The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Should "Profanity Pete" Be Asked To Leave?

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

As if there isn't enough going on with trade talks broken down with the U.S., new trade possibilities with China, and a crucial budget set for Tuesday, Canadians could be facing an election within a week. And then there's the case of "Profanity Pete" the US Ambassador to Canada. Let's get some analysis with Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert as we convene another Good Talk. 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-A-Bair and Bruce Anderson. It's another Friday Good Talk, and I've got to tell you, there's lots of stuff to go with today. I'm going to start, perhaps, not with the most important thing, but certainly something that's grabbed my attention this week. Partly because it was just a couple of weeks ago, Bruce Anderson called this guy the worst U.S. ambassador to ever be sent to Canada. His name's Pete Hoekstra.

He doesn't hold back. He's a rough and tumble guy. We do that when he got here. But again this week, he's made headlines. Because in a session with a number of different officials, he went on a profanity-laden tirade, used the F-bomb, various other things, apparently. It was all supposedly in private, but it leaked out fairly quickly.

And he was directing his ire at a Canadian official, an Ontario official, actually, but going after them as a result of the Doug Ford ad. But it was the way he went after them. So I want to go back to you, Bruce, to start. What did you make of this? And is it something, I mean, he's been asked to apologize, as far as I can tell, he hasn't. He certainly hasn't published.

publicly. What do you make of this? Well, I think he's, among other things, I think he's incompetent at the job that he was sent to do. I mean, if the president wanted this individual to accomplish something impositive for America in the relationship with Canada, it's really hard to understand what that is that he's trying to do. And even if we credit the notion that I'm trying to may have sent him and said, you know, bully and intimidate and insult Canadians as often and as harshly as possible. Let's imagine that that conversation. I don't think it happened that way, but anything seems possible these days in Washington, D.C. You would still want it to feel

as though there were voters in the United States who, if they heard about this, if they heard about the way that Hoxter was approaching his responsibilities would say, right on, this is really good. This is going to help us sell more of our things. It's going to help strengthen the tourism exchanges across our borders. It's going to be, it's going to make us feel better as Americans. It's making America great again. That's ridiculous on the surface of it. I don't believe that, based on everything that I know about American public opinion towards Canada, that Americans want their country to be represented in Canada the way that Ambassador Huxra has been doing it. I met with somebody this week who said he is the embassador. It just was the whole idea that

what he is doing is embarrassing Americans. Maybe not Trump. Maybe Trump is beyond the potential to be a source of embarrassment for America in Canada, but he's embarrassing the country. and the people of the country who have longstanding, productive, and friendly relationships with Canada. So he, to me, is insulting, he's inept, I think he's incompetent at the work that he's meant to be doing. But the last point for me is this isn't the first time. This guy was the ambassador to the Netherlands. And he had a really bad time there. He talked about how Islamic influences were creating no-go zones in the Netherlands,

that cars were being burned, there was chaos everywhere, that politicians were being burned. And of course, as one would expect, journalists and others in the Netherlands spent a good deal of time, chasing them down over those remarks and say, why did you say that? Do you have any actual evidence that there's been a politician that's been burned in the Netherlands? And he spent a bunch of times saying, I never said that, never said that. That's fake news. But I sent you the link this morning, Peter. There's video of him saying it in front of a committee hearing.

And eventually he had to apologize and say, you know, I said the wrong thing. That's not what I should have said. And so you would have thought that his one prior diplomatic appointment and that skirmish, with a country that he was born in, might have left him with a bit of, you know, scar tissue, a sense of there's a way to conduct yourself and a way not to conduct yourself. But if anything, he's worse now than he was then.

And seems to revel in it. And I don't know how it ends, but it's just, it's kind of shocking to see the way that he carries on. Chantelle, what do you make of it? Well, it's even, more shocking, and I'm sure that has been your experience too, when you consider that the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa has never lacked for very competent diplomatic staff. People really have their ear to the ground, go out of their way, to be aware of the undertones of the conversation

in Canada so that they pick the spot in the right place. And that's been the history under various presidents, Democrat or Republican, that has been the history of that embassy. There was a time when I was a bureau chief on the hill, when I wanted to confirm something. Sometimes it was a Canadian inside story. Other times, the famous lobster remark from Jean-Paisal, which was a remark made in front of the European Union ambassadors. The U.S. wasn't there. But my first stop was a contact at the U.S. embassy because I knew that that embassy knew everything. And the first answer I got from the embassy was, yes, that did happen. It's the talk of the diplomatic circles.

