asked, do you think Mark Carney and Daniel Smith are onto something and probably feeling that he should say, no, I think that's not sufficient. So I think for now, the next chapter of the federal story on Alberta is going to be playing out on Parliament Hill and on a larger national

stage. You know, I ask the question because, you know, listen, there are a lot of balls in the air right now for everyone in terms of what issue to grab onto and what to say about it. But this one, you know, we've got a track record. I mean, you know, Sean Tellier wrote a book on the 95 situation. You know, and it's generally felt that the Federalist side kind of dropped the ball initially, initially on this by not taking it seriously enough, thinking that it was in the back. You're talking about the federal prime minister who was wildly unpopular in Quebec and with a track record. Right.

But saying is that person who was actually damaging to the federalist cause. We're in a different completely different environment. I understand that. Okay, I'll give you an example. Imagine that Mark Carney tomorrow starts coming to Quebec to lecture Quebecers on sovereignty. on the eve of a provincial election. Does he really want to help the PQ become government? Because if he does that, that is what happens.

He do not, and Albertans do not need lectures from federal liberals on how to handle their own affairs. And that is fact. Go ahead, Peter. I have some thoughts on this, but you were, I wanted to hear how you were going to finish that point. Well, you know, is it best for, and I'm not just talking about Mark Carney. I'm talking about those who believe Alberta should stay in the country. Right. Should they, should they, how involved should they be in this if it is heading towards an October 19th referendum?

Or should they stay away? They should get involved in it. But look, I think the part of what Chantal was saying is from my standpoint, whether you look at Alberta or Cabernard. back heading into the possibility of two referendums, there are some things that are similar. There are some things that are a little bit different. But both situations are different from prior referendums in this sense. The voters who are interested, like tempted by the idea of separation, not the committed separatists, but the voters who are kind of on the fence, in both provinces, they're young people. They're young, urban, suburban people. They're probably.

is the cost of living in the sense that the economy is not kind of working for them. And so their questions are not, what's a constitutional accommodation that my premier can negotiate with Ottawa? Their questions don't start because there's been a firebrand politician appealing to their aspiration for some sort of national sovereignty. Those were conditions that matter in 95 and in 1980. in Quebec. And they're part of the grievance scenario that created the 17% hard separatist number in Alberta.

But the swing voters want economic arguments. And the economic argument that Pure Paul Yev is making every day is we need a pipeline fast. We need more pipelines more quickly. So even if all he did was tour the province saying, look, do what you want to do, it's a, you know, if you get a question, it's a democracy. but my sense of what will help the Alberta economy is not to create a rupture with the provinces where pipelines have to go through

in order to deliver your resources to more markets. My observation is that the Alberta economy is more integrated with the economies of other parts of Canada than people might realize. Rally that economic argument, so that 12% in the middle go, you know what, this doesn't sound like a really good idea. if what I'm trying to get to is a place where there are more well-paying jobs and an oil industry

that can do more of what it wants to do. And add to that, the argument is a no-brainer, it's a lot harder to convince a separate country, i.e. BC and Canada, to allow a pipeline to go through its territory from the standpoint of a separate sovereign Alberta than it is part of the federation. But to your point about the last referendum, one of the things I heard a lot from federalists when I did the book was how the federal government engaged in the last referendum in Quebec on the terms that had allowed it to win in 1980, i.e. refighting the last war. That peril is just as present now. Thank you, Bruce, apparently it's out of stock, I'm fault. But I still have a box in my garage, I believe, of one of the versions. But there is that peril.

And I understand that people outside Quebec were spooked by what happened in that referendum. And now they're applying the principles of the last war, i.e., we should not be, we should be prepared. We should be engaging on this issue. But that, as Rose points out, we are in a different environment, the terms. of engagement are different. And to start lecturing or putting publicities for Canada

in Quebec or Alberta at this point would be probably one of the least productive. I think the PQ would probably say thank you for the contribution from the federal government. Yeah, I think that's... Not where the debate is at.

It's Quebec business voices that I think need to be heard. Small, medium, and large need to say look, this is not an answer the economic question. But Bruce, they don't need to, two-thirds of Quebecers want to vote no and want no referendum. Yeah. So. I'm just saying if and when there does need to be that debate.

