The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- The Pipeline Deal That Could Make or Break The Liberals

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

Twelve hundred people were on their feet in Calgary yesterday applauding Mark Carney and Danielle Smith for the deal they signed that could lead to a new pipeline to move Alberta oil to markets. But there was a cost too ...Carney lost a minister, and the BC government and indigenous groups are more than a little bit upset. What happens now?  Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson look for answers in this week's 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 I Bear and Bruce Anderson. You know, it's funny, I don't know whether you ever watch this back on YouTube, but the ones that allow a, you know, the closed captioning, they always put Chantelle a bear. They put Chantelle A. Bear B-E-R Shantel A-bear

Where? Some morning she is a little bit like the bear But not Okay people You watch strange things I stick to a very mainstream series Of course

And mainstream is Is what we are Because that's who we are Mainstream You know For the past 50 years I guess one of the constants In Canadian politics

has been an ongoing dispute between Alberta and Ottawa over resource management. Most of that past 50 years or so, which made it amazing yesterday to watch a Prime Minister of Canada, a liberal Prime Minister of Canada. It could be kind of like a right of center liberal, but nevertheless a Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, standing in Calgary getting standing ovations, two of them apparently, 1,200 people or so,

over his energy policy, that was different. Now, as good as that may have felt, there was an offset to some degree in BC, where the BC government and a number of key indigenous leaders were not very happy with that same energy policy. And then, of course, in Ottawa later in the day, the loss of a minister and some unrest, it appears, by some members of the BC Caucus of the Liberal Party

over the energy policy. So I want to start in a general way. Kind of where are we after yesterday? I mean, let's face, it wasn't a surprise this being leaked for quite some time. We knew what was coming. But at the end of the day, where are we on this story?

Chantelle, why don't you start? Had the April election turned out differently, and Pierre Puelle have become Prime Minister, I totally would have expected to cover a day like yesterday, which basically did away with most of what was left. There are still some little pieces left, but most of what was left of adjusting to those climate infrastructure, and paved the way without consultation with one of the provinces in play or with the indigenous nations that stand to be affected, paved the way for one or more pipelines. And if that had happened in the same circumstances,

I would have said two things. One, the conservatives campaigned on this. This is the platform, actually a conservative friend yesterday, out, this could have been written by Stephen Harper. That's not criticism. It came from a conservative person who likes Stephen Harper, but that was totally accurate. So that would have been my first finding. This government has a mandate for this.

My second would have been good luck with that, because you have now given a reason for not only people who care about climate to coalesce against this, but the obstacle standing in your way, absent consultations with BC. and with the coastal First Nations will pave the way to litigation. That pipeline may or may not happen. What I will add about what I saw yesterday, well, two things. It's impossible to sit in Montreal all day yesterday and to watch the scenes on offer and to think,

to put the word Quebec where BC is and to think, oh, wow, on what planet? would we have a liberal prime minister of Canada who has been elected to a minority government with a lot of help from Quebec, make a deal for a pipeline that goes through Quebec without the consent of Quebec? And none of if that were to happen,

I guess the first people who would be really, really happy would be the Quebec sovereignty movement which would take off in the polls in a way that it has not probably, since Meach failed. But the other thing I would note is that as opposed to Pierre Puellev doing this, or Stephen Harper, Mr. Carney did not campaign on this. He won votes in BC. Many of those votes came from the NDP. And rightly this morning, those voters, and many liberal voters, who I think hail from the climate wing of the party, are saying, when did we vote for this? And how did this

happen. And I am not sure that the communications on this from Mr. Carney are going to be enough to fix the absence of bringing BC on to this before going to be getting standing ovations in Alberta. But I mean, I have friends who believe that the liberals will paint Saskatchewan in Alberta read in the next federal election. I can't wait to see it. All right. Bruce, I'm assuming you have a counter view to that. I don't know if I have a counter view. I mean, I think Chantel's observations are well grounded,

and as they always are in understanding the dynamics of Canadian politics. The first thing that occurs to me is a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was in New York, and he talked about the attributes of Canada. And one of the things that he said was really remarkable and positive about candidates that we have allowed open and diverse public square. And I think we were kind of immersed in observing that right now. There are strong points of view on different sides of this conversation. I don't even know if I would say it's an argument because there's a there's so many different elements to what was put on the table yesterday.

