The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Trump Versus the U.S. Media -- Has The Media Finally Stiffened Its Spine?

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

With Althia in sick bay, Andrew MacDougall joins Rob Russo for the latest Reporter's Notebook. While Andrew writes the occasional opinion piece, he's not really a reporter -- but he sure knows the business from his time as Comms Director for Stephen Harper. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge, and it's coming up right after this. And hello there. Peter Mansbridge here, reporter's notebook on this Tuesday. Rob Russo's here. But if you see Althea Raj in this picture watching it on YouTube, then you're watching an old edition because Althea's sick today. She's got what seems to be a vicious cold that's passing around, certainly parts of Canada. Sitting in for Althea, Andrew McDougal. in London, England.

Andrew, of course, is a columnist these days for a variety of different publications, but he's best known certainly to us, not only as a good writer, but a former director of communications, a press secretary for Stephen Harper when he was working out of the PMO in Ottawa.

And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you two guys today on this edition of a reporter's notebook is that you both have that connection with Andrew, just as I said, back working in the Commerce Department of the PMO, and Rob, as a former Washington correspondent for Canadian press, now working for the economist out of Ottawa. But I wanted to talk to you about the whole situation that's been going on in Washington for the last week, but really for the last 10 years.

And that's the relationship between Donald Trump and the media, which has seemed to reached a certain new level in this last week as he's banned CNN, MS now, political, threatening to do the same in New York Times, Washington Post, from the White House. That's one step. The second step is there seems to finally be, after 10 years, a bit of a backbone developing

and the rest of the press corps in Washington, especially the TV press corps, against Trump as a result of these, actions against the media. So I want to get your thoughts, first of all, and then talk about it a little bit. But Rob, why don't you start us as somebody who used to work in that area? What do you think? Sure.

I think that tension between political reporters and those they cover is not just normal. I think it's desirable. I think that we're not there to lead cheers. we're there to hold people who hold power to account. We need to take that responsibility very seriously and realize that we're, as Donald Trump said, we're in the people's house, right? But we are representatives of the people.

The problem comes when politicians and the people who work for them don't understand what the accountability function is they think that we should just go there often and take our spit catchers or lie detectors or cameras and point them towards those who are making pronouncements and just record them and send them out. That's not journalism, that's stenography. Our job is to ask them why they're doing what they're doing and whether or not that benefits the people that they pledge to represent. often our job is also to try and find out what they're not telling us.

There isn't a government anywhere that hasn't tried to hide things that it's doing from the people that elected them. There is nothing new about this tension. It's perfectly normal. Andrew worked for a government of Stephen Harper that had a very tempestuous relationship with the media. It tried to bring in a new covenant as to how the prime minister was asked questions. And that didn't go over very well. But I think of Nixon, who wanted to move the reporters out of the White House and actually moved them into an area where there used to be a pool.

I would go into that briefing room. It was barely covered over. There were rats running around the press room. And he loved the fact that there were rats running around there with the reporters. You know, Pierre Trudeau got into fistfights. You know, with my friend and neighbor down the street here, Jimmy Munson. He got into a fist fight with Jimmy Munson. They had to be separated before anybody landed a blow.

So the tension is normal and desirable. What isn't, what isn't normal is rudeness, sort of public rudeness. Rigorous accountability is fine. But when you've got, and this is where I'm going to get into Trump, where he is sui generous, sort of above the norm, outside of the norm, is when he calls reporters

piggy, when he tells them that they should smile more, when he tells them to shut up, when he takes his justice department and six them on reporters who actually hold them to account by breaking stories,

that's when we're outside of the norm. And that's where we are now. We're outside of the norm, of the usual tension. Okay. Let me get Andrew's opening thoughts on the situation. I mean, you kind of laid the groundwork there, Rob, before we really get into the Trump stuff.

