The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- What Now for Carney, For Poilievre, For Singh, For Canada?

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

How will Carney deal with Trump? Will Poilievre hang on to his job after losing his seat, the election, and his house?

Are you ready for good talk? And although they're good Friday to you and to yours and all of those listening across the country to the good talk discussion between Chantilly Bear, Rob Rousseau and I'm Peter Mansbridge. Look forward to, uh, to what we have to talk about this week, because it's been a great week in terms of news, in terms of politics, in terms of new visions of how things are gonna operate in Canada

on the political level, at least we think. The prime minister will hold a news conference today. We're doing this before that happens. So we can just assume, I think some of the things that he may be talking about. And I think top of the agenda, and I kind of like to start on this, I think there'll be a lot of questions about what does Mark Carney assume is going to happen when he meets with Donald Trump, which may come in the next couple of days at the White House in Washington. So why don't we start with that? And Rob, why don't you get started for us saying this? You know a lot about Washington,

former Washington bureau chief or Canadian press. What should we assume is possible in this meeting that's coming up? Well, there are going to have to be some terms set for the meeting. Mr. or the prime minister does not want to be, uh, sitting in the same seat. Mr. Zelensky sitting in. So that was a Turkey shoot with Vance on one side, you know, Rubio and the others, Navarro, those people sort of

surrounding the victim and Trump right beside him. So everything from his arrival, what that looks like, we all remember the handshake analysis between Trudeau and Trump. Good God, there was kind of frame by frame. It was like the Zapruder film by the time they got through it. So all of those things have to be discussed, the optics part. That's if they get to that part, they have to discuss what would be on the agenda of the first meeting.

And the biggest item that would be on the agenda of the first meeting? And the biggest item that would be on the agenda of the first meeting was whether or not they should have a discussion about advancing the renegotiation of the Canada-U.S. Mexico agreement. Would there be a Mexico part of that agreement? If so, if so, what would Canada get in return for advancing the date of that agreement? We have a full year to go before that agreement is up.

I would imagine demand that the current tariffs that are on Canada be removed. How can you negotiate with somebody who's got a gun to your head? So those are the kinds of things. And then we would have to also discuss what the deadline for those negotiations would be. It's in Canada's advantage to have as long a deadline as possible in these discussions, because the closer we get to the midterms,

the more the pressure will be on Donald Trump. The last time they negotiated a free trade agreement with Mexico, they got him very, very close to the midterms in 2018, and it was to their advantage. The Americans, Mr. Lighthizer, complained bitterly that Canada was dragging its feet and difficult to deal with. Well, that's because he was right. Canada was dragging its feet and difficult to deal with. Well, that's because he was right. Canada was dragging its feet.

They were trying to delay, delay, delay, to put as much pressure on Mr. Trump, and they got a better deal than they would have otherwise. So everything from the optics to the agenda is gonna have to be discussed before they go ahead and agree on the prime minister turning up in Washington. Okay, you raised a number of things I'd like to get at, but first I want to hear Chantel's thoughts

on going into this meeting. I don't disagree about any of that, but I don't agree with one term, the word demand. They have to be in a position to demand, and their demand thing cuts both ways. It's not as if the Trump administration desperately needs at this point, that may change, but desperately needs a deal with Canada tomorrow or the day after and desperately needs to get some to do things so that Canada can be satisfied with the meeting. I do agree that optics will matter,

but there are limits to what you can ask and get on optics. So, and yes, there will be that scrutiny of handshake and et cetera. I think the best case scenario here is some sense of agreement on process. You're not going to go to and discuss details with Donald Trump. He's not a details kind of person anyways. Plus, if this is really happening next week, we won't have a cabinet formally in place in the sense that at some point, Mr. Carney, even if he is planning, and I don't know that to keep much of the same players on the Canada-US file, still has to go through the process of confirming that they are the people

who are going to be there. So let's see how far we get. And I think wisely, this government would not want to raise expectations that Mr. Mark Carney is going to show up with a magic wand and he's going to turn a frog into a prince. That's not going to be happening next week. He only has to hope, if I'm gonna go for fairytale, that his vehicle to get there does not turn into a pumpkin. That's basically, the expectations should be low on this because we're dealing with an unpredictable partner. There is another issue here. Mark Carney needs to walk out of there with the channels open to the Trump presidency for another reason. And that is because he chairs or he will chair the G7 meeting in June. At that meeting, he is already confirmed that he will be having President Zelensky present. And as you know, there is a slight disagreement

