The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- So Much For The Honeymoon

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Some Liberals who thought they should be in cabinet aren't, and they aren't happy either. 

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here along with Chantelle Bair and Rob Brousseau. You are up for your Friday Good Talk session. Lots of politics to talk about this week. As always, I guess. So let's get to it. As always, I guess. So let's get to it. You know, if there's one thing I always hesitate in discussions, it's about days where cabinet

shuffles or cabinet announcements are made because these are the kind of days where we get all excited. It's a classic sort of inside the Ottawa bubble story, no matter where you happen to be. But often it's dealing with people who you never hear again about after the budget or after the cabinet shuffles announced or cabinet announcements are made. And then you hear from some people who didn't get in who were kind of a little bit upset that they didn't get in or they didn't get the portfolio they wanted, et cetera, et cetera. So it's been one of those kind of weeks

around the cabinet story. There are real stories on the cabinet. But first of all, you know, the kind of fallout from cabinet, is it any more than normal? Is it just your normal sort of cabinet fallout stories? Because it's clear there are some people who are not happy. Chantelle, when you look at it, what do you see?

I think the first person who will never tell you that he's not happy, but is probably not totally happy with cabinet is called Mark Carney, who has just been taught over the past few weeks since the election, the difference between a new government and a legacy government. A new government allows you to pick and choose, restrict the number of chairs around the table and move on.

A legacy government comes with its load of baggage, like it or not. You're not starting from scratch. You don't get to do what you want. And Mr. Carney's case, he had gotten some new people elected, but he was also dealing with a government that's been in office for a decade that's got proven players, but also people who had expectations. And so he ends up with a cabinet. Call it, we've all seen junior ministers, ministers of states, secretary of states. That's what you do when you're desperately trying to keep the number manageable around the cabinet

table without having too many people feel let down. So that's one. I think if Mark Carney had brought the party to government after a spell in opposition, the cabinet would not stand at 20 something plus just enough to get into the just into the range of 40. It's awkward to think that there are people who were appointed by Mark Carney to cabinet for the first time who suddenly are not in cabinet anymore. The government wasn't even

defeated. Think of, I'll just name one, Nate Erskine-Smith, who did, with good reason, he would have been a hypocrite not to say that he felt let down. He was appointed Minister of Housing, and then he wasn't. So he was a minister for the duration of the election campaign. It's not that he was even shifted. He's not in cabinet anymore. It goes a long way also to, and I'm not sure that I approve of that, but to show how cabinet has become even more about representation rather than performance over the past few decades. It's not just gender parity. I'm always amazed when people say that some talent was left on the bench because women were appointed because it seems to suggest that everyone who was ever appointed to cabinet who as a man had the competence to be in cabinet. That's not been my experience looking at cabinets of the past.

Regional representation always mattered. But now you start hiving off, and that's the second reason for all those secretary of states, junior ministers, call them what you want. People, groups were unhappy that there was not a specific minister devoted to women and LGBT rights. I've seen over the past week groups saying, why do we not have a dedicated person

for Canadians with disabilities, et cetera. I do not think that having people on the outer ring of the actual cabinet with those titles will make a significant difference to those files. I'm curious about what the Secretary of State for Nature does versus the man heritage minister called something else now, I think Canadian identity in charge of parks versus the minister of the environment. And the list goes on. So yes, there are people who probably feel that they ran

under the, you know, the understanding that they probably would be in cabinet since they still were and were left out. And on the other hand, you have people who had decided not to run, and then change your minds as the polls turned, who ended up, I'm talking about you, Sean Fraser here, and Anita Anand, who ended up getting big jobs in this cabinet. So bottom line, though, every single liberal MP should be thankful that Mark Carney exists, because they would be fighting for jobs as opposition critics if he hadn't come on the scene to bring them to victory.

And that does earn him a pass from caucus unrest for quite a while. Yeah, fighting for opposition critic roles or fighting for a job outside Ottawa because they want to see. That's right. Brushing up their CVs is what they would be doing a lot of them. So how deep is the, I don't want to call it unrest, but there seems to be some grumbling out there Rob. No, there are some bruised feelings and I think part of the reason that there are bruised feelings, and this is something that Mr. Kearney is going to have to work on. He's going to have to develop caucus management skills that he's not used to using. He didn't need those in the positions that he's been in. And we've talked about how people say he doesn't suffer fools.

