The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Reporter's Notebook -- Can Carney and Trump Make A Deal?

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

This is PM Mark Carney's second face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump, and, added to numerous phone calls and texts, they know each other's positions pretty well. Does that mean some kind of a deal could happen at this latest session? Maybe. Althia Raj and Rob Russo bring us up to date with what they're hearing as the two leaders sit down in the White House today. 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. They're playing, let's make a deal at the White House today, or are they? We'll find out on the reporter's notebook with Rob Russo and Althea Raj. Coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Tuesday. And as we do every second Tuesday, It's a reporter's notebook.

Toronto stars Althea Raj, the economist Rob Russo will be joining us in just a moment. To talk about what's going on at the White House today, where Prime Minister Carney is meeting with President Trump, what should we actually expect from that meeting? We'll hear the latest from those two about what they're hearing. But first of all, a reminder of the question of the week for Thursday's your turn. we're coming up on the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. And the question is, one you could probably expect we'd ask this week.

After weeks, if not months of, you know, difficult news and worrying about this out or the other thing, this week we're asking, what do we give thanks for? What do you personally want to give thanks for? And I want you to think about that for a while. I mean, there's some obvious things we tend to say on a time. time like this, I give thanks for my family, I give thanks for the wonderful country we live in. And those are all good, legitimate answers. But there also perhaps go a little deeper than that, if you wish, in terms of where you direct your thanks on a weekend, like the one coming

up. Thanksgiving weekends in Canada, we're nicely positioned in, you know, kind of mid-October. usually. Leaves are turning. Things look great. But there are challenges behind those images right now, as we well know. So what do we give thanks to? So as always, the borders on this are 75 words or fewer in your answer. Some of you think you can get away with more than that. You can't. I'm sorry. You know, 75 words are fewer. We make the rule for a reason. 99% of you follow it and seem to have no problem doing that. Occasionally, though, there are

stragglers and trying to bend the rules. You've got to have your answers in by 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Okay? 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. Make sure you include your name and the location

you're writing from and where you send your answers this is the email address the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com so looking forward to reading what you have to say on that question of what are you giving thanks for this weekend tomorrow Wednesday it's not an encore edition this week we're going to do another one of the N-Bits specials. And there's some great stuff in here this week. So we'll look forward to doing that one for tomorrow. Thursday, your turn, along with the random ranter.

And Friday, of course, good talk with Bruce Anderson and Chantelle-A-Bear. On another big week in Canadian and national politics. We'll see where things turn out by Friday. Okay, should we get going on the reporters? notebook, I think so. You're all looking forward to this as I am. Here we go. Althea Raj and Rob Russo. I'll write you two. As we go to air, Trump and Carney are sitting down for their meetings. What should we expect out of this thing? I mean, everybody has a different theory on this, and I want to hear yours based on the kind of things you're hearing and seeing.

Rob, why don't you start us this week? Boy, are the people around the Prime Minister ever going to great pains to let us know that not much at all is expected out of this meeting? That it's really just he's going down there only because he was invited by President Trump. If that's true, then this is unlike any other meeting at the summit between a president and a prime minister that I've ever covered. and I've covered far, far, too many of them after eight years in Washington alone. You know, these meetings do not normally happen that haphazardly. They don't. They involve weeks and weeks of preparation by hundreds, literally hundreds of people

are involved in them. So it makes me a little skeptical when people do suggest that not much is expected out of this meeting. There's too much at stake, I think, for the prime minister to return empty-handed. And by empty-handed, I don't mean he's going to come back with nothing but bon-mose. And he might not even get that, okay? And we should talk about the date that this is happening on. It's October 7th. It's a two-year anniversary. And that brings in a potential area of conflict between the prime minister and the president, but we'll get back to that in a second. When this meeting was announced on Friday, the statement announcing it said that it was aimed at establishing a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States.

Now, that doesn't sound like breaking news because that's something that Carney has said that he wants to do for a long, long time. And he has said, and he said to us at the economist, an interview with my boss, Zani Minto Beddos last week, that there are areas. of the relationship that he would like to see deepen, despite a lot of the elbows-up rhetoric we heard during the campaign. I think his immediate priority is to try to do something to take the shackles that off the Canadian economy that are dragging segments of the Canadian economy down. How far down? Well, if you're in Windsor, your unemployment rate is at 11.1%. In Oshawa, they're about to idle the plant there. Brampton was supposed to get a new Jeep, and that's not happening either.

