The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Reporter's Notebook: Albertans Reject Separation, But...

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

The votes are still being counted, but it's clear Albertans, in large numbers, favour remaining in Canada over a second referendum on separation. Althia Raj and Rob Russo discuss how Ottawa is likely to respond to what some might argue is a mixed message. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. Albertans vote to stay and remain in Canada. But is that all there is to the story? We're going to talk about that with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. Coming right up. Okay, both Althea and Rob are in Ottawa, where there was a lot of expectation, one assumes,

around Parliament Hill as to what may or may not happen in Alberta last night. Well, as it turned out, and they're still counting, and we preface everything we're saying today with the fact they're still counting, but a lot of the vote has been counted. Almost 70%, I think, as we do this recording. And at the moment, on that main question about whether there should be a second referendum to vote on whether Alberta should stay in Canada, should remain in Canada, it's about 7525 in favor of remaining. in Canada and no need for another vote. So that on one level sounds pretty good. There were nine other questions. And some of those results are more than a little bit interesting

and are going to give some pause to some analysts as they look over the results of last night. So we're going to try and break a lot of this all down. And let's start with the main question. Remain or not remain, basically, is what it comes down to. Rob, why don't you start us? Give us your sort of big picture view of this. Let me mention the world was watching this.

I mean, there are headlines all over the world today about this, and they're all focusing on that one question. Nothing else. Albertans vote to remain in Canada. Overwhelming numbers. That kind of spin is coming from different news organizations around the world. Rob, go ahead. Sure, and why is the world watching?

The world is watching. because Donald Trump is watching and watching what's going on in Canada. So the first thing that we should draw in terms of a conclusion is that Canada is that Canada is strengthened. In political terms, Mark Carney's hand is strengthened. The hand of those who would so division or would like to see Canada enfeebled, and I think of Donald Trump when I think of that, his hand, has been weakened. I don't think that Mr.

Carney or anybody else who was fighting for the Remain side should act like sore winners. There are some sobering numbers. The sobering number I take is that one in four Albertans would have liked to have explored the road to independence. And that's double, more than double, what the highest ever support for independence has been in the province of Alberta, which was in 1986 when the Western Canada concept fielded candidates in the province.

They only got about 12% of the vote now. 25% of Albertans say they would pursue that following. So Mr. Carney's hand is strengthened. Can't be sore winner. Trumpism and Trump, their hands are weakened. Daniel Smith's rule of the dice, that dice is still bounding along the felt table now. We don't know whether or not her gamble, a significant gamble, is going to pay anything more than miserable dividends right now. That's what we might want to talk about, but we might want to watch over the next few months as well.

Okay. Althea, your kind of big picture reaction to that main vote last night. I'm not sure that Mark Carney's hand is strengthened, actually. 24% so far from where we're sitting at the moment is still a substantial number of people. I think a lot will rest on what happens this evening when Premier Smith addresses the province and the country. You know, the prime minister had bet big on kind of proving to Alberta that cooperative federalism can work, not just in terms of engaging on the pipeline and rolling back some of the controversial measures under the Trudeau. government, you know, the proposed oil on gas cab, the clean electricity regulations, the methane regulations lowering the, or weakening, I guess you could argue, the industrial

carbon price system, and also not engaging on some controversial issues, like using the notwithstanding clause on labor, Bill 11, which is basically a breach of the Canada Health Act. So I'm not sure that this gives him kind of clear roadway to do whatever he would like. I think the prime minister must still very much be focused on Alberta. And that's why I'm not sure that it's a sigh of relief. You know, I wonder why, you know, clearly on this main question, the impression is being left that this was a big win, an overwhelming win. And, you know, I hear what Althea is saying, and she may be in the minority in

saying that at the moment, that may change. On this panel I am. No, but I just wonder how much of this is torqued by the, or not torque, but is affected by the impressions we have of referenda in Canada in terms of Quebec. I mean, that first one was 6040. 40% was still a significant number. The second one, obviously much closer, 51, 49. So we know what it's like to be close.

