The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk: Should Canada Care What Elon Musk Says?

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

The richest man in the world says Alberta and Saskatchewan should pick up their stuff and get out of Canada, presumably to join the United States. Bruce and Chantal are here to discuss. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantelle Iber and Bruce Anderson. It's your Friday Good Talk. Glad to have you with us. Lots to talk about, as always. It's amazing how every Friday we're still able to fill almost an hour of Good Talk. There's always something to talk about. The backdrop to a lot of... We can talk about the weather if, you know...

We can talk about the weather. Gorges here in Scotland. It's climate, so, yeah. The backdrop for most of what happened this week, in many ways, was what happened on Monday night in Quebec, and that was the provincial election, which ended up with a minority PQ government, based on 28% of the vote, which is a shocker, really.

I don't think we've seen anything quite like that before in Canadian political history, but nevertheless, that's what happened. And they are now the government. in Quebec. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about some of the things that have happened since because of what happened on Monday night.

And I want to start with the richest man in the world, our friend Elon Musk, who chose this week to say after the Quebec election that Quebecers should separate. And not only that, the Albertans and those in Saskatchew, should do the same thing as a follow-up quickly. Now, the prime minister chose within 24 hours to react to that as a result of a question that was posed to him.

But I don't want to talk about the prime minister's reaction. I want to talk about whether we should even care what Elon Musk says. Now, this is a guy who unlike some of the people around him, actually knows a few things about Canada. His mother was born in Saskatchewan. part of his growing up was in Vancouver. He went to Queen's University in Ontario. So he knows something about Canada, and he knows something about the issues that confront Canada.

Should we care what Elon Musk has to say about the issue of provinces separating in Canada? And Bruce, why don't you start us this week? Well, probably we shouldn't, but we can't afford not, too, I think, Peter. I think he's an extremely influential person, whether we like it or not, and most Canadians don't like it. I mean, if there's one person who couldn't get 28% support in the province of Quebec or anywhere else, it's certainly Elon Musk. He's 80% unpopular across the country, and the highest level of unpopular for him is in the

province of Quebec. So he's not helping the cause of separatists in Alberta or in Quebec or in Saskatchewan. he's helping the cause of federalists, despite what his intentions are. I think it's important with Musk to recognize that he bought and paid for a controversial platform that reaches a lot of people. It is an influential platform in politics in news.

And sometimes it's easy to think that that's only a bad thing, but it is a thing. So you're talking about X, right? You're talking about what used to be Twitter. Honestly, one of the, I'm going to go through a relatively short list, shorter than it could be, of some of the more dubious things that Elon Musk should be remembered for up until this point in time in his career. If you'll indulge me back.

I mean, I think everybody knows that SpaceX is an interesting and successful business, the rockets that return to Earth, as has been Tesla. in terms of its role in breaking through the market and building the market for e-vehicles. But beyond that, he did advocate that we should nuke Mars to make it habitable for humans. He said, I think, starting in 2016, that there would be full self-driving cars everywhere. And he said that probably every year since 2016. In 2020, he said, I think in April, that there would be no COVID cases in the United States by the end of the year,

and there were 350,000 deaths by the end of the year. He was promoting a business that was going to build tunnels in major cities across North America, three or four cities. There ended up being just one, a short track under the ground in Las Vegas. So in Doge, this endeavor that he undertook with President Trump to cut government spending. I think at one point he said he was going to save two trillion dollars. And the latest estimate that I've seen is he saved between one and seven billion dollars, which for some people might

sound like a lot of money, but relative to the promise that he made almost nothing. He's been disrespectful towards Canada consistently. He said it's not a country. He referred to Justin Trudeau as, girl, you're not governor anymore in one tweet. He said that Canadian truckers rule. So he's clearly on the side of the truckers, the convoy protests. So, you know, he's an annoying figure for most people in Canada, but he has a big platform. And I think we have to understand that his voice does reach people. And so, well, I don't think it's a good idea to respond to everything that he says.

