The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk: How To Judge Carney's MAGA Line in New York

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

How do you MAGA - Make America Great Again? According to Mark Carney, the answer is, MCS, Make Canada Strong. That was part of the message the PM gave American business leaders in New York yesterday. Bruce and Chantal are here to discuss and put it all in context. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. And the bridge on Friday is Good Talk. That means Jean-Telle-Bear, Bruce Anderson, coming right up. And hello there, yes, it is Friday, and yes, it is good talk. And as always, lots to talk about. So here's the situation. The Prime Minister goes to New York yesterday.

He speaks to the Economic Club of New York, which is, that's a pretty heavy deal. whenever a Canadian Prime Minister speaks there, people listen, and they're very attentive to what's going on, and especially so given the current situation between Canada and the United States. So what was his message? Well, it was a long, not a long speech, but it was a speech that had a lot of things in it,

but it came down to this, at least for some people it came down to this. MAGA, Make America Great Again. those words came out of Mark Carney's mouth. And he said one of the ways to do that is MCS. He didn't use the initials, but what he was talking about was make Canada strong. Now, to some people that sounded like a bit of a fire cry from the rupture that he talked about between Canada and the U.S. But let's try and sort it out. What did it actually happen there yesterday?

What does it mean? Chantelle, why don't you start? So I'm going to start with the journalism aspect of this. I know we will move on to the substance. I was watching this from a distance, watching the headlines, and at some point I thought this almost sounds. Mark Carney actually said Canada Strong version of what I'm saying. Canada Strong will help make America great again.

And I thought, I know what I'm seeing here. So I've covered speeches. As a news reporter, you've covered speeches. It's one of the most boring assignments on the planet. It also means that you need to find a way to not just say he said, she said, and then he added, there are a version in French and English, he added, he pointed out, blah, blah, blah, blah. You need a lead and you find a sentence like that, and it's your instant lead. You've got at least, there was no real news, as in hard news in Mr. Carney's speech.

there were interesting things that we will get to, but it wasn't a breaking news story. So that sentence automatically jumps at you, and there is your lead. You are good to go. And basically, that's how this lead, which by 4 p.m., if you weren't paying attention, you might have thought that Mark Carney had signed up on Donald Trump's team

and was wearing that hat. which he wasn't. It's one way to catch attention. I think the sentence got more attention in Canada for that reason than it did in the US. And that is the history of Mark Carney's week in a way. He was speaking to one audience and trying to, I think, break out of the box of the supplicant coming to the US to say, please, please, save Cosmo.

We really need it. But he's speaking to two audiences. And the Canadian audience is paying attention to other things. So this morning, you've got the New York Times as one take on the speech. And the Canadian media, a large section of it, as a completely different take. Same speech, which to me was not the Davos speech. And it does mark an attempt at a position. in Canada for the upcoming talks with the U.S., but is not, in my mind at least, when I read it,

before all this coverage, I did not see that as a major break from whatever the Prime Minister has been setting for the past six months. Okay. Let me, you've raised a couple of things I want to get back at you on, but let's bring Bruce into this because, you know, one of the guys that was cheering on Mark Carney yesterday was Bruce's old friend Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador, who thought it was a great speech. Now, my guess is Bruce probably thought it was a pretty good speech, too. But the fact that the two of them are aligned after some of the things that Bruce has said about

Hoekstra and some of the things Hoekstra has said about Canada, I find fascinating. But you've said some things, too, but I still stand by the things that I've said. So I don't know if you've changed your view, but. Oh, yeah, no, I haven't changed my view. But it's always very interesting to hear what you. I think he's a disaster as a diplomat. So, but to go to your question, like, I'm really interested in the way that Chantal started talking about this because I think she pointed out something that is really relevant,

which is that news looks for a hook. And in today's world, a lot of people only consume the hook and get fixated on the debate about the hook. Was it a good idea to say it this way? Was it a bad idea? Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel worse? And even some of the stories that I was looking at today about this, they don't include the ability to click through and actually read the speech or to get more about the content. And I understand why news organizations don't want to drive

