The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Why Aren't Most of Freeland's Cabinet Colleagues Endorsing Her?

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Most cabinet ministers are endorsing an outsider not an insider. How damaging is this for Chrystia Freeland?

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there. Good Friday to you. It's a Good Talk day. That means Chantelle Hebert and Rob Russo is with us now for the next couple of months during the Liberal leadership race for sure. And Rob is the, well, he's the former Bureau Chief for Canadian Press in Washington, former Bureau Chief for the CBC in Ottawa, and now has the esteemed position as the correspondent for The Economist in Canada. And it's good to have you with us, Rob. So let's get right at it because there's lots to talk to, as there always is on Good Talk.

I want to start, and I guess I'll let you on your debut here over the next couple of months. He's setting you up. Temporarily getting a word in edgewise is what you're saying. That's right. Let me start. Obviously, there are Trump questions today, as there always are. But let me start on the liberal leadership race. Because here's what I can't figure out.

Chrystia Freeland was the Deputy Prime Minister, the second most important minister in the cabinet. So here she is running for the leadership, and yet more cabinet ministers who so far declared and certainly won major ones, are siding with the outsider, Mark Carney, not with their former cabinet colleague, Chrystia Freeland. What does that tell us? Well, if you talk to liberals who weighed this carefully, they were watching for a couple of things. They were watching to see, first of all, if she could, as a communicator, grow beyond what she has been for the last

10 years. A lot of people watched her launch very, very carefully before determining, and they thought that she is a known commodity, and that commodity, in terms of her ability to communicate, hasn't changed. That's one of her handicaps. The bigger handicap, of course, is that she is briskly striding backwards, sprinting backwards away from the Trudeau legacy. And she's doing that while there are millions and millions and millions of digital images of her being joined at the hip to the prime minister, nodding vigorously in approbation to everything that he's been saying. And that's the stuff that she's throwing overboard now. So she's in a very difficult position when it comes to try to assess a renewal candidate.

There are no illusions about Mr. Carney's abilities in terms of communications. Nobody thinks that he's a golden-throated orator or a tub-thumper. They thought that he was, he merited his sitting ovation in Edmonton, for instance. He got a sitting ovation, he earned it. But everybody sees upside in Mr. Carney. They see somebody who could grow. They see Ms. Freeland's growth as capped and limited. And they've decided that those who have gone to Mr. Carney, that he's the growth

candidate, and he's the guy who can get better. And he's the guy who represents renewal. That's a pretty tough spot for Ms. Freeland to try and get out of. That being said, some of the people that she has recruited, everybody was watching, for instance, somebody like Ahmed Hussein to see where he would go. These are people with robust networks where they can quickly assemble muscle and sinew. And Miss Freeland got a pretty good one in Ahmed Hussein. But it is a question of breadth and strength, more breadth and strength going to Mr. Carney right now. And in a race where every riding, every riding is worth a hundred points. If you can't get 10 people to show up in Disnethi, let's say in Northern Saskatchewan, you're not going to win that riding. You got to

get those 10 people there. And right now that breadth of strength for Mr. Carney looks like an advantage in a hundredpoint riding race as well. Okay. Chantal, what do you make of it? Well, a couple of points before I go directly to your question. I think both of the candidates that are emerging as leading, if only on the basis of the support that they are getting from within caucus and cabinet, but also based on what polls tell us about who Canadians would consider. And Karina Gould, who is also running and was a minister, runs, the last poll I saw, it was a single digit support and interest.

So the hill to climb is quite steeper. But the Liberal Party is not unhappy to have two candidates who could both argue that they have the credentials to be serious vis-a-vis for Donald Trump and his administration. That is kind of a gift from heaven for the Liberals that both have economic credentials. The reason why many observers, long-time observers, are a bit surprised that the deputy prime minister, finance minister, is not getting more internal support may go back to memories of the Martin-Chretien era, except that Paul Martin had set himself up

in two ways that are different from Chrystia Freeland. One, his relationship with Jean Chrétien was productive on the policy front, but it was very adversarial. He kind of led the opposition to the prime minister from inside. And two, he had built a lot of caucus support and caucus goodwill to the point that even as the liberals were leading in the polls, they still, a significant section of caucus still wanted Jean-Claude Sein to retire, to replace him with Paul Martin. Chrystia Freeland, as Rob has pointed out, was until December seen as the other face of the government, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland. You cannot Google her name without seeing her next to the prime minister.

