The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- "Vote Like Canada Depends On It"

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

The referendum about referendums is just days away in Alberta, and Mark Carney is pulling out all the stops.  There are ten questions on the ballot, not just one, and the results could have a big impact not just on Alberta, but on Canada as well.  Bruce and Chantal with their thoughts on that, plus the latest shot from the ever thoughtful US Ambassador to Canada. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantelle Iber and Bruce Anderson. It's your Good Talk Friday. Bruce is in Scotland. Chantel's in Montreal. I'm in Niagara on the lake in beautiful Ontario, just next door to Lake Ontario. All right. Let's talk about what's going to happen on Monday.

It's been a long time, if ever, that I can recall. a liberal prime minister staying this long in Alberta and getting such an incredible reception, which he seems to have been getting to, you know, significant crowds, estimated yesterday, somewhere around 5,000 people. That's a good crowd for any politician. And to get the kind of reception he was getting is not bad. Now, he was delivering the lines in expectation of what may or may not happen on Monday in the referendum with its 10.

Count them, ten questions. Yesterday, one of his lines was vote like Canada depends on it. Now, that's pretty heavy stuff, but it has potential to be a pretty heavy referendum. What did you make of what Prime Minister Carney has been doing these last couple of days? Chantelle, why don't you start us? Well, for one, I was thinking watching yesterday's pictures that in the same circumstances, i.e. the same referendum, but Justin Trudeau, the reception would have been really, really different. Probably there would have been advised, well advised for Mr. Trudeau to do whatever campaigning from at this safe distance.

I don't think that Mark Gurney had ever had a rally like that over his tenure as liberal leader. Yes, he's gone to rallies, but this size, and it did look like, it was energizing as it would be for any politician. Now, beyond that, I think the sentence vote as if Canada's future depends on it, is not a line to say if you don't go vote, the yes will win and you're going to be an unknown territory. It's a line that is meant to do what the federalist camp feels really needs doing. And that is ensuring turnout. Because the biggest fear is not that on Monday night, people watching should not sit at the edge of their seat waiting to see if the yes to a referendum on Alberta separation will prevail.

It's not in the cards. What really matters are the percentages by what margin does this issue get set aside. Does it get set aside for a long time? or until, as Gennedewa said, next time. And for those numbers to be what the federalist camp hopes, federalist voters who are certainly reassured by all the polls that tell them what I just said, that there is no danger that the other side will win,

need to be convinced that they need to go vote, even if it looks like a done deal for their side. And that's basically the message that, Jason Kenney, other former premiers in Alberta or Rachel Notley, but also the Prime Minister, and I expect Pierre Puehliv later today, I believe, are going to be driving home, because that is the big fear. You need to find some enthusiasm that drives people to have a motive to go vote beyond the, yeah, sure, it's, you know, July 1st and let's get the firecrackers. out. They really need that turnout. Chances are the people who want to vote yes are motivated to do so.

You know, they really shouldn't get, or they should get very comfortable in their chairs if they're watching things because it could be hours before we get a final result. They're hand counting the ballots, right? It's not computers. Now, the vote is going to be counted first in terms of the separation question, question number 10. But they're estimated it could be no earlier than three or four in the morning, Alberta time. My advice to people who want to understand the entire picture, and I have sympathy for those of my colleagues who have to write analysis by 11 o'clock

at night, if you want the full picture, you can go to bed and look at it in the morning because you're going to be missing pieces throughout the night on that basis. And we all know what happens when you have to write analysis early on. Remember the Quebec election after the referendum, Lucien Bouchard winning a majority government, but by the time we filed, it wasn't clear that the PQ had lost the popular vote, which was the most important piece of it. If you reread those analysis, morning after analysis, none of us would want them to have endured because they were that.