And then I pursued the story on the basis of, yes, it wasn't just, you know, some weird rumor. So is a one-man accident walking, not someone who is directed by people who know better to do these things. It's also very tone deaf. You cannot divorce it, obviously, from what happened, both in this country and in the U.S. following the famous Ontario ad that it's so inflamed President Trump that he decided that we weren't talking anymore. Two things. One, I guess the hope initially in U.S. circles and in his mind was that there would be a huge backlash against Ontario Premier Ford. and that he would be shown a lesson and that would be really useful

because in truth the US has been and you keep hearing it very, very frustrated by what they see as inflexibility on the part of Canada at the negotiating table on the trade issue. What they call inflexibility is the refusal to sign a concession list and just cave to every demand

just to get a bit of a break. I'm not going to slap you so hard. if you accept to get down on your knees and say thank you for making me renounce all my policies on this and that and that. Don't death because the opposite is liable to happen. Those remarks in that story will only fan the impression or the sense of Canadians that, wait a minute, do you think we are? And I saw an echo spool this week that I found really interesting on that because the question asked was, do you believe that Canada is being too timid

and its handling of the U.S. Canada relationship? And a majority of Canadians answered, yes, we believe Canada is being too timid. But the more interesting number I talked is about half of people who self-identify as liberals, 46% also felt Canada was being too timid. So there is not this huge bush to say, can we crawl our way to some agreement?

And at the same time, that poll that people keep talking about on CNN in the U.S. That shows that favorable versus unfavorable impressions of Canada, plus 49 is the impression of Canada. Mr. Oxtra works for a president whose approval, disapproval rating in that poll in his own country is minus 10. There has never been so much talk of Canada in the U.S., I believe, since the first. referendum 30 years ago and the talk is mostly positive should I don't want to drone on on this too long but should there be some kind of official you know act you know the countries pull ambassadors from other countries up on the mat on occasion even ask them to leave for a while should it go that far or what you know I

I think it's interesting, and I appreciate the point that Chantelle was making about the polling data, because I think the question that you're asking, Peter, goes to the, there's at least two dimensions to this whole Canada-U.S. issue. On the one hand, there's the, what are the consequences of the choices that we make or don't make in terms of the specific issues, irritants, trade arrangements? and the second is what is the performance of the relationship that's seen by the outside world and for the politicians involved principally the prime minister it's possible on any given day to have a situation where the america trump extra does something that inflames opinion that makes people feel frustrated annoyed angry dispirited and they want a kind of a visible performance of the fight back, the elbows up, the pushback, that kind of thing.

And that's entirely natural. And sometimes it's the right thing to do. But at the same time, if you're responsible for ultimately making those choices that decide what's going to happen to our steel industry, what's going to happen to our auto parts industry, you have to think about the consequences too. And if the performance feels like it's a performance for performance sake, for the politics of it, but could be. cost jobs and livelihoods. People aren't going to thank you at the end of the day if you had a kind of a moment of expressed outrage, but the economic toll for Canadians was too great. And I'm not saying that's the only way to look at the choices, but I do think it is at the heart of how to get out of a situation where America's mood swings have so much to do with our economic confidence in the

future. And if you're the prime minister, I think that is the thing that you have to remain very focused on. So to your specific question of should this ambassador be called in for kind of an official rebuke, he's been asked to apologize. He did apologize in the Netherlands. He should be asked to apologize by his administration. I don't know whether or not it's worthwhile for the federal government to escalate the drama around Hextra or not. I do think that it's incumbent upon everybody around politics to say what they think about how he's how he's behaving. Do you want to add on that? Yes, I don't have a real solid opinion one way or the other. I am very ambivalent on the issue. But what I'm not