She also has not built the kinds of bridges to many other ministers and to caucus that Paul Martin and Estée had. And as a result, yes, every writing is worth the same amount of points. But what I see emerging, just looking at the support we saw from cabinet this week, and in a short race, that will matter because by next week, no one from the outside will be able to sign up to vote in this leadership campaign. So we are talking about existing members, people who presumably have been following

politics for the past few years and are not coming because celebrity has attracted them or some other single issue. You know, Sean Fraser in Atlantic Canada is a big catch in that region for Mark Carney. In Quebec, when you have Stephen Guilbeault, Mélanie Joly, that kind of speaks to Montreal, and François-Philippe Champagne, who will declare on the weekend, and probably Steve McKinnon within the is in the Outaouais. You've covered a lot of Quebec ground. It's going to be really hard to convince Quebecers that these three or four ministers do not represent a consensus that will lead members to go in that direction. The same is true in BC, where those who have declared for Mr. Carney

probably will bring quite a few votes and a variety of writings. And that is what really matters. So the impression you get, I was at that launch last week in Toronto. It was, as everyone knows, a very complicated launch because of the demonstrators in the room. So for about an hour, it never really got started.

I thought Chrystia Freeland handled it well. A less experienced politician might have been totally destabilized by what happened. But when it finally really got underway, having cleared the dozen people from the room one at a time, the speech for once, for one, was much too long. Maybe it's because I work in the newspaper business, but you do need to edit. It doesn't really work to go on. And the people watching, there were no chairs. So they were basically left standing for two hours, including those who stood behind Mr. Freeland. I have something against those human backgrounds.

I have had that for a long time. So one problem, I left because I had to go do something else at 1.30. This is an event or 2.30, and the event should have started at noon. But by the time I left, Chrystia Freeland was still speaking and I was still waiting to hear her mention the name Trudeau. I'm not sure that creates distance. Just because you don't say it, the shadow of the prime minister is on her shoulder. And that is why it feels to me like this week, Chrystia Freeland's plane tried to take off, didn't find its wings.

Maybe she will, but is for now still rolling on the tarmac as opposed to soaring in the sky. All right. Well, it's a short campaign, so it's better to get that plane off the ground soon. Well, what I wanted to say, Peter, in the plane analogy, lots of people are saying because it's short, as you mentioned, they're actually building the plane in midair is what they're doing. They didn't have a lot of time. I know a lot of these candidates have been thinking maybe their whole lives

about running for the leadership, but they don't have a lot of time. That's why we haven't seen a lot of policy either. And Chantel mentioned that Ms. Freeland needed an editor. She was a managing editor at some very prestigious financial publications. Somebody should have edited the editor there, I would say. Yeah, I mean, events like this, a 20-minute speech is long enough. You've got eight weeks or whatever it is to fill out the blanks later, but you want to get out of the gate clean and fast.

Let me bring up a policy issue, because it's not just the baggage of pictures with Justin Trudeau that are going to be a problem for both of them really because the Conservatives will use the one or two pictures they have of Carney with Trudeau to their advantages as best they can. But it's not just Trudeau. It's basically it's carbon tax, right? That is the big one, the big piece of baggage they're carrying around with them. And it appears both of them to different degrees, although I haven't spelled it out really yet, are going to turf carbon tax as we know it now. Is it dead?

Is carbon tax dead? Carbon pricing is not dead, but the consumer carbon tax and the rebates, as we have known it, I believe is dead. And in fact, because of the rebates, it's not going to dig a big hole. Usually if you get rid of a tax, it digs a hole in your budget. That will be the case of the capital gains tax if it is dumped by the liberals or dumped by the next government. There is money that was supposed to come in that won't. In the case of the consumer carbon tax that applies in most provinces, not mine in Quebec,

not BC, because of the rebates, it won't show on the bottom line of the government. And on that score, this is an issue where all three main candidates have agreed in some form that they will ditch the tax. But the good news for the Liberals is that this week, Stephen Gilgou and his colleague Wilkinson, by coming out in support of Mark Carney, knowing all this, have avoided turning this campaign into a plebiscite over the consumer carbon tax. There will not be a schism in the Liberal Party over this because the people who have worked the hardest to bring about carbon pricing believe that the candidates, Mark Carney in their case, will be proactive enough in climate policy that there is a way to substitute the consumer carbon tax for other measures. It's a work in