That's one thing. But it's one thing. But it's another thing, when you're asking people to give up time with their family, often give up lucrative careers to come and work for him and work for the government of Canada, you've got to acknowledge that. And you've got to give them some sort of task to do. If not a task, then at least recognize that they're human beings. And so the bruised feelings that I'm hearing about are from people who hope to get into cabinet,

might've expected to get into cabinet, in one case actually was told they were gonna get into cabinet after being left out of the election cabinet and then didn't hear anything from Mr. Carney or from the people around him. They sat around the last weekend waiting for the call to come to say that they were in. When it didn't, they reached out themselves. They checked their phone to make sure it wasn't on silent and then they they

reached out themselves only to be told, no, you didn't make the cut. And caucus management is going to be an important thing. The government is going to have to make some very, very difficult decisions. Chantal is right. Opportunism paid. Anita Anand and Sean Fraser, after 15 minutes with your family, your opportunism paid. You decided to come back when the wind was at the back of Mark Kearney. I also found that it paid to be somebody who tormented Justin Trudeau at one time or another. Wayne Long tormented Trudeau for years. He gets a spot as a minister of state, not as a minister, a secretary of state.

And we have to draw a distinction there. It's an important distinction. Joel Lightbound was a sharp critic of Mr. Trudeau's after the 2021 election, accused him of practicing the politics of division by using vaccine mandates to wedge Aaron O'Toole and was a smart, talented guy from Quebec City who was left out as a result. And actually, I think, didn't want to be a parliamentary secretary anymore after that.

The person who tormented Justin Trudeau the most in the last year probably of his time in office was Krista Freeland and she gets to stay as well. So a Trudeau tormentor, you're going to do all right. It is what I would call a corpulent cabinet. Justin Trudeau's first council of ministers, I believe was 31 people, and this is far more than that. Stephen Harper's was 29. Chautelle is right that this is a government that's long in its tooth. In terms of the party in office, it's not the same as them, but the history is one of cabinet inflation. When prime ministers come in and name their first cabinet, the first one is usually the smallest, and then it goes up from there. So it'll be interesting if Mr. Carney keeps that habit. It does tell us about

his priorities though, and it does tell us about his vulnerabilities. I'm led to believe that he's acknowledged that he is not as comfortable on the ground in Quebec as his predecessor was, and that's one of the reasons why you see Guilbeau, Joliet, Champagne, not just in cabinet, but there. I look at the, they announced the priorities and planning committee that the people who really do steer government on a day by day kind of minute by minute basis, all three of them are there. Dominique Leblanc is there as well.

So they're there in part because Mr. Carney acknowledges that he might not get Quebec as well as he should, and he needs help on the ground in Quebec. Can I ask, let me ask one question on that though, and maybe it's best to Chantal. I think a lot of us expected, I think you expected, that a certain former Quebec finance minister was going to get in cabinet. I did not.

You did not? No, I did not. You did not? No, I did not. I understand. And there was, to be fair, rather widespread expectation in media circles in Quebec in particular that he would be Carlos Leto, who is a former finance minister

from Philippe Couillard's government. I didn't want for some of the names that Rob has just mentioned. No, Mr. Carney was not going to unseat from cabinet. François-Philippe Champagne, Stephen Guilbault, or Mélanie Jolie to make room for Carlos Letao is elected in the Montreal area, the larger Montreal area, so he doesn't bring the regions of Quebec to the table in the way that Joel Lightbam does in Quebec City. But also, I know memories are short in politics, but if we are saying that Mr. Létailleau was the Minister of Finance of a political success story in Quebec, we were rewriting history. This is a liberal government under Philippe Couillard that was thrown out of office, in

large part because of its finance, finance policies, and what became known as austerity on the part of the government, whether that resulted in a good balance sheet or not, it was not handled in a way that allowed that government to build the consensus. So I would have been surprised if Mr. Letow had been in cabinet, in a cabinet that seeks to achieve gender parity,