at Bivalenton is the Prime Minister cannot continue to hide behind his staff and to walk away whenever there are questions about which has been going on now for a week, and that does include those remarks. This is not the Bank of Canada or the Bank of the UK. You can't just run away because a central bank doesn't have to explain everything that it does. Canadians are entitled to hear what the Prime Minister asked to say on which speaking. happening where he fell on the fourth ad when he was shown the ad because there's no doubt that it was shown to him beforehand now but also how he feels about an ambassador of any country going to a function where he goes after the trade representative of Canada's largest

province yeah I find it hard to believe that if it was an ambassador from a country that we don't have the kind of relationship we have with the United States, if some ambassador from a such country said something in any fashion like this, there wouldn't have been some kind of reaction. Do you think that Mark Kearney would have said I'm going to visit China? If this week this has happened with the Chinese ambassador to Canada, I don't think so. Well, that neatly takes us to our next topic. I like to accommodate it. which is really the headline of this day in terms of straight up news,

which is the Chinese president. She has invited Mark Carney to come to China, and this is at a critical moment in terms of the relationship between the two countries and what it's gone through in the last few years and the need for some kind of, the desire for some kind of new arrangement between the two countries. Carney has accepted the invitation.

When this is going to happen, how soon it's going to happen, and what will take place on that visit, we don't know. But in terms of the significance of that moment, this was a big deal, a big conference that's going on in Korea right now, and China and Canada had a talk. We don't know exactly what happened in that talk, but we do know the result of it, which is this invitation.

Talk to me about the significance of that. Do you want to start Bruce again on this? Yeah, look, I think there's a couple of things that are apparent to me. One is that the world of 2025 doesn't afford Canada or any other country, really, the same set of choices that were available in terms of how to approach these relationships 10 years ago. Trump principally has deconstructed the world order, the world trading system, the sense of who we can trade with successfully, what partnerships we can build.

And we're not the only country that's feeling those pressures and trying to figure out, well, what's a path forward that is pragmatic and sensible for the people of our country and remains true to our value system? That's a harder set of choices in 2025 than it was not very many years ago. And so I think what Canada is doing in what other countries are also doing is looking at the distinction between values and interests in a different way, trying to maintain a through line of thinking about values, but stopping short of articulating the relationship with another country, whether it's China or India or other countries, in a way that creates more friction.

Now, there will be people for whom these are choices they don't agree. And I think if you're the head of state or head of government of countries that are faced with these choices, you understand that you're going to need to make some of these choices and you're going to leave some people dissatisfied. On the other hand, if you don't have a strategy to repair your economy, replace aspects of your economy that need. to be rethought. People aren't going to thank you for that either. So the key words for me in the way in which the prime minister has been talking about his relationship with China and the way that you hear about conversations with India is

pragmatism, a sense that these other countries have heard what we think about some of the choices that they make, but they're not going to be moved from their own choices. because of our arguments. And their point, I think, to Canada is, if you want to have a pragmatic economic relationship with us that doesn't involve you criticizing us, then we can have that. Now, again, there are going to be people for whom

making that kind of choice is not something they're comfortable with. But I think that's the nature of the strategic questions for Canada is at what point does our advocacy on issues other than those affecting our direct economic interests collide with our economic interest. And if so, and when it does, what do we do about that? So I think these are perplexing questions for sure. You know, if there's any way to read that mood within the country from listening to

some of those who follow this program, it sounds like they're more interested now in trying to work out a new deal, a new arrangement with China, not forgetting those concerns they've had in the past and still have, but they think there's a need now, especially in terms of what's happened with the relationship with the United States. And I say this because the question of the week to listeners this week was about this very issue. It's a time to make a big deal with China,

in spite of the potential downsides that could mean in terms of the relationship. And the answers almost overwhelmingly, and there were a lot of them this week, were we need to deal with this now. We need to push in terms of making new arrangements with China on the economic front, on the trade front. That was interesting. She's just a snapshot, but it was interesting nevertheless. Sorry, Shantel, you want to get in on this now. No, I'm good.