It is clear to me that the prime minister has a point of view about how best to achieve our economic goals, especially in this disrupted time. And some people are going to disagree with his economic perspective. It's also fair to say that he has a view about how to achieve our climate goals. And his view about that is different from the approach that's been taken before. And some people are going to disagree with that. And that's all reasonable. And in terms of the achievement of those climate goals or those environmental goals, I don't consider myself to be enough of an expert to say, well, I'm sure Mark Carney is wrong in his understanding of that.

And I'm sure his environmental critics are right. I think there's an awful lot. There's an idea that he laid out about how things could go differently in the future. But there are so many variables that would still. need to be worked out that it feels to me, just to me anyway, really premature to say, well, this is this is all going to go terribly badly or that it's all going to go terribly well. And include in that the notion that there isn't a defined endpoint for that pipeline. There is language about agreement with indigenous people and with the province of BC.

Some people look at that language and say, it doesn't. doesn't feel ironclad enough, others look at it and say, well, the intent is pretty clear. And so even though there's no proponent, even though there's no project, even though the premier of Alberta has said it will be months before they can come forward with something that might look like that, it's not surprising to me, especially given what you said, Peter, about the history of tension around energy development in Canada. It's not surprising to me that there's a lot of feelings that are running pretty hot right now. For my part, I think I want to see a little bit more time, a little bit more facts, a little bit more evidence kind of come out, and then we'll see where we are then. Chantelle. Okay, so I think the pipeline tree here is hiding the forest, and the forest is called climate policy, serious climate policy.

It's not the pipeline thing. That will unfold the way it unfolds. Maybe the government will change in BC. Maybe the pipeline would go with some ice. That's in a future that is not tomorrow. The forest is the rest of what is in that agreement. And I'm going to focus, for one, on the electricity regulation carve out for Alberta. What does it mean without getting too technical?

I did spend the week with climate policy people. It's an accident. it helped, but I'm not an expert. But it basically means by carving out Alberta, that Alberta will now be able to produce more electricity via natural gas, i.e. increased its use of natural gas. No, it's not a clean fuel. It is a fossil fuel.

And in the process, attract, for instance, more data centers. Ontario is going to be asking, if not tomorrow, the day after the same carve out, to do the exact same thing. So will Saskatchewan. So will New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. What you have at the end of the day is an electricity sector that is moving back to fossil fuel-generated electricity.

It will attract, produce more electricity, to attract data centers. But it does make us step back. Over the last two decades, the electricity sector, through policy, has managed to reduce its emissions by half. You can offset that by raising the price on industrial carbon. But there are studies done by civil servants who do not have a dog in this fight that show that if you're going to do that, you can't do it with the levels that we're doing it at now.

You need to double those levels. Now, a government that wants to see or show, the people voted for it, the people in its caucus that fought two elections over it, that it's actually moving in a different way towards the same goal, would possibly have asked for an assessment from its many civil servants as to how this impacts on Canada's goal to reduce emissions for 2030 and 2050. That exercise was not done. If it's really a new path that gets us to the same place,

but does it in a way that also makes the economy stronger, show me. The reason why it's not going to be shown is because it doesn't exist, and if it did exist, they wouldn't show that. And that is the real reason why Stephen Gilbo left his job in the cabinet, not because of a pipeline in B.C. or a party in Calgary, but because yesterday key pieces of Canada's climate policy and emission reduction policy have been taken out

and they have not been offset, including by the promise to raise the industrial price on carbon to $130 a ton, does not offset the carbouts. And it does put Canada on a path where, why would Ontario not ask for the same card out? Why, how could Mr. Carney, who is signed a document that says that will allow more data centers to operate and come to Alberta? Why would he say no to Ontario, a province that's actually suffering from hits on its key industry, the auto industry? So that is basically where we are.

