The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Raj and Russo -- The Liberals Survive, What Happens Now?

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

So in the end the Mark Carney government survived the budget vote. But you have to wonder whether the 140-138 vote in the Commons was what they really wanted. Sure it avoids a messy Christmas season election, but it also avoids what may have been the PM's best chance of turning a minority into a majority. We'll discuss that and what happens now with The Economist's Rob Russo and the Toronto Star's Althia Raj on this Tuesday's Reporter's Notebook. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. It's Raj Russo for this Tuesday. Coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Yes, it was a busy day in Ottawa yesterday, culminating in the big vote last night on the budget. We're going to talk about that with Althea Raj and Rob Russo in just a minute.

First, a little bit of housekeeping, a reminder that Thursday's question of the week for your turn, you've got to go to Google and have a look at NEO, N-E-O. It's a home robot. I want you to have a look at this. We're not pushing this. We're not trying to suggest you buy one of these. They're like really expensive. But the question is, is this really the way of the future?

And can you see yourself, as some tech bosses seem to suggest, we're all. going to have something like this. There are a few of them on the market right now. This is the easiest one to look at right as we talk about it. N-E-O is the home robot. It's one type anyway. I want you to look at it. Think about it. Tell me what you see as the upside or the downside of this whole idea. It's all part of AI. It's kind of the AI question for us this week and kind of fun to get at. And already some of the answers are quite revealing about how you feel about this. So have a look, let me know. You write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com,

the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. You've got until tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern to get your answer in. Keep your answer at 75 words or fewer. Remember, use your to leave your name and the location you're writing from. Okay, there you go. All right. Althea and Rob are on the line, and we're going to talk about what happened yesterday in that vote. And I watched it all, as we all did, watching the MPs, you know, get up and down in their seats and decide whether they're voting or not voting or abstaining.

And there were a couple of abstentions, which would seem to indicate that was the reason why, at the end of the day, the liberals won by a few votes. Elizabeth May 2 from the Green Party deciding to support the government. Here's my question after watching the faces of everybody after the vote. And I guess, Rob, you can start with us. Is that really the result that Mark Carney wanted? Yeah. Well, I don't think he conceded a single thing in his budget.

I don't believe that there was an amendment passed, a single amendment passed. I do understand that discussions between Elizabeth May and people in the prime minister's office led to her getting a question that was unusually answered by Mark Carney during question period. I sat in question period and I noticed there were gasps and OOs when he got up to answer her question about whether or not he would commit to the Paris targets for greenhouse gas reductions. but that's all it took a couple of lines in question period after Ms. May made quite a show of tossing the budget on the floor and stomping on it so the government conceded nothing that suggests to me that well you could tell when they walked in there was a swagger if not a

strut to them coming in but at the same time they ensured that every single one of their MPs turned out to vote. That's an operation. When you've got a 170 people who are across the country traveling, and you make sure that they turn out to vote if you want to survive. And they did that. I think that very little unites the parties these days. But one thing that seems to unite parties and the people of Canada is the dread of a December election. I don't think anybody really wanted it, but I think it's fair to say that the liberals were the least perturbed by the notion, perhaps along with the Block Quebequa. What about you, Alcia? What do you think?

I see it a little bit differently. I don't think that they conceded nothing, but they didn't concede much. The budget is full of identified projects in opposition held. writings that were the result of negotiations with the parties. So there are things that Gorgeons, for example, on Vancouver Island wanted. There are things that Lori Idlow, the NDP MP in Nunavut wanted. There are things that I. Francois Blanchet, the Black Quebecois leader, identified to the Prime Minister's office and the majority of which were funded in the budget. Despite this, Black said they weren't going to vote for the budget back in September, and they held

true to their ground. But they expected and hoped that the NDP would support the budget. So there were like goodies handed out to the opposition, but there was nothing that changed the fiscal framework or Mark Carney's vision of where the country was going. And they did spend a lot of effort after the budget was tabled. courting Elizabeth May's support. And I don't know that it's not much, but I don't know that it's nothing. To have the Prime Minister stand up in the House of Commons

and say that Canada is committed to meeting its Paris Acclored targets, because frankly, I don't know how we're going to get there. So she now has him, like a clip of him, and she can run in the election saying, you broke your word, and something that she can point to do, hold him accountable for, which she didn't have before. She really desperately wanted to get to a yes.

