The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts - How To Handle A Rogue MP

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

How do you handle an MP who goes rogue from his own party?  That's a question for this week's Moore Butts conversation.  But first, Gerry Butts on the world's new security order.  Gerry has just returned from the Munich Security Conference and the former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, and former Stephen Harper cabinet minister James Moore discuss how Canada can fit into the new Europe versus the US picture. 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 the latest Moore-Buts conversation coming right up? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Jerry Butz, James Moore. It's their latest conversation. And it's coming right after the Munich Security Conference. And why that? On this program? Because Jerry Butz was there. Just back.

So there are a couple of specific things I want to talk about as a result of it. But first of all, give us a headline out of Munich. What was the main thing you left Munich thinking about? The main thing, Peter, by far, and it was on everybody's lips, was that Europe needs to take care of itself and it can't rely on the Americans anymore. And that will be, of course, not surprising for Canadians who have come to that conclusion probably a little sooner than the Europeans have. But that plus, there was a Mark Carney-sized hole in the conference.

that was obviously a very good and tragic reason why the Prime Minister had to pull out of the conference at the last minute. But it's obviously I'm a supporter of the Prime Minister, but it's not an understatement to say that his speech in Davos was the first thing out of everybody's mouth. Okay. Let me get to that a minute. I should have said, you know, James positioning himself to make sure that, you know, you get the right shot of Sidney Crosby's sweater. behind him. I mean, it's a big week for us.

I, you know, I'm older, so what the sweater I've got is Paul Anderson's, and he's signed it, too. It's not the actual one from 72, but it's a replica of it. So we're all into our, you know, let's go Canada mode this week. Jerry, you know, the Marco Rubio speech on the weekend was seen by some initially as, oh, he's distancing himself from J.D. Vance. trying to get back with the Americans and the Europeans together. But the more you listen to it and the more you read it,

the less it seemed to distance himself. You know, kinder language, but still kind of the same point. Oh, absolutely. It was the same message. I think it's hard to overstate what shock J.D. Vance's speech was to that group. And for listeners who don't know what the Munich Security Conference is, it is the primary venue at which America, Americans, Canadians, and Europeans get together to talk about global security.

And for a long time, it was a talk shop that fixed minor problems. But Vladimir Putin changed all that in 2022. And it was quite a dramatic moment that the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened about three days after the Munich Security Conference in 2022. So you can imagine what it was like that year. So this year, it's people are still thinking about what. what J.D. Vance said last year, which was basically screw you, Europe, you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. And the United States is going to dictate terms to you. And he spoke very directly in, he spoke very critically to Europeans who didn't ascribe to the MAGA view of the world.

And he did it in very colorful, plain language that left the Europeans in shocked. In fact, Christoph Hoyshkin, who was the outgoing head of the conference and was for a long time. Angela Merkel's chief foreign policy advisor, he gave the closing address and broke down in tears. That's how dramatic it was last year. It felt like a real rupture in the transatlantic relationship, which has kept peace and security in Europe for 80 years, right? So I think that no matter what Marco Rubio said, it was not going to be as shocking just because it was already done. And the way I looked at it was if Vance went there last year to make common cause, to criticize Europeans who disagree with MAGA America, Rubio simply went and tried to

encourage Europeans who agree with MAGA America, not America, MAGA America, to fight the good fight and take over governments from Hungary to France to the United Kingdom. James, you're watching from a distance. Yeah. What was your takeaway? Yeah, I was watching with distance that it's an interesting take. I mean, I suppose one could say it's a bit of a softening of a position because it wasn't quite the anvil strike that the last year's speech that J.D. Vance was. And if there is a step from J.D. Vance back to somewhat normalcy or a new normal,

this is kind of what it would look like. It would have to be staged and all that. The old normal will never be the new normal, but something like European countries strapping themselves in and lifting themselves up and taking care of their own defense. is going to be important. But I think a finer point on it, though, is that this is going to be the massive, massive rearming of Germany at a scale that we have not seen since multiple generations.

And, you know, I was looking at the numbers was a $44 billion dollars is the annual budget, 44 billion, rather, euros is the annual budget of the German military. And it's air, land, sea, cyber, it is a full scale in space as well. a full-scale rearmament of the German military. And obviously with a full-blown confrontation with Russia on the horizon, should Ukraine collapse and should Poland be confronted? So if Europe is going to be asked to do its own thing, they're going to be more on the balls of their feet than America and NATO would be.