I do think we need to talk about it and decide that his is not a voice that we need to follow for everything that he says. And many of the things that he says have turned out to be terrible. ideas. Okay, well, we now know that Bruce pays too much attention to Elon Musk. That's the first thing. The second thing is, thank God for the language divide in this country. It's now turning out to be really useful. Who did not react to Mr. Musk's assertions? Just about everybody from every party that was elected to the Quebec National Assembly on Monday. Why? Because, one, everybody understands what Bruce has explained, that of course, no one in PQ land dreamt of securing the support of

Elon Musk, but two, is kind of irrelevant. And yes, X has some impact, but it has a lot less impact to tell you the truth in French versus English. So it was news for about 10 minutes and then people moved on and yes, Mark Carney did react, but he only reacted because he was asked, which is the same thing to do. If people are going to start worrying about whoever says whatever, at least in Quebec, it's not even part of the conversation those kinds of statements and I agree with Bruce in Saskatchewan and Alberta

there may be people who think of Elon Musk and separation but overall I think it's you would want him to come and campaign probably because it would have helped the federalist side. Yeah I think he delegitimizes the ideas he treats them as though they're just kind of chatter candy that he can toss out every day. And I think people are accustomed to seeing him as a genius in some respects,

but almost a comically poor judge of how society works and what would be good for the world. I think on the Ukraine war. And don't know, I take the job, Chantelle. I probably used AI to help crystallize because I could have remembered. I tried to figure out what does he spend this day. Yeah, but I didn't use GROC. I used Claude, my favorite platform right now. And I noticed that when it came to Ukrainian peace with Russia, his idea was to use a Twitter

poll, I think, to solve the choices for what land should be owned by what country. So, yeah, it's a sad part of the times that we live in that so many millions of people are almost only exposed to this kind of commentary about politics and public policy, I don't think we should overreact to it, but I think it would be a mistake to pretend it's not a factor as well. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think it would be a mistake to ignore it. Ignore him, perhaps, ignore the fact that it could have some influence. It does worry me, but don't forget, this is the guy who claims. that he had a major impact on Trump winning the 2024 election.

And that's not just by propping him up with money. You know, he claims that, you know, in private conversation with people very close to him who have since, you know, released what he said, that he used his talents with computers to impact that election. There's certainly a story. I don't know whether it's been proven accurate that he asked his engineers to amplify his posts in the run-up to that election, which they can do, presumably.

And at the end of the day, he spent a quarter of a billion dollars. So his effort to influence elections is significant. His potential to do that is also significant. I don't think it happens very effectively just by these one-off. a girl, you're not a governor anymore or Quebec is better off separate or Canada is not a real country. I don't think those are the ways in which that influence is manifest. But I think there are ways. And I think there was a good conversation.

I think it was a little bit in the House of Commons about governments do need to monitor for inappropriate influence and outside influence in our elections. and social media platforms are definitely kind of where that mostly happens. And I find it passing strange, though, that we're spending so much time on this guy when the U.S. administration is full of people who are saying things like that, which are a bigger signal of a major shift versus the past than anything that some billionaire wants to opine on any given day. Trillionaire. whatever the number is at some point, it's too high for us to count because we can't get our brains.

We would need artificial intelligence to make sense of it. And by the way, we have just made ourselves enemies of the American administration by using those words. Super intelligence. And if you don't, you are an enemy. But I think the more important issue remains that, At this point, we have an administration that is happy to destabilize Canada in any way, shape, or form. And that does include overt or upfront support for notions such as Albertus separation. The Quebec thing continues, I think, to be something that they do not understand properly.

Every time signals like that come true, they actually hurt the sovereign-dis cause. but we are familiar with this conversation in Quebec and we know the parameters of that conversation so it's a bit harder to introduce new concepts into it given how often we've been at this compared to, for instance, Alberta that is newer to this political conversation and to these kinds of votes.

