The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is Carney Leading a Post-America World?

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Watching US television today after yesterday's European summit has left some commentators asking about a major Canadian role in a post-America world. Plus an article in the Toronto Star was, and still is, a real talker. It asked whether Mark Carney was drifting away from some of the Liberals who had helped him win the election. It was written by Althia Raj and she's here with The Economist's Rob Russo.  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 little Raj Russo there weekly or biweekly or every second week notebook? It's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Rob Russo from The Economist, Al Theoraj from the Toronto Star. You know, I was, whenever I get up in the morning, I flip through all the different news channels, the Canadian ones, the American ones, and try to find something that I find interesting to watch, something that's current. And this morning I landed on MS Now,

which is the old MSNBC station. Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, and his panel. You know, I never got over Joe Scarborough sucking up to Trump the day after the election. But still, it's a pretty good discussion. Anyway, to the point, of today.

They were discussing the post-American world, which they're convinced we are now in, and they're not alone in thinking that. A lot of people think that. But what did they use to kind of visualize the post-American world on this week? They used the summit that was going on in Armenia yesterday that Mark Carney was at, a number of European leaders,

and there are still meetings going on this week in elsewhere in Europe. but this was the image they portrayed of the post-American world, and the image they used was Mark Carney and Vladimir Zelensky, Volatimir Zelensky from Ukraine, which put Canada in the forefront, and they kept mentioning Canada, and we're talking about a panel that included Richard Haas,

who's, you know, no lightweight on the foreign affairs scene. So I guess my question is, given that and given this discussion of a post-American world and Canada's dominance seemingly in it, what are the risks and rewards for Canada and for Mark Carney in particular? And Rob, why don't want to you start us on this? Well, I don't know that he has much choice to do what he's doing. The Prime Minister is trying, in effect, to fashion a garment, almost like an economic tailor, a fine garment stitching together, trading blocks in Europe, in the Pacific and in South America, in Mercosur. He might as well also be stitching a red handkerchief right in the middle of that garment

because he's waving a red handkerchief in the face of Donald Trump when he says the new international order will be built out of Europe. And I think he's quite fine with waving that red handkerchief in front of Trump. I don't think he does it deliberately, but it does not perturb him to do it. So, sure, he has to do it. But if we're talking about Europe being the future, the foundation of this new international order, then they got some leaks in their foundation. They've got some cracks in their foundation. They have some real problems.

I mean, you mentioned Vlodemir Zelenskyy ahead of time. Both Europe and Mr. Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, demonstrate, I think, that despite how many of us feel about the United States right now, that the United States remains indispensable to that. And I'll come back to that in a second. But first, let me deal with Europe. The Prime Minister is fond of saying that Canada is the most European of non-European nations. I think what he means by that is he means we have a mixed economy and a social safety,

unlike the kind of cowboy capitalism of the United States. But they also have right-wing populist parties in Europe that are poised to take control. If polls are to be believed, there's going to be a right-wing populist. us take control in the United Kingdom. Another one in France. They're on the march in Germany, Holland. I know everybody points to Hungary. Peter Magyar as an example of sort of progress in Europe.

Yes, it's true. The new leader of Hungary has turned towards Europe and away from Putin, but he's also a right-winger. who is anti-immigration, like many of the other right-wingers in Europe, and also skeptical of Ukraine. He's very anti-Putin, but skeptical of some of the aid that's given to Ukraine. So I'm not sure if Canadians would be comfortable with all of that. Europe, 450 million people, a great idea to try to get to them,

but they have sclerotic growth in terms of their economies. They're growing at a much weaker, more pallid pace than Canada. They've been left behind technologically. They've been left behind militarily. They've been left behind economically by the United States and China, which enjoy the greatest growth, both economic growth, military prowess and technological prowess. And before we get too excited about joining forces with Europe, I don't think anybody's talking about us becoming the 28th member of the EU.