By the way, the insulting stuff from Trump is usually and exclusively to female journalists. That's right. Anyway, Andrew, you're opening thoughts on this. Yeah, I think, you know, Rob's laid it out quite nice. there, the traditional relationship between the press and the people they cover. And I think what strikes me is, is we are now in untraditional times. And that has been enabled by the rise of platform technology, which has given presidents, prime ministers, people in power around the

world, a direct route to their audiences. So they don't have to go through the filter or the accountability function of the mainstream press. And although I think, and I was certainly there in the proto days of this under Harper, you did it to have another. access point to your audience, one that you didn't have to have your message massaged by somebody else. And even though that massage function is critical for a democracy, so I think people were enticed by that. And this, I think, is the logical conclusion, Trump of where that ends up. And he spent 10 years now denigrating the press and making reporting an act of partisanship. And what helps the president in this are these platforms where all of the raw material of politics is laid out.

out there for all to see. So the ordinary person can see what a politician said, what another politician said, and what the media reported out of that. And if they don't see their preferred viewpoint reflected in the media coverage of an event, they assume bias or they become mistrustful of what they're reading. And that's always been the case. The job of people like yourself and Rob has been

to filter through the raw material, to test it, to combine it into a report and then to present that. And that is a huge responsibility. That's why the press has been called the fourth estate to challenge the three states of the Ancien regime to make sure that that power was exercised responsibly. What we're seeing now is the sausage being made and people having an opinion.

And now Trump can cut off access to media outlets and still get his message out to his people and the way that he wants it. That's the danger. And the press can jump up and down going, but we're still important, but we're still important, but we're still important. And the fact is, not as important as they used to be.

even though the function to society is more important than ever. But it's now so easily bypassed. You know, part of what's happened in these last 10 years, we've witnessed this drop in trust of the media. And how much of that is due to the fact that they've been painted the way they have been by people like Trump? And he's not alone. I mean, he's being the most aggressive on this.

But listen, you know, Pierre Paulyev treated the media. media the same way at a point in his leadership. Not so much now, but he certainly did, you know, a couple of years ago. So how much of that drop in trust is as a result of the way the media has been painted and treated? I'm going to be offside with some of my colleagues here, but I do believe we bear a fair amount of the burden for the drop in trust in media. We get it wrong. And that happens. There's nothing wrong with us getting it wrong. Again, it's a normal part of consuming a whole bunch of complex information, distilling it to its essence, and articulating in a way that connects with people. Sometimes you get it wrong. However, when you get it wrong,

you need to acknowledge it. You need to acknowledge it in an unabashed way. You need to acknowledge it in a prominent way. And you need to do that very quickly. That's actually not something that erodes credibility. It actually, I think, enhances credibility. And we haven't been doing that enough. The media gets it wrong often and it doesn't acknowledge it. I don't see corrections featured prominently on newscasts and in newspapers the way they used to be. And I think that's one thing. That's, that's one thing. hurt us. The other thing is we don't always acknowledge that there are some good things about people on social media platforms, that expertise is there. There's no end of, there's like this constant stream of toxicity, of bots, of partisanship. But there are some good things there,

and we were slow to recognize that. I think of a thread on X. or Twitter by experts, you know, 10 or 12 kind of bullet point form explanations by people who have real expertise and no acts to grind. That's a very good form of journalism that we haven't always been quick to acknowledge. I think that, you know, there is bias in media. You know, I used to look at the newsrooms that I ran, and I thought that they represented Canada. There were conservatives in there. There were liberals in there. I had some beckists in my newsroom in Montreal.

And we were not always willing to acknowledge that. We need to acknowledge that. And we need to say it that we're human beings. What we need to do is try to try and say, here are the facts as we distill them. And not try to ignore the fact that there is some bias in media. So I don't know that we always helped our. ourselves. We're in this position because we have been attacked, but we've also allowed ourselves to be put in this position to a certain extent.

Jeez, you sound more like a media critic than a media defender. Well, I think we need to criticize ourselves. Oh, well, sure. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And, you know, and I think you've got to be upfront when, if you make a mistake, correct it, because I agree with you that when you do that, you gain more support than you lose. lose when you're up front about the mistakes you've made. But you seem to be glossing over the whole, maybe glossing over is a too strong word,

but you seem not to be blaming the kind of Trump treatment of the media. And not just him, because it goes beyond him. I mean, he set a tone, he got away with it, and others in different parts of the United States, the world figured, hey, this works, trash the media. Yeah, absolutely. No, I do think that governments have willfully, strategically decided that they're going to do a few things.

First of all, the media is the opposition. They see them not as important sort of members of the democratic process. They see them as the opposition. So what do you do to an opposition? Well, you starve it of information, you confuse it, you enrage it, you anger it, you make it sputter with rage, and thereby you continue to denigrate its own credibility. And I think that we've seen that, quite frankly, for a long, long time. And Andrew called it going around traditional media by going through the current social media platforms.