And so all those premises that you need to do sound analysis is going to take the night to get them. Bruce, what are you thinking here at the moment? Well, I was watching the coverage of the prime minister in Alberta, I couldn't help but remind myself of what happened when Brian Mulroney started the campaign for the Charlottetown Accord. And I have a lot of admiration for what Brian Mulroney did. So this is not meant to be a kind of a serious criticism of him. But there was a moment in the run-up to that referendum when a few of us had done some research to understand what it was likely to motivate people to support the accord or oppose the

accord. And the advice that was on offer was that if he allowed it to become a referendum about him, it was more likely to fail because he was unpopular at that time and because also people don't necessarily like the idea of having something as important as the Constitution tied to the political charm of a single individual. What I think this prime minister has done well is he intervened as he had to in this debate, but he didn't do it too much. He wasn't there all the time. He wasn't making a kind of singularly emotional pitch to support some position that was important to him, almost making it a referendum on him. I didn't see him doing any of that. I also thought that he avoided the risk of just making a kind of a heartstrings campaign

message for Canada. How could you break up Canada? How could you do this? to the rest of us. Those were themes that have been tried in those Quebec referendums, and they have tended to backfire. They backfire because people feel that if they're on the fence, if there's those swing voters out there, they think that they're kind of ignoring the fact that there have been some grievances or some feelings of shortcomings.

They're dodging the central issue, if you like. Yes, they do work a little bit for people who feel deeply, emotionally attached to Canada, but those people are already inclined to vote this way. And Chantelle's point is right, which is that maybe it's important to motivate them to get out and vote. But if you over-index on this emotional argument of attachment to Canada, you run the risk of having swing voters say, I think he's missing the point. So I don't think he did that.

The last thing I wanted to say is that Carney on this is, is, you know, far from arguing the status quo. He spent the last number of months working to promote Canada as an energy superpower, clean and conventional. He spent political capital or invested political capital. We'll see if it's actually an expenditure or, you know, a good investment in supporting the idea of more pipeline capacity to the West Coast. Those are things that it would be hard to argue, are a reflection of a federal government that doesn't understand the tensions that have built up in the province of Alberta over the last years. Quite the contrary. He is a change agent, and he's a change agent on the things that Premier Smith and others have said have been a problem.

His Bill C-39 is another thing that kind of responds to those. Now, people can have different points of view about that in other parts of the country, but there's no doubt that he's been doing things from a substantive policy. standpoint that really reflect the concerns that Premier Smith and others have articulated. And a good example of that. And I said I would have my last point. But I also saw him do an interview in Calgary yesterday and the subject of immigration came up. And I thought he was very precise about saying, we have gained control of immigration again.

And he laid out some statistics about how it had changed. And he said, I understand where people are coming from it. But to be honest, we don't really need a referendum to know that we needed to gain greater control over the immigration system. And I think that all of that advocacy that he's been doing has been well argued and well-timed and well-timed and effective. Okay, but let me put it this way. He's also spent much of the last year trying to ensure that he doesn't separate himself from Danielle Smith. Clearly, there are differences on a number of different things, but overall, they were, seemed to be hand in glove on some of the big issues for Alberta, like pipelines, as you mentioned. Yesterday, for the first time, he really separated himself, or it seemed to me, he really separated himself from Danielle Smith on the referendum question, not on the main one or question 10, as they say, on separation, where they both seem to be in the same ballpark, but on the other nine, which are all.

about more provincial power and I think four or five of them are on immigration. She's saying vote yes on these. He's saying vote no. A clear difference. Yes. Do you want him to endorse questions that would have refugees claimants or immigrants treated in a way that is, there are individuals, They are treated in a way that basically sends the message. You're kind of unwanted baggage, and we're going to make sure you don't come to us because we're going to make it prohibitive for your kids to get schooling, to get classes. Do you really think the Prime Minister of Canada should be endorsing those questions

and telling people to vote yes to issues like that? You did the right thing. I think he did the right thing. I agree with you. Or that he would allow Albertans because they have been deprived of the real debate on those issues. issues, which is something, if we have a referendum here where I live, we would have one of those questions and it would be explained to death by both sides. And everyone would vote with their eyes wide open. So anyone who would want to ask Quebecers, do you want to vote yes

to abolish the Senate, would be challenged all the way to the ballot box to demonstrate how that could ever be doable. So Mark Carney is basically something. saying we're not going to trigger a full constitutional round where there is no consensus to abolish the Senate or to do any of the things that are on the constitutional list. We can discuss all kinds of things. And certainly we're not going to be, as the government of Canada endorsing the tenor of the immigration questions. I don't see that he had a choice. I would also mention to your statement that he has avoided contradictions.

he actually has on the very holding of this referendum, calling it a dangerous bluff. That's probably as far as you can go from distancing yourself from the main decision to have it. Right, okay. At no point did I say he should have endorsed those immigration questions. My question is about the separation from Smith.