We have undone over the past year and a half, almost a decade of climate policy. If Canadians are fine with that, fine. But it does bring us back to a fossil fuel-based economy in a much major way as compared to where we were going a year and a half ago. Okay. just for those who maybe have kind of lost their way on this in trying to understand it, the demand for new electricity sources

is massive and it's only going to get bigger because of data centers to service various AI functions. Everybody is facing this around the world. We have the ability to deal with it in some fashion.

given our resources in terms of, you know, creating electricity. But the carve-out becomes another issue that other provinces are going to seek the same kind of deal for. And Ontario is certainly one of them. This at a time where, whether it's AI or whether it's EVs, this demand for electricity is enormous, to the point where there are serious looks at trying to create. data centers outside of our planet on the moon in space. You know, Elon Musk has just started some new thing about, you know, space-based data centers, which would get around some of this stuff

in terms of electricity on, you know, on the planet. I think, Peter, if I can, I think it's mentioning, and I don't want to take issue with what Chantelle has said. And I think that it's a, you know, obviously there are a lot of people who've been involved in shaping the climate policy for the last decade who believe quite strongly that the policies that were chosen are the right and only way to achieve the climate goals. I think the argument that I'm attentive to and I think needs to be heard and people need to evaluate it is that they're. are different dynamics, not just the economic imperatives. Although I do think that if you're a prime minister of Canada and you really want to create a different relationship with Albertans,

not with the conservative government of Alberta, but with Albertans. And they want data centers. And part of what you're talking about is intertides with hydroelectric transmission. you're talking about more nuclear power. You're talking about a variety of different ways to create a more diversified economy in Alberta. And I think that it feels to me that for a long time,

this fight between Alberta and Ottawa, as you kind of described it at the beginning, the first phase of it was really about where will the money go? That's what was around the National Energy Program. And more recently, it's been about what about the environmental impacts? But, you know, 50 years of that has created some scar tissue. And I think there's value in trying to see if a better economic and political mood can be struck around diversification. I think it is worth mentioning that the energy companies have committed as part of this memorandum of understanding to the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world.

and that they're living up to that commitment is part of what it would take to secure all of these other policy undertakings by the federal government. So I'm not trying to make the case that there isn't a counter-argument. I'm trying to make the case that there is an argument for what the prime minister has put on the table

and he's going to have the opportunity as are others to kind of lay out their case for how this is going to be a better, and different way to achieve our climate objectives. And along the way, strengthen our economic opportunities as a country. And it's a healthy debate to have. My point wasn't that there aren't many paths to achieve objectives. My point was if there is a path there, it's not being shown.

And the reason why it's not being shown is because it's not there. It would have been possible to do both, make this announcement and show the path, if there had been one based on what was signed off on, but it wasn't. And in part, that's because the negotiation never included the prime minister asking his government for an assessment of what it would mean on a climate agenda. And that kind of begs the question, do we still have really a climate agenda?

But let's talk politics, since we're all into how we are, supposed to be happy that Alberta is happy. Let's talk about Mr. Gilbo's resignation and its possible impact. There are impacts in two places. One is BC, obviously. This puts more pressure on liberal MPs in BC to explain to the many NDP voters who switched to the liberals in BC in April. This was what they always had in mind to bypass the NDP government

of the province and say we're going to build one or more pipelines to tide water in your province. And at some point, we're going to show you how much money you're going to make out of it. So the fact that Gilbo leaves, and he does leave on principle, makes voters ask, well, you know, if he leaves on principle, then it's our province that's being trampled and not even his. And I'm talking the perspective of MVP voters. What does that make you? Gregor Robertson, former mayor of Vancouver, who made his name by wanting to sue over Trans Mountain and over greening the city of Vancouver's policies. Then move all over to Quebec. I understand that a lot of

people are celebrating Mr. Gilbo's resignation outside Quebec. That's not happening here. and what's not happening here is a well he was an activist, a radical environmentalist what has happened yesterday is that the Karni government is lost the person who is considered is moral caution on climate policy

and that is going to matter and the first people who understood this have been the Black Quebec because it will help them. And I will take it somewhere else. I'm used to environment ministers, by the way, resigning from the federal government over principle, and I'm used to the spin that they won't matter because they are. The last one was Nussimbusha. They won't matter. Yeah, I've heard it all. I'm sorry I have to do this again. Mr. Gilbo was the Minister of Heritage. He has a very big sway in the culture community in Quebec.

