The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: how do you negotiate with Donald Trump?

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Mark Carney is learning quickly - as the digital services tax debacle proved - that attempting good faith negotiations with the US President does guarantee a positive or lasting agreement. What is the point of making concessions of any kind when the goal posts keep moving? Rudyard and Andrew then turn to America's decision to pause weapon shipments to Ukraine on the heels of easing sanctions against Russia. Andrew believes that Trump has done everything in his power to enhance the Russian position while weakening Ukraine's, thus sending an important message to the world's democracies that American support is not guaranteed. Can Mark Carney's spending commitment to build up Canada's defense protect our borders in an increasingly hostile world dominated by strongmen? And perhaps most importantly, how will we find the money to pay for this?Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have a free trade agreement with the United States. We had one before Qudsma, whatever we're calling it now. It was called NAFTA. We have QSMA and Trump's not living up to them. So you do wonder what's the point of making concessions of any kind to get, quote, a deal. If he's then going to turn around and say, oh, I've changed my mind, I'm going to slap on new tariffs with a new pretext and justification for it. Welcome to the Monk Dialogues. Roger Griffiths here, your chair and executive director.

A real pleasure to continue. you are conversations with Globe and Mail journalist Andrew Coyne who joins me in studio. Andrew, great to be with you. Nice to be with you. How's your summer going? Slowly, but I'm anticipating it will pick up. You've got a great book out. Number two on the bestseller list. Congratulations. Thank you very much. The crisis of Canadian democracy. It's doing quite well, thank you. I love the plug. We're going to get the Montgomery community out here supporting it. If viewers and listeners have not already cracked the back of Andrew's great new book, please support it.

It's an important message, and congratulations to you for writing it. Thank you. A lot to talk about Andrew, but I want to begin with what we've seen in the Canada-U-S. trade relationship over the last 72-plus hours, and I guess this sense coming out of Kananaskus, the G7 meeting, that the possibility of a deal, a trade deal, was maybe more imminent than some people had thought. Where do you think we are at in these conversations? And more importantly, I guess, Andrew, how do you feel that the government of Canada is handling this very tricky kind of standoff with Trump?

Give us your assessment. They're scrambling to tread water, I guess. I always thought that statement of Canaanascus was a placeholder. 30 days, it was an agreement to maybe seek an agreement. It wasn't really, there wasn't anything connected to it. it just seemed to be something, so you could have something to say. They have certainly bunged things up with this digital services tax. To be fair to them, they would be getting hit if they'd maintained it

because then you were being needlessly provocative. But, you know, they never really should have hauled it out in the first place. They were told, this is going back years, that it would be much smarter to do this in concert with other countries. The basic idea of the tax is at least not as objectionable as some of their other forays into the Internet field. the Online News Act, the Online Harm's Act, the Online Streaming Act, they've had an approach to regulation of the Internet space that's way out of date,

vastly over-ambitious, vastly overstates their own power. The digital service attack, you know, the idea of that these large tech companies should pay some part of their revenues here is not objectionable, but they should have been, just smartly, they should have been doing it with other countries. And they were told that, and they nevertheless thought they could go along with it unilaterally, and they got their teeth knocked down their throat by Trump on this. Now, that being said, I'm not in time, remain unclear what exactly there is to negotiate with Donald Trump.

We've just seen, for example, Ukraine, where Zelensky's done everything that Trump has asked him to do, and what's his reward for it? They're continuing to cut off arms sales. And you could well see the same thing happening in Canada. I mean, we have a free trade agreement with the United States. We had one before Kuzma, whatever we're calling it now. It was called NAFTA. We have Kuzma, and Trump's not living up to them.

So you do wonder what's the point of making concessions of any kind to get, quote, a deal. If he's then going to turn around and say, oh, I've changed my mind, I'm going to slap on new tariffs with a new pretext and justification for it. So my best case scenario is you negotiate to buy time. You negotiate to keep him occupied because he's got a million other things on the same. his plate. You negotiate because the longer time goes on, the weaker he becomes. You know, he's down. Now, I think the last thing I saw was 38% of the approval ratings. But you don't negotiate in my opinion. There's no point in negotiating in the expectation of some big deal that will prove lasting. I think it's purely tactical. And if junking the digital service stack, I mean,

it makes you look bad. But if it at least buys you some more negotiating time, maybe it's worth it from that time point. The risk, of course, is you just feed the beast, and Trump just demands more. But in a way, in a weird way, it's less a risk with him because he'd be doing that anyway. Yeah. So bad public relations, bad situation for them. I pity any government that was trying to negotiate with this guy because there's just really no point. When I initially, all of us had heard about the digital services tax being gazetted on Friday and then the reaction by the Trump administration, I don't know, Andrew. Is it wrong of me and I guess others who had presumed possibly that Canada was trying to align itself more closely with the European community, which has been much more committed to this tax, which seems to be having a difficult negotiation with this president?