This just seems so far, 75, 25, or whatever it ends up being after all the votes are counted, it's sort of in that neighborhood. Do you think the impression is affected by those past votes in Quebec, as different as the situation may be in terms of the way the vote played out and what was at stake? but those numbers kind of stick in your mind. I don't like the trend. When I see support for pursuing independence at 24 or 25 percent, I don't like that trend because that trend is up.

You mentioned past referenda in Quebec. Let me give you another number. In 1970, the Parts-Khekékwe share of the vote in that provincial election, Robert Hora won for the first time, was 23%. And now we have 25% saying that they would pursue the road towards independence, have a referendum on independence. Well, in 1970, the Parts, Quebec, well, went from 23%. Six years later, they were the government. And we were in the middle of a full-blown, blistering national unity crisis in Canada. So we shouldn't take relief from the fact that,

and four are in favor of pursuing, pursuing independence. We should be cautious about it. It's why I say it off the top that the prime minister and no one else who believes in Canada's unity as its constituted now should be sore winners. There is work to do. And there is also work to do to make sure that those who would favor independence don't find common cause with those who favor independence in the province of Quebec. The Parts Quebecua is now in power again in the province of Quebec,

and they need to manufacture consent because it's not there right now for pursuing independence there. And there is danger. There is danger in the two of them finding common cause, because if you look at the nine questions besides whether or not we should hold a referendum, on holding a referendum. The other nine questions, I think four or five of them are on immigration. Those are the questions that seem to have the most support.

More, there's clearly there's consensus that's unraveled in Canada on immigration. The province of Alberta, Danielle Smith wants to pursue, I think, a harsher sort of tone on immigration. certainly reducing the flow of immigrants into Alberta. That's a common sentiment with parts Quebec. Why, that was one of the things that they had going for them in that province. We should be wary of those forces coming together and what that means for the kind of candidate we have. Okay, I want to talk about that and I want to get out to you back in this.

Let me just make a couple of points. First of all, the 24, 25 percent who voted, voted to have a referendum on separation. Not, we've got to be careful with the language here, because they didn't vote for separation. They voted for what I pursued a path, and that's the way you described it. But it's important to note that distinction.

It doesn't necessarily mean there would be 24% who would vote for separation. That's right. I just want that option to have that vote. So we'll see. Still, it's a significant. number. But let me get to those other nine questions because somebody who was actively campaigning for the Canada side last week in Albertan told me he wasn't worried at all about the

separation question. He figured we're going to win that in, you know, with significant numbers, which seems to have been the case. What he was worried about was those other nine questions, especially the ones on immigration. Because to him, that strikes to the heart of, kind of what Canada is and what Canada has been. And whether or not Albertans were going to agree with the prime minister who said vote no to those questions or to Danielle Smith who said vote yes. And in most of those questions, it was a vote yes to changing the way things are set up,

both on the immigration front and on this kind of power structure of how Canada operates. Now, they weren't all yes votes, but there were more yes than no in those other nine questions. So how did we look at that? You start us off on that section. How important is that part, which is getting no play in the international look at results last night, but I'm guessing it's going to get more and more play inside Canada, especially inside Alberta in the days ahead. Well, that's another reason why I say I don't think the prime minister is having a sigh of relief at the moment.

One number I want to add to the rob list in your list is 28%, which is what Pardis St. Pierre Plainonon received in Quebec in the last election for the Basquequeque. To your point, Abakas data had polling suggesting only a third of those who voted to start the process of having a binary. referendum on whether Alberta is such a seed only actually want Alberta to secede so part of it is also sending a message a bit like what we saw post 1995 referendum when so many Quebecers

decided to send Ottawa a message. I think it's worth noting that in that referendum the participation level though was like really sky high in the 90s. That's not what we're seeing here at the moment. But on the question,

It was interesting to see the Prime Minister say no to the nine. I didn't, it wasn't unexpected because you don't think that Prime Minister Kearney wants to have a headache that some of these questions, especially the constitutional questions, lead. At the moment, every single question is a yes except for compensating Alberta financially for opting out of federal social purpose. programs, which is interesting. What I think is also interesting is a comment than he made on a podcast on Friday where he said that he was open to constitutional reform. And, you know, the prime minister has so much on his plate and it's very driven on this agenda of getting big projects built, pivoting away from U.S. economic dependency to suggest that he's open to having a discussion and constitutional reform, I think, can kind of take things completely off the rail.

