The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: “Davos Carney,” the Shame of 24 Sussex, and Condo Buybacks

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

The Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement discusses the campaign to restore 24 Sussex Drive, if it should be torn down entirely, and if it’s an embarrassment to Canada. They also discuss the federal government’s plan to buy condos in B.C. that developers can’t sell in the hope of turning them into affordable housing, if this is a good idea, the blowback to it, and then take some “letters to the editor,” including one letter on whether Carney is an out-of-touch international elite and another from a listener who feels a “sense of confidence that Canada is being represented by someone with the experience, intellect, and emotional maturity required for this moment." Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Martha Hall-Finley, I don't recognize that background as being Calgary, Alberta, Canada. So where are we this week? Don't read anything into this from a political perspective, but I'm not in Alberta. I'm in Revelstoke, British Columbia, right beside the banks of the mighty Columbia River. Oh, beautiful, okay. And Tony, where are you this week? I'm all over the place, you know, GTA, Skoka, but I was traveling all last week in the UK, so it's nice to be back home for sure.

What were you doing in the UK? I was attending the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference. And who are they? They're an organization founded by Dr. Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray. It's kind of supposed to be the anti-Davos, I think, in one sense. Like it's to advance genuine debate. Everybody gets together and you hear a bunch of sessions from different people, a bunch of debates, and there's also a lot of networking.

Well, not everybody, Tony. Not everybody, because Martha and I didn't get invited. So not everybody's going. I'll make sure you get an invitation next year, Steve. Thank you. We're very disappointed to have been left out of this thing. Notice he said Steve, not Martha, right? And Martha.

It's very ecumenical over there. Okay. Let's talk everything political. Delighted to welcome back to our program. Tony Clement, the former conservative cabinet, both federally and in the province of Ontario, and Martha Hall-Finley, former Liberal MP now head of the University of Calgary School of Public Policy.

friends, I want to talk to you about what should be in this country some pretty prime real estate, but the reality is no one's wanted to live there for more than a decade because the dump is falling apart. I'm talking about 24 Sussex Drive, which is where our prime ministers have lived ever since the 1950s, when Louis San Loren was the prime minister, and yet has fallen into such disrepair. It's got rats. It's got no insulation. It's got, I think probably asbestos in the walls. The place is in big trouble. But the prime minister, the current prime minister, came forward this past week and said, we have a plan to potentially fix this problem.

Remember, Mark Carney is not living in 24 Sussex and neither did Justin Trudeau. So the idea is to have a competition among architects to reimagine what 24 Sussex could be like and then ask Canadians to donate money through a foundation, which would pay for the either repairs or the gutting of the place to bring it, to 21st century standards. Okay, Tony, what do we think? Well, I've said for years, Steve, that the current building has to be torn down. There's no architectural value in it.

It was a lumber baron's house. I don't, to me, there's no heritage dimension to it, except it was the place where prime ministers lived and worked and socialized with other heads of government. So in that sense, I'm all in favor of. doing something that gets rid of the problem. And the problem is the building is irreparable. So do that. If that's what this competition is all about,

is reimagining in the sense of a new building, a safe building because the current building is not only not safe for the occupant, it's not safe from a safety point, from a national security point of view. All of those issues have to be sorted out. And if that, if,

about is reimagining by virtue of a brand new building, I'm all in favor of that. I think it'll be a lot less expensive than trying to renovate what currently is there, by the way, a lot less expensive. And so that's what I would like to see happen. Now, here's the other dimension of this. And again, I don't know the precise details, but as you mentioned, Steve, the prime minister is saying that Canadians can participate in the renovation or the reimagining, let's use that word, by donating to a foundation. And I noticed that Rob Pritchard, whom you know, was standing behind the prime minister in the announcement.