But that's part of the process as well. If you see the media as the opposition, then you're going to do everything you can to erode the trust and credibility that it has. All right. Absolutely. All right. Andrew's been very patient here, sipping on his tea there in London. So what do you make of what Rob has been saying here? Yeah, I think it's great.

And I don't know if Rob remembers, but I remember in the early days reporters having access to was Twitter at the time. And I had asked Rob when he was still the Bureau Chief in Ottawa, you know, whether there were any editorial checks on any of the stuff that his newsroom was putting out on Twitter. And the answer was no. And I had actually done a survey of all the Bureau Chiefs at the time. And the answer was no. And I think the seeds of demise were kind of planted there where I think reporters who, you know,

for someone in my role, you know, I could guess as to what a reporter's political point of view was. But I didn't know. and most reporters, I'd say 99% of them, you'd never find any hint in their copy of which way they lied. But they obviously had opinions. They wouldn't be doing that job if they didn't have opinions,

but I didn't know them. The second I could see them, and it wasn't as obvious, it didn't have to be as obvious as someone like Bruce Cheedle saying, you know, this environmental bill sucks. You know, he would never say that. But I would see reporters

retweeting stories that were, pro this or pro that. And over time, you could quite easily see. And one of the first things I ever wrote once I left the job was how social media reveals bias and reporters. And that was 12 years ago. And I think that is ever more the case now. But there are also a couple other things that have happened. These platforms, in addition to what we were just discussing, also took a lot of resource out of newsrooms. The advertising dollars that were powering the newsrooms disappeared and disappeared in a major way. So then you had fewer reporters. trying to cover all of the news.

And not only that, you had them not working to a deadline at the end of the day, their copy needed to go online as soon as possible. And that again gave someone like me a bit more control because I could control the timing of a briefing and a reporter would need the briefing to get a story online as quickly as they could to beat their opposition instead of everybody putting the paper to bed at 6, 7 o'clock at night or putting the broadcast to bed in your case, Peter, for a certain time. Now it happens 24-7-365, and that's why politics has become so bitable.

And you can watch these stories being constructed over time during the day as various bits and pieces come in. And then by the time you get to the end of the day, everybody's exhausted or they form their opinion. And so I think another dynamic is you now have news competing with things that aren't news. You know, you have news competing against content on these platforms. And the news is never as interesting as content tethered as it is to boring things. like government and reality. So you're not going to compete against the content. And then you're then also now in an environment

that is less trustful because people have, as we were saying before, access to the raw feed. So I think that's a horrible environment into which journalism has to go. And yeah, so Trump's saying that he hates all media, not helpful, but the media tipping their hand from the early days until now, as Rob said, also not helpful.

And that, you know, people don't have trust in media. They don't have trust in politicians. And when you work the logic through and say, well, you shouldn't as a citizenry trust politicians to not go through the media because we know they'll lie or hide bits of the truth. So you shouldn't want to give them access to these platforms. But the other thing these platforms does is make politics blood sport. It makes it a piece of your identity in a way where you're not just a neutral observer trying to pick issue by issue fact by fact. You're rooting for a team. And these platforms encourage that dynamic.

So an attack on President Trump is an attack on you, and then you fight back. And it used to be only the partisans like me who would get really upset and forget that most ordinary people don't care as much as I do about how the government's portrayed. Now a lot of the citizenry is in that position, too. They take these kind of criticisms as attacks. And so you will find the MAGA land out very happy that President Trump is finally sticking it to fake news, CNN, and biased MS now and Politico and their $8 billion. dollar Joe Biden subscription. You know, all that talk just lands with them. And it's an awful place.

We can't dance around that fact. Do you think the situation has changed at all? Does this latest example show any indication that the needle on this relationship of the media is changing a bit? That it's not working for Trump trashing the media. That the media is, for the first. time really with you know accepting some individual like a jim accosta type situation um but the media in a more substantial way is kind of fighting back and that there may be a turn in this

feeling about the media do you see any indication of that i mean no uh go ahead Andrew you go ahead yeah i mean in short i think it's just i think they finally realized that they either hang together or hang separately. And I think the time for solidarity was probably a little while ago. And that Trump, whether he's dealing with nations or reporters, there's nothing you can do to stay on his good side. There is no rational direction of travel that will see you. Being a great reporter will not do you any favors. Coutowing to him will, but that's not the purpose of your job. And so I think you might as well go down swinging by standing by your principles of why you're in that business to do the things you do, as Rob articulated, you are there to be the fourth estate,

to hold that power to account. And if you're not going to do that, then what's the point of view? And maybe that's, they're figuring out as things look pretty grim, that they better now stand up for the point of themselves. Rob? I was going to say that in 2009, Barack Obama banned Fox News from a Treasury Department briefing, because he didn't think that they were fair. at that point, the others, CNN, and what was then MSNBC, the Times banded together, and Obama changed his mind.