The culture community in Quebec is very much tied to the climate issue. Guess where they are going to be going today? We are having an election in six months. I think the bottom line on this is that the Patskevikoa has just gotten a significant assist. And the federalist who might be fighting a referendum in Quebec in the next election have just lost some key voices to our. you for the no side. But this will play out over

months and meanwhile the prime minister who speaks French when he absolutely has to those images of him suddenly looking like it was a problem or a I have

to do this in French yesterday with Daniel Smith have been going around in Quebec since yesterday so a prime minister whose French is less than understandable when he goes into an explanation is going to end up having to explain to Quebecers how great the future is going to be in the province where the notion of climate and fossil fuel is probably one of the biggest ballot box issues by comparison to other provinces.

Good. Great day at the office. Let me just say one thing about the Gibo resignation. Because Chantel's right in terms of the way there was a kind of celebration going on in some parts of the country. I see the headline in the Edmonton Journal this morning, at least online, the lead headline, is ding-dong the witch's dead. This is before even the stuff about the deal that was made yesterday. They're kind of column celebrating the departure of Gibo. I, here's what I'd like to know from Bruce because he deals in this kind of research and looking into what people are thinking.

I mean, we've heard a lot already in the last 24 hours what the leading politicians on all sides of this issue are saying. My question is, you know, what are the people saying? I mean, it's too early for a reaction on yesterday's deal, but it's been kind of out there. There's been a sense, Bruce, in the last year or so, that people have moved. moved away from the climate issue. Still believe in it, but moved away from it as a major part of their thinking.

Does yesterday, do you think that yesterday changes that? Could it move it back into play? Or does it do anything? So I'd like to say a few things. And Chantelle will probably disagree with some of them. And that's, you know, fair, obviously. First is that Stephen Giebeau is a good person. I'm not one of those people who thinks that he didn't belong in politics.

I think he's making a great contribution in politics, including by, you know, expressing his point of view yesterday. I think the way in which he described the reasons for his resignation and the way in which the prime minister responded to that is that we can look at it and say, well, it feels like a bit of a train wreck, or we can say, well, you know what, in a democracy, a healthy. democracy that's a pretty grown-up way of kind of handling things there are going to be disagreements on important policy choices and mark carney in particular um came into politics on a short clock um and said he was going to change some things and said he was going to change a lot of things around how we approach the economy because of the urgency that he saw so he's going to he's either going to make that argument convincingly over time to people or he's not, but we're launched into it now and we'll see how that goes. On your question, Peter, about where the public is at,

there has been some shifting over time, but there are also some important observations that we can make over time that I remember doing research on the Northern Gateway pipeline. I remember doing research on fracking when the first natural gas was found in volume in British Columbia. I remember doing research on the TMX pipeline. And in each of those cases, LNG, another one, there was quite a bit of public resistance initially. When people hear about some of these things, their tendency is to say, what could go wrong? I'm worried about it. I'm not sure I need the economic upside.

