The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts Encore - Why Are Pipelines So Hard To Build?

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

Encore Episode. Alberta and Canada seem close to a deal on a memorandum of understanding about a new pipeline to the west coast. But now how do you make that MOU become a real finalized deal because let's face it, pipelines in Canada are hard to build. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, and welcome to our holiday season, encore episodes of the bridge. All of us here at the bridge send you the best for the holidays. So enjoy now one of our episodes a second time from the fall of 2025. Pipelines. What is it that makes them so hard to build in Canada? That's the story today. For more buts conversation number 28, that's coming right. up and hello there welcome to Tuesday welcome to another episode of the bridge and this one being this

Tuesday it's a more butts conversation you may recall a couple weeks ago I said that was the more butts conversation number 28 I was wrong it was actually 27 so Today's 28, if that makes sense. More about's conversation number 28, and it's about pipelines. And what a time to be bringing this to you? Because it's quite the week on the pipeline story. We have more buts today. We have the news that came out, broken by CBC last, yesterday,

that a memorandum of understanding has been agreed to by Alberta and Ottawa, by Premier, Smith and Prime Minister Carney, and that will be announced on Thursday. Some of the details are starting to come out, but the basic idea here is that the two governments are kind of hand-in-hand on an MOU, a memorandum of understanding, to move forward on a pipeline to the West Coast from Alberta. We'll see about exactly how that's going to unfold. But the topic for conversation today is why is it so hard to build pipelines in Canada?

We're going to get to that with more butts in a second. A reminder about our question of the week for your turn on Thursday, which is also about pipelines. And to be specific, here's the question we're asking. under what conditions, if any, would you want Mark Carney to agree in principle to a new oil pipeline from Alberta to Northern British Columbia? Okay? What conditions, if any, would you want Mark Carney to agree in principle to a new oil pipeline

from Alberta to Northern British Columbia? That's the question. Quickly run through it here. You send it to the Mansport. Podcast at gmail.com, 75 words or fewer. That's a hard 75 words or fewer. You include your name and your full name and the location you're writing from. And you have it to us before 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, tomorrow. Okay? So I look forward to reading your answers to that question.

All right, pipelines. Let's get at it. With the Moore-Buts conversation, James Moore, the former cabinet minister with Stephen Harper, and Jerry Butts, the former principal advisor to Justin Trudeau

as prime minister after the 2015 election. So here we go. More Butts conversation number 28. All right, gentlemen. Tomlin, let's start on pipelines. And let me just, you know, set the stage a little bit. We've got a lot of pipelines in Canada.

840,000 kilometers of pipelines. Some are federally regulated. I think the rule of thumb is if it crosses a provincial boundary between provinces, then federally regulated pipelines. If it's all within a province, it's provincially regulated. it. But if you look at a pipeline map, it's easy to find them. Just, you know, Google pipelines in Canada. And you'll see where they all are. I mean, there's a lot of them. And they're, you know, they're owned by different people and they go in different directions and it's all very interesting. However, having said

all that, you would think, oh, well, it's obviously easy to get a pipeline in Canada. It's hard to do pipelines in Canada. Jerry, you started us this week. Why is it hard to do pipelines in Canada. Well, I think it's important to start, Peter, by indicate just, you know, kind of seconding what you just said, it's always been hard, right? When you told me you wanted us to talk about this topic this week, I spent a little time going through old notes from my personal experience on these issues over the years, but also, more importantly, going through the history

of them writ large. And of course, very few of your listeners will have personal experience to remember the personal experience to remember this. But one of the biggest, most contentious debates in the history of the Canadian Parliament, which featured the end of C.D. Howe's career, the collapse of eventually the San Laurent government and the replacement of it with the Diefenbaker government. Even an MP died in the middle of the debate was the original. trans-Canada pipeline, right? It was at that point probably the most fiery,

the fieriest, there's a difficult word to say ten times fast, and most contentious, fractious debate that we've ever had. And I think the reason for that, and the reason they remain so these days, to this day, is it's very difficult to extract a resource in one place, transport it across a bunch of different jurisdictions, all of whom will argue whether the benefits of that transport outweigh the cost, and then have exit finally from yet a third place where they will have their own considerations about whether,

in the case of the 1956 debate, whether Toronto and Montreal were getting a fair price for Alberta gas. In that case, by the way, British Columbia was up in arms because it was clear that the federal parliament didn't care about what was west of Alberta. It only cared about what was east of Alberta, and they wanted a pipeline. So these issues change, I think, in their specific application over time. But the general problem is it's really difficult to dig stuff up in one place, transport it through a bunch of other places, and then see its benefit in yet a third.