traffic off their sites. But that's an economic decision. In the end, the news consumer, unless they're looking for the content, the material content themselves, they might not know exactly what the prime minister said. They might only get locked in this constant elbows up, elbows down, Davos or deeper integration thing. And the truth is that, and Chantel finished, I think, on this point, is that Davos, which was about more resilience and independence and self-reliance and new trade arrangements and new partnerships, that can be true at the same time as what the prime minister was saying yesterday, which is deeper integration, uh, in key sectors. That's a good thing for both of our countries. Both of those things can be true, but I think sometimes the logic of the news

business makes it want to seem as though there's a contradiction. There's a, you know, there's a political mistake being made or something like that. Anyway, I didn't, I didn't see that in this speech. I do feel as I was reading the stories with that headline. what probably a lot of people do, which is that my Canadian DNA reacting to the experience of life under Donald Trump's watch is, it makes me want more ballistic messages. You know, I want that Canadian voice to sound angry, frustrated, annoyed at the apparent lack of knowledge in America about the relationship. and what it means to their economy, not just to ours. But that's not, you know, just because I will feel better if I hear that emotionally. It doesn't mean it's the best thing to do.

And it certainly doesn't mean it's what the prime minister's job. Because the prime minister's job is not to do the best performance of an angry Canadian prime minister. It's to get the best outcomes in the relationship with the United States. And so if he used language, which caught the attention of more, Americans because whether they're Trump voters or not, I think a lot of Americans do want America to be great again, whatever that means and it will mean different things to the non-Trump people as it does to the Trump people. So I don't think there's anything wrong about using language

that will make Americans pay more attention to what he's got to say. And then to go on and kind of understand not the nuance of it, but the substance of it, which is that these economies do work better, that we buy more automobiles from America, even though Trump keeps talking about why do we need Canadian automobiles? It's ridiculous that these facts aren't out there more. And so it's good for the prime minister to do that in my view. And if you use that language, so what's the downside? Are Democrats in the United States going to go, well, I guess Canada's gone mega,

so we better not renounce tariffs and we better kind of be hostile to Canada. They're not going to do that. They're going to understand what he was doing and the purpose of his comments and more importantly the substance of the argument he was making. Well, let me get to the substance of that argument because the question is, is the prime minister's position changing at all that we've witnessed over the last year? Or is it modified somewhat? Has there been changed? I mean, Chantelle, in your initial answer there, you said this wasn't Davos. Now, I don't think you were saying that it was opposite of Davos.

It just wasn't the Davos speech. But what about the substance? When you actually read what he says, you're suggesting there was no news in it. Nothing's changed. One point on Bruce's point about wanting bellicose statements from the prime minister, I think by and large, once you get past that, most Canadians want the prime minister to sound reasonable and intelligent.

rather than war mongering when he goes outside the country. And that is his brand. So he was on brand. I think it's a mix. It's evolution, for sure. We are getting close to some form of conversation on trade with the United States that is more formal than it has been to date. I never took Davos to mean we're going to replace the U.S.

and we're going to be forever doing without them. I always assume the position was that we could walk and chew gum. We've always done that. It's not new. We're doing more of the maybe chewing gum and less of the walking, if you want to see it that way. But we are not spitting out the gum. That's not what this is about, or we're not walking backwards.

We're hearing Sean tells a bit of break here. But what I found interesting is, so you're going in a negotiation that is framed as about saving Kuzma. And what was being said yesterday was not, you have to save Kuzma because you need it and we need it. It was we have a relationship that we can improve. And here is X, Y, and Z. I'm not even sure the word Kuzma was pronounced. that we can work on.