But I mean there will be more sure can i just pick up on one thing that shantel said i just had one more thought on this for what's worth you know and i think about what are the silver linings of elan musk weighing in on this obviously the fact that he's less popular than the ideas that he's representing is one of those things but if we take it outside of the conversation about canadian unity or alberta cabexamdi he is probably more than anybody else, the person who made the idea of tech bro billionaires trying to tell everybody what to do and how to live

and what the world should look like down the road. He made it unpopular. He's probably like the Wayne Gretzky of unpopular tech bro billionaires, even if he's a trillionaire. He's the highest score in that category. And well, I'm thankful for a lot of the tech. technological advances. I'm also thankful that we now can have a conversation where we go,

yeah, we don't need to care what they think about how our society should work. And so I noted that when the prime minister did react, his reaction was contained in that area of we're not going to let giant tech companies tell us how we're going to live our lives. And he didn't say individuals, but I think for most people, these have become a little bit synonymous, and it's going to be up to those individuals and their companies to decide whether they're going to try to roll back some of the things that they've been doing, the way that they've been talking about their role and the influence of their technology to try to build a little bit more social acceptance of their businesses. Do you see Donald Trump's hand behind any of this? I mean, not telling

Musk what to do, but most thinking, this will help Trump. It's hard not to think that there's some connections. Sorry, I don't want to jump in front of you there, Chantal. No, I'm okay. I mean, I don't think Donald Trump has such a coherent strategy that he would actually it all belongs in that mix, obviously.

I'm sure they were not displeased inside the White House or the current State Department, at least at the top levels, I don't mean the diplomats who know what they're doing. But yeah, sure. He didn't think he would displease Trump. But that doesn't. He's definitely on the suck-up page right now with Trump. And I noticed that his was not the only really weak interpretation or reaction to the election in Quebec.

Jameson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, decided that he should analyze. the election result for Canadians and anybody else who was interested or within earshot. And his analysis was that this was evidence that Quebecers had rejected the Carney government, rejected the liberals at the federal level, even though, you know, obviously the, you know, Mark Carney got 700,000 more votes in Quebec than Mr. Saint-Pierre Plandon did. You know, he, Mr. St. Pierre-Planando won that election. I'm not questioning that. but for Jameson Greer to interpret that as having a much stronger mandate than Mark Carney or a rejection of Mark Carney in Quebec is foolish and he should have known better.

And before we continue on this, does anyone notice that there are 59 seats to the PQ in this new National Assembly and 59 seats to parties that are openly federalists, i.e. the Quebec Liberals and the Conservative Party. So, and that those two parties basically replaced a party that was ambivalent by nature, over sovereignty versus federalism, a i.e. the coalition of Neuquerque, which is now where Quebecers wanted it to be, which is at zero seats. So to draw all kinds of conclusions about how there is a new push for division, sovereignty, on the basis. of a 28% score is kind of ignoring the second elephant in the room, which is openly federalist parties that said, if you vote for us, we will be fighting the notion of having another

referendum, actually tied the PQ. And there are those who will say, oh, you, what about Quebec Solidair? And Quebec Solidire is openly sovereign. except that's not its priority, and 60% of those who support it are actually not sovereign-ist supporters, but they live in writings where the option of a center-left or even a left-leaning ballot option was Quebec Salidae. And my writing, if you didn't want the PQ, you would vote for Quebec Solidaire. No point in wasting your vote on the other two because they weren't going to beat the PQ. And by the way, my writing actually will be represented by QS in the next National Assembly.

So there's a lot of that too. Okay. Before we leave the U.S. issue, the U.S. politics and, you know, moving from Elon Musk to Donald Trump, you have both warned, not warned, but suggested that the time would eventually come when Republicans would start to turn away from Trump. and a lot of people who's kind of wondered about whether that would ever happen

given what we've witnessed over the last 10 years but it actually does in fact seem to be happening now so when Bruce talks about Musk sucking up to Trump he's probably one of the few that is sucking up to Trump other than the gathering of clowns around him

in his cabinet but I you know I look at the Michigan Senate race and Mike Rogers the Republican senator who's been around for a while. He was in Congress, right? He's not an inexperienced guy. I was a big Trump supporter, but in the last couple of days, has pulled the plug on that support in terms of the issue of

the relationship with Canada, tariffs, and all that. What is that signaling to us? He's not alone. There are others who've been doing the same kind of thing in the last couple of weeks as we are now just a couple of weeks from the midterm elections. Is this a, you know, trying to say, the deck chairs on the Titanic or what's going on here? Well, I saw it. I mean, it's a campaign. If the numbers suggested that Trump was an asset, this wouldn't be happening.