Just before I go to James, just, you know, I'm glad you mentioned 56. and the whole pipeline debate at that time because among, you know, of all the things that were being discussed and argued at that point, I don't think indigenous issues surrounding the pipeline was part of it, nor were environmental issues. No, but sovereignty issues sure were. Because what is now known as TC Energy was founded

to build that pipeline. And the big debate at the time, and the progressive conservatives under Defenbaker, made common cause with the CCF, which was the precursor to the NDP, making the argument that this should be a fully Canadian pipeline. And first, there was a debate about whether the route should go through the United States once it passed Thunder Bay. And second, whether Americans should be allowed to be part of the governance in the investment consortium that build the pipeline in the first place.

And the liberals were, they said no to the former. They didn't want it being rooted through the United States. States, but they said yes to the latter, and it almost brought the house down. James, what's your thinking on this before we get into, you know, today in particular, but the general sense about how it's so difficult in Canada to deal on the pipeline issue? It's difficult in Canada to build and do anything of large and grand scale. That's always been the case. When I briefly taught political science for a while, I said governing is.

governing is and trying to answer the question, how should we live together? How should we live together as people? What should the boundaries be? What should your freedoms be? What should the limits to your freedom be? What should taxation be? How much?

What are we prepared to pay for collectively? What should be left to private sector and profit? What should be? How should you constrict freedom? How should we live together? And in Canada, in every country, the longer you're around, a lot of those questions get challenged and stretched. With regard to pipelines,

so there's sort of four reasons. If you want to be against something, there's always a way. You have to fight and find a way to try to be for something. To be against something is really easy. And if something is complicated as large pieces of sort of continental infrastructure, there are reasons to be for and against it. And the reasons to be against it can be economic, they can be political, they can be cultural, they can be legal.

With regard to pipelines, there are economic reasons to be against it and debate it. You can say, well, if we're going to spend this money, you think about Trans Mountain Pipeline now, obviously, you know, a publicly owned piece of infrastructure. Should the money go to that or should it go to hospitals or should it go to tax cuts or should it go to debt repayment or should it go to child programs? On the legal side, you know, have we reconciled the legal dynamic in British Columbia where you have 143% of overlapping land claims in the province? And if you're going to put a piece of pipe and infrastructure through all of that without knowing definitively who has the right of way,

who has access to the lands, who can permit the building and what happens if there's a bill. Where are the liabilities? Where do the profits go? There's legal uncertainty with regard to cultural issues. There's a cultural expectation in the indigenous piece that we just talked about, but there's also a cultural expectation of if you're an Alberta or somebody who works in the energy sector and you're trying to get over, who is it to say that we can't have that piece of infrastructure and when the courts, the Supreme Court has legally determined that we do have that right. And now you're chastising and insulting me because of where I work and who I work. There's there is judgment in Canada. There's cultural judgment about people who think

that they're better than other people because they happen to not work in the energy sector. And there is a bit of a looking down on people who are still hewers of wood and drawers of water and working in there is a lot of that going on. There is a lot of arrogance about that. And then, you know, the legal dynamic is incredibly complicated, right? So in Canada, I mean, a short way of saying, if you want to be against something because you just don't like it, there are all kinds of reasons to be against pretty much everything in this country.

I mean, in British Columbia, we had a referendum on whether or not to host the Olympics. and there were, you know, all kinds of reasons, cultural. And it's like, really? Like, we can't just agree that we should have a big, massive event. It would be great to inspirate the country. And like, no, no, no, like, come on. So as a country, I think we're always challenged. And I worry about that as a country that, you know, can we not be aspirational and build big things?

And the answer is, it's really hard to get people to rise up and see the opportunity in things when there's so many opportunities to say no. How did we get to that? how did we get to a point where you'd have a referendum on something like that on the Olympics? Well, I mean, yeah, coming back to this is frankly, there's opportunism, right? There's an opportunity, but you have, but are you prepared to sacrifice something? We did a podcast a while ago, Peter, on interprovincial trade. Well, in order to actually have interprovincial trade in this country, you have to surrender some sovereignty.