So just in the auto industry alone, all kinds of pain. And we know that the same thing is happening at steel. We know the same thing is happening in Jean-Cherne and areas of Quebec when it comes to aluminum. And now we know that there is a rusty axe poised over the necks of those working in the forestry industry. So there is an economic imperative, but there's also an investment imperative. Mr. Carney said in his interview with us that the biggest problem facing the Canadian economy right now isn't just the tariffs. It's the uncertainty of what might come next that is preventing investment from happening in Canada. So there are political imperatives, there are economic imperatives that would suggest that he needs to come out of this with more than just a few.

a few bon-mose. And what he's really hoping for is, at a minimum, I would suspect, is relief from some of those sectoral tariffs. So that's what I'll be looking for today. I wanted to get back to October 7th, because today is the two-year anniversary. Let me hold you on that for a minute, because there are a number of things to pick up with you,

but I want to get Elsie in on what she's hearing first, sort of her general thinking going into this day. Elthia? So I agree with Rob. I think the prime minister's office has gone to great pains to lower expectations to basically tell people that nothing's going to happen, which is an interesting change of strategy because as we saw in June, the prime minister kept telling Canadians that a deal would be struck and then a deal would be struck at the end of July. And they've been burned a few times. And so I think that because of the way the president operates, a certain level of,

unknown, unexpected things can happen. They don't want to box themselves in and feel like, again, they have failed to deliver. I am told, though, that the goal is really on, and Robb also mentioned it, sectoral tariff relief. So striking a deal on steel, possibly aluminum and autos. But they don't want to say that because they don't want to raise the stakes and be measured by it. Yeah, you know, these things are funny because everybody's nervous around saying anything going into it. And that's got, I imagine, a lot to do with Trump personally,

because he can be unpredictable and he can take off in tangents if he doesn't like some of the things that are being said before the meeting even starts. But let me put that aside for the moment. Let me go back just, first of all, to a logistical thing that you mentioned, You know, he said there can be upwards of hundreds of people involved in setting up a meeting like this. I assume you're talking in a totality of both sides. Right. Because I thought the whole thing about the Canadian side is nobody knows what the hell is going on except one guy and his closest advisors. That it's not a big tent of thinking going into these things.

It's a very small tent. Yeah, I was told that it's a total of. 10 people who really know what the strategic objectives are in terms of this trip. That might seem like a large number. It really isn't. Usually briefing books are passed around, certainly to the sort of ADM-DM level ambassador and a little bit beyond 10 people, I would say. But look, I think we all know that this.

This is an extraordinary thing, despite their attempts to play it down as kind of lunch between a couple of guys. Mr. Carney is just the second leader to be invited twice to the White House since Donald Trump was inaugurated. That alone makes it extraordinary. The other two was Vladimir Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom are involved in hot wars. We're involved in a trade war.

And it's obviously a very serious trade war for both sides. So there was some impetus beyond the fact that they just needed to get together, that there was a kind of haphazard invitation issued by the president, we're told during the meetings of the UN General Assembly a couple of weeks ago. There's more going on than that would lead one to believe. These things don't happen often in the best of times. And these are not the best of times. And that allows me to get back to October 7th.

And an important difference, I think, between Canada and the United States. And that is the way Canada approached its role, what it could do in terms of ending the conflict in the Middle East, particularly in Gaza. Canada chose to side with President Emmanuel. Macron, an initiative that recognized a Palestinian state. I thought that that was reasonable given the fact that Mr. Netanyahu said that there would never be a Palestinian state a few days before Canada made that recognition. But he did it, it seemed, without consulting the United States. And it did irk Donald Trump. Now, we all know what happened to Zelensky in what is really like a turkey shoot setup. You've got Trump sitting, let's say, where I am, and to his left is usually

Marco Rubio, Howard Lutnik, and J.D. Vance. Those guys can weigh in and have weighed in, as we saw with Zelensky, if things get rough. Because this is October 7th, and because there will be an oval office spray, as they call it, where the photographers and cameras come in, and they start taking pictures, and they start asking questions. This has turned into to Donald Trump's, one of Donald Trump's favorite forums to go on and on and on. He is going to be asked about October 7th. He is going to be asked about the prospects for peace there as well. We should expect that he might be asked about differences he's had with Canada

in terms of recognition of a Palestinian state. And therein lies a potential trapdoor for Mark Carney, who emerged from his last Oval Office meeting, pretty much unscathed, and one plot it's for surviving, and for deftly steering the PM or the President away from any talk of the 51st state, it'll be a little bit more difficult for him this time. And the President loves retribution. So if he thinks he lost round one, he'll be looking to win round two in some fashion.