And it's going to be far more aggressive when we get much closer to a hot war than anything anybody has been comfortable with in any of our lifetimes. So the cascade effect of J.D. Van's Beach, America's retrieved from the world, rearmament of Europe. If you want a full-blown rearmament of Europe, you're talking about a full-blown rearmament of Germany. A full-blown rearmament of Germany with a pizza,

Bundestag and legislative process and the strength of the federation and the structure and the way it is. And sort of the peaceful approach that Germany has had with a lack of sort of, for lack of better phrase, messianic leadership at the top and sort of driven from Berlin, that gets reanimated very quickly when security threats happen. And if that happens and you have a rearm Germany, you get the point of where I'm going,

is that things can get very dark, very aggressive, very bloody, very fast. And it starts the belligerence of Vladimir Putin, then it starts with the retreat of the United States. It starts with the shattering of the, then it continues with the shattering of the relationship with NATO, and then the necessary rearmament, and away we go. So the spiral effect of all these things being co-aligned is very scary. And I think people should be very sober about it. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, go ahead, Jerry.

Well, I think James put his hit the nail in the head there. And the atmospherics reinforced that in Munich that a couple of years ago when you're walking around the, it's Munich's small city. And the security conference itself is right in the center of it. So everybody who wants to show up and pedal. their wares and make their case to the various governments involved. Well, you know, you'll see Microsoft banners and you'll see Boeing banners and whatnot. This year, it was all German defense companies. And they were the most, I mean, to say it was, it looked like Lenny Riefenstahl is a bit

too much, but only a bit. And if our listeners want to take a look at the advertising around the Munich Security Conference online, I think they'll be quite. stunned by it, that the message was super clear. Germany is going to lead the defense of Europe in the 21st century, and they're going to do it with the most modern Bavarian technology imaginable. So I think James is exactly right. And if I can appeal back to that 2022 Munich Security Conference, it had happened just as the CIA had published, the Biden CIA had published the satellite photos of the Russian troops

and passed on the border. And as it turned out, I believe it was only that following Tuesday. So we were at a dinner on Saturday night and it was the most morose dinner you can imagine because part of the ambition of the Germans under Merkel and through the 90s, basically

in post-Berlin Wall coming down, was to make sure this didn't happen, right? That this was supposed to be the raison d'ette for Merkel's foreign policy to make sure that Russia remained a peaceful commercial partner for things like natural gas and not a belligerent from a military perspective.

And there it was all crumbling in front of them. And then one of the people at the dinner I attended was the then incoming chief of chief of staff to the new chancellor Schultz. And this is an old friend by the name of Wolfgang Schmidt. And he listened to the whole conversation. And it was mostly a bunch of American senators, hectoring the Europeans to do exactly what James said. You've got to rearm yourself. You've got to be able to take care of yourself. You can't depend on the United States for everything. And at the end of the conversation,

Wolfgang said, just let me get this straight for history's sake. What you are saying to me is you want Germany to raise a large army, march through Poland, and confront the Russians. I just want to have that on the record for the future when it happens. And all joking aside, and, you know, psychologists will tell you there's no such thing as a joke. You don't really know what the world looks like after the Germans have spent the 500 billion euros that they're currently planning on spending on defense. Yeah, 500, but and the number of contexts, right, and I try to put my finger on it, it's 44 billion a year now, ramping up to 88 or 90 billion euros per year going forward.

This is Friedrich Merck's plan. Yes. And then with a massive glut of one-time spend to just raise the floor across the entire system, again, of air, land, sea, cyber, and space. Like, everything is going to get remodernized and Germany knows how to build infrastructure. So there's all that. And to Jerry's point is that it's a fascinating thing. I remember when I was with Prime Minister Harper, we did a trip to Europe and we met with Angela Merkel. The context is very different than it is right now, obviously.

But in the lead up to that trip, I remember taking briefings from. from folks of global affairs and others and reading a lot leading into that trip. And just learning, drinking from a fire hose, trying to learn as much as I could at the time about German political culture and how it has changed, obviously, since 1945. And if you look at the sweep of elections that have happened in Germany, it's a very, the elections have a very different flavor to them. You know, in Canada, in the United States, in the UK, France, you know, it's, you know, there's a nationalistic pride.

There's a, I'm tough, I'm strong, I will build. There's a jingoistic flag flag. That doesn't exist in German politics. It exists on a regional basis. It exists on a local basis. But people run for office at the national level talking about collaboration and working together. There's a soft language that has hardened over time. And that's gone now.