You have to take a risk. You have to be prepared to allow to, you have to be prepared to lose. You have to be prepared to put some water in your wine. And, you know, with regard to, you know, building a pipeline, it's like, you have to give up a little bit of political opportunism. You have to be able to, you know, on both sides, by the way. Like, there's political opportunism and saying no to a pipeline and appealing to green voters if you're David Eby. There's also political opportunism, if you're on the center rider, if you believe in the access to pipelines, that it actually might be a little bit more expensive and you actually have to might do something as,

you actually might have to pay a little bit more per barrel in order to have an economic, partnership you actually might have to pay a little bit more in order to have world class you know a tanker traffic management and more coast card like you might have to pay a little more you have to give up a little of something for the public good in order to deal with people's fears and to give back and so it's you know how do you get to knows it's pretty easy because it's laced with politics and opportunism and you have to for lack of a better phrase or you have to really want to put country first you really have to want to get in on that jerry yeah well I think that the most difficult issues that we deal with in Canada, and it's probably true of every country, are the ones that are core to, I hesitate to use this word, but I'm betraying my Catholic upbringing. It's our national theology, right? When you have it, when you can have a debate about a specific project, whether this is the right project, whether the economics makes sense, whether this is where it should go and this is how it should be built. And these are the people.

who should or should not benefit from it. And that, I think, is a rational public policy argument. The problem with pipelines is that they pick at all of our theological issues as a country. It's who do we want to be when we grow up? How do we govern ourselves? What is our relationship with one another? Do we really care about one another as much as we say we do? And when the issues that should be confined or constrained to the first category of

of criteria where you're judging whether or not they're on their face a good project or not become just little more than a platform for people who have deep, well-considered, emotional, long-standing views on the bigger picture theological issues. That's when you get into real trouble. And for some reason or other pipelines always, always, always. seem to pick at those theological issues in the country. Both of you spent time from your different angles dealing on the pipeline issue. James from around the cabinet table, Jerry, in the prime minister's office and advising

a prime minister on a pipeline issue. What do each of you take away from those experiences? What's something in those moments that we could identify? with now in terms of how to deal on this kind of an issue. I think I'll tell a story at a school

on this one, Peter. We love that. We love that when you grew out of school. I'll try and not name names to protect the innocent depending on your point of view, I guess. It felt to me I was one of the people after we made the decision to buy, the Trudeau government made the decision to buy and complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

There were a few of us who had good relationships that we kind of had to call after the markets closed and let people know that this was going to happen. And I had a good relationship. It might surprise some of your listeners with one of the CEOs of one of our largest energy companies in Alberta. So I called this very fine gentleman, and I said, well, this is what we're going to do. And there was a long pause on the other end of the phone. He said, well, that's the right thing to do. It was almost like Sir Humphrey, very courageous.

It's the right thing to do. And I said, well, at least people in Alberta will not be able to say we haven't done anything for them. And they long pause. And he said, oh, Gerald. Dream a lot. He said, oh, Charlie, I think it was a Tuesday. He said by Friday at the Petroleum Club, they'll be saying that you bought this pipeline to shut it down.

And he was right, actually. They were. And what I learned from that is it's not enough sometimes to do something. You have to, you have to talk about it consistently in the same way. You have to remind people while you're doing it. And maybe by the time you are going to be. physically ill because you've said something for the 10,000th time. People are hearing it for the first time.

So I think that the Trudeau government, we were a little, you know, I wouldn't say we were bashful about the pipeline purchase, but I would say that we did not consistently articulate the rationale for doing it to the people who disagreed with us, frankly. and it cost us in both British Columbia and Quebec in the 2019 election. James. To me, the pipeline debates that we had in the Harper era and the Harper government, and it spills over right through the Trudeau era and then now into where we are today,

is that it exposes a lot about the frailties that exist within Canada in the sense that in order to successfully govern at all, and particularly in the country as diverse and as big as Canada, governors, ministers, premiers, prime minister, everybody, you have to have a proactive, relentless pursuit of empathy. You have to try to genuinely understand the other guy. And it's not just, I don't talking red team, blue team, orange team, green team, that aside. And it's staggering to me how little sort of genuine, like people have a perspective and