between France, the UK, Germany, and the US over Ukraine. So how you get all those people inside that tent in Canada at the beginning of June and get them to walk out of there together is also part of the mission. And that requires some rather deft handling on the part of Mark Carney. So it's an interesting meeting, but it's the beginning of something. You know, there's been some indications, nothing finalized yet, but Trump may not go to Cananascus, to the G7. I still think he loves the world stage. I can't see him not going,

but you never know. Who knows? Because I'm confused on this point. What is the relationship between Carney and Trump? Is there a relationship? Do they know each other? Have they met? I was reminded by a prominent conservative last week that they have met several times. They know each other. And this conservative who owes Mark Carney no favors and does not necessarily want him to succeed said that Carney is the kind of guy that Trump likes to suck up to a little bit because he is part of an international club of people

who are admired and respected. And that's what Trump wants as well. So we'll see. We'll see. Look, it is true that there's been no confirmation of Mr. Trump's coming to the G7. And if he does come, people have to prepare for the fact that he's going to be cantankerous.

We're going to have to prepare for the fact that he is not the same guy he was in 2018 as well. I talked earlier about Canada kind of dragging this out until the midterms. He's unrestrained, you know, there's no restraint on him. So he's less patient than he was and he's more chaotic. So even if he does show up, you're going to have to have a very, very short agenda in terms of the G7 and Kananaskis, and keep it to just two or three things, trade, maybe Ukraine, and perhaps some of the other issues. Something always takes over at the G7. We know that.

But if he doesn't turn up, then Mr. Kearney will have the initial decision. Do we go on? And the answer is going to be yes, because he is going to want to demonstrate that Canada has broader options beyond the United States with the people, the five other people who are going to be sitting around the table with him.

So there is already kind of a plan that way if that happens. But the initial feeling is he's going to turn up. They have to keep them to one, two, three maximum issues, very short communique. And on stuff that everybody agrees is an urgent and pressing priority. That sounds easy to do, right? But it's not.

So it's actually very difficult, two, three items, unless they agree on the weather, which is the easy part. It's going to be hard to find agreement on any of those two or three points between. But as for Donald Trump not going, or even saying, I'm not coming if Zelensky is around, he's not even a member of the G7. That's not going to cancel the meeting. On the contrary, that meeting is going to take place. And President Zelensky will not see his invitation withdrawn so that Donald Trump is happy.

Those two, you can bank on. We have seen some evidence of Mr. Carney's capacity to have serious conversations with Emmanuel Macron, with the UK's prime minister, with Japan, with sometimes possible consequences on stock markets or bond markets. So some people will be showing up for a G7 meeting in Kananaskis, and serious issues will be discussed. And I do not think the success of the meeting is necessarily going to rest on Donald Trump signing off on the communique. I think this year everything is unconventionalventional and it includes that. On the notion of dragging one's feet on trade until the midterms, part of the problem could be that if you do do that, the people that

you're building relationships with around Donald Trump to get this negotiation done could be gone done could be gone long before you get to an outcome on the negotiation. There is a sense that the revolving door of the Trump White House is revolving and is about to revolve faster than it has since January. And so at that point, you have to wonder And so at that point, you have to wonder how, who will you be speaking with in a year is a real question. And whether you speak to anyone, Donald Trump signs on, what is the actual meaning of his signature considering how he feels about Cosmo, which he renegotiated and signed in great glory.

So, but that's going to be an interesting meeting, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. And you never know with Trump. For all we know, the cameras are going to be in there for a while, because he tends to do that. You know, he tends to stretch out the photo op into a negotiating op. He will be asked if that happens about the 54 states though. I don't expect him to back off. No, he may not, but it'll be a very interesting moment for Mark Carney and how he plays that, if that moment does happen. Because I mean, he always has the potential to say, you know, this is not on, if you're gonna keep it up, I'm out of here.