Talking about moving countries like China or India from their choices. We can't even move for a traditional U.S. ally from its choices, so let's not, you know, self-aggrandize our influence. And we do have a lot of economic ties that should get us more of an audience in the U.S. And it doesn't, then it does in China and India. I also believe that even if we were not in this era, even if Camara Erez had won the U.S. election, that we would be trying under a new prime minister to normalize our relationships with India and China, because you can't ignore the reality that there are three economic superpowers in the world now, India, China, and the U.S. And even if you have a great relationship with the U.S., you actually want to give yourselves alternatives and develop top.

to other regions. Something few people talk about is that at this point, the leading superpower when it comes to climate policy and climate change mitigation is China. That is where the action is, and that is the country

that is moving forward on this. They're not saying, as opposed to our neighbors next door, that climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, they are looking forward to the, where the world will economically land with, be it on ebbs, energy, et cetera.

They're making a virtue of necessity, some would argue, because as anyone who's gone to China knows, they have serious, serious issues with pollution, climate consequences to the point of hurting people in their everyday lives and shortening the lives of citizens. But still, Canada, co-chaired with China, a major international climate conference. I think it was last year. And Stephen Gilbo and his Chinese counterpart found a lot of ground to work together. Those ties

at that level do exist. And I think they will matter in the future for anyone who's interested in effective global climate policy. Did you want to make a point, Bruce? Yeah, if I can, Peter. I mean, I think one of the things that's interesting right now is to look at how even the domestic politics in Canada are affected by this evolving situation with the United States and the evolving conversation with China. And this isn't meant to kind of stoke partisanship. It's more only a few years ago. It was kind of easy to see that conservatives in Canada and MAGA Republicans were. Just loving, hammering China, People's Republic of China, communist China, all this kind of rhetoric, but also demonizing China as a force of evil in the world. Now, a lot of people will probably still enjoy that.

But watching the relationship between President Trump and President Xi yesterday, I guess, when they met was interesting to me because Trump clearly wasn't there to bully or oppose. apply leverage or insult China or to proclaim, you know, America's superior power over China, there was none of that. Instead, what we saw was the U.S. president looking like he wanted a warmer handshake than he was getting, talking about how great it was that China was going to buy American soybeans again. It was more Taco Trump than it was anything else, right? And so if you're in the sense that he was, you know, we're going to try to get back to a place that's better, even though in many instances it was Trump that made it worse. Now, in Canada, of course, the announcement that the Canadian Prime Minister is going to go and have a visit in China before too long,

puts the question in front of conservative leader Polyeth. What is it that he thinks should happen? Does he think that the prime minister should go to China and lecture China on one issue or another? Does he think that the right approach for Canada is to establish more normalized economic relationships? I think I know what the answer to that will be, but it will represent a shift in the rhetoric of the Conservative Party, just as we've seen a shift in the approach that President Trump has taken, which I think is happening because the impact of tariffs on the American economy and the American consumer are finally starting to bite

and you're seeing some action in the political landscape in the United States which reflects that and which has to be disconcerting for the Republican Party as they think about the midterms. Yeah, you're actually seeing some Republicans, not many, but some, which is a step forward from the past year, speaking out, against some of the initiatives of Trump. But let me, just to stay political for a moment, that's a legitimate question to be asking Pierre Paulyev.

There's no doubt about it. But you know the question that he's going to be asking when the prime minister arrives back and before the budget has tabled on Tuesday, he's going to say, okay, Prime Minister, you've been on yet another tour in different parts of the world. You've glad-handed, you've had dinners, you've had cultural events and you've been invited to visit China and that's all nice.

But what do you actually bring it back? What have you got in your hand to show us in terms of delivering on some of the expectations that you set in the election campaign? I always say I would be a very poor opposition strategist, obviously. my sense is always to wait a couple of days before you go on the attack on stuff like that because what if a bit more of a trade-off was discussed on Canola versus TVs

to relieve Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which are a conservative heartland. I'm not saying that happened. I'm just probably too careful to ever be a good official opposition question period strategist. But I can see traps and I see one there that is easy to avoid

by waiting three or four days. Yeah, that's right. I think the... He's never big on the weight, though. No, but he burns a lot. I mean, he would be burning cartridges for nothing because no one's going to be paying attention to those questions, repetitive as they are,

on the eve of the budget, because the main question is going to be to him or are you going to support the budget? Or do you want an election? So next week is a wasted week for opposition parties on any topic except the budget. But, I mean, it's not as if Mr. Rolayev doesn't mind wasting ammunition. He does on a regular basis. This China question is also central to the dilemma that we've talked about for Pierre Polyev in the past.