they try to force other people to get their perspective. As a governor, you have an obligation to pursue the other side. perspective. And it's, and it's not a left-wing, right-wing thing. It's a, it's a, it's a perspective thing and an empathy thing. I was on CTV this week and in the clip, the package clip that they rolled into our segment with, they had, the first speaker was talking about this possible MOU between, you know, the governor of Canada and government of Alberta about, about a pipeline process going forward. Danielle Smith, she go, you know, she says, effectively, you know, I think this is progress. I think,

it's good. We've got to get Canadian commodities to global market to make sure that we get a fair price. And I was sitting there listening to this and I go, yeah. And then the next clip was Andrew Shear, which was, if we want to make ourselves more economically independent from the United States, we have to have more global markets and we should build a pipeline to the West Coast. I was like, yeah.

The next clip was, I think it was David Eby from British Columbia saying British Columbia is opposed to a tanker to lifting the tanker ban because the heck of straight is really problematic. And British Columbia's voice hasn't been heard. And I was like, Yep. And then any other's a force. And I was like, they're all right. They're all right from their perspective. And if everybody just sort of rogers up from your own perspective and just

try to ram into each other, then we get nowhere. And so you just have sort of competing interests and we don't get anywhere. And it's just staggering to me that on this issue of a pipeline through Northern British Columbia, you know, getting specific about this, is that it's staggering to me that, you know, here we are 15, 20 years since the origin story of the first Northern Gayway pipeline that people just still don't get it. They don't understand and they're incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of the other and understanding. And it's true of, you know, coastal British Colombians who don't understand that Alberta is genuinely questioning themselves about whether or not they should be part of confederation and how fundamental this is to their sense of economic injustice,

that they're living a lower standard of living because of a sense of nimbism. That's the Alberta perspective. There's also a sense of coastal First Nations, as you know, we've talked about before, who think that they have a 10,000 year to 15,000 year history of inherited obligation to protect the waters and the land and the virtues of preservation of coastal integrity against a short-term cash grab that could permanently poison an entire piece of land in perpetuity. And that would be a betrayal of 10,000 years versus of hereditary history. You have to understand that. If you don't get that, then how do we even have a conversation?

And if we just come to the table and start ramming your perspective into the face of the other, we get nowhere. And there seems to be no genuine effort and empathy rather than just sort of re-bolstering your argument. Because, ah, I know, Donald Trump has elected, therefore, all of your concerns about 10,000 years of history now wash away, right? No, they don't. And, you know, well, you know, we have this coastal perspective. So, well, no, wait a minute. We've had, you know, the worst cost of living crisis in history. And, you know, we've not voted for the Liberal Party in literally three generations in Alberta.

and we still can't get our voice heard in spite of it. And so there's this lack of seeming willingness to pursue empathy about the other is we're putting handcuffs on ourselves from ever getting this right. You know, I get all that, and I appreciate all of that. I guess the issue is if you reach that moment of empathy and you understand everybody else's position and you agree that that's where they've got to come from on it, how do you then move ahead?

Like, what can you do to move ahead without somebody putting some water in their wine? Yeah, I mean, in part, I mean, I think you have to be prepared to confront some of your own. And I think in that sense, with Daniel Smith, I think you do see some leadership, right? Because there are people in her voting universe in Alberta, put it that way, or potential voting universe in Alberta,

who just think, you know, plant a stake, start defending, grab the bulldozers, There's like, we need to do this. We need to have a, if we don't get this, we need to have a referendum and separate and all that. And, you know, and there's a bit of a dance there that's being played that's a little bit dangerous and a little bit reckless. But, you know, on the other hand, you know, like the fact that she's being, she is being with Mark Carney on pipelines so far open to working with him in a way that is beneficial, hopefully, to Alberta's perspective within Confederation. She's risking a lot of political capital. Now, maybe she has a bit of a safe zone because the Alberta NDP are pretty weak.

