The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Is This Desperation?

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

A GST holiday, 250 dollar cheques, what's next as the Liberals try to win back Canadians in the months before an election.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with Chantal Hébert and Bruce Anderson. It is Friday, that means Good Talk. You know, I was reminded the other day, there was a moment in 2020, in the first year of the pandemic, when Donald Trump finally started to get his act in gear and reacting to COVID. And he wanted to send out checks to everybody to help them in the pandemic situation. But he wanted something special. He wanted his name on the checks that went to every

American. And eventually he got that. So I was left wondering in the last 24 hours, is Justin Trudeau going to get his name on these checks for 250 bucks that he's sending out to Canadians during this GST-free holiday as well. That's, you know, billions of dollars being afforded to, I mean, I got to tell you, it doesn't look like anything other than a desperate attempt to try and get the Liberals back on track with Canadians at a time when they're getting, you know, pretty well hammered in the polls. You're not going to check the mailbox for your check every morning, are you? Because I don't think you're getting one. Well, it's not now.

Wait, wait, wait. It's 150,000 net. So do the math. Suppose you pay $1 for each dollar, you can make up to 300. I'm not going to presume that Peter makes as little as 300,000 a year. I'm retired. I'm just a pensioner. Well, if you were just that, that's the trick here.

If you were just that with no income other than government pensions and government help you would get nothing and you would be making 37 000 a year oh boy this is uh really well taught out uh santa claus spree well i mean let's talk to your uh your time of warm-up, so carry on, Pete. Well, tell me, what do you make of this thing? Okay, so I was landing back from a trip in Europe last night, and I saw this on my phone in the taxi, and at first I thought it was a joke. The government of Canada in this day and age, with everything that we know about services being stretched, health care, go down the list,

is going to give us a tax break on junk food and on alcohol and on Christmas trees. I mean, it's okay, but it did sound, I'm going to use the word you used, I looked at it and I thought, one, these people look this desperate. And I don't issues and the ballot box question that will be coming our way this year is, who is the most serious government that we can get to handle the challenges of the next four years? And this is kind of a big poster that says, well, the liberals are not. That instead of projecting seriousness and experience, which is the two things they would have going for them, they are going to give you a break on your Christmas tree,

but wait for it only if you buy it after December 14th. Yeah, you know, somebody was mentioning yesterday this issue of returns, that people who bought something are going to take them back and then buy them again after the 14th to save the 13% on the GST. I mean, I don't know. It boggles the mind at times to try to understand some of the decisions that are being made after we've been primed and pumped for the last while that, you know, the country has got to be careful about spending and they're going to have,

you know, there are billions of dollars that need to be saved to reduce the deficit and, you know, and some impact on the national debt. You turn around and do this. I mean, it just, and let's remember, this is an idea that was rejected, what, four years ago when the Conservatives promoted it under Erin O'Toole. Anyway. And let's be serious. This is a government that recently told the Bloc Québécois that no, and the other parties that had supported the change to old age security,

that no, it couldn't afford to give a bigger break to seniors 65 to 74 because it would cost too much, $3 billion. And seriously, I thought it was a joke. And then realized that unless AI was faking Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, this is what governance has come to at the federal level. And sure, people will take that check. You're not going to send it back to the government. But the message it sends is terrible. Bruce is remaining mysteriously quiet here.

Won't last. Won't last. No, that's right, it won't last. So, look, one of the things that I've always kind of been reluctant, I don't know if I've been careful enough about, but reluctant to do is to speak as though I'm a policy expert. I'm not a policy expert. There are obviously policy experts who put a lot of thought and time into this and who

know more about the likely impacts of something like this on inflation, on consumer behavior, on the fiscal situation. And so I have opinions about that, but I don't feel like my opinions are particularly worth sharing in terms of the policy itself. I have a certain amount of skepticism about it, as both of you do. I also have a feeling that for some people, it will be quite meaningful help. And for some businesses, it will increase their economic success through these next few months.