But before we get even consider that, I think we should ask the Europeans to ratify our trade deal with them, which was signed nine years ago in 2017, the CETA, Canada, Europe, Trade Agreement. And it's still not been ratified by 10 of the 27 countries. 17 of ratified 10 have said no. So there are a lot of, I would say, cracks in that foundation. It's unstable at times. People within the own, people within the trading blocks say that there are all kinds of obstacles to growth and to prosperity there as well.

All right. Rob has set the table completely. Every seating has been filled in that opening shot and good for him. Althea, we should give Althea a little bit of an excuse here. she's fighting a cold and a cough. I sound sick. I'm sick. Yeah, well, you're not alone.

There's a lot of people seem to be fixing that right now. But what's your sense of this story? What do you make of it? And especially in terms of what the, you know, the risks and the rewards are for Canada as we get seemingly deeper into this relationship with Europe. Yeah, I think there's several ways of looking at it. But the first is obviously Prime Minister Carney is somebody who is close to Europe, you know, like led the Bank of England, has a lot of affinity towards Europe and has nurtured a roll-a-dicts of contacts in Europe. So there's, I think, a natural personal affinity towards Europe that perhaps we didn't have in other prime ministers.

That's one angle, obviously, to the story. The other angle is, of course, what it means for the Kuzma or the USMCA. related talks. The prime minister has to walk a very fine line between telling Donald Trump that Canada has other options and we're not beholden to whatever strong man will he wants to impose on us, but at the same time also not annoy him to the point that he completely decides to rip the steel apart and walks away from the table. So I think there's a little bit of both camps happening. I thought what was interesting in his opening remarks at the European political community meeting, he was invited to who by

Macon from France was he said two things I thought were interesting one is what the Europeans want from us often in this country we talk about energy he said no no we go there saying we will offer you energy but what they really want is critical minerals so to Robb's point

the Europeans if they do want to lead to the world have a lot of their own affairs to sort out continentally, notably on defense and security, especially with the Americans walk away. And that is something that we can say, hey, we want to be a partnership with. The other thing I thought was interesting was he talked about some of the key themes from the Davos speech, one of which being we take the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. But in a way, he is wishing it to be something. And perhaps for all the reasons that Rob outlined, all the challenges that Europe already itself faces. You have a prime minister saying, you know, these, the ideals of freedom of

democracy, rule of law, these are human rights, these are the things that we want to work on together. These are the things that we share with you. You know, like, please continue to work on these things so that we can be partners together. Because at the moment, I don't know that you could really argue that Europe is fit to lead the world at the moment. You know, back up both of you because I think when the issue here seems to boil, as much as there are things on the table between us and Europe, and I appreciate that, and there are difficulties in trying to work some of these things out, as you've both explained.

But the issue always comes back to what's Trump going to make of this? And how much should we care about what Trump makes of this? I mean, depending on who you read right now, but Kuzma stuff's dead in the water. It's just not going anywhere. Now, I don't know whether that's just the kind of stuff you expect to read when you don't really know what's going on. But if it is dead in the water right now,

this is not going to suddenly put it back, you know, afloat in terms of a possibility. These kind of stuff and that kind of discussion going on an American television, the appearance that Canada is somehow leading the way. I don't know that it's helpful, but I guess it depends what you mean by dead in the water. The government has made it clear that for the first time actually, I think it was two weeks ago, that there are no negotiations happening.

You know, we had our ambassador to the U.S. say very plainly that, you know, we're open and willing to negotiate whenever they are willing to, you know, call us to the table. and we have the prime minister say we don't have the starter pistols. The starter pistol belongs to the Americans. We're waiting for them to tell us to come to the table. And we don't want to come to the table on the terms that they've outlined at the moment, basically. We're not ready to pre-negotiate against ourselves. But is dead in the water just that its status quo?

Because one of the other things that emerged over the last two weeks of April was Janice Charette, who's our lead trade negotiator on the Canada U.S. file, outline what her mandate has been, which is to safeguard preferential market access to the United States, to get tariff relief on steel, aluminum, lumber, copper. She also talked about how this has been the Canadian government's line since even under Justin Trudeau when they thought that a Democrat was going to win, like, we're not renegotiating. This is just like a temperature check. We're just kind of sorting out some housekeeping issues. We're not like totally re-upping this. But at the same time, you know, like 20 minutes later in her remarks, they do acknowledge it's

going to be a tough slog. It's quite possible that we don't have a tariff-free environment with the United States. That is a possibility. I think that there's two things to take comfort in. And I think that we have seen Canadian officials take comfort in that. One is the July 1st deadline, which now they're saying, don't worry if there's no deal by July 1st. It's, I think, which Jenna Shrek said, it's like it's not a cliff. The actual agreement says that the leader of the countries will have to decide on July they will meet and they have to decide if they want to renegotiate or renew, sorry, Kuzma for another 16 years.

But if they don't say, yes, I want to renew it for another 16 years, the deal still continues on. and we just have one-year reviews. At the moment, the current deal says that you can pull out. You can pull out. You just need to give a six-month notice and you can pull out. You can also amend it. If Mexico and the United States and Canada want to amend the deal, at any time, they can amend it.

So with that, you have to think, well, Donald Trump actually hasn't said he wants to pull out of the deal. So maybe the Canadian officials are not wrong to say, well, you know, let's not panic here. it is we're basically gambling on uncertainty we don't think there's going to be a new deal but we don't think Donald Trump is going to pull out completely we don't want to negotiate it against ourselves the current deal is better than the new deals that are on the table so why would we accept anything new from this government that can't be trusted you know we saw the american slap 25% tariffs on

european vehicles so let's just take a moment and cool but the cost of the cost of of that is uncertainty. It's uncertainty to business investments. It's job losses. Already we're seeing lots of job losses. And it's also a new kind of political window opening up for the conservatives to say, well, you know, like the cost is too high. Go back. I think that's where the government finds itself and it has decided that uncertainty is a cost that they're willing to pay because the flip side is that is actually more costly. It's more. It's more. more costly to the Canadian economy, this idea that we could completely uncouple ourselves and not have free trade with the United States, that is not something they're willing

to condompleate at this time. You want to add to that, Rob? Yeah, I think Althea has summarized it very nicely. There is a cliff. And I don't know that anybody should put it past Donald Trump to say he is a guy who loves the madman theory. So no one should put it past him to say, Anjali. 1st, I'm giving six months notice, even if the intention isn't to pull out, but to do it as a

negotiating tactic that I'm leaving. And then to, in essence, run in part his floundering election campaign for the midterms against Kuzma and against his other trading partners. If you ask Dominic LeBlanc, he says there is motion but not movement at the negotiating table. I think that that's true. Engagement, I think, is also how they call it.

Like, they're talking to each other, but they're not actually like making doing trading. Yes, yeah. But the Janice Sherrette is saying publicly, publicly what other negotiators have said privately, the number one goal of these discussions is to maintain access to the most lucrative market in the world at the lowest possible entry fee.

because despite what we might think about the growth in the Pacific, that growth in Asia, the possibility of Mergers so are joining, you look at Warren Buffett, the most successful investor in the world, perhaps, who over almost a century of living has always said, the United States goes through ups and downs, but never bet against the United States, Never bet against the U.S. economy, a combination of freedom, and that frontier-seeking capitalism leads to the kind of innovation you get nowhere else.

So that's why negotiators are saying maintain access. But they're also saying, they're also saying, well, why would we rush into a deal with the United States? Is there anybody in Europe who actually thinks that they're paying 15% tariff right now? Althea mentioned the increase in tariffs on European vehicles. That's primarily aimed at Germany. It's primarily aimed at Germany. It's aimed at him because he had the temerity to tell the truth about what was going on in the war in Iran,

that there is no exit strategy, that the Iranians are humiliating Trump online at that times. And as a result, as a result, he finds his country the target of increased tariffs, even though they have a tariff deal. His country being told that the American presence is going to be reduced there. We'll see if it actually happens. I think more ominous for Europe and for Ukraine, Trump is now saying he's not going to install Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic missiles in Germany that were going to be safeguards,

bulwarks against further European expansionism by Vladimir Putin. So those are all things that demonstrate why, There should be probably no rush to a deal, apart from the fact that there is a dizzy dissent in Trump's political fortunes. His old people are beginning to abandon him, and independents have abandoned him. He has the lowest approval ratings of any president in the modern era as well. So, again, it seems to be to Canada's advantage not to rush into a deal, which wouldn't mean much if you signed it. Donald Trump, if you look at Europe, and you allow political gravity to do the job for you as well in the United States. Okay. Let me, we got to move on here, but I want to just put one last question on this subject to you.

You remember that disastrous meeting that Trump had with Zelensky in the Oval Office a year ago or more. You don't have the cards. That's exactly the point I want to make. he claimed that Zelensky didn't have the cards, where in fact we've realized since that he very much has got the cards. Lots of cards, yeah. Lots of cards. And he's given the Russians more than a run for their money.

When you look at Trump Carney, what cards do we have? Are they, you know, the critical minerals like Althea talks about. Is it oil? What is it? What are the cards that Carney's holding in his hand when he's going head to head with Trump. Who wants to do that?

I'll give you a couple. Number one, the United States is the biggest energy exporter in the world. Why is it the biggest energy exporter in the world? Yes, it's fracking revolution. But also because we send them cheap Canadian oil that allows them to take that oil, serve their domestic markets, take the surplus they have and export it abroad, and project European or American strategic power, economic power abroad. That's a huge weapon for them in the geopolitical world we're living in right now. Energy alone is a big reason why we have

a card. He says we don't need anything from Canada. We all know that let us be kind and say that's presidential piffle, baffle gap. And And so there's that. The other reason he needs us is because there isn't an empty attic above the United States. There is a country above the United States that is between them and the countries that could do the United States ultimate harm. So we help him keep his country safe and secure. We need to do a better job of that. We need to spend more and rely less on the Americans.

but we are doing that job. And he requires us to be a friendly and cooperative neighbor in order to safeguard the security of the United States. He's not going to admit that, but it's absolutely true, and we do it every day. Canadians and Americans are flying over the Arctic every single day working together. So there are economic reasons,

there are geopolitical reasons, and there are security reasons why we are linked forever in many, many ways. All right. Althea, do you want to close? the loop force on this? Yeah, I mean, I think oil is a big one. 61% of U.S. oil exports come from Canada. I think electricity is another one.

I think critical minerals is a big one. It was something that they were willing to negotiate on back when they were trying to negotiate tariff relief back in the fall. I also think it's really worth stressing the point that we are at the number one market for 36 American states. When you listen to the American Ways and Means Committee last month, when the trade rep was testifying, before them, all those representatives wanted to increase access to Canada, you know,

like not just on the booths front, not just on dairy, but everybody had their pet issue. And so I think, you know, we do carry some weight in terms of their exports. Okay. We're going to take our break. Come right back. Topic two, coming up on Reporter's Notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. And welcome back here, listening to this Tuesday's episode of Reporter's Notebook. book with Rob Russo and Al Theoraj.

You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us. You know, there's a thing they talk about in terms of articles that are sometimes written and received with much discussion around it. They're kind of talkers.

They become the talker items, especially on weekends. And last weekend, and still today, there's a lot of talk around an article that Althea wrote for the Toronto Star, which is basically making the argument or at least having a discussion about the situation in terms of whether or not Mark Carney has abandoned some of the progressives that supported his first leadership campaign and then the election campaign of last year. on some of the big issues that mean something to them. There's been a lot of reaction to that article and a lot of discussion about it. Althea, for those who haven't read it yet, and they should, and I recommend reading it,

it's not a long article, but it's very pointed. Give me the highlights. Give me the, you know, the Pracey version of that. Okay, well, I mean, it's a column, To your point, my argument is, I think, the Mark Carney has abandoned progressives. Or is taking them for granted, is I think a better way to put it. Basically, that argument has mostly been formed around climate policy, I would say, over the last year. People who feel that they thought they knew Mark Carney and now they're surprised that he's probably going to build another pipeline.

And they feel disappointed with some of the moves or some of the trades he has been willing to do with Danielle Smith at Alberta on the MOU with pipeline. but one of the things that liberals, especially liberal impedes, love to talk about is pharmacare and childcare and certain things that you associate with the liberal party like health care. And one thing I was surprised to see in the fiscal update is that the government is pretty clear that it's actually making cuts to certain programs. Now, the government will argue with me that programs that are ending are cuts, but if you had money last year and you have no money next year, most people on the street would consider that.

And it also means that it won't be, they won't be able to do what they, what people thought the liberals were going to be doing. So let's say on Pharmacare and the fiscal update, there's no new money. Pharmacare was started because of pressure from the NDP in that, that agreement that Justin Trudeau and Jermitzing signed.

where they would have the baby steps to National Pharmacare Care Program. It would start off with free diabetes medicine and free contraception, and they would steady the rollout and that with the aim of rolling out more medicines in the future, universal drug coverage was the goal behind it. The liberals were a little bit lukewarm, but Mark Holland, who was the health minister at the time, really, you know, was assured that they met well and they really did believe in this, and they were really just, it was not like a little candy to the NDP to keep them happy.

They really wanted to study this and see if they could do it. Some of the agreements took longer to negotiate, for example, with British Columbia, because they already had some provincial programs that offered contraception, for example. But in the end, before Justin Trudeau left, they only signed deals with British Columbia, Manitoba, the Yukon, and P.I. has a different pharmacare deal, which I think covers about 60% of medicines. and it was kind of run as a pilot program, but it was looped to that.

And they had $1.5 billion for this, 900 of which has been spent. After the election, Mark Carney's election, and some elections provincially, we had Newfoundland Labradoro say, hey, we would like to join this pharmacare plan. In Nova Scotia say, hey, we would like to join this pharmacare plan. But there was no movement over the summer.

And Prime Minister Carney was asked about this in September, and he said, we are going to offer basically the same deal, In the election platform, the liberals promised to safeguard pharmacare. They would not cut it, like they said, Pierre Qualiev would cut it. And he would offer the same deal to these provinces. But nothing has happened. Now, the health minister's office,

Marshall-Michet's office, says they are studying the rollout of the current deals and they're honoring current agreements. So although there's $600 million left in the pot, they don't want to expand that. There is no new money in the fiscal update or in last November's budget for pharmacare. So, Pharmacare is ending.

The government officials tell us that when a decision hasn't been made, you see dash, dash, dash in the budget. There are no dash dash dashes. Pharmacare, if you are one of the 17% of Canadians who have access to the federal farming care program through your province, get ready for it to end in 2029. That being said, I think with the outcry that this piece has caused, the government might be looking at making some changes. The big shocker I think for a lot of people was actually childcare because this was a big

program, lots of fanfare when it was announced. And one of the things that they, so it's kind of funded in different parts, but there's provincial agreements, some of which are like Ontario's and Alberta's are going to end next March, they need to be renegotiated. The government is committed to putting more, to putting money in the pot, but it's getting rid of an infrastructure fund. And childcare advocates tell me that basically there's not enough money. They're not increasing the amount enough to keep this program going. And we need more childcare spaces and the operational funding cannot be used to cover capital expenses because there's

not enough in that pot to even cover operational expenses. So they're very worried that basically the program is going to die a slow death. And then the other thing is on health care. The government is ending a bunch of these bilateral agreements that Justin Trudeau had negotiated with the provinces on home care, on long-term care, on mental health and addiction. And so while the government will continue to increase payments on health care, it's not going to grow by the same escalator. So now it grows 5% every year. It will start growing by 3% every year. And it's getting rid of these bilateral deals. So now you have a lot of people in the medical community who are like, whoa, we need this money. You know, seniors are, there are no fewer seniors.

healthcare systems are not in less of a crunch, and they're pointing out that there's an infrastructure fund in the budget that really just provides funding for like the equivalent of two hospitals, which the country needs more of. So you have a lot of liberal MPs who are actually, did not realize that some of the programs that they are knocking on the door as very proudly to sell may actually be in trouble. You know, I'm sure you've had to ask for the short form of that story.

I was like here with ready to give you some stats. Listen, I'm just kidding. One of the reasons I love you two guys is you don't leave anything under the table. It's all up there on top of the table when you give your outline of these situations. Rob, obviously, Althea's piece has caused a lot of discussion in Ottawa and a lot of it in the back rooms of the Liberal Party. What are you hearing? First of all, that it is that Althea story is having a fact. There was excellent journalism.

That there are fault lines emerging in the liberal caucus. And the question of whether or not the prime minister is really a progressive is one of those questions, fault lines that are being opened up. I'll come back to that in a second. I think part of the reason that that fault line is being opened up is because, there is another one. And a lot of people who think, who call themselves progressives, feel like they don't have access to the prime minister. And that, even in caucus, when they raise their concerns that the prime minister can be withering in response. And so they don't raise them.

And for the piece I did on the majority government for the economist, I mentioned this, an advisor to him said that he can be very tough on people who bring him views that he doesn't always agree with or he doesn't think are fully fully baked. And so people stop bringing them. And that's a danger for, I think, a prime minister. If he doesn't hear some dissent from within his own caucus, then he's only going to be surrounded by people who tell him what he wants to hear. I think that's a danger for a prime minister.

Now, on the question of whether or not he's a progressive, a lot of these people who call themselves progressives are looking at environmental policy as a test of whether or not the prime minister is really a progressive. Primarily, they're looking at the pipeline and whether or not he's going to approve a northern pipeline rather than a twinning of the TMX pipeline to the Barraud Inlet. For a lot of them, that might be a bridge too far, a northern pipeline, particularly if it doesn't have the approval of a substantial number of indigenous people of First Nations. And so that's the side of the progressives. So the reality is it's abundant by what we're seeing lately. That oil is going to be around for a long time. Security of supply has become paramount.

And security of supply, even within members of the liberal, caucus is supplanting sustainability. Why? Because Canadians are losing jobs, and it's now become evident that in many parts of the country, not just Alberta, economic survival versus climate change is a real debate. And by the way, there's a referendum coming in Alberta. We saw that with the certification, or looming certification of the signatures for a petition. calling for a referendum. So all of those questions are swirling around. And I think that if the prime

minister had a mechanism where he regularly met with MPs from his caucus, not in the caucus room, but in a setting the way other prime ministers have done, where once a month he might invite them for lunch to Rito Cottage or something like that, he might find that that might be useful. Apparently he's not doing that sort of thing. And MPs are having trouble meeting with them. And I think that's causing problems as well. I think he's meeting with some of them. I think there's more people that was. He agrees with. Yeah. Well, I think the ones he wants to buy, frankly, silence from, you know, I feel like a lot of, you know, we haven't had a cabinet shuffle in a while.

And we should. I think everybody outside and inside cabinet and caucus recognizes that there are some underperformers that should be replaced. But just like Justin Trudeau in the fall of 2024, kind of dangled a cabinet shuffle to keep the dissenters or the likely dissenters from agitating as like, well, you know, like it's just around the quarter, just around the quarter. you kind of get the sense of Mark Hardy's doing the same thing. And this tension is, I would say, building up in the liberal caucus,

that you kind of wonder, like, these people are going to explode if they're not in cabinet. But there are a lot of people who are posting, shall I say, about their meetings with the prime minister on social media. So you know that he is meeting with some people. Yeah, the reason why that explosion isn't going to have. happen. And this is from some people who are concerned, let's say, call them progressors, is because even they recognize this is a guy with an approval rating of 60% plus. Yeah. And how are you going to try to nudge a guy who has that kind of political muscle?

Clearly, Canadians, even if the support is aspirational, support Mark Carney in a huge way. but like a lot of Canadians, there are people in the Liberal Caucus waited for him to show a few cards. I mean, explode. Like, I think they will start speaking out in caucus, because to your point, a lot of them are not being as vocal as publicly in that room as they are being privately about things that bother them,

things that they're worried about, I would say. And I think the social spending is something that they were kind of not thinking about, and now they're thinking about it. The thing they have to keep in mind is it's only being a year. Like, how many shuffles are you going to have in a year? Well, he could have had one. He could have had, well, yeah, he's had these kind of minor fill-in holes in situations. But, you know, whether there's going to be a real shuffle, the best time usually is just before the summer break.

So new ministers have, you know, the summer at least to try and familiarize themselves with new portfolios. Let me just. We've had them in August. in the Trino era. That's true. Let me just add a final question on the pipeline situation. You know, maybe I'm naive. I am naive.

I'm especially naive when it comes to those, you know, pipeline issues. But it's always seemed to me like the Northern Route was always a fainth. It was never going to happen. I mean, there's just too much opposition to it. And the key to that opposition of the indigenous groups, not all of them, but certainly most of them, who were against that. idea. And it was just a matter of time before the twinning of the southern route, if you want to call it.

Tripling. It's already been twinned. You remember that thing that Justin Trudeau bought? Yeah, exactly. But adding another portion to it, which would, you know, extend its export value. But it's always seen to me that that was obviously going to be the route. It's just a matter of when that was going to happen. Am I being naive? Is there still any possibility at all of that northern route? I would say yes. I think the federal government is looking more favorably at a southern route because it also feels like it is the path of least resistance,

not just because of indigenous support. I mean, it would be less politically, costately. It would be, it would have more support internally as well, not just externally. But Daniel Smith seems adamant that she wants a northern route. But I would think a northern route would take much longer to actually get done than a southern route. I mean, I'm not a geological expert here, but just to think on the First Nations, the conflict that is likely there rise, the negotiations that will need to meet the judicial threshold. I think that that is quite something.

And they can't get around it with C5. So that's not something that they can carve out. C5 being the bill that allows them to move in on. To basically set aside some laws and set aside conditions. And yeah. Rob. And primarily they're the one that some progressive liberals are concerned about is the tanker ban. They fought for the tanker ban because,

they thought that that kind of pristine coastline would the threat would be too high with that kind of shipping through there you know it's interesting Mary Simon's time has come to an end now as Governor General is coming to an end people forget one of the reasons why she became Governor General when she was appointed there were blockades across the country First Nations people were actually holding up the economy of the country by blocking critical rail lines and other things. And so we forget that First Nations were frustrated as well

and had a direct impact on our economy. There is a concern that that could happen. Again, at the same time, we do have Albertans who are wondering whether or not the country still can work. Others outside of Alberta are wondering, can we do big things in Canada? And for good or for bad, and this troubles a lot of liberals. It troubles a lot of some of the liberals around the prime minister. The notion of a pipeline, particularly this kind of a pipeline,

has become the barometer as to whether or not Canada still functions as a country. before I would make that a barometer, I would ask private industry, are you prepared to put up your own money? Are you going to invest in this? Are you going to wait for the Canadian government to do it? I know what some in corporate Canada would say is, why would we put any of our own money in this when we've already seen cancellations of a pipeline? And you're mentioning potential indigenous blockades of this.

Why would we do it? but this for better or for worse has become some sort of standard, some sort of symbol, some sort of test for the prime minister, and it's a tough, tough spot for a Canadian prime minister to be in. Okay. We're going to leave it at that for this week. As you mentioned, and it may have already happened since we recorded today's reporter's notebook. They're supposedly today going to announce who the next government. Governor General will be.

I think both of you have the qualifications fluently. I was saying, I'll hear of Gigi, or she should have been at the MetGala last night. She should have been both places. Never, never. Well, we know you would be, Rob, if it was you. Anyway, we'll look forward to seeing who the next King's representative in Canada will be, the kind of person who fills in as an acting head of state. Among other things, as a governor general.

Thanks to Althea. Thanks to Rob. Great to talk to you both. And we will talk to you again in two weeks time. Bye for now. Bye, Peter. Bye, Rob. Thanks.