The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Is The White House Conducting Foreign Interference in Alberta?

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Alberta is at the centre of two major stories as the week ends -- Pierre Poilievre is in Calgary tonight waiting for his party's verdict on his leadership. Meanwhile Albertans who want out of Canada say they have the White House on their side and some of the things being said by Trump officials would seem to agree. Bruce and Chantal discuss both issues. 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. Your Friday Good Talk, Sean Tilly Bear, Bruce Anderson in the House. And lots to talk about, as always, on this day. We'll get to Calgary in a minute. Obviously, big story in Calgary with the vote for Pierre Pollyev, one way or the other tonight in the Leadership Review vote for the Conservative Party.

But I want to start elsewhere. You know, trust Jesse Ventura. Remember him? Former wrestler, former governor of Minnesota. He's on a podcast called the Spin Sisters podcast. And he was on last night. And he was saying, Minnesota should join Canada.

We should become the 11th province. And when his co-hosts were kind of laughing about it, he said, oh, I'm serious. I'm really serious. serious. I think we should. And I think we should start talking to Canada about this possibility. Now, this is interesting, of course, because it's been a week where the American officials in the White House, some senior cabinet ministers like Scott Besant, openly talking about Alberta and how Alberta should be considering the United States. Now, this is all, there have been other examples of

this this week. This is all taking some people aback. because it has the whiff of foreign interference on it. I want to know what you think. In the big picture about this kind of talk, the impact it has. I mean, we all expected, I think, after Davos, that there was going to be some thuds this week coming from south of the border. And there have been talk of more tariffs and, you know, decertifying Canadian aircraft manufacturers and various things.

what do we make of this issue though surrounding what appears to be foreign interference Chantelle Okay Let me just preface this by saying that Having covered a couple of referendums especially the last one It is not abnormal for diplomats from foreign countries to have conversations with people who are in independence movement, if only because they need to know what the lay of the land really is, know the players so that they can inform their governments.

And that was totally what the U.S. Embassy was doing at the time of the 1995 referendum, establishing links, trying to get in the thinking of sovereign-ist leaders, and eventually trying to figure out whether there would be a remand. as the result was close. That's totally normal work. There is no, and it doesn't qualify as actually interference. We are elsewhere on this score in the sense that it is one thing to gather information and get to know the players. And it is another thing for members of a foreign government to be openly saying, gee, wouldn't that be nice?

have this nice country north of us broke up and we got our hands on Alberta and its oil. The most vivid example of that kind of interference would go back to 1967, Expo 67, and French President de Gaulle showing up on the balcony of Montreal City Hall. You can tell that those of us who are Francophones know our history. I was barely a teenager then, but I remember hearing that speech from the cottage on the radio. And everyone who was old enough would remember that our parents just sat back and went, wow. And he said, vive le Quebec, live.

Hurry for free Quebec. The Canadian government immediately reacted and let Mr. DeGleu know that he should head home. That is what normally you do, which is not what happened this week when Scott Besant started musing about how interesting and how much the US has in common with Alberta. The US ambassador was not called in by the Foreign Affairs Minister to ask what exactly was going on. The only reason that the Premier of Alberta and the Prime Minister reacted was because, of questions asked by the media in a news conference.

But I have to say from all kinds of information I've been gathering and others for months, that this playing footsie with a section of the independence movement in Alberta on the part of people close to the administration predate the devil's speech. It's not something that is happening because we're punishing you because of the devil's speech. it has only become more open. And in part, it has become more open because some of the tenors of the independence movement in Alberta actually are interested in annexation.

The context is really different even from France. France never taught it would make Quebec a department of France, along with Maxique. It was more of a sympathy towards a French-speaking nation. But here we have people on both sides of the border thinking, wouldn't it be great to be Americans? I would think, and I'm going to stop there, that overall, these advances from the U.S. administration covered or openly, do more to hurt the cause of independence both in Alberta and Quebec, then they help. In Quebec, there is no way that Quebecers are thinking, well, if we voted yes, maybe we could join the US, that would be a worse case scenario than embracing Canada for the rest of everybody's lives.

And in Alberta, there are people who are thinking of voting yes to send the message to the federal government, but they are not interested in becoming part of America. and that can only make them think twice about whether they want to send a message that others in the movement will interpret as an opening of a door to become an American state. Okay, Bruce, where are you on this?