by the way, and where Mr. Trudeau's successor who was appointed to cabinet, Michelle is also someone who stands represents a community, but also brings both diversity and more gender parity to cabinet. So I'm not now if you know, there was a tendency that to think Mark Carney is a banker, and maybe that would be his instinct, by the way, let's have a boys club. And if that's what you're building, then you're going to bring in Carlos it out because it's the total boys

club reflex. guy with the business credential, a guy, he looks and by the way, I, I think I want to say this because I've watched some of the interviews that Mr. Karney has been giving and some of his scrums over the campaign. He is going to have to fight the fact that he seems to be quicker to impatience with questions when questioned by female reporters than by male reporters, and that's not going to grow well on him. No, we watch what that did to Poliev. So we'll be watching that one. Let me bring up another name and Rob, you answer this one, because it's kind of the other side of the fence.

Somebody who did get in, and there are great expectations of this person. I always remember what, what Chantella said for a number of years, careful with giving big priority and big portfolio to somebody with zero political experience because it can backfire. And we've seen that in the past, but this time round, as someone who's getting a lot of profile is Tim Hodgson, who I think most people have never heard of outside of the sort of the A class of the economic club, knowing who he is. But tell us about him and why he may be important. He's the new energy minister, right? That's right. And I'm told he's one of the very few that Mr. Carney trusts implicitly. They've known each other a long time.

They go back to Goldman Sachs. They worked at Goldman Sachs together. Mr. Carney thought enough of him to bring him in as a senior advisor to him when he was at the Bank of Canada. Everybody's heard that he could be tough on people when he was at the Bank of Canada. Everybody's heard that that he could be tough on people when he was at the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. They called his dismissal sometimes they called it being tasered, right? It seems Mr. Hodgson either never got tasered or survived them and thrived under them. Former president of Hydro One, and again that

means he knows the energy file. While he was at Hydro One, made deals with indigenous groups in Northern Ontario, which is going to be critical if you're going to do energy infrastructure in this country. He is confident and speaks a language of business and speaks the language of business and speaks the language of deals. Also has been on the boards of energy companies in Western Canada as well. So what are the priorities of this government?

The priorities are gonna be national prosperity and national unity. And both of those have a Trump theme running through them because Mr. Trump threatens both of them as far as I'm concerned. And I think Mr. Hodgson is going to reassure people who people in Alberta who get very upset about what. Gilbo was there in 2018 and 19 saying the same thing, that there was no future for pipelines and yet the government went out and bought a pipeline. So it doesn't really matter

what Mr. Gilbo thinks about the pipelines, if we can discern anything from that. What really matters is what the first minister, the prime minister thinks about pipelines. And I think he said in interviews again this week, we're about pipelines. And I think he said in interviews again this week, we're building pipelines. We're building pipelines until we're not. But I did not hear him say we're going

to be buying and financing pipelines, I think he was saying. I'm open to business cases that are made by private companies presenting pipeline projects. So I guess the basic point that Gilbo was making was there may not be much of a business case for this. So I'm waiting to see those business proposals because I am not hearing the Prime Minister

saying we are going to be investing billions of taxpayer money to build new pipelines out of taxpayers' pockets. But to go back to the person you mentioned, I don't know Mr. Rochston. I'd never heard of him before he ran. But I do hear Rob and I have heard that, that he is one of the few persons that Mark Carney is about to trust in. And what struck me about that is how few people that Mark Carney trusts he has brought along with him to this center of government called the Prime Minister's Office. I am still waiting, that may come later today, I don't know,

for a confirmation or announcement of who the Chief of Staff is going to be. And, you know, look back at the prime ministers we've covered. They all brought people inside that very important inner palace that had been along with them along the way. Jean Chrétien and Jean Pelletier, they used to be schoolmates before Mr. Pelletier became the chief of staff, former mayor of Quebec City, Ray Novak with Stephen Harper, Gerald Butts and Katie Talford with Justin Trudeau. Goldenberg and Chrétien is another example.