Yeah. That's one of the things they're gonna have to discuss ahead of a meeting next week. Mr. Trump has made it clear. He's not saying he's going to grab Canada now. What he's saying is he thinks Canada would be better off and he doesn't like what he calls the trade deficit. He doesn't seem to understand that if I take my credit card

and buy something from somebody, it's because I need that whatever I'm buying, right? That doesn't, I have to pay for it, right? It doesn't come for free. I have to pay off my credit card. I get a good or service in exchange, but that- A good or service? A good or service.

And that's one of the things they're gonna have to discuss. What kind of language is tolerable? Or perhaps Mr. Carney might relish the opportunity to correct the president and school him in front of the cameras on what exactly a trade deficit is and what it is to have a trading relationship. I don't know, but I can tell you that one of the priorities,

I'm sure we're gonna get to this, that the Carney government is dealing with right now. One of the immediate priorities is for the people that he is going to put on the chessboard to deal with right now. One of the immediate priorities is for the people that he is going to put on the chessboard to deal with the Americans. We all know Dominique Leblanc is gonna have a central role, but who is going to play those two or three other critical roles, including the trade negotiator.

A lot of people want Steve Berthold to come back. Remind us who that is. He's the guy who led Canada's discussions. He was Bob Lighthizer's counterpart in many ways. Although that's not true. Christopher Rieland was. The current USTR was the actual trade negotiator. So who do you put on the chessboard

is one of those things they have to decide very, very quickly. And that's one of the three or four things that Carney's got going right now. His people are building into time for this swearing in of a new government and the cabinet that he's putting forward to be a week, 10 days, maybe even two

weeks away, which gives him time to really have a look. Before Victoria Day is what I'm told. Yeah. For the cabinet, I mean. For the cabinet, yeah. Yes. And the swearing in. I'm told maybe the end of next week, as early as the end of next week.

I mean, the important thing there is what exactly and who exactly he puts in to that cabinet. Rob's got his mom hovering around the back. You heard the shot, Ma. And he also has... It's okay. And by the way, we also have... We enjoy having visitors. He also has to figure out what this PMO looks like.

He also has to figure out what this PMO looks like. I mean, the one that was crafted for the election was kind of, you know, while in a holding pattern. But he's got to figure out who is his permanent chief of staff, the number of decisions. Then somebody has to draft a drone speech because they want the house to be back before the end of May. So that's a lot of stuff. But give me some names that may or may not surprise us, that are going to be in that inner circle of the big decision makers. I mean, the cabinet, there's already rumored to be, it's going be larger than the the one that he announced during the campaign Which was what 24 or something like that. It could be as much as 30 Which is still smaller than what we were used to with both Trudeau and Harper near the end of their terms

but What are we hearing? Are there names coming in here that are new names that might surprise us in positions of importance? I have a question, Marc, on Foreign Affairs and Mélanie Jolie. I think I'm not the only one for all kinds of reasons. Remember, okay, I'm taking that clock back to December, and just into those efforts to put Mark Carney in finance and Christian Freeland somewhere else, the obvious somewhere else would have been foreign affairs. I was given to understand that that didn't happen in part because Mélanie Jolie basically

sent a message that she wasn't in foreign affairs, and she was going to go look for something else to do in life, which would have precipitated a crisis, which was precipitated, as we all know, by the absence of an offer to Christian freedom that kind of made sense. But that leverage is gone. You can't, the day after the election, you can tell Mark Karlin, if I'm not in this portfolio, I'm gone.

And what is the answer going to be? It's sad to see you go. It was nice having you. So there is that question, Mark, which may or may not get settled by just a reappointment. Hard to tell the G7 is coming, the Foreign Affairs Minister does have a significant role in the lead up to that. There are new MPs. But that would some have serious economic credentials. I'm going to use one example.

It's not the only example of an economic experience. Carlos Leta was the Quebec finance minister under Philippe Couillard and he was elected. I have heard suggestions that he or someone else who was newly elected could become finance minister in the place of Francois-Philippe Champagne. Yeah.