Well, I'm really thinking about that last point that Chantal made, because I, you know, I've been trying to find reasons to feel hopeful that some of these interventions by Americans will actually, quell or reduce the separatist instinct, but I tend to think it might have the opposite effect. And here's how I see it.

As I compare it to previous referendum, especially the Sovereignty Association referendum back in the day, you know, it seemed to me that what was happening with that question and with the kind of the mood around the sovereignists at that time in Quebec, is that they didn't want to say, look, vote with us. you hate Canada, vote with us if you want nothing to do with Canada, vote with us if you're kind of outraged at everything that is Canada. And I don't think that's, in effect, what they were saying was you don't have to hate Canada,

you can want to have an association with Canada. You can kind of love Canada too. You just are voting to say that you love Quebec more. That is different in so many ways from this conversation in Alberta. as I see it. The Alberta conversation is devoid so far of vote for this because it'll be better for you, but you can still love Canada and you can still feel like you're a proud quasi-Canadian. It is manufactured on an argument that being part of Canada has been horrible for you

and deliberately horrible for you, that especially as Daniel Smith said yesterday, The reason the people feel inclined this way is that for 10 years or so liberal governments in Ottawa have just treated Alberta horribly. Now, people can make that case, and I understand why people might feel that way. I think it's different to, if you're the premier of the province, to kind of say that in the context of so effectively what you're saying, is it's okay to consider a vote to separate. I think you have a different duty as the Premier of the province of Ontario. I think you need to decide whether you're going to stand on the sidelines or whether you're going to take a position.

And if the position you're going to take is you shouldn't do this, then you should explain to voters why they shouldn't do this. And there's no shortage of arguments to make. And they don't have to revolve around actually you don't think this way or feel this way right now, but you really do love being Canadian, or you shouldn't be so harsh in your attitudes towards Ottawa. They start with some of what I was hearing from some voices yesterday, which is, well, I think it was Jason Kenney.

How exactly do you think separating from Canada is going to increase the chances of getting a pipeline to the West Coast? The voices of the First Nations yesterday saying, well, we signed a treaty about this land, Alberta, what didn't exist then? Alberta can't abrogate these treaties. There are lots and lots and lots of reasons why the simple vote that these advocates are asking people to make would be so much more difficult to complex, costly, potentially very

damaging to Alberta's economic interests. But so far, those aren't coming from voices. in Alberta. That's where I think mostly those arguments need to be made. It can't really work if it's only federal politicians saying you shouldn't do this and here's why because it'll sound like a threat and it'll create that

kind of backlash instinct that people sometimes have but Pierre Paul Yev is in Calgary today. He's an Alberta member of parliament. He's got more than a little bit to do with this you should feel abused by the federal government argument and it'll

be interesting to see whether he does a little bit more of what Daniel Smith does, which is to say, not coddle, well, maybe not nurture, but maybe more caudle that sentiment, because I think it's time for people to in Alberta to speak out against it, like Naïi Menci did as well yesterday. Did you want to add something there, Shantel? I want to say that I'm trying to find where Bruce disagrees with my point that the more you talk about the annexation, the less people who want to say that they're angry at Ottawa, but do not want. I have seen zero poll that didn't show 80% of Albertans wanting to remain outside of the United States. and what I'm trying to say here is that that one third of so-called yes voters in both places that really want to send a message.

We've had enough we're not going to take it anymore but don't really want to separate. Or are going to think twice about sending that message via that vehicle, the more that the U.S. and the Trump administration is front and center in that movement. I also find that I agree on the Pierre Paulyev point. I don't think that when it was planned to have this vote in Calgary, it was totally understood or that it was even in the picture, that this would happen in the middle of a drive to secure enough signatures in Alberta to have a referendum on separation.

Because what's happening is a two-track thing. The conservatives are having this in Calgary. They figured initially that there would be, More people who are likely to be sympathetic to Pierre Puele of showing up from Alberta than people who have to pay a thousand bucks to just get there from Atlantic Canada or Quebec. But what happened since then is the independence movement in Alberta, those who are promoting it, have until the early May to secure 178,000 signatures on their petition. And Daniel Smith has since then promised to hold such a referendum in 2020.