So the numbers are likely suggesting. I think the public numbers show that that he's a liability. And increasingly looking at what's been happening in public from Trump, he is increasingly aware that this is happening and while he may decide that it's not real there are people who are fighting to keep their seats who know that it's real and especially in states where this obsession with Canada has economic costs that people can add up and think why are we doing this it's a pretty basic question that the average voter would be asking and be a bit mystified over, you know, what's going on here.

One of the things that Rogers is saying is to Trump is make a deal, make a deal now. It's the only way we're going to save some of these seats. Canada, meanwhile, seems to be, we're not interested in making a deal here right now. You guys go ahead and play your games and we'll talk to you after the mid-tops. Well, it makes sense to, I think, to look at this and say America is in the middle of an important election. It's going to be over soon. There's going to be different representation in Congress for sure. Most of the analysts that I'm following pretty closely, which is pretty much all of them, I'm pretty immersed in it,

are saying that for sure the House will go to the Democrats, and it's more likely than not. 65%, I think is what the prediction markets are saying now, that the Senate will also, flip to the Democrats. And there's almost a kind of a shock among those seasoned watchers in the degree to which, even though if you were Republican strategist earlier this year, you could see that Trump's tariffs and the war in Iran was going to be an anchor for him, that Trump does not do anything to deviate from that strategy. He's leading his party by promoting the same things that are sinking their prospects in places like Texas and places like Michigan and even in places unexpectedly like Kansas. We built an AI engine that monitors in real time what more than

600 U.S. politicians, governors, senators, and Congress people are saying on X, on the platform X about tariffs. And so we've got a really strong kind of data. said about that. In the month to date, sorry, the last 30 days, of the 605 people that were tracking, there have been 388 posts about tariffs from these politicians. Only three of them have been pro-tariffs. All the rest have basically been anti-tariffs. Costs of living is too high. Why are we fighting with our ally Canada over tariffs? And so it's not surprising to see somebody like that Senate candidate in Michigan who's probably piled tens of millions of dollars

into a campaign. And his data is telling him, people don't like these tariffs, they don't like the fight with Canada, they want it to be over. And he's getting close to the finish line. He's behind by six or seven points in most polls. And so he's really got no choice

if he wants to have a fighting chance to win, which is to remove the difference between himself and Abdul Al-Said on the question of, tariffs and there was a debate last night. I saw clips of it didn't see the whole thing, but it did feature prominently. And I think that for Canadians, it's a little bit like the fever is breaking. And then Americans are finally hearing more politicians say, you know what, this turned out to be a terrible idea on a number of levels and we need to rethink it. And so if there is that reset, we should look forward to politicians in the Senate and the House of Representatives

who are interested in having a conversation about how do we rebuild a mutually beneficial trading relationship and allyship as well? Yeah, except that's going to be a conversation between Congress and that administration. And part of the problem, you say we're not interested in making a deal. Actually, there is nothing new from when we walked away that would make us want to make a deal. But one of the dynamics that Canada discovered over the course of that negotiation was that inside the administration, there are people who will sabotage other people to avoid them having a success. So on that basis, you're negotiating. I'm negotiating with you, Peter, and we almost have a deal. And then Bruce walks in and says, I'm actually negotiating this for whoever.

And whatever Peter said, forget that, because this is the new. So basically, that's the dynamics. It has very little to do with us, but it is as if we sent our two, three negotiators, and they were undermining each other to make sure that none of them could go back to the prime minister and say, I negotiated a deal boss,

because then they would look like they're not as good. Consider that this is like kindergarten politics at this point from inside the administration. And then you think there is no certainty that after the midterms, the White House entourage will have its act together enough to come to a deal that we can discuss. You know, Bruce doesn't even look like Howard Ludnik. Well, now Halloween is coming. I don't know.