Have we not learned our lesson of what happens to a finance minister who becomes finance minister on the first day that he or she sits in the House of Commons? That was Bill Morneau. And do we really want a prime minister and a finance minister who both have never sat in the House of Commons to be the lead team in the House of Commons. My answer to that is I find those credentials of those two or three names I've heard for finance who have never been MPs before, serious credentials, but I do not think, especially in a minority parliament, that it's appropriate to have a duo of neophytes standing in the House of Commons over the next two, three months. Nobody has suggested this to me, but I wonder, seeing as Mark Carney is somebody whose whole life,

most of his adult life, has had stuff to do with economic files, major ones that blend internationally as well. Is there any thought that he may take on more roles than Prime Minister? Does anybody believe that even if he appoints a finance minister that he won't be the real finance minister that he won't be the real finance minister. Well, Justin Trudeau was the PMO with rewrite budgets for Bill Morneau and Christian Freeland. It's not as if the expertise coming from that PMO on economics was the greatest.

And now we would expect Mark Carney to not have the final say on anything in a budget. There's actually a saying overruled Paul Martin all the time. But I was thinking of more than just for budget. No, I don't believe that. The finance minister these days spends his time, Jim Flaherty was a case in point, Paul Martin spends his time on the international scene attending meetings of finance ministers of the G20, of the G7. Are we seriously saying the prime minister should

be doubling up as the finance minister and doing all that? That would be to the detriment of the job of prime minister and the job of minister of finance, frankly. I would be surprised, too, if he didn't appoint a finance minister. I mean, one of the things that you can do, Chantal was talking about Melanie Jolie

in Foreign Affairs. Francois-Philippe Champagne could go to Foreign Affairs because of the, that will be one of the important pieces on the chessboard in terms of the relationship with the United States. The other name along with Carlos Letao that Chantal was kind of referencing, I think, was Claude Gay, a former IBM executive who got back the writing of La Salle Marverde. He took that back from the block on Monday night. But it's a tall order to go right into finance.

Those guys might go into an economic portfolio, Treasury Board or something like that, but finance, that would be a tall order. The other names that I've heard that might go into cabinet are likely to go into cabinet are Anna Gainey, the former president of the party who won in Westmount, Emma Harris who won in Peterborough and took out Michelle Ferreri, kind of a thorn in the side of the Liberal Party. Tim Hodgson is another name I'm hearing. Somebody like Bucky Belanger probably has to go in a cabinet. He's the only one there from Saskatchewan. Hogan, who got elected in Calgary, he's got a very good shot at going in

the cabinet. And perhaps Leslie Church and at least one former CBC host of the house has to go in a cabinet. I would say- So he's up to 45. You got a big cabinet there, right? Let's. There will probably be a quarter to a third of this cabinet that will be new. And watch watch that Carney does not diminish Quebecers front line influence in this cabinet, because Quebecers are very mindful that he wouldn't be prime minister if they hadn't voted the way that they voted. And they did not vote that way to find the Quebec ministers suddenly relegated to

quasi ceremonial cabinet posts. Cabinet-making is such a, can be such a challenge when you're trying to deal with reduced numbers, regional representation, gender splits, age, you know, differences. I mean, it's a challenge. And just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting Carney for PM and finance minister. I was just suggesting or wondering about the influence he's going to have beyond what a PM normally has on the economic files. We'll see. I think you're both basically in some ways agreeing with me given who Carney is and what his background is. Oh yeah, for sure. He's certainly not going to not stay away from those files.

Okay, we got to take a break. There's lots to talk about on the conservative front as well. And Pierre Poliev, if you think – if you think Carney has challenges in front of him, look at the lineup in front of Pierre Poliev. We'll get to that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Friday episode, which of course is good talk with Rob Rousseau and Chantelle Bair. 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, which continues to soar big numbers each week, 166,000 last week, looking at our YouTube channel, which is like a mind-boggling number when you consider there are regular television shows that don't get that kind of an audience. It must be the wonderful production values that we have on our screens. Yes. And then, you know, the studio, the set. The set, the set. We could find out about my mother's cameo.

And Rob's mother. It's all good. It's all good is right. Okay. Pierre Poliev. He, well, he blows a, uh, a substantial lead. He loses the election. He loses his seat. He may even lose his house. Um,

and now it has to be determined. Why did he lose? What's going to happen? Can he keep the leadership? Who does he have to appeal to to have that happen? And how quickly are all these things going to happen? And how does he get back in the house? Pick one of any of those, Chantel, and give us a sense of what you think. Where to start?