And here's why it's to both our advantage. These are no-brainers. The aluminum example, we know well in this country, but it is a fact of life that we have the aluminum, that they are not producing. And if they start trying to produce it, they're going to have shortfalls in electricity and problems with setting this up at a loss to them,

not at a loss to us. And I did think the speech had enough of the Canada is doing a lot of things on its own and more and more of them in it to stick to the Davos line. But my last point on the way we cover this and this headline, I was listening to Bruce and I was thinking back to the very many years when we covered the Constitution. And a colleague of mine once obtained about his own newspaper, and I'm not going to name either the colleague or the, the newspaper, but he said in my newspaper, there are only two headlines on this constitutional discussion. It's Canada saved or Canada doomed. You didn't say doomed, but we are on public radio. Children might be listening. So you can fill in what were they actually used. But that kind of really summed up how, and it does sum up, how we cover these things absent actual developments.

because yesterday, yes, interesting speech, et cetera, but we are where we were a week ago when it comes to actual things happening. We're not there yet. Can I just on that? I don't know if other people will find this conversation interesting, but I am really finding it interesting because for me, the development that happened was part of a continuum of steps that the prime minister is taking on behalf of the country to reach out to the international

investment community and the trade community and to deliver a message that's cogent and that's forward-looking and that's welcoming and inviting and bridge building to those players. And we know he's got an investor summit coming up in September in Toronto. And so the fact that this falls along that continuum of things that you would do if you wanted to try to rally investor and trade interest with Canada. I get the point that it, and I agree with the point, that it makes it less newsworthy because it's not new that he's trying to do this. But at the same time, it is a development.

It is, you know, going to the city where the biggest financial decisions in the world are made, taking a message that's about Canada that is different from the message that people would have heard for the last decade or so. and is timed for a moment in the political dynamic of both countries, where it could have more effect. And we won't be able to measure that effect in the room or in the 24 or 48 hours, but it doesn't mean that an effect wasn't had. And I'm not suggesting that it's the role of the journalist covering that story to try to unpack that. But I do think it is a development separate and apart from whether there was a news announcement in the speech. I was getting text messages from people who were closer to the liberal brain trusts than I would be.

And what struck them as a change or surprised them was not the MAGA sentence. It was the Fortress America notion. That, I agree, seems to fly on the face of we are expanding our horizons, because when you say Fortress, you're basically saying we're going to build more walls. At the same time as you've been telling people, we are going to fly out the window and fly further. And I do think he's going to have to reconcile that notion because for many people, it's counterintuitive to hear the words Fortress America from. the Canadian Prime Minister at the same time as you hear the other speech from the Canadian Prime Minister. And squaring that circle, I think, will require at least more explanations from the Prime Minister. I heard it especially in the context of the automotive sector.

I guess in my mind, that is really the fortress point is the rest of the world is moving quickly towards EVs. Trump's policies are undermining the North American auto sector, not just in Canada, but in the United States. And so the pitch to America that keeping our supply chains intact and getting ourselves back into the business of being competitive with what is happening in China and in other parts of the world, that's a for that financial marketplace. That should be a strong argument for them. They should be looking at it and saying this makes sense to us. So in that sense, you know, I think a lot of Americans are tempted potentially by Trump's idea of a bigger, stronger America. But in this context, I guess a fortress really is more, let's put some collective energy behind this sector that we built together over whatever it is, six decades.

and I'm glad he kind of pitches that as being in their interest, not just in ours. Okay. I agree with Chantel, by the way, that the aluminum argument that the prime minister used, which he's used a few other times now, is very strong and it's simple. I think he used the... And it's deliberate. If you need 10 Hoover dams worth of energy to replace the aluminum that you get from,

and where are you going to get that energy? Okay. Let me just before we close off this section, something struck me this week. I think it was Melanie Jolie who said it, but you kind of heard rumbles around in the last little while. That Carney and Trump talk a lot, talk a lot more than we might think,

talking whether it's on the phone or whether it's by text or email or whatever it is, that they are communicating, that they have a relationship that is not like the one we tend to think of over the last year. Do we know, A, if that's, well, I'm assuming it's true or Jolie wouldn't have said it, but has something happened in that relationship that these two guys have a better sense of each other

than they did a year ago? And can that have an impact on where this is heading? My short answer is not only do I not know, but given who we're talking about Donald Trump, I'm not going to venture very much inside this conversation, because I'm not sure that relationships with Donald Trump mean anything. They mean something until they mean nothing. So, but, and it is. not a substitute. In the end, this line comes back every time there is this story about the