I'm not sure it's going to help me that much. and there's no question that a certain amount of that is still going to be there around what was announced yesterday but what I see in terms of how people feel about climate policy is not that they want to abandon climate policy the number of people who don't believe we should have climate policy is 20% today so it's not nothing but it was only ever been between 15 and 20% in my view

instead what happens is that there's a larger number of people who say if there's a way to do it we really want to marry our climate change objectives with our economic imperatives. And that's a threading of the needle that we haven't really discussed very much in the last 10 years and has been, I think, at the heart of some of the friction that Pierre Poliev has picked up on, some of the tension in the prairie provinces or in Saskatchewan in Alberta. And I think it's fair to say that a fair number of mainstream voters have said, if the rest of the world is changing the way that it's approaching climate policy,

we don't want to abandon our sense of moral imperative, but we do live in an economy that requires us to be competitive, and that has been brought home never more clearly than by the interventions of Donald Trump. So there's no question that there's more tension and electricity around these choices, and there has been over the last 10 years, and that the prime minister has kind of put his cards on the table in terms of the direction that he would like to see the country go in, but with the caveats that the country's going to have to decide

that it wants to go along in that direction. And I think that's undecided at this point. Okay, I've got to take a break. We'll take our first break here. We come back. There's lots more to talk about on this issue, and we will keep talking about it right after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. Chantelle Ibert, Bruce Anderson in the house. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us wherever you are. Something Chantel said in her first answer,

I wanted to pursue a little bit. Not disagreeing with it. I just want to... Feel free to disagree. Well, I just want to understand it. I will keep all those tapes as you know. Yeah, that's right. And it was that he didn't campaign on this.

And I hear you that in terms of specifics. What he did campaign on, if I recall correctly, is that everything about our... move our our path forward in Canada is affected by the deteriorating relationship with the United States that that relationship is never going to be the same again as it was but everything's changing and as a result he said we've got to we've got to be more diverse we've got to look for other markets so what has he done since the election well he Even just in the last couple of weeks, where has he been?

He's been to the United Arab Emirates. He's been, he's talked with China. He's, you know, he's talked to Africa. He has opened up new trading possibilities worth potentially billions of dollars and thousands of, not tens of thousands of new jobs. Yesterday was really just another step in that direction in terms of what he's looking at, potentially promising for the future. So given all that, is it fair to say this is not what he campaigned on?

Yes, it is. And here's why. And, oh, this is all really nice. By the way, those new markets, if you're going to build that pipeline, If you do believe that pipeline gets built and goes to Asian markets. And if you do believe the markets will be there for it, which contradicts a lot of serious analysis from experts. But set that aside, not going to happen while Daniel Smith is Premier or Mark Carney as Prime Minister. We're not doing this.

Suddenly, the way you bring more bitumen oil to tide water quickly is the BC approach, which was to speed up. and the increase in the capacity of the Transmountain Pipeline. Which for the record, it still could happen, right? It's still on, yes, but we're all talking as if yesterday the Liberals were against pipelines and today they're suddenly embracing them. Let's agree that we all paid out of pocket for the Trans Mountain Pipeline and that the Liberals under Justin Trudeau supported Keystone XL. It didn't die because of Canada.

It died because of a White House administration. But why I'm saying that he didn't campaign on that? Because he accepted the endorsement of people who are tied to climate policy like Gerald Butts, like Stephen Gilbo, like Catherine McKenna, who all said to people who care about this and who didn't think they were buying into what could have been the Harper platform to energy and climate. This person is good on climate. One of his main assets, and that's how all those votes came to him, including these environmental votes, came from the book that he wrote, values. I was speaking to 300 people who work in climate policy.

I'm not talking about people who are going to be demonstrating to save a Christmas tree from being cut down here this week. And they were all saying how this is what is happening this week, Jai, which was written. in values. So yes, the Liberal Party does have an accountability issue to voters, because those voters were assured that they could vote with their eyes wide open, and they were buying someone who was not only really interested in climate policy, it just spent years immersed in it, but had the skills to articulate it. And before Bruce says there are other paths, I didn't

see those skills on offer and the demonstration that was offered yesterday. It looked more like a concession speech. Bruce. Well, this gentle tennis match is going to continue as long as you want it to continue. But I mean, I do believe that one of the points that Chantal makes is really important to me, which is that this is going to play out over a lengthy period of time. There is a calculation that some people would make, which is that we've either reached peak fossil fuels or we will soon.