What about, Althea, we keep hearing these stories about, you know, these two guys actually really get along. There's big differences on the trade issues, on the big issues. but in terms of personality, they actually seem to get along. They're texting back and forth, they say, phoning each other back and forth. And now, as Rob says, meeting for the second time, do we know anything for real about what that relationship is? Or should we assume anything about it? Do we know anything for real?

No, I mean, do we ever really know anything for real? do they even know really for real? Like I think that Mark Carney is playing the game that he has to play or the game that he feels he has to play. This is just me hypothesizing here because he needs to placate the U.S. president. I mean, we have seen that since the very first Oval Meeting office. We have heard that in the interview that Rob mentioned

that the prime minister did with his boss at the Economist that's, I think, to plug for it. for you. Rob is going to be aired at the Economist Intelligentsia on Thursday. Is that right? Yes, that's right. There you go. And he's so positive. There's a very good story. And complementary about the president. I mean, he's basically asked in almost every interview to criticize the U.S. president and to say things that concern him about the U.S. president. And there's lots, lots to be concerned about. when it comes to the U.S. president and what's happening to America and Donald Trump's

impact on the world, let alone in its own country, Mark Carney never goes there because he cannot, because if he goes there, he sacrifices a whole bunch of jobs in Canada. And so what do we really know about their relationship? Well, nothing, because we don't really know what Mark Carney really feels about Donald Trump or how he feels about Donald Trump. You know, Rob, part of the interview, at least my sense of the interview, that the economist is John, and you were in the room taking notes, I guess, or what have you? I'm sure there were questions asked about this relationship and what he's like dealing with Trump. Yes, and the answer was, I thought, very interesting.

Zanny asked the prime minister, what's it like to deal with Mark Kearney? And the answer was, I thought, surprising. He said that Trump is very curious, very sharp, that they have talked on numerous occasions that on issues that have nothing to do with trade. He said a lot of the time it's on international issues that he's consulting Mr. Carney on. And I think that that reveals something of a change in Mr. Carney. He was encouraged a few months ago to call the president more often for of all, and not just to discuss trade, to also offer advice on other issues, or just to talk,

to establish a relationship outside the hot-house atmosphere of a trade war. And it seems clear that he has taken that advice. I think that that goes contrary to the nature of Mr. Carney. I don't think that they have very much in common at all, but despite that, that they seems to have established a relationship. And the other thing that he says, said, which is, I think, true. And he went on to expound on it in other ways in the interview, was that no matter what you think about Donald Trump, he has the capacity to change the dynamic on the big issues of the day, whether it's Ukraine or Gaza or global trade, and to do so very, very quickly. I think that was a nice way of saying that the president can be mercurial,

but have great, great impact. So he, he, he, he. He said that. He was asked about Zani when it came to tariffs. He was asked by Zani, like, have you tried to say to him, you know, talk in economic terms about the pain that this is causing to the U.S. economy? And the Prime Minister said, well, you know, if you do have the world's reserve currency, you're going to have trade deficits, just kind of basic economics. And so she asked, well, have you tried to say that?

Have you explained those economics to him? Carney said there aren't enough hours in the day. So there are limits, there are limits to the kinds of subjects that they could talk about. And I thought the other interesting thing that came out of this was that for some time now, for a long time, I think, for several years, at least we are going to have a tight relationship with the United States, whether we like it or not. What do you mean by tight? Do you mean tense or tight? No. Integrated.