And the hardened language and the jingoistic stuff, it's not what it was. It's not quite the same, but it's reemerging in different ways. And in the contemporary context, it's because, frankly, of the immigration and migration crisis that happened into Europe and into Germany as a result of Angela Merkel's policies, which has led to the rise of the new old right and the AFD and political parties in Germany. It's led to the consequences of the counterbalance to Russia. It's led to as a response to J.D. Vance in America. But it's coming. And as I said, that once you do this mass, you do the infrastructure building this massive rearmament. and you have this

the piece of Bundestag legislature where you kind of don't know where the balance of power is going to be and what the coalitions are necessary to pass any piece of budget and policy

that's necessary on the defense side. But should bullets start flying in Poland and should things get real and should things get thick, then the stage is set with all of this capacity,

all of this spend, all of this expectation by the public that niceties aside, 1945 aside, the past aside, we need to lead, let's go.

And who knows who the personalities will be. And it's not always going to be a docile Europe-first government that will be leading in Berlin. It could be something else. And it's just who knows where that's going to go. Let me ask this, Jerry, because you were there. And I assume you had a few, you know, nice meals with lots of conversation during the time you were in Munich. But I get the sense that the possibility of really, war is certainly on the minds of people.

I mean, when Prime Minister Starmar is talking about it, that we've got to be ready, we've got to be prepared, his defense minister has been saying this for, you know, more than a year. Is there a real sense that it's possible? A real all-out war now? Well, all-out war, I don't know, Peter, but I think it's hard for us to appreciate in North America on the safe side of the Atlantic, protected by three of us. oceans, just how much this Russia-Ukraine war is a European war. It is a major war, and a

million Russians have died. It's been going on for three years, almost exactly four years now. They already feel like Europe is at war, and it's the first major conflict since the second world war. So I think that that is the biggest difference between European policy and North American policymakers. And it's true all over Europe, of course, the closer you get to the theater itself, the more real it gets. But it's very much considered an active conflict by all of the major European powers now. And what they're confronting, because, you know, I think the biggest upside surprise

of the Russia-Ukraine conflict so far has been how cohesive Europe has been in face of it, that at the Munich Security Conference in 2022, I would have said 80% of the participants thought that Russia was going to walk all over Ukraine, that Europe would not muster its strength to defend the Ukrainians or give them the material they needed to defend themselves. And quite the opposite has happened, that the Europeans are now supplying more to the Ukrainians than the Russians are. But this is, of course, historically, the way large wars start, that you end up doing the supply chain, and then maybe it's soldiers,

and then something happens in a third state like Poland, and before you know it, we've got a major conflict on our hand. So I think that I wouldn't say that they're expecting a multi-party conflict, but they're planning for it. And how does the kind of the difference between the U.S. and Europe fit into that picture? I mean, we've seen this movie before. We saw it in the 30s. And we saw it right up until, you know, 41.

But how does it fit into the scene you're describing and the tension you're describing and the feelings you're describing in Europe, the fact that America and Europe are kind of offside from each other? Yeah, well, I think we're back to what I think we've talked about this previously on the podcast, Peter, that the post-war America is not the regular America. The regular America is no foreign wars, no foreign entanglements. We don't want to get involved in a European conflict only when absolutely necessary, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think most Europeans who have lived in the NATO world where the United States has supplied crucially the nuclear umbrella for Europe against Russia, but also the implicit commitment through Article 5, if that they would be there if there were a large conflagration with Russia. I don't think European policymakers see that world as a given anymore. And Russia, Ukraine was the big blow to that. But the final straw was the Trump administration's fancying Greenland. It's hard to, again, it's hard to describe to North Americans just what a blow that was to European

policymakers, that they saw that as a fundamental betrayal of everything, the stability of the transatlantic relationship has been built on in the post-war period. The idea that the United States could talk about annexing a large territory from another NATO country, a northern European country, you know, this lit people's hair on fire. And it was certainly what Macron, for instance, focused on in his remarks. but the Nordics, the Brits, the Dutch, even though Ruta is doing his best to suck up to Trump because he thinks that's his job as Sack Gen of NATO,

everybody else in Europe saw that Greenland overture as the day the mask came off of the Trump administration. As Canadians have sobered up about the realities of Trumpism, Trump and Trumpism and what it means for us on trade, supply chains and economics, Europe has woken up on what all that means in terms of security, war, military, and realignment. And so we don't have the same thing because of the security dynamics are different, but that's their awakening. And Canadians need to understand their military security geopolitical reawakening as it affects them because the economic consequences

to Canada will be real. I mean, if I could say one bit of Mr. Price's side here is that is that Rubio was, I think, markedly better than Vance. It was different, but I think he was different. And looking at the reactions to it, Poland's reaction was telling, right? And they, you know, Marco, even putting in slight phrases, and he can't deviate too far from the Trump norm, like overnight. Otherwise, he risks getting quit. But Marco Rubio did say are European friends. And he did have a more conciliatory tone, I think.