I'm gonna start with the house. I think it would be one of the stupidest waste of time for anyone to tell Mr. Poilier to pack his boxes from Stornoway until he has a seat in the House of Commons, which he will secure at some point in the future. So if we're going to have that debate, he can't live there. Actually, someone will have to be appointed leader of the official opposition. You cannot be that without having a seat. The house is the home of the leader of the official opposition. I don't think that the leader of the official opposition that will be appointed, the interim one,

is forbidden from lending his house for a couple of months to someone else, i.e. the Poiliev family. But the notion that we would go through two moves is the seed thing. Some MP is going to have to give up his or her seed for Mr. Poiliev to run there. It's happened before, but usually you do that on the way up. Brian Mulroney, after he became leader, Jean Chrétien, and the person giving up that seat could always hope that the party would actually win the election under the new leader. And in time, there would be some reward or some taking back that seat by that person. This is not where we're going.

Whoever gives up that seat is seatless and outside of this game until the next election. So that's step one, finding that person. I would suggest that probably the best place to find that person is in Alberta. Why? Not just because there are many MPs, but this is the place where there is a friendly conservative government. many MPs, but this is the place where there is a friendly conservative government, I choose my words, friendly conservative provincial government, that may be of help to this seatless MP. Just saying. Mark Carney, once that seat is found, has the privilege of waiting, making Mr.

Poliev wait six months before he can run in a by-election. He doesn't have to call it for six months. Again, I would suggest that if you want a parliament that does not start in the toxic way that parliaments have been recently, Mr. Carney should on the day that there is that vacancy called the by-election and just have it done. It is the decent civilized thing to do. And I know people will say that Paulyev people have not been civil and they've not been respectful to anyone, including their own. I agree. But does that mean that we want everyone who is in the House of Commons to become Pierre Poilier's clones? Or do we want the opposite?

One of the reasons that Mr. Poilier got to where he is today in his own writing and federally is because of the toxicity that he so loves. So to want to match it is actually kind of a crazy idea. And then from there, we can talk about how careful he is, the author of his own defeat. And I've got reasons to back that up, but I'll let Rob take a hit at this. Go ahead, Rob.

Well, I don't see a lot of evidence that this is having the intended effect on Mr. Poilier. But in terms of whether or not he should move out of Stornoway, let's start there. No, he shouldn't. He's got a young family and it would be cruel, I think, to compel him to move out of there. I don't think that's happened. I would love to see a grand bargain. I would love to see everybody agree that that political housing has has has become a victim of the kind of toxic partisanship

that we've been involved with in Canada in the last little while. And everybody agree that something should be done about an official residence for the prime minister befitting the leader of a G7 country. Now that Justin Trudeau is gone, up until now the conservatives have been insisting that he needed to pay back some expenses for the trip that he made to the Bahamas at Christmas in 2015.

Well, Mr. Trudeau is gone, just like the carbon tax, let's do something about an official residence for the leader of a G7 country. When I ask people who've talked to Mr. Poilier what he's saying, what he's telling them is that there were external factors that prevented him from becoming prime minister, and that's Donald Trump and that's Mr. Carney's reputation. Mr. Trump's power will fade over the next two or three years. Mr. Carney's reputation is likely to take a dent as well, is what his argument is.

That doesn't sound like somebody who's doing a lot of introspection to some of these ears that these words are falling on. And it doesn't really take into account because his argument furthermore is, and the argument is true, I've rejuvenated the party, I've broadened the party, I've brought in writings that never voted, haven't voted conservative in forever,

the flipping of the NDP writings in the autobelt in particular, the 905 vote NDP writings in the autobelt in particular. The 905 vote is a lot of new Canadian vote that hasn't gone to the conservatives for a long time. But none of those things, all true, answer the question that some people are thinking, if not posing directly to Mr. Poiliev, is when are we going to get fed up with losing to the liberals? Because we've lost to them four times in a row. And in a world where we're not going to have the NDP around for a little while anyway, what are you going to do with the fact that you cannot appeal to people beyond a certain number? That we are not the big tent party that the liberals are. There, there were signs that Mr. Poliev was

playing that, that role in the last week or two of the campaign trying to be a bigger tent person, but not necessarily a bigger tent party. There only seemed to be one party in this last campaign, which tried to be a bigger tent. That was the Liberal Party. They expanded their tent by, of course, moving in a lot of the furniture that