Rinne Heiden, NCHI is pretty weak. And so, I mean, she has an opportunity to sort of do that and sacrifice a little bit of voting margin in order to try to reach out a little bit. But there is some leadership being shown there. And I think that's a good thing. And I think the inverse needs to be equally true, which is people who are prepared to sort of sacrifice or stand up to maybe the 5%, 10% of people who are in your voting coalition, who are maybe the most extreme about this and absolute about this and saying, look, you're not being reasonable. You're not recognizing the greater good here of being empathetic and responsible to the national interest. And being able to stare down a portion like it's, in politics, it's really, really hard. If four out of ten people are prepared to vote for you, you are doing extraordinarily well in politics.

If six out of ten people hate you, you're doing really, really well in Canadian politics. And so to sacrifice your four out of ten to sacrifice half of a point of one of your four out of ten in exchange for a greater good and permanently lose those voters, that takes a lot of courage. And a lot of people aren't prepared to do that. Okay, you get the last word on this point, Jerry. Well, I couldn't agree with James Moore on the empathy point. I think it's in increasing vanishingly short supply these days in our public discourse that people reach across from their own perspective and try and put themselves in the shoes of people who disagree with them. And it's always, I guess, convenient not to do that because one of the most precious commodities in government is time. and you certainly feel it go by faster.

You certainly feel it go by quickly every moment you're there and you think, how can I afford to spend the time to try and appreciate where other people are coming from? So I definitely emphasize with that instinct. But ironically, I think it takes you longer to get stuff done when you don't take on board points of view that are different from your own. I would just say that while I agree,

with all of that, we also have to, and I know James you would agree with this, you have to be cognizant that there are people who are looking to weaponize empathy, and there are people who are looking to take advantage of people who want to see the world from their fellow citizens' point of view and just rammed through their own perspectives and point of view. So balancing all those things is the art of government. And I think James is right that you're all always going to win if four of ten people agree with you on any given day. I would just add to that, that maybe I'm thinking about this because I was looking into the history of these debates.

Sometimes you can have four of ten people agree with you for a very long period of time, and then everybody disagrees with you in the end because of the way you've assembled that coalition and the history books are not kind to you. And that too is government, right? Yeah. And politics. Okay, we're going to take a break. We'll come back and talk about something totally different from pipelines to jet fighters.

We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Moore Butts Conversation No. 28. You know, I called the last one number 28 because I thought it was, but it was actually number 27. So this is the real true Moore Butts Conversation Number 28 with James Moore, former Harper Cabinet Minister, Gerald Butz, former Justin Trudeau, principal secretary after the 2015 election.

Okay, pipelines, we've solved all that. We have the clear road ahead. I know exactly what to do there. Check. Nations like the Prime Minister said, Peter. This is boring. It's all done. We watched this kind of remarkable scene last week on the move towards a decision by Canada on its new jet fighters. I thought this had been made years ago on the F-35.

I mean, those discussions started in 1997. Jean-Cretchen was the prime minister in that time. But it's not finalized yet. We've purchased 16, I think. We plan to purchase upwards of 88 of these multi-million dollar total package. billions and billions of dollars for jet fighters. However, the new government has said, we want to look at this after 16 thing,

and we're looking at other options. And one of those other options is the Swedish jet fighter, as opposed to the American F-35, the Swedish jet fighter, the Gippin. Now, Sweden's on a push, obviously. I mean, there's a lot of money involved here. It could be a big boon to their aircraft industry. So they sent, among others,

the king and queen of Sweden over to Kansas. Canada last week, as a gentle push, I guess, on that contract and the possibilities of what it could mean. Meanwhile, the Americans, through their soft-toned ambassador, was pitching hardball last week and saying, you know, you better order all and only F-35s, or you can forget about any trade deal. Now, that may be an extension of what he actually said, but it was kind of the way it came across. You've both witnessed these big purchases by the Canadian government, usually around defense contracts in the past,

and the push that goes on towards heading to a decision and the lobbying that goes on. Was what we witnessed last week any different than what we've witnessed in the past, and if so, why was it different? And if not, what difference does it make? Who wants to start on this, James? Yeah, I will. I mean, it was different in the sense that it shows how the ground has shifted.

After in the Harper government, we got sort of our first kick at the F-35 cat wrong, and we were chastised by the Auditor General and all that. And I remember sitting in the House of Commons one day and seeing, it was a picture that came in. You said the clippings, the house comes. And they had this picture on the front page of every newspaper of Peter McKay sitting in the cockpit of the F-35. As we were doing sort of an arm-length independent procurement, I was like, I looked at this picture. I go, wait a minute. You know, the referee shouldn't be kissing the quarterback of one of the teams right before kickoff.