There is also a point of view that I believe the Prime Minister holds, which is that the path to decarbonization is going to continue around the world. It's an unstoppable force now. It has achieved critical mass, and it will continue. and we need to be participants, active and rapid participants in decarbonization. So I don't believe, based on yesterday's announcement, that he's abandoned that position. I believe that based on yesterday's announcement, I tend to look at what has happened in the province of Alberta, and I see an agreement that involves significant investment in carbon capture and stores to decarbonize,

the Canadian barrels, and I happen to be somebody who believes that it is a, if we're selling decarbonized barrels of oil to a world that's still buying oil, that doesn't mean that we're ignoring climate change, especially if we're doing other things to decarbonize our economy. I think it's been a breakthrough for all of the years that I was in public opinion research on energy sources. I saw significant resistance to the idea of, nuclear power generation. And now I don't see that. Now I see BC and Alberta talking about it.

I see Ontario and Ottawa investing in it. So this is always going to be a kind of a fraught discussion. And they're going to be strong cues on both sides. But I don't see yesterday as a capitulation to the argument against climate policy. And I think we're going to have time to evaluate it. We're going to have time to hear more evidence, more argument on the part of the prime minister and these ministers. And we're going to hear more argument from people on the other side of it. And I think that's all healthy.

To take you away again from the pipeline tree to the forest, opening the door to carve out on electricity regulations are not ways to make fossil fuel cleaner. They are ways to make emissions more voluminous. But can we go back to the reality of a minority government? Because what yesterday is also done is it has now put the survival of the government, and there are many more budget votes coming that are confidence votes at the mercy of the conservatives or at their goodwill. Because as of now, do not expect Elizabeth May to vote for whatever is in the budget. There were some key things that she had negotiated that were taken out of the budget to get her vote,

and that have been instead inserted in the memorandum of understanding that was presented yesterday, great, do not count on the NDP to be able to abstain anymore on this budget, not if they think rightly that they have a path to recovery to BC, thanks to this announcement. So, as of now, confidence votes will come, and I'm guessing Mr. Poyev should ask the House of Commons staff to refurbish the curtains. that stand behind him as members and the lobby so that more of them can hide behind them whenever there's a confidence vote, or he can decide that he wants to go in an election, whatever.

But that is also part and parcel of what happened yesterday, that those abstentions and that support that allowed the government to pass that confidence test will now have to be replaced by conservative extensions. Okay. I want to move on, but I know Bruce wants just a quick thought. Well, I think Chautel's point about it's a minority government. It could be an election anytime is a really important point to bear in mind here.

And, you know, I don't happen to believe that the way that voters, to back to your question about how people, regular people, are going to react to this as opposed to people who are really steeped in the understanding and the arguments on both sides of this policy question, And I don't think that voters are going to say, well, what we really need to do is elect an NDP government. I think if there's an election and there's a risk that the liberals lose, it will be a loss to the conservatives. Now, the conservatives make no pretense about the idea that they would authorize a pipeline through anybody's province regardless of whether or not the province agreed. They don't have any climate policy.

And so the choices, if there were an election triggered by policies in this area, wouldn't be very satisfying, I think, for the people who don't like what was announced yesterday. And that's part of our political reality today, too. Oh, forget the bloc. And the usefulness of Quebec in crafting liberal governments, that sounds like more of a, I'm reassuring myself, than based on actual reality of electoral politics and the need for the liberals to not have vote splits.

For instance, in BC, I agree. We are not going to elect an NDP government. But if more people go home to the NDP in an election, they split the vote with the liberal, the non-conservative vote. And the result of that, Matt 101, is more conservative seats. Okay. I guess there's a counter somewhat to that could yesterday mean more seats for the Liberals in Ontario

Saskatchew? No, in Alberta, my friend. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sure. And do these things balance each other off if, in fact, they fall that way? Okay, I want to totally switch topics. What's related in a way, everything that's happening right now is happening to a degree because of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, according to the New York Times, has sent out messages to his people at consulates and embassies around the world about, basically about immigration. Talk to your host country about ending migration. And it includes Canada on that list. You know, this from a guy who was whining about an ad that the Ontario government ran saying, you're interfering in our politics and our policies. This is kind of, sounds to me like kind of interference.

