The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Raj/Russo: Let's Break A Deal -- Trump Threatens Gordie Howe

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Really? Donald Trump now says he will refuse to allow the multi-billion-dollar new bridge between Canada and the U.S. to be opened. That's the bridge Canada paid for, and Trump heralded just a few years ago. It's the latest twist in the trade war, and it's just one of the stories we focus on today with Althia Raj and Rob Russo in their 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.

Are you ready for Raj Russo, their reporter's notebook coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Rob Russo from the economist, Al Thea Raj from the Toronto Star. Their reporter's notebook on this day and, as always, lots to talk about. Let's begin with our friend south of the border and his latest reality show, Let's Break a Deal. I thought of that all by myself. It's pretty good, right? You're proud of it, aren't you? I'm very proud of it.

It's very good. Yeah, he threatens Gordy Howe, the Gordy Howe bridge between Detroit and Windsor. All paid for by Canadians, by the way, but worked on by both American unionized workers and Canadian unionized workers and American steel and Canadian steel. But he's threatening saying the Americans are getting screwed on this deal, the one he thought was so good just a couple of years ago. What do we make of this, Rob? Is this for real or is this just a ploy? So you've started with me to try to divine the daftness of the Mad King Donald. That's very kind of you.

Look, what do you call it? You call it an inventory of inanities, the kind of stream of madness that you might hear from that poor soul looking bedraggled, standing on a street corner. But once in a while, in the free association, that person says something that you need to pay attention to. But let's start with the inventory of inanities. It begins with the suggestion that the Chinese are going to streak across the Pacific in order to get their hands on Lord Stanley's mug.

And I think that's an important tell. That tells you that he's giving us a rather grotesque and lurid wink, that he himself knows that this is inane. And what I think it tells us is that we are now in the pre-negotiation period for the Canada-U.S. Mexico Free Treat Agreement that is mandated by the law, and this is his opening attempt to gain leverage. I don't think that we should treat it as anything more than that. It's a lot of noise.

It's a lot of daft-free association. But it's also, he says it right there, let's begin negotiations. And that's what I would do. If I were on the Canadian side, I would say, okay, he hasn't spoken to us really since last fall when the Ontario ads ran. And now he says he wants to speak to us.

Let's sit down and talk. Alcia, what do you make of it? Well, I agree with Rob that I don't think we should, panic about amusing from the president of the United States that also suggests that China's going to take away the standing club and get rid of ice hockey. But there are a few things I thought were interesting in the way that the president phrased his tweet, his social, truth, truth social post. I was interested in how he framed our deal with China as in it seemed to me like he was saying like America should have first pass of the buffet and we're allowing the Chinese to

have first pass at the buffet and that Americans are going to get leftovers when it comes to picking off Canada's economy. But the main message was really the threat about not basically revoking a permit that basically creates this as an international entry point. And it kind of smells of desperation. So, you know, if this is the kind of threats that the White House is going to issue as we negotiate, it's hard, I think, for Canadian negotiators to believe that this is a real thing. And in any, it might actually help us in some ways. It's like the response from Michigan, the American response from the border state at all level has really, and I get it's a Democratic state. But I think, you know, some of the things that have been missing in action in Washington

is kind of really strong defense verbally of Canada. And we might see that this week. There could be a vote as early as Wednesday to get rid of the tariffs on Canada. And so I think that really this tweet is framed kind of to set forth that discussion because it could be a big loss for the president. I think it's important. It's important what else you mentions in terms of the Democratic state. I mean, whether it's the mayor of Detroit, whether it's the governor of Michigan, et cetera, et cetera. There is strong ties to Democratic Party.

And close ties to Canada always have been between Michigan and Canada. And, you know, so much of what Trump does is tied to money, right? It's not necessarily... Pay me. Reparations. Yeah, but it's not just that. I mean, there are two bridges in Detroit. There's this new one that's going to open, and the old one, the ambassador bridge.