I think the other lesson for the other provinces, frankly, in our federation, is that they now have kind of a lesson. If there are things that you want from the federal government, demand them, demand them loudly, because this prime minister will listen. And you look at the provinces that have managed to reap the most benefits in the last few months are those that either, you know, I look at David Eby in British Columbia, who didn't really have much of a case. I mean, he was there when he lost the case on Trans Mountain,

but managed to get billions of dollars in infrastructure money to basically stay quiet on the Pacific Link. So, you know, if you're in Saskatchewan or Manitoba that has basically been almost ignored by this government, what is the lesson that you take from what has just happened? A lesson is you better hustle up your demands for the port of Churchill to be billions of dollars sunk into it to get it open, which may be the case as things move forward. But if the appearance is there that if you yell loud enough or you threaten loud enough, you're going to get something, well, we'll see how that plays out. I'm sure it's something that the PQ in Quebec is paying attention to.

Right. Yeah, that's along the lines of the old Leonzeon, a knife at the throat strategy that Quebec is successfully employed for 60 years. They have made the loudest noise and brandish the biggest threat. And there are a lot of people who believe, as a result, they've got much of what they wanted in a decentralized federation. So let's look at some of the things that Daniel Smith says she wants. She wants more control over immigration. And I think that that's one of the nine questions that had the highest level of support so far. There's no reason why the federal government and the province of Alberta can't cut a deal on Alberta having more say over immigration. There's already a separate deal with the province of Quebec that respects the,

linguistic and cultural distinctiveness of Quebec. There might be something that Quebec and Ottawa can negotiate, that pays heed to the economic needs of Quebec or Alberta for certain skilled trades, certain like pipe fitters and other things like that. That's probably something that the government is willing to entertain. I too noted with interest the Prime Minister's openness to constitutional discussions. I went back and spoke to somebody in his office, and the response was if they can get seven provinces representing 50% of the population, in other words, if they can build a consensus, yes.

But in the meantime, they're prepared to have discussions, certainly discussions on immigration, but it would be inherent on Alberta to do that. Some things that they want, or they said that they wanted, Senate reform, for instance, is it? impossible because that that's not the 750 formula all of a sudden you need every province in Canada as well as the Parliament of Canada to sign off on that it's never going to happen because smaller provinces particularly in Atlantic Canada like the representation they get in the Senate which is outsized compared to their population so that's never going to happen and I note with interest as somebody who's kind of a Senate reform geek that Albertans were

seemed to be slack-jawed with it indifference, a gog with indifference on the question of Senate reform. I think it was less than, or maybe 50% in favor, barely 50%. So that was kind of interesting. That was a surprise, you know, when you consider the history. That was a surprise. When you consider the history of that, you know,

where the most frustration about the Senate has seemed to have come from, from the West and especially from Alberta, AAA and all that stuff. So those numbers were a surprise. Sorry, Othia, go ahead. The question wasn't about Senate reform. It was about abolishing the Senate. Exactly.

And I think that's reform. Yeah, but if you want triple E, that's not Senate abolition, right? Like if you want more weight, because the argument for some is that, you know, we don't have a fully functioning bicameral chamber, like the United States, for example, where all the provinces have equal weight,

abolishing the Senate actually doesn't do anything to that argument. Okay, let me ask the question about the road forward this way. There is going to be, whether it's justified or not, a certain relief factor about last night's main vote. How, is there a danger that Ottawa is just going to say, okay, well, that crisis has passed. Let's get back to this, that, or the other thing, of all the other crises that they face.

And basically move on. And that, you know, Alberta's had its moment in the sun, and that'll be that. Yeah, I think in 1980, Pierre Trudeau made a speech, the Paul Sauvay Arena, which he promised Quebecers, if they voted no, that no vote wouldn't be interpreted as an approbation of the status quo, that he would move forward with constitutional reform.