Like, what are we doing? I was like, wait, this is not good. This is not good. But, and so that happened. But so we had to reboot the CF-18 replacement project. So there you are. There were three cabinet ministers. who were tasked with assessing our position on this.

And I was one of them as Minister of Industry because of industrial benefits and all that. So I think what this past week, and probably the coming weeks will demonstrate, is how the ground has shifted in terms of what we need. So if people are thinking about procurement of, like, I think a lay person would say, well, we have the CF-18s.

They're out of date. We need to replace them. So let's get the better plane. What's the better plane of the right cost? It's way more complicated in that. So you have to imagine sort of a bingo sheet or like a grid. And there are all kinds of virtues about which plane you want to purchase, right? There is, and this is really how it was done. Like in our government,

I think in the current government as well, you say how much they cost per copy? What is the maintenance over the lifetime of the asset? What is its interoperability with our allies? What are the supply chain benefits for parts and servicing that Canadians can have access to so we can bid on those contracts and how much of them would be guaranteed? Which plane is better at air-to-air combat? Which plane is better at air-to-ground combat? Which plane is better at dog-fighting with other airplanes. Which airplane has stealth capability? Which airplane is fourth generation versus fifth generation? Which one will bridge the gap better between where we are now versus unmanned flight and having drones only? Which one is better in the Arctic? Which one is better at

fuel? Which one is better in terms of a training opportunity for Canada? So you have all of these things, right? So imagine there's 25 virtues of each plane. And then you score them. And at the time, there were four. There was the Gripin, the Typhoon, the Super Hornet, and the F-35. Those were the four. And so on all of them, they were given a score of like 1, 2, 3, 4, which was the better one. And at the time, the F-35 was seen as the stronger plane. But what is this past week has demonstrated is what you take is those 25 criteria of all the things I just described, and you rank those criteria. So you rank each plane 1 to 4 on each of those criteria. Then you rank each of those criteria vertically in terms of which of those criteria is the most important.

And back in our day, one of the highest, most important criteria was interoperability with your allies. So the question is in the Trump area is who are our allies? What does interoperability mean? So for us, like interoperability with allies and the Americans was really high in the list because it made sense at the time because we didn't know, but we were right around the corner from Canada contributing our CF-18s to the fight against ISIS and ISIL in the Middle East. So we were coming out of Afghanistan. That was really important. But now, with regard to the Arctic, it's a different conversation. So that's shown. And then, you know, supply chain benefits has the F-35 program delivered, Melanie Jolie talked about this, about industrial benefits.

So it's the ranking one to four in all of those capabilities and then vertically ranking those 25 virtues and that list of what are the bigger virtues at a time of economic crisis in Canada and supporting Canadian industry and threat to the United States. The supply chain benefits are now higher on the list than they were for our government because the economy is weaker. So that list of criteria has shifted. So the dynamic changing of how do you make this decision? decision is much different than it was in my time. I hope I've explained it well.

Yeah, very well. There's almost nothing left for Jerry to say. Well, there is one thing, and that is the ferocity of the lobbying, right? And another tale at a school. You have to assume that when you enter the prime minister's office or you put your hand on your preferred book of worship and swear yourself in as a loyal advisor to his majesty that people are going to want stuff from you 24 hours a day, right? And I remember people who'd, some of whom you worked with, James, that I sought advice from when I started working in the prime minister's office, who would say, just remember that everybody you know now, whether it's a distant friend, someone you haven't seen in 20 years,

your uncle, who you go to for advice, they're all going to want something from you now 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And sadly, that is true, and then you have to conduct yourself accordingly. There's nowhere where that's more almost hilariously comprehensive than it is on defense files. I remember the first six months, we were in office. It seemed like whether it was at the Paris Agreement talks, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta, the lunch at the State Department that John Kerry,

through for us and the state visit with President Obama. Every time I sat down, the person sitting next to me was from Lockheed Martin. It got to the point where I would sit down at a lunch like this and turn to someone and say, so what is it you do for Lockheed Martin before they'd ever introduced themselves? And that envelopes you like an atmosphere, and that's their. intention. And I think what the government is going through now, and it reflects the big structural change that James just described. And to think about this for a second, you know, Sweden, we don't think about Sweden very often in Canada. And when we do, they're usually