In fact, there may not really be any substantial, quote, trade agreement, close quote, with the United States and Europe. What should we be doing? Should we be thinking more seriously about, you know, yes, realignment is going to take time creating new trade relations. with Europe could take decades. But in the immediate time, having allies standing up on certain issues, maybe this digital sales tax was that issue. Maybe there's another issue that we and the Europeans should come together on and say, look, this is what we think.

This is how our public policy is constructed. These are the laws of our country. And instead, as you say, we had our teeth shoved down our throat 72 hours later. So I was surprised by, I don't know, was it a lot. A slip between cup and lip? Was it just a stupid mistake? It looked like there was something hopeful in a moment there. Maybe I got it totally wrong, that we were going to stand with Europe against the big orange monster.

Oh, but standing with Europe would mean actually doing something in concert with Europe, not doing our own thing and Europe doing their thing. I do think as a general proposition, not just with the digital services tax, but with things in general, the strategy has got to be, to borrow a phrase from the Cold War. containment that the other I should say I was going to say the other Western democracies the Western democracies and I'm only half joking you know the United States is in the process of de-democratizing and you know I think it's an open question whether the midterm elections will be free and fair elections you know that that's that's still a year and a half away look at what's happened the last four or five six months so our approach to the United States as it is to Russia should be one of pulling together.

You know, hang together, you'll hang separately, as Benjamin Franklin said. And I would say the same thing about domestic forces within the United States. They've too often allowed Trump to pick them off one after another.

You know, the law firms or these media firms, they just saw CBS striking another deal with them. If you try to take him on one by one, he's got the force of the United States behind it, but if you can pull together and act, in concert you've got a bit better chance I think of raining him in a bit now that

being said that NATO meeting where they all just basically towed the line together was rather dispiriting where they they couldn't even bring themselves to mention Ukraine in any substantive way where they were flattering and controlling and you know I'm two minds on this flattery does seem to work on him in some cases but in some cases it doesn't it depends he he likes being flattered by dictators he's very fond of being flattered by Vladimir Putin, and it really works with them. But with everybody else, it just seems to exercise his contempt.

Yeah. Japan also seems to be having a difficult or non-negotiation. So just to go back to maybe my dwindling hope here, Andrew, that it seems as if, you know, Liberation Day announced early last April, which caused that giant kind of shock that reverberated around the global economy, is ending up with the situation. where a lot of countries, the big economies, Europe, Japan, China, I don't even think you can characterize what was agreed upon by the United States and China as a deal. I think it was a cessation

of hostilities. Same thing with the UK. It was an agreement that's not legally binding, you know. So if I if that is the right assessment and analysis that, in a sense, he's he's launched these trade wars, he's failing to bring these negotiations forward to any kind of conclusion, then why is Canada seemingly in a hurry to get this over with? Why are we saying at Cannescus and why is our prime minister even repeating this this week that we are moving towards a trade deal, that we are working towards, is it the 21st of July, the date, so to speak, it seems out of sync with the reality of the conversations that this president's administration is having with most other major economies around the world. Yeah, it's a good point. To the extent that he's

had any, I mean, he was going to sign 90 agreements in 90 days. It's hampered by the fact that he can't figure out what his motivation is. You know, that sounds like the old actors line, what's my motivation? You know, is the tariff supposed to be to raise money? Is it supposed to be a bargaining chip that you bargain away in exchange for other countries reducing their tariffs, in which case it's not raising money for you? Is it to protect American industry? Well, it's not going to protect American industry if you're dealing it away. It's not going to, you know, all these things are in conflict with each other. Plus, the fact, he's a terrible negotiator and other countries know it. So to the extent there's been any agreements, again, countries that try to go off on their own, I don't

think are doing terribly well. Vietnam, they've got some sort of agreement with them. where the U.S. keeps in place 20% tariffs, and Vietnam gets rid of theirs. Now, from an economic standpoint, actually, Vietnam is the winner of that. Because there is no trade from America to Vietnam. Well, and because you want tariff-free imports. You know, tariffs hurt yourself. So by insisting on maintaining the 20% tariff, Trump is hurting his own consumers, hurting his own economy.