What do you make of it, Bruce? You know, it's hard to say it's shocking when Donald Trump says something because the standard for being shocked has changed so much in the time that he's broken. in politics, but this is ridiculous and shocking. The idea that the U.S. would not just Trump in a crazy moment in the Oval Office would say, go and tell the rest of the world how to run their immigration policies, but then there would be no pause, no reflection, no second guessing, no, but sir, maybe we shouldn't do that along the way

and a cable would go out to all the invoice of the United States telling them that their job includes telling governments like the Canadian government what our immigration policy

should be. In the context of a government, an American government that says we want to be isolationist. We don't believe in multilateralism. We don't want to give anything to anybody else and we don't want to take anything from anybody else.

But we are going to tell you how you should run your immigration policy. You marry that with the late-night posts that Trump put out yesterday, saying that he was going to pause all benefits for people who came to America and live in America from countries that he deems unsuitable, that people who come from those countries are not a net benefit to America. There's a ramping up of the institutionalized racism in the Trump administration. Beyond, I mean, remember the Muslim ban? I mean, that very first kind of wave of strange kind of policy utterances by somebody

who didn't seem kind of tethered to policy principles. I don't think we've seen anything as ugly in its racism, its inherent racism. or as arrogant in terms of the implication that America should be able to just send the cable and its diplomats will go and meet with the host governments and tell them how their immigration policy should be and that the rest of the world is supposed to go along with that, including all the connection points to the racist language

that the president is using. I am shocked. I am dismayed by it. I think it's a terrible, a terrible intervention. And the fact that it happened on American Thanksgiving and is wrapped in Trump's message about giving thanks is just all the more kind of tragic to see how America's voice is being used by him

for an agenda that I don't think most Americans would agree with at all. Chantelle. But we need to agree about one thing. It is common for countries to send diplomats instructions on desired domestic policies of the countries that they are in. The various administrations have sent such instructions to their U.S. embassy in Canada over military spending and defense. And defense is trading.

But also on joining the war in Iraq. Those instructions also came. So I don't know if we would ever comply. with the instructions to do something about our immigration, we are doing whatever we are doing with immigration, I think, unrelated to those kinds of things. But I am less offended by this process because it goes from State Department to U.S. Embassy than I would be if it were a message that Donald Trump sends to, and I'm hoping he didn't, to Mark Carney. So make sure you rein in your immigration, especially non-people of color, because otherwise we're going to put more

tariffs on you, and then we would comply. As for the other comments, I've given up on commenting on late-night posts by this president because we always end up in the same place, which is whoever elected him has to be proud of what he's doing because it's on them. You know, there's a point in the cable, I guess, and I don't really know if they send cables, but they're still referred to as cables. That's like if somebody said, Bruce, send the cable to Peter. I have no idea how I would do.

Where is the cable store? Try a telegram, go to the station. But one point in it says, we encourage your government to ensure that policies protect your citizens from the negative social impacts of mass migration, including displacement, sexual assault, and the breakdown of law and order. You know, I suppose you could look at that and say, well, it's somewhat innocuous. And who would not be in favor of fighting sexual assault? But the association of those ills with immigrants that Donald Trump doesn't like,

it goes on to say, we urge vigilance and safeguarding religious liberty, particularly against the prevalence of radical Islam among certain migrant populations. And it goes on and on in that vein. You know, Chatelle's right. I mean, part of why you have diplomatic entities in other countries is to make a case for a trade policy, climate policy, a defense policy. This isn't really making a case about immigration policy, in my view. why would it matter to the United States what immigration policy

a country in Europe might have really this is about making statements about the idea that white is right and Christian is better and I don't think it's there's no camouflage to it there's no diplomacy to it

it's just a bare-knuckle assertion of those kind of ideas and yeah so I am still shocked by it but this is an administration whose leading figures have intervened publicly on the side of far right parties