breathless story about Mexico is going to make a deal without this. You hear someone in the Canadian government say, no, no, no, no, Mark Carney talks to Trump all the time. I saw a story that said Trump talks more to Mark Carney than to anyone else in the world. I don't know, but it's a good line. accomplishes anything or means anything, I can't really tell you. Bruce, do you want to take a run at this? What do you know? Well, if I were for me to second guess Melanie Shelley on this, I'm sure she's she's got more information about this than I would have. I think that, you know,

there's not really a lot of value in describing in great detail the relationship that the prime minister has with the president. I can see lots of of ways that that can go wrong, given this particular precedent. That wouldn't have been the case in the past. It would have been the opposite. But we are where we are, at least, you know, this is the individual in the White House. Having said that, I think there's value in her having done her part to set aside this notion that there's some great icy silence or hostility separating the two countries when it comes to the trade talks. I don't think that's true. And I think that it's part of the currency of how this is discussed that,

that, you know, there are people out there who say, well, the Americans are mad at Canada now, and they're kind of tired of Canada being reluctant to come to the table or make concessions before coming to the table or whatever it is. And I'm sure those things get said. But everything I hear is that those are some messages in a wild and chaotic democracy. that don't necessarily reflect the general orientation of the people who's work it is going to be to get to an arrangement with Canada, and I think we will at some point, nor do they necessarily reflect a relationship between these two individuals.

And as I said, I'm probably not going to go farther than what Melanie Scholleck said in describing what that is. Does the new, I'm sorry to chip away of this, but I'm trying to understand where something like that would come from. And I'm just wondering whether the new ambassador there makes a difference in this equation. Mark Wiseman seems to have, yeah, he was sitting there in that speech, not surprisingly, yesterday. He was sitting watching the prime minister. He seems to be already very much in the, you know, in the mode of dealing with the Americans,

as he should be as the ambassador, but on this bigger issue. I think he and Janice Chirat, our chief negotiator and Dominic Leblanc, are really closely tied together. The sense that I have is that this is a team that is in lockstep, and they're dealing with the right people. They're focused on understanding that there are differences in the conversation that the United States is having with Mexico from the one that has to be had with Canada. and I think they have a pretty good sense of what the points of contention are. And to Chantelle's point, I mean, I like the way she put it, that we're getting closer to the point where that is going to become a more structured, more deliberate discussion.

We don't know exactly when that's going to happen, but I think the prime minister said on many occasions, we're ready. And so I think it'll be on the other side to indicate that they're ready. Okay. Unless you have something to say on that, Chantal, we're going to move on. I'll just add that I don't think you'll ever read a story about a bromance between Donald Trump and Mark Carney. And if you did, it would be a bad day for Mark Carney in this country. So I have a relationship with Donald Trump.

It's like telling Bruce that he's. now on the same wavelength as Ambassador Oxtroth. That is not good for Bruce and Bruce's mind. It was worth the moment to say it, though. Okay, we've got to take our first break. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to Good Talk this Friday with Bruce Anderson and Chantelle-A-Bare. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Glad to have you with us. You're listening on Sirius XM. Channel 167, Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. As I said, we're glad to have you with us no matter how you're joining us.

You know, we've watched a lot of First Ministers conferences, premiers conferences over the years and some of the regional premier's conferences like the Atlanta Canada Premier's Conference, the Western Canada Premier's Conference. There was a moment this week, which I, you know, I'm not sure I can recall of, I'm sure they have been, but I can't recall one over all the many years I've watched them. Where at the Western Premier's Conference, the Premier of Manitoba, Wob Canoe, basically called the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, out on a factual issue. And this all refers to the referendum and the question of separation.

It only lasted a few seconds, but it was a moment, one that anybody sitting in that room or is watched it on television will not soon forget. What happened there? What do we think that moment symbolizes? Chantal? Well, a number of things. What the Webkin, who was saying, was a problem. about how he felt that Premier Smith had misrepresented the duty to consult First Nations on separation plans and her apparent attempt to say the people who were leading that movement had failed to consult.