And they did spend effort like Braden Cayley went to see her in Vancouver, the prime minister's deputy chief of staff, to try to win her support. And they were still talking to her all throughout the weekend, Monday morning. They agreed on the language of that question. part of that answer was also about the nature strategy. There was a big UN meeting in Montreal a few years back that committed to saving 30% of land in oceans by 2030, and Canada is committed to that.

It was part of the liberal selection platform. And there was apparently like a billion bucks or something for that nature strategy, but it wasn't in the budget, bizarrely enough. And so she has a verbal commitment again from Mark that that is coming in the weeks ahead. So it's not nothing, but it's definitely not much. I think what was most interesting to me was how desperate the conservatives were

to ensure that there wasn't an election. Yeah, there seemed to be a few high jumps being done there at the end by some of the conservative members like Andrew Shear and others about when they were voting and how they were voting and waiting to see where the vote was going to land before they announced which way they were going to go. There's a very short stumble between the lobby now in the current version of the House of Commons

because it's in the West block while the center block gets run of it. It's a very short stumble. But somehow the caucus leader and the House leader of the Conservative Party were compelled to vote, remotely, electronically, until the result of the conference vote was known. And then they sprinted into the House of Commons, both of them. Mr. Shearer tie askew, hair mottled, looking like he was huffing and puffing, to make sure that his vote was recorded as a nay.

So that was what it was. It was cheap theater to make it look. like they couldn't vote when what they really wanted to do was to make sure that the government didn't fall because the Conservatives don't want an election. And so they used the House Leader and the caucus leader who both have huge pluralities in their writings to take a chance and miss the vote by a few steps only to make sure that their vote was recorded afterwards. At the end of the day, given the fact that, aside from Elizabeth May, nobody voted for the budget from the opposition parties.

So at the end of the day, did everybody kind of win, but all parties sort of point to the numbers and say, we did exactly what we wanted to do, we voted against the budget, or in the case of the government, we got all our members there, we voted for the budget. So was it At the end of the day Was it a win for everybody? I'll see you? They all have a way to explain their votes to their core constituencies. I think the NEP would have rather

being positioned to vote entirely against it, but they weren't sure what the conservatives were going to do, even though just before break week on a block amendment, the conservatives all sided with the liberals. If the conservatives wanted to have an election, we would have had an election last the Friday before break week. I forgot what date that is on the calendar, but the eighth or something. And we didn't. So that should have been an indication to the NDP, but they couldn't be assured. And to Rob's point, now that there's electronic voting, there's kind of these little games that you can play. Like it appears,

on that vote that it was the NDP that was playing games because they all voted at the last minute electronically after having seen that the conservatives had sided with the liberals in defeating this block amendment. So they all had the freedom now to voting against and in favor of this block motion. And this week, I think what it shows is that new Democrats are not actually speaking to conservatives. The blocks seemed to be quite confident that the conservatives were going to withhold the votes. And the liberals knew that going into that vote on Monday. In fact, the prime minister and Pierre Paulyev were laughing with each other and joking. The mood was incredibly relaxed. The liberals definitely got what they wanted. They got to know where the

pressure points are for the opposition. They got to know that they can govern life. this that they don't need to make side deals, at least if they read the tea leaves properly, they don't need to make side deals. And everybody kind of now knows their weaknesses. I'm not sure that everybody's a winner. I think almost maybe everybody's kind of a loser. Okay. Rob? Well, when you're faced with extinction, like they say, hanging in the morning concentrates the mind. I think the New Democrats' minds were concentrated. I I think it's the same with the Conservative Party. They didn't want an election.