He backtracked. So there isn't anything new about this. There was an attempt when Stephen Harper tried to bring in a new regime for questioning the prime minister, selecting reporters from a list, as I said, that was compiled earlier. There was an attempt in Ottawa at the gallery to try and get people together, but there were competing interests. We didn't stick together. And as a result, the list became a reality, for me, a cursive reality,

because I don't know that any political leader should have the right to determine who does and doesn't ask them questions. And the reality was that there were people who never got on that list, who were never selected for a question. So look, if I'm looking for a model as to what to do, I look at Caitlin Collins from CNN, who is the one that Trump often says, you know, you're very pretty, but you don't smile. You'd be prettier if you smile, right? Again, kind of a naked slur against a woman. And what does she do?

She politely but persistently continues to ask her questions. no matter how much Trump tries to denigrate her and brings herself dignity and dignity to the work of journalism and journalists everywhere. Polite persistence. Okay. There's no need for us to be rude.

There's no need for us to match Trump or anybody else in bombast. That's not what we're there. We're there to ask questions. Keep asking your questions. Don't be swerved or diverted by what he's trying to do, which is, again, to confuse you initially because you just kind of got smashed in the teeth by the President of the United States, enrage you, and denigrate you,

and then erode your credibility. That's what the strategy is. And he's just kind of Queen's rules in terms of a bare-knuckle brawler about it. But others have tried it in more subtle ways. You know, it's worth remembering that Caitlin Collins, if you watch her or you're aware of her and you think, oh, she's, you know, she's obviously a liberal the way she goes after Trump all the time. She may be, I don't know, I have no idea whether she's a liberal or a conservative, but I do know that she was trained in the art of journalism at Fox News. That's where she started. Let me ask, before we take our break here, Andrew, help me with this one. I've been playing around with this phrase lately in trying to describe what's happening in the world of journalism. And the phrase is this, truth has become just another opinion.

What do you think of that? Because, you know, one of the concerns about journalism is just so much opinion in it. it's become this, you know, playground for those with strong opinions on whatever the subject may be. And they're not all commentators. Some of them are journalists. And so whether it's just,

is truth becoming just another opinion? I hope not. I think, again, this comes back to me, Peter, to the incentives or imperatives on the canvas on which you're playing. if you're producing something for a newspaper or a broadcast, there is an editorial process in place to make sure that if you are not an opinion journalist, that that opinion does not appear in your copy. If your canvas is the social web, whether that's X, whatever it happens to be, what sells there is not your vegetable of news. It is your sugar of opinion.

And, you know, you can't trade your vegetables on the sugar shack. And so I think it incentivizes journalists to dip their vegetables in sugar and try to be relevant on those platforms. And in so doing, make themselves an active combatant in a place they shouldn't want to be. And so I think the truth is the truth, no matter what. I think we now are sitting in an environment where the truth trades at a discount to fake or sensational. And it is hard to upweight the value of truth in that environment because it doesn't sell. And how do these platforms make money by keeping our eyeballs on the screen? What keeps our eyeballs on the screen? Sugar, not a vegetable. So I think you're fighting a fight you can't win.

So I'd get off all these platforms, but that's a conversation for another day, I'm sure. Yeah. A quick thought from you on that, Rob, before we take our break. I always believe that quality sells. If you produce a good product, it will sell. Quality journalism sells. Opinion has always been part of journalism, but where we run into trouble, I think, as an industry, is when that opinion bleeds over into our reporting. And I think that we've seen a fair amount of that of late, but there are excellent examples of people who are columnists, let's say, who produce first-rate journalism. Paul Wells is one of them in this country. I'm a big admirer of Paul.