belonged to the conservatives from their platform. But they were trying to be a bigger tent party that way. Neither the conservatives nor the NDP tried to be a bigger tent. So yes, he is talking to people. He's spoken to a couple of people already, apparently, about giving up their seats. I don't see a sprint towards them giving up their seats

because they, as Chantel said, they're giving up a pretty good salary, very good benefits, a pensionable time in a gold-plated pension. Yes, there may be a future for them as the deputy chief of staff to the leader of the opposition, but this is the best job a lot of them are ever gonna have. But at some point somebody will do that and I'm sure that he'll come back in. But the time between now and when that by-election actually is held is going to be a very, very dangerous time for Mr. Poiliep. Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer thought that they were going to hang on to those jobs,

lasted a couple of months in Mr. Scheer's case, four months in Mr. O'Toole's case. They actually thought that they were going to hang on to their jobs. They tried to hang on to those jobs lasted a couple of months in Mr. Scheer's case, four months in Mr. Ruotoul's case. They actually thought that they were going to hang on to their jobs. They tried to hang on to their jobs. This is not a done deal. There are a lot of very pointed questions coming towards Mr. Paulyev and will be coming towards him.

And how he answers those questions will determine his fate. Is there any sense from within that newly elected conservative caucus that a significant number of them want Poliev gone? Is there any indication of that? Yes and no, publicly no and I expect that if they adopt the law that would have caucus vote on the leadership and Mr Poliev went for a really early vote.

He would probably do really well in that early vote. I find that totally meaningless what people are saying in public at this point. The expectation was that Mr. Poiliev would win the election. There have not been a lot of people organizing. But when you look back, we've covered two leaders of the opposition who lost an election. One of those was Stephen Harper. His case is completely different. He had just reunited the party when he went in his first campaign, and he led the newly reunited conservative party to official opposition in the face of a much weakened, fragile minority liberal government

whose Prime Minister Paul Martin had been predicted to win 200 seats or more. So to tell Mr., and no one suggested that Stephen Harper should go, the conservatives had been feuding for years. The other example that we both know only too well is called John Turner, who did decide to hang on. It's not just the first few months of Mr. Poiliev's tenure as leader of the official opposition, or leader waiting to be the leader of the official opposition, that will be dangerous. There will be no non-dangerous time between now and an election. And the idea that because the successors to Stephen Harper all came from within caucus, the next one should come from within caucus. I'm not so sure.

The successful housing of leaders by new leaders who went on to win government have been people from the outside pulling strings inside caucus, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, to name just those two. Or, well, I'm not going to name Mark Carney, but I will, that that is a better position from which to house the leader. And there are people out there who could replace Mr. Poilieves, and who could organize to do so and who would find sympathy within the current caucus. So this is a longer term thing than whether he survives to Christmas and then is home free. I first came to Ottawa in 86, the fall of 86. And the first thing almost that happened was a vote on John Turner's leadership. He was doing well, remember, in the polls at that point, because Brian Mulroney had a really difficult start as Prime Minister. And I went back

this morning, Mr. Turner won 76% of the vote at that convention. The New York Times called it a resounding vote of confidence. Yes, and what happened after that more misery, until eventually, Mr. Turner did lose an election and was gone. So people who believe that whatever MPs are saying today about Pierre Poilier means anything when he is just demonstrated by losing his own writing that is political persona is poisoned to the party and to many Canadians are people who have not seen that there are 50 ways to kill a leader.

I guess what surprised me about his, or what appears to be his realization, or not realization, but his reasons for why he thinks he lost, uh, that Rob outlined have nothing to do with him. Yeah. The way he's seen, um, there no, no evidence that he understands he was disliked.