And I accept your point about the overall disagreement on whether or not there even should have been a referendum. But is there any, and I'm not saying there is, I'm asking you if there is, is there any political cost at this point in the bigger issues surrounding what's going on in Canada right now, in him making that clear distinction between him and Smith on this, on these questions. Can we agree that the people who made that distinction this week that made it first are Ms. Smith's conservative predecessors at Stelmac, Alison Redford. Jason Kenney, who actually said as a former immigration minister, I can't make sense of

some of those questions. I can't figure out what they actually mean. So it's not as if Mark Carney steps in from Liberal Ottawa to say, you guys are so wrong, which actually would or could backfire. He is backed by every premier that is. alive and speaking on these issues and they are all signing vote no to all nine. So I don't see that there was room here for federal provincial diplomacy because at that point you're basically campaigning with Daniel Smith against her predecessors, which is awkward to

say the least. I mean, that there was an op-ed published under the signature of three of those former premieres, one a new Democrat, the other two conservatives, to argue the immigration issue and to say this is damaging to the province, we need immigration and the message it stands is we are anti-immigration, don't come here, you will not be treated well. Bruce. Yeah. Look, I mean, I think several of those questions would look to most observers as though they're dog whistle type questions aimed at providing Ms. Smith an opportunity to connect with that part of her base vote, which is separatist,

which is very uncomfortable with immigration. And if she could do that, she could also maybe then say, but I'm ambivalent or I don't think you need to vote for a referendum or we shouldn't separate. I think maybe that was the trade that she was making when she designed this, although I think I remember back and when it first came out, we all looked at it and said, this is a recipe for stirring up trouble with no clear positive outcome in mind. And I think as we watched it, the evolution of federal policy and the economy and a relationship with the United States over the last number of months, it's become more and more clear that putting the province in a situation where it might send

the signal that it's an uncertain place, it was a terrible idea at a terrible moment in time. when the world wants to consider investing more in Canada, when Albertans don't see the same barriers that they do, that they used to in federal policy around their economic development, and where there's plenty of opportunity for us to sell more energy and more resource products to other parts of the world. So it's a bad idea from the beginning. It was freighted with this kind of political calculation of how do I manage the fact

that a big part of my party, whether it's a third or close to a half, I think is an open question, a lean or favor separation. And I think Jason Kenney was right to point that out, that it's one of the issues after this vote is counted that the provincial conservative party should deal with. They should decide that if you want to be a separatist, you can't do it inside this party, form your own party,

your own separatist party, because that compromise, that sense of, we can have a big enough tent that includes people who want to separate and who maybe think Donald Trump is a fantastic president and that maybe it would be even good to be a part of the United States. You know, it's great to have free speech, but it's also good for a party to be able to stand for things that the rest of voters can look at and say, I could support that rather than that's toxic for me.

Okay. I want to come back to that in a few minutes about something else. extending that question that Jason Kenney's asking to be on just Alberta provincial conservatives. But let me just close out the immigration question for a minute. Because one of the reasons I asked this is I, you know, I was talking to one of the leaders of the Canada side, if you wish, in Alberta this week. And he's not worried about the big question, about question 10. He's really worried, though, about the others. Because he senses that that's where Albertans are going.

On the immigration question, and really on this question of war power, send a message the whole thing to Ottawa. He's worried about how that's going to look. So I think he was probably extremely happy to see the prime minister, who may be hearing the same kind of thing, take the stand he did yesterday,

sending a signal at the last moment, hey, you really got to think twice about this. I don't know. That's just what I was hearing. It could well be that this was the first time the Prime Minister was asked point blank about the other nine questions. Could be.

I don't recall that he was, but I don't follow every single scrum that Mark Carney gives. But the second you're asked, you have to, you can't just, equivocate and say it's none of my business. Now, I'll tell you about my experience with the Quebec environment and those issues, the other constitutional issues.