I think that's right. I think the question is, though, that after the midterms, the normal dynamic in the Republican, in any party that's in that incumbency in the White House situation in a second term, is to turn their attention to who is our next standard barrier going to be. And I think for the Republicans, the question of whether or not they're going to pick somebody who's been aligned with Trump on all of these controversial policies, in particular on tariffs and Iran, the war in Iran. That's a really tough question because this will be, I think, quite a repudiation of those Trump policies.

And it may well be that Republicans say, or they splinter into the MAGA Republicans, which we can see in the data exist as this splinter. The MAGA Republicans and the ones who've been silent, but really uncomfortable with a lot of Trump policies over the last couple of years, but silent to be clear because he had that ability to threaten or bully them. But if you take away the ability to threaten or bully or primary them or cast them out because Trump doesn't have that same power over the future of his party, I think it's an open question whether or not Republicans start to, we start to hear more Republican voices that say, America does need allies around the world. America does need relationships around the world. Certainly, I think Democrats are already starting to say it with more passion.

They moved away from that fear of sounding like globalists into a feeling of we know we got too isolated. We know we find ourselves in a situation whereas I think Al-Sayed said it might have been awesome. There was a debate in Georgia last night. It was also quite a good debate for people if they're interested in this to talk to watch where America is doing one country's bidding in the Middle East. And that's an important message politically right now because a lot of Americans are wondering what exactly is it that we're trying to get done there. And will we ever get anything done? And will we ever be able to get out of the situation that we put ourselves in that's creating all of these problems, especially around the cost of living and the cost of fuel? Okay.

We're going to take our break. Our first break, we'll come back. We'll move the conversation on and get it back inside this side of the 49th parallel. I thought we spent a whole hour already. It felt like a good hour already, but we've still got more time. We have lots more time because this is good talk. There's always time for good talk. We'll do that right after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. That means Chantelle Baer, Bruce Anderson, Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Series XM, Channel 160, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast. platform and there are many or you're watching us on our YouTube channel and as always we're glad to have you with us okay next topic you know and Chantelle has this phrase she uses every once in a while and I heard her using it this week a trifecta of forces that can have an impact on a on a situation on an issue on a policy on a debate in parliament and the

trifecta as she was talking about this week, labor, indigenous groups, and environmental groups. And the reason she was talking about it, because of Bill C-39, which actually got through its first test point in the Canadian Parliament in this past week, without much of a fuss. And so it raised the question for me,

Was this just a moment in the kind of moment we're experiencing as a, you know, impacts the Canada-U-S. story? Or was this actually a moment where those forces, which have been a dominant collection of forces for the last, what, 50, 60 years at least, have lost their power to impact, their interests. their influence to impact on something like this. Bill C-39, for those who aren't aware, is basically allowing the government to move faster on things, on major projects. So, Chantelle, why don't you start us off on this? Well, I find it really hard to conclude that the conversation is over

and one side has prevailed when the conversation is actually only starting. and the real issue, yes, there was a vote in Parliament this week to approve this major bill in principle and send it off to a committee that I expect will probably deal with this massive piece of legislation between now and the end of the year, which is a fairly short time in parliamentary terms. I am not going to presume as to what would happen in the Senate afterwards. But the House of Commons, as it is currently configured, and in large part because of the repositioning of the Liberal Party, is giving those three groups a sense that they don't have much of a voice in the conversation. The NDP doesn't have official party status. The Prime Minister is obviously chosen to do what is in that bill, and the conservatives like the legislation. so they did vote to the liberals to approve the bill at second reading and send it off to a committee. I'm not saying that all environmental groups or all labor groups or all First Nations feel that they don't have a voice,

but a lot of them do. And that is probably not great for what happens afterwards, because Parliament is not the only venue where legislation gets discussed, debated, and possibly recrafted. another venue is the courts and the purpose of Bill C-39 is to speed up projects, to speed up approval of projects so that it doesn't take decades or a decade to get them off the ground. There is very little that can slow down project as efficiently as litigation in the courts,

and we saw that with Trans Mountain in particular. So you do need to find more common ground. The same is true of labor, which has pending litigation over some of the issues in the bill. So that is one issue of a missing link in the conversation. The other issue is, and we have seen that in our recent history, there is a time when groups that feel that they don't have a voice or that they're not being heard in the normal venues, take the streets. And then that is also a major complication.