And I think that Mr. Pritchard is going to be involved. He's also head of the group that is advancing the... high-speed rail system that is another thing that the liberals want to advance, right? So I have questions. You know, who's going to be donating to this? Are, you know, is it going to be, dare I say, liberal insiders who are going to have the fast track on donating? And if so, what are the accountability mechanisms and just to make sure that everything is

done on the up and up? because I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that a bunch of big, deep pocketed donors can donate money, get a tax receipt, and all of a sudden, Mark Carney has got a bunch of people who have helped him out, helped him out of a situation because he didn't want to use taxpayer dollars. So I'm not saying any of that is going to happen, Steve. I want to make that clear. I just have questions.

and I want to make sure that the public have accountability for whatever happens going forward. No, these are very reasonable questions. And I think one of the reasons you're asking these questions, Tony, is that when we went through this, when Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, he wanted a swimming pool at 24 Sussex. And what happened was a bunch of liberal insiders did, in fact, give money secretly. Their names were never brought forward. And they gave money to get 24 Sussex renovated to have a pool inside

so the prime minister could have a daily swim. and stay fit. And of course, we have no idea whether those donations curried some favor with that administration. So these seem like reasonable questions to ask. And the current prime minister has said, whoever gives money, they will have to do so in a transparent way so everybody can see. Martha, what do you think about this? Well, first, I think Canadians have to get over the fact that the prime minister's residence is actually important. We tend to have this view that, oh, goodness, we shouldn't spend money on it. That's, you know, it's not. not, you know, the egalitarian thing that we do. People around the world look at Canada and

realize we don't even have a residence for our prime minister where the prime minister can host people and, you know, do things of state is shameful, frankly. And the fact that it's been like that for so long is even more shameful. I do recall, and Tony, you might know more about this, but I had thought during the Justin Trudeau era, former Prime Minister Kratan and former Prime Minister Harper actually teamed up to try and figure out how to do something to save 24 Sussex. And my recollection, and I not having been in the know at the time, but my recollection was that the then prime prime minister, you know, Justin just blew them off, which is just to me it is also, is also so frustrating. I'm with Tony, though. I don't know. I mean, in terms of historical

significance. It wasn't originally a prime minister's house. It was just a big house. For the money, and anybody knows anything about construction, it could be ridiculously expensive to renovate that thing, but it could also be an incredible opportunity to do something really quite extraordinary for a residence of the prime minister of Canada. And I, you know, do I support this idea of having private donors donate? And I totally understand. understand Tony's concerns there, which is why I like the idea of former prime minister's actually engaging in that effort because it took a distance away from it. But honestly, as Canadians, we have to get over the fact that, oh, goodness, we can't spend public money on the prime minister's

residence. That's just nonsense. Of course we can. And we're spending all sorts of money on other things. We should just get over it and recognize that these are sometimes the things that we actually need to pay for in this country? I don't have any, I don't have any disagreement that these are things worth paying for. I just want to make sure that we get value for money, that the taxpayer

dollar, the taxpayers dollars are respected. That, you know, I call me zany, but sometimes government directed projects are not on time

and are not under budget. So, I just don't want to see some sort of white elephant that's created that we're going to look back and say, wow, we really went down a wrong. And all that does is degrade confidence by the public in public. If this becomes a nightmare, then public institutions writ large are going to suffer as a result. So this has to be done right. I think that's what the prime minister is trying to do.

but I really want to make sure there's some oversight here. That's all I'm saying. Tony Clement and Martha Hall-Finley agreeing completely once again. Note the date and time. Let me make a couple of extra points on this as well, which is to say, I think the problem that renovating 24 Sussex always had in the past is that many Canadians feared they'd be on the hook for the costs of this. So Mark Carney has attempted to get around that by saying, we're not going to spend taxpayer dollars on this. We'll let private individuals take care of it. So that's one concern that he believes he's dealt with.

The other concern was that Canadians felt, you know, this is a public housing project that is in the self-interest of the prime minister, and of course he wants it done. And that just from a political optics point of view looked like too big a hill to get over. Well, Mr. Carney has said, I'm never going to live there.

Right. So that also gets around that problem as well. And while I'm at it here, let me give props to a couple of guys who I think actually move this ball down field, There are a couple of Toronto guys of a certain age, if I can put it that way. Charlie Peelsticker is one. He is a former insurance executive.