He reads, reads deeply. And I'm not sure how Paul votes. Where I think we run into trouble is when it's obvious how people vote, and that drives their journalism. And we see some of that, and we see some bleeding from the opinion pages into the news pages. The Wall Street Journal, I think, does the best. job in journalism of separating the two. Their opinion section, a lot of them admire some of what Trump is doing. They're also hammering them there as well, as is their editorial page now,

which is new for them and Republicans. But on their reporting pages, they have been some of the most aggressive reporters of Trump. They're the ones who broke a lot about what's going on between, what went on between Trump and Epstein, for example. And there's an excellent example. separation of opinion and editorial. Okay. Can't take our break. We'll be back right after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. It's reporter's notebook. Althea Raj is sick this week. She's off with a bad cold. Andrew McDougal is filling in from London for us on that. And Rob Russo, of course, is here as he always is. Never gets sick, our boy, Rob. There he is.

He never gets old. He never gets sick. Yeah, we wish. Don't we all? A couple of reminders here. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 160, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube version of The Bridge.

A reminder that Thursday this week, the question of the week, it's an Ask Me Anything week. Last Thursday of every month, Ask Me Anything, so you can ask me anything. I don't know whether that means I'll answer it, but I'll certainly look at your question. So send those in, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com.

Got to have it in by 3 p.m. tomorrow. Eastern time Wednesday. 75 words is the maximum we'll take on this. Remember to include your name and the location you're writing from. Okay. Next segment is about something both these two gentlemen have spent a lot of time. I'm thinking about and participating in different ways on. So Andrew, I'm going to get you to start this time. And the issue is Pierre Pollyev.

You know, it's funny, the House sits again for the latest session. There's lots to go after the prime minister on. There's lots of questions surrounding the various things that Mark Carney is doing in trying to set up a new kind of relationship of the United States and the world on trade. but all eyes continue to be focused on what's going to happen in that conservative caucus to their leader Pierre Polyev, who's had a rough year since the election and in the election after it looking like he was going to win a substantial majority government back in the era when Justin Trudeau was leading the Liberal Party and was Prime Minister of Canada.

So the question, Andrew, you've seen this movie before. from your vantage point, and you've certainly seen it in the UK of the last few years. Can Pierre Polyev survive? Yeah. I think I'll preface my comments by noting that he has the worst job in politics, and I think everybody understands that it is the taskless or the thankless task to have to criticize the leader of a government. that is doubly difficult when the environment in which you are operating one is such that Donald Trump has created for Canada.

He has unified Canadian opinion and mobilized Canadian national spirit in a way that I can't remember. And I think that is a doubly difficult environment to go into. And then I think you have a series of self-enforced or self-inflicted errors that Pierre Polyheavenous team, made. And as you know, Peter, I think that stems from the last election. Pierre Polyev, let's not forget, was going to be the prime minister with a 200 plus seat majority in the house. He was going to ace the test of how much do you hate Justin Trudeau. And the second that exam question got changed, he didn't have an answer. He tried to stick to what Canadians were telling him on cost of living, but he had been superseded by Donald Trump.

And everything that follows from that is a failure to accept the new reality that he is in and that to realize that to be a good opposition leader, you have to hold Mark Carney's feet to the fire. Yes, he says a lot of words. What is he actually doing? What is he actually delivering? But you can never be seen to be offside

with the country and its interests. And I think there is a section of the consulate. Conservative Party and its support that are pro-Maga anti-Karny to the point where it makes it hard for him to abandon that section. But it makes courting or catering to that section makes it impossible for him to reach out and find the people that he has to do. And I look at it as a question of inputs. Where is he getting his input? You know, when I worked for the Prime Minister's Office, we had someone. in our morning meeting. Every morning, the department heads would meet and we'd have a chinwag

about the day and what was coming up. And one of the stops on that tour was someone from the party telling us, this is what we're hearing on the doorstep. And that feedback loop was there. It happened, but it moved at a certain pace. You know, you could do something in government. A couple weeks later, you'd get the report back around the department heads table saying, this isn't landing so well in the doorstep. You know, our people don't like trade. We've got to be careful if we're talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They don't really like that. They don't know what it means. And so you could course correct.