And I believe that there were quiet discussions going on amongst House leaders over the last week, 10 days, to come up with some sort of choreography to make sure that there wasn't an election. And why? Because there was going to be no joy across the country if there was a January vote. And so in a way, the people of Canada won.

In that, I don't think that this is a beloved government, but they believe that Carney should have a chance to govern. There is no sort of stampede to get rid of the conservatives yet. Mr. Polyev still has a substantial amount of support. And in his caucus and his party across the country, he himself, no. And so in a way, it was a smart way of self-perish, reservation. I'm not sure that everybody won, but everybody didn't lose. This was not the day to try and lose anything. And I think almost everybody might have lost something, but everybody was

risking a loss. You know, I sat in the Commons yesterday as well. You know when an election is imminent. Okay, you've got, you've got those furrowed, kind of fevered looks on the, on the government side. They try to tick off names. You know, I did, I did see. Gerritsen with a pad and a pen, but he did not look in any way perturbed. None of the questions from the conservative side were like the kind that you saw at the end of last year. When every single question was, get out of the way and let's have an election now, none of that, none of that at all. There were all questions about the cost of living. So I think everybody got what they what they wanted in effect, which is to fight another day, because there is a

realization, and that I think it's true among the government benches as well, that some pretty tough days lie ahead. That even if you pass this confidence vote, the economy is still sputtering. There's a guy in the White House who believes in the Donroe Doctrine. There could be a couple of referendums in the next year. This is not going to be an easy time. The government, and if you're the opposition and a leader of a party in the opposition, give the government time to find out how difficult it's going to be to govern over the next year. Okay. It is really interesting to compare like a year ago the debates in the House of Commons to now because it's not the Liberal Party that's weak this time around. It's the opposition

parties at a week. And that's why they all caved at the last minute. Pure Polyam doesn't want election, but he also doesn't want to go to his leadership race being challenged by the right flank saying you had a chance to defeat the conservatives, sorry, the liberals, and you didn't. And the NDP's in the middle of

the leadership race. And while I don't believe that they don't have the money to run a campaign if they're only trying to save seven seats, I think they can do that on this two-string budget. It's also not what they wanted. The only party that seemed to be willing to flex muscle

as the Black Quebequa, and they're the only ones who didn't really blink. I don't want to stretch this too far, but you're leaving me at least partially with the impression that these last couple of weeks with some of the back room maneuvering and some of the

discussions that have been going on between the parties, that there is at least a thin layer of trust that seems perhaps to have been developed between the parties, at least on this issue, that they were able to sit away from the cameras, away from our journalists, and talk this through as to what was going to happen?

Or am I looking at that too deep? I think that two weeks ago, there was nothing like that. But over the last 10 days, I think House leaders got together. And I think that they had these discussions about what was going to happen. And they didn't map it out. But you could just tell that nobody, nobody in that room yesterday thought that there was going to be the drama that a lot of journalists thought was imminent, that everybody had come to the agreement that one way or another the government was going to survive. And that happens when House leaders get together very quietly. If they trust each other, and in many instances, they do develop relationships of trust.

they come to some sort of quiet accord. I don't know that to be true, so I can't offer a perspective on what the House leaders hashed. I will say that the liberals in the Prime Minister's office were deeply worried, and they did not have the votes. That is not blustering. They did not know. They were hopeful that they would win the vote,

but they did not know how they were going to win the vote. And that's why they spent so much effort. courting Elizabeth Meng, for example. And she was very communicative, very publicly. She came out and she said her decision hours before the vote. And she said why she was saying her decision publicly. She's like, I'm going to vote this way. So now the ball is in your court, and I'm telling you what the numbers are.

So you can decide how many members you want to abstain from the vote. I don't know that we have, well, House leaders have always been pretty communicative, But I think what I would say is that the one thing that worries me is that the prime minister's office doesn't seem to have developed the contacts, to have the relationships of trust within the opposition camps. And so I don't think that we won't face a similar situation in the months or years to come because I'm, at the moment, they don't seem to understand the motivation factors, like the constituencies that the NDP has to respond to, or like why Elizabeth May would be voting in a way that she is. And they're not thinking through certain decisions.