Yes. And so you look at this and you think, so who are these people? Yes, Gerald Butt and the Janice Shayette, the former clerk of the government, then help Mr. Carney get where he is. But so far, my understanding is that neither of them are are staying. So how will this PMO operate absent that very important relationship between Mr. Carney and some of the principles in the PMO is very much an open question. And it may get resolved over the next few days. But at this point, we have not had confirmation that former Minister Mendicino is staying in the role, but we've

had no announcement of whoever it is that is taking that pivotal role. I hate to say it to the Secretary of State who were appointed this week, but that person will matter a lot more than any of them. And I think that a lot of Canadians don't understand that. That role is so pivotal in the operation of government and the operation of the Prime Minister's office. And so, obviously, he's going to take his time. I know for a fact that you're right that Jerry Butts won't be taking it because I got an email from Jerry yesterday saying, it's time to get back to doing the more Butts conversations on the bridge because I'm out of there now. I'm gone. I'm back to my normal life. Anyway, we'll see who it is because it is an incredibly important role.

Can I just say one thing about it though? Sure. Some of the people he's talked to about taking the role who declined the role, suggest to me, it's a reflection of something that Chantal said earlier. Mark Carney is going to be his own chief of staff in many, many ways. He's talking to people who he does not have a lifelong relationship with.

You know, Mulroney did the same thing. Think of Bazin and others that he brought in with him. He's talking to the kinds of people who he will expect to be running an operation. But the expectation is on this file, and I think on other files. Like he is not expecting Dominic LeBlanc, with all of his skills, to be the guy who

makes the deal with Donald Trump. He expects himself to be the guy who makes that deal. So he isn't looking for that bond, that connection, in the people he's reaching out to, which is a departure. It is a departure for a prime minister. It's also not a recipe for success, by the way, to be your own finance minister or your own prime minister as you are,

your own chief of staff. You need to run a minority parliament, something that seems to have slipped the prime minister's mind over the past few days. That is a reality. Parliament does exist. I was watching this week, Mr. Carney do this gimmick that we had seen before. I call that the gimmick, to be signing off. First, it was the carbon tax, which he vanished by signing off in a photo op. Now it's tax cuts. Well, sorry, but that's meaningless. That is not what happens in real life. If he wants that job, he needs to go to that other place south of the border where

the president can do that. But no prime minister can sign off on stuff that requires legislation without gathering parliament and getting it through two houses of parliament, not one, neither of which he totally controls. So he will need, if the meaning of all this is he doesn't like pushback and he knows best, let's see where we are in six months. Right, or six weeks. Always remember in 1979, Clark's people saying,

we're going to govern like we have a majority. They didn't have a majority and they were gone in whatever it was, nine months, as a result of governing like they had a majority, trying to anyway. So it's why I've asked a couple of times over the past few weeks of you guys this question about, is he capable of allowing others to make decisions? And I'm sure to a degree he is, but it's clear in these opening steps of this government that he's the prime minister, he's going to want to show a control, um, that we haven't seen before. It'll be interesting on the Hodgson front, whether that that's different because of their long time relationship.

Um, but things are, there might be another front and it's an interesting one. Uh, our former colleague, Evan Solomon was given a department, uh, AI completely new department great appointment no good appointment yeah no no no bureaucracy nothing no so they're gonna have to create an entirely new government department yet we'll see how fast that grows yeah but I find it interesting because we mentioned mr. Hodgson's longtime relationship well relationship. Well, Evan has a long-time relationship with Mark Carney as well.

It's gotten Evan into trouble, but obviously it didn't affect their personal relationship. But there is going to be pressure on Evan because artificial intelligence is something that the prime minister really cares about. He believes that it's going to help him restructure, if not transform, the Canadian economy, particularly because of the energy requirements of artificial intelligence. It's enormous. And our access to clean and plentiful power is going to be, put Canada, he believes, in a very advantageous position when it comes to artificial intelligence. Well, Evan is going to have Mark Carney's confidence, but he's also going to have

Mark Carney right on his shoulder because this is something that the Prime Minister has written about, cares about. Evan is also going to have to make nice with a lot of cabinet ministers because this issue goes right across the spectrum of responsibilities. I mean, you would think that this would be something the industry minister would be involved in, but no, separate. Procurement, defense, AI is in all of these issues.