We were talking just yesterday about what it would mean for a restaurant that Peter, you and I, we didn't talk about it, but I talked about it with some other people. And January is typically a very slow month across the restaurant sector. It will probably help that. Does that make a good policy? I don't know. I really don't. But there will be some impacts for some people that are quite beneficial to them and who are struggling.

So it can both at the same time be helpful to some people and not be very good policy. I think both of those things are possible at the same time. And I'm not saying I think it's bad policy, but I do have, I mean, I have a question about it from the standpoint of, you know, Peter, you said, well, we're being told that we should be careful about spending. The government should be careful about spending on behalf of Canadians. And as I heard you say that, I thought that message has been pretty inconsistent, I think, and at a very low decibel level for most of the life of the Trudeau government. And Chantel underscored that point by saying, well, you know,

just a couple of months ago there wasn't enough money for something else, but now there's money enough for this, even though the inflation rate is coming down, even though on any other given day you'll hear from a government stakeholder that the economy is doing well, that inflation is under control, the interest rates are coming down, all of which might lead you to believe that if you were a skeptical person, not a cynical person, let's just say a skeptical person, that when Justin Trudeau said people need a break, maybe what he was doing was saying, I need a break.

These polling numbers aren't very good. And this is going to be the thing that maybe kind of creates some crack in the wall of bad news in the polls. This is an area where I have some expertise, or at least familiarity, knowledge accumulated over the years, in my experience, people can take the money and ignore the political invitation that is associated with the money. And I rather suspect that's what's going to happen in this case. Some people will be opposed to this idea because they will see it as being poorly designed or expensive and unnecessary. Some people will like the policy because it'll be helpful to them. But whether it will materially affect the political fortunes of Justin Trudeau, I'm skeptical. Well, that's the thing about policy versus politics, is the policy angle on this could take months, if not a year,

to determine whether or not it works, right? It has some kind of policy impact on a positive note. Politically, you find out almost immediately, whether it's through conversations like this or whether it's simply through the reaction of Canadians from coast to coast to coast who end up being polled about this by various polling companies. And one suspects it's going to look like what it looks like

to a lot of Canadians. I mean, we'll see. We'll see what they end up saying. But it's, as I said earlier, I find it mind-boggling that they would resort to this now. This is now the approach. It's kind of like, well, you know, it worked for Doug Ford, or it seems to work for Doug Ford.

Maybe it'll work for me. But that's not why Doug Ford got reelected. He got reelected and he did that. But one did not cause the other. That would be really simplistic. If Consuelo Gault tomorrow sends everybody a check, it's probably not going to work for him because there are many other reasons why.

And the sending of checks would probably actually, if you took the Legault example, make people angry about the notion that this money could be used to make healthcare more accessible, to reduce wait times in emergency rooms, go down the list. That is all true about the federal government. I also heard you say that you were getting a 13% break. Oh, great. Good for you. You live in Ontario where the GST is harmonized with the provincial sales tax. I'm only getting 5%.

So there is also this feature. It depends where you live. In some provinces where the GST is harmonized with the provincial sales tax, the provinces won't have much of a choice but to kind of cave and give that money away. Some will be happy to do so. Mr. Ford is going probably in an election, so he's not going to stand in the way of Christmas gifts. But the notion that geography determines how much of a break you're getting is an interesting concept, to put it politely. And the notion, me, what struck me, you say you find this mind-boggling that the liberals would take a signature policy called carbon pricing and exempt heating oil, but not other forms of heating, and that they thought this was a great idea that they are par for the course and have been for a while. But it took some accumulation and maybe in many cases until yesterday to come to the conclusion that whatever is happening on Parliament Hill and inside Justin Trudeau's back rooms is divorced from what they can expect,

the reaction of voters who at this point do not plan to vote for them, that they're going to get this check in the mail with maybe Justin Trudeau's face on it and say, oh, great, I'm going to vote liberal after all. I don't know. It's disquieting. And, okay, suppose you want to play inside baseball. They announce all this. The NDP is happy. The NDP jumps the gun and says it's thanks to us that you're going to be getting a break on the beer that you're drinking.