Like the fact that they would, they are the ones who picked November 4th for their budget. Remember it was supposed to be in October? And then they picked November 4th. And at the same time, Prime Minister Carney said, we're going to announce the second tranche of national interest projects before Gray Cup, November 16th. And Daniel Smith came out and said, we want a pipeline on that list.

And the federal government knew what Daniel Smith was going to say. They were still in discussions about announcing this memorandum of understanding with Danielle Smith this weekend. How would Elizabeth May have voted on Monday if Prime Minister, Carney had announced a pathway to building a pipeline that she's vehemently opposed. Like, they're not coordinated. They're not thinking through these things. And if it wasn't for Dominic Loblob, I'm told who was like, hello people. We cannot do this.

That wouldn't have happened. And that would have caused problems in Mark Carney's own ranks too with his own members. So I think there's a, Elizabeth May believes that it is a learning curve that Mark Carney, you know, hasn't spent a lot of time in Parliament and therefore doesn't understand this. Maybe she's right. But it also is true that a lot of the people that Carney brought in the prime minister's office are also people who have not spent time on Parliament Hill and do not have those contacts themselves.

So I think a bit of it is that they're so green that that is why we got so close to possibly having an election. Yeah, you might want to change your color on that. Well, so inexperience. Yeah. I want to get to this whole premier's thing because there's an interesting play going on there as well, and we'll do that after the break. But, Rob, a last word on this, because the picture that you guys seem to be painting a little bit anyway is that you've got a government that seems to know what it's doing on the policy and planning side of things in terms of being a government. but in terms of being a government and understanding how to move things through Parliament,

they don't know what they're doing or they're very inexperienced in what they're doing. Would that be fair to say? No, I'm not sure I agree with that. I think I do believe that they were a little bit more organized than Althea believes they were. But yes, are they inexperienced in terms of the Westminster system? Yes, yes, they are.

out. I do believe that there are good relationships among the House leaders already that they have been speaking. Do I believe that the liberal government has good relations with its own caucus? Probably not as good as they have among House leaders. I think that if I was Mark Carney, I'd be worrying about what some of the people are saying in the liberal caucus. You know, like I said, it's going to be a difficult time to govern. If I were him, one of the things I'd be watching out for next year, quite frankly, is if there's a shuffle early in the new year, and there are, as we've said here, there are some ministers who are performing badly or who can't perform for a very,

a varied amount of reasons, if there's a shuffle and some of those people who were cabinet ministers or who were hoping to be cabinet ministers when they were brought on in last spring's election, if they're not in cabinet, I think you're going to see a little bit more rest of this and I think you might even see one or two departures that are not expected. I believe that they are inexperienced. I believe that, and I've been told, frankly,

by the inner circle that Mark Carney believes he knows what is right and is going to do what he thinks is right and he's not interested in negotiating. And so he's basically going to govern as if he has a majority. And I don't believe, and I think we can look at the last few months, to see that the House leaders have had a great relationship. Because if the House leaders have had a great relationship, speaking specifically about Steve McKinnon, the Liberals House leader, with the Block leader, for example, the Liberals would not have been surprised when the leader of the Black Kibiqua told the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, we're not going to support your budget.

it. We offered you an olive branch. You guys have ignored us. And what did Steve McKinnon do? He went out publicly and bashed the Block, Quebec. So it's like that nuance and that I think is missing. It's like understanding how your opponents will respond to things and predicting how they're going to respond to things and being able to then strategize and anticipate what are the pressure points. You know, what are the pressure points? for your opponent. That, I think, is a lack of experience and a lack of the relationships that exist at the moment

that hopefully will get worked on. What does all this mean for the immediate future? I mean, they get through the crisis. There's more confidence votes to come. It's not done yet. Explain that to me. Are we going to go through this a number of, you know, a number