Yes, we're going to be, we have spent the last century, really, in Canada, in an ever tightening embrace with the United States. And to undo that embrace, to merely get to the stage where we're holding hands under the table, it's going to take a long time. Can I just add to something that Robert was saying? I think one of the reasons that the Prime Minister and the President can have the relationship that they have is because Donald Trump actually admires Mark Carney

like since the moment that Mr. Carney came into office the pedigree the Mr. Carney has Donald Trump, we are told, has viewed that as Mark Carney as a strong man and I think if he didn't have that image of Mr. Carney

the relationship would be very different. Obviously we saw that with Justin Trudeau. The other thing on the like they're not enough hours in the day I think Prime Minister and the president did try to have that discussion. We heard the president say in the summer that he and the prime minister have a different view on tariffs. Remember, he said, Mark has a different view. Obviously, come August, the prime minister had lost that argument or had decided to give up on it because then there was the reality check emerged and the prime minister told his team, you know, the tariffs are here to stay and we have to find a way to work.

within the parameters that the president has set out for us. And hence the whole discussion about, okay, we now have all these huge tariffs on steel and aluminum on autos, we need to work towards carving out special deals on this and not just making it all about the entire trade relationships between Canada and the United States. You know, Janice Stein was telling me yesterday that her sense of this relationship is based somewhat on the fact

that she sees Trump, you know, liking to deal with Carney because Carney is a banker or was a banker. You know, a central banker, you know, a little different than the normally way we think of bankers, but nevertheless a banker. And seeing as Trump's whole life has been based in real estate dealing with bankers, that he has a certain affinity to sitting down with Carney. Respect. Or talking to him on the phone or texting back and forth because he's a banker.

So, you know, that's an interesting, an interesting thought. I would say also Peter at Bain that he was the governor of the Bank of England. And anything related to England seemed to charm the U.S. president. And I do think, I do think that he believes that it's cool for him to be seen hanging out with people of international stature. And Carney say what do you want? about him as a politician. He was a global banking superstar.

He had stature. And that's the kind of writs, that stature rits that Trump loves. Well, we'll see where it goes. You know, developing the relationship, you know, you were saying for Carney to do that, it's like somebody must have suggested to him or people were suggesting.

It's the kind of thing that if Brian Mulrooney was still alive, he would have been telling Mark Carney. You've got to have that kind of relationship where you can pick up a phone talk to each other at any time. And they seem to have. But we'll see what happens today. I mean, it's going to be academic if this goes in the tank, this conversation today between the two of them.

I don't think it will. Go ahead, Althea. No, no, I was going to say, I just don't think it will. Like, I think Mark Carney is smart enough to extrapolate himself from a very difficult situation. And he has, you know, done and said things. in the White House that are deeply unpopular in Canada. You know, he's a transformational president,

but he does it because he feels he needs to. But it's also not just a casual chit-chat meeting because you don't bring your Foreign Affairs Minister, your Minister of Industry, the Minister in charge of the Canada-U-S relationship, if you don't actually intend on working and getting something done. So we shouldn't forget that either. You know, you can argue, you can't really argue,

that he's not a transformational president. Yes, exactly. Which way do you want to see that? Exactly. Am I giving you an underhanded compliment? Rob, you wanted to say something there before I move on. You mentioned Brian Moroni, and I think that he is instructive, not only in the sense that you brought him up,

I'm sure we were going to get to Mr. Puehliev's letter. Exactly. That's next. Yes. And I was, I was. I was thinking about Brian Mulroney, and I was thinking about him for a couple of reasons this week. The first reason was because the finance department under the direction of Prime Minister Carney has said that they're going to separate or they're going to change the way they report budgets now.

It's going to come in the fall rather than in the spring. And part of it is trying to get us to think differently about budget numbers, including whether there's an operational deficit or a surplus. And it reminds me of Brian Mulroney in that instance, because he used to say the last two or three years that he was prime minister, that the government is actually running in the black except for payments on the interest debt, which were, you know, $50 billion or whatever. And nobody paid attention to the government running in the black. But in terms of this, in terms of the U.S. relationship, you know, you can take Mr. Polyev's approach, which was a little more bare, not. Don't Be a Loser. In other words, it was the gist of his message, sending off Mark Kearney with a poison pen letter. And I was struck by a memory when I was a young reporter. June 21st, 1984, Brian Mulroney was the opposition leader as well, conservative opposition leader.