So this convention is landing in the middle of this. And I too will be watching to see what Pierre Pollyue, an aspiring Prime Minister, has to say, about how it is a way to express grievance towards the federal government or the rest of Canada to go into such an exercise. Because the most prominent person who is making that case very forcefully in Alberta for the no-sum, is Jason Kenny. And he has been very efficient at doing it. I also agree with Bruce that, as I would say in the case of Quebec, it's not a good idea that out of province people go preach to Albertans or Quebecers on this issue.

But I don't believe that Canada will lack for Alberta defenders. I expect at some point, if it comes to that, that Stephen Harper will come out. The NDP, Rachel Notley, will come out. But I understand that Daniel Smith, the premier, is in the same place that Robert Borassau, the Quebec federalist premier, was in after Meach, that a section of his party really wanted to leave and remember that after Meach failed, Robert Boressa is the first person who mentioned a referendum on separation as a result of the failure of that constitutional accord. And the reason for that was he was trying to keep the section of his party that wanted to leave to stick with the liberals, which, by the way, they did not.

And that is how the party that Hansel Lugo now leads was born. So I think she's in the same situation because most mega and independent supporters vote for her party. And from some polls I saw they make up almost half of her supporters. And that's the divide she's trying to straddle, which is a really interesting place to be when you think that Alberta will go to the polls to elect the government in 2027. Okay. Bruce, you want to do a moment for the response. I just wanted to make a point about Scott Bissent and how it fits in a pattern of what Trump has been doing for months. And this is throwing kerosene on the fire. That's what he was doing.

And I think all those people, well, there wasn't that many of them, but some of them. in the conservative ecosystem this week, we're saying, you know, why is Kearney being provocative towards the U.S. president and the U.S. administration? And I was kind of shocked to see it because these are normally some thoughtful people, but the reality that Trump has been aggressively undermining our sovereignty as a country four months now. And his Treasury Secretary did it in the most deliberate and he doesn't sound careful when he speaks, but talking about, you know, you've got a lot of resources and basically saying you could be richer if you just kind of allow us to embrace you. Very, very provocative, extremely unfortunate, should be the kind of thing

that is withdrawn and apologized for. Should be the kind of thing that, Daniel Smith, the premier of Alberta, says it's unacceptable. Don't talk about us that way. This is not your question. This is not. But I think to Chantel's point, is it she finds herself in an awkward situation. I agree with that completely. And I think the question of leadership is really, so do you remain hostage of this kind

of challenging public opinion climate or do you try to lead it? And I think that yesterday what we saw was instead of saying, hey, everybody, look, I understand why the frustration is built up, but we're working on solutions. We're getting somewhere. We're making progress. Relationship with Ottawa is better. You can feel hopeful about the things that you weren't hopeful about before. And you don't have to listen to this nonsense. This is a terrible argument.

But let's focus on the positive. She instead said, well, you know, I understand why people feel this way. and, you know, we just have to find a way to give them hope. Well, it's partly her job. And she's been working on it. And she's been trying to drive an advocacy agenda with some considerable success at some political risk for the federal prime minister for a good while now.

But she doesn't seem to want to own that side of the argument. She seems to want to sit in the middle of the road right now. And I don't think it's a good choice. I don't think it's a good choice for Albertans either. Okay. You've both mentioned that Pollyev speaks tonight. and it'll be interesting to see because he's not only speaking to the delegates in the room, he's speaking to a national audience.

How will he use that opportunity to deal with situations like this? If at all, we'll find that out. Unfortunately, we're not going to find it out until very late tonight, central Canada time, and even mid-evening Alberta time. But we'll see how that goes. that's all before the vote. The other question that has arisen this week is just what is being said in the conversations between the prime minister and the precedent.

Because those conversations have been taking place. I mean, I think we knew that there were more than we had assumed, whether they're by text or whether they're on the phone. The prime ministers made it clear when he talked about their conversations. conversations this week, and he didn't until the aforementioned Mr. Besson, kind of, who wasn't a part of the conversation, claimed to know everything that happened in it and kind of regurgitated some of what he thought had happened. But the prime minister said, look, I'm just asking the president to be respectful of Canadian sovereignty in the actions he takes and the things he says. well, clearly that hasn't happened. You know, Scott Besant doesn't say anything without getting the nod, I assume. And I think it's a pretty safe assumption, getting the nod from the president to say the kind of things he says.