It's going to be huge. It'll be interesting to see how much room Evan has to room. I'm curious, can you run a new government department just on AI rather than set up a new bureaucracy? Let's see that. Yeah, we will see that. But, you know, I'll give some credit to where credit's due. Evan is not a stupid person on this file. He's smart.

And he's been smart on the tech side for a long time, long before he got into kind of frontline journalism. So it'll be interesting to see how he does. Has he had issues in the past? Yes, he has. But I looked at that appointment and I thought, I circled that one when the list came out thinking that's a smart appointment. If you're going to put Devin Solomon in cabinet, that's where he should be. Anyway. You guys have made me depressed now, because you're both, again, insisting

that whatever it is the prime minister is fancy is what's going to matter. And the last thing we need is more control from the center and ministers who aren't allowed to actually get out of the shadow of the prime minister to get stuff done. I think Evan might be given enough rope to lead. I'm assuming Hodgson will as well, but I think we're very cognizant of that, Chantel. I for one have been saying that for the last couple of weeks, given Kearney's background.

It's great, yes, except you need to square that circle. You've been talking about someone who is the energy minister, who's well-connected in energy circles, who knows the file, who knows who is well-known in Ontario. And at the same time, you've been talking about the prime minister, who's not totally great at reading Quebec.

Well, guess what? If there is one file that stands to bring Quebec and Alberta in even greater opposition, forget what Premier Legault has been saying, the things he's been saying on pipelines this week. Premier Legault at this point is probably the least popular leader is probably the least popular leader in the National Assembly. So go try to sell something. So maybe at some point, someone is going to have to square the circle between a minister who enjoys the trust of the Prime Minister on energy and a Prime Minister who doesn't feel confident about how he sees the lay of the land in Quebec because otherwise the two of them together will basically

walk into a very solid wall. Okay. Noted. We have taken note of that and I'll get right to my book on squaring circles or circling squares right after this. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. I want to come back.

There's something else that happened this week, actually in the last 24 hours or so, that may have a huge impact on the situation in Alberta and as it relates to Ottawa as well. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here along with Chantelle Bair and Rob Russo. It's Friday. It's Good Talk. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast

platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Okay, we're all aware of the attempts at a referendum in Alberta on secession. And the fact that the Premier of Alberta has not said no to this idea, in fact, I don't think encouraged it is the right phrase, but certainly seems to be suggesting that she's going to allow this to happen. There was a very interesting comment made yesterday that really has an impact on the energy discussions that are about to take place and about the succession question. And it came from Nancy Southern, who is the CEO of Atco and is a huge player in Alberta and in the Alberta energy story. And she said she is seeing the first indications of resistance from investors, especially foreign

investors to do something in Alberta, whether it's pipelines or whatever it may be, as a result of this secession talk. And that's been the sort of first, I don't know whether concrete's the right word, but the first indication that there is a problem here, a potential problem for Alberta by allowing this to push forward. What's your read on it, Rob? Well, I think it's bracingly honest, and I use the word bracing by design. I think all of us came of age during the discussion over the future of Quebec, the future of Canada. And we all know that there was an independence premium, whether it was on the dollar or whether it was in terms of higher taxes in Quebec. And even somebody like Jacques Perrizo used to say all the time when he was asked about

the increased cost of independence, he had a wonderful phrase that I'd like to quote, saccutre toujours plus d'être Québécois. It's always going to cost you more to be a Quebecker. And in other words, he tried to turn it into a virtue. What Nancy Southern is trying to do is to warn you that there is a cost, that there is a cost to this, and the cost is already being born.

I think that that's true in terms of the tariff discussion across the country as well, which brings me to Honda, which should bring us to whether or not the government should have a budget. But I think everybody needs to understand that this kind of talk will exert a price, exact a price. And she's paying attention to that. These are big players in natural gas, from what I understand,

that are beginning to leave money on the sidelines. We talked about unleashing the furies. Daniel Smith says she believes in Canada. She wants Canada to work. But she did lower the threshold to make it easier for the question of Canada and the question of Alberta's future to be brought forward. Both what Atko is saying and what Honda is saying, I think, underlines the need, if not presents an opportunity, even if you thought of it as a political opportunity. For a government that does believe it's in a crisis or heading towards a crisis to actually tell Canadians