But, you know, if you're looking at from the standpoint of trying to get reciprocary, deals, it doesn't look that good. So it's a hard question and answer as to why, you know, what do we think we're going to get in 30 days? Has Carney overestimated his quote-unquote friendship with Trump? It does seem that Trump likes him more than he does Justin Trude, but I ain't saying a whole lot. So he may, perhaps he's overstated his ability to dazzle Trump and, and pull in some sort of

thing. All we're trying to do, of course, is just prevent further harm. We're just trying to preserve the status quo before, quote, unquote, liberation there, before he started bringing these tariffs on Canada. But I don't see what we think we're going to gain or why we think we're going to get that deal. It seems very clear to me, at any rate, I shouldn't say very clear, but I would not be surprised if come July 21st we still don't have any kind of deal. I want to go to Ukraine in a moment because I know it's a subject.

you feel passionately about him what's happening there right now but before we do let's just talk about the other part of the president's bleats last friday and into the weekend on u.s cable talk news where he does seem to like to negotiate with canada over a trade arrangement where he he talked about the digital service tax but also about uh supply management as particularly his fixation on wisconsin dairy farmers and the the fact that we have supply management for dairy which means that U.S. imports are at a very significant disadvantage. We have in the last few weeks passed through Parliament a unanimous vote of all parties to maintain the supply management as it exists in Canada throughout the context of the negotiations.

What do we do, Andrew, if this president rolls out of bed one morning and does to supply management in his in his true social feed what he did to the digital services task which is to say no way or the highway I mean how do we react to that how does that play out in a parallel of universe this is why a lot of people said this whole approach of locking away supply management even let's leave aside you know what a what a terrible policy supply management is even if you thought it was mildly bad or even good making the entire trade negotiation stance of the country hostage to this one provision is crazy. It just, it shows you how crazy the whole supply management issue is, because it is really bad policy and yet enjoys

universal support from every federal party and every member of every federal policy. None of them dare get offside with it, except Maxime Bernier, who's gone to a different place. So, you know, I think we have to distinguish between different types of, quote-unquote, concessions. I think quite rightly a backlash against people who, when Trump first started talking about fentanyl, et cetera, wanted to be first in line to say, yes, sir, you're right, sir. Isn't it terrible that we haven't done enough on fentanyl? That was just factually untrue, and they looked craven to be parroting this Trump line when, in fact, we are not the major source of fentanyl into the United States, et cetera. So I think there's different types of concessions you can make. Digital

services tax probably was never a good policy at begin with, but you'd probably want to something in exchange for giving up the digital services tax. It should have been part of a larger negotiation. Supply management, I'd give up yesterday. It's a policy that drives up prices to consumers, that protects a handful of inefficient dairy farmers at the expense of other farmers, for one thing, you know, the... Well, and in fact, multinationals who've bought up most of these licenses, so it's nothing about small farmers. They're not the family farms anymore, exactly. It's Saputo. It's these big companies that are these. And the other thing is it prevents the Canadian dairy sector from expanding abroad. It's always amuses me whenever you bring this issue up and they say, how on earth can we compete with those New Zealand dairy farms? And you sort of say, well, how do you think New Zealand dairy farms got that competitive? Because they were forced to. They went through their own version where they had all, they had all their trade barriers removed. And they had to go out in the world and become these world beaters to make a living. And they figured it out. And, you know, there's no reason at all that could, you know,

obviously there would be a shakeout involved, but there's no reason at all that Canadian dairy could not be an export market for us, and particularly, you know, value-added products in dairy, et cetera. So it's lethally bad policy. And if we're refusing to give it up, I'm not saying this is what's going on in the scenario you mentioned, but I think there's a mentality of what right now is,

we're not going to give anything up that Trump demands us, no matter how stupid the policy is. Well, if you're refusing to give up a policy because of Trump, conceptually, psychologically, it's the same as if you are giving it up because he tells you to. You're still basically hostage to one man's opinion. Let's make decisions on these things based on what's in our own interest. And it would be manifestly in our interests of country to get rid of supply management. And how many good policies may we have to give up to save this one bad policy?