Same with the Canadian ambassador shoots his mouth off every once in a while too. Are we... You mean the U.S. ambassador to Canada. Exactly. Sorry. I was thinking this poor Canadian ambassador is. It just got there. To shoot his mouth off.

He's just been appointed. The former is certainly not being shy about things he says in terms of Bob Ray. But let me get back to the point I'm trying to raise here. Do you think, are we hearing enough about what's going on between the two leaders and the things that are being said? Obviously, you're not hearing everything. We don't get a printout or readout of these conversations. Like we not always had before, but we occasionally had them before from both sides.

Given the situation the two countries are in, especially our country, should we be knowing more? I'm at the loss to think of a readout from a Canadian government, and I include many prime ministers in this comment. So I'm not going after Justin Trudeau, I am including Stephen Harper, or actually it's a Paul Martin, a readout that told me anything, except that we have a productive conversation and we have agreed to keep in touch. And if you don't believe me, you can find them on the Internet. The only thing that they tell you is that a conversation actually happened. There have been times when one was helped by going to the French readout, the one from France,

or the US readout to find out more about what actually happened. But the Canadian practice has been like the fairy tale. It always ends with they got married. They had many children and they lived happily forever. It's a template. I'm sure they cut and tasted at the end of every single phone call. In the case of what happened this week, my understanding of it, is the phone rings.

It's the prime minister's cell phone. I don't know. Maybe he's brushing his feet. What do I know, but it's not happening in the working hours of the day. He's got Donald Trump. I don't know how long that lasts. I suspect it can last a long time since Mr. Ritchcote doesn't go to bed that night. And he's clearly bored in the evening.

Of course, Mark Carney stops brushing his teeth and tries to explain the China arrangement, which should be clear to the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, i.e. we're not negotiating a free trade deal with China. We are resolving some trade issues. Hangs up the phone, resumes brushing his teeth. And Scott Besant rushes on TV even before Mr. Carney wakes up again to brush his seat the second time in the morning. Scott Besant is already on Fox saying, this is what happened last night. And the prime minister very early in the morning because I sent a verbatim. of Mark Carney's response to Scott Besson to the radio show I'm on,

and it wasn't yet 8 o'clock. So that kind, so what are we saying here, that the prime minister gets a phone call, maybe sometimes in the middle of the night should call the PMO, get everyone in the office to work. It was very tailish. Well, I spoke to Donald Trump last night. No, I'm not cheating on Canadians when I speak to him

and these late night phone conversations. at some point, the notion that we ever got a lot of clarity on any of those things, Stephen Harper, Schenckfitts, they all had tons of conversations with other leaders that we have never heard about. We didn't even know they happened. In this case, the prime minister was clearly set up and so lesson learned. But if you're waiting for those readouts to tell you something, Good luck. What's the lesson?

I don't think the lesson is for Mark Carney to call everyone at the M.O. No, no, no, I hear you on that. But what is the lesson learned from an experience like they went through this week? I think the first lesson, frankly, is for the conservatives who have watched Besson say virtually anything and many false things about the China arrangement, about other things. Now we're into the president saying that the Chinese will take us over and get rid of ice hockey.

I think the lesson is, first and foremost, to those who want to say, he said, he said, and we should take the word of the American who is saying, as opposed to the word of the prime minister. I watched a journalist on David Coffron's show

on the night that this all happened, and I'm sorry, I forget her name. She's very effective. Anyway, she said, I think the lesson is we need to get over ourselves. And I thought it was exactly right. I completely agree with Chantelle. She said it more

humorously than I was going to be able to say it. But it seemed like such a silly conversation to be having on so many levels. First of all, I think the right choice for a prime minister, any prime minister, any political strife is to

decide what and when and how they should disclose conversations or shouldn't about an issue this sensitive. It's the kind of choice that you want people to make. You don't want that choice to be circumscribed by some presumed norm that the press gallery feels like has been established, which I agree with Chantal is not what people were talking about today. The duty of somebody in that role of prime minister is to make the right choices for the country. And sometimes that's going to mean not telling the country what the conversation was.