And I think now when Pierre's in opposition, that feedback happens instantaneously. And it happens online. And I think his immediate test is how is this landing online, which is different to how is it landing on the doorstep. And I think the party has lost the ability to separate those two things out. And so they do frankly stupid things, like taking a swing at Mark Carney about you. Europe and calling Canada the 28th state of Europe without realizing that there is no such proposal before us as yet. And why invoke the 51st state as a conservative when you know that

all that will do will raise Canadian hackles about Trump? And of the two parties, you're the more Trumpy. So why are you doing that? Why are you catawalling on about a carbon tax when President Trump is saying that Belarus is going to start selling us potash? That's not the point. The point is Trump is an irrational beast threatening Canada. You don't moan about Canada and a carbon tax at that point. You put your shoulder to the wheel for Canada

and tout Saskatchewan in its potash industry. That's what you do. And if Canadians don't see you do that, they're looking and go what the fuck is wrong with this guy. And I think it is that basic. Does he not get the fight that he's in? So that's what it feels like to me.

And I see a lot of my former colleagues, people I respect, taking some mighty big swings against their own side. And I also see people that I serve with, starting with the prime minister, ministers like Jason Kenney, showing a more constructive conservatism, a patriotic conservatism,

one that is proud of the country. It can be done. It's just where's that feedback coming from? Where are those inputs coming from? And if I were the opposition leaders' office, I broaden my contact points out, so I get a bit more incoming from a bit more, disparate areas that I'm getting now.

Wow. I wonder whether you'll listen to that. He should. Yeah, it sounds like Andrews should be immediately repatriated and brought back into the opposition leader's office. I have two small people here in the United Kingdom that would protest violently with that decision. They would also have to stop delivering your check and a brink's truck too, Andrew. Wouldn't that happen as well? What do you make of this, Rob? You know, when you listen to that, you go, this guy can't survive.

There's no way he can survive. Look, how old is this story, Peter? I mean, we've knocked around Ottawa for a long, and it's about conservatives. Conservatives since John Deef and Baker have eaten their own. And they often do it in an ineligent way. I see now an ideological purity test going on among conservatives to the point where somebody who Andrew worked with, the chief of staff, Ian Brody, for Stephen Harper, is being accused online of being not a conservative and being soft on Carney, which is absolutely ridiculous.

But there are those kinds of ideological purity tests that are going on now. And I think that this notion of, Hughie Siegel put it very, very well once when he said, I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a conservative. I think there's something to that. And there's something that seems to be there that is dangerous. You know, when conservatives ask me about this sort of thing, I say to them that the laws of political gravity apply to everybody. There isn't any prime minister who doesn't leave in some

ways diminished in public standing or diminished by the job. It's just a very, very difficult job. History tends to be kinder to them and they're reassessed. I look at what's going on with Stephen Harper now, who's considered a wise elder statesman who has great things to say about the country. Some of that might be because in some people's eyes, he's supporting a liberal, but the job is very tough on people. So I would say to conservatives, right now, Mark Carney is at his zenith. But the laws of political gravity ultimately will probably apply to Mark Carney as well. So why would they change leaders now?

We're three years away from the next election. Why would they do it? What are they going to replace him with? Maybe the question isn't, and that's my fault, maybe the question isn't, can Pierre Pollyev survive? The question is, can the conservative party survive? That's a different question. It is a different question. Yeah, and I think it's an important question. Yeah, I think so. The more I think about it, the more important, it seems to me, especially having watched Harper in these last few weeks, here's the guy who put the team together, you know, took these two. two very different blocks and put them together and it worked and, you know, gave them. After he helped, after he helped break up the Progressive Conservative Party, he helped break it up. Yep.

That's true with his, you know, Reform Party roots in the 90s. But nevertheless, we're at that point now where there was two segments, you know, called different things now, but nevertheless, they're kind of the same two segments are splitting apart. And that seems to be the question. Can the party as it's being known for the last, you know, 30 years survive? Andrew, what do you, what do you think on that? Yeah, and I think, I think one of the underappreciated parts about Stephen Harper was the caucus management side of things, because that's not forget, the government was elected on the tiniest of minority governments in 2006 could have fallen. And the only reason I got a job in government is because

nobody with any experience wanted to put their name down in case they had to quit six weeks later and be banned from lobbying for five years. So that's the only reason I'm sitting here today. I thought it was your golf game. I wish. And then and then, you know, the majority came because the government had to pivot pretty hard after dropping a disastrous financial update in late 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis that almost cost the government. And Stephen Harper kept that caucus united through what was a huge then stimulus spending. I can still remember briefing out to Alex Panetta and Rob Shop, the $55 billion deficit figure for 2009 and not believing my own mouth when I said the words. all the way through to getting that budget back into balance by the time he left. And that feat of caucus management was heroic.