No such promise was made by this government. There was no promise that if a no vote came, something would be done to recognize the distintedness of Alberta. And I think this is an important thing to raise. The numbers on Senate reforms suggest that Albertan's priorities and what makes them distinct is no longer necessarily representation in a musty old upper chamber that doesn't have a lot of power. What makes Albertans and Alberta distinct is its wealth,

its contribution to the GDP of the country, and how that wealth, how that contribution, is not harnessed in any way to real political power. Ted Morton said this week that Alberta or Ontario and Quebec are now 200 seats. They determine where, what kind of federal government we have. And it doesn't really matter with Alberta what they do politically because they're not often a factor in political power.

So what people who believe in Canada, but believe in reform in Alberta say is we need something that harnesses our economic power to some sort of political power. That's a real conundrum. It's a conundrum for a prime minister who says he wants to go forward. make a Pierre Trudeau-like promise to move forward on constitutional reform. But he did say he wants to move forward. How do you recognize the frustrations of people like Ted Morton,

frustrated federalists who want to stay in Canada and who say our contribution to Canada isn't being recognized? And I think it begins with something very, very simple. When you speak to him and other people, it's respect. they would like to be respected to begin with. And I think that's something where the prime minister and the people in his office who are Albertans, and there's some of them, think that they can begin to make immediate progress as well. You know, as somebody who sat through decades of constitutional reform sessions, I really thought that I would never hear that term again,

given the divisions that it caused and the, you know, the various setbacks that constitutional reform sessions have caused the country over the years. But here we are again. That's a surprise. It'll be interesting to see, as both of you suggest, now, bringing up the surprise when she heard it coming from the prime minister. We'll see what happens as a result of all that. Okay. We're going to take our break here. We're coming back.

There's more to talk about, about other things that are happening in Ottawa. And some of the reporting that's going on about it. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode, this Tuesday anyway. It's a reporter's notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo, alternating Tuesdays with More Butts Conversations. So we're glad to have Althea and Rob in here today, especially after last night's

events in Alberta. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 160, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. A reminder that the question of the week this week is really about books. It's simply about books. How often do you read books? How many books are a year do you read? Why do you read books? Do you use the library or do you buy books? All of those are kind of knitted into the one question about books. Why are we doing books this week? Well, next week is we get even closer to the launch of Mark Bullgutche and my fifth book. So we're looking forward to that and we'll talk about it next week before its official launch from Simon & Schuster. Okay, back to Althea and Rob and Althea. I get you to start here.

You know, there are other things going on in Ottawa and how quickly they turn the page maybe of interest in terms of turning the page from what happened in Alberta. to last night next week. There's a BC election, and there will be reaction to that as well. But there's still a lot of discussion and debate, not only in the House in general, but in the Liberal Party in particular,

about some of the things that the government is up to. Althea wrote a column that's received a lot of attention over the weekend. About six areas that may cause concern for the Prime Minister in the days and weeks ahead. We don't have time to go through all six, but pick one. Althea that we should discuss. Okay, I think you'd be very optimistic.

I'd love your optimism that this will preculate. Sadly, I don't think that it will. But the reason I wrote the piece is, frankly, because I was listening to the second reading debates on the government's flagship bill. It's called C-39. It's building on the controversial C5 bill, which is basically about making project approval faster. And there was so much misinformation in the debates.