progress, but one of the reasons that they have been drawn to Mark Carney is because he has devoted his post-banker career to the financial side of climate policy. He is not someone who suddenly is waking up and saying, you know, I love trees and I'm scared for the climate. He has worked on the money side of climate action. And I think that did buy him and does buy him a lot of trust from people who are preoccupied by climate policy, despite ditching the carbon tax. Now, you know, the tax is a big bullet in the chamber of Pierre Polyev, you know, confronting the liberals.

Losing that, if that in fact is what happens, how damaging is that for Polyev? Rob? Well, if you wanted to build his entire campaign around the carbon tax, it doesn't help him. But I think he can point to one thing that's true. And I think it's one of the problems with politics these days is most of us should be shocked, absolutely shocked, that after being told for seven, eight, nine years, that 80% of us are going to be better off with a carbon tax than we are without it. All of a sudden we're being told, no, that's not the case.

So what I don't like about decisions like this is that it breeds cynicism. And, you know, is it a political liability? Of course it is. Of course it is. And is this a moment where climate is not a priority for Canadians? Yes, it is a moment. But I do wonder when I hear that and when I hear others like Ms. Freeland and others, even Ms. Gould, criticizing their government's spending policy and behavior policy when, again, six months ago, we were told something

like the capital gains tax was an issue of generational fairness, that we had to go after those of us who might have made more money later in life, start handing some of it back to younger people. And then all of a sudden we're being told, well, no, that's not the case anymore. Again, it breeds, I think, cynicism towards politics. And I think all of us believe in the possibility of politics. One of the things that I admire Bruce for, for instance, is he doesn't mind being the man in the arena. He will go back and forth. He will get himself dusty and dirty if he believes in something. And you want politicians

who actually believe in it and stand by. Do you want a last point on this, Chantal, before we move on? Well, a small point on the capital gains tax. It isn't really something, and it never was, that is about generational fairness. And why is that? Because if you have a family cottage and you want your kids to have the benefit of it, they would actually be taxed more to inherit it than under the current regime that is still in place. So the argument was always a bit kind of wonky. It didn't hold ground. The liberals really wanted to create something like a class war and to show that Pierre Poilier was on the side of fat cats.

But in the end, this tax has no legal basis. I don't understand why the current finance minister is not telling Revenue Canada to cease collecting it, because how does it make sense for Revenue Canada to be asking you to pay a tax that has no legal basis and probably will never have an illegal foundation. As for cynicism, I do not equate and I never have the mechanism of a consumer carbon tax with rebates walking away from climate policy, especially in the case of Mark Carney, because of the time that he has spent in that arena. I'm not going to say about Chrystia Freeland, I understand some of the frictions between her and the more pro-climate policy ministers, explain why they're all lined up in the other camp. But I think it is possible to build strong climate policy without a tax that

is actually coming with a rebate, which basically is telling you we can fight the climate thing at no cost and no pain. It's a major failure on the part of the Liberals that they never managed to communicate something that should have been easy to communicate properly. But then, you know, go back to the GST. It replaced the tax, and the Conservatives never managed to convince a Canadian that in essence they were paying what they used to pay,

except they were seeing it up front. So I guess the message is, it's really hard to build a tax policy that is more efficient and bring the public on side. It's hard to build any tax policy, no matter what it is, and bring the public on side. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and come back. Let's deal with our friend south of the border and his latest slagging of Canada. Back right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. Chantelle Hebert, Rob Russo in the house. And you're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

your favorite podcast platform. Or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. And we're happy to have you with us wherever you're joining us from. All right. Donald Trump goes after Canada again in his speech to the World Economic Forum. He wasn't there. He was there virtually. And, you know, he went after Canada.