For a long time, I covered the constitution from Ontario, where I was raised. And then one day I moved to Quebec. That was after the referendum. And I discovered that while inside our circle, in a large sense, I mean journalists who cover politics, but also politicians from in the province, outside the province. We spend a lot of time on the issues of constitutional demands. But I have found living in Quebec that there is only one in recent memory that has ever moved public opinion in a real way in Quebec. And that was the distinct society clause, because it went right to who you are and the fact that people

will not recognize who you are. But all those other debates about how much more control over immigration are you going to get? How much do you already have? Who's going to be doing? Remember after that Quebec will get control over manpower training, I have yet to meet a single soul since I moved here that said, but what about manpower training? So I think the questions on immigration,

the ones that prompt the Alberta, a government to do things are actually probably the more self-defeating ones because they will hurt the province, as they would hurt any province that plays in that movie. We can write books about that. But the questions about tenant reform, Baldish the Senate, have a... Tripoli... Make sure that provincial laws supersede federal laws, never going to happen, by the way. No court will ever agree to this notion. division of power is not, you know, it's part of the initial constitution. I don't think that those move votes from the column A to column B, because if they did,

the CAQ in this province came to government with Francois de Gaul requesting a bunch of changes on powers. The assessment is that very little happened. Sure, the CAQ lost, but it didn't lose because of that failure. If it had lost because of that failure, we would, would have a majority sovereignty government and 60% support for sovereignty. And that's not happening. So I see those constitutional questions in the same way as the equalization referendum, the Jason Kenny held. The turnout is going to be higher, but it's not going to be driven by voting yes to let's abolish the Senate. Okay. Bruce, you wrote a substack yesterday. If I, in my fast read of it if I was getting it right, you're suggesting that the federal conservatives

should do the same thing that Jason Kennedy's suggesting should happen in the Alberta, you know, in UCP, Alberta Conservatives should be kicking out those who are separatists. Yeah, I mean, my point was probably just a little bit broader than that, which is that if you want to have a mainstream party or a party that is successful, on the mainstream, sometimes a party on the left or on the right has to take a look at how willing they are to have expressions of ideas that will not pass with most Canadians. The Democrats in the United States have been having this debate in full view for the last year and a half.

I think it's a healthy debate and a healthy tension that they're having there. And I think that there has been a version of that, probably more behind the scene. scenes on the progressive side of Canadian politics in the Liberal Party for sure and probably a little bit in the NDP as well. Some of it has to do with the language, the lexicon, the kind of the priority issue set, that kind of thing. So my point wasn't only let's kind of look at how the conservatives are failing politically at the national level and try to diagnose that. although needless to say some of my favorite correspondence on X found that themselves wanting to comment on the regularity with which I point out the failings of the Conservative Party today. And I don't always have the time to say, well, I did work for that party for a number of election campaigns.

And I do believe in having a strong conservative party in Canada, which I do. but for me going back to that seminal experience of the reform party breaking away and ultimately kind of destroying the progressive conservative party is a story that keeps coming back time and time again for the federal conservative party. Stephen Harper was better at containing the problem because he had a bit of an iron fist and people were afraid of him in his party. I don't know that I don't know that we can be. make much of Andrew Shear's role in this, except that he looked at the outset, maybe to be a kind of a centrist accessible politician, and then since then has not, really. I think Aaron O'Toole was,

but his party ate him alive. Pierre Poliev amassed this large lead over the liberals, mostly because he wasn't Justin Trudeau, and because he had that a knack for distilling 20 issues down into one and ideally three words. So he had some political skills, but those skills now look really pale in comparison to his opponent. And so what I was trying to do in my piece is say, look, it's easy for conservatives to say we lose because the left says awful things about us or the media aren't fair towards us or, you know, maybe we just got the wrong leader at this time. But there is a bigger problem, which is that inside that conservative voters, coalition.

There are about a third of those people who say Trump is a great president, maybe the greatest that ever existed in the United States and that separation. Only he says that. I wish it was only him, but it's a few more than him. But I think there does need to be a role for a leader to say, look, especially when it comes to things like separation. No, you can't be in our caucus and believe that. And Daniel Smith has shown us what it looks like when you don't have the strength with your caucus to take that position or you don't feel like you do or you don't want to take that political risk.