And I think you've seen ever since how hard it is to do. And when you don't have the discipline of power and you don't have, you know, per reform, you used to have a geographic concentration, an attitude, you know, what is the modern conservative party of Canada is still this collection of disparate tribes. And what we're seeing now is they don't agree on much. And, you know, per Mark Carney, he's governing in a way that some slice of conservatives wouldn't, wouldn't objective Stephen Harper were the Prime Minister of Canada. I think there is not a lot of room between what he wants to do to airports, getting private investment in major projects in. There's a lot that you can support.

And to Rob's point, that's okay to say those things. If they're good for the country, let's have this. them. If they're not, then we'll oppose them. And that's where Canadians will make their judgment in three years. Did you serve the country? Or were you always the guy that sounded a bit like Trump? And this is when I hear people like Andrew Shear, like, why that man's allowed near a microphone, you know, he is damaging the cause. And I respect he's a former leader of the party, a former being the operative word there. And you can see Pierre, when he goes down to the United States, as he did recently and did a string of media appearances.

He can do it. The Pierre Pahliav, I know, is bright, dedicated, loves his country, and he can do it. He's just got, I think it's a filter and a noise problem. He's got to bear down on where the mood of the country is and then find the pockets of space where he can make that useful contribution, not expecting Rob's point to overturn the deficit overnight. You're not going to do that.

But when the time comes for Canadians to next have a think about who they want to lead, to at least have a body of work that they can look at and go, yeah, I remember that guy from this point, that point, and that point, you know, he's not bad. The other guy's a bit tired now. Let's get rid of him and try somebody new. That's what they have to get to. And as Rob said, he's got years to do it. So his job is to manage that caucus and say, guys, we've got years to get where we have to get to. Let's bear down. Let me have the other thing, Peter. Go ahead. Quickly. Just to your point, there are a lot of conservatives who believe there are two parties warring in the bosom of a single organization and that if Puelev is the only

one who can keep those two factions together and if he goes then the party is in danger of splitting up. Let me ask Andrew this final question. When you look at Mark Carney today and what he's done and you watch how Stephen Harper is standing there by his side on some issues, Do you see in Mark Carney what Stephen Harper must have seen back in 08, whenever it was that it was Harper who hired Carney for, you know, first I had, what, ADM and finance, or DM in finance? That was Martin, but Harper made him governor. Governor of the bank, yeah.

I mean, obviously Harper saw something in Carney then, still see something in him now. Look, I can tell you, in the midst the financial crisis, I was privileged enough to be in the room when they were speaking. And it was clear, these are two men that could talk through those issues at the time, the global financial crisis, and no one was at a deficit to the other. I think there was a strong alignment in objectives, a strong understanding of the stakes that were there and the need to work together, the fiscal and the monetary side of economic policy,

having to work in tandem. But you could also see that Mark Carney was always a politician. And I don't say that to slight him. Like the direction of travel was always fairly clear in terms of, you know, you'd be at the brasserie. You'd see him having a little powwow with a few of Rob's colleagues on the hill at the time, carefully courting the people that would have to have to eventually give him the thumbs up or thumbs down. He is a phenomenally good politician for a central banker. And he has the policy brain.

So I think there are, you could use those words to just. described Stephen Harper. He was a phenomenal politician at the caucus management side. However stiff Canadians might have thought he was, he could keep the team together and he could plot his way through a multi-year project, always with an objective in mind. So I think there's vast similarities between the men. And I think it's fortunate that Canada right now has someone at the helm that has the depth and breadth of that experience and has former leaders that aren't afraid to stand up and say, I think this is a good idea. Here's why.

That's what the country needs now. This moment's too big to be met with petty partisanship. We have to kind of come together where we can and accept that the cats and dogs can play along for a bit because the other animal across the border, it's not going to quit. We're going to leave with that for this week. Andrew, it's great at having you with us and joining for today, and I'm sure we'll do it again at some point.

In the not too distant future, Rob, as always, thank you. There's a lot of fun. Yeah. Could be with Andrew today. And thanks to the audience for tuning in today. We'll be back in tomorrow. It's Wednesday tomorrow and it's an NBit day. So we'll look forward to that.

That's in less than 24 hours. Talk to then.