Great. If we ever needed that. Then we're going to help you make parliament work but what is jacqueline saying we're going to help you make parliament work for one day so that this is adopted in one day first second whatever it takes uh and shipped off to i guess Senate. And then we will resume the procedural battle that has been ongoing for weeks in the House of Commons. So $6 billion sounds like a lot of money to buy one day of normal sitting in the House of Commons. It does.

I mean, I use the term mind-boggling simply because it's just yet another seemingly desperate move. When you go back to the home eating oil thing from a year ago and track it over the last year, it seems like they go to one desperate move after another and there's been no return. My mind has trouble boggling these days. I don't boggle as easily as I used to. This one has not really boggling these days i don't boggle as easily as i used to this one has not really

boggled me uh it's you know you started peter by saying you know donald trump got his name on the check and will justin trudeau and i know that you were kind of tongue-in-cheek with that but for me one of the questions about this announcement is that we all started hearing about it 24 hours before. seems routinely to be in a situation where it doesn't foreshadow a kind of an important strategic initiative very much. So people didn't really see this coming outside people in the bubble for 24 hours, I think. In fact, it stood in contrast essentially to everything else that the government had been saying about the cost of living improving, the economy improving, just give it a little bit more time and we're well on our way. Canada's not broken.

We don't need extraordinary measures. We need to watch the taxpayer's pocketbook. All of that would lead one to believe that this wasn't a necessary policy. Now, I'm not saying it isn't a necessary policy. I'm saying the government did nothing really to create the anticipation that something like this was needed. The second thing about their political strategy is that they sometimes seem as though they expect the conservatives under Pierre Polyev to be stupid.

And the conservatives are not stupid about political strategy. They are not going to get in the way of this break. They will have done the political math and come to the conclusion that their voters will see this as being either a useful thing or a Spencer thing or both, but not something that is part of a long-term choice of, do you want liberal or conservative? And that the voters who are kind of in the middle, you know, might look at this and say, well, they had to do this because the economy on the liberals watch has been weak and people have been kind of suffering. So I don't think they outflank

the conservatives at all on this. I don't think the political dynamic from their standpoint will change. And the last point for me is to the question of will Justin Trudeau's name be on the check, I'd be shocked. My mind would boggle if that happened, in part because as I was watching football the other day, NFL football, I'm sorry. I did watch some of the great cup too. But I must have seen 30 executes, 30 repetitions of an ad that Doug Ford is paying for with my Ontario tax dollar, telling me what a great place Ontario is, how fancy and high tech and economically strong and successful and competitive and beautiful it is it is the most political advertising i have ever seen paid for by a government

to show back to its citizens and when i contrast that with the liberals who tied themselves up in knots so that they don't really have any ability to advertise anything that they do in a way that is likely to have an impact on people. And if you talk to folks around the system, they kind of go, yeah, that's really kind of handicapped our ability to tell our story to a public that isn't really getting a story through the traditional means. And so people don't know some of the things that we've done. That's true. And they did it to themselves. And so the notion that a government that tied itself up in knots that way is now going to figure out well maybe we should put the prime minister's name on a check no that's not going to happen or at least i'll eat the check if it does happen i don't see

it in the in the offing i won't get a check i I know that. I would like to watch someone eat a check, but I don't wish it on anyone. But I was listening to Bruce and I was reminded of the last great ploy that the liberals put forward to try to embarrass the conservatives. And that was the announcement of the capital gains tax changes in the last budget and the notion that it would trigger something of a class war that would see the conservatives line up with fat cats while the rest of the world applauded. How did that turn out? And by the way, that is still not legislation on the books,

thanks to what's been happening in the House of Commons. That didn't work. And Bruce is right. One of the problems of governments after a decade, and that also goes for journalists to cover government for a decade, is you stop being able to imagine the other guy in your place. The conservatives with Kim Campbell and those ads