And that's okay. You know, you get judged down the road. And that's what elections are for. And I feel like, you know, we need to have a little bit more talk about that. Because it can't, this issue with the United States can't be digested in great detail and discussed all the time on a play-by-play basis. And if we didn't get the latest and in most in-depth information, we can't properly analyze it. And so therefore the government's not doing its job. And, you know, one of the things about one of the advantages of people like us

of being a certain age is we remember sometimes what happens when you add visibility to things that you think, oh, nothing can go wrong here. But when TV came into the House of Commons, I think we would probably all agree that it turned into more of a circus. And not that it was perfect before. And I think it's always fair to be reminded that we're not talking about glory days of eloquent debate. But this is an attention world that we live in, attention economy.

And what happens when you share information now is that it becomes weaponized, it becomes exaggerated, becomes kind of fodder for round after round of extension and extremism and polarization. And I just think we've seen enough of Donald Trump now to recognize. recognize that as it's always been the case in the past, we want our leaders to have private relationships with other world leaders. Why? Not because they deserve to be able to have private relationships, because we know that those private relationships actually turn into better dynamics. They can solve problems if they have private relationships. Donald Trump

posted a text exchange that he had with the French President Macron not very long ago. I've never seen anything like that before. But it was a signal that if you're having a relationship with him as a world leader, you need to be on guard. You need to reflect on the fact that what you say and how you say it could be used against you by somebody that you're trying to have a conversation with. All of those factors to me say, I'm with that journalist who said, we need to get a grip here and let these conversations happen as they should.

And we'll hear what we need to hear. And we can hold the prime minister accountable later on if we don't think that he disclosed enough. And there are lots of examples in our past of prime ministers and presidents who had that kind of relationship that went beyond the official stuff. You know, Cray Chan and Clinton, for one, Mulroney, obviously, you know, with the Bush family and also with the Reagan family. not so much so in the 60s where things got a little dicey between Pearson and LBJ and DeFenbeg Trudeau and Nixon. That was a good one I think.

Trudeau and Nixon. That's son of a bitch. But maybe the other lesson is more technical if you are going to be speaking to a president that feels free to expose text messages. Maybe the next time he calls you push records, record on your phone so that you too have some proof of what was actually said on both sides. It's always useful. I'm sure if you're in the office, I'm sure that happens.

But if you're just at home on your cell phone, maybe you want to become more proficient. I'm sure plenty of journalists could offer Mark Carney a bit of technical advice on how to do this. It's perfectly legal as long as one of the two persons on. the call is aware that the call is being taped. I'm sure they're going to worry about that. Yes. It's tricky, though, to push record when you're holding a toothbrush as well. Yeah.

We love your story, Chantelle. It's a great story. It's just a real life, you know. Sometimes I'm guessing that people have a life that includes things we all do. They're not all the way sitting in a three-piece suit. behind a desk. Okay, we're going to call that discussion today and take our break. Come back, talk about Pierre Palliev and the Stakes for Calgary later tonight.

Do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Friday episode. It's Good Talk. I'm Peter Mansbridge, along with Chantelle Iber and Bruce Anderson. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have you with us.

By the way, our YouTube channel starts broadcasting the Moor Butts conversation, which will come up later or in next week, Tuesday of next week. That'll be the first YouTube broadcast of a Moore Butts conversation. I look forward to that. Okay. Pierre Pollyev, this is the big day. for him that's been in the works basically since the last election. A leadership review vote.

You know, everybody has a number in mind that they think that he has to at least get to have a safe leadership. We're going to know what the actual number is either later tonight or early tomorrow, depending on where you live in the country. It's certainly going to be tomorrow in Central and Eastern Canada. but it may be tomorrow even in Calgary where the convention is taking place. Anybody want to venture a number here? Is it sort of conventional wisdom

is he's got to do better than 80%? Chantelle loves to predict these things. Yeah, right. This is the second time the conservatives have a leadership review under the current incarnation of the party, i.e. the reunited Reform Alliance Tories version. The last time was after the 2004 election

when Stephen Harper was leader, and he got 84%. The context is really different. Stephen Harper won, just reunited the two parties and become leader for that election, and two, he held the liberals down to a minority. Paul Martin, just a year before, presented to someone who would sweep the country. So it made total sense for Stephen Harper to get 84%.