You know, one family has owned that bridge and has made an awful lot of money that they're going to watch disappear when the Gordy Howl bridge opens. And they've been lobbying the Trump administration and one assumes Trump personally to get involved in this. Because they're trying to protect their buck and they want to split of the tolls and it's, et cetera, et cetera. So there's big bucks here as well as, you know, intercontinental trade at stake here. Rob, you want to make a point, sorry. Yeah, I wanted to point out that something that happened

and could have happened at the Ambassador Bridge four years ago when the convoy was sort of seized, seizing Ottawa. The United States was watching what was going on. in Ottawa and at other border crossings. The Biden administration was watching very closely. We were working with the Biden administration in Canada to keep an eye on any kind of American sympathizers who might have been aiding the convoy here. But the money in the United States compelled the Biden administration to lurch into action and to ask some very pointed

questions of the Trudeau government. Once it became possible, that the Ambassador Bridge might be blocked. So what does that tell you? That tells you that if something were to happen, that would constrain the flow of goods, the free flow of goods on either side of that border, which has been described as the busiest trade corridor in the world. It's not just Michigan, which is democratic at the state level.

That would be upset. So would Ohio. So would Indiana. So would Wisconsin. So would New York. So these are all vital areas, not New York, but Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan. What do they all have in common? Those are all swing states.

And those swing states were won by Donald Trump. And I think the Biden administration got involved the last time because it would have had a huge impact on the U.S. economy, on working Americans, and on the markets as well. so he can make that threat. I'd be very, very surprised if he did anything or if this became something that might constrict the free flow of goods across that border. And that's a threat that could work on Canada's side as well. I don't think we're ever going to get there.

I think that this is an attempt to gain leverage. It's an attempt to start negotiations off with him throwing his weight around. The Chinese stuff is just, it's a smokescreen because by the time negotiations really do get started he will have come back from Beijing

with his own deal on China with a deal that will probably involve EVs that might even involve them setting up manufacturing plants in the United States. Donald Trump was in Michigan last month

saying that he would be fine with the Chinese setting up EV manufacturing plants in the United States, as long as they were building the cars there. So it's a smokescreen. It's a lot of noise. But the signal that's important is he wants to talk. Let's take him up on it.

What I don't understand is how he continually gets away with creating his own facts about known things. I mean, the whole process of how the Gordy Howl Bridge was built, negotiations that took place. Who's paying for it? Canada, 100%. of the cost. He makes it sound like

that somehow the Americans are paying for everything and America got ripped off in this process. But his tweet, which is actually quite long that,

as Althea says, what do they call it? Truth social. Truth social. Big paragraph. Yeah. It's a big paragraph. It's much longer

than he usually writes, which makes one wonder who actually wrote it. But it is full of all those kind of Trump facts which are non-facts. And yet he continually kind of gets away with it, no matter what the subject is.

Does he get away with it, though? Well, he gets away with it to his base. They believe all this stuff. I don't know. But do they? Like his approval ratings are now far below the number of people who voted for him. So I think this is a reflection of that political reality, that he is in an uncontrolled descent towards the earth

in terms of losing political gravity being brought down by the inanities of it all and of this circus. And that, between now and the midterms, that makes him the most dangerous. He is at his most dangerous right now, and that danger can be pointed towards Canada. And that's what's happening right now.

but we just cannot dance every time he tosses something with a dangling participle on onto truth social. It is Trump. There are run-on sentences. There's bad grammar and there's all this make-believe. It's Trump writ small. But we can't react to it. And I don't know that he's getting away with it. I actually think that he's not.

You know, what do you see in response to a lot of this? You see that maybe some people should be thinking about the 25th Amendment. Now, I don't think that he's, he is sort ofifiable, but that's the kind of talk that gets triggered by some of this stuff. Well, I hope you're right. But the number of times that I've heard that kind of assessment of Trump going downhill since 2016, that's true. You know, I would take more than all my fingers and toes to count.

But he's also been blessed by in that opposition as well. Althea, you wanted to make a last point on this before we move on? Well, I don't think this is Trump, but it's most dangerous. I think after he, we assume, if there are free elections, loses big in the midterms, I think that will be Trump at his most dangerous. But in the meantime, I guess I'm not that surprised. I'm surprised by the ludicrous statements about the Stanley Club and ice hockey. I'm less surprised that he's like lying about the use of American steel, for example, in the bridge or how the bridge was constructed.