about Jean-Claude Zin's face reflected that. Stephen Harper never imagined Justin Trudeau taking over his seat and as prime minister with a majority government. You stop looking at the opposition and the main contender for your job as others see it. And in the process, you stop seeing yourself. I believe the liberals have now reached a point where they don't see the image that they're projecting. They're kind of in an echo chamber, and they believe that the world is wrong and they are right, and they kind of self-confirm that to themselves

instead of sitting and saying, okay, so what is it that people find attractive about Pierre Poiliev besides the fact that he's not Justin Trudeau? There must be something. It can't just be it's not Justin Trudeau. Why do people who voted for us want to vote for Pierre Poilievre? And when I look at announcements like that, I come to the conclusion that the liberals at this stage in their history do not take Canadians seriously, do not think Canadians are adult. believed that they wouldn't be giving Canadians a break on Christmas trees. They would be talking to them about the challenges ahead, the real ones, and trying to get Pierre Poiliev to engage on that field, or at least show that he's not engaging. But they're not doing that. They're basically saying, those people who want to vote for Pierre Poiliev and used to vote for us are so stupid that we're going to throw 250

bucks their way and they're going to give us another look. That is worse than underestimating your opponent. It's called underestimating the intelligence of voters. And I have never seen someone win easily in such circumstances. And they seem to be forgetting the, you know, the old adage about going to the polls is often voters are voting against something, not for something. So it's not about voting for Pierre Pogliev, it's about voting against Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party. I mean, we'll see what happens when it happens,

but that seems to be a common theme as you go through elections past, especially after a government has been in power for some time. Can I just ask one last question? John Tal mentioned, you know, that first gate for the Liberals in the reflection is the 16 or 22 22 point gap depending on which poll you read is still it's larger super large uh does that have exclusively to do with how people feel about justin trudeau versus uh pierre poliev if you concluded that it was just about that the liberal party's answer in that situation is more just than Trudeau.

If they conclude that it isn't just that, then what they came up with yesterday is like, oh, you like axe the tax. Well, we'll axe some tax for you. It's an emulation that doesn't have the same kind of political chemistry associated with it. Let me put it that way. It doesn't sort of land as though it's got political fire and brimstone. It's more like, you know, we checked under the cushions on the sofa and we found an extra $6 billion worth of nickels kind of lying around and we've decided that it's Christmas and beer with tax is a bit expensive. I don't mean to diminish that this will help some people,

but the politics of it, I do think don't work the same way. If the intent was we'll do our own axing of taxes, I don't think it will work the same way as Pierre Poliev's approach because his approach looks like it's kind of holistic and consistent. He wants smaller government. He wants lower taxes. He wants government to get out of the lives of people.

Now, voters may not all want that, but at least it kind of holds together. And I think that is the essence of successful political strategy if you're in opposition. And the great challenge if you're in government is can you, with 40-odd ministers all doing different things, all delivering different messages, trying to manage external crises and all kinds of other intervening things that go bump in the night. Can a government deliver a message that is coherent and agile and politically tuned to the moment? The answer is usually no.

And right now, it is no. But I do go back to the fact that when you talk to Canadians, and by the way, I'm not sure who and what backroom figure at Canadians really needed help to get beer. And it's not that I don't like alcohol. It sounds like you're against beer, though. Well, I'm not a beer drinker, but on the list of things that are pressing necessities, i have not put beer close to the top of the list put it this way since trump was re-elected it's been a bigger part of my life i i totally get it and there you go you are making

my point whenever you talk to canadians anywhere they feeling great angst, not just about cost of living, about what's happening south of the border and what it means for Canada. And instead of getting some sense that someone somewhere is thinking this through, they are seeing a bunch of ministers mouth lines about, we're going to do our best to make sure that the border is good enough for Donald Trump, blah, blah, blah, and this policy decision. And of the two, I think Canadians crave more a sense that they have a government that is serious, for lack of a better word, then they crave a break on the beer that they will drink in greater quantity because of Donald Trump. I agree with that, at least especially for the voters

who are open to considering the liberals. I think that's exactly right. Okay, I'm not finished on this. I've got another question on it, but we better take a break here. The rules are we need a break now. Yeah. We're entitled to a break, and I think this is when we should.