One liberal MP, Shannon Medina from Halifax, suggested that the opposition was engaged in disinformation. And she said that as an environmentalist, she would never support legislation that was bad for the environment, for changing the environment. but actually that is what this bill does. And so the government likes to focus the attention on process and says that it's just making things faster and is engaged, I would say, in disinformation of its own. And I'm specifically going to talk about the Species at Risk Act because this is the story in May that caused a bit of a kerfuffle

when I wrote about how the government, it said very publicly that it was going to we wanted to consult on bringing in legislation that would allow cabinet to kind of go over the environment or fisheries, the minister responsible for the species at risk act, and basically allow projects to go forward that could threaten the existence of a species. So there is this longstanding at least two decades old law that says that you cannot approve work that would, projects that could threaten the existence of a species. like that is a no-go, i.e. the environmentalist will sue you if you do this. And the government came out and said, and both Steve McKinnon and Dominic Blas said, oh, we heard from Canadians and we are not going to do this. Don't worry. We listened. But actually when you look at what the powers, they're giving themselves in the legislation, that is what they are trying to do. They're doing an end run around the species at Risk Act, giving themselves powers that say that, yes, there will be environmental review so they can say that. But the

environmental reviews are essentially toothless. They can only set conditions. They cannot say, we studied this issue and actually this project is too polluting or this project actually will threaten the existence of a species. The default is a yes and the only thing that the environmental reviews can add are conditions. So I think that that is something that, frankly, some liberal MPs do not understand. And yet because we have a committee, now majority liberal, and the conservatives that support this bill, I really don't think, unfortunately, that this is going to get the attention that we probably should be giving it. Sorry, end of rant. Go ahead. Rob, do you agree with that? It's not going to get the attention that at least Althea thinks it deserves. Yeah, I don't, I don't, there's clearly opposition to it. The opposition is diffused. Some of that opposition is inside and concerns inside the liberal

caucus room, but those voices are muted. Apart from the merits, the technical merits of the bill, there are a couple of things that stand out when I look at what's happening with this bill. This bill is, in effect, a smaller version of C-5. In other words, C-5 was brought along for major projects. They wanted quick review of major projects, and then businesses, in particular, investors, and this government as well said, what about smaller projects? We need those to move quickly as well. We can't have those bogged down. So the thrust of this is to make sure that those are hurried along.

And who is supporting this? Well, it's the liberals and the conservatives are supporting. This goes back to something we've talked about in the past, which is this is, you know, when I hear Stephen Harper supporting Mark Carney, when I listen to Pierre Puehlib these days, and when I see this kind of thing, it goes back to what we've said a few times on this podcast, which is this is as close to a national unity government as we're going to come. Conservatives and liberals working together, it seems to be kind of normalized in the last few months.

It's not normal. It's not the normal way of things happening in Canada outside of huge crises. So there's a sense among those two parties that we are in a huge crisis and they need to work together. Are things being rushed and are people being left behind? Yes. Certainly, I mean, the NDP is paying a price for not being an official party, the same with the Greens. They're the biggest voices against this. They have no status, so they can't affect this in any way at committee level. But there is another group of people who I think might be able to affect this, if not immediately, who are, who do feel like they are being left behind. And I think that they have some merit to

that argument, and that's Canada's first peoples. A lot of these projects are going to affect Canada's first peoples. It's not all right to ignore them. There is a constitutional duty to consult with them. If you can just bet that there will be court challenges from indigenous Canadians to this legislation, and there is a danger if the court's sense that not enough was done on consultation, that this legislative. could be defeated in the courts. That's the danger for for the government on this. That's that's where it's not inside the House of Commons. It's outside of it in the courts. Okay. I'll see a brief final thought on this before we move on to our last topic.

I don't think it's the crisis of the moment that is forcing the conservatives to work with the liberals. It's frankly that the liberals have co-opted a lot of conservative ideas so the conservatives can't really oppose it. And frankly, the conservatives, would not get away with introducing legislation like this because the old liberals would be screaming about how undemocratic this is and how there's too much power vested in certain cabinet ministers and cabinet itself. You know, you look at the things that Stephen Harper did and how much outrage there was on like the long form census. This is so much more drastic than that. I agree on the First Nations and also that we didn't mention labor. There is a big outcry on Section