I do think it's about a little bit framing Kuzma, but I really think it's more about domestic politics this week. I mean, he likes to pretend that he's this and he and by him, I mean, America is a huge victim of like terrible people and countries take. advantage of the United States. And now we're having American lawmakers say, what you're doing is illegal and inappropriate and we are going to fight you on it. And it looks like they're going to have Republican, at least a handful of Republicans voting with Democrats on the Canadian tariffs. And he can frame it as, you guys are not standing up for America. I'm standing up for America. And these are the litany of complaints I have against Canada for taking advantage of us. I think it fits, yes. I mean, we're going to analyze it through

the Kuzma Lens because that's what we're obsessed with in the next few months, and that's what's so meaningful to us. But I think it's also about what's happening in Washington. Okay. You know, the fact that this is, you know, is an interesting story, and with literally billions of dollars at stake in terms of the construction of it, but billions of dollars, multi-billions of dollars in future trade crossing back and forth across that bridge, I mean, it's the name of the bridge.

the Gordy Howl bridge, you know, which I think immediately has Canadians sort of rushing to the defense of it, even though this guy never played a pro game in Canada, right? All his games were in the States, Gordy Howl, but a product of Saskatoon or just outside Saskatoon, I think. But very sharp elbows, Gordie had the short. Short elbows. And, you know, here was a guy who was known for the Gordy Howe hat trick, right? You know, a goal, an assist, and a fight in a game, you got a Gordy Howe hat trick.

And it still talked about today. And I was trying to think of how could I make a Gordy Howe Hatrick out of this story? But I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm sure if it continues, we will. I think we got flow. I do think we've got a hat-trick flow with our next topic. Well, you're assuming that you know already what that topic is. What if I've changed direction here? No, we're going to get to that.

I want to remind people, and I should have at the beginning, that the Raj Russo program is now on, YouTube as well, starting today. So you don't just have to listen to it. You can watch it as well on our YouTube channel. Same place you get good talk. Okay, the next topic is Jamil Giovanni, the conservative MP. And his, what could we say?

You know, his journey to the United States last week, here's a guy who's a friend of J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President. He seems to have got access, although it's still pretty unclear to me. exactly who he saw, when he saw them, how long he saw them for, and what actually came out of these particular meetings. But he's trying to, he's like on a one-man trade mission, right? He's trying to solve all the problems between Canada and the United States by himself through the connections he has in Washington.

And it seems that I'm not sure which feathers he's ruffled, if any, but they could be in his own party, they could be in the government, they could be, well, they could be anywhere. What is your take on it? Althea, why don't you start this round? It's funny. He's on a one-man trade mission. I think he's probably on a one-man mission.

Some people would say that as a possible just raising a best profile mission, others would suggest he's Thorn at Pierre Puelli of the conservative leader's side. A little unclear. You mentioned a few things that we don't know. We don't know them because Jamil Giovanni hasn't told us the nature, the real nature of his trip.

He penned an op-ed, an open letter to Canadians, I.S. In the National Post where he talked about his trip. He said he acknowledged his 15-year friendship with J.D. Vance. They were University of Pus and buddies. Can we say that for men? And he talks about sitting down with Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, sitting down with President Trump and hearing from them about their priorities. But it's not clear to your point if it was like a pull aside, like I saw him in the hallway,

or if like we had a sit down for an hour and a half and we chinwagged. And he seems to have been very receptive to the talking points from the U.S. administration. What he was briefed on from the Canadian side about the messages that perhaps we wanted to communicate to the White House. That's not clear to me. Jamil Chivani in his letter says that he can't tell us what they really discussed until he sits down with Mark Kearney, the prime minister, and debriefs him about his trip. Then one assumes why are you writing to us then if you don't have anything to say to us at the moment, why don't you just wait for this debrief with the liberal government and then tell us what you can tell us about what it is that you've accomplished.

accomplished if if what you did was accomplishing something and not actually impeding things in giving ammunition to the American side. It's interesting. I'm not yet. I feel like I have not enough inputs of information to know whether this was a productive meeting or if it was just, you know, productive for Canada, if it was just productive for Jemil Javani and his social media feeds. Rob? Well, given the, well, I don't know, 250 words of dribbling snot we got from Donald Trump last night. I don't know how productive it was. And you're talking to a guy, or you're listening to a guy who was in favor of Jemeel Giovanni going down there. At a moment like this, given what we're facing at this point in our history, You use every asset you can in order to advance your interests.