It's not the liberal's fault that the NDP is not an officially recognized party. But it is a bug and not a feature that there is not outside of the Black Quebecois, a party that has the representation that allows it to make at least the case on some of these issues. at this point that committee is not going to have any representation from the NDP or the green.

I believe that's a mistake, that this would have been a good opportunity to open it up. I also believe that this parliamentary committee, even if it wants to act quickly, would find it in the interest of that legislation to call in some of these groups so that at least they get a hearing on the issue because they do have arguments. that will at some point resonate in many quarters of the country. So what I'm trying to say, I guess you guys will remember. What I'm trying to say is when we left Meach Lake with that accord, everyone was on site that did not ever make it a done deal.

And you've got to think of what happens next. And passing this legislation is just the beginning and not a conclusion to say, We're done here. We're not going to have any more discussions because we won the day. Okay, Bruce, you take a run at it. And remember, the framing of the question was, is this just a moment in our time right now

dealing with the bigger issues surrounding the Canada-U.S. relationship and the major projects is part of that? Or is this a moment of bigger consequence in terms of it? It goes back to that question, asked a couple of weeks ago about whether the country itself is changing? I think the answer is both, Peter. I mean, I think the country has been changing. I think there is certainly a lot of evidence that this is accelerated,

this has concentrated the mind of the country on some questions that really go to the heart of what we used to call, you know, tripartism in Canada and how, you know, things were meant to work in a stable state. You know, I started the, did this prime minister run on, did this party want to get elected on the idea that it would be in a state of friction with organized labor or with environmental groups? And for me, the answer is clearly no. If I ask myself, do I think this prime minister doesn't care about the environment or

wants to undermine the legitimacy of labor unions? the answer for me is no. Other people may have a different answer. That is my perception and understanding of this individual. So if he and his government find himself in a situation where there is friction with environmental groups and labor leaders, the question for me is why is that happening? And for me, it's happening first and foremost because I think the prime minister has made the calculation and others will agree with it or disagree with it, that there is both economic urgency that requires us to change the way in which we approach attracting investment and organizing our economy. And that some of the changes

that we may make are going to feel more disruptive, more disconcerting, more worrying than any changes that have been made in the past. I think he's made that calculation because he believes in the economic urgency of the moment. So that kind of loads up on the moment side. When he uses the terminology that we have to take the world as it is, not as we want it to be, I believe that he really means that in terms of the urgency of some of these changes. When he says that we should be looking at a system where if there's one project, there should be one review and we should take a year, it sounds like the slogan.

and it has that value of people being able to go, okay, I understand what he's trying to do, which is to reduce the amount of review time and review process. And some people will look at that and say, that means increased risk. I don't believe that you can increase the pace without increasing the risk. Chantelle is absolutely right.

This conversation is really just starting. It's going to continue for years to come. the role of the courts will be important in it. I think it's a very legitimate political discussion. I do think my last point is probably that if I think about how environmental groups and some labor leaders have carried their case forward in the past, there probably is room for some of them to look at the world as it is and say, what are the things that we should prioritize and argue about in order to make

maintain contact with Canadians who are pretty pragmatic at the end of the day, who want to believe that we should have these different voices competing for attention and making better arguments one relative to the other. But the world isn't as it was. Multilateralism has, for the most part, broken down on a lot of important issues. It is to the government's credit, in my view, that they are trying to help put multilateralism back together again, understanding that the U.S. has been the biggest single disruptor to that and continues to be that today. Do you want to add anything to that, Chantel, before we move on? I don't disagree with, you know, the aim, it would be the point of the first to say it makes no sense