107 of the Canada Labor Code. But the government is legally obliged to add a charter statement, basically attack on to the bill saying like these are the things that we think affect Canadian's charter rights and it has yet to do so. So we don't know what advice the justice minister, the clerk and the deputy minister of justice have given the government on this front. But most likely, you know, indigenous rights will have to be challenged after the bill passes. So if there's not, to the point earlier, yes, and to Rob's point, there are, like,

there's only two liberals who've been vocally opposed to this bill. There's not, there's not the criticism and that that critical lens that you would have on it, in part because I think the government's argument of the day is winning, but also because they're being disingenuous about what the legislation actually does. And they're speeding it through. Like, if you compare it to what Bill C-69, that very controversial Justin Trudeau impact assessment bill, that bill had 51 days of study in committee. We had one Senate committee that crisscrossed the country

spent like 16 months studying this bill. This is going to be law by the end of November. The government wants it done by the end of the year. Okay. That's lickety split in legislation terms. Well, sure. It is so fast. It is so fast.

This bill changes 19. laws for regulation, introduces a new law, repeals a lot. Like, it is such substantial piece of, it may even affect Canadian's judicial rights.

It's, it's the opposite of the last session of parliament where the knock on it was that nothing was accomplished. Nothing, nothing was passed or relatively nothing was passed. And here they're trying to ram through or ram through maybe the wrong term. They do have a majority government,

get a lot of things passed. and some of a controversial nature. Okay, here's the last point. The famous news magazines around the world, and there are a few of them. One of the things they do, sometimes their cover story in one part of the world isn't the same as the cover story

in the other part of the world. Now, I don't know how the economist works, which is the paper or the magazine that Rob works for. but in the cover story that Rob sent me this week, Mark Carney is the face on the front cover. It doesn't say economist person of the year, but it might as well say that. There's a lot of stuff in this article

that suggests that Mark Carney is kind of leading certain parts of the world order in their march against the Trump administration in the United States. So I'm assuming, Rob, that you probably, even though you're such a brilliant writer, you probably didn't write everything that's in this cover story.

Every syllable, no, every syllable. What are you hearing in terms of the reaction to that theme about Mark Carney and his position now in the world? What kind of reaction are you getting? So first of all, some background. He is on the cover everywhere except in the Asian edition.

That has something else on the cover, but everywhere else around the world, Canada and Mark Carney is on the cover. The story that I worked on, along with Mark Johnson, my editor in the America section in London, was about the challenges that Canada faces now, using the Alberta referendum as a jumping off point. And it takes a kind of a conscious.

controversial stance, that, not my headline, but the suggestion is that Canadians might want to thank Donald Trump in 10 or 20 years for forcing them to confront some very difficult issues. I wouldn't want to thank Donald Trump, but I would acknowledge him that he might be shaking Canada out of the torpor that it's been in and compelling us to do things and confront certain problems. In terms of reaction, I'm gratified to see that story that I worked on along with Mark is I think the third or fourth most red story in the world, according to the economist on their website. And the leader, or the editorial, where the suggestion is that confronting Mr. Trump rather than trying to coddle him is the best

way to go. You know, there are some great quotes by conservatives and liberals about confronting Mr. Trump and one was from Corey tonight where he said you can shower him in bubbles and all kinds of golden trophies and golden embraces and what does that get you just ask Keir Starmer if you can find him ask him how that works out and that's essentially the thrust of the editorial it's that you might think that you're getting something if you cooperate with Mr. Trump what you end up getting is scorn and a river of bile. You don't get his respect. Whereas if you stand up to him, you at least have your self-respect and you might get his respect as well. You know, history may point to the speech in Davos as a turning point, you know, not just for the Canadian position on the U.S.,

but for the rest of the world's position on the U.S. They're basically calling that out, you know, the fact that it's time to stop sucking up to this guy. and, you know, determine your own pathway. Now, I don't know how much credit for that Carney will get, and someday we'll probably find out exactly who did write the Davos speech. If it wasn't Mark Carney, I suspect it probably was Mark Carney, but I don't know. We're told it was him. It was Scott Gilmore.

It was Sam. I can't remember the last name of the speech. His speechwriter, who's now moved on to Oxford, a brilliant young man who started. but there was some furious rewriting going on as the plane crossed the Pacific on route to Beijing, the first stop. And that furious rewriting was done by, I think, Scott Gilmore and the prime minister. And Rob would probably have a good idea of that because he was on that plane as well, covering that trip. Thoughts on this, Althea, before we go?