On the one hand, he's got a base of his party that loves China bashing. on the other hand to win an election which could happen at his hand as early as you know could start as early as next week he needs to be focused on that one third of Canadians who are swing voters and what do they want and what are they looking for in terms of leadership well what they're looking for is it's not somebody to prosecute how many plane trips you took it's like what is what are we trying to accomplish from an economic policy standpoint as it relates to this huge threat from the Trump administration? And so the messages that he would use to rally his base

and get the best possible number in that leadership review in January are going to be consistent with the line that Conservative Party has taken for the last several years on China. On the other hand, to position more effectively for an election, I think people are going to want pragmatism from a conservative leader, which is going to sound if he takes that approach different from what he's been saying in the past. Okay. We're going to take our first break, but we have moved into the budget discussion, and there's lots to talk about on that front. We'll do all of that right after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to. good talk for this Friday, Chantelle Iber, Bruce Anderson, here, along with Peter Mansbridge. Glad to have you with us. 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 pleased with the success that's had over 100,000 views last week on our YouTube channel, which is a big deal in today's world. That's more than some television shows get. go figure, especially with all these fancy production

techniques that we used on our... I mean, all the money we spent on decor and told the... You should thank the entire team and list all of the people involved in this production too. Yes, and there actually are more than a couple, more than just the faces you see

on the screen, but... Yeah, but it wouldn't take long. No, it wouldn't. This is not your big production. Anyway, there will be a big production next week. It's the unveiling of the budget after, well, literally months, what, more than a year of discussions about what, what, what, uh, this government and the previous government would do as a budget. So Tuesday is budget day. Um, you know, I, have, have we been set up

to believe this is going to be like a vicious budget and they're going to be all kinds of cuts and, and lots of people out of work in the public service and a ballooning deficit? Um, Have we been set up, or is that, in fact, what's likely to happen on Tuesday? And then we'll set the table as to what that could mean as a result of it. But what is your current thinking? You start us off this time, Chantelle. What's your current thinking on what we should expect on Tuesday? Well, I don't expect a small deficit.

I don't expect our percentage of debt. deficit to GDP to have improved. And I expect that this might be a tough budget for the Ottawa, the national capital region for civil service purposes. Although, you know, this word we keep hearing whenever there are supposed to be cuts to the civil service, this word called attrition, people who retire that we don't replace, etc. There's a limit to how much you can You can cut before you get to the bone when it comes to dispensing services to Canadians. And we've seen it with passports and with a host of other, the Revenue Canada situation is a case in point. So there is that.

But what I find interesting, and I don't know if I'm wrong, but I've been watching and talking to people, we were supposed to get a reframing of the climate policy from Mr. Carney. and that is now a chapter of the budget. My understanding was that we were also supposed to get some kind of larger policy announcement on culture, and that is now part of the budget. I think the new trucking moves to prevent people who are not necessarily qualified to be driving those big vans

and with the accidents and the tragedies that followed. may end up in the budget. It seems to me that this is a government that is basically those things are now all supposed to show up like the culture and the environment, climate stuff, are all going to be part of the budget. And I am thinking budget bills

require obviously the assent of an opposition or enough members or else the government fails. But once that happens, it basically means that all of these will be shoved into a major, budget bill, which limits the number of legislation that actually goes to parliamentarians to examine because it's one big thing that has, at some point, it has to pass, right? So I figure coming out of the budget, there will be a number of things to look out for,

but one of them is going to be obviously what the opposition parties have to say on the afternoon of November 4th as they come out of the house to say, and when they will have to answer the question, will you or will you not support the budget? And they're going to have to decide whether they say we can't support it for X, Y, Z, or they have the option, the default option of saying we're going to talk about it and tell you tomorrow or the day after. But the other questions or the focus may be on these other parts of the budget. that are not the budget, but that will be, obviously, if they are substantial, of interest in all kinds of various ways.