They weren't going to ditch the leader after a few months in the job and after a decade of feuding. I find it risky, and maybe I'm wrong, but I find it risky for conservative strategists to be touting the 80% number. usually and again you you undersell and overachieve and at this point anything less than 80% will be seen as not quite as good as Pierre Puelev expected but I have to say that if he does get over 80%, the people who will have voted in such numbers to keep him on as leader will have done so with their eyes wide open in the face of a poll this week that put the liberals in

majority territory at 47 percent, that's a Leger poll, in the face of multiple polls that show Mark Carney outshining Pierre-Poilev two to one as best prime minister. So they will have agreed that they are keeping a leader who is basically a drag on their party. And yes, I know there will be and there are polls and a perception that conservatives can't do any better than Pierre Puelleuve? I don't buy that for a second. That's kind of a typical. I think the same things were written and tabulated

about Justin Trudeau. And look where we are today. Or Francois de Gaude in the case of the ongoing leadership campaign here. But if that's what the result is, what I'm curious to see is what happens afterwards to internal unity and caucus. There are still MPs who are thinking of walking away, all kinds of theories going around. And I know that there are many conservatives who do not support Pia Palliev, but who are waiting to see the result of that leadership vote to

figure out where they go from there. So a speech is going to be really important, not for the people who have gone there to vote for him. But for those who are there and do not want to vote for him because they don't believe that he will ever take the party to government. Okay, Bruce. Yeah, I want to pick up where Chantal left off. I agree with what she said. I mean, look, I think he could get 112 percent.

And he might, who knows. He could get 112 percent, but it won't make him popular relative to Mark Karni. He won't solve the problem of the two to one ratio that Chantelle mentioned, which we saw in our poll. And so he doesn't become more popular. He doesn't become more immediately competitive, even if he gets a really, really high number. The problem that he will have will persist. And he'll need to keep on answering that question of, well, what are you doing about it? How are you going to actually win an election against a leader who is seen as,

more knowledgeable, more competent, and actually nicer as well. So I think the combination of defects in the leadership brand that Pierre Polyev has built for himself, and he did it all very deliberately, he wanted to be seen as not a very nice person. He wanted to be seen as that kind of apple-chomping pugilist who wanted to tell you everything that was wrong about Canada. Well, everything about that is wrong about his leadership brand today. People don't want to hear, an endless tirade about everything is broken in Canada. They don't want to hear from a guy who says, it's who looks like he's having fun when he's trying to polarize opinion.

The scene that we saw yesterday with the first ministers and the prime minister was a really interesting dynamic from my standpoint. And we've seen a lot of these over the years. But I have to say, given all of the tensions that could arise in the country right now, now given the challenges that we're experiencing in the relationship of the United States, the degree of calm, pleasant, even happy conversation that appeared to transpire between the first ministers and the national prime minister was really remarkable. And it sort of speaks to politicians who know what they're doing right now. They know the public wants them to work

together. They want to, people want to see that degree of cooperation. And the only other thing I wanted to say is whenever these conventions have happened in the past with a leader who's beleaguered, usually you see organized on behalf of that incumbent leader a parade of party grandees, you know, past leaders, premiers, high profile, new people. And what are they all there to do? They're all saying, this guy's doing great. He's a great guy. He's fantastic.

If you knew them the way I knew him, you'd be enthusiastic the way I am. How little of that we're seeing right now is a really interesting thing. And it really speaks to the degree to which I think here, Paul Yev has said, I don't need other people to endorse me. I'll pick the ones that I want to have beside me. And some of those are not terribly popular people, people like Andrew Shear. And the rest of everybody can, you know, speak out or not speak out. I don't really care.