wearing hockey jerseys. Let's be honest, right? But Sweden has a very long and important role in Europe. And for 200 years, they were a neutral party in all conflicts, right? The Swedes let the Germans put supply lines together through Swedish territory in World War II. That's how, that is how steadfast they've been guarding their own neutrality. They changed all that when the Russians invaded Ukraine, right? And nothing, I think that there's very few other moves by a single country that I can think of that indicates just how big the geopolitical change has been. in Europe other than that.

And this is Sweden coming to us saying we're a like-minded northern country, kind of a coalition of the chilling, so to speak. We should form a mutual security pact for the 21st century because, let's face it, we can't trust the Americans anymore. And we've talked about this many times on the show. We can have this kind of big picture agreement that the Americans aren't what they used to be and that a relationship is not what it used to be, but where that becomes real is in all of these really significant files

where the government of Canada of the day, and right now it's the Carney government, it could be some other government in the future because this is not going to change tomorrow, is going to have to make specific policy decisions that are way more difficult than giving a speech about how the United States has changed, right? And I can see both sides of this.

Absolutely. I'm not sure where the government's going to end up, and I certainly am not expert enough to give them detailed advice on it. But this is one of those moments where we say the Americans have changed, and we should govern ourselves accordingly. So what should we do? Well, speaking of change, when I look at what happened last week, I certainly appreciate all the things both of you have said so far and have learned from it. But in terms of change, say, I ask myself, the king and the queen, basically, you know, being used as lobbying tools, the American ambassador, I know he's a particular kind of guy, but he's pretty blunt on the kind of stuff he says. Is diplomacy changing too in this new world that's out there? Are we seeing a different

kind of, we just talked a minute ago about, about empathy, which is, and empathy requires self-awareness, right? When you come to the table, who are you? You're trying to gain empathy. Yeah, but if you're trying to earn empathy and to be a good actor and all this, you have to understand how the other side would see you walking into this room and what it means. You know, when Ambassador Hoekstra says what he says, like, I don't know that we've ever had an ambassador in Canada of such an important role who lacks self-awareness to the skill that the current ambassador does, right? There was nobody who was cringing harder more than I think the folks around Lockheed Martin

who was just like, oh my God, he tied this to the trade file, he tied this directly to Donald Trump. like really like that's not good that's not helpful like this is not helpful um you know and but certainly you know i think the in certain in terms of the the swaging of the swedish delegation i think they had a really good week i think for most people sob was uh you know was it was a car that they had long since forgotten and now they now they really had a coming up party with canadians in a lot of ways and i think they had a really really good week by by inverse right so but also sweden is a relatively small but still a relatively you know enormously important a partner

who understand the Arctic, who understand the North, who understand the proxy, who understand the origin story of NATO and why it matters, interoperability from a different perspective relative to Russia. And, you know, their narrative is really important and really valuable. And again, relative to the American narrative, which is also really important and really valuable. So, yeah, it's, as Jerry says, there's a lot at stake. There's a lot of money.

There's a lot of money at stake. And there's a lot of geopolitical positioning at stake. And Canada does matter. You know, how we do this matters. Where we're going to end up, I don't know. I mean, there is a dollars and cents thing at the end of the day. I mean, how much money are we going to put towards aircraft or is having, you know, being the only G7 country without two fleets is not good,

but having two fleets of country of our size is, you know, maybe not quite affordable. And there's the reach and scope of, you know, 88 F35s versus having a mixed fleet. There's, there's a dollar and cents context to all that. So it's not an easy decision for the government, and there's a lot to weigh. And if they will land at, you know, if they can say to the Americans, at least in the throughout the lifespan of the, of Donald Trump's 47th, the 47th presidency, so to get to 2028 and say, no, no, we're still going to commit to 88 F35s. It might be over the next 40 years, not the next five years,

but we're still committed to the 88F35s, but also have the Grypins as well as sort of a stopgap to sort of demonstrate to Canadians that while we're still, we recognize the value of the American relationship, but we're opening the door to more, you know, military independence. You know, maybe we'll do the classic Canadian liberal mushy middle, a little bit of both, please. and I don't know. But there's a dollars and cents argument, and there's the whole grid thing that I described, and it's a complicated decision.