And Bruce Thomas is another. He's a longtime lawyer. I think Charlie's in his 80s and Bruce is in his 90s. And these guys have been on this case for, I think, quite some time attempting to, as you have both described it, attempting to kind of deal with the fact that there seem to be some optics problems here and that it's ridiculous that the, you have. prime minister of a G7 country doesn't have a normal place to live. So we may be on to something here, is what I'm saying. And if it can roll out properly going forward, maybe this will finally be a problem that the country gets to solve as a kind of a nation-building exercise. And I gather the other thing is maybe I should get the two of you on the record on this right now. I gather also potentially

part of it will be that individual Canadians can donate 24 bucks with the idea being you buy a kind of a brick in the wall. And you can have a sort of a visual of that on a website where if you donate $24, you get your name on the brick on the wall. So, okay, Tony and Martha, you're going to donate to your $24 to this nation building project? This project is going to cost at least $50 million, Steve. So if you think or if anyone thinks that a $24 donation cumulatively is going to make the difference, no, they're going to be deep pocketed donors. If this thing is ever going to get off, off the ground, which I think won't. Again, stick a pin in that.

But if this thing ever gets off the ground, it's going to be because people with big pockets. And I just want to make sure that we all know who they are. We all know what their interests are. And, you know, I love Rob Pritchard like a brother. But the sirens were going off in my head that here's the guy who's running this high-speed rail thing for the prime minister, who's also at the. the announcement. So, well, he's also the chair of the Tories law firm.

He's also been on the board of Metro Links. I think he was the chair of the board there in Ontario. He was my law dean when I was in law school. There you go. Know the guy. No problem. He was David Peterson's constitutional advisor at the Meach Lake constitutional accords negotiations back in the day.

So he does have a long history of bona fides of contributing to public things. Let's put it that way. So I just want to know what the terms are and what. what's going on. I don't know what's going on with this. Does that mean I can't put you down for $24? No. Oh, you can put me down for $24. You can put me down for $24 just because in fact, a lot of other public institutions have been significantly supported by that kind of community engagement and $24 is not going to buy you political influence. So I think that's a great way to get the community engaged. Of course, it's not going to cover the amount. But we could devote a whole

episode to the value of a high-speed train in a place where there is already train access, there's already air access, there is already highway access that the people organizing can't tell if it's going to be $60 billion, billion with a B, or $90 billion. When you have a margin of error that is $30 billion, let's ask Bob if he can actually just hive off $50 million to build the prime minister of decent residence. But you're right, Martha. That's a different show. And we'll be back right after this. And with that, let's move on to the next block.

Oh, Martha, it's quite interesting, actually, that you're in British Columbia right now because that is the location of the next subject that we need to discuss here. And that is the government of Canada thought we have a problem when it comes to affordable housing. They then took a look at British Columbia and saw a lot of condominiums on the market that were not selling. and a bunch of developers who potentially could go under or who had no means of moving these units. And so they thought, let's try to find a solution in this problem. We'll buy these units.

We'll turn them into affordable housing. We have a, I guess, a bank account of billions of dollars in which we can use for affordable housing. Some folks think this is a pretty neat solution to a big problem. Other folks think this is a pretty terrible expenditure of federal dollars to help out developers. apparently none of whom asked for this to take place in the first place. Martha,

where are you on this? I don't, I don't know enough of what, what has gone on behind the scenes. If in fact the developers themselves didn't ask for this, it just raises a whole lot of other questions. It just feels as though there's a bailout aspect to this that to me just does not feel appropriate. But I,

I'm waiting to hear more information, put it that way. Okay. But Tony, apparently the Premier British Columbia says he didn't ask for it. All we know is the Prime Minister of Canada at a news conference just a few days ago said he didn't particularly like the way this was rolled out. Thought it wasn't being communicated well. I guess if I were the Minister of Housing, I wouldn't be thrilled with that lack of an endorsement. What do you think about all this? Yeah, I think certainly the optics are very, very bad. But let's let's talk about public policy here. the idea that the best solution is for these X,000 units to be bought by the federal government

rather than, you know, market forces being applied. So market forces would dictate, if you can't sell it at $300,000, you might have to list it for $200,000, or you might have to list it for $150,000. And all of a sudden something becomes more afford. That's the market solution to this problem of these surplus units. And so I can understand why a developer would want to avoid that because they might lose their shirt. But in terms of the discipline of the market, that's the best solution. It becomes affordable if the price you are charging is too high and people decide that they're not going to buy it at that price.