And I think the conservatives have a similar set of questions to ask themselves heading into the next election. Yeah. But Daniel Smith probably has been looking at what this base did to Jason Kenney. It's a bit late in the game. to Jason Kenney. And in the end, it came back to bite him. But what you talk about Stephen Harper, I think people who were around Stephen Harper back then

would say that the base has changed. It is not the base that Stephen Harper managed in any way, shape, or form. And you see it in places like Manitoba, where the conservatives provincially are in a mess. You see it in BC, where the prospect of an election hanging in the morning, is actually encouraged them to do some of the things that you suggest. But when you talk about a leader that has the leadership to do this, I think many conservatives in private would say,

but Bruce, can you tell us that there is any certainty that we will not elect a leader that is from that section of the base? Well, I think it is the Russian base, honestly. I mean, I think we dance around this sometimes. But there was some really interesting journalism done about the impact on right-wing bot activity on social media platforms when Ukraine took out some Russian data centers.

That sounds like a weird conspiracy theory, but if the base of the Conservative Party has changed, we can't ignore the fact that a lot of this has been because of disruptive use of social media platforms, principally by Russia. It doesn't in the end absolve the leader of having the responsibility to lead. which is to say, I'll take the risk because it's the right thing to do.

And I think that too often when parties get close to crossing that threshold and winning an election, they don't want to take those risks. I understand it. It's human. But we are watching some disintegration of our political system over the last decade. And leaders do have to step up. I guess my point was it's easy to say all that, but it's hard to imagine how you gather a consensus internally to elect a leader that has the moral capital to do that and to get elected leader.

Stephen Harper had that up to a point when he campaigned for the Canadian Alliance leadership against Stockwell Day and told Canadian Alliance members, if you pick me, I'm not going to be doing the abortion thing. So telling it to the people who will actually want it to happen and winning anyways. But I mean, I'm not an insider to the conservative movement, but I do take Jason Kenney's word, a serious majority of the people who would actually vote in a leadership campaign or of the persuasion that you described that actually makes the party more out of step with Canadians. And that is a problem that goes well beyond replacing Pierre Puelev and saying, gee, you know, he's gone. we're going to get a great leap that will be more competitive. And that's a big problem.

Yeah. All right. We got to take our first break. Let me just say, because you mentioned him a number of times, both of you, Jason Kenney. He and Rachel Knottley, also a former premier, NDP leader, he and Rachel Naughtley did a number of appearances together this week. And they looked amazingly comfortable in sitting there together. arguing on this issue, on the same side. And what I thought, that combination plus

Carney's visit, which is not your sort of flyover, drop in, say a couple of things, he's been there for a number of days, is going to stay there for a bit longer, really gave the advantage in the final days in terms of the appearance of things to the Canada side, the stay in Canada, the remain side, which I thought was interesting. The other side didn't really have a comeback. They have pretty good signage. Very simple, you know, let Albertans decide signage. But in terms of their upfront people, what they're doing, what attention they're getting,

in the final days, the attention has been on the other side. We'll see what difference that makes. Okay, we'll take a break. Be right back after this. And welcome back. a segment of good talk for this week. Bruce Anderson, Sean Telle-A-Barre, Peter Mansbridge here. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 1-60, or you're on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel.

Glad to have you with us. Bruce, why don't you start us here? Because one of your favorite people, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Pete Huxter, was... Oh, well, I'm going to take a pass here. Just get my time. Your pal. Bruce, he was, he had to, his message this week was Canada, you better back off from interfering in our politics. Because it looks like that's what you're doing. Now, of course, he's, he's pure as the driven snow on this thing.

But would you make of that? And why is he still here? Why is he still here? You're going to have to ask, Chantelle that one. I don't know the answer to that. But look, I was watching yesterday an interview that Sean Hannity was doing with the new press secretary for Donald Trump. And she was describing, offering some excuse for the absolutely shambolic outing that she had on her first day at that podium in that famous room. And she was like, well, you know, I got called on Thursday.