Because we've just told him where his leverage is over us. That's right. That's right. And we've told him where. Mark Carney is facing political, where he's bound politically. So it puts him in a terrible position, absolutely. If you're enjoying the Monk Debates podcast, come over to our website at triple-w monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com and check out our free monk membership.

As a complimentary monk member, you get all kinds of great perks and benefits, access to our weekly email, summarizing our best debates. Bans ticketing privileges at our main stage debates, special news information, and offers all courtesy of the Monk Debates. You can grab your complimentary monk membership again right now at triple w monkdebates.com. Simply look to the top navigation on the website and follow the links. Thanks in advance for joining our community. Let's shift Andrew to the latest news about Ukraine, which is horrific Russian.

attacks that are escalating, mass rocketing, drones, a summer offensive on the front line that is underway. And against this backdrop, this grisly backdrop, we now have news that the Trump administration is suspending the shipment of a number of critical weapon systems, most notably the Patriots and the other kind of missile batteries that are protecting these beleaguered Ukrainian cities. The excuse that the administration is giving is that they're running out of supplies, that the defense of Israel has used up significant amounts of their stockpiles, that they now need to be prudent and husband the resources that they have.

What's your reaction to it? Well, it's hard to square that also with the fact that they're lifting, they're easing the sanctions on Russia. So Israel didn't make them do that. No, look, everything that Trump has done since he's been in office, everything has been aimed, at enhancing the Russian position and weakening the Ukrainian position. So I just don't think you can look at that as anything other than what it is, which is it's on Russia's side.

People don't like to say that. They don't like to admit that because it sounds too simple. But with Trump, you know, normal considerations don't apply. You know, the terrible thing is, there's an upside as well, but the terrible thing is this is happening when Russia's economy is absolutely imploding. They are the sanctions that have been in place have been having an enormous impact their banking sector in particular is a hollow shell At some point that really does catch up with your ability to sustain a military effort if we were prepared to stick it out there So for the US to go easy on the sanctions is almost worse than then cutting them off on the on the military exports because the silver lining in all this is

Europe has been increasing its support to Ukraine Ukraine is much more reliable allies than the U.S., particularly since Mertz has taken over in Germany. You have a much more frank and robust European effort there. And the less that Ukraine has to, I mean, depending on U.S. military, it has a real downside to, which is you had to ask permission to do all kinds of things. And so in a way, it's a nasty form of liberation, but it's liberating in a way that they have less and less to ask permission for, certainly from the United States.

States, and the freer the hand they have, they've certainly shown they have the creativity and the daring to do things that nobody thought was possible. I mean, I always say it's amazing to watch the Ukrainians and in their own way, the people in the Baltic states. The people who you would think would have the most to fear from Russia are least in fear. The people who are most exposed to its wrath are the most daring and saying, I don't care. I'm not going to cave on this. I'm not going to let them bully me around.

I'm going to stand at fight. And that alone ought to inspire our admiration and support. But of course, it's much more than that. It's a strategic thing of if we allow Ukraine to fall, then we lose the whole shooting match. We emboldened Russia. We empower Russia because they then get Ukraine's resources. Putin has made it abundantly clear that he's not stopping there. And that, again, is hard for people to wrap their minds around.

because rationally you say, come on, that would be crazy. He's been, he's lost a million men in Ukraine. Surely that his appetite for conquest will have been sated by that he'll be deterred. It's making that class of mistake of assuming your adversary thinks the way you do. And he doesn't. And he's made that clear on just multiple occasions that he sees conquest as being Russia's natural mitye, that, you know, Russia has no borders. And that he's not going to stop at Ukraine at all.