of times in the next a couple of weeks we're going to lead up to a vote and everybody's going to do the same dance who's going to vote for what who's going to abstain or is it pretty well known now what's going to happen well there's a ways and means motion that i think is either today or very soon and then there's a budget implementation bill that has to be to be done um and i think they're going to find a way to get around those um i think everybody has shown their cards now But Althea raises an interesting question about the bloc Quebecois, which I think is true. Steve McKinnon is one of those old-style federals who does not have a lot of respect for the fact that there's a separatist party in the House of Commons. And I do think it tells us that the government needs to get ready for the reality of the Parts-Kebecua winning power there,

a party that said it's going to have a referendum within its first year. And there are people in that liberal caucus who are worried that this government doesn't understand that and isn't readied for it, doesn't have some sort of hurry up offense in case that happens. A little bit better about dealing with Alberta is what I'm told, but not as cognizant. They don't have the sort of distant early warning system that they need. in Quebec right now for that possibility. I can add to that.

They are working on it. So they have started meetings and they're launching a plan about how to increase federal visibility and how they're going to respond and how to plan in the months leading up to the referendum, potential referendum. All that to say is it is not, they're not aware of it. Okay. We're going to take our break. I'm going to come back.

I want to talk about this other level of communication that's going on between the Kearney government and the premiers, which, you know, it's one thing immediately after the election for everybody to be liking each other, but this seems to have gone on for quite some time, and I want to try and understand how real it is and what it means to the bigger picture of things that are going on in the country. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. This is the reporter's notebook for this Tuesday. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Okay. There was a virtual meeting of the First Ministers yesterday. In other words, they weren't sitting there in person, but they were hooked up kind of the same way we are right now, some kind of sophisticated secretive Zoom call or some kind of streaming service of some kind. So anyway, they met and those who talked afterwards were all kind of glowing about how well things are going,

and we like each other and they're all smiles, at least some of the main players. Whether it was Wob Canoe or Doug Ford, David Eby, I mean, they were all saying relatively nice things about each other. And there is this assumption that there's a deal cooking or cooked and just needs to be announced in some kind of MOU, a memorandum of understanding between the Prime Minister and Danielle Smith and Alberta that could come out at any time in the next couple of days. Later this month, apparently. Later this month. But sometime this month. What times were at that, right?

I remember she told me in June that if there wasn't something by Thanksgiving, that gloves had come off. Well, we're well past Thanksgiving, but clearly there's something going on. Maybe she meant American Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah, maybe that is what she meant. Anyway, what does all this tell us? I don't recall a time at which the relationship between Ottawa and the provinces

appeared to be as good as this one is compared with everything else that happens in Ottawa between the governing party and the opposition parties. What do you make of this? What is really going on there? and when are we going to understand more about why it's going on? Althea, you start us this round here. I think it's really interesting that we're juxtaposition these two themes because it shows how Mark Carney and his government are capable of building those relationships

to drive to the outcomes that they want when they want to. I think there's two things happen. One, they've been really smart and strategic with the nation building projects and the list of projects. And so every premier kind of wants to line up in the queue to like get goodies for their own provinces. And he has made some key decisions that have resulted in Mark Carney being Santa Claus and not being seen as a policeman. You know, there was a very, I'm told, of vivid discussion at the cabinet table about whether or not health and social transfers were going to be cut. And the government decided not to go that route. There are things that Mark Carney has announced that he has actually not decided to press the provinces on.

For example, remember a few months back when we were talking about a one economy and reducing the trade barriers between the provinces, Mark Carney could have decided to use the federal power to sort of force the provinces to act on areas within their jurisdiction and the federal government has decided not to do that. There are issues happening in specific provinces where Prime Minister Carney has decided not to wage into, for example, the use of the notwithstanding clause. You compare that to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

and you can see that Trudeau would have responded very, very differently. So he is choosing to engage with them in a very constructive way where they all come out as winners. And he's not kind of scoring political points, their perspective, on things that are irritants between the two levels of government. Rob? You know, I hesitate to go too far down this road because it was ever thus.