I think it's a bad look. I think it's a bad look because it sort of reduces the party to whoever it is who just believes everything that peer Pauli-Gev says. And that's not a big enough number to be competitive in an election. You don't hear those voices saying, he's doing a good job. You know, I saw Melissa Lansman say he's doing a good job. But I'm struck by how few other people I'm hearing saying, well if you look at what's happened he's really kind of got the party into a good place everything is looking jake if there's going to be an election anytime soon we're just going

to kind of power through the tape so those things aren't there and in the absence of all of that if he gets a number that's more like 90% or 85% it speaks to the fact that that party is not concentrated on analyzing the situation and trying to be competitive but rather is just the people that he was able to organize on his behalf. I do think, no matter what the number is, we've got to keep in mind that you have to be there to vote. And, you know, most of the people who are there were told, we'll see at some point, are from Western Canada.

You know, Ontario's conservatives are tied up at their own convention. Quebecers don't seem to be too interested in this, and Quebec conservatives, and Atlantic-Canadian, same thing. And so it's also the cost of getting to Calgary. There's just, for many, it's just, this is not the year for that. True, but let's agree that we're not saying that if you show up, if you're in Calgary and a conservative member, you can just show up and vote. That's not how it works.

Riding's have a number of delegates. It's a delegated vote. So, but if people who don't show up to give you a sense when that Harper vote took place, 78% was the turnout rate. those who showed up to participate. I suspect you are quite right that the turnout rate this time will be lower than 78%. I have to say that in Quebec, to go to Bruce's point, you basically never hear about conservatives or hear a conservative except for the Quebec lieutenant once in a while,

Pierre Polus, but that's almost radio silence. And looking at the premiers yesterday, I was thinking how many of the conservative premiers really are pining for the conservatives to come back to government federally, and I could find none. It used to be that Saskatchewan and Alberta had conservative premiers who really wanted that. Scott Moose is not going to the convention. And I don't think he's very happy about the Pierre Puehlav Conservatives, kind of ditching the canola tariff relief deal that Mark Carney struck in China.

Doug Ford kissed and made up with Mark Carney this week and the usual effusive way of Premier Ford. So there is not a wedge to be had there. We all know that Premier Ford spent zero time with Pia Puehliev over the years, and that's pretty crucial, considering that he is the premier of the largest province. But I think even Daniel Smith figures she's much better off with Mark Carney because she has more leverage, and he is more likely to be able to use leverage on BC or other provinces to get what he wants. So at this point, the only people who seem to really pine for Pierre-Poliev are the people

who are part of his base, and that base in many ways is off from mainstream voters. Okay, I've got one more question on this I want to ask, but first we're going to take our final break. We'll do that and be back right after this. Welcome back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week, Chantal, Bruce, Peter, all here to chat with you.

You know, Chantel, you ran through all those names and wondering how the Premier's names, the first minister's names and wondering how they're feeling about tonight and the future in terms of who sits in the prime minister's office, especially through this current situation. The one name that, well, I think it's been mentioned in this program, but not directly in terms of what happens tonight is Stephen Harper.

Now, a year ago, in the election campaign, there was a lot said. in the last days of the campaign when Stephen Harper came out and endorsed, fully endorsed, Pierre Pollyev, to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. He hasn't said anything during this. Perhaps it's not the position for former leaders to speak out, although we've seen that happen in other conventions. But he's been marked by his absence in the discussion surrounding this.

what should we assume that means? Well, okay, what should we assume or what do we think that means? It sounds to me from a distance, and I don't talk to Stephen Harper, and I'm not in his mind, that he's not keen to expand one ounce of political capital to support this leader. I'm not saying that he's trying to undermine Pierre Pueleve or that he's, you know, talking to people to try to replace him. But I don't think that he wants to be spending political capital on Pierre Pueleave. I also think that since the election, the relationship between the current Prime Minister and Mr. Harper has become a lot more affluent. Mark Carney talks with Stephen Harper.

They speak back and forth. But if you really want to know what he thinks, you're not. going to get that talk necessarily this weekend, but you will next week, because next week will be the unveiling of Stephen Harper's portrait as Prime Minister on Parliament Hill, so he will get to speak, and next week the Conservatives will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of his first election victory. So there will be, next week is Stephen Harper week. And you will hear his thoughts, I believe, on where the country is. going. I'm curious to see whether he will bother with how the current conservatives fit in that

portrait. Bruce. I think we should assume that, I mean, Stephen Harper knows that this event is happening. He knows that it's an important event in the life of the party that he built. And so if he's not saying anything, it's because he doesn't have anything supportive to say about the current leader. if you're that leader sometimes you can have leaders who go I hope that my predecessor doesn't say anything because my predecessor was unpopular and it can only go badly