And he went to Washington. And he didn't expect it, but he ended up getting a meeting with Ronald President of the United States, and then a meeting with George Bush, who also became president of the United States. And what did he do with his less than an hour in the Oval Office? He sort of impressed upon Reagan that the U.S. steel quotas on Canadian steel at the time were unfair, and why they weren't unfair and why they weren't good for both countries. And then he went on to try to convince Reagan, who was skeptical about this, about why acid rain was something. an important issue, why the environment was such an important issue to Canadians. It didn't bear immediate fruit, but it did eventually have an impact. Mulroney established the relationship

with Reagan that was, I think, fruitful for Canada, an even closer relationship with the Bush family, which again bore fruit for Canada for a long, long time. It was a different approach than the one taken by Mr. Poilliers. That's not to say that liberal opposition leaders haven't pounded prime ministers over what they did. We all remember the ad in the 1988 campaign run by John Turner that had supposedly the disembodied wrist in hand of Brian Moroni rubbing out the Canada-U-S. border. He accused Mr. Mulroney of selling Canada out, which could be pretty tough stuff as well. But just a different approach. Yes, we are in a different era, perhaps a more genteel era back then, a tougher era now, reflecting the kind of brawling we see on social media, but an approach

in terms of Mr. Mulroney that bore fruit for him and for Canada for decades, I'd say, afterwards. What do we know, Althea, about the Polyev approach in that letter yesterday? Because this is, you know, this is once again a backflip on the part of Polyev since the campaign where he didn't talk about Trump and was pushed by others to talk about him. The language he uses Canada first is language that he did release, I think it was February 15th, so it's not new language. But okay, go on. Well, okay, you want to defeat the question before it's asked. But I mean, clearly, it's a different sounding Pierre Polyev than we witnessed during the campaign on the issue about dealing with Trump. he's basically laying down an ultimatum almost like he assumes that Carney's going to come back empty-handed and it'll be a failure and he used some pretty tough languages, as Rob said in

that letter yesterday. What's the thinking there? I think there's a few different thoughts there. The first is it represents actually where a lot of the conservatives have landed since the election campaign in that they feel like they got hoodwinked by a new leader who went very hard against Donald Trump in a way that they couldn't because of their own supporters and also frankly because of their own view of the relationship between Canada and the United States. There was polling recently, I think it was abacus, but I'm not sure if it was abacus, that came out saying about half of the conservative base is in favor. of what Donald Trump was doing.

So, you know, Pierre Pahliaf was kind of boxed in in the way that he could respond and the way that Mark Carney was not. And in fact, it was a big boon to Mark Carney's campaign to run with that elbows-up campaign. And after the election was over, the conservatives feel that version of Mark Carney disappeared. And I think that is a general feeling,

not just with the conservatives but with some liberal voters as well you hear it in the halls of power just a few blocks away from me you hear it even within the NDP ranks that you know there was all that tough talk vanished Mark Carney to use their words

caved on the digital services tax this is something that Pierre Puellev mentioned in this letter which is slightly ironic because the conservatives were actually vehemently opposed to the digital service tax This is a tax that were going to be placed on basically American internet giants who was going to bring in $7 billion to Canadian coffers over five years. The liberals thought hard for this. Christia Freeland went to the back for it.

And then Francois Filippe Chambang, the finance minister said, we're not touching it. And a few hours later, Mark Carney announced actually they were going to get rid of the digital service tax because Donald Trump basically had requested and the Americans wanted it gone. And in return, we got what? that question has been lingering for a lot of voters and the conservatives believe that that is something that they can attack Mark Carney with not really because it works so well with their base I don't think that's going to motivate new conservative voters

but because it can depress liberal support and so there are a few different thoughts going there there is one they are emotionally still angry in processing the last election and that fits within that frame and the second it's an interesting electoral strategy, if you wish, a good strategy to depress your opponent's turnout. And it's not lost to me that one of the first outlets to report this was the CBC, which I believe got the letter lead because it landed in my inbox at 823 and the CBC story was on at 8.

So if you're trying to say to people who voted for the liberals, you know, I'm raising the stake. This is the measure of success. Mark Carney better meet this, and let me remind you the ways that he has let you down in the past. You know, it's not a bad strategy. You're not suggesting, though. You're not suggesting by your time on the clock there on the release of that letter that there's selective leaking going on in Ottawa. Oh, my goodness, you don't know what's shocking news to Ottawa.