that we are always talking about doing things and have been, not just for a decade, for two decades, and then not seeing them through, which while other countries manage to do big things, certainly more efficiently and more quickly. But taking the world as it is also means worrying about the world as it will be. And what worries me about legislation such as C-39, but not only that one, is that we are permanently at this point, because that bill does not have a sunset clause or review clause,

we are permanently increasing the political discretion of whoever is in government and sidelining parliament. At the end of the day, based on your definition of the national interest or economic plight resulting from labor strife, you can, at the stroke of a ministerial pen, bypass laws. For me, that bill, which has many features that I find interesting, also amounts to a legislative, notwithstanding, that we are handing governments for the future. It's a bill that has this mechanism that allow you to say, here's legislation that allows me to bypass my own legislation.

And I'm troubled by that because I do not believe, and I understand when the liberals say or the prime minister says based on a significant capital of trust, that of course they would not abuse that power, I'm reminded when I looks out of the border that no one can guarantee the future on abuse of power. And I am reminding myself that I have seen no government come into office to curtail the power and it inherited. And that's my major discomfort with the legislation. The separate parts are debatable.

It's interesting. But at the end of the day, do we want? that place called Parliament to be relevant or do we want it to be what it is increasingly a place where people go to talk with very little impact? Well, one of the ways we'll find out how relevant it is is what the bill looks like when it comes out the other end. Will there be amendments? Will there be changes?

Will there be some things to address some of the things you've both mentioned here, including the opportunity for some of these groups to have. a platform of venue somewhere to speak about their concerns in a way that as Bruce says also shows that they're adapting to what's a changing changing times basically

okay we're going to take our final break we'll be back right out to this and welcome back a final segment of good talk for this week Chantelle Ibert Bruce Anderson Peter Mansbridge with you glad to glad to have our chat. I should tell you, this is,

we're coming up on Thanksgiving weekend. And, you know, there's always something to be thankful for. There's been a lot of disruption in our lives over the last year or two. And we're trying to address that. But there are also some things that have been,

you know, pretty good. And we can be thankful for, as always. And one of them is the very, simple fact that we live in the country we live in. Okay. As a result of, by the way, Thanksgiving weekend, Monday, it'll be actually a repeat of this program. And Janice Stein will move from Monday to Wednesday for next week only.

Tuesday is a more buts conversation, which are always good. All right. Final segment and that opportunity. I have something that I could mention, but I'm going to let you each have the platform, first of all, about something that may be on your mind that you've been thinking about this week

that we should be thinking about as well. I forgot we were doing it, so Chantal should go first. I'm going to borrow something that I thought was quite brilliant from one of my Razzu Canada colleagues, and it was about the Quebec election, and the things we don't talk about, but that reflect what happens in the society. and he was noting that, of course, we had a peaceful competitive election

and no one woke up the next morning to say the result is not the result. But he also noted that we have two leaders, the two main opposition leaders, who went to vote with their same-sex partner, and no one blinked. And we also have a party leader who got elected and brought members to the National Assembly who was born and came to Quebec as a Palestinian refugee who spoke no French. And that also says something about how we've moved forward. And I thought this is, you know, beyond the who's arguing this and that, yes, it's, if you talk about things to be thankful for, yes, I am thankful for that society. Bruce.

you know I am thankful that we can have the kind of conversation that we have and that people feel that they can say whatever they have to say in Canada and our democracy is pretty healthy and as frustrating as it can be sometimes that's a thing I you know the thing that stood out for me in the last day or so that I was watching and I just had a bunch of different reactions to it Pete Hegeseth the Secretary of War in the United States

announcing that the execution of somebody who had killed people on a U.S. military base. So I'm not defending in any way, shape, or form the individual who was convicted of this crime and sentenced to death. But he's announced that that execution is going to be public. I guess it's going to be televised. And it just felt to me as though I, I think there's such a contrast sometimes between American culture and Canadian culture. We, when we had capital punishment, there would always be people in Canada, I know, who favor capital punishment. There are more who oppose it.