Well, actually, what the court said was it was the government of Alberta's responsibility, as Webkin, who pointed out to consult the First Nations on its territory on something that is not of insignificant impact to First Nations in Alberta, their relationship with the Crown and to Canada. But what I found interesting, and you will remember all those conferences where indigenous leaders would stand up and say things that went along those lines to premiers. But this is the first time that we have a premier from the First Nations saying it to another Premier and it does make a difference. I think on substance, Webkinu was right and this misrepresentation has been ongoing for a while now.

There will be litigation around the duty to consult, but there is someone who knows more about this than me pointed out that since 1995 or the early 90s in the last referendum, there have been 40 court decisions that go the way of the duty to consult in a serious, substantial way, with degrees of, if not consent, some form of consensus going up as the stakes go up. So if you think separation is at the top of that pyramid, most of the courts would probably agree. So that told me two things. one when it comes from another premier, it's hard to ignore. The other thing is how important the native,

the indigenous consent issue has become since 1995. It's not a footnote anymore because of all those court decisions. But the other thing that I saw was you've watched those conferences when there were referendums coming in Quebec. And you would not have seen another premier attack the quote-unquote leader of the federalist forces in public like this. You wouldn't dress down Daniel Johnson, who was the liberal leader in the last referendum, or the liberal leader, Claude Ryan, in 1980.

Why? Because you would have felt that you were weakening the case of federalism by weakening the champion of federalism. So the leader of the no-camp usually got a pass on many statements from other premieres for that reason because they were leading the good fight. Clearly, when you looked at what happened at that conference, there is no perception on the part of the Premier of Manitoba and the Premier of British Columbia, both of them, NDP premiers, by the way, that Daniel Smith is the person leading the good fight in Alberta. They see her as the facilitator of the events that will be taking place in October in her province. They do not look to her as the person who will be actually

leading the fight for picking the Alberta remains and does not go down the path of a referendum on separation. That's a really different dynamics than what you would see in the same situation in Quebec. And finally, I did say the two were the NDP premiers. I was listening to an interview with a former premier, Jason Kenney, who rightly pointed out something that we tend to forget from the outside. The people you need to convince in Alberta to not go down that path are almost exclusively conservatives.

So they're not going to be swayed by people coming from the left, from the NDP, from the middle, from the progressive side of the checker board, according to Mr. Kenney. And I tend to agree with him. It will take conservative voices to convince soft-leaning conservative voters that they should not be going down the path of a referendum on sovereignty or on separation for Alberta. And on that score, I mean, no one needs Web Canoe or David E.B. To convince MDP voters in Alberta to vote no to that prospect, they're already determined to vote no. And that's why there are so many people, and this has come up on this program before, too,

they're waiting for Stephen Harper. They know where he stands on this issue, but they want to. hear him be much more vocal on it. Jason Kennedy is obviously vocal on it, but Jason Kennedy, Jason Kennedy's status within that province is difficult at best for him. But you don't, you don't shoot your most effective bullets before the battle starts. Yes, I agree. Those become fireworks. Why would you do that? Okay. Bruce, where are you on this?

Well, I love the way Bob Canoe calls balls and strikes. He's become not just the best at it among the premiers in my view. He stands above many that I can remember who I thought were also really good. He's just very, he sounds reasonable and he's blunt, and that combination is a bit rare. So the way that he interjected politely but bluntly. not just dented her credibility, but gave it a real rough going over. She's already vulnerable.

A lot of people who are looking at her are going, what exactly are you trying to do? Is it as cynical as it appears to be? Do you actually believe in anything? And he didn't say all of that, but he raised those questions again, which are already out there extensively. And she's in trouble in her party and she's in trouble in the province and she's in trouble

outside the province, all for reasons of her own doing as far as I'm concerned. I mean, one could say, well, you know, the electorate in Alberta is a bit ornery, sure. But, you know, leadership is about making some decisions. And the decisions that she's made, have made her situation worse. And her reaction, as I saw it yesterday, I'll finish on this point, was to sort of, you know, to the fact that Premier Canoe had taken her on like this was to say, well, you know, that's why we have courts because a politician can say one thing and another politician can have another thing. And this is the same person who basically said only a few weeks ago, I wish we didn't have courts and politicians could, I'm paraphrasing, but basically courts are the enemy of, politics and politics should prevail over what judges have to say. So she's incoherent on that point, as she is on many others.