So I think we may be getting, yes, a budget, the usual, you know, line spending, deficit, et cetera, but we may also be getting major policies inside that budget. And I'm curious to see where it goes. The politics of it, obviously, are going to go to, does the government survive? But beyond that, we may be talking about that budget for longer than just the government survived

or it's dead on arrival thing. Okay, we'll get to the survival issue in a minute. But it would seem in a little of the prime minister shared with us on this, as is the norm, in terms of a budget. It would suggest more of what you're saying, Chantel, But there's going to be some big stuff in there about, you know, not just the line figures, but the direction of the government, the policies of the government and what it's hoping to achieve in the near, short, and medium term.

Bruce, you know, give us your question of how we've been set up because I don't know who the we is in this context. And I don't know what the setup would have been. the answer to your question is you know what I mean you yeah yeah and it we would have been set up if the budget includes huge hikes in personal taxes huge hikes in business taxes a tiny deficit and no cuts in program spending but otherwise I expect it's not going to include those things and so we will have been given some pretty clear clues about what is going to be in the budget there's going to be big spending on things that the government believes will enable private sector investment to grow in Canada, to create more jobs in Canada, more

resilience in the Canadian economy. I would be surprised if this budget includes tax hikes that makes businesses go, you know what, taxes in Canada are so high, we can't invest here anymore, or taxes on consumers when the government knows how hard it is for people to manage the cost of living pressures right now. I do expect there's going to be cuts in program spending because I think we've been encouraged to understand that is the case. And the prime minister in his speech two weeks ago, I guess, talked about how government spending has risen by 7% a year for the last several years. And I think that Chantal's right to put her finger on, there's always risks when you cut. But if you're cutting against a

risk that you're going to destroy or damage some services that people really rely on and then they they're repelled by the choice that you make but if you're cutting against the backdrop of 7% annualized increase over time there's probably some room to cut there whether through attrition or other methods without getting to the bone too quickly I guess but we'll see and that is one of the trickier political calculus I think that the government has had to make in my experience people either like or dislike a budget or they're kind of indifferent to it. The degree to which people ever get to the point of, I've never seen one that people loved, but when they get to hate a budget, it isn't usually because of the size of a deficit.

Sometimes it can be because of cuts. Remember Mulroney's famous first budget that he had to kind of back down on because he was adjusting the treatment of Chantelle will know. Is it the OAS? Seniors. Seniors. Yeah.

No, the details, I only remember the elderly person on the on the lawn of Parliament Bill. And given another minute, we'll remember her name as well, because she did go down in history. But it is usually tax

increases that is a kind of measure that can make people really, really unhappy. And again, I'd be surprised if that was this budget. I'm intrigued by your

sense that people don't get worked up over size of the deficit, impact on the national debt, all that. Because, you know, traditionally opposition parties argue about the deficit number. And it's not just conservatives. Liberals have done the same thing when

conservatives were in power. But the picture your painting of what you expect, Bruce, is one that there would see a sizable increase in the deficit i mean you can't make up let me be clear people don't like big deficits in canada i'm saying the difference between a budget that they feel mixed about and one that they hate is not usually a function of the deficits 50 and they thought it would be 30 or it's you know more than they thought it would be and the best example of that is probably Stephen Harper's budget in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which was by far,

I think, the largest budget deficit of any government at that time. And it didn't cause people to say, holy cow, I can't believe he's doing that. It caused them to say, we're in a bit of a crisis. We're going to have to go along with this, even if it makes us feel uncomfortable, and we want to see a path to solve that problem in the future. Well, the fact that the conservative of opposition is actually calling for a 40-plus billion deficit. There is no one who can do the math who is arguing that we're not going to have a large deficit. But once you start having a conversation about size, it's not going to capture imagination in

the same way. I also tend to think that the government will have tried, and we'll see on Tuesday, to keep the number to two digits, even if it's $99 billion. But to avoid that three-digit number that was mused about, it came and went, and I always believed it was kind of a balloon sent there to distract you from the fact that they would manage to come under $100 billion. I may be wrong, but, you know, I'm someone who does not, I can wake up some of these, thinking one of the ways that we could fix some of our fiscal problems would be to hike the GST