what the current state is, what the stakes are for the future of our economy and the future of our country, and then prepare the population, prepare people for some of the changes, some of the sacrifices even. Yes, I would use the word sacrifice that we're going to have to make if things go pear-shaped, whether it's through tariffs or through a referendum on independence in Alberta. I think that Nancy Southern is issuing a clarion call. She is a beacon. And we all, like I said, we've all come of age as reporters, you know, 40, 50 years of a discussion over independence in Quebec. And we all saw that the cost that that exacted. And I would even say on Quebec, there were great minds, great minds were consumed with this issue that

might have been consumed in other ways. So it's a warning, it's a warning that should be heeded and also an opportunity for the government that I think should have at least brought in an economic statement, not a budget. I understand budgets take a long time and I remind people that Stephen Harper took nine months to bring in his first budget. But this this is an opportunity that missed in terms of the economic statement. Chantelle. By comparison to anything that's been coming out of the

government of Alberta, as a session, Jack Paguso was an adult and these are kids playing with matches. Jack Peggiso devoted, and he had a very solid mind on politics. He devoted his entire life to thinking about this and how it could work. I remember doing one of his, not last, but one of his last interviews for my book on the 1995 referendum, and being struck by how there would not be another person who had all of the credentials that Jacques Peguizot brought to the mix of Quebec secession. And so every time you watch what's happening in Alberta from Quebec, you're thinking, people, you are about to take all the pain from this for an unserious proposition.

It makes no sense to me. And I think a Quebec PQ leader who came to the fore and told Quebecers that we need to secede because we want plastic straws to be back would be rightly disqualified from leading a Quebec to secession for lack of seriousness. So I'm not too sure what the real end game is, but I think it's like the kid's version of a serious novel, the way it's handled in Alberta. Not only that, if you're really committed to sovereignty,

then you need to have a party that is committed to it, with the talents to bring it about. And that's not been happening. On the budget, I'm like Rob, completely agnostic about budget timing. I have never seen a government come to office and show up with a serious budget, not a placeholder within six weeks of being elected. I am more mystified by the notion that we should next fall not have a proper budget. The government having had time to assess the lay of the land, where tariffs are going, to present what is a serious budget. I'm also agnostic about the economic statement because everything I've seen come out of, you know, the Quebec budget is barely two months old and it's already completely outdated. I'm not sure how long the Ontario budget that was brought in yesterday is going to stand

the test of reality. So I'm not big on that, but I do believe that we should get a budget next fall. And I think they left the door open by saying it would be a robust fiscal update to evolve to a full-fledged budget. And I think there is a benefit to having a budget that is a real one, that if we had one between now and July 1st, it would be a placeholder. And I don't think we have time or the government should be devoting its energy to that. I am curious though to see how much Mr. Carney believes he can accomplish in parliament without bypassing debate between now and the summer, because

they're coming back on the 27th really with the Trump speech, so no legislation can really be presented for another week after that. This is, we're in June at this point. And like it or not, the people who are going to be sitting in the House of Commons are kind of exhausted. And the civil service machine does need time to translate the prime minister's wishes into solid policy, no matter what he thinks. Now, I was watching, I was off this week, so I had too much time to watch stuff from the outside. But I was watching Mark Carney when you signed off on those tax cuts, that kind of fake photo op.

I was thinking back to Paul Martin. Paul Martin came from the business world. And one day, I remember him explaining to me that the biggest transition was that the way it works in the corporate world, you sign off on this and it happens. And the way it works in politics, the biggest difference is the need to build consensus. You may be at the top of the pyramid, but that doesn't mean you can get stuff done without building understanding and consensus, first within your team, second within your caucus, third within the House of Commons, in this case, and Parliament, including the Senate. I'm not too sure that Mark Carney, intellectually,

I'm sure he understands that. I'm not too sure that in practice, he has yet to figure out that he cannot know, you know, whoever was saying the government is gonna be run more like a corporation. Sorry, it's not. And yes, the owners of Canada did speak to Mr. Carney over the past two months,

but they did not give him the key to a coroner office to run Canada like a corporation. You know, it's interesting thinking back to Paul Martin, because one of the knocks on Paul Martin was it took him far too long to make decisions. That that search for consensus at times hurt him, big time. So anyway, maybe that's the two extremes of trying to find where the proper middle ground is.