and elections in Europe so which I find even more offensive to tell you the truth but and they're doubling down he is underwater and polling he is underwater and polling and his party is underwater in polling and there's a you would normally expect at some point a self-correcting

mechanism in a big vibrant democracy where you've got two parties that kind of center around 50% support each and they worry about getting too far off that 50% number and they try to kind of row back in a different direction well Trump is apparently not interested in that it remains to be seen whether his Republican Party will be, but I guess, you know, I looked at this story yesterday and I still haven't seen Republicans going, what, what are we doing? Are we isolationist, America first, or are we kind of trying to tell the world how to live their lives and run their countries? And I'm hoping at some point that Republicans decide that they want to pick a lane and hopefully it's a multilateral lane. Well, obviously that policy was worked on for some time

or that policy paper, that directive to consulates and embassies was worked on for some time. But his statements in the last 2448 hours have been related to the shooting that took place in Washington, the two National Guards, people, one who sadly passed away overnight. And the suspect being held is an Afghani who came in a... the country came into the U.S. during the Biden years, but it's important to understand that he was granted asylum by the Trump administration just a few months ago. So that makes it difficult for them to trash Biden on this, although I'm sure nothing will stop them from doing that.

Okay, what have I got? I've got a couple of minutes left. Let me come back domestic for a moment. The NDP held a leadership debate last night, and you would think on a day like yesterday for NDP supporters, you couldn't have asked for a better timing to make some headlines. But the headlines they seem to have made in Montreal, in the French language, it was Montreal, right?

That they held up there. Yes, it was Montreal, but without an audience, it should be noted. No audience and very little French. It was supposed to be 60, 40 French. All the headlines this morning in French use words that are too common. about what the gong show that the NBP produced yesterday was on the language front. Basically, I told you this before, but I will repeat it on air. I looked at the first segments.

Eventually, they got around to the pipeline issue and the climate issue, but I was gone. I was gone. Why? Because I felt like I was watching a bunch of Martians who just landed. And, you know, based on research, had found a few ways. words to talk to the natives that we were, but couldn't go beyond those few words, barely intelligible. And then you kind of wondered, where's your spaceship?

Please go back to outer space because we don't know what you want from us. It was really lamentable presentation. There are, I will say this, there were varieties, levels of capacity, i.e. A.V. Lewis and and the other McPherson, French, who is more intelligible than the other three. But at some point, you kind of think, is the NDP a serious enough party to vie for government in this country anytime soon, given this kind of performance? And the answer, watching that was, nah, not really, or at least don't count on Quebec to help you do it. Do you want to...

Just one thought, and I didn't watch any of that debate, so I'm going to comment on that. The thing that I've been watching in my research in the last little while is I ask a question about whether people believe that capitalism is better or socialism is better. And more recently, I've given them a third choice, which is that capitalism is better, but it's not working for regular people right now. And that's where the plurality of opinion is in Canada. That's the tension around capitalism that has led the most capitalist place in the world, New York City, to elect a democratic socialist, Suranam Dami. This should be fertile ground for an NDP that chooses to position itself as a champion of a better version of capitalism. But I don't think the NDP has the internal, I don't think they have the internal energy to figure out whether or not that is what they want to be for. But that is where I think the opportunity is.

And I think that's where the conservatives have found themselves sounding to pro-capitalists and the liberal. liberals are kind of in the middle now and to be determined where they land in terms of how the public sees that over time. Okay. We're going to wrap it up on that note. But Chantelle gave us good warning earlier. This is a minority government. There are going to be votes taking place. We move into December next week and there are a couple of votes expected before the holiday break.

So watch those. And watch the curtains. See who's standing behind them. See who's hiding behind them. because it's going to be an interesting time, as it always is in our little exciting House of Commons. All right, thanks to Chantelle. Thanks to Bruce.

Everybody have a good weekend out there. And we'll talk to you again on Monday. We'll see you next week, folks. Bye. Bye for now. Thank you.