There are external factors as are what he's citing. He's citing Trump and shiny Carney, right? You can't control those factors. What are you going to do that you can control? Those are the questions that conservatives are asking. What are you going to do about what the kind of person you are in effect? They're asking themselves if a 45 year old man can change. And they want him to ask himself that question. And they don't think he can. A lot of them, he certainly tried to change the last couple of weeks but that is the

essential question that they're asking. Can he change and if, how does that change manifest itself in a way that we can stop being, you know, stopping Charlie Brown, Lucy's always winning, stop being losers. There are not only that the shiny currently and the Trump thing. Yeah, right. There are three things that Mr. Poliev could and should have done, could and should have done easy things here. The first one is it was incumbent on him with the 20-point lead to build an economic team, and he had the material to build it, and he sent it to the stock trial for reasons that

I can't to this day understand. But standing with three former finance ministers of the three larger provinces, which he could have to explain this platform, would have sent a really different message than the message that people got. The other thing he could have done, not hard, meant fences with Premier Ford and Premier Houston in Nova Scotia. He had two and a half years to do that. Mr. Ford was in government. It was doable. Mr. Houston reached out to him and got no response. Those are totally within his power. No one's

shiny, no Trump, no nothing. Just the normal thing to do if you're going in a campaign to make sure that the premiers who are supposed to be your friends will have your back by being civil to them and respectful of the fact that they actually have won an election and are in government. And the third thing is how long have people spent trying and including conservatives trying to tell Mr. Plouyev that he was making himself an issue in Quebec by being a jerk, by insulting the mayors of Quebec City and Montreal, by treating his own MPs as if they were nobodies, by saying that the Minister of Finance of Quebec was not good enough to run for him. Someone who would run for Stephen Harper, by the way, and who wanted to run. who had run for Stephen Harper, by the way, and who wanted to run. And the buzz that it was becoming

a major issue that people in Quebec, voters were looking at him thinking, we need to vote for someone who can block or slow this guy down, which explains how the block was so high before Justin Trudeau quit. I mean, look at the Quebec results, those seats, best liberal score in decades in Quebec. Popular vote almost twice the popular vote of the Bloc. That's not because Mark Carney is from the province, has native son advantage. He doesn't even speak good French. Why that happened? Because people, yes, are worried about Trump here, but they also wanted to make sure Piapoy did not become prime minister. And that is something he could have fixed by acting like a respectful civil politician as opposed to one who cannot see a low road that he doesn't want to take to get the people he dislikes. Okay, we're going to take our final break. Come back. We got a couple of other points

to make before we wrap this one up for this week. Back right after this. And welcome back, final segment of Good Talk for this week with Chantel, Rob and Peter. Okay, we haven't mentioned the NDP. They ended up in single digits and not just in single digits. They were well down there. In fact, I think the last time I looked at it, they had a smaller share of the vote nationally than the block had. It kind of reversed itself, but they're all tied with a small NDP advantage.

So here's the question. Ajag Meetsing has said he's leaving, so that's done. But are they done? Is the NDP finished? Could they end up, you know, stragglers joining the Liberal Party and helping them get to a majority position? Are they done as a party?

No. No. Go on, Nielsen. Yeah. Cardinal. A few reasons why. And I think we all have to remind ourselves that in 2011 people were asking the question as to whether or not the liberals were done and they should

join the NDP. But there are pointed questions for new democrats as well. One of the reasons they won't be done and one of the reasons that people who study politics are confounded is because the NDP is successful at the provincial level. The most popular premier in the country right now is Wab Kanu in Manitoba. There is an NDP government that was just re-elected in British Columbia. In the province of Saskatchewan, NDP governments are normal and they're fiscally responsible. We've seen an NDP government in all places in Alberta recently. So what is it at the provincial level that allows the New Democratic

Party to flourish? Well, that isn't the case at the federal level. And I would suggest that its fiscal probity is one of the reasons. And also pragmatism. We were talking about pragmatism earlier in regards to the Conservative Party. At the federal level, it seems, the new Democrats, up until Jack Layton, thought that their role was essentially to prod the parties that would actually wield power, the conservatives and the liberals, into taking positions in favor of the working people of Canada. Jack Layton said, that's fine, but if we're ever going to actually do things ourselves, we need to wield power.

And in order to do that, we need to supplant the Liberal Party. That's the only way to do it. So in 2011, he really turned on Michael Ignatyev, particularly in the debate, supplanted Mr. Ignatyev as part of a two-election strategy to someday hold power. That's never been the notion of New Democratic leaders before or since then. I think Ed Broadbent actually did want to employ a similar strategy as well, but it's not their normal strategy. They have to decide. They have to decide, are they going to be a party of conscience at the federal level,

or are they going to try and wield power? And it's past time. The party at the federal level is now 60 or 65 years old. These numbers that we saw in the last election go back to 1935 in terms of the, you gotta go back to the CCF since they've had such a lousy result. And it's now time for them to ask that question. Should they be a party of conscience still or should they actually try and wield power and look at what their provincial cousins are doing?