Is she in a box that she can get out of, or is she? She created the box. I understand that. She created it. Can she, you know, can she get out of it? She should. But the clock is ticking and the process is unfolding. And so if she's going to take an off-ramp, she should get on with that.

No, the off-ramp came when the court issued that ruling about duty to consult. That was an off-ramp to say, okay, so we will pick up where the court has left us by appealing and by, in the meantime, seeing if we can fulfill that duty to consult, that basically would have pushed off, which he's been trying. to avoid would have pushed off the day of reckoning on this beyond the next Alberta provincial election and possibly would have endangered her leadership and the lead up to that election. You know, I think she's one of the conservatives and not all of them feel this way.

That's for sure. It's a schism, I think, within the conservative movement, but there are some who don't believe that there should be a duty to consult. There is. They don't like it, but they don't want to say that it shouldn't exist. they want to find ways to lessen its impact, to undermine it, to cause friction and division and some polarization about it, which isn't as honest as saying we just don't believe it should exist. And it would be better to have that honest debate, I think, for her as somebody

who says, we should kind of just have it out and put the question behind us, but that isn't what she's doing on any level. And by the way, on the duty to consult, if we were talking about a serious plan to create the country, which some in my neighborhood are. Since the last time we thought maybe we should do that, the United Nations has adopted the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous People. What does that mean? That it would be really, really hard for a new country to get international recognition in the UN without having fulfilled and probably secured consent via duty to consult from the First Nations on its territory. So this is not just some woke conversation that we're having.

It rests on fairly solid not only provincial but Supreme Court rulings and international law. And while it may be new under the sun, it's not going to fade in the sunset with people like Justin Trudeau retiring. It goes much beyond his appearance and disappearance from the scene. It's not an invention that was created just to play nice. It is not something that you can just cast aside. It doesn't really matter we're moving forward. Life is a lot more complicated than that. Okay.

We're going to take our final break and then we'll come back and spend a bit of time on the Stephen Giebaud's story. which reached yet another level in the past couple of days. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back, final segment of Good Talk for this week. Bruce, Chantal, Peter, all here with you. Let me tell a quick little story first, because all this comes down to sort of the situation,

even including what we talked about at the beginning of today's program, for Mark Carney. And the way he's handling things, the way he's perceived by the Canadian people. This story goes back for more than 10 years. I was back when I was working to CBC, I was over in London, and Mark Carney then was the Bank of England governor, and he'd agreed to do an interview.

So I went over to the Bank of England, great big building in downtown London with all kinds of, you know, tradition and pomp and pageantry attached to it. he takes, you know, we go to the office, the crew setting up, and he says, I want to show you, take you a little walkabout in the Bank of England, so we did, and, you know, it's fascinating. It included in the walkabout was the original office of the governor of the Bank of England that goes back, you know, decades, centuries.

And he pointed up into the, you know, towards the ceiling, where there was this, you know, look like a, you know, a wind pointer, you know, the weather scale up on the wall. And he pointed at it and he said, you know what that is. And I said, well, I know what it looks like. He says, well, it is, you know, one of those wind measurement formulas that is attached to the real one on top of the roof. I said, oh yeah, what's it doing in the office? And he said, well, it's kind of interesting because what would happen on big trading days

If the wind was bringing the ships down the Thames towards London, it would mean it was going to be a real busy day if you saw that. That's the way the wind was going. And if it was going the other way, you realized you were probably going to have a good lunch that day and spent some time because the ships weren't going to get in. So I thought, okay, that's interesting. And I've thought about it a lot since then thinking that while he didn't use it

because times have changed, he was aware of it. and I wonder how much he wishes he had one of those, you know, wind scales in his weather veins in his office today, because the wind is shifting on so many of these different stories that are impacting the decisions he has to make. This week, he lost Stephen Giebeau. It already lost him from the cabinet. Hebeau very upset about some of the climate policies that Mark Carney has, that he thought were different when he signed up to be a part of the Carney team, you know, last year, but haven't proven to be that way.