Can we get a beer? Oh, no, it's too expensive. Bruce is going to reach for a cold one now. He's got a little bar fridge there in his office. You know, this whole beer-alcohol thing is, you know, it cuts across all kinds of lines. You know, this government's worried about health costs. And, you know, talk to health experts about those who are draining

the system because of, you know, issues surrounding alcohol, drugs, what have you. And here's a government that's going to make it easier to buy alcohol. I don't know. It all seems to. I don't want to say mind-boggling again after being trashed for using that phrase. Anyway, let's take a quick break. Be right back after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to the Friday episode of The Bridge. It is Good Talk, of course, with Chantelle Hebert 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. And we're glad to have you with us wherever you're connecting to us from. All right. One of the things in that announcement yesterday about, you know,

the GST free holiday and the $250 checks and all that. And let me just in case there's any confusion, I was joking. I think I was joking about the name on the check. Right? Yes. I thought you were joking too. It's never going to happen. It's not part of anything that can

happen. Well, you never know. It might be an idea that they're going, oh my God, that's a hell of a good idea. Why don't we do that? I think there are rules about government checks. Rules are made to be broken, right? Anyway, here's my point. Yesterday, when the announcement is going in the background, you see Chrystia Freeland, the Minister of Finance,

who has been very careful about all the things she said in the past months leading up to what was expected to be an economic statement at some point this fall. Whether or not that still happens or not, I don't know. But it's kind of like a mini budget in some sense. But she's been careful in talking about how careful things have to be in terms of the public purse. And Anita Anand, the Treasury Board President,

has also been trying to fine-tune expenses on that side. And so I was watching Chrystia Freeland's face yesterday, and she was smiling, and, well, this is good news for people. That was the look on her face. But you had to wonder, what was she thinking inside as one who is concerned about the size of the deficit, all of that, when they're tossing out money here? Any thoughts on that, on how that plays into her strategy as finance minister?

Does this just make her life even more difficult? Well, it certainly does not lead to a rigorous budget in the spring if the Liberals get to it. And the expectation is that if they ever got to it, it would be, well, one, the last budget, but possibly one of their last acts in office before the election. So there's a limit to embracing deficits that keep climbing. And she already has the budget parliamentary officer predicting that she's lost the fiscal anchor. It's going to be harder to craft a fiscal anchor is still something that is other than a figment of liberal imagination, I think.

You know, I think that liberals have always kind of felt that the public doesn't care very much about the deficit. And there's a certain part of that calculation that's not inaccurate from the standpoint of the politics of it. And I think that this prime minister, even before the pandemic, was kind of leaning pretty heavily in the scale of deficit problems around the world and in the life of Canada. Our situation is better than you might think that it is. And so the measurement of or the description of the fiscal virtue of the government has typically been characterized as it could be worse or it's a little bit better than you might think that it is,

which governments only do if they're really acknowledging that this isn't, for them, an absolute must-win test of their political success. They wanted to put more money into programs like child care, like dental care, and the Canada Child Benefit, all of which are programs that people can kind of debate the merits of, but they were very deliberate choices, and they did have an impact on the fiscal situation of the government, no question whatsoever.

I think fast forward to today, and I don't think the public is necessarily saying, we are watching every penny, and we're worried that you're going overboard. But there is a sense on the part of people, especially young people we see in our polls today, that taxes are a problem because costs are a problem. So costs have gone up and taxes sit on top of them. And you've got for the first time in the years that I've been studying public opinion, young people really kind of feeling frustrated with taxation levels. And that in turn creates a different reaction to government spending, unless it's spending that directly helps that individual. Now, in some cases, what we're talking about yesterday might help some of those individuals. But still in the aggregate, spending another $6 billion is putting that charge on the credit card of young people.