Chantel. And that won't come easily to the NDP base, the federal NDP base is really what I'm talking about. I remember in 2011 after the Orange Wave, the party for the first time is within reach of government in one election, going to the NDP convention, this is right after the results. And the unease of the people who showed up at that convention with the notion that suddenly Quebec mattered in the decision making of the party, but also that they they were coming close to that corrosive thing, government and power, and actually accepting compromises to advance consensus. It wasn't the party time thing that I expected to tell you the truth. The mood was very sober. And you could feel, and you could feel it in the months that followed during that leadership campaign for the succession of Mr. Layton, the fear that the party would move closer to the center, which to many NDP members federally is the right, go figure. So remember Thomas Malkarin,

the number of people who stood up against him on that basis. The only time that party has shown a leader of the door was when it showed the door to Thomas Mulcair, who actually handed a fairly healthy opposition party to Jokmeet Singh. And Jokmeet Singh kept bringing diminishing returns, and still people were happy. So so it's it goes beyond, you know, a leader who can tell this to the NDP, and it goes to their membership, the provincial premiers, by and large, were nice to Jack Mead Singh, but they're there that they do not feel that their party is

necessarily the federal NDP base. Theirs is different, larger, and if you look at the way that they govern, yes, they are new Democrats, but they're not all that different from progressive liberal governments in provinces, or even progressive conservative governments in Atlantic Canada. But the federal NDP has always seen itself as, you know, the, the, even when they were working for the truth with the total liberals, they were still holier than they are on not being the liberals. And you think, well, can we decide which part of your mind is in this cooperative arrangement? And this other part of your mind that says these people are the

worst, they're like the conservatives. It made no sense what we saw over the past few years. I don't know. I do think the NDP will survive. I do think there are people who can lead it back to a force in the House of Commons and maybe more. But will the members want that, or will they once again go for the touchy feely is not gonna be dangerous to our sense that we are holy because we never are corrupted by government? I don't know. There are two immediate problems, crises facing the NDP,

along with the longer soul searching questions. The conservatives have not just come for your supporters, they've got them. They've got working people. Your union leaders might be with the liberals or the NDP. The guys on the shop floor, they're now with the conservatives. The other immediate problem is Mr. Carney is coming for you in the House of Commons. He needs support. If he doesn't get it formally, he might try to flip a few of your people. And I can tell you that the Liberals have a list of names that they think of people who might want to step forward in this time of national unity crises

for Canada and might not want to give up their their stripe, but they might want to come forward and support their country. A lot of those people are new democrats. There are very few of them in the house. So watch, watch your flock. On this, so I would argue that you don't fish in an empty pond when you can fish in one that's full of fish. I would think that if I were looking for people to turn not out next week, but I would, but I would be looking at the conservative caucus rather than the NDP caucus. Okay. Well, that'll be a story we'll be watching over this next little while. We'll see how that plays out. Because there's a lot on the agenda on the priority list, but he's a minority government.

And we know the dangers of acting like you've got a maturity. Yes, but the Quebec was suggested the one year truce. Yeah, okay. Never forget that. That is 23, whether they have 24 votes more than enough. And Mr. Blanchet is focused on the upcoming Quebec election. Right. Well, I wouldn't hold my breath taking the word of anybody right now in this immediate

post-election period, but we'll see. Well, we don't want you to choke, so don't hold your breath. I don't see any problems for this minority government for the next year. Okay. I'm out of time. Great conversation. Thank you to both Rob and Chantel and to Rob's mother who's visiting from Toronto up in Ottawa. I'm at her place. She's putting me up.

Oh, you're in Toronto. She just needed a little help with her iPhone. Oh, that's her house. But it's her house. It is her home. I gotta go. I'm gonna shoot her iPhone. Oh, that's her house. But it's her house. It is her own. I can shoot her away. I hope you made her breakfast or are about to. Yeah.

All right. You too. Thank you much. Great conversation. And we'll be back next week with good talk and everything else starting on Monday. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening.

Talk to you again next week.