And so why wouldn't you use somebody who has a great friendship with the vice president of the United States? No matter whether it was 15 seconds or 15 minutes or 150 minutes, nobody gets near the president of the United States unless the president wants that to happen. He's thoroughly vetted. And so the fact that he got near Trump and that they had. a discussion is significant. The fact that he saw the Secretary of State is significant. He could have been useful. He could have been. If he had said nothing and come directly back and briefed the government might have been able to help the government. I'm not saying he would have been able to do this himself, but help the government divine a path forward. But what did he say?

We know some of what he said. Well, he has blamed the toxic nature of the relationship on anti-Americanism in Canada. That's one of the things he wrote about in his op-ed. I know a lot of Canadians are upset with the United States. I think they're upset with Donald Trump. They're not upset with their American neighbors necessarily, with their American families, because we've all got families over there as well.

He also came back criticizing Canada for making a trade deal with China. Look, if that's the only trade deal we're going to make, you might have a legitimate shot at some valid criticism. There are things to be concerned about in terms of our trade deal with China, but it's not the only trade deal we're going to make. The United States is going to make a trade deal with China. Is he going to make the same criticism to Donald Trump when Donald Trump makes that deal?

The other thing that I would say about Mr. Giovanni is he has raised from time to time the plight of workers in his own Oshawa-Bomenville riding, but not as often as I would have expected. He did go on a university tour recently to try and deal with what he thought was an urgent crisis. And what was that urgent crisis? The urgent crisis facing a lack of confidence in young men. And where did he go? He went across universities in southern Ontario.

What did he do? He collected data. He got names. He recruited people. Okay. So I think that Althea is on to something. he is an ambitious guy. Ambition is a great thing in politics.

I think his ambitions lie in leadership. I don't think that they lie in Ottawa. I think that he sees a three-term premier in Ontario, somebody who he's not gotten along with very well, who has said he's going to go for a fourth term. I'd be very, very surprised if that happened, but he's saying that. But if he doesn't, he's positioning himself, I think,

for a run at the Ontario conservative leadership. He's gathering names. He's gathering emails, and he's gathering future supporters for something like that. I've got one more question on Giovanni, and it relates to the impact all this is having inside his own party, the federal party. But I just wanted a slight detour. And it's on this issue and suggestion that you make that, you know, Canadians are angry. They're upset with Trump.

But they make a dividing line between that, their political feelings, and their friendships south of the border. And you're right. We all have them. But I've got to say that I've noticed in the last, I don't know, a few months that some of those friendships are kind of falling apart for two reasons, one on each side. Canadians upset that Americans don't get it in terms of the damage this is causing to Canada and why we're so upset with the kind of things that have been said about Canada. And on the other side, a lot of Americans,

you know, half who never voted for Trump, who feel they're being painted by Canadians all in the same brush. You know, we're not all the same. We're different. We have different feelings, and a lot of us don't like Trump. But the depths of this have gone beyond where it was just sort of a feeling about Trump. I've never sensed Americans feeling so angry about this situation and so distant from their American cousins. Now, maybe it's just me.

Maybe I don't see a good reflection. I mean, I see a lot of letters. I got a lot of mail on this subject. Am I wrong here? Has there been a change? Who are we angry at? I think you're absolutely right. I mean, as we've said before,

people are going to great depths, you know, peering at tiny labels on limes and lemons to make sure that they don't come from the U.S. south. But a lot of us are also hearing, I'm hearing, from Americans who are apologizing to us. We're sorry for what's happening to you guys. we're sorry for what the president is doing. And they're reminding us that I think it's only 49% of them voted for Trump.

And so this, you know, I agree with the position of the government that we have to diversify our trade. I'm not always sure that this is a rupture, that this is a permanent rupture. I know U.S. history a little bit. I spent eight years in the United States. I know that there in the past in the United States, there have been bursts of nativism, certainly bursts of application of tariffs in the 1890s and in the 1930s. It worked out badly in both cases.

There is a tendency towards extremes in the United States, and then they always course correct and come back. So when you think about all those things, I think we have to bear in mind. There will be a post-Trump world. It's going to happen. No one is eternal, certainly not in politics. And I think just based on my conversations,

that not everybody agrees with what he's doing. Yes, the people who support him and the tacit, supine, spine-less Republicans in that Congress who say, you know, I'm going to face a nomination challenge if I don't do this in effect. Those people are to be scorned and condemned. And they will be. I think history will judge them very, very harshly.