But my recollection of it, my understanding of it was that when someone needed to be executed by the state, because our law required that to happen, sentencing went that way. there was a kind of a collective regret about it because the life was being taken. And I know just saying that is going to make me sound like I'm some kind of woke defender of this person who did this heinous thing. And that isn't my point. My point is, like, what does it say that the government of the United States believes that it should get back in the business of, or it should be in the business of public execution? And how will Americans react to that? Will it be that they demand more of it or will they turn away from it and decide that it's a measure of the society that they're not comfortable with?

I'm very interested to see how that goes. Well, this just days after an execution in one of the states, and I can't remember which state it was now. Alabama, I think maybe. Yeah, it was botched. Whatever, was botched. A woman, they tried twice to execute her. It was unsuccessful. They had to take her way in hospital, unconscious.

She's now recovered to a degree as walking around in her hospital room. I mean, it's unbelievable. And they want to run the risk of doing something like that on camera. Now, I think the military execution is by firing squad. It's firing squad. One assumes that it would be a little more lethal than what they tried on this woman, but nevertheless, that we're even discussing this, that the Americans are even discussing this, is mind-boggling to me, and how this cabinet secretary in particular still has a job.

It's shocking to me, and you wonder if the midterms turn out the way the pollsters and the prediction market seem to think they're going to, to what Trump is going to do with his cabinet? What are going to happen to people like Hexeth who helped bring him the disaster in Iran? You know, the, you know, the, you know, Besant and Lutnik and all these people who brought him into the economic mess he's in. What's he going to do with them? Is he going to can them like previous presidents have done after a disastrous midterren? You know, even Obama got rid of some cabinet secretaries after his, you know, after a midterm that didn't go well for him. Anyway, we'll see.

I mean, the things that are happening as a result of this, you know, I mean, I saw a piece on CNN the other day saying that Fox News has stopped covering Trump the way they always have. at his rallies that he's been having, which haven't turned into much, they haven't been showing them. They haven't been putting them on. Their journalism is much more aggressive on the Trump factor than it's ever been before. So, I don't know, it's crazy times down there.

Okay. I think we're at that point where we call it a day unless somebody else has something else they'd like to drop on us with a minute or so left. Well, you know, we'll see if the monarchy endures the part of the next week in Quebec. Oh, yeah, yeah. How do you think that's going to go shot, child?

What do you think is going to happen there? One, when an incoming Premier tells you that he campaigned on something and now will secure legal advice. It kind of tells you that maybe securing a back door. I don't know. But if you have 30 seconds, when the election night started in Quebec,

the PQ was having a great night for about 45 minutes. Why? Because the advanced poll results were the results broadcast. And then things went out. So that last week that was very aggressive about the monarchy, about immigration, about the federal government, actually hurt the Patskyvik well and probably cost it a majority. And the U.S. conversation is well, presumably, right? Yeah. Actually, the U.S. conversation in the end backfired mostly on the CAAC, but still, that kind of tells you that if you read the room and you're the new premier of a minority government that was. wants to increase support, you maybe don't want to be having too much energy on battles like that.

Can I just ask you, you know, in English Canada, it's pronounced lieutenant governor, even though it's spelled lieutenant governor. Yep. In French, it's... Lieutenant. And by the way, I believe... That's not trying to tease Peter anymore, French. No. Many Quebecers, I think.

discovered that such a person exists over the past two weeks. Yeah, right. And I'm sure the same would be said in many provinces of the country, not just Quebec. Okay, we're going to leave it at that. Thank you both. Have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoy it. The weather can be quite pleasant at this time if you're across the country.

And let's hope it is wherever you are. So thanks to Chantelle. Thanks to Bruce. The buzz will be out tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. In your mailbox. And as Bruce likes to say, it's, free. You'll just have to give us

your email address and you'll get it as well. And you can do that at National Newswatch.com slash newsletter. Thanks again. Take care of gang and we'll see you in a week's time.

Bye.