I think you're right about the Davao speech. I mean, if you'll remember, the fallout of that speech was like everybody internationally wanted a piece of Mark Kearney. And then he went to Australia to basically give a version of that speech. And we're told that other countries, other institutions wanted him to do that as well. And then we saw him as one of times 100 most influential people of the year with the write-up with Kissen and Galt, who talked about his George Clooney good looks and how he was going to come and basically like save humanity from itself. I'm exaggerating. But that was the rest of it.

I think the other thing that's worth noting, well, two things. Everyone loves the David and Goli's story. And this is kind of framed in that way. It's like little Canada standing up to the big bully. And I think it's also a good reminder for the PMO and the prime minister, kind of, you know, the what may have gone wrong in the trade talks in August, that actually Canadians want the fight. And the fight allows Mark Carney to do a lot more than he could otherwise.

And that the appearance of capitulation is really a kind of like, I don't want to say political suicide. Because I don't think it would be that strong. But would force people to look at this government in a completely different way. It's Sam Chaudhry. It's the name of the speechwriter. I was thinking of. Sam, I apologize for not remembering your last name. And I hope you're enjoying Oxford.

Good rescue there, Rob. Okay. Quick look into the immediate future. As you said, they're going to try and get stuff done before the end of the year, and the end of the year is not far away in terms of the legislative calendar. So give me a peek into these next few weeks. Give me the one thing you'll be watching more than anything in terms of the direction of this parliament. It could be the prime minister.

It could be the government. It could be the opposition. What would it be for you? Now, Theo, why don't you give you your sense first? Well, I'm obsessed with C-39, so obviously I'm going to be focused on that. You know, what's interesting to me is that the government has actually stuck a band-aid on a lot of problems that it likely had in terms of discussions with the provinces, something that wasn't really talked about

in late last week, is that they stuck one-year temporary deals on extending mental health spending, long-term care spending, announcing they were going to renew the funding for drugs, for rare diseases. So that's only a one-year temporary fix. But it's kind of like follows

the Ontario Child Care temporary Band-Aid. I think that there's a lot of FedProv contentious points happening next year. But I think they're going to try to get as much as they can get done out of the building big projects, faster stuff this year. So I will be following that closely. All right, Rob. Is it EU too? Sorry. Everyone is going to be watching what happens in a couple of weeks, two weeks from today.

We'll have a clearer idea of what the legislature. or what the electoral system has done to the United States. Canada will be the first among the most assiduous kind of assessors doing the bomb damage assessment after that election. And then they will determine if they can whether or not they begin to inch back towards the table negotiating with the United States or whether they're dealing with an enraged Donald Trump

who all of a sudden has some legislative form. fetters on and what that means for Canada. There are a lot of people around the prime minister who think, who think an enraged Donald Trump is going to be even more dangerous than the Donald Trump we've seen who's been unfettered up until now. That's going to be an interesting couple of weeks. We shouldn't forget in 10 days there's the EU summit. You know, we weren't really sure what associate membership for the EU meant.

So we will have a better idea of that. And to Rob's point, one of the reasons. they want to get back to the table with the U.S. It's because Donald Trump has threatened 50% tariffs on the auto sector on January 1st. The EU summit's going to be fascinating when you consider what happened in France. The way directions are heading everywhere from Germany to the UK, for some people talking about closer associations with the EU, seems like an odd time to be doing it,

considering what some of the things that are going on there are happening. Nevertheless, those are all discussion points for the future. I thank you both. I remember the one thing I forgot to tell you all about your turn this week in terms of the question about books. Answers in by 3 p.m. tomorrow. The Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com is the place to write and include your name in the location you're writing from. Okay, 75 words is the maximum you can write. Well, I'm sure you can write more than 75 words,

but for this, you have to be under 75 words. All right. Thank you, Althea. Thank you, Rob. Have a great week. We'll talk to you again in two weeks' time. That's it for now. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

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