He did his normal rant about Canada getting all the benefits of the trade between the two countries. And he was saying, listen, we don't canadian gas or oil or autos or lumber we don't need any of it so why are we doing this and all of this in the lead up to tariffs which are now supposedly coming in on february the first although it's interesting to see when you read the american media and you see those who have been briefed by or at least I've talked to some of Trump's aides. Trump's people are telling them, you know, it's partly a negotiating tactic here. Don't get, like, too carried away with his words. You never know on the Trump factor how far you should go down the road, believing what he's saying, because we've certainly seen proof in other areas

where things he says don't actually turn out to be fact. However, having said all that, most Canadians agree that this is potentially one of the most difficult economic situations the country's ever been placed in. the potential for loss in jobs, in trade, in economic benefits could be enormous. So obviously the Canadian Parliament must be sitting, going through this every day, trying to figure out a position on how to handle it. Oh no, you tell me they're not sitting. And they may not be sitting for another couple of months. I'm trying to understand the Canadian position because on the one hand,

we keep being told about Team Canada and they're all working together when clearly they're not all working together. And there was indications this week there was kind of more divisions than we thought within that group. What do we make of the Canadian position on this? Like what we're actually doing with a prime minister who's quit leading the charge? Chantal. Well, what we're doing at this point is lobbying,

lobbying key industries that do need our oil. I'm curious to see what the refineries that are tailored to refine the oil that we send from the oil sounds curious to see how they feel about

needing no oil. How do they keep operating if it's all going to come by ship from wherever? Same with gas. What the president said, by the way, he tripled, quadrupled. I don't know how many times he multiplied the actual trade deficit between Canada and the U.S., but it's way off. It's like me telling you that I have six meters of snow just on the other side of the

window. I actually have about two centimeters. That's the size of the stuff that Donald Trump said. Lumber. Well, if the Americans didn't need our lumber, they could have a long time ago replaced it by getting rid of whatever trees they have left. But at the end of the day, you only need to take a plane to know. If you go north, you're bound to see a lot more trees on this side of the border than the trees that Donald Trump believes are still standing in many areas of the United States. Cars. Well, sure, if you want to buy a car that doesn't have a door or a clutch or a mirror, sure, you can buy American cars because I don't know how many times,

but it's double digits. Every car that is manufactured crosses the Canada-US border a number of times. So you are asking, what is Team Canada doing? Well, it can only prepare because at this point, there is nothing that has factually happened. And February 1st may be the date, or it may not, depending on who you talk to and who you read. As for Parliament, two of the three main opposition leaders, Jagmeet Singh first, and then Kapweli Ewa on the record, is asking the Prime Minister to end prorogation and bring Parliament back. But are they saying that they are willing to vote confidence in the government, which they would have to do if it came back, so that Parliament can get on with the serious business of discussing

Canada's reply. Last time I checked, those two leaders committed to bringing down the government at the first opportunity. And this week, Pierre Poilievre, in an interview in Quebec, said two things. He wants Parliament back to deal with this grave issue, and he wants an election. At some point, I am not convinced that Canadians are in the mood for parliamentary games that lead to an election where their main choice is Pierre Poilievre for lack of a liberal leader. If you look at polls, the Légis Poll that asked, do you want an election now in the spring or in the fall? Only 29% wanted one now, which is less than the number of Canadians that want to vote for Pierre Poilievre. So the idea that Parliament coming back would be something other than a distraction, thinking back to the games that overtook the

agenda last fall is kind of not fitting it. I don't know about you, have you met many people who have told you outside of panels, I only wish that parliament was sitting? Because I haven't. Nor have I. But then it's been all about weather this week, especially. I was out west. Man, it was cold. Rob? Well, I do think that we're in an enfeebled position because we're going into a war without a general.

And if we do have a general, nobody really knows who it is. And an election would certainly, I think, tell us who the general is and might get an army going i think chantal is right in that when you when you look at what's going on between canada and the u.s uh our what we're doing now and what we can do really we're limited to advocacy we can't negotiate and we can't negotiate for a couple of reasons. First of all, a lot of the people who we would be negotiating with, let's say Doug Burgum is a guy who is often mentioned, former governor of North Dakota, going to be the energy czar. He hasn't been confirmed yet.