Okay, we've got to take our break unless Rob, you want to say anything. anything else on the on the polyev position no that's fine that covered it all okay we're going to take a quick break come back and we'll talk about election this this won't go away this keeps coming up and i want to try and understand why is there nothing else to talk about is it really a possibility we'll find out when we come back And welcome back. You're listening to our Tuesday episode of The Bridge, Reporter's Notebook, Althea Raj, Toronto Star, Rob Russo of The Economist. They're both with us. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

or on your favorite podcast platform. By the way, we're hoping this edition, like Good Talk on Fridays, will be on YouTube soon. It's just having to work out a few things on that. And when we do, we'll obviously let you know. Um, okay, this election stuff, that, uh, you know, Ottawa loves to talk about elections when they're really looking for anything to talk about that's easy to talk about. And, wow, there could be an election soon is an easy thing to talk about,

especially in the era of a minority government, which we're in. So, um, who wants to go first on this one? It's actually your turn. Well, yeah, I'll see it does. But it's your turn. So you start and then Elzeo come in with the real story. You know, reporters generally, generally, like nothing more than election campaigns because we see them as important national black and white issues that also at the same time allow us to travel the country

and pile up great, great reams of overtime. But that, you know, if you're a political, reporter, an election is the Olympics. And so we like it. Does that mean that this speculation is merely febrile and isn't based in any fact? No, I don't think so. I think people are certainly counting noses and there is political calculus going on. I don't see it. I certainly hear people talking about it. I hear people beginning to jockey. We see the conservatives saying, coming out and saying they will not support Bill C2. That's not necessarily an election issue.

I don't think that's a money issue. They're going to support the new version because they ripped out the stuff that was controversial. That's right. So, but they're starting to kind of paw the ground and snort and laying out markers. Whether they do so on the budget, nobody's going, nobody knows, but nobody knows. Is it going to be just about the deficit figure? There are going to be other things in there that are going to make it very, very difficult for all parties to vote against. Nobody knows.

I just can't see the NDP showing up in numbers to defeat the government. Just because they just don't have the dough, they are in the middle of trying to define themselves in a leadership race. That race is beginning to get more attention. I just think that it wouldn't make much sense for New Democrats. I don't know that it would make much sense for the bloc. Quebecois, because Mr. Carney's numbers, the last I saw, remain fairly solid in the province of Quebec. And I think that those numbers will solidify after this week, given the menace of Trump, which seems to be, continues to be an enduring motivator for voters in the province of Quebec.

I do think there's something that what Althea is saying. You know, after the election, immediately after the election, Mr. Polyev said that they could win the next time if they could just go out and find a million more votes. I think he's been told publicly and privately that finding those a million more votes is going to be almost impossible for him to defeat the liberals in a two-party race. And right now, it does still look like a two-party race.

So what do you do if you can't find a million more votes? Well, you make sure that the other guy doesn't get the eight or nine million votes that they had in the last election as well. It's as old as campaign. itself. If you want to make sure that you win the race and you don't think you have the best logistics, you make sure that the other guy's bus doesn't leave the garage because it has a flat tire. And so that seems to be where they're going now, but do they really want a race

now? I'm not sure they do. I don't see it. I hear people muttering about it, but I don't see it. Okay, I'll see you. I view it slightly differently. I don't, I agree with Rob. I don't think the conservatives will ask the fact I know the conservatives don't want an election the NDP don't want an election uh the bloc um actually you know with the chances of the liberals getting another 44 seats in the province pretty slim especially if you know the election is kicks off end of November early December by then it will be official Canada will have blown past its Paris climate targets no way we're meeting this 2030 benchmark or 2035 benchmark can you rally Quebecers around, you know, fake Mark Carney,

Yvrenza Blanchet, the block leader has been describing Mr. Kearney as a conservative in a red shirt. That's not an accident. Where I think the question lies, and you hear this from those that have met the prime minister, is the liberals are not acting like a government that doesn't want an election. If you have a minority and you have three seats, three votes that you need to get, one would think that you would have met with the opposition parties over the summer, that you would have asked them, what would you like to see in the budget? What can I do to get your support?

Those conversations never happened. In fact, I think we talked about this last time, but in early September, the prime minister was asked. It was a Sunday press conference. you know about support for the budget and he basically said i'm getting along so well with the premiers i'm getting along so well with business leaders getting along so well with union leaders i'll add an asterisk bracket here i'm not sure that's really true but okay close the bracket why the opposition party should just get in line and steve mckenon the liberal house leader

basically said the same thing the next day and i francho blanchet was very mad and said you know we're not liberals it's like stand in line but don't talk to us don't cooperate. He had said after the election in the spring that he was willing to give the liberals like 12 months. He was hoping that there could be peace for a year because they all needed to work together to fight Donald Trump. But he had said at the time that he hoped people put their rabid partisanship aside and that they work cooperatively and collaboratively together. That cooperation didn't materialize at that point that the prime minister said that. Basically, they were assuming that they had those votes, but they didn't ask anybody for those votes.