The bloom and the blush of a new prime minister tends to make premier swoon. The swooning doesn't last very long and the realities of the natural tensions that come into our federal system appear. But for now, for now, there is also, I think, concentric complementing,

circles of political tensions at the provincial levels with parties in Ottawa that are helping the Prime Minister. The Federal New Democratic Party is lost and wayward and trying to figure out their way. Neither of the two premiers, who are New Democratic Party, premiers, want much to do with the federal party. And so you get NDP premiers, eB. and Wab Knew, urging their federal counterparts to support the budget. And that's because of the dismal state of the federal party. You have tensions in the Conservative Party right now, particularly between the largest conservative provincial faction in Ontario

and the federal party that is open, that is bitter, and the bile is flowing between them. Not only did Premier Ford say that the budget should be supported, when he was asked if he was going to urge his federal cousins to do that, he made sure that there was a distinction drawn yesterday. He said, we are the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. We're not the federal part. So those are the kinds of things that an adroit prime minister of a liberal stripe can take advantage of. And certainly he is taking advantage of it. Nowhere is that it's not as open between Daniel Smith and Pierre Poyolev. I don't think that there is much bile at all.

I think that they get on quite well, Premier Smith and Mr. Poyolev. But I think you ask the question, and I keep coming back to this question. Does Daniel Smith believe that Mark Carney's best progressive conservative prime minister, the country has ever had? and her answer was yes. She does. Her cover continues to give him currency with people who don't always vote or almost never vote liberal that a liberal prime minister has rarely, rarely had in this country. So those kinds of competing and concentric tensions between premiers and opposition leaders of the same strap, I would say the same goes with Premier, Legault as well. Not only is it not his involvement in the notwithstanding clause debate, but Premier Legolo is facing extinction as well in his own province. And it's not because of the

Liberal Party. It's because of the Partsighebekua. So any chance he gets to slam the block, Legault will do that as well. So you've got these unique circumstances. I'm not sure how long they're going to last. I don't think the bloom of the new relationship is going to last. I think of the big selfie or the big picture of Justin Trudeau and all of the premiers happy together after they come up with an environmental agreement that none of them would want to adhere to right now months into that relationship. That evaporated very, very quickly. The relationship, that's probably not going to last the way it is now. Those political competing concentric circles, that might endure for a little bit of time. Okay, but in the meantime,

you know, things look pretty good at the moment in terms of that relationship. And I realize how quickly these things can change. You know, it wasn't, it was only a year or two after Trudeau was elected. In 2015, you had that famous McLean's cover of all the conservative premiers saying, we're going to bring this guy down, which, of course. The resistance. Pardon me? I think it's called the resistance.

The resistance, right. But, you know, so much of what's going on today, centers around two people. Well, you know, there's obviously there's the Kearney Ford relationship, which seems pretty tight. But all eyes are on the Carney Smith relationship. And it all seems to hinge on one eight-letter word that starts with a P and ends with an E.

And one wonders if, in fact, there is some kind of agreement or common thinking on a pipeline. what that will do to this government, the Liberal Caucus, and opposition in different parts of the country. What do we expect this memorandum of understanding is going to say about a pipeline? Because clearly something is going to have to be said about it, or Smith wouldn't still be negotiating. Am I wrong about that? Well, okay, that's what I'm asking. Am I wrong about that?

I think a lot of this is virtue signaled to constituencies because even conservatives believe that this pipeline is not, like this is not imminent and it's unlikely to see the light of day. What she announced this fall was, I think it was $14 million, like nothing, basically, to start, developing the idea of to see if there were private proponents or what they could do to basically rebuild the Northern Gateway proposal. There is no indigenous support for that proposal.