And the reaction from Kier Starramer, the reaction from the EU, the reaction from Poland and others, I think was a, a little bit of sense of less confrontation and a little bit more hopeful that in a thousand days time when Trump goes, that there may be some kind of something there that can reestablish and rebuild some kind of reconciliation with America. Don't ever hope on it. Don't ever bank on it. Use this moment as an awakening for Europe. Europe's need to be more self-determined. But there was a sense that maybe we had reached the bottom there. And I thought that was a little bit of hopefulness that I heard from from observers in the room. And we, you know, we shouldn't forget that the most likely, the two people most likely to be

gunning for Trump's job if Trump actually leaves, we'll wait and see whether that happens, would be Rubio and Vance. So separating the two of them on a big issue like this is probably not a bad idea for Rubio to be doing exactly that. Oh, it very much has to be seen in that context, Peter, that this was in some ways the opening the starter's pistol for the Republican primary. And James is right, and I agree with all that. And to add to that, I hope I'm not,

it's always dangerous to think of that. I hope I'm not breaking too many confidences here. But the European leaders that I spoke to said that when they had bilateral with Rubio, he was even more direct. He basically said he doesn't agree with what is happening. And he certainly didn't agree with Vance's approach last year, but there's only so much he can do as Secretary of State

and maintain his appropriate role in promoting the president's foreign policy. And if there is a cleavage there, that's good. That should be a conversation. And, you know, Trump, in a lot of ways, was a response to the 08 economic crisis and the exhaustion of Iraq and Afghanistan and Metska Shainu bring it home,

make America great again, us first and all that. If Trumpism and Sanders, by the way, Bernie Sandersism and all that, if that was a reaction to the old, over extension of the previous 20 years, fine. Let the next reaction be a counterreaction to this dynamic and let that be a proper conversation that America, you know, America isolated from the world has consequences. Let's rebalance those consequences and present ourselves to the world and reengage in a way that does put America first, but in our own way. And J.D., what's your view?

And Marco, what's your view? And good, let's have it out. Let's let democracy do its thing. And Gavin Newsom was there, and AOC was there, and Chris Coons was there. lot of senior Democrats who sounded like sensible traditional Americans. The problem as one Norwegian friend said to me, these Americans all seem like good people, but none of them seem to be in charge. Well, good point. We know who's in charge for better or for worse.

And lately it's all been for worse. Let me ask where we fit into this picture, because if it's Europe versus the U.S. U.S. versus Europe, you know, we're kind of caught in the middle here, geographically, and to some degree politically. So how does Canada manage this situation that you watched unfold over the weekend, Jerry? Well, I think on the, it depends on how you look at it, Peter. On the one hand, it is challenging, but it's not as if this dimension of the American problem, if I can call it that way changes anything about our relationship to the United States. We already know we have plenty of

bilateral issues that need to be dealt with and that the United States, this current version of the United States will present more problems in our neighborhood than any third-party relationship they have, save and except for perhaps China. I would say that it opens up opportunities on the defense procurement side, for instance, that if you're going to have modern military industrial companies in the heartland of Europe that are competitive with our traditional American suppliers. I think that opens up policy optionality for people here in Ottawa that they haven't had in the past. So suddenly, Sweden joins NATO. Sob becomes a lot more attractive. Germany spends 500 billion euros on defense. They start to make modern equipment that

becomes more attractive. So I think there's a lot of upside. and the Europeans becoming a modern military power for Canada because it gives us some choices that we wouldn't otherwise have. Yeah, your question is what should Canada do? And I think it's make a promise, keep a promise. Build your reputational equity. Be the thoughtful leaders in the room. Don't beat your chest.

Don't be strident. I mean, we don't have the military to, you know, allow us that margin. But I think temperamentally, be thoughtful, be engaged, be clear. you promise to get our defense spend up to 3% of GDP as the old NATO standard. Fine. There will be a new NATO standard now as a consequence of everything we've talked about, plus the Germany build up and the expectations to counterbalance that. Do your part.