I flew to Washington on Friday. I was offered the job on Friday. I flew back to California on Saturday. I flew back to Washington on Sunday. Gosh, she must have been so tired. Basically, all she was doing was sort of setting up the idea that she had no time to prepare in a way that would allow her to be better than she was, which was awful, right? She answered three questions badly.

And it sort of begs the question, how does Don? Donald Trump picked these people that stand up for him, that represent his administration. That's been one of the most shocking things of Donald Trump in his second term in office. You could make the case in his first term. The cabinet that he picked had a bunch of people who had some credentials, who had some judgment, who had some weight and standing in society and the ability to kind of make an argument. And I'm watching this press secretary, and I'm reading another story. about Alan Lutnik, who apparently has kind of flipped the table on the Mexico-U.S.

conversation again, late in the game. And it really does seem that Donald Trump doesn't care about these people, except whether they're pugnacious, whether they can be ignorant towards people with a different point of view. And certainly in Hextra, he's picked somebody who's phenomenal at being ignorant towards other people's point of view. It's not from me, at the end of the day, I'm not surprised anymore that we're hearing this kind of crappy argument about 51st date and stay in your lane and remember that you're the small partner and all of that kind of thing. Those are bad arguments, but he makes them badly too. He's no good at this.

He cannot win a room. He cannot convince even people who might believe in the things that he's saying that he's a good advocate for. them. And so why he's still here is probably just because that government is shambolic and doesn't know what else it would do. It has 16 other massive crises that is created for itself and for the world that they should deal with soon. You know, there's a rumor out today that the Trump is going to hang the whole midterm elections disaster, which seems to be looming on Hexeth and Iran. Maybe Kim Gil Boyle, too. The ambassador to do. Yeah. Well, He's dumped Guilfuel, but the rumor is he's going to dump Higgs, Seth.

You know, we'll see. So, Shantelle, you want to pass on all this? No, no, I'm not going to pass. By the way, was it not Donald Trump who told his supporters to vote in the midterms as if his name was on the ballot? Yes. And it appears they are. Exactly.

But as for the comments, I took them, and I, from excerpts, from the Prime Minister's address yesterday or news or I'm not sure which one. It seems Mark Carney took them in the same way that Pete Oxtra was basically telling Canadian politicians to stop doing their jobs until the first week of November and to stop signing the tariffs are hurting both sides. That would go also for a conservative leader, Piaz, was in Detroit last, earlier this week, to talk about the harm to the auto industry and to auto workers, on both sides of the border of the Theraf War.

And that in turn tells me that this Theraf War is contributing to hurt prospects in the midterms, for one. But what I find fascinating is that the people who keep introducing Canada in the conversation are people like Donald Trump at that rally in Arizona, I believe, where he went in again about the 51st state. That when is it that it pays off to introduce something that is more popular than you are as proof that you should vote for you the not popular concept?

And they keep bringing it back on the conversation when it is seriously a liability, not with their core base, but with the voters that they need to have on side in three weeks. So what that tells me is there's very little stress. there beyond the strategy of the bully in the courtyard that is thinking that he's losing some of his followers. You know, I'm glad Bruce you mentioned the Lutnik thing because, you know, the Canada U.S. talks seemed to really fall apart whenever it was six weeks ago now. It actually seems like a long time ago since there were any talks. But they seemed to fall apart when Lutnik came in the room after not having been in the room at all. for the major part of the discussions and said no no no do this do this and that was the end of the

game um now he does seem to have done the same thing with mexico now whether he does this stuff on his own or whether you know he talks to trump first or what i who knows um but he is kind of the hidden story in all this in terms of the whole canada u.s mexico thing if he's got this It's not hiding well enough. I'd like him to hide a little bit more, to be honest. Well, he only hides when they talk about his friendship close with Epstein that he used to deny, but now the full facts are known. But anyway, sorry, I interrupted.