And of course, it's not just Russia. We're looking at it. It's China and all these other countries. So every time we weaken in the face of that, every time we fail to support Ukraine, every time we pull our punches, we're simply making the situation in Ukraine worse, and we're hastening the day when we have to confront some other power, notably, China. The rationale, though, for the Americans to do this. I mean, what is it, Andrew?

because, I mean, one, we know that the president has his personal, you know, predilections and is fed a steady diet of misinformation, either purposely on his own part or by his aides and assistance. I mean, is it just simply bad data in, bad actions, approaches, and attitudes out, or is it something more, I don't know, more, I don't want to say thought through, because that would bestow it with some kind of sense of strategy or something. But is it part of a bigger vision? Is it part of a theory about, let's say, spheres of influence? I don't know.

Maybe he's decided that I see the world as spheres of influence. This is Putin's fear. I expect others to then respect my sphere, which could include Canada and Greenland, Banamah, or whatever he's talked about, the continental landmass. that is North and South America. I mean, is that the best we can get in terms of trying to figure out what the heck is behind this? You've got a number of different players within the Trump administration and a number of

different motivations and theories, including Trump, probably has more than one of his own. So Trump himself, I don't think we can discount how much of this is just he really admires Putin and thinks he's cool. And I know that sounds simplistic, but again, we're talking about Trump. and the evidence is very clear there on this, that he has a thing for dictators, and particularly Putin seems very adroit at buttering him up in a way that compels his cooperation. I agree with you. I think there's also within Trump a very ill-formed but general theory of, yeah, let's every

country do what it needs for itself. The strong will do what they can, the weak will do what they must. I don't think it's terribly much more developed than that. I don't think it really stands up to analysis in the 21st century that if you're really interested in American power and And having a hard-headed national interest the hard-headed national interest in the United States lies in having allies And having abilities to to you know project force in concert with other like-minded nations doing it all on your own means nobody's going to be there to help you in situations where you really need their help and and you know in this world that we're in today I think I just think that's just that's just real as a borrow a phrase of term. I think there's also within the Trump administration

a school of thought that supposedly it's the pivot to Asia, that we're wasting resources on Europe. Of course we are very concerned about the Ukraine situation, but we have to be much more conscious of China, and China's the real threat, et cetera, which would be much more persuasive if there was some evidence that Trump had any intention of actually tackling China. You know, he does when it suits him, when it's about tariffs, which he wants to do anyway,

and where he thinks they're ripping us off, then he'll be reasonably belligerent with China. But he's sent the signal on more than one occasion that Taiwan really can't count on America's support if and when China invades. So where's this pivot to Asia that supposedly is animating this? It may exist within the minds of some of the people in his entourage, but it's hard to see it actually being, a concrete policy objective, at least in the mind of Trump. Just to wrap this conversation up, I mean, what is this, what does this say to Canada? I mean, we've seen with Mark Carney a quite exceptional set of announcements around defense spending from any liberal prime minister, frankly in most of my lifetime.

Any conservative prime minister. Not only 2%, but a path to 5%. And again, we'll have to see how we get there when we get there, how a procurement system that's broken allows us to get there, what we end up buying, etc. There's so many things that, you know, the devil will be in the details. But nonetheless, there is this commitment to defense. Is that enough, Andrew? Because you can have all the tools in the world and you can have a commitment to build those tools. But do we have in Canada the moral framework to use them in the way that they should be?

used. You know, yes, we are supporting Ukraine. Yes, we have done, I think, historically, in the last few years a pretty good job. We've been more, how do we put this politely, more confused in our support towards Israel. That's been more difficult for us, for a variety of reasons, probably mostly internal domestic politics. But we know this, Andrew, about Canadians. We still like to see ourselves as a nation of peacekeepers. The mythology of Lester B. Pearson is powerful in our national psyche. And I guess what I'm concerned about is if the world is turning towards strong men to the Gis and the Putin's and the Trumps,

and yes, we're making these commitments to defense spending, do Canadians, are we developing enough hardheaded realism to bore your word earlier to acknowledge the situation that we're in and likely will define the next period of time? I think we're partway there. I think there is definitely a change of mind. happening. And you can see that in some of the polling data. There's strong support now for the 2% target that was not in the past. I think people at least partially understand how much more dangerous the world is right now. But just on that 2% target, there's support because all the transfer

payments to the provinces are being sustained. The entire care economy that Justin Trudeau built of dental care, health care, daycare is being, in fact, dental care is being expanded. So, to what extent is there support? No, you make an absolutely fair point. I was going to get to that is, you know, when the rubber hits the road is when you have to make tradeoffs and changes and sacrifices to do that. And let's not kid ourselves to get to even to 3.5%, which is the sort of core defense requirement in the new NATO agreement. You know, 5%, arguably, that extra 1.5%, we can probably find in things that we're already spending on. That seems to be the consensus on that.