Before we take our last break, the fact that the king is giving the throne speech, does that mean anything more than ceremonial symbolism stuff or could it actually drive a certain agenda? Rob? Yeah, I mean, that was a message to Donald Trump is who it was. And I understand I'm not much of a monarchist. I like our constitutional system, it can't be changed. There's no way we're ever gonna change it. Not much of a monarchist, but I do think

that if we're going to be stuck with the monarchy and the royal family, that we might as well deploy it to our advantage from time to time. And I think that this is a shot at a guy who has a fixation, almost a fetishness about the royal family and Donald Trump. And we might as well remind him that this guy, that the King has a connection to Canada as a sovereign country. We should, and it sounds like Mr. Carney is going to do this based on an interview

that he gave to Sky this week, we should remind His Royal Highness from time to time as well that he is the King of Canada and as such has some responsibilities. Mr. Carney expressed some irritation at the fact that the King gave a second state visit to President Trump, who was delighted by it. And perhaps we could use the King to remind Donald Trump that Canada is a sovereign country that isn't interested for now. We have to look and see what happens with Alberta.

I am concerned about that, but isn't interested. And Pete Hoekstra actually said that that whole debate is over now, but if we're stuck with the royal family, let's use it to our advantage. Hoekstra is the new US ambassador to Canada. And I'd offer you the opportunity, Chantelle, but I know that you...

That I'm so happy. I was there the last time when Queen Elizabeth delivered that tron speech, so I maybe will not rush to Parliament Hill for this one. But what Rob explained, actually, the one place where this invitation to the king was bound to make waves with Quebec and the Parts Québécois and the Bloc both tried hard to make it an issue. The Bloc will set out to turn on speech, my understanding is they usually do. So no news there. But what Rob

explained is basically the kind of spirit that I've seen in letters of the editor in Quebec about this invitation at this particular time. With the added comment that is very widespread here, at least we will have someone who can read the French sections without mangling the language entirely, which is a recurrent comment on the current governor's generals apparent inability to master even basic French.

I was a monarchist, I have been a monarchist all my life and all my professional life too, until the current monarch sucked up to Donald Trump in such a fashion on terms of his offering him a second state visit to the UK, and his fumbling totally of the Canada situation so far. I would like to think that when Mark Carney met the King, whenever it was a month or so ago in Buckingham Palace, that he made it very clear to him what would have to happen

in that speech that he gives in Ottawa. So, you know, I'll listen. Short of standing on his head spitting wooden nickels of sovereignty, Canadian wooden nickels, I don't know whether I can be convinced. I think he fumbled a ball, but we'll see. Okay, we're going to take our final break, come back and ask you if there's anything new to report on the Pierre Poliev conservative front. That's right after this. And welcome back, final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantel and Rob are here. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Glad to have you with us. Okay. Pierre Poliev making rounds outside the parliament buildings where he doesn't have an office anymore, at least at the moment until there's a by-election opportunity for him. He was, you know, he attacked Carney over the cabinet choices and made a number of other statements. Anything to report on the conservative front on this week from either one of you who would like to start on that? Chantal? It's early days. I think Mr. Plouyev, but looking at his news conference, post cabinet news conference is not quite

adjusted to the reality that the campaign is over. And that his words ring although at this point, there is no audience outside his base for a replay of the election campaign, best hits of Pierre Plaliev that he will need to reinvent himself and he's not there. I know a number of MPs were concerned that that news conference seemed to feature Pierre Plaliev not being able to move off his usual persona. So it will take a while. I don't think his leadership is safe, but that doesn't mean that it's in danger anytime soon. This parliament, unless the government really fumbles it and the NDP gets very suicidal, is going to last at least 18 months.

An alert can happen. But as far as winning back his caucus, I don't think that's even begun to happen in the case of Mr. Puelev. The same people are around him. The same tone comes true on social media. I'm not going to quote some of the stuff I saw from people in his office,

but if they worked for a large scale media, they would be asked to pipe down and use more appropriate language. So at this point, he seems to be more into isolating himself inside that, I'm the best and you don't understand how good I was to you than really building new bridges.