The wind has changed on some of those things. So this week, I mean, he left Cabinet a couple of weeks ago. This week he actually left the party and is leaving government. He's checking out of Parliament, or at least that seems to be the plan. what does has that effectively changed anything for Mark Carney

because he basically said it's great having you here good luck perhaps we'll see you some other time but it's not like Gebo is alone there's clearly some others within the liberal caucus maybe not a lot but certainly some who have similar feelings about the direction

things have taken on environmental policy Chantelle. Yes, there are. So to go first to the argument, as anything changed, Stephen Gilbo, over the course of many interviews this week, pointed out rightly, because I've checked that the liberal platform mentioned the environment and climate about 30 times. That's a year ago.

And that the word pipeline was nowhere in there. And there was a time not so long ago, when Mr. Carney told people like Mr. Gilboe face to face, that he wasn't going for pipelines. And that is not where we are today. So if you voted for Mark Carney, you and the environment mattered to you, in part, I'm not saying you wouldn't have compared to Pierre Puele.

But in part, you did so because of his environmental and climate credentials, which were and are real. What is followed is not what many voters concerned with climate or MPs who believe they had signed on for that does not match the rhetoric. It's not just that there have been setbacks, walkbacks on many aspects of the climate infrastructure put in place by the previous government. it's also in the narrative. I think I mentioned last week that Mark Carney has put out a discussion paper to find ways to shorten the time for approvals for major infrastructure projects from mines to pipelines to Idaho go down the list. But it was Stephen Gilboe who made the green argument on it by saying it's a good idea because some of the green projects that really matter are getting bogged down. in regulations when we should be approving them faster.

But the prime minister is not making the argument for the green side of what he is trying to achieve. It's always critical minerals, mines, pipelines, LNG, go down the list. Does it matter? Well, I can tell you that in this province, Mark Carney has taken a beating this week. I have seen zero editorial comment anywhere that said Mark Carney is right. The times have changed and Stephen Gilbo is just some lost tree hugger who was finally realized that he was wrong all the long and he should come home. Will that come with a price tag?

I can't tell you because when there will be in Quebec three by-elections late next fall. And those will be a real test of whether there's a bill to pay. then that bill will be compensated or increased by the result of the Quebec election. So there are too many things in motion to say possibly the next poll that Bruce does will show a softening of liberal support in Quebec. But it's too early to know. But for sure, here, and what people forget is that here, voters do not feel an attachment to the federal liberals in the way that maybe federal liberals feel in Ontario or Atlantic Canada, they have alternatives.

If they don't want Piapueev, which they don't. If you care about the environment, you're not going to want Piapwil, you can always protest by voting for the bloc or even the NDP. That's how the orange wave came about. So we'll see. But as he taken a hit here, yes. Does it help Daniel Smith, the sense that Carney is really different because Gilbo is left? Probably. The problem that Mark Carney has is that this referendum separation conversation is taking place at the same time in two provinces, Quebec and Alberta.

And what works well for Alberto's side of the debate is not great for the federalist side of the debates in Quebec. So we'll see. Bruce. Well, I don't know Stephen Gibo as long as Chantel and, you know. has, I'm sure, but I've known him for at least a decade. And I really like him. He's a very excellent advocate for the things that he believes in. He's a very ethical person. I think he's obviously had a strong commitment to his environmental agenda for much of his life. And so, you know, and I think the way that he has conducted himself in politics has been

has been quite positive for politics. He took an awful lot of heat. In the modern era of politics, he became a lightning rod, which means, as we know, horrible things are said about you online every day, all the time, probably threats that we don't even want to imagine.