Chantel's point for me is exactly where I am, which is that it's hard to see a strategy here. at all, let alone any discipline around the strategy. So there's a combination of what is the evidence that they're looking at, that they could possibly be looking at that says, let's keep reinforcing that we have a bad attitude towards Canada, that we're not getting closer to a trade deal with our biggest trading partners, that we like tariffs, even if voters don't. All of the evidence that's available to everybody,

It's sitting there in plain sight. There are massive numbers of polls about this. American opinion is that tariffs have been bad for the U.S. economy, bad for the U.S. consumer, and combined with this intervention war, whatever you want to call it in Iran, the cumulative effect is Trump's economic policies are deeply, deeply unpopular and threatening to sink dozens of candidates for the Republican Party who would otherwise win. So you can't, you know, you can't look at Hextra and say, well, is his intervention, is it going to make Canadians say, well, we're not going to say anything because he threatened us again or a used kind of unpleasant language? No, it only reinforces the sense of these are not good faith people.

These are not people who recognize that on the one hand, they want to talk about the 51st state, but they don't ever want us to even go into Michigan and say, Do you feel the effect of these tariffs on your economy because you know we don't have to have them? So it's hypocritical. It's wrongheaded. It lacks any sense of strategy. And whether it's Lutnik or RFK Jr. talking about vaccines and measles, it's just chaos, as far as I can tell. There's no evidence of a strategy.

And I don't know that there ever was one other than to not be Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. and it's been kind of falling apart ever since then under the weight of the distractions of corruption and Donald Trump's kind of personality, which is I feel like having a war today, I feel like having some more tariffs tomorrow, and if you don't think that it makes sense, too bad, I don't care, I'm going to stand up

and make a speech about electric motors and wind turbines or something like that. I wonder if Ambassador Oxtra considers our fairly contrary stance on buying diesel from Russia versus what's been happening in Ukraine as election interference. But that's another issue that goes to strategy or lack of it. The vast majority of Americans have been from birth prime to think Russia is not a friend and even more so over the course of the Ukraine war.

and anyone who has a map knows that there's not a lot of diesel coming this way from Russia, considering the needs of the U.S. You kind of wonder whether there was any thinking behind that. My suspicion is not. As for Lefnick, I looked to what was happening with Mexico, and I thought there is probably some truth to this sense in federal circles that the White House administration operates like the court system under some Roman emperor, i.e. pleasing the emperor who wants a horse for a minister is actually more important

than allowing the other guy at the table to bring a win to the emperor. It seems there is an internal competition to stop someone from getting bragging rights to anything that might make Donald Trump happy by sabotaging. colleagues. It's like we sent Melanie Jolie to Washington with Dominique LeBlain to make sure Dominique LeBlain doesn't score a hit. And that is really

an interesting dynamics, but it does not make you want to make a deal with people who operate like that. My last point on hoaxter would be that every time he says something like he did this week, it doesn't make Canada back off.

It doesn't make Canadians go, oh my God, we shouldn't say those things. It makes them want to say them more and stronger. Yeah. It's like the total opposite of what his intention is, is what he succeeds in doing. Okay, we'll leave that at that. We'll be back for our final segment for this week's Good Talk right after this. And welcome back, final segment of Good Talk for this week, Bruce, Chantelle, Peter, all here for you.

you know, I like to ask this sort of what's on your mind. What else are you thinking this week? I really get worried when he starts to start. I know. I'm starting to get PTSD from previous ones. Nevertheless, you have something or you don't? Because I have one for you. I do.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Rose. Last week, I did raise this live stream. execution. And it was interesting to me that that debate, even in the United States, found us a week later with the president saying, actually, no, we're not going to do that. The sense of, it gave me a small amount of hope that even among that Republican voter base, the MAGA base, that there are enough people out there who said, you know, this is too far. This is too much. So that was,

that was good thing. But what hasn't happened this week and should have happened. is the outrage over the evidence that from the White House, the call was made to essentially disable the defense system that Ukraine was using to protect itself from Russian attack. You know, some thought, well, maybe it was Elon Musk who did it. And that was a plausible theory, I guess, since Elon Musk has put a quarter of a billion dollars into Republican campaigns this year.

but I gather he said or pointed the finger at the White House and said if that was done it was done out of the White House or at the White House kind of direction and there's no question whatsoever that what Trump was saying last week which is we have an energy ceasefire there never was an energy ceasefire not for a minute as far as Russia was concerned and then when Ukraine was under attack it looks very much like the White House made the call to disable Ukraine in terms of their ability to defend against those attacks. And again, I think we're in a situation where, for whatever reason, the United States is allied with Russia against Ukraine and all of the countries like Canada that are on the side of Ukraine. And we have not seen a situation like that before. They don't want to come out and say it publicly. But it's a full set of 10 fingerprints as far as I can tell.