But 3.5, to get to that means spending another $50 billion if we did it this year. And of course, you can say, well, that's spread out over many years, but the longer the time goes on, the higher the GDP grows, and therefore the higher the dollar figure grows. So just look at it in terms of today's dollars and today's GDP, to get another $50 billion into spending on defense, where are we going to find that money from is going to present real challenges? People who think we can just raise taxes to cover that, I don't think have really looked at the numbers very carefully. You know, there's always a constituency to raise taxes on quote-unquote the rich, but you are not going to get anywhere close to $50 billion just by raising taxes on the rich. And Carney, to give them his due, has ruled that out. So taxes are off the table, supposedly.

Okay, well, borrowing, we're already at a $60 billion deficit, it looks like even before all this, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is creeping up, the provinces of their own debt issues to manage. there's not a lot of room to, you know, if it were just a short-term thing because there was a war on, like we did in World War II, put it on the debt, that's fine, but this is a permanent engagement. So that's, you don't do, you don't put things like that on the debt. So we're going to have to find the money from, most of it, from spending. And, you know, I've looked at it. I think you can do it, but it's going to be very difficult politically. It's, we're back into something approaching the kinds of changes, choices we had to make in the late 90s. I'm not sure people are aware of that. So that's one thing that I'm not. sure people have totally wrapped their minds around, as you properly suggest. More broadly, you know, how far are we along the road to understanding how, what had changed and dangerous world is? Let's leave Ukraine and NATO and the Western world to one side for a second. Let's just look at our own territory. We've had a great 150-odd-year run. I always tell me, you know, every time I go to Ottawa and I walk by the parliament buildings. I'm just struck by what a fierce

structure it is, right? There's all these spikes. And it's a very impressive thing. And part of the message they were trying to send here is we're in charge. Now, we had three million people in the country at that time. But that was basically we were saying this whole northern half of the continent belongs to us. We could do that then because we had oceans on three sides.

We had a northern tundra that nobody wanted to go near. And we had the United States of America to our south that would deal with any problems we couldn't deal with. And that was the case for 150 years. Well, the oceans are no longer the barrier they were. The northern tundra is no longer so frozen as it was in the past. And the United States is not a reliable ally if it's an ally at all anymore. And I think this going forward is going to be one of an absolutely huge question for us is,

what do we do? I'm not worried about somebody invading Toronto tomorrow. But what do we do if a Russia or China or somebody just sets up shop in our north in some way, shape or form and dares us to do something about it. What do we do? How do we defend this massive territory that is our inheritance is going to be a, I think, without calling the Americans in, without seating massive sovereignty the moment we do that. Exactly. So that's an issue. And then, yeah, we've got a hot war going in Europe. We could have more in the near future in the far east. Are we properly cognizant of the way in which China and Russia and Iran and North

Korea are all working hand and glove together. Do we see that as a, as a, basically a global force that were up against, or we're still looking at these things in silos as isolated conflicts? And do we see ourselves as being properly on one side, on the side of the democracies? You mentioned that, you know, Canadians tend to see us as peacekeepers. You know, every time people mention Pearson, I like to say, Pearson spent 5% of GDP on defense. Pearson was willing to put nuclear-tipped ICBMs on Canadian soil. Pearson was a cold warrior as well as a peacemaker. And so that Pearson, we absolutely need somebody who is able to see both the possibilities of statecraft, but also the realities of hard power and of our taking part in that. What we cannot have is the

attitude that we've had among too many Canadians in the past, which was that we were a neutral, not just a peacemaker, but a neutral power, the only neutral power in world history to have somebody else pay for its defense, right? You look at actual neutral powers like Sweden or Switzerland, formerly Sweden, they're armed of the teeth. Why? Because they know if anybody invades, they're on their own. Yeah. So we were in a fool's paradise. And I think we're at least half emerged from that, but a long way still to go. Yeah. Well, Andrew, always so great to catch up with you. Thank you for coming down to the Monk Debates Studio today. And let's get out there and get a copy of your book and dig into Canadian democracy and all the good things that flow from it. So thank you for watching and

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