Yeah, well, I don't think there will be. But two things. One, we're having an election, not a referendum in the fall. That's the Quebec thing. Two, a poll this week was really interesting. It showed that if the PQ dropped its promise of a referendum, 47% of Francophones would vote for the PQ and there would be a landslide Parts Kewikwa victory, which I don't think the PQ can do,

because if that happened, it sets in motion a different dynamic about the credibility of the leader. But if they don't, then it's a tightly fought election whose outcome I can't predict, and that could be a minority government of some sorts. And the leader did double down on having that record. Well, he doesn't have a choice.

The day that he walks away from this would be like Pierre Pueleev saying he's becoming a liberal and joining Mark Carney on the other side of the house, all credibility would be gone. Okay. Well, as they say in the military, the generals, you know, come to the table fighting the last war, which is never a good thing. So that point is taken. Okay, we're taking a final break.

Come back, one quick question to close things out. And we'll do that right after this. And we're back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantel, Peter, all here for you. I'm going to head south of the border again. Tomorrow night is a big night in Washington. It's the annual White House correspondence dinner.

It's kind of like the parliamentary press gallery dinner in Ottawa. I was not kind of like it is like, except there's a lot of attention placed on it. And there certainly will be this year because among other things, Donald Trump is going to be there. He's gone. He's going. going, or at least the last minute I checked. And this will be his first one since the infamous one where he was a private citizen and Obama basically roasted him back in the early 2000.

But here, here's the question, which all journalists in Washington are faces. I mean, this is a big night. It's a big social event. But this year, it's tainted by the fact that this administration. has crapped all over journalists, made journalists lives hard. You should watch the scrum yesterday of Trump and reporters where he just attacked a number of them.

Told a woman, she was a disgrace, a female reporter, went after a number of the male reporters, but he always does seem to target the female reporters in a condescending way. If you were a reporter in all, in Washington. I mean, many of them are trying to make a decision, even today, about whether or not they're going to go

because of this relationship between the administration, what it's done to a number of news agencies, including CBS of all places, the home of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Morley Safer. They're trying to decide whether we should go or not. what do you think about it's an interesting question right um i think they these things are at their best when incumbent politicians charm an audience by making fun of themselves that is the the moment that people really kind of go to hope to see i don't think trump has it in him we'll see if he

has the the instinct and can pull off making fun of himself it doesn't look like Like he has a lot of understanding of how to do that or an appetite for it is probably more like he's going to do some rambling, ranting version of why the media or the enemy of the people and certainly the enemy of him. So it'll be interesting to watch. I think he has done so much to dismantle, disarm, demonize news gathering and reporting. that I think it would be very legitimate for people to decide not to go. And that's probably what I would do if I was in that role. Some are considering if they don't go that they might get up and walk out if he uses the opportunity to attack the media. Chantelle doesn't look like she agrees on any of this.

No, I especially don't agree on the walkout because I have never believed that the parliamentary press or the White House Press Corp should be an actor and an act of news. I would go. I've never treated the gallery dinners or their equivalent as anything but work. This is not my Christmas party with Santa Claus showing up to give me stuff. It's something I wouldn't go to if I didn't do what I do for a living. So I would go because seeing things in real life is always more useful than watching them from a distance. But if I went, I certainly wouldn't walk out.

Because I am paid to watch people make fools of themselves, even when they hold high office. And to keep the mind that I have seen them in action. And I know that their lack of judgment is real. And that does influence my assessment of who they are and what they are. And that's what I'm paid to find out. Well, did you do, Pete? Well, I've been to a few of them. You know, I saw Reagan at the way does do dinner, saw Clinton, Bush, Obama.

I don't know what I'd do right now. I would probably leave my news organization before I'd walk out of the dinner, which is what you're seeing happen at CBS after they cratered and bent the knee and other places as well. Listen, I'm almost out of time. Less than a minute left. The mail is coming in by the truckload already because they want to know exactly what happened in those strip poker games. This trip poker games. My parents never found out that I even played.

And I don't even remember that I knew to play poker. Yeah, this is going to be the thing. I don't have the kind of face. Like the doodles, you know? The poker face thing is not my suit, so you can assume that I lost or walked away before I was too deep in losing. Well, we'll keep reading all these letters and emails and the demand that Chantel explained more on this question. And we'll deal with that in future weeks. Look, both of you have a great weekend.

and those of you in attendance by audience means right now, you have a great weekend as well. I'm on my way to Calgary for just a couple of hours and flying back later tonight. But filling in for Rick Mercer, who's had some health issues within his family, and I'll do that. So thanks to Bruce, thanks to Chantel.

Have a great weekend, everybody, and we'll talk again soon. Cheers. Take care, you guys. Bye.