And he is one of those nominees who is refusing to engage with Canada until he is confirmed, because I think it would violate legislation in the United States. As soon as Marco Rubio, who was the first person who was confirmed, did get his confirmation, Melanie Jolie was on the phone. So it's hard to negotiate when you can't negotiate. The other thing that the people in trade are saying that makes it difficult is, of course, menace creep, the threat creep. The first problem was the border, which we all know is not the problem President Trump is saying it is. Then the problem became the trade deficit. Well, again, you take oil out of the equation, and we're subsidizing

the oil that we send to the United States because it's not going down at the global price. There's not much of a trade deficit. And now it's going to be NATO. We all have to spend 5%. So there's menace creep, and that makes it very, very difficult, even for those who are practicing advocacy, to engage the people that they can engage with. There was an opening in the last couple of days that the people at Foreign Affairs and International Trade are grasping.

And that's a suggestion that an early renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, that offers an opportunity to perhaps, at a minimum, delay the imposition of severe tariffs, because it would be unseemly to do that. Not that he wouldn't stoop to unseemly, but unseemly to do that in the middle of a negotiation. If you can negotiate and talk, it's unlikely that we'll have to deal with jarring tariffs. So I think that's where we are. People are looking and the advocacy is not ineffective. It is effective. They're making really interesting arguments. Chantal mentioned auto parts, for instance. Well, he can want to repatriate the auto industry.

He can certainly do that. But let's take a look at what would be involved in doing that. Well, you'd have to find land in order to build your assembly plants. That's going to take time. Then you'd have to get it zoned. Then you'd have to build. And then you'd have to train your workforce. And then you'd have to decide which model you would want to try and build there. Just that process alone is a three to five year process. And that takes us beyond the Trump administration. And it also increases prices for auto consumers in the United States.

None of it makes sense. There's reality, and there's where we are, and there's menace creep. And again, there is an opening with the possibility of a renegotiated North American free trade agreement. Okay. You skipped over over or you mentioned the 5% now that Trump says all NATO members are going to have to come up with 5% of their GDP to spend on defense. We can't even get to 2%. To get to 5%, Canada, I don't even want to think of what would have to happen to get to 5%. You're waving your hand.

Chantal, do you want to say something on that? Yeah, I'd be curious to see how much the U.S. is prepared to put in have to get to 5%. You're waving your hand, Chantal, you want to say something on that? Yeah, I'd be curious to see how much the US is prepared to put in to get to 5%, because they are also some way off from this. Like, I think they sit around 3%. So it's billions and billions versus the American GDP. So if you are going to say this has to happen, you have to do it yourself. Good luck with that. I would say on 5%, though, that some of our NATO allies in Europe believe that's where we should be as well. He is not going to find disagreement in Germany, for instance. He's not going to find disagreement in places like Poland as well.

Our allies there live in a tough neighborhood now, much tougher than it used to be. And they have been saying really since the invasion of Ukraine that they need to militarize, first of all, in the case of Germany, and that they need to spend significantly more than 2%. Canada, the worry for Americans as far as Canada is concerned, is that we share a backyard essentially with Russia and the United States. And so there hasn't been an administration really since Bill Clinton that hasn't been honest to try and do more to try and secure our backyard, their backyard. And we've been miscreants. I'm not saying we shouldn't get to 5%. What I'm saying is to get to 5%, you're going to have to do

some really major recalculating of federal expenditures. Yeah, but you've got to have an election. You've got to have an election, and you've got to tell people this is what we're prepared to do. Except that the Conservatives won't even come in to 2% at this point. And if you're going to tell Canadians that, you're going to have to tell them at what cost and how and with the trade officer. Absolutely. Okay, here's the other issue. Oil. Here's the other issue, oil. When I watched Trump yesterday, the thing that struck most to me,

aside from, you know, like he does the normal Canada rant, but the thing that struck most to me was his kind of direct appeal to OPEC, you've got to bring down the oil price. You've got to increase production. Okay, and he seems to think that he's got it in there because he gets along with the Saudis. But let's assume he's successful

there. The world price now is what, somewhere around the mid-70s? 75, yeah. Yeah. Say it drops 10 bucks. Drops 10 bucks, suddenly in Newfoundland and Alberta, some of those projects, they're not sustainable at that world price.

And there'll be closing plants, not opening them, not needing pipelines. There won't be anything to put in them. So I don't know how this fits with Danielle Smith's strategy. I mean, as we all know, she was at Mar-a-Lago with her pals O'Leary and Peterson. And then she was in Washington at the inauguration. Fancy dress inauguration balls, et cetera, for everybody.