And I don't think that the political license to do that is anywhere near as durable or strong as it has been in the past. Does it mean that there will be a backlash and people will go to the, young people will go to the ballot box and say, I'm voting for Pierre Poliev because he will fix the budget? His careful language to not say, I will balance the budget, I will fix the budget, is as vague an undertaking as I think I've ever heard a conservative leader make about this. Well, maybe that's an overstatement, but it's a pretty vague undertaking for a conservative leader. And it borrows on, I think, the reality that people

aren't going to hold Pierre Poliev to too high a standard from a deficit standpoint. All they need to believe is that he'll be better at managing the budget maybe than Justin Trudeau is. So, two, where does that leave Chrystia Freeland? You know, I think that she's in a tricky situation. I think she does care about these things. I think she is finance minister for a prime minister who doesn't share exactly probably the same level of concern about that. But her job is not prime minister. Her job is finance minister in this government,

which decided that it should find that $6 billion and spend it on this. I was a young and very junior journalist back then, but I did spend time on Parliament Hill in a very behind-the-scenes capacity, but I was thinking about Christia Freeland and yesterday's announcement. It had a bit of a feel of those last Pierre Trudeau budgets, Alan J. McEachin, how the liberals in those last years kept digging themselves into a hole.

Now, to try to offset that, because the liberals did change leaders in time for an election, that was part of the reason why they went with John Turner, would be an outside government was seen to come from the business community and rigorous. That actually got them nowhere. But if there was a leadership campaign tomorrow or the day after the next election, I think Chrystia Freeland would be totally dragging her record as finance minister on account of the past two or three years to the point that she would not get to win the leadership. It would be as if someone who is so associated with spending

suddenly comes to you and says, you taught or my predecessor was spending too much. And here I was the person who actually allowed him to do that, who did not succeed in standing up to the political forces that believed that it was good politics to add spending. So every time Christian Freeland sends a message, I old age security, three billion dollars, too much money, not responsible to go there. We like to help, but we've done our share. And that's as far as we can go. And a month later, smiling behind the prime minister who is sending you nickels and dimes for Christmas. It does something to your credibility that will endure if you want a future in Canadian politics. Now, I have always believed that there is a future

for Christian Freeland somewhere, but I don't think that any of this sets her up to be a successor to Justin Trudeau. You know, listening to Bruce describe what he's been seeing in polling data in the last while about young people would suggest to me that there in fact was an opening here at this time for a bold move on the part of the Liberals. And that was more about structural change to the tax system, not some kind of, you know, middle of the night trick or treat,

you know, cashing in on GST for a couple of months. If that's really happening on part of young people, they want to see some like real action, not this kind of thing, slight of hand at Christmas time. Anyway. I think it's even gotten to the point where young people don't know that such action really feels even plausible

in our political system, the way that it works right now. And so when we measure the instinct to kind of flip the table over in terms of the structure and direction of public policy young people tend to be more like let's not tweak the dials let's you know either do something more fundamental um or stop talking about it um because it's just frustrating to see what happens now i gave a talk earlier this week week to a group in Ottawa. And in putting

together that talk, I borrowed significantly from Professor Scott Galloway's work that he does on the intergenerational transfer of wealth from young people to old people. It's quite a compelling story in the United States. And I think there's similar dynamics in Canada. But one of the things that kind of shocked me, and I used it in my presentation, is that if you – so it's American data. If you look at the median income of young people today, it's less on an inflation-adjusted basis than their parents and less than their grandparents. Meanwhile, their education cost is four times higher and their cost of housing is seven times higher. If you put those things together, it doesn't surprise me at all

that young people are saying this system doesn't work for us. The system takes from us and gives to other people, especially older people. He talks about how in the aftermath of the pandemic, governments anesthetized the economy, which kind of took out the destructive nature of economic renewal, preventing young people from being able to start businesses and to be entrepreneurs and succeed,

because government really wanted to freeze the stock values of people who have portfolios, namely principally older people. And he said, you do those things over time and you don't necessarily notice the bill that's coming due in terms of the attitudes of young people about whether the system is rigged against them. And I think there's a lot to be said about the argument that he's making. And so when I look at the support that Pierre-Paul Lievre is finding right now, I don't think it's, you know, there's certainly some young men who are feeling that the gender issues have worked against them. There are some who kind of like the cut of his jib.