You know, if he ever does a live stream, I think, what he should do is live stream the next time he does a job interview for one of his senior positions. I mean, the press secretary job may be coming up again, given the way she's twisted her story about whether she's a lawyer or not. But I'd love to see a live stream on that. I'd love to see exactly how he goes about interviewing the candidates for senior positions in the White House. That's before before you apply. I get that. Yeah, I want to see. I'm going to build a bit on what Bruce said.

I read Fristia freelance book, former deputy prime minister this week. I was struck by a couple of things, the obvious gossipy parts, the relationship with Justin Trudeau. What struck me, and you guys have good memories, so tell me if you can think of it, is this is by my count the fourth former minister, Bill Moreno, Jody Wilson, Reboldt, Stefan Zion, who have alluded to this absence of a real internal relationship with the prime minister that was their boss. Mark Garneau as well. Mark Garneau as well. I can't think on my hard disk of a former Brian Mulroney minister, a former Jean-Clete minister,

who has written books Stephen Harper, who is written an insider's book, that describes their prime minister in such terms. And she doesn't go out of her way to knock Trudeau, but the general impression is not, you know, this isn't a book that you're going to put on your bookshelf if you're Justin Trudeau. I have a whole shelf of my former ministers. They're all saying I'm too aloof,

and I didn't give a damn about them. But what I found interesting to go back to Bruce's point was not that section of the book, but the section of the book where she talks about what is actually happening between this Trump administration and various European or other nations. And she's got good connections. She had them before. She's built on them.

And what struck me was which she's basically describing as a blackmail system. If you don't do X, we are going to do Y. And what you saw this week with Starlink was if Zelensky won't get in mind, we are going to punish him. and show that we have the means to punish him and actually make him an example to other european heads of state who would dare not to comply with our demands when you read that section of the book it's you know intuitively that things are not good but this is very stark uh what come the impression that comes from it so i thought it made for interesting reading uh not so much the solutions not so much the biographical elements.

They're interesting, but that depiction of the mood and the scene, it was kind of, you know, it goes back to Oxtra saying, if you don't shut up, something bad will happen. It basically seems to be the modus vivendi across the board here. You know, it's interesting because for many political leaders, and we've witnessed this even in our short time of covering in the grand scheme of history. When leaders leave with a degree of unpopularity around them, time sometimes heals that. And suddenly they're looked at very differently and admirably for their service in office.

I can't see that ever happening to Trump. not with the things that are that are known about him, suspected about him and you know, he may he may survive this by not living much longer

but his legacy is going to be shot. I'm sure I cannot believe there will be a time where anybody will look back and say this was a great president. But look at the people who worked with him

and over that first storm. What did they tell him? Americans do not vote for this guy again. That has never happened to any of our leaders that decades on, former associates would go and say, don't ever vote for Stephen Harper, Jean-Cretzine, even Justin Dullough, if you're going to go there. You get the last word, Bruce, on that. Well, I don't know if there, I mean, he said that we all have good memories, and I thought, which all we, because I don't necessarily have that, but that was Chantelle said that.

That's how bad my memory is. I don't know that there's ever been somebody who was the president was so willing to show his racism. And when I think about how it is that Donald Trump managed to win two elections, despite being everything that we've talked about that he is. And I kind of feel like one of the things that people overlooked after the first term was his overt race. And it's still there and it's still showing up all the time. It's not the only thing. But I don't know that there would have been a president in modern times anyway for whom that would have been so normalized, so accepted and so kind of written off as a way of

talking about what's wrong with his presidency. He's a divider and he loves to divide people. And he's leaving carnage behind. I agree with you. All right. We're going to leave it at that. Another good conversation this week. And there's lots more coming up because the referendum will be next week.

And in the following week, it's the BC election. And so there's lots to talk about. Has good talk marches on through towards the end of the year. Thanks to Chantelle. Thanks to Bruce. The buzz is here tomorrow morning in your inbox at 7 a.m. Eastern Time. Hope you enjoy it. Take care for now.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again next week.