You have to lower your price. So we've basically, through this announcement, short-circuited market economics, big government comes in, buys it at a rate that is suitable for the developer. And all of a sudden, that's how we solve it. Like, you know, the problem with the housing situation is we have a shortage of housing stock and we have prices that are too high. This was going to at least solve the housing prices too high part of it if the market was allowed to do its job. So I think this is just bad public policy. We can talk about the optics. The optics are horrible.

And the leader of the opposition has written to the ethics commissioner saying, you know, that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark here. And he wants an investigation to see who said what to whom. in government to get this this project approved. So, you know, stay tuned as far as I'm concerned. I just think it's a bad idea from a market economics point of view, and it's a bad idea in terms of potential graft. Well, let me play devil's advocate for a second here, since you two once again seem to be on the same page on this one. And that is this. We know there's an affordable housing crisis in this country. We see that there are a bunch of units that, for whatever reason, aren't moving right now. We know that if government has a pool of money from which to buy

affordable housing, they will do so, but it will take years before any of that affordable housing is available. Does it in any particular universe make sense to take that pool of money that you were going to spend building affordable housing, but which will not be available for years and years to simply buy these existing units and say, okay, we're meddling with market forces, but we're also helping solve a problem. Discuss. with them. To me, it depends a little bit on what they're actually paying for the unit. If we left it to the market forces and the developers had to unload these condos at a significant loss, then, you know, that let's let the market forces work. Because these developers, they're not suffering. Okay. Like,

an awful lot of money gets made in the development world. And if, oh, my goodness, there's a situation where conos that have been developed need to be unloaded at less than what they had hoped for. Well, I'm with Tony. Like, let's let the market work. That said, if there is an opportunity for the federal government to help coordinate, for example, the unloading of these units in a way that actually helps address some of the affordable housing problems instead of a one-off here and a one-off there, because that can be extremely inefficient. that might be interesting, but I'd be really, really concerned if the federal government is buying these units at a cost that is helping the developers get out of it, as opposed to at what would now be the market, the lower potentially even at a loss price.

I just don't know the details behind that. Of course, we're concerned. We want there to be roofs over the heads of people who need affordable housing. I'm just a little worried about the federal government just here. I'm going to throw money here. I'm going to do this. I'm not a fan of the federal government being involved in this way. But let's see what's in the detail.

Tony? Yeah. Further to your question, Steve, I query why this is the solution to the housing problem. The solution is the government of Canada uses taxpayers. dollars, billions of taxpayer dollars, to insert itself into the marketplace. I still believe that if the city of Vancouver and the province of British Columbia and the government of Canada work together, they can eliminate the red tape, they can reduce severely the development charges and other costs that go into the final listing price of a house

and make it unaffordable for 99% of the population, if they all work together to do those things, then it wouldn't take years and years for new housing stock to exist. It would be built and it would be built affordably and the developer would make a little bit of cash, but it would also be affordable for the buyers. So that is the solution. Not, you know, why is it that every problem is,

that the government has to amass another small fortune and insert itself in the marketplace and act as the granddaddy that's going to solve everything through taxpayer dollars. There are a bunch of things that can happen here that don't need that kind of solution. Let me just say in the interest of full disclosure, my brother is a home builder in the province of Ontario. I have actually not discussed this issue with him, so I don't know what his view is on this. I know for a fact he has told me his business is off 98% year over year. So the homes he was building, the condos he was building, he's not doing any of that building anymore. He's also told me, and I don't know if this affects what either one of you think about it,

but he also says from the time that he gets an idea to put a house on a piece of land to the point where that house is finished and ready for somebody to move into it, 12 years. Yeah. 12 years to get to jump through all the hoops and regulations. and so and so forth. Yeah. So we wonder why. That's the problem.

That is a fundamental problem. And I would also just like, can we tilt it a little bit? We know that the income inequality is only getting bigger, right? Why is it that so many people can't afford those houses? So yes, the houses are too expensive because it takes way too long to build them and there are way too many costs and delays in order to get them permitted and built. We know that. but I would also say, yeah, I mean, not everybody is going to afford to buy a house.

That has never been the case. So we also have to give ourselves a bit of a shake to recognize that kind of egalitarian approach is also not going to work. But we do need to look really carefully. Why is it that there is significantly increasing income inequality? I think we've actually had another show, Tony, where you talked a lot about the income inequality and the gap. that's spreading. So let's