one point. I totally do not expect to see that in the budget because I can totally see why the opposition parties would say we have handled here to go in an election. And that, as Bruce points out, people would remember when they would be going back to the ballot, to the polling, pooling, to the voting. book. So I don't think we're going to see anything like that. But by the way, the opposition parties almost brought down Stephen Harper over something that no candidate talks about called the per vote subsidy in 2008. So what triggers the opposition, take the NDP. They get triggered by, for instance, we push pause on expanding the Pharmacare program that you secure it from Justin Trudeau. I think that would be enough for them to have to say we can't support the budget.

Okay, we're going to take our last break and come back and talk about the question that seems to be on a lot of people's minds in Ottawa is we'll choose a result in an election call as early as next week. We'll talk about that right after this. Welcome back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantal, Bruce and Peter, all in the House today for this. Okay. I don't know. A month ago, six weeks ago, nobody would have thought this was a possibility

that the government could fall over the budget. It's always a possibility. It is a minority government. But having an election just a few months before, one would assume the government was safe for at least one go but not so if you believe all the whispers

coming out of the corridors of parliament over the last week or ten days you know you mentioned Chantelle mentioned the Pollyev saying defts can't go over $42 billion dollar over that and we're not going to vote for it so that's

you know that's a direct threat, but all of the parties seem to have, all of the parties on the one hand say we don't want an election, yet on the same hand, they all seem to be positioning just in case there is one, some want one, some don't want one, some see the possibilities as a result of one, et cetera, et cetera. You know, is it going to be an election call next week? Shantel. Oh, boy.

when when things look soft do not make calls is basically a rule of life because a lot of things a lot of moving parts can shift between now and Wednesday morning. But I think part of the sleeping to a possible election thing to happen because a lot of people, either because they don't pay attention or they don't have. the right people to speak to or they take their dreams for reality on the assumption that no need to worry about the budget. Now, I'm not talking about just the liberals here, about the NDP and the conservatives, because the bloc is going to support the budget. The signals since late August from the bloc have gone the opposite way, basically privately and publicly. Mr. Blanchet has prepared public opinion in Quebec, but also the liberals for not support. the budget. And one of the reasons is based on internal Quebec dynamics and the fact

that there will be a Quebec election next fall, the PQ might come to government with a referendum agenda. Blanchet wants to secure his party from having to go in a federal election in that kind of environment. So he would, and he believes that he would hang on to the seats that he has if he were to go in a federal election. I'm also curious and I don't know that. as to whether there may be members in this current caucus that would be tempted to run provincially and leave. So to not have to go through an election, so I don't expect of luck to change its mind

or to keep members at home. And the conservatives and the NDP have woken up to that. The conservatives then started to believe that the NDP couldn't want an election. So in any event, the NDP would do what it needs. to do, which is find a way to support the budget. That may happen, but the problem is that, one, the NDP caucus, it's going to be very hard, I think, to find a united position for the caucus, but they are agreed on one thing.

None of them is really keen to vote for the budget, and the signals have been that the NDP believes that did an election, it would, at the very least, hang on to its current seats, maybe add a few more, maybe add enough to get official party status, but it does. doesn't feel it has a luck to lose. And this is a party whose membership is traumatized by the notion that what happened to it is due to its alliance with Justin to those liberals, which I think is giving the leadership of the party, Mr. Singh, too much of a break. I think he is partly responsible for those results. So that leaves the conservatives. And they do not want an election, because when you look at the polls, the odds that on the day after that vote,