And he stole your Don. And he contributed to a government that didn't always do the things, that he wanted and he managed to find a way to maintain his integrity. I mean, I'm sure he didn't expect or want the government to own the TMX pipeline under Justin Trudeau, just as he is not keen on the current government deciding that it is for a pipeline. What does it all mean? I mean, look, I think that the change in leadership happened at a time when there was a change in context.

leadership is about at the end, the best leadership is about making hard choices, not avoiding them. And if there's a hard choice here that the prime minister is making, it's two, it's really got two parts. One is to put a greater priority than have been put, as he would see it, on economic development and the pace of economic development, which means other priorities maybe are a little bit receding. But the second part of the, the argument, I think, that the prime minister is making. And it remains to be seen whether or not the price is paid. The question surrounds him in perpetuity or whether three years from now people come to a different conclusion. But I think the argument that he's making is that the

aspiration for climate action is the same. His view is that the policies that were in place were well intended, or perhaps well designed for the moment, but weren't in every case working. They weren't creating the progress that the politicians wanted to say that they were, that they weren't going to allow Canada to meet the targets that we had committed to.

And so his argument, I think, is, let me put in place some different policies with the same aspiration and let's give them a chance to work within the context of the economic policy changes that we're trying to make at the same time. I think Canadians will, by and large, say, let's let this play out a bit more to see whether or not we can believe that the environment is going to be more at risk under a Carney government, or that he's right, that his policies are going to achieve the kind of goals that people want, both from an economic standpoint and an environmental standpoint. It's really hard to make the case, though, when a government is putting out a discussion paper that would allow one to set aside on the ministerial decision, the endangered species sections of the environmental law in this country.

It's not as if Mark Carney is going to come up with a plan to reinvent an endangered species and saying, I'm replacing one policy by something better. I have found very little support for the notion that he is reconstructing a more sturdy climate policy infrastructure. I have found a lot of evidence from people who know better than me that he's actually dismantling the climate infrastructure. Some of those numbers that are going around about what Carthagos we will achieve as a result of the changes make Stephen Harper look like a green. climate warrior compared to the percentages that we're going to be achieved. And we are going to fall back. Let's talk in real world terms here. We are going to fall back among the Laggars amongst the G7 countries,

not as far down as the US, I guess, as for our climate policy. So that was my initial point. It's not as if the prime minister is saying, I'm going to offer you something better on climate. Even when he announces changes where he could see or present a silver lining for climate policy, he does not. And so what is the next to you asked about caucus? Me, I think that there are, yes, about a dozen MPs who are uncomfortable. I don't know them. I have not seen the letter that they sent to the Prime Minister last month worrying about these policies. But I understand that many of them could be from British Columbia.

And I think the next test of the level of discomfort will come when Alberta presents the pipeline project that it wants versus the realities in BC. And at that point, for instance, if Mark Carney were to sign on, who had a pipeline, line that goes through to the coast, the northwest coast of British Columbia, and in the process disposed with the tanker ban. I believe one that it would be impossible to secure the agreement of the current BC government, but also of the First Nations concerned. But I also believe that there might be BCMPs for that, who would then find themselves on the wrong side of a bridge too far on policy.

So it goes beyond, let's wait five, six years and see where we are. There are immediate deadlines. And I worry that Mark Kearney has positioned themselves in such a way with the calendar that he concluded with Daniel Smith, that he will have to say yes to whatever she puts forward or no on October 1st. And that vote is on October 19. So there are difficult passages to negotiate between now and them with an eye to what some of the voters in BC and Quebec

believed that they voted for, that they don't believe that they are getting at this point. Okay, Bruce, we're almost out of time. I can give you 30 seconds for a response. Well, I agree that it's very tricky, and I think that, but I don't have the same degree of worried about whether or not this Prime Minister cares about climate or the environment.

Okay. We'll leave it at that, but clearly this is something that has the potential of continuing to be an issue over this next little while. As if there aren't enough balls in the air right now, and there certainly are, this becomes another one. Thank you to Bruce. Thank you to Chantal. Great discussion this week, as always. Keep in mind that the buzz is out tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern time in your inbox.

If you have subscribed, there's no charge. It's free. And you can subscribe at national newswatch.com slash newsletter. We'll be back on Monday with Dr. Janice Stein and her regular Monday commentary on our changing world. And man, there's enough changing in that world, too, the big world. Okay. Thanks, Shantel. Thanks to Bruce.

Everybody, have a great weekend. Guys, go have to go. I say it, say it, say it. You can say it. Okay. Bye for now.