But we have to keep in mind that there will be a post-Trump world. We also have to keep in mind that no matter how insane he might seem from time to time, we have to deal with them for the next three years. We have to come up with a way to deal with Donald Trump and to deal with the fact that The number is going down. It's going down very smartly in October. I think it was just 67% of our trade is going there, but still a great deal of our trade is going south.

I'll see you. I think the reality is Americans don't really think much about us. We think a lot about the United States and about Americans and about Donald Trump all the time. It's the lead item on our newscast almost every night, in part because it's Donald Trump, but also because of how important that relationship is to Canadians, for our own personal relationships, for business relationships. I don't think Americans spend that much time thinking about us. In fact, I know they don't.

I went to the United States for the first time this weekend since Donald Trump's re-election. My uncle died. So I went to the funeral. I brought my parents to the funeral in Virginia. And, you know, from the anecdotal evidence is not really evidence. But one thing I found a little surprising was from my Republican cousins, how disturbed they are by what they're seeing, that this is not, like, their own country is not the country that they recognized.

And I do think that that is a conversation that extends beyond my family. And you see it in the polling. So I don't think our relationship with Americans is forever changed. I do think the way Canadians view America will change somewhat. Well, certainly is, you know, I don't think the break is the way necessarily the Prime Minister categorizes it, describes it. I think we have been exposed to our vulnerabilities and we need to address that. But I think that most of us, Canadians, I mean here, are hopeful that normal relationships will resume. And we are probably more attuned to the fact that whether it's Republican or Democrats,

because it has been the pattern over the last few decades, there is a great protectionist movement in the United States that we need to guard against. Can I just say something because we're reporters, they're all reporters on this show, that Althea raised it, I think is really important, that we hear a great deal about American news. We consume a lot of it. I think we consume too much of it. I think we hear too much of it.

I was listening to newscasts in the last days or two. Canadian newscasts leading with Gilein Maxwell's appearance before Congress. I don't understand why that's leading Canadian newscasts, to tell you the truth. It has nothing to do with our trading relationship. I understand that it's part of a big gossipy scandal. But there are a lot more important issues that I think we should be dealing with. And there are times, there are times because I'm old, and I remember John Turner's campaign commercial rubbing out the line between Canada and the United States.

When I see things like that, when I see secondary or third rate or fourth rate news items, leading Canadian newscasts when I think maybe John Turner was right. Okay. I'm not going to argue with you on journalistic decisions, but I would say I agree with you on many occasions, and I'm guilty of this as well, of placing, you know, third-rate U.S. stories on a Canadian newscast that we don't need them.

I'm not sure that's one of them, the example you pick. I mean, that scandal is going global, and it's gone global. And it's, you know, the impact, pardon me? She said nothing. No, yeah, but that's part of the story that she said nothing.

She tried to cut a deal to, you know, basically get pardoned if she'd say that Trump was not guilty of anything. Anyway, let's not get into Elaine Maxwell. I think it's an interesting discussion to have at some point, and perhaps we will have. We've got to take our mid-show break. I know Althea is ready to pounce here on something, but I did want... Now, I was just going to bring it back to Emil Giovanni. Yeah, I just want to... The conservative angle on this.

do they care what he's been doing? Are they upset about what he's been doing? Are they happy about what he's doing? Where do you think they learned on this? He's not the trade critic. He's not even in Pierre Pauly of Shadow Cabinet. So I think the main issue is Jamil Giovanni basically needs to build trust

both within the leadership of his own party and with the government. He could be useful, but I don't think they trust him enough at the moment, either side, for him to be useful. And there has to be a trust. press building exercise for him to be able to leverage those relationships. Okay.

Let's take a break. Come back. We'll talk about, we'll talk about an election. You know, as crazy as it is, this thing keeps coming up. We'll talk about that right after this.

This YouTube version of the Raj Russo report, available also on podcasts and on serious XAM. Back in a moment. And welcome back. your Tuesday episode of the bridge. Althea Raj, Rob Russo here with their reporter's notebook on a number of different things that are happening in the national political scene.

A reminder that our question of the week for Thursday's your turn, what was that question? It was about return to work. Do you believe in the return to work policies that various governments and businesses are trying to implement once again now, as opposed to working from home? So your thoughts on that, send them to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

Before tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern, include your name and the location you're writing from. And keep it to less than 75 words or 75 words or fewer. I can't remember now what the proper grammatical usage of those words fewer and less is. Okay. Election talk. You know, maybe it's just because it's such an easy story to suggest, but we can't get rid of it. It's been around almost since the day after the last election. Could there be another election?