So I'm not sure what all that gets her if, at the same time, he's saying, got to bring down that world price by increasing production so we can have cheaper gas at the pumps. Am I wrong here? Is there something that makes sense about that? No. Look, presidents of the United States are elected know, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of York and Saskatchewan, uh, he, he's saying in effect, he can't do much about the cost of, uh, gasoline and groceries right now. Uh, and, and it's a, it's a great big shiny ball

distraction, but he's trying, he's trying the whole energy thing is, again, it's pitiful. It's bombast. It makes absolutely no sense. I think the argument that Danielle Smith is making, and she's now making it, I'm told, in coordination with Canadian officials as well, is that Donald Trump wants to project U.S. power abroad by exporting more U.S. energy abroad. That is like a force multiplier as far as Donald Trump is concerned. You don't have to fight wars, but if you're the biggest energy exporter in the world, you're projecting your force overseas without moving your armies. Well, the argument Canada is making,

and Daniel Smith is making it as well, is we can help you do that. We can supplant some of the oil that you are using for domestic purposes in order for you to project that force overseas by exporting more of your oil. But you're not going to be able to do that if you keep talking about how you don't need our oil, which everybody knows is baffled. Is bombast. It's pitiful. I think it's an interesting argument. There are people apparently around Mr. Trump who realize that there is some logic in this. But it's going to be pretty hard for him to walk back some of the things that he's saying, which we all know are untrue. I spent eight years in Washington, D.C. I can't tell you how many times I went to an event where they were complaining about how much Canadian lumber was coming into the United States.

They were complaining about it because they couldn't build their homes and their buildings without Canadian lumber. And it's the same with energy. You're trying to find logic from someone who is not offering it. And I think the first rule of thumb is if it makes no sense and you try to get your head around it and it still makes no sense, it's because it makes no sense. Baffle gap, we have our own share of it on this side of the border. I was watching, I think, the Premier of Nova Scotia yesterday on X, saying the federal government has to approve the Energy East pipeline. Okay, so the Energy East pipeline, for those who have not kept pace, was cancelled by TransCanada, TC now, in 2017. There is not on the books in Ottawa, hidden in some

corner, an application that the federal government can approve. 2017, do the math, that's eight years ago. You can go into, it was the fault of the Trudeau government. All this is another discussion. But when premiers tell you you have to approve this project or that project, the first question you have to ask is, are the promoters who abandoned the project sheltered? Are they interested in resurrection of the project? And then we can have a conversation. But to go around telling Canadians the federal government must approve this pipeline or that pipeline, there are no such applications waiting for an approval from the federal government. And if you want to resuscitate them, as those companies well know, you cannot suddenly by some order dismiss the provincial regulations of every province to get this done. And even if you could, which you can, we are talking years here.

We're not talking a we're going to magically make energy east appear and our oil will flow to the east coast. That you and I and maybe Rob maybe probably will not be doing this show by the time these pipelines come to fruition. If we start them tomorrow, which we are not. They mentioned the Gulf of America. Rob did. Of all the things that Trump said, that's the one that actually can happen and happen quite easily. In fact, it already has happened. He instructed apparently on day one the Coast Guard and this and that

and the others to change their maps, and they already have, from the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. That's really no big deal. These ones we're talking about, they're a big deal. But at least he can chalk one up and claim it as a victory that he did that one. It's kind of like, as I've said before, it's like the North Sea. You know, it's actually the German Sea, but the Brits called it

the North Sea because of the war. And that's why it's the North Sea. You are encouraging a flat earth society. Well, I figure we start going around naming, you know, we'll change Hudson Bay to Chantelle Bear Bay. Thank you, but no.

Don't encourage them, Peter, because the Great Lakes will become the Mega Lakes if you keep this up. That's true. Good point. All right, I will not say anything more about that. Let's take our final break, and I want to come back. I want to talk about the election, because there are scenarios out there as to when the election could be, and I want to try back. I want to talk about the election because there are scenarios out there as to when the election could be,

and I want to try and understand those scenarios. But let's take our final break. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week. Rob and Chantel are here. A couple of reminders. This is on YouTube.