Ron. I've yet to see suggestions that there is serious introspection going on. I think that that's required beyond, you know, we almost won and we built a new coalition. You still lost four in a row. Are you talking about, are you talking about him or about the party in general? Both.

I mean, he still leads the party. He still controls the national council. Um, uh, and so I, I await, they say that the more serious, uh, sort of, uh, post-mortem is coming. I wait to see that. Um, there are times when he sounds like he has learned a lesson, where he says things like, when the government proposes things that are right for the country, we will support them.

That's a responsible thing for an opposition leader in his position. At this moment in our history, particularly facing the threat we face to our economy from the South, that's a responsible thing for an opposition leader to say. And the next part is, is perfectly normal to where he says, we're very irresponsible, we will oppose them. And he also said, steal our ideas, keep stealing our ideas. He's not wrong about that. The liberals stole a lot

of their ideas. The tone though isn't there. Not just from him, but from from others. Some of the some of the pit bulls have been given a longer leash again. And I don't expect a loyal opposition to do anything but but oppose. But you would think that they would take, as Chantal said, arrest from campaign tactics and begin the period of introspection. There is some danger.

It looks like the, I would expect the by-election will be in early August. That he, I don't think the seat will be able to be resigned in Crowfoot until the middle of June. And then the clock starts and that I think that makes early August the time of the by-election for Mr. Well, yeah, but the Alberta independence issue will dog him. And if those people in Alberta who were serious about independence were organized and clever, they might run a candidate against them because there is significant support, my Alberta friends

tell me, in that part of the province for Alberta independence. That could represent a danger to Mr. Poilieff and that would bear watching as well. And you do understand that anyone who aspires to be a Prime Minister of Canada cannot play footsie with the referendum politics in Alberta. And in the case of Mr. Poliev, I would be even wearier of playing footsie with the issue to make sure he wins his seat hands down. Because Jason Kennedy has taken such a clear position of standing up for Canada. And I do see Jason Kenney as someone who others could see as a successor to Pierre Pouillip. So there is no room for games here, no room for I understand the grievances, so I understand why there could be a referendum on independence.

No future prime minister can be gray on the issue of national unity. And he would clearly be vulnerable on that front, but he's not vulnerable in a by-election on that front. You don't know that. Nonetheless, if the independent supporters actually got organized and ran a candidate against him, I mean, look, let's not forget Deb Gray, right? I mean, she was not an independent supporter, but she was supposed to be running an insurgent campaign. Right. She'll accept 21-year-old Mr. Paglia, a a longstanding liberal seat. After Meach failed, the bloc wasn't even a real thing, and should accept one that by

election. So if you have the right writing, and this is one of those writings, it's not an Edmonton or a Calgary writing, you should not want to be taking chances on this issue. Not only that, you will be asked repeatedly to take a stand on this issue. You can't go to Alberta. It would be like running in Quebec and not having a position on federalism versus sovereignty. Can't happen. Okay, we've only got a minute left here. What's the next big step for Carney coming up in this next month or so? When you look ahead, what are you looking at? Well, Pete Hoekstra said, the new ambassador said that he thinks that Lutnick and him and and Mr.

Carney and and Dominic LeBlanc could go to a Tim Hortons and conclude a new security and economic pact in a day. That tells me that the Americans are waiting for for some sort of indication of where this goes next or or that or we are as well. As I think I said last week, I think we've laid down conditions as to the next step. So I wanna know, and I think Canadian people wanna know where we're going with that, what kind of risk the economy's at, where the tariff issue is going to be

while we're having these discussions as well. I think that's where we're going next. Quick last word from you, Chantelle. I'm more into things that are actually gonna happen. So the first minister's conference, I believe, will matter, face-to-face meeting. And I believe the G7 will be a landmark appointment for Mr. Carney on the world stage.

I'm not sensing that there is a rush on the part of Canada to go to a Tim Hortons to negotiate on the back of an envelope with the signature of someone who does not recognize his own writing a few months later, a new arrangement with the United States. And it's not even a roll up the rim to win time either. So another reason not to go there. Okay.

Thank you both as always Chantel, Eber and Rob Russo for a good talk this week. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you all again next week.