And the prime minister is suggesting publicly that, no, no, no, that's not on our calendar. And yet then you hear that there were discussions between him and Doug Ford about the possibility of an election, a federal election. what do we make of all the selection talk? Althea, you start for us. Well, we have a minority government, so it's natural that we talk about whether or not the government survives a confidence vote.

And the last time we had a confidence vote, which was the budget, the conservatives hid behind the curtains, and they were not communicating with the opposition. This is the NDP, and the NDP, didn't know that the conservators were going to hide behind the curtains, And so the NDP decided to have some members abstain because they didn't want an election either,

but they didn't want to vote for the budget. So they were on this kind of little song and dance show. And the liberals did not want to negotiate with anybody except for Elizabeth May, but then they broke their word to Elizabeth when they signed the MOU with Alberta. So it was a bit of a complicated scenario when we returned in the spring. The major issue that we're talking about why could there be an election is because Mark Carney's liberals are pulling way ahead. not just nationally, but when you break down where the votes would be in majority territory. And that's always tempting for a minority government to go to the polls and possibly win a majority

government and then not have to negotiate with the opposition and do whatever they want. And the conservatives are very afraid of an election. They are not ready. And Pierre Puelev does not want to lose his job. And so they're trying to find a way to save face because, you know, of course, this is the political party that was calling for an election every single day during Justin Trudeau's tenure basically in the last year. And it looks like they have, I'm told not to describe it as a deal. It's not an deal, but an agreement that the government would be open to amendments to some

more controversial aspects of bills, including in the Budget Implementation Act. So we have a budget vote, but now we actually have a vote on like 600 pages that implement the changes that the budget announced and some changes that the budget actually did not announce. That's a confidence vote. They need a dance partner for that. And the conservatives have lashed on to a part of the bill that I actually wrote about back in November

that basically gives a little bit like C5 back in June. It gives cabinet ministers the ability to withhold from any law accept the criminal code for any entity or business or person, the application of a law. If they believe that this business or person needs it for the Canadian economy to make things more efficient, they call it the red tape reduction. It's an amendment to the Red tape reduction act. So there is movement.

The liberals are showing that they're flexible. At least right now they're showing they're flexible. In the House of Commons, they keep talking about the opposition being obstructionist. I think the liberals are trying to have it both ways. they want, they would love to have an election and, let me correct, some liberals would love to have an election. A lot of MPs would not like to have an election because it would just be, they think, a path towards free flow for the next four years. But they don't want to be seen to want an election. So they have to portray the opposition as obstructionist. And then Pierre Paulyev is saying,

no, I'm not obstructionist. I'm willing to work with you and speak. up legislation and vote for things that I don't even agree with, but that I think that it's better than nothing. So it's a very interesting song and dance, but I don't think there will be an election, in part because I don't want an election. I feel like we just had one and like, please do your job. We elected you to do your jobs. But the possibility remains and the liberals are trying to cast it both ways. Rob. Well, we do see a conservative party that is anxious to, avoid giving the liberals a pretext for calling an election because they can read the polls. But I would suggest that Poyev striking a more cooperative, if not statesman-like posture right now,

is probably going to be better for him than braying and wrapping the way he had been before Christmas. And it does seem like the obstacles that he was rolling in the way of government legislation before. Christmas are beginning to be rolled back. Lots of prime ministers have not had a pretext for calling early elections and done well. You know, Stephen Harper went early in 2011. He went early in 2008. Didn't get a majority. He came close, but got a majority in 2011.