So is Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, where Bruce Anderson appears with Fred Delore. So we have sort of the liberal, the conservative on Tuesdays. And you can also catch that on YouTube. The Buzz comes out tomorrow morning, my little newsletter, 7am tomorrow in your mailbox. You have to subscribe, doesn't cost anything. Just go to nationalnewswatch.com slash newsletter and just put in your email address and you'll get the the newsletter each Saturday morning at 7 a.m. Okay. Election is set for what?

Is it late October? October. That's, you know, sort of in the books that it can happen. And it's, you know, every, this would be, what, four years since the last one. However, it could be earlier. And there's much talk about whether it will be earlier. Two of the opposition parties, as Chantel mentioned,

want the House brought back right away, and they're committed to defeating the government as soon as the House comes back. So that would mean an election early, April or May. What is the thinking as to when this is going to happen? And what is the reason behind the thinking? Make the argument for whatever time slot you think is most likely or not most likely.

Rob, you go first. Well, conservatives would like an election yesterday uh they are coming to the conclusion they believe that uh mr singh and the ndp given the pulverization that polls seem to suggest awaits them will uh will end up um making a deal with whoever emerges as the leader of the Liberal Party to keep this parliament, to keep this government in office for another six months. That's not what I'm hearing from people at the NDP. They know they're in tough. They point to Jack Layton, who did not go into the 2011 election in second place and ended up with over 100 seats.

They think that they can, you know, this is part of their two election strategy. The first part is to supplant the Liberals. They think that they can do that over the course of a campaign. So, you know, if you're the Liberals, what do you do? You do try to make a deal with New Democrats. Yves-François Blanchet is sitting in the catbird seat in Quebec. He, no matter who emerges as leader of the Liberal Party, both he and Pierre Poilier, I think, speak French better than whoever is going to emerge. Mr. Blanchet is licking his chops. He is prepared to bring down the government at theet is licking his chops. He is prepared

to bring down the government at the earliest possible time. If you're a Liberal leader, you try to make a deal with the NDP. If you can't, then you do not wait to have the ignominy of parliamentary defeat as your first parliamentary act, and you pull the plug early. And that's part of what I was referencing earlier when I say that they're building this plane in midair, because not only are they running a leadership campaign, they're putting together an election campaign at the same time. Whoever the leader is going to be is going to have some platform planks already there. Lots of people in the party are putting together tour and all of this other thing that you need from day one. So if I were compelled to lay down a bet, I would say that we were probably going to go in May. Okay, so spring versus fall. Or actually, first of all, April versus May, and then overall spring versus fall.

Chantelle, you see it that way? Well, April versus May is kind of a useless debate to have in the sense that the election campaigns can be long or short, as we learned from Stephen Harper in 2015. So if you go for the longer version, you get into May starting in March. And if you go for the short version, you get into April. Easter is in the mix, Passover, you know. So you probably would go for a longer version.

I tend to think May, but who cares, right, at this point. Just a word on Jack Layton. One of the reasons Layton went in that election with the score that he had was related to his health prospects. And I remember writing at the time that the choice the NDP had was to bring down the government on its budget in the spring and have a campaign with Jack Leighton as leader, or possibly have a campaign in the fall, or later with no Jack Leighton in the mix. And no one in the NDP ever pushed back on that. And as we saw, they were right to think that they should have an election in the spring if they could have Jack Layton.

So it's a different situation. Jagmeet Singh is, in a bind, part of his caucus, does not agree with the kind of language that he has been using. Over the past few weeks, you saw Charlie Angus say, country before party, I'm not going to be playing in a movie that is just designed to bring down the government. 53% of those who want an election in the fall in that Liget poll identified with the NDP. So there's not a lot of enthusiasm within NDP ranks for having a campaign

anytime soon. That being said, if Mr. Carney does become the Liberal leader and the Prime Minister, I am struggling with the notion that he would want to convene Parliament even as he cannot sit in Parliament for lack of a seat. Second, almost certainly circumstances would come together that would probably bring down the government. There will be a vote on a financial bill before the end of March if parliament returns. There will also likely be a confidence vote in the Trump speech if the conservatives can help it. All of which to say, if you're going to spend energy when you become liberal leader on something, knowing all this, should you be spending it on preparing a Trump speech that will be forgotten the day after it's presented? Or should you be focusing on election readiness so that you can call an

election? I'm picking a date here out of blue sky, March 20th. I think in Mr. Carney's case, the liberals will probably think best to put one's energy in going into an election and going for broke than trying to deal with the NDP, which has proven over even the courtesy of a call to the partner in an agreement. Or that a leader who does news conferences to say one day, I want the government to fall tomorrow. And the next day or the next month is writing a letter to reconvene parliament. So I'm not sure it's worth wasting time on trying to make a deal with the NDP in those circumstances. Okay. Just to clarify, you said March 20th. You meant May 20th, right?