Be there. And as I said, a thousand days left in the Trump administration. There's a world that exists after this. That is going to be complex, shattered, and it's going to have to reassemble and realign in different ways. And continue to build up your, as I said, your reputational equity more broadly and because there's going to be points where we're going to have to draw on it and you build up that strength now and everybody needs to do their part.

You both mentioned Germany and the enormous amount of money that it now plans on spending on beefing up its defense forces. The German question about rearmament, about, you know, new weaponry, etc., etc., has always been a question. For a hundred years it's been a question. How does, what does it mean for us? What does it mean for Canada that Germany is going to become through the things you've both talked about? What, the third largest military spender in the world? What does that mean to us? What should it mean to us? Well, I think it means really good things if they remain the traditional ally they have been until since the end of the Second World War.

I think all joking aside, and everybody likes to joke about this because the, you know, it's the possibility is so serious that nobody wants to entertain it fully. So I think it's, look, if we have a balancing power to a very aggressive anti-democratic autocratic Russia in a democratic Germany, then it's good for Canada. It's an unalloyed good for Canada. And it opens up all the supply chain opportunities that I just described. But in the end, it's another democracy that's capable of defending itself. And I know the prime minister didn't put it this way in Davos, but what he was really talking about is a coalition of states that are going to defend democracy, right?

in both its commercial and its security manifestations. Because the other, the, we haven't talked about it in this podcast yet, but it was certainly the topic of conversation in Munich, and it's the topic of conversation with CEOs all over Europe, is we know we can't trust Donald Trump, but can we trust these big American technology companies is the other big issue. And the way Elon Musk is behaving, but also the way the blue chips have such an integral role in the basic lives of Europeans,

not just social media. There was a large discussion that kind of surprised me about Europeans developing their own payments mechanisms. So kicking American companies like Visa and MasterCard of Europe. This is the way the world is going unless somebody puts a stop to it. And it's, of course, it presents itself. as an American problem, but ultimately it's a breakdown globally in trust. And it's a real worry amongst democratic countries that their democracies are under siege, not just by traditional adversaries like Russia and China, but by American technology

companies. And my partner, business partner, Ian Bremmer, says this quite spisely, that America has gone from being the world's most important exporter of democracy. to being the world's most important exporter of the technology used to undermine democracies. And the Europeans are feeling that in full force. You know, I think Rubio went straight from Munich to Budapest to see Victor Orban, who's sort of like the Ken Lindsman of European leaders these days. He gets on the ice hack somebody in the ankles and drives everybody crazy.

The Americans are very much on the side of those. forces within Europe. And it's not just Donald Trump. It's the technology-sponsored, a nativist America-first political movement. Orban, by the way, is not doing well leading up to their elections in Hungary. I mean, he's being challenged. You should lose. If it's a free and fair election. Yeah. If is correct. James on this. Yeah, the only thing I would say, like, is it good or bad Germany rear-arms. I mean, So one thing the jury said there that maybe I would disagree with or maybe phrase differently is countries don't go to war in order to defend democracy. Countries go to war to defend their interests.

And whether that's economic, political, domestic political, geopolitical, trade route, whatever. So is it bad? I don't know. Is it good? I don't know. We'll see who's in charge. We'll see what the Bundestag looks like. We'll see what leaders emerge.

By the way, it's sort of like, I'm trying to stick to a hockey analogy, but it's a bit cliche. But it's like, you know, when you're the last, when you have a country that's in a certain shape, economically, politically, domestic strife, a certain kind of person wants to lead that country. But if a country is on the rise and it's been rearmed and its economy is moving and you have the opportunity to be the economic and military and geopolitical powerpoint, of Europe. That draws a certain kind of leader. If you're dealing with a migrant crisis and you're coming out of the 08-09 economic recession, you have to get through the legislature and convince the German exhausted public to bail out Italy and to deal with all kinds of economic strife of Europe and you have to deal with a migration crisis that's causing all kinds of racial tensions and domestic problems and street violence and other things, that's not a fun job to run for. But a certain

context and dynamic in a country will cause certain kinds of people to want to run for that office, we'll see who that is, we'll see what that looks like, and we'll see what the consequences of that are. So it's one of those things is like, is it good or bad? I don't know, but you have to kind of think two or three chess moves ahead and what that dynamic, and who that dynamic draws into the public spotlight and what they want to do with that kind of power. And I don't know what that looks like. Yeah, if I could add one more potentially volatile element into that mix, that James was just describing and I agree with all of it. The leaders of governments