Jean-Cretzien got a majority after three years in 2000. Doug Ford has gone early and he got a majority mandate recently. but there are lots of them that didn't do very well. Trudeau the elder, Pierre Trudeau in 1972, had no reason for calling an election. The Land is Strong was his mantra and came within a whisker of losing to the charitimately challenged Robert Stanfield. Trudeau the Younger thought that he could go early and call an election

and didn't do very well in that. The most famous example, of course, is David Peterson, who in 1990 called an election early, thinking he could get a majority, and we ended up getting Ontario's first NDP government. If you're looking for a pretext, if Donald Trump is going to be as obstreperous as he's promising to be in that tweet, which I don't necessarily believe, that might provide us with a pretext. If he does serve notice that he's going to do whatever he can to choke the flow of trade between the two countries, that might provide us with a pretext. I'm also really fascinated by this relationship

that's been established between Doug Ford and Mark Carney. It is a harkening back to the kinds of relationships that a lot of people outside of Central Canada would call the establishment of the Laurentian elite, where you have politicians of different stripes, one in Ottawa, one in Ontario, working together, sometimes to thwart the ambitions, of Western Canada. I think that was the case, certainly, when Bill Davis supported Pierre Trudeau

on the National Energy Program and made a lot of Albertans angry. Mulroney worked very, very well with Bob Ray on constitutional advances, which didn't really please Quebec very much. So we are seeing a really kind of interesting reestablishment of Quebec, Queens Park, or of Ottawa Queens Park. park entants if they're giving each other political advice. Yeah. But can you say the same thing about, sorry, Peter, like Justin Trudeau and Christia Freeland? Like, I think Ford has been very smart and strategic in building relationships with

the federal government. And in return, Ontario has gotten, you know, quite a few investments in the province. Like, it's not been, it's been smart policy and it's been smart politics. And it's way earlier than Mark Carney. Yeah, there was certainly a good relationship with that. Were they working together? Like you listen to Doug Ford talking about Quebec independence, for instance. Again, not doing it in perhaps the most elegant and eloquent way,

but to me, I hear the echo of history there. I do. And I think he's come very close to that in terms of Alberta's essentially. as well. And I'm not sure how helpful it's going to be to those who want to keep Alberta in Canada. But I hear the echo of history. I didn't hear it when Dalton McGinty was in Queens Park and Stephen Harper was in Ottawa. There was certainly an interregnum there.

With all premieres. If I remember correctly. The echo of history. I like that line. we can all learn from the echo of history on so many different areas. Listen, Althea, we're sorry for your loss and your family's lost this week. Thank you. We're also sorry for the loss of kind of a little-known Canadian journalism icon.

It's certainly an icon to me. I know he was to Rob and a lot of others of our generation. That was Ellie Albuyme. I was the Ottawa Bureau Chief for the CBC. through most of the 80s and 90s. He also taught at Carlin University journalism courses for 40 years. It was a mentor, friend,

colleague, and a leader to many of us. I had my say about Ellie yesterday on the program. I know, Rob, you have a moment. You'd share some thought. I remember one of the first times I ever encountered, Ellie. I was in wet. I was soaking behind in the years as an Ottawa young reporter at a constitutional conference.

Susan Delacourt mentioned this on Twitter and I thought it was very apt. Ellie was the terror of the post-negotiation briefings during constitutional talks. Norman Spector and someone else was up at the front of the room laying out some of the parameters of possible amending formulas. And Ellie, who knew Norman Spector, they both went to the same school in Montreal, knew how smart he was. Ellie got up and said to him, so you're talking about amending formulas? Are you talking about the Mendys amending formula?

The modified Mendez or the bracketed Mendez? Norman Spector is a very smart guy. I swear to God, a look of terror or befuddling across his face. and that was that was Ellie he he knew the story knew the story backwards went out and got news that nobody else got and then turned it over and handed it to people like you Peter and to other people as well even now I had breakfast with him recently I was supposed to have breakfast with him this week and unfortunately it didn't happen Ellie always spoke last he wanted to know what you knew. And then, not without boasting, he would essentially say, that's interesting. Here's what's

really going on. And Ellie was 78. He wasn't in the game anymore, but he knew what was going on. He was a beacon, just a beacon for all of us. And you and I knew him as the guy who also organized swimming races for his grandchildren. And for some of yours as well, Peter. And the guy who, it seemed without any kind of hesitation at all, could warble old show tunes. And there was a surprising side to the cigar stomping curmudgeon as well. Yeah. He will absolutely be missed.

But fortunately, in many ways, his legacy will continue on through the abilities of the journalists he trained through university and through actual journalism at places like the CBC. So we won't forget Ellie Alboeim any time soon, that's for sure. All right, Althea, Rob, thank you both very much for this first YouTube version of a reporter's notebook with Rajan Russo. We'll talk to you both again in two weeks time. Bye for now. See you, Peter.

Bye, Peter. Bye, Rob. See you.