It's really hard to see how you could get to a yes with that. It's hard to see anyone thinking they can make money from that, assuming that we're talking about a private proponent in a timeline that makes any sense. She is saying this. One could easily argue to calm a certain constituency in her own province. You could easily argue that Mark Carney

is also saying this to calm a certain constituency or to extend an olive branch to a certain constituency. For sure, there are people, namely the Natural Resource Minister, who vehemently seems to want this to happen as much as probably

Stephen Gibbo the heritage minister former environment minister probably doesn't want this to happen but the wording I suspect in the memorandum of understanding

will be you know if there is a if the Pathways Alliance goes forward and if Alberta you know

beefs up its industrial price and the framework for that. And if we're developing oil and cleanest possible way, then possibly, yes, the federal government would look at seeing how it could facilitate the possibility of a pipeline, going to tidewater. But that will be the first time that Mark Carney will make an announcement that where the battle lines have been drawn from Premier E.B. and British Columbia by indigenous communities. And when he's been faced with criticism about some of his projects, namely last

week when he announced a second tranche of projects, and I believe a reporter pointed out that the LNG project, that pipeline is not, you know, not all indigenous communities along that route have said that they want that. And in fact, they're suing. And he said, well, just because you're on the list doesn't mean it's a yes. So I don't think we'll have a memorandum of understanding the guarantees a yes. I think it will be a lot of nuanced and gray and wishy-washy language so that people can say, like, Premier Eby can say, well, this is never going to happen and we'll worry about it when, you know, it's more concrete than just some wishful thinking on a piece of paper. Okay, Rob, you get the final word on this. Well, you know, there is an existential threat to Daniel Smith's leadership, if this doesn't come along.

Conservative leaders in Alberta are done from within. They get defeated by their own people. Jason Kennedy is a perfect example of that. And this represents a real threat to Danielle Smith's leadership. She needs a pipeline. In favor of a pipeline, I think the IAEA, the international. energy overseer that looks at the future of oil has now said that demand for oil is going to continue to rise through 2050. And I noticed that the markets took their cue a little bit

from that last week. A real challenge, though, for somebody like Mark Carney, who is a rookie politician. And you saw them stumble on that challenge when his energy minister said in effect that Alberta still has a lot of work to do in convincing British Columbia to accept a pipeline. If the federal government backs the notion of a pipeline, it has to work, as Althea said, with a premier in British Columbia who said, no way. It has to work with indigenous communities who are saying no way. It has to work with members of their caucus who are more than, of his own caucus, who are more than a little uncomfortable. with investment in a pipeline, no matter what the markets say.

So this is going to be a test of federal leadership inside of his own caucus room with Canada's First Peoples and with the Premier. And it's not something for Alberta to do. Provincial premiers represent provincial interests. This, if it's in the national interest, has to be advanced, advocated, sold on a variety of levels by a Neophyte Prime Minister. It's not going to be a small task. Well, it's going to be fascinating to read the fine print of that MOU if it comes down.

Because, you know, Daniel Smith, one assumes, is not going to sign anything that's wishy-washy. Mark Carney's not going to sign anything that looks like it's a guaranteed, this is going to happen. I assume. I mean, what do I know? I don't know. Daniel Smith will be consumed by our own people if she doesn't get something strong enough.

And vice versa. If it's too strong, he's going to get consumed. But the underlining things. The great glories of Canada as a federation means we find a compromise. We find a way to muddle through. Let's see if we do this time. It's not a small challenge. It's a significant challenge.

Okay, last word out to you. It is so far ahead in the future that it will outlive Carney and Daniel Smith that I don't know that any, I think it's going to be more of a PR exercise than really a roadmap to a pipeline. Okay, well, I'm just going to isolate that. Play it for us in two weeks. Yes, that's right. We'll see if that's far enough in the future to replay that tape. Listen, thanks to both of you. Always good to talk, and we'll talk again in two weeks' time.

Until then, you guys take care. See you. I'm Peter. See you later, Rob. And that wraps it up for the Raj Russo discussion for this week. A reminder that the question of the week comes up for Thursday's Your Turn. And at the top of this program, we went through it all on what you have to do. do to take part, and we really encourage you to take part. This is a good discussion, a good topic to have, so check it out, and we'll read your letters

on Thursday. Tomorrow, it's a special Wednesday edition of an N-Bit special. For those of you know what N-Bits are, I don't have to explain anything. For those of you who don't, you'll be sitting on the edge of your seats wondering, what is it an N-Bit special, and you'll find out tomorrow when the bridge returns. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in about 24 hours.