No, no. I mean to call the election. Oh, to call it. Okay. Parliament is supposed to come back on the 24th. So you can call it. You have to call it at some point before the 24th. It could be the 19th.

It could be the 11th. Right. Okay. Got it. Whatever. You know, it's funny, you mentioned the Leighton campaign in 2011. You know, I spent a little time with each of the leaders on that campaign, watching them campaign. I spent a couple of days with Leighton in Atlantic Canada.

And it was remarkable to watch him then because your predicted orange wave, Chantel, was firmly in place then. It was a week or maybe two weeks before the election. And you could see it. You could feel it. Wherever you went, you saw it happening. And you saw him, who was putting up a brave front, said he'd beaten cancer at that point,

but clearly he knew the struggle was still there. And it was quite a remarkable thing to witness a candidate given those two extremes, really. One is health, and two, the country moving, you know, a good chunk of the country moving towards that party as an alternative, which many NDPers, I'm sure, wish was happening now. But there was a reason why it should have been happening, but it hasn't been happening. One of the lessons of that campaign, people used to say, well, you know, the NDP has no organization. It has no muscle. They have nobody in Quebec. Well, when the people decide that they're going to move in a certain direction, they don't need organizers to shove them to the ballot box.

Yes, but Jacques Mitzing in Quebec, for the record, is no Jack Layton. No, no. I'm not suggesting that he is. What I'm suggesting is that election taught us is that people can make their minds up during an election campaign. In one of the ways, in many ways, and it's one of the reasons why I always say, really, all polls six months to a year before an election are essentially meaningless. People do make up their mind during a campaign. And this could be a campaign.

It's not going to be about the carbon tax we've all established. This could be a campaign where people change their mind. This is a moment in our history where we are confronted by a challenge to our prosperity, our sense of who we are. He's clearly trying to do things in terms of our national unity, which leads to our sovereignty. These are important issues that could change people's minds, depending on how the campaign goes. And that would be a message to Yves-François Blanchet in Quebec, because I can see how Quebecers do start deciding when the election is called, and they do change their minds.

I can see scenarios where, put to the question, who is best to handle Donald Trump, there is a revisiting of the Liberals. Me, I think it would happen in Quebec if outside Quebec, the Liberal fortunes rise. And at that point, Quebecers would probably reconsider, but that is totally possible. But it's not good for third parties. This is not the kind of election where the NDP or the BQ fighting for influence, because that is what the NDP is doing, let's be serious, will easily find a voice in the conversation. We all remember the free trade election in 1988, and we all don't remember any other issue in the 1988 campaign.

And this is where we're going. Yeah, even though GST could so easily have been an issue for the Liberals to bring up as a second front. And Meech. Right. I've only got a minute left. Doug Ford, either while we've been talking or later today or at some point in the next couple of days is going to call an election.

Does that have any impact on the national story? And once again, I only have a minute left. Who wants it, Rob? No, I don't think it has an impact on the national story. I think what he's doing is if things go the way Mr. Trump wants them to go, hundreds of thousands of people in the province of Ontario are going to lose their jobs. And he's trying to get out ahead of that possibility.

I don't think Donald Trump is really quaking in the Oval Office, worrying about staring down another blonde-haired menace. At least his is blonde. Chantal, you you got 30 seconds. of the conservatives in government in Ottawa in tough times. But I think that the Trump factor has now made it a priority to have this election before the province possibly falls into a recession with attending job losses. Okay, we're going to leave it at that. Great to have you with us, Rob. Looking forward to your thoughts and your comments

over the next seven, eight weeks, however long it takes for the Liberals to sort out their life and the likely early life after that. Chantelle, as always, great for you to be with us. Everybody have a good weekend. We'll talk to you again a week from now. Bye-bye. Bye, Lou.