take foreign policy advice from two kinds of people. There are people who wear suits and kind of work in banks and are always thinking about the economy and commercial interests. And then there are folks in uniforms. And they disagree a lot. What the people in suits have had going for them for the last 25 years is that the people in uniforms

had no money. and they therefore had very little influence. But we have never lived in our lifetime in a Germany where the folks who have influence around the chancellor and around Berlin are German military leaders and not people who are at home at the Deutsche Banks and the ABBs of the world. And I think that's a very different kind of German government

than the one we're accustomed to. and James is right to say it's too soon to tell. You know, the way you put it, the suits versus the uniforms, there's a degree of that. I understand how different it is, but there's a degree of that here at home as well. 100%. There's a degree of that everywhere.

Yeah, but I mean there's huge amounts of money going into the Canadian military on all fronts. It's happening everywhere, Peter. And this is, I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it is definitely a thing. And you just, you look at China, for instance, the whole century up until maybe Trump's election or slightly just before, because the Obama administration was starting to raise the alarm bells about Huawei and other Chinese foreign adventurism. That whole time period, the folks in suits had been saying, China is a solution to our economic problems. We need our people over there making deals, opening up their market, market. building their companies in China, and that will create a tie that lifts all votes in the middle class of the democratic world. That whole time, those folks in uniforms, I should say guys, because they were almost entirely guys at the time and still are,

they were saying, listen, don't listen to those pencil pushers and suits. They are naive about the world. The Chinese do not share our values. All they want to do is steal our stuff and replace us at the top of the geopolitical food. And now for the last five or six years, going on 10 years now, they are saying, look, we were right. We were right all along about the Chinese, and you better listen to us. And by the way, the same goes for the Russians. And, you know, maybe there are a few other bad actors out there you might want to take a second look at.

And that just changes the orientation of leaders of government because who wants to be offside their military. Okay, we've got to take a break. We come back on switch topics. we'll do a domestic one that is interesting and it all comes down to the issue of well may come down to the issue of caucus management we'll see we'll talk about it

right after this and welcome back you're listening to the latest of the Moore-Buts conversations Jerry Butz James Moore we've been talking about the Munich Security Conference but we're going to switch it to a home topic now

but I should remind you, 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. This is the second of the more buts conversations to be on YouTube. The first one did very well, and we are hoping this one will do just as well. I should also let you know the question of the week. I haven't had an opportunity to do that. The question of the week this week is really what's on your mind? So it's a very open-ended thing.

You can just let me know. It may be as a result of some of the conversations we've been having today, but there are lots of other things that have been happening in the country and the world. So what's on your mind? You've got to put that into less than 75 words. 75 words or fewer is the way you do that. Get it to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. The Manspridge Podcast at gmail.com.

Include your name and the location you're writing from. and have it in before 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. So looking forward to seeing what your answers are on that. All right, gentlemen. Second segment of the program. And we've only got, I don't know, 10 minutes for this. And I'm sure we won't have any trouble filling it. Jamil Giovanni, the conservative MP,

who takes a trip to the U.S., claims to have met everybody, including the president, I don't know whether it was passing him in a hallway or what it was, but he's saying that he's down there, and it's time Canada stopped at his he fit about Americans. It says we're shooting ourselves in the foot, and the stance we're taking in negotiations with the United States. So the question is, who was he representing?

Was he representing his leader? Was he representing his party? He's not the trade critic. He's not the foreign affairs critic. In fact, I don't think he's a critic at all. He's just an MP. about half the MPs are critics at one kind or another, but I don't think he was named one.

But he's had a lot of ink, a lot of press, a lot of publicity as a result of his trip. What do we make of that? James, I'm sure you'd love to try to handle this one. What do you think? Well, to be fair to Jamil Giovanni, you know, he boasted early in his political career, not boasted, but, you know,

that he went to university with J.D. Vance. he would get a lot of heat if he didn't take advantage of that, given the circumstance of his riding, right? Bowmanville, Oswald, where he lives, and the impact the trade has on the economics of his community. So if he did nothing, which he was, he was criticized for not doing anything for the first six, 12 months of his political career of not being vocal and engaged on the Canada U.S. file, given that he has J.D. Vance's, you know, they're on first name basis and they've known each other. He would get rightfully criticized for that. Okay. Now, this is not how you do that. There are ways in which you engage in protocol

where we are one country when it comes to Canada's relationship on foreign soil. He had, Mr. Giovanni, who I don't know very well, I've met him a couple times, but, you know, if you're going to Washington and having any kind of official visit, and I did this when I was in opposition and when I was in government, you let the foreign minister know, you let the government know, you let the prime, even in your opposition, you let the prime minister's office know, you let the embassy know.

you let them know who you're meeting, what's being talked about, and you debrief on the way out. It's the way in which Canada represents itself on the world stage. You're a member of parliament. You're on the board of directors of the government of Canada. You have an obligation to your other board members and the executive team, the leadership, to let them know what's being said out there. That's part of being on the board of directors of any organization, especially the government of Canada. And so if you have these meanings, there's a way in which you do this.