Pierre Paulyev would be a minority prime minister are long odds. But if he loses an election, he's done. So two scenarios are possible, and that's where the danger is. So the budget takes place. They all come out. They all say, NDP, we're going to vote against the budget. and then eventually there's a vote a couple of days later and they keep a few members out, the Conservatives,

and the budget passes despite them having said that. Except that if you are the prime minister and you believe that you need a majority to get your work done and you have a shot at it, you will have to think long and hard on Tuesday evening as to whether you take them at their word and use their word to say to the government general the next day before a vote. No one wants to back my budget. So we're going to do this

election thing. I'm not saying that's the plan, but I'm saying that is a risk that the opposition parties are taking. I used the analogy to a French song last night on that issue, which goes, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. That's basically the opposition's position at this point. Did you say that was Petula Clark for saying that? Yes. Yes. Everyone would go to sea, and we may

person, no, I didn't know you had a stack of Petula Clark albums and you're covered there. Okay, listen, we're running out of time, so I want to hear Bruce. By the way, Bruce has a great substack this week, which you can find at

National Newswatch.com, if you don't already subscribe to the substack. But so does Fred DeLore as well. well, the former conservative campaign manager. There are two good reads on this issue about election possibilities coming up. But Bruce, give us your sense of where we are and what could happen in the next week. Yeah, I don't think there's going to be an election, but it's possible, obviously, that there could.

But I think the conservatives have... You covered it all there. Thank you very much. That was a really hard call. I used the Chantelle argument. I just tried to compress it a tiny little bit there. But, you know, and my grandkids, they're going to live in a world where there's going to be prop betting online as a budget is being read about, will we see this, but we see that. So the world is changing, but I don't think it's changing that much.

I think the conservatives have the most to lose by causing an election to happen. And I'm absolutely out of view that it's kind of crazy for conservatives to be saying the government is forcing an election. They're not forcing an election. They're going to table a budget, and then it's up to the opposition parties whether they force an election. If the conservatives don't want an election, here's what they can do. They can say, this is a terrible budget. Here are the 75 things about this budget that we cannot stomach. But the country just had an election.

People don't want an election. We'll have another crack at this conversation in several months' time. And then we can see about an election then. Voters in that scenario aren't going to go, I can't believe the conservative. walked away from the opportunity to have an election, they're going to go, thank God, they came to their census and didn't put us through an election at this point in time. The Conservists also have the most to lose because their leader is done if he doesn't win an election that happens 37 or so days after he forces one.

I don't think he's ready to have that degree of risk in his political career. He can look at polls. Sometimes if you squint at them, you can say, we're tied. But if you look more carefully at them and you're 22 points behind the person who's the prime minister, that's not analogous to the leaderless liberals in 1979 against the Joe Clark government. This is a different situation from that. The chances that you could campaign so effectively to overcome that huge disadvantage, that you have leader to leader in the middle of this economic crunch that people are worried about

are very slim. If there was prop betting on it, I probably wouldn't put a wager on that. So I don't think there's going to be election because I don't think the conservatives will put everybody in the room that night to vote down the budget and they may find a way to say, we hate this budget, we hate this government, but we hate the idea of an election right now. So, Rose wants Peleev to be Jok Meet Singh on Tuesday. Basically, we hate everything about what they're doing, but we'll support it. We're going to give them a pass.

Yeah, great. I can't wait to see that. Okay. You know what? I agree with Bruce that if, and I'm sure Chantella agrees with this, too, that if there's an election and Poliyev loses, he's done. Totally. I would suggest if there's an election in Carney loses, he's probably done too. Oh, yeah, well, for sure.

If there's an election, there's a lot riding on it for everybody. The only leader who is not in place is the non-existent NDP leader. NDP leader, yeah. But look, the public opinion is basically saying we, and I've measured it consistently in the last couple of months, people are saying, look, we may like most things, some things we don't like, but we don't see the value of an election right now. they're not looking to go back and make another choice. And those numbers are clear.

Are they on the direct question? Do you want to election? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They 70% think that the opposition party should pass the budget. Now, that's 70% is a lot more than people who just voted liberal in the last election is people saying, let the government do the thing that it wants to do, and then we'll judge it later. Okay.

Listen, we're going to leave it at that for this week. This time next week, we'll know the answers to all these questions. It'll be very clear. We're looking forward to seeing what they are. Thanks to Chantelle, thanks to Bruce, and thanks to you for tuning in once again. And the buzz is available tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. In your inbox, subscribe at national newswatch.com slash newsletter.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you again on Monday. Thank you.