But I think there is a yearning among young people for something that feels like is more, let's break down the institutions because it feels like the institutions are working against us. And I hadn't seen that before, not anywhere near to this degree. I think it's interesting when you talked about how, when you were looking at some of that data and assumptions that they shocked you. And I guess that's another way of saying it kind of boggled your mind. He gets his mind boggled south of the border daily these days. So there's not much room left for a mind boggling on the Canadian side.

I don't have any boggle up here. It's just, it's like small ball boggle. I mean, if you're 18 to 34, you would be in that age group that is looking to get that first apartment or first house. How could you not be frustrated? Especially if

you live in places like Vancouver, Toronto, to name the two biggest culprits when it comes to housing. Are you going to live with your parents forever? How is this going to work? Where would you find employment outside of those places? The list goes on, and you have to feel that the system is rigged against you.

Yeah, but now you can put a tax-free Christmas tree outside your tent, so you don't have to worry too much. Don't give some of my neighbors ideas. I live in a section of the city where many of my neighbors are homeless. Welcome to Toronto. Yes. No, it's not nice out there. Okay, we're going to take our final break and come back

and talk about South of the Border. Things have been happening. How does it impact Canada? We'll talk about that for the next 10 minutes or so. But first, this break. And welcome back. We're into the last segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantel and Bruce are with us.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Good to have you with us. Okay. You know, Trump came out of the gate fast after his election night victory, and he had all kinds of people he was suggesting as his nominees for everything from Secretary of State to Attorney General to Director of National Intelligence, you name it. But there's been a few setbacks, one in particular with the Matt Gaetz withdrawing from his nomination process.

But there have also been some other things. Canadian ambassador being named, Trump's envoy to Ottawa, and some signals being sent about what that relationship is going to be like. We talked about how, in the first couple of weeks, how the Liberal government was going, oh, it's fine, we can get along fine, no problem. What are the signals that are being sent

and what should we be considering in terms of that relationship these days? Who wants to start here? Bruce, why don't you start this one? His mind is going to be boggled now? Friday morning is boggled central. Here we go. I don't think that we know yet exactly what the tenor of Donald Trump will be towards Justin Trudeau.

I don't think we know the degree to which he'll lean into the idea of Trudeau is somebody I don't like and therefore I want Pierre Palliev. I know that's the speculation that's common. And, you know, maybe it's more plausible given the, you know, the overt aspects of their relationship in the past. But I don't think it's a given that that's how this is going to play out. I do think, based on what I've heard from other people, I don't know the individual who's appointed to or nominated to be ambassador to Canada, that this is a serious person who will be knowledgeable, who doesn't strike you as one of those kind of bizarre appointments that are a huge part of the frame of what Donald Trump is doing in D.C. right now with his cabinet and his agency appointments.

So that's good news, I think, for Canada in terms of having an interlocutor that is here to do a kind of professional job or will be here to do a professional job on complex issues. I was reading a piece this morning about by, by a former public servant who was very heavily involved in the original NAFTA negotiation, who said, you know, some of the speculation like what Doug Ford is doing about, maybe it'd be better to have an agreement without Mexico.

He said, all of that's really unhelpful at this point. He said he reminds in this piece, and we can post it afterwards, that what happens next July 1st is that there's a requirement to review. In 2026, so you mean July? Yes, sorry, 2026. There's a requirement to review, and at the end of that review, there's a decision that can be made by any of the parties that relate to a change that would happen more than a decade later, if I've got that right, Chantal. So we're not talking about imminent changes to that agreement on the basis of the terms that exist right now.