Now, the politics obviously is awful. The messaging is awful. It's not appropriate. It's not aligned with Canadian Canada's interests. Mr. Giovanni is wrong, at least in the one interview that I've seen in his out of all this. But I think a bigger lesson for conservatives and a more important one is we've just come off of a couple weeks ago. The 20th anniversary of Stephen Harper's ascension to power in his election in 2006. In 2004, we ran and we lost. In 2006, we ran and we won. In those intervening two years, I remember when Stephen Harper's leadership was reaffirmed after the 2004 loss. loss. And we got together as a shadow cabinet and Stephen Harper made it very clear to us. If you're the agriculture critic, you speak about agriculture files. You're going to lead in question

period. You're going to be responsible for stakeholder management. You're going to be responsible for knowing the files. You're going to be responsible for shadowing the minister. You're going to be responsible as the lead questionnaire committee. That's your job as the agriculture critic. You don't talk about defense policy. You don't talk about trade policy. You don't talk about fish policy. You talk about agriculture. That is your lane. And you're, you're responsible for the whole of the team in putting the best face forward and being the most responsible leader on that file. And it created for us a sense of discipline. Whereas before that we were a professional opposition party and the Reform Party, the Canadian

Alliance and the PCs have been out in the woods since, since 93. And everybody was just kind of doing their thing and just kind of randomly talking to media and randomly popping off whenever they wanted to about everything under the sun. And Stephen Harbour said, no, if you want to be trusted with the responsibility of governing this country, there's a way in which our system works. It's cabinet government and you we have assigned responsibilities and assigned leadership roles. Jamil Giovanni is not the leader of the opposition. He's not the ambassador. He's not the trade critic. He's not the defense critic. He's not the foreign affairs critic. Pierre Polyev has assigned all of those roles. And if Jamil Jamani wants to be

responsible, he should work with Pierre Polyev and work with Michael Chong, who in combination would work with Canada's foreign minister and Canada's embassy in Washington and be team players, randomly going off and having meetings and then doing out interviews on it and building yourself up as a person and as a brand that's not putting Canada first. It's not putting the Conservative Party first.

It's not responsible. It's not responsible stewardship of your office as a member of parliament. It's not responsible. Don't know how you top that, Jerry. Well, look, I mean, James, if anything, is being diplomatic about this. I think that it was selfish and stupid.

And he was looking to generate some attention for himself, which politicians are apt to do from time to time. But he did so at the expense of, I think, his own image. People will see him for what this is. The Trump administration is playing him for a rube. They know they've got this guy who wants to be seen to be friends with J.D. Vance. And lo and behold, he returns to Canada and delivers Trump's message that tell all the Canadians that I love them. And then the next time he pops his head off, we're shooting ourselves in the foot by throwing a quote-unquote hissy-fit. I think the Canadians who've been buying Canadian and not buying American goods and services over the past year will be very surprised to hear that they've been described as throwing a hissy-fit.

I think they're determined to stand up for their own country's national interest. And that's what that's what's hurting the Trump administration because it's hurting them in district. that they care about. It's hurting bourbon producers in places like in Kentucky, for instance. And Jamil Giovanni described that as a hissy fit. So I think the only other dimension to this that I would add, and I think it's a really important one, and perhaps this will all fade and we won't need to come back to it.

But this is happening simultaneously when secessionist organizations in our own country are finding open arms in the U.S. government. So how can you go down there and do anything as a member of parliament? How can a you go down there without any sanction from your own party, your own caucus, or the government of the day? But how do you not say anything about the Trump administration giving comfort and encouraging secessionist movements within our own country? It's just, I mean, I'm not sure I've seen a dumber thing in politics. And I've seen a lot of dumb things in politics. Believe me, I'm sure we all have.