for me that is not this an endorsement, a full-throated endorsement by Stephen Harper would be something that would be helpful to peer polyeth so maybe there will be a version of it that shows up today but the reasons why

if anything shows up like that it might feel a little bit half-hearted, or is it didn't really happen along the way in the last several months. Chantell's right, that the signs that Stephen Harper and Mark Carney talk and maybe share a bit of a similar view about how to handle the challenge in the United States,

those signals are there. Pierpoliath's position on the Canada-U.S. situation seems to be, why isn't there a deal already? And I think it's the kind of question you ask if you don't really have a policy that you want to, you know, put in front of people, but also that you think that people are going to go, well, that's a really good question. Instead, you know, voters are going to go, well, I think I know why there isn't a deal. You know, you can't make a deal with a guy who keeps on saying, okay, we've got a deal,

but now we're going to tariff you in a hundred other different ways because I woke up, you know, feeling petulant about something else. So his positioning on Canada, U.S. trade and geopolitics, Pierre Poliievs, has been been weak and incoherent, as people like James Moore have said. People like James Moore and Jason Kenney are, from my standpoint, voices that sound like the Stephen Harper era conservative party voice. And it's hard to find more critical voices of Pier Poliab, not necessarily by name, but by inference right now.

And so I think that's what we're seeing play out a little bit in the Conservative Party, which is a feeling on the part of those Harper-era folks that this isn't the way the Conservative Party should be positioning itself and Pierpaulia isn't doing a very good job. I don't expect there are any readouts available of the Harper-Karney conversations. I get what we said before. But what would what we what would we imagine? and those discussions are likely framed around.

Not domestic Canadian politics, that's for sure. It would be about geopolitics and trade and investment and how to think about China, how to think about Russia, how to think about NATO. What about the E? The Arctic. The Arctic. Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, Stephen Harper is a policy won't, right? He always was. so you can have conversations that go beyond. And I think both share a lack of interest in the kind of games that politicians in office engage in. Like someone was telling me this week that the deba speech was all about issues management. They don't do issues management in that PMO, and when they do, they don't do it well. So let's get rid of that. So I think they can have policy-based conversations that enrich both of their thinking on the issue.

And remember, Stephen Harper is the person who said if he were prime minister today, he would be ready to impoverish some Canadians to preserve the country's sovereignty. That's on the record. That did get said. So Stephen Harper is not joining the, why don't we have a deal yet? and why don't we sign off on anything at any cost side of the ledger, which could be a bit of a problem for Mr. Pueleyev? Okay, last word, Bruce.

Well, I think that's absolutely right. And I do think that if Pierre Poliath gets through this weekend, which I think he will, he needs to then decide whether or not he's going to actually mean it when he says we should have a quasi kind of unity of, approach to this. He's sort of offered to work with the prime minister, but I don't think that really happens at the committee level. The opposite happens so that he can stand up and say, well, we offered to cooperate, but they can't get anything done. I think the real reality check for him is

for him to be perceived as a better choice for prime minister or as a good choice for prime minister, he needs to change what he's doing. He can't just keep on doing what he's doing. And maybe He needed to keep on doing it to get through this weekend because of the voting system that they've got. But if he carries on that way, there's no reasonable prospect that that party will become that competitive very quickly. All right. Good conversation, as always. Thank you to Bruce. Thank you to Chantelle.

I know they've got difficult choices tonight, the two of them, because they could either, you know, sit at home and watch the unfolding drama going on in Calgary on their television sets, or they could go down to the theater and watch Melania. I think I'll watch Mr. Poilliev if that's the choice. Thank you. It won't be sold out. I think we'll be able to get seats if we want them. That's what I'm hearing. That seems to be the case.

That's right. We'll see how that does. We'll see how many tickets that Trump and his pals bought to try and fill out the situation. in theaters across the country in the U.S. and also elsewhere like Canada. Thanks to the two of you. Have a great weekend. We'll talk again next week when all these matters will be at least partially resolved. We'll talk to you then. Thanks, Bruce.

Have a good weekend. You guys. Bye for me.