I think it is probably the case, as his piece argues, that the biggest concern that the U.S. has is the relationship with Mexico. In particular, can they get Mexico to be more active in protecting their border? And what is the right way to approach the relationship between Mexico and China? I think those issues are much bigger issues than those that the United States has with Canada. And so the question of whether or not we should be in a more kind of alert and semi-aggressive or docile accommodating posture, I think are premature. I don't think we know what the right answer to that is. I saw a poll that suggested that Canadians were split on it. And sometimes a split like that happens

because people have dug in and opposing views. And sometimes it happens because people don't know what the answer is. So it's a kind of a toss of the coin, which is what I think is the Canadian attitude probably right now, is that whether it's Justin Trudeau or Pierre Poliev, we don't know whether we need a pugilist or whether we need a kind of a serious, accommodative, but thoughtful interlocutor, because we don't know how the U.S. is going to approach us in the mix of the geopolitical relationships

that the U.S. is going to probably redesign significantly. We also don't know if Pierre Poiliev is only a pugilist or if Justin Trudeau still has it in him to be a serious, accommodating but firm person. What I think is happening, I agree with Rose, it's too early, and I do not think Canada is the main focus of attention. There's always this tendency, and it's normal, to think about what's going to happen here.

And the larger picture of everything that's happening and will be happening in the U.S. over the next few months, I don't think Canada is at center stage in any way, shape, or form. There are many, many competing forces for those spots on center stage. Mexico with immigration is one, but also what's going to happen to Ukraine and Russia, what's happening with Israel. I mean, on that magnitude, we're a very small dot on the U.S. radar.

I agree with Bruce that the proposed U.S. ambassador sounds like someone who not only comes from a serious background, but also comes from one of the Canadian frontier states, so would have knowledge of the lay of the land. It's not as if someone from Texas was going to come to Ottawa and discover winter and everything that comes with it. I think on both sides of the border, we are in this period where people in the administration and premiers in this country are waiting out Justin Trudeau. They're waiting to see if he's going to be still around in six months and then time enough to engage. The danger on this side of this attitude is that as opposed

to the last time Trump was president and we faced challenges, the premiers are kind of trying to take leads in all kinds of ways, not always coordinated. For instance, we avoided wisely the last time around having Canadians negotiating with themselves as Canada was negotiating with the Trump administration. Mr. Ford's suggestion is an idea that is certainly worth discussing, but he is the wrong person to be championing it because it sends a signal or a mixed signal that, you know, we are not able to speak with the same voice. But on some issues where we have internal discussions that are worth having, as in the

place of Mexico and this arrangement, where we go for how we go forward on this, or even supply management, which is a matter of debate in the House of Commons and the Senate these days, you can oppose supply management. There are, you know, you can make a case against it. But the last thing you probably want to do in the lead up to having conversations with the Americans is send a signal from Parliament that you're willing to cave on it because you want to show up at the table with as many cards in your hand so that you can drop some.

And this is not a good time to say they're going to like us more if we send the signal that we're weak on this or we're willing to give on that. And I think that's the problem with the particular period we are in in Canada. Add to that the real challenges that the border could pose. The problem with the particular period we are in in Canada, add to that the real challenges that the border could pose with people coming this way.

I watched this week Premier Legault say that he wanted the provincial police to police the border. Okay, possibly. But that also goes to my sense that everyone is kind of pulling the blanket in different directions, and that's not good for Canada's case. All right. We're going to leave it at that. It's been a good discussion this week.

Just in case you were wondering who the new ambassador is from the States, it's Pete Hoekstra. He was a former Michigan congressman, and as Chantal says, is well aware of many of the issues that circulate around Canada-U.S. In terms of the size of the dot that Canada makes on the map for the U.S., it's interesting that this is one of the first ambassadorial appointments that Trump has made. And as Bruce Heyman, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, friend of this show, has said, the very fact that they made it early

is a good sign for the importance of Canada in the relationship. We'll see how that plays out. Thanks to Bruce. Thanks to Chantel. Have a good week. And we'll see you all again seven days from now right here on Good Talk.

Bye for now. See you next week. Bye. Bye.