I think it's really selfish and stupid. And I wish he hadn't done it. I think it causes a bit of a problem for Mr. Poliev. He just had a ringing endorsement from his own party. 87% want to see him continue as leader. I'm sure he's not happy with this. If he is, he's got a whole other set of problems if he's sanctioned this. But let's assume that he's not.

He's just shown to the whole world that he's incapable of stopping. this kind of behavior. So the dynamic that James describes where party, when someone breaks party discipline and it becomes whoever is talking to the nearest reporter about the subject of the day rather than what the party's policy actually is on said subject, that's when you create a real electoral problem for your colleagues. And if I were a member of the conservative caucus or as far-fetched as it sounds, Pierre Puehliev's chief.

for staff, I'd be pulling my hair out. Preston Manning used to say there are two kinds of people in politics, those who want to be something and those who want to do something. And when you say, I'm going to go to Washington and meet with all the players because I'm really important and I know the right people, then you go to Washington and you come out and you say, here's who I met with, here's what we talked about. Here's what he said and here's what I said.

And then here's what they said and here's what I said. Is this all just jazz hands bullshit? Like are you actually trying to be of conscience? There you go. like that is not that is this is not serious this is not responsible um you know it's you can say i'm going to wash you i'm hoping to have some important but but you how do you get your next set of meetings when your last set of meetings you walked out and told the media everything that happened in your last set of meetings nobody will take you seriously in your next meeting so you've devalued your value of

ever having getting the meeting let alone talking about anything of consequence in that meeting because the last time you did this you went out and you strutted on media about how important and big you were that's not responsible. Again, it's not unresponsible. That's not what adults do. Or even worse, he delivered precisely the message the Americans he met with, wanted him to deliver. And I think that that's, look, I've known a lot of people who've gone to like a big fancy university in the United States. And you go and you think, wow, this is amazing. And you kind of get overwhelmed by it. And all of a sudden you want to be one of those people to be something, do something thing, James. and I think he's just got, he doesn't have the strength of character to stand up for himself or his own country in the face of people he wants to impress. What, I mean, I've only got a minute off, but what does, does Mr. Pauliev take him to the woodshed? What does a leader do in a situation like this? In my view, he, the 2004 to 6 Harbor moment needs to happen, right? Which is, to say to the crew, look, we are not that far off from being competitive from winning a national.

election. Canadians will not trust us with governing this country if we're just seen as randomly doing stuff for clicks and likes and profile and all of that. We have to have structure and discipline and responsibility and a sense of stewardship of the obligation and the awesome responsibility and the awesome obligation of being the government of this country. You model that in opposition such that people can see you as being worthy of the privilege of doing it in real time in government. Show us what you can do in opposition. Maybe we'll trust you with the government. This is not what that looks like, be better. Well, in his case, Peter, if I could just have one more piece of this.

I think Mel Jolie made this point. He represents the writing where GM just announced, what, 1,300 job losses, and that didn't even seem to come up in his conversation with American officials. So he's not representing his constituents. He's not representing his party. He's not representing his country. What's he trying to do, build a following on TikTok? Well, and to people who, you know, to people who are.

say, why are you talking about a backbench, you know, opposition conservative credit? He wants us to talk about him. He wants this conversation. He wants the spotlight. This is what it looks like. So if you want the screen, if you want the praise, if it goes well, take the heat when it doesn't go well. And so if you, if you want this, this is what it looks like. Well, if he was looking for the spotlight, he got it. Probably not the way you wanted to get it, but he's got it now. Lots of ways to get the spotlight. Yeah. Okay. We got to go. Do you smell gold or what? I'm very hopeful.

Very hopeful. Gold. This is a great team. I'm holding my 2010 Olympic torch, Sidney Crosby, the Golden Goal, 2010. Let's do it. And I hope it's against the Americans,

but I'll take gold in whatever form. We're ready. Did you run with it? I'm a five-a-all, Peter. Are you going to take a... Oh, let's go. I actually ran with it. Did you run with it, James?

Did you run with yours? Yes, I was the minister for the Olympics. I got to carry it and absolutely. I represented the good people of World Wildlife Fund and ran with it too. I ran here in Stratford, Ontario. I'm very proud of it. They're doing us proud. They're carrying themselves well.

They're being thoughtful and meeting with the fans and all the good stuff. Our boys are doing us very proud. And our women are coming back too. Let's hope we're still saying this on Sunday. All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. It's good to talk to you as always. And the bridge will be back. tomorrow we have a what do we get tomorrow we've got it's Wednesday and we have an

end bit special you'll enjoy it I'm sure you will thanks Jerry thanks to James take care bye for now thank you