You know, F-35 is 80 years from now, it'll be like flying the DC3. And we'll still be debating them. Well, and that's a legitimate point, that there's a long history in military procurement of generals fighting the last war. And one thing we've seen, and this is part of my day job, I guess,

But one thing we've seen in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and in other theaters around the world, sadly there are more than one these days, is drones are king, right? And I've had people who know a lot more about this topic than I do describe in gory detail how a drone fleet worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars is busy destroying multi-million, if not billion dollar military installation. in the Russia-Ukraine theater, and China has cornered the market on the drone supply chain. So why aren't we spending more time talking about that and figuring out how to build that kind of infrastructure in Canada rather than having a debate, which, as you said, Peter, started when Sean Creightsean was prime minister. So here's a story, Peter, you like the anecdotal things. I don't think I'm telling a tale here that's inappropriate to tell, but you covered this.

Stephen Harper's historic visit to Israel when he spoke at the Knesset and all of that I was there, we had a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and there are a lot of topics to talk about in terms of the visit, the historic context, yada, yada, and when we had a meeting with the prime minister, one of the topics that came up,

I remember it was Prime Minister Netanyahu raised it. He goes, so Stephen, the F-35s. All he had to do is say F-35s, and they both kind of nodded and looked at each other like, Yep. We're on this journey together. And in the Israeli perspective, at the F-35, right? I mean, Canada, the second largest country in the world, Arctic reach, Arctic sovereignty, you could have a more dramatic alternative than Israel, which is, you know, at its narrowest point a country that's like 10 miles wide, threats everywhere, and the reach has to be really small, really fast, quick action, stealth, all this,

whereas Canada, it's the inverse, it's the exact opposite. And there's just kind of this nodding. And to Jerry's point, it was, it was Prime Minister Nanyahu, he goes, the faster we can get, this fifth generation conversation and get onto just drones because that is the future. This is the last generation of manned flight and man is at expensive. And both were, and this is no more than 10. This is 10, 12 years ago. They were exhausted with the F-35 conversation, exhausted with all this. And everybody wanted to get to the era of unmanned flight and into the dynamic of drones

and what that means for security because of the lack of human, you know, the risking of human life and the cost proposition. And but here we are. And we're going to be talking about this for many years. to come. And, you know, it's a conversation that's not going away. And it all goes back to the same reason. It's core to the American economy, right? I've often had this. I work with a lot of Americans and I often joke with them when they say, well, you know, in the United States, we're a little worried about all of this industrial policy everywhere because we don't do industrial policy in

the United States. And I always say, well, somebody should tell Raytheon and Lockheed Martin that you don't do industrial policy because that's how they built their companies. And frankly, it's how you build your economy. So this is a core strategic national economic and security interests of the United States, which is why they're so aggressive in promoting it with their allies. And to answer your question, Peter, I think that the form of the diplomacy has gotten spicier over time as social media has affected diplomacy in the same way It's affected everything else in our lives.

But the aggression and pressure has always been thus, right? Dwight Eisenhower warned us about this and his final address from the Oval Office as president. And he's been right ever since. Okay, I'm going to have to wrap it up. I'll only say on the drones thing. You know, I've been raising this question. Others have been raising this question for at least the last couple of years.

why are we spending so much time on conventional military purchases as opposed to looking at what we could be contributing on the drone situation? Because we do have a degree of expertise in some of these areas. And with billions and billions being spent on conventional stuff that was designed in the 90s, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, that's it for this conversation. Another really good one.

Appreciate your time, both of you, and we'll talk again in two weeks. James Moore, Gerald Butts. The Moore-Butz conversation, that was the actual number 28. And a good one it was, right? Two big topics, facing Canadians right now, facing the Canadian government, obviously,

some of the provincial governments as well, but Canadians in general, whether it's pipelines or the defense structure, in particular the issue of jet fighters. I hope you enjoyed that. You usually do when it comes to more butts. We've got quite the lineup, right? Thanks for joining us for this holiday season encore episode of The Bridge.

We'll be back with the first of our new shows on January 5th. We'll talk with you then. Thank you.