And since then, there have been meetings with Mr. Carney and leaders of the opposition. But from my understanding, nobody has really made clear demands. They have talked about priorities. They have talked about things that they would like to see. Nobody has said, I will give you my support in exchange for Ix, like we saw last fall, when the Black Quebecois basically told Justin Trudeau, you know, if you lower the age of eligibility for OAS, if you pass this bill binding future trade deals

to the current supply management system, not trading away any ground on that whatsoever, we will support you. Then nothing like that has happened this time around. So you have the conservatives who desperately do not want an election, who will have to vote against this budget, may hold back a few of their members. You have the NDP who don't want to be aligned with the liberals because they suffered last time for it.

But you have some members who are adamantly opposed and want to vote against the budget, others who are a little bit more pragmatic. They, I would say, are not as afraid. I would, from what my conversations, then as Rob portrayed it, because they're not going into this campaign if there is a campaign thinking that they're going to win 50 seats. They're going in to get 12 seats, to get official opposition status. And they don't need that much money to do that. And they could probably do it with a few million bucks. So they're just like, and I saved the furniture and give me a parliamentary budget, please. Which is something that the opposition party, the other parties have been refusing to give them in the House of Commons.

So they feel like they're at a disadvantage. And then the block, I think their calculations are, it will be basically the same. Maybe it will come up. So what's the cost? And they're not broke. They'd rather go now than go next fall. They don't want to go next fall because there'll be a Quebec election. And they're now missing their chance to Rob's earlier point.

There won't be a budget in the spring. So like bring them now, now or never. And the question mark just lies with the liberals. They're not acting like they want to avoid a contest. So is it because they don't understand the risk that they're facing? Or do they just think that someone will blink? All right. We're out of time.

so this last question is a yes or no answer let's see what you really think will there be an election caused by the budget yes or no i'll see you i don't know getting right out there on a limb right i don't think so but i if they want to avoid a race they need to start acting like it and Yeah, I think it's possible a few extension and some people missing. You know, the last time a young government fell on a budget, there was a cherubic stripling of a reporter named Peter Mansbridge who got a hold of some of the information

in the numbers that led to that government falling on a budget. What does a more sage and season, Peter Mansbridge, think about that possibility right now? Oh, so you're throwing it back at me. That's right. You're the, you're the, too on the on the scene you're there working the hallways but does it does it ring does it have

some of the same i don't think it's there no i don't think it's there i mean there was so many differences between 1979 and now you know liberals without a leader in opposition pierre trudeau having you know stepped down and resigned then he comes back after the fall of the government which was inspired by a vote the day after a raucous liberal christmas party were basically every was half hammered in the room and they got all excited and figured they could do all this and they did it and the conservatives who were overconfident that they could win even though they were down already in the polls it was just a very different time um i just don't see that now but but i listen to you guys and uh you know it seems to me

I kind of, I'm sort of with Althea. Anything's possible. Yes. Given the different dynamics. Pardon me? Did you notice my slim Sam shimmy in avoiding the question? Yes, I did, I didn't notice that. Okay.

We're going to leave it at that. Good talk from you guys to steal a title from another program, but it was a very good conversation. And we'll have another one two weeks' time. So good luck. We'll see where you're, where your thoughts are at that time. Thanks to Althea, thanks to Rob,

we'll talk to you again soon. There you go, The Reporter's Notebook for this week with Raj and Rousseau. That'll be, you know, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to play this back a month from now and see

what fit and what didn't. Quick reminder, tomorrow, we'll have an in-bit special for Wednesday instead of our regular encore. Also tomorrow, by 6 p.m. Eastern time, you've got to have your answers into the question. What are you grateful for as we head into Thanksgiving weekend this weekend? The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com is where you write 75 words or fewer.

Include your name and in the location you're writing from. All right. Look forward to reading your offerings on that. We'll have them, plus the random renter on Thursday and good talk, of course, on Friday. That's going to do it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in less than 24 hours.