The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts #7 - Has the Canada-US Relationship Become a "very unstable molecule"?

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Have we grown accustomed to taking the Canada-US relationship for granted? If so, is it time to rethink that assumption? Former Trudeau principal secretary Gerald Butts and former Harper cabinet minister meet again for Moore-Butts #7 and there's lots to think about after hearing their take on the old "best friends" scenario.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's the More Butts Conversation number 7. They're back, and they've got lots to say this week. And hello there, welcome to another new week right here on the bridge. Peter Mansbridge here and more butts, number seven, coming right up. Good conversation about the relationship between Canada and the U.S. Been lots of talk about that recently with the visit by Joe Biden to Ottawa, the special conference that took place in Canada just in the last couple of weeks, promoted by the Eurasia Group, of which Jerry Butts,

by the way, is a vice chairman of the Eurasia Group and had some of the top names in Canada-US relations at that conference. So a lot of discussion about where is the relationship right now and are we in some ways perhaps approaching a critical point in that relationship? We'll have a good conversation on that. But just before we get to it, I got to tell you something that happened last week. On your turn, I don't think this has ever happened before in the three-year history of this program. As you know, I read your letters. I read many of them on air, excerpts from them,

and I respond if there are questions, or I just let them hang there. Because they're pretty good comments, all of them. So this letter turns up last week from Ian Hamburg in Brandon, Manitoba. And that's as far as I got when I mentioned the letter. Because I got attracted to the, wow, he's from Brandon. I used to live in Brandon. The next thing I knew, I was telling stories about Brandon, Manitoba. I only lived there for a couple of months.

It was back in 1967. But it was a memorable couple of months for me, and I wanted to share the story. And then when I finished it, I moved on to the next letter. So I never read anything from Ian. Never share the story. And then when I finished it, I moved on to the next letter. So I never read anything from Ian. Never told his story. Until on the weekend, I get this note from Darrell Wigg in Crow's Nest Pass, Alberta.

Never lived there, but sure talked about Crow's Nest Pass many, many times over the years in the news business. But Daryl writes, very short note, I wonder what Ian Hamburg of Brandon, Manitoba wrote about. He said, I'm going, what's he talking about? And then I checked the podcast, and sure enough i never read ian's note so i wrote to ian and i apologized to him and uh promised i would read his note today and i am this is what he said i listened to your

podcast for the past two years and enjoyed it immensely. Today's podcast, April 5th, he was referring to, left me feeling depressed. I too watched the 60-minute interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene and was appalled. Is there no media organization left with the intestinal fortitude to call out these people in positions of power when they spew vitriol and misinformation? Well, you know, the debate rages on about that 16 Minutes interview and were they trying to do that actual fact, trying to call it out by airing it.

I don't know. Some people feel they totally sucked in and just moved the vitriol and misinformation along, while others say, yeah, they called it out by doing it. So I don't know, Ian, where, clearly, we know where you stand on that, and I had my difficulties with that interview as well. It wasn't what I expected.

Anyway, I wrote to Ian, apologized. He accepted the apology, and then he came back with another letter, which I'll briefly read now because it's actually about Brandon. Further to your reminiscence of your time spent in Brandon, Manitoba, I can add further information. Rivers, Manitoba, operated as a training base for air, army, and navigation personnel, and in 1947-48 was the largest air training base in North America, with runways that could support

commercial aircraft. In 1947, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, which to a young lad in school caused a lot of excitement. In 48, I was in grade three, and we were accustomed to aircraft flying at great rates of speed over our small hamlet 50 kilometers northwest of rivers. One day at morning recess, we heard an aircraft flying very fast overhead. Suddenly there was a loud bang and an explosion with a fireball, plumes of smoke some distance to the west of the town. Debris was scattered over a large area, and I can recall military officials visiting our farm to request of my father to gather any remnants and return them.

Even later, I recall finding pieces of aluminum from the fuselage hidden in the bushes in the cow pasture. Exciting times with the big war over, but not the memories. Thanks, Ian. And there you got two letters for the price of one. A little late, but nevertheless, you got them. Anyway, thank you. Much appreciated.

All right, let's move on to the main purpose of today, which is the More Buts Conversation number seven. And this one deals with that relationship between Canada and the U.S. A quick reminder, Jerry Butts was the former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau when he became prime minister. He's now the vice chair of the Eurasia Group. James Moore, former conservative cabinet minister. A number of portfolios including Minister of Industry.

He's now the Senior Business Advisor to the Dentons Group, based in Vancouver. So let's get at it. Good conversation here, as they always are, with James Moore and Jerry Butts. Now, I know we're all different ages, and I've got the highest number, but if there's one thing that we probably all can identify with, it's those times when we were in grade school when we'd talk about Canada,

U.S., and it was always the longest undefended border in the world and best of friends, number one trading partners, all that stuff. Now, those cliches are still basically true. But the relationship itself, how would you describe it today compared with those times when we talked about it when we were in school james good like good there are times where it's excellent but it's good it's transactional i think the um the donald trump threat to nafta is his i think genuine threat to abrogate nafta and and throw the relationship under the bus,

I think, stirred up sort of an awakening of the importance of the transactional nature of the relationship. And I think that's been good, I think, for a very long time after the 08 economic recession, after the stresses between the Canada-US relationship over, you know, going all the way back to Ronald Reagan and the Cold War, George W. Bush, and some issues with, I think, Barack Obama and differences, for example, with the Harper government on some issues. There have been some stresses over time, but we kind of got through them. And I think Donald Trump threatening to tear up the relationship made a lot of people who allowed the relationship to be taken for granted to no longer do that. And I think that's appropriate. With regard to Joe Biden and his recent visit to Canada, you know, President Biden is like all American presidents are are isolationists and and so on.

I mean, they have their own way of presenting it. Donald Trump was a blustery blowhard who did threaten to abrogate NAFTA. But in the end, his administration was incompetent and dysfunctional and incapable of doing 5% of what his rhetoric demanded and expected. President Biden is disarming because of his nature, his presentation, his, you know, get along with kind of nature and his age, and he seems unthreatening. But the reality is, he's a lot more cagey, and the people around him are a lot more forceful in an actual practical agenda that does threaten, I think, a lot of Canada's longstanding access to the American marketplace, whether it's the Inflation View Act or the way in which he's approaching procurement policies and climate change by shutting down Keystone XL Pipeline,

Line 5 and other things, that he's a different kind of a threat. So the relationship is good because we can talk and the relationship is better understood on a transactional basis. But it's always, I think, under threat because small movements by America have deep and lasting consequence to the regional nature of the Canadian economy and our north-south trade relationships that exist in different ways in different parts of the country, east and west. You know, it's like that old saying that Pierre Trudeau, it's like a mouse sleeping next to an elephant, right? The slightest little twitch on the elephant, things can be very difficult for the mouse.

Terry, how do you see it? I generally agree with James. I think it's in pretty good shape, and I think it's in better shape than people, dare I say it, Peter, of your generation, not necessarily you yourself, but thought it might be in the aftermath of the economic integration that was inevitably, it was the design of the free trade agreement back in 1988. I remember writing in a Nova Scotia essay contest in grade 11 at the ripe old age of, grade 12 at the ripe old age of 17 about what might happen to Canada after the free trade agreement. And I think that the fear at the time was that the economic integration that was intended to come along with the agreement would

in some way undermine our own sense of our national identity. And I think the opposite has happened, frankly. I think that Canadians are much more confident as Canadians than they were when I was a kid. I think that we have a better sense of ourselves and notwithstanding the constant politicization of national unity and regionalization as an issue. I think that most people are very comfortable with their country and most people have a better sense of what it means to be Canadian, not just in distinction to the United States, but in its own right. And I think that that's the key point here, right? That the old line, I can't remember which Canadian scholar said this in the 1960s, but that we were our our national identity was a negative definition that we were not Americans. Right. And I just don't I don't think most Canadians see it that way anymore.

So I think the relationship has matured. It's still definitional politically for whomever is in power at the time. But we don't have this undertow of anti-Americanism just for the sake of being anti-American, which makes it difficult for political leaders of different parties to stake out reasonable positions on economic and security matters. We may not be anti-American. I agree with you. I don't think we are anti-American, but there are a lot of Canadians who go, I really don't want to be like them and they're talking about that today you know yeah what we've witnessed you know James referred to the Trump era but some of that is still around some of it is still very much around and then there's the whole guns issue and abortion and you name it and so where's the line between being anti-american and being

i don't want to be like that we've got to make sure we we stay different from that where were the lines oh sorry peter i i i think that's a hard one to draw and it's almost issues based at one level but on another it's almost metaphysical it's it's uh to borrow an americanism i don't know what american is but i know it when i see it right and uh thank god we don't have school shootings and we're not fighting to disempower 50 of the population uh from having control over their own bodies and all these things. And I think that there is an undercurrent of fear that if, and I know you want to get into this later in the podcast, but if America goes badly sideways, what does that mean for Canada? And that's something we need to be thinking about a lot in this country.

One thing to think about the difference between canadian american politics is that you know for example um if if justin trudeau has a majority government or even a minority that's locked in with the ndp and he decides he's going to present a list to parliament of 50 different kinds of firearms and he's going to switch them from being restricted to prohibited, and basically, you can't transfer them, effectively making, you know, 90% of guns illegal for private possession in Canada. If he proposes that, that's going to happen. And there can be a lot of noise about it and debate about it and protest about it. But that's going to happen. the united states gary dewar former ambassador in washington he used to say america is an amazing country it is a can-do country they put people on the moon they can you know technologically scientific discovery

business enterprise capitalism america is a can-do country but they're a can't do government because the system of checks and balances and all that so as a because when in canada if you have a majority government or even a really functional minority government if the prime minister says they're going to do something it's it's going to happen in some form pretty close to what's being rhetorically presented in the united states that is not the case so because that is not the case. So because that's not the case, the political actors have to dial the rhetoric to 12 in order to convince those voting cohorts that they really believe in this, that I'm really on your side, that I believe that firearms ownership is so important that I'm going to make sure that my Christmas card, every member of my family, even the five-year-olds are holding some kind of a firearm. So you really know I'm with you. And so, and therefore the culture around the issues and the cultural divide and the tribalism of politics gets more divided because the rhetoric gets so high. And that

if you're not flexing the right symbolism around the issue, then you really don't believe. Whereas in Canada, if you present something, it's going to happen. Almost every provincial legislature through the sweep of Canadian history is a majority government because most provinces are, it's a two-party system. And almost every election therefore results in a majority mandate. And federally in Canada, the prime minister wields a lot of power. So the differences in American politics blow up in the media and the business around media and the business around the exploitation of the cultural divide and the tribalism around politics is out of control. But if you actually

look at the shifts in policy, nothing really changes, even after Sandy Hook, even after Columbine, even after the Pulse nightclub, and we're talking about guns here as an obvious prime example. So therefore, the divides in America are culturally very, very deep, and you can't talk about politics as much as you can't talk about religion, or you can't talk about sexual orientation amongst different family members, and these kinds of divides that are really tough and sensitive to broach. But it's a fallout from a political system that is, in a lot of ways, incapable of driving towards any kind of reconciliation.

Do those kind of differences, I mean, do they affect the relationship? I mean, it's pretty clear, the differences you're talking about between our systems. But does that affect the relationship at all? I think in some ways, if you're expecting some kind of action and coordinated response, and then when America does align and does have consensus on something, then Canada, we better do this. 9-11 happens, right? So, America shuts down its airspace and says to Canada, if you want to fly back into Reagan National Airport, you have to have air marshals on your planes. We don't have air marshals. What is that?

How do you do it? Well, they have to air marshal has to be in the plane and they have to have a firearm. OK, well, I guess we're doing that now. And so David Colnett, then the transport. So, OK, here we go. Or the United States decides that they're going to bail out Ford and they're going to bail out GM. And if Canada isn't part of that package, then Canada, you're going to lose your Ford and GM footprint in Canada because the, the large asset we'll put in the United States will repatriate these, these, uh, this auto building capacity in North America back into the United States.

We're going to put the money on the table. We're going to make America great again. Uh, look, okay. So Canada, we have to come together with a package. Stephen Harper, Jim Flaherty, neither of them got into office to do a massive corporate welfare bailout, but here we are. So if America does snap and get into alignment, Afghanistan, Iraq war, for example, so contemporary examples, Canada, we better get going. So we can sort of sit back and look at the example that I just gave about the the incapacity for america to act often on a lot of big sweeping domestic issues but if america decides to align and focus and go uh and if you're if you're not with them you're against them and they have that kind of mentality then then we have to as canadians be very mindful of that relationship and that expectation and recognize what it is that we're prepared to tolerate.

And Prime Minister Khrushchev said no to the Iraq war. You know, we've Stephen Harper had his moments of inflection with Barack Obama. But but it's important that you kind of recognize that, you know, when that pressure does align, that Americans do recognize who their friends are. How do you see it, Jerry, on that point? Well, I think if smart Canadian governments can use it to their advantage, right, that it's pretty clear that, for instance, the current government has wanted to do a lot more on climate change and on creating a favorable policy for decarbonization and the economic

growth that goes along with it. But they had a hard time doing it in the absence of strong policy in the United States. And part of that was, in my view, internal barriers within the Canadian system of government. But as soon as the inflation reduction action as soon as the reflation inflation reduction act happened say that 10 times fast the department of finance in canada suddenly became environmentalists right and it wasn't because they uh got religion on climate change it's because they saw a continental competitive imperative for creating that policy. The United States could have chosen to, and they did partially, I guess, redesign their policy on the semiconductor industry, and we would have had a similar kind of reaction from the Department of Finance.

And then there's another example that I was personally involved with, so I can speak to in the run-up to the midterms in 2018, it happened to coincide with a real inflection point in the NAFTA negotiations. And the United States was trying to make us believe that they would go to Congress with an agreement that didn't include us. And we just didn't believe them. we thought they wanted to rush an agreement to the existing congress because bob leitheiser didn't know what was going to happen in the midterms or at least he was negatively predisposed to what was going to happen in the midterms and he didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of democrats right that was the u.s trade negotiator right yes the the the nafta 2.0 i still refuse to use that alphabet soup that the Trump administration insisted on.

So we knew that they had to get this deal done because they didn't want to go and deal with the new Congress. And that helped us shape the negotiations to come to a head at the end of September in 2018. And I think that all worked out in the country's favor, thanks to broad cross-partisan support from people like James. But had the Trump administration been able to rely on a favorable Congress for the next two years, who knows how that negotiation might have dragged out. Can either one of you share me a story before we move on here a bit? Share me a story about what it was like inside, whether, James, it was something on one of your bilateral negotiations or discussions with your counterpart in the States when you were

industry minister or, Jerry, when you were at the White House with Obama first and then Trump and his senior people. Can you share anything that talks about kind of that understanding of the relationship between the two? More, I guess, from what you witness from the Americans. I mean, we all know about how we seem to know a lot about the States and not so much Americans know about us, although I don't think that's necessarily true all the time. Sometimes we can be surprised about that, just how much they know about us. But in terms of anecdotal, something, can you leave us with

something on that relationship? Well, if I can go first here, James, I would say probably the most bizarre, surreal experience of my professional life was going from dealing with the Obama White House, Dennis McDonough and his team, and then the Trump White House. And it was, maybe I can share the story. I hope I'm not telling tales out of school,

because we had very recently been, Peter's like, tell those tales. We had very recently been to the Obama White House. I can't remember why. Maybe it was the Nuclear Security Summit. Anyway, it doesn't really matter why we were there. But the Obama White House was as you would picture it. You know, everything was tidy. There was vintage American art on the walls. It kind of looked like the set of the West Wing, right? And then right after, I think we were one of the first foreign governments to go to the Trump White House. And the first thing I noticed was everywhere there used to be a painting, there was now a television set. And the television set was on 24 hours a day on cable news. And they had all of the cable news channels, not just Fox.

Even the chief of staff's office, which under McDonough had been pretty staid and it kind of looked like Leo McGarry's office, was just all TVs wall to wall. And they were constantly on edge about what the president was going to tweet five minutes from every five minutes to the next. So it really can change. But in my experience, the top of the house, and it doesn't matter the party. And by that, I don't necessarily mean the president. I mean, a lot of the senior staff and in particular in the security services the nsa they really understand canada they know a lot more about canada we can be self-loathing as canadians and think that we're not worth the americans time they don't think that way especially on the security side they know a lot about our country and they make it their business to know. James?

I mean, you know, it's very true. The United States, they look at Canada at its most base element to be teared down all of the veneer and all of the dressing and all that. And you look at just what they see as Canada fundamentally. They see us as a Five Eyes partner who is internal partner on information sharing for national security. We're a member of the G7. We are an expected member and ally at the UN on global national security issues. And we're 35 million, 40 million people of middle-class incomes who can buy a lot of American stuff. And so that those are the key pillars, and they don't want those things threatened. The NAFTA negotiations pivoted really,

as Jerry described, as we're going towards the midterms on a number of fronts, including when in the United States, in a lot of swing states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, when those states and the agricultural sector said, wait a minute, we're going to abrogate and throw away NAFTA? The stuff that we farm and we grow, we sell to Canada. What are you talking about? And so in those swing states, the pressure came on and it pushed them back. On the anecdote side about the relationship and how, frankly, sensitive it can be when you have presidents who are really popular or really unpopular i just i remember when when when we were in government when president george w bush uh you know it's funny as distance goes you kind of forget but he he was as as unpopular hot

negative in canada as any president and he had the famous press conference with a prime minister harper and he referred to him as steve and i remember we said steve call him steve i've known i've known stephen harper since 1992 and laureen harper doesn't call him steve his his garage band nobody calls him steve george w bush called him steve and then now that's ge George Bush's folksy nature of just sort of you know demonstrating to the world that we really do kind of have a bond and all of this but he was that was just George W Bush making it up but we're just like holy shit how are we going to convince people that these guys are best friends like how do we and of course it was sort of slowly but that that that existed as a meme for a couple of years right and now that was early social media so it

didn't quite get weaponized as it might today but that clip lived for a couple of years right and now that was early social media so it didn't quite get weaponized as it might today but that clip lived for a while we're just like we're trying to sort of distinguish ourselves that prime minister chrysanthin said no to the iraq war we're going to reconcile and recognize that but we do support the war on terror we are in afghanistan you know we we have our distinguishing features and all that but we're a canadian and we're not sort of a kissing cousins and all but he called him steve okay well that with with one with one word we have to sort of revamp our approach to convincing canadians otherwise so there you are well needless to say we had the same problem with trump right it was uh i don't think it was the same problem but well they have to have a constructive, but they can't be seen to be buddy-buddy, right? Yeah, exactly.

And that was difficult because Trump was, he was so many things, but amongst them was, he was black and white on whether you were friend or foe. And usually people who thought they were friends became foes anyway, so it didn't really matter. But we were very keen. It all kind of got crystallized around the quote unquote handshake capital H on the first visit to the White House. But we were very worried that we were going to have a Steve moment. In fact, I think somebody might have on a serious point on all this, like, you know, fundamentals beyond sort of left-right typical debates, and therefore the Canada-U.S. relationship, to me, is sort of, is beyond partisanship. And when I thought about early Justin Trudeau, you know, elected in 2015, 2016, Donald Trump, the NAFTA renegotiations begin in the fall of 17, 18, going forward. At that time, in my view, when Justin Trudeau was at the peak of his powers in terms of uh reputational Equity in the United States of being sort of the young cool guy winner um in my view is someone who wanted a prime minister to defend NAFTA as it was and as it

is and it's and then the virtues that do exist within it Donald Trump seeing Justin Trudeau as a winner I mean Donald Trump can get along with Kim Jong-un. He can get along with Vladimir Putin. He can get along with some Republicans and some Democrats. I mean, he was at Hillary Clinton's. I mean, Donald Trump didn't really care about left or right. Donald Trump cares about winners and losers. And if you're seen as a winner, that's an asset. So for Canada and for even my conservative fellow travelers, like a lot of us had to recognize that at this window of time and moment, whether you like Justin Trudeau or you don't, at that window in time when he was at the peak of his popularity in the United States and media and on the cover of the Rolling Stone, I think that was a net asset for Canada in terms of Donald Trump wanting to be associated with a winner. And if there was some way in which we could snooker an agreement that was as close to the original NAFTA underneath that sort of dynamic, that would be good for Canada. And we should just recognize what set our advantage for what it is. Yeah. And I wish we'd have been able to invest it in something other than maintaining the status quo, right? That we

had to spend all of that political capital in the United States on pretty much, I used to joke during the NAFTA negotiations that never have so many people worked so hard to make nothing happen, which was a basic strategy through NAFTA. And it worked in the end, but I wish we'd been able to use it to build something rather than just defend something. But the biggest challenge to NAFTA, and we can get to it about sort of looking ahead, is actually the new NAFTA. It does expire in 2026. And there are some real challenges in the Canada-US-Mexico relationship on the horizon.

Okay, we got to take our break, but I still can't get over the Steve moment. And I keep saying to myself, what was that next cabinet meeting like? Were you all sitting around the table waiting for the big guy to come in the room and asking each other, who's going to call him Steve? No, it wasn't quite like that, but it's just kind of, that's not his name. And George W. Bush sort of imposed that on us. So you kind of instantly knew that there was a sort of a reset in terms of perception of things. And it's like, all right, well, now we have to find ways to distinguish. But we saw it.

The tape exists, said the detractors. Okay, so here we go. I understand all that. I still have this image because nobody would have called him Steve at that time in Ottawa, right? Nobody would have called him that, as you said, his wife. I count him as a good friend of mine, and we talk, I think, pretty regularly. And as I said, I've known him for 30 years. I've never called him Steve.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about this sideways issue that Jerry mentioned a little while ago. What if things go sideways? Well, first of all, we're going to describe what sideways is or means and then talk about what impact that could have. But first of all, quick break. And welcome back. You are listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode.

It's a Moore-Butts conversation. That means James Moore and Jerry Butts, former Conservative Cabinet Minister James Moore, former Principal Secretary to Justin Trudeau and Jerry Butts. What we try to do here is get that kind of non-partisan look at the inside of the political sausage, if you will, and how it all works. And today's conversation is all about the Canada-US relationship. Jerry, you mentioned, I don't know, 15 minutes ago, you said this all works as long as things don't go sideways. What's sideways? a generally recognized breakdown in the rule of law in the United States where it becomes fundamentally ungovernable because half the country won't submit to the authority of the other half.

And that could take its form in many things. I think we're seeing the precepts of it in the abortion issue, for instance. I think that there were a lot of people who thought who who, as to quote George W. Bush, misunderstood how salient a political issue this would be. And it's become a live wire and races as far flung as the midterm midterms in general and the Wisconsin court elections, right? So I think I'm worried that we end up with a situation where the United States is governed by people who fundamentally don't share the values of your average Canadian. And that's going to be a difficult relationship to manage. It was very difficult in the run-up to Donald Trump's election.

You'll all remember when the polls were neck and neck and people were constantly hectoring the liberal government in Ottawa to take a strong position against something Donald Trump had said that morning, whether it was perceived to be or it was in fact misogynist or anti-immigrant or anti-trade or anti-anything, anti-climate change, etc. It's one thing when that's happening on the campaign trail. It's another thing when it's coming at you as actual policy from your most important and largest trading partner. And I think practically speaking, I seriously thought that we might face a migration problem from the United States after Donald Trump

was elected. I didn't think it would be manifest itself in one place in Quebec, and it'd be basically a pass through from other countries. But that 9000 kilometer border is a real challenge if a lot of people want to leave either of the two countries for the other do you think former i mean i have a few anxieties a former public safety minister in our government you know he's he had he had multiple portfolios one of them was public safety minister for a while and he said he hated the portfolio because 24-7 he said you know there could be an issue at a border that would be weaponized in american media in a way that would close the border and threaten you know one in four canadian jobs that's dependent on trade with the united states and he said you know the the

the issues that we deal with in terms of threats, asymmetric, digital, threats of terrorism, sleeper cells, and all these things, they're real and they're not small. And it doesn't take much for things to get out of control rhetorically and for an isolated America to push back and build a wall against its two neighbors. And that's a real threat.

And that's kind of an ongoing dynamic, as Jerry described, you know, the nature on that front. I mean, I worry as an observer of American politics, the things that Jerry described as well. And there was a recent example that sort of, to me, drew a real clear distinction about the divisions in American politics that make me anxious,

which was the Kyle Rittenhouse case in his shooting right and I remember I remember actually having a project which was I saw on Twitter that Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in the shootings and then I and then I deliberately went to Fox News and watched how they covered it because there's video of what he did we know what he did the testimony was was broadcast in the courtroom and everybody saw it and all of its inflection points and all that and here was what fox news said about it and here's what msnbc said about it and so with the exact same facts the two sides around with it and had a completely different narrative of a freedom fighter was exonerated versus a murderer was left free uh and and in all the

associated conversations that was really sort of disturbing in in how people could take the exact same facts and run with them in in different directions on on a more tectonic level though um is is the i'm really worried about mexico and what's happening south of the u.s border because it's not just a canada u.s relationship relationship, it's the North American platform. When Brian Mulroney decided with President George H.W. Bush to create the free trade agreement Canada-U.S., Prime Minister Kreitjian saw virtue in extending that to NAFTA and bringing Mexico into the relationship, which at the time, of course, made a lot of sense. Mexico was, we want Mexico to become a middle class country, want it to not have a boom and bust cycles that create instability in Mexico, which create immigration problems with the United States, which result in

necessity of bailouts over years. So you want Mexico to be stabilized. So bring them as part of NAFTA. And for Canada, if you had a two person relationship opposite the United States, that would maybe give us some leverage in the go forward basis with regard to NAFTA. Good virtues bring them into NAFTA, and so we have. But I think over time, if you look at Lopez Obrador in Mexico and some of the anti-democratic things that are happening in Mexico, you look at some of the rhetoric in the United States about the need for a wall and the invasion and the jistic and and xenophobic language that's associated with that and the racial tensions that and then in mexico you see china moving in and now the most the busiest border crossing between uh the united states and china is through laredo mexico and not

through la long beach port and and the tensions between america and mexico could threaten canada's relationship with the united states you could imagine a relationship with Canada and the United States, but it didn't include Mexico, where you could have more labor mobility. That's not possible with Mexico as part of the agreement. You could see a Canada-U.S. relationship that could have a continental or near-continental price on carbon that you can't do with Mexico. And so I worry that Mexico threatens the NAFTA-USMCA relationship in a way that Canada could be forced to look at a bilateral relationship and not have the leverage to get something meaningful for our country. So as the new NAFTA expires in 2026, which is to say very soon, after that, it goes to a year-by-year agreement. And if you have a year by year agreement, and people are making investment decisions about where they want to park their capital in North America, after the investment, the Inflation Reduction Act of the United States, with more competitive tax rates in the United States, Canada becomes a very unattractive relative place to invest compared to the United

States. That's a this is all a real threat. And so so I so I worry about the Canada US relationship. Yes, on the social side that mentioned Rittenhouse the stuff that jerry talks about all that but but there's a there's a there's a you know a meteor that's heading towards the relationship in 2026 that i don't think is being talked about or taken seriously enough okay um well let me close on this question then because you've both described and as james just mentioned on different levels of different issues but you know there are always threats to relationships that's a you know that's fairly common but the the words you're using both of you to describe what we may be going through right now or approaching approaching, it's pretty scary stuff from the meteor on trade to the breakdown in the rule of law in the United States. I mean, are we at a point we've never seen before in our lifetimes

on this relationship? Absolutely. I think the United States is, and you have to start from the point that the United States, like all great powers, is fundamentally self-interested to the point of being narcissistic, right? They recognize that they have an important relationship with Canada, but make no mistake, they are the subject and we are the object. They see us as an asset first and foremost. And for all of the reasons that James described earlier, they recognize our system of government as one that resembles their own. They like having a stable, prosperous democracy on their border. They like having an accepting market for 40 million people for their goods and services. But they think of themselves as the policymaker, and they think of us as the policymaker and they think of us as the policy

taker, right? As a quite famous American politico whose identity I will protect needled me many years ago when I asked him what do serious Americans really think about Canada? He said, four words, energy now, water later. That's what he said. And I think that while I think that's a blunt statement of fact, it's something that Canadians should orient themselves around. And it's not since the 1860s, Peter, or 1850s, where we've seen the United States so divided against itself, as President Lincoln famously said, that certainly in my lifetime, there's never been a moment where most Americans would think of other Americans as greater enemies than anybody external to the United States of America itself. And we've got to reckon with that because it's a structural problem that's been weaponized and accelerated by modern communications technology that has helped political parties that spend billions of dollars hardening the carapace around their tribe do that at an incredibly advanced rate and way.

And there's no solution on the horizon for it. So I think you put that together with the proximate danger of the NAFTA renegotiation that, as James rightly points out, is coming at us a lot faster than people want to recognize. And we've got all the makings of a very unstable molecule, right? It could blow up in a hundred different ways that I could think of. James, you get the last word. I love the United States of America historically and what it's done. I mean, I'm a big fan of the United States. And so, you know, we as Canadians, you know, I don't mean for anything that I've said to be preachy. What America has done in the world, fighting world wars, you know, a force for democracy, all these things.

I mean, which is why the stresses that I see in the United States make me strategically anxious for Canada for the reasons we've talked about. But also, in a lot of ways, very sad. I think the three big moments of American division, Civil War, Vietnam War, and in today, I think sort of are sort of the three that stick out. And what's problematic about today is that people just really seem to be breaking into sort of silos and echo chambers of media, gerrymandering and redistricting of congressional districts means that over 80, 90% of members of Congress aren't even challenged for their re-election so you can't get the sort of expression of division through political processes which is bad and when it does happen and it doesn't go in your direction can we

have the peaceful transition of power and have it be recognized uh you know campaign finance rules cause greater divisions of things single issue primary voters that are that are that overweight things relative to what the general population wants I mean all these things cause I think real tensions in the United States that that I think is is really kind of scary and while while the United States is is becoming insular and divided about Trump or and about you know single issues with abortion or guns or or or other things um while they do that the rest of the world isn't sleeping China is moving the one belt one road moves forward the um the threats to Taiwan are real the the collection of of rare and important minerals across Africa is happening Vladimir Putin is becoming more dangerous and more

belligerent bad actors around the world are becoming more dangerous and more threatening so as america sort of gets sucked into this self um you know self-divisiveness around politics uh it doesn't come at a consequence just to the united states but also to the rest of the world and then that i think that is really uh you know really tragic and really scary about what can happen when it, well, um, this America, the great superpower winner of the cold war war on terror becomes completely isolated and sort of walls off from the rest of the world, the rest of the world, and just sit around and let that happen.

Bad actors will rise and strength will, will, will win. And that's a very scary prospect about that realignment as well. Great conversation, gentlemen, uh, really appreciate it from, uh, from both of you, And that's a very scary prospect about that realignment as well. Great conversation, gentlemen. Really appreciate it from both of you giving us lots to think about as we move forward. We'll get together again one more time before the summer break.

Not sure what we'll talk about, but I'm sure we'll find something. So thank you, James. Thank you, Jerry. Great to talk to you both. Always a pleasure, Peter. Thank you. Wow. So there you, James. Thank you, Jerry. Great to talk to you both. Always a pleasure, Peter. Thank you. Wow. So there you go.

It's a good relationship to it's a very unstable molecule. Quite the conversation over the last 45 minutes or so, and I'm glad we've had it. And as with all the more butts conversations, they leave you, as I said, with lots to think about. Okay, well, we're going to keep thinking as the week goes on. Tomorrow, it's Brian Stewart's bye, with more fallout still from those leaked Pentagon papers.

And as a result, lots to talk about on it. You know, the impact those leaks have had in terms of the world's situation as it relates to Ukraine and what it means on the ground in the Ukraine-Russia war. Wednesday, it's Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. Bruce Anderson will be by. Thursday, your your turn More letters We'll try to read more than just where they're coming from

And The Random Ranter Is back again Lots of nice comments about his commentary last week Friday Good talk Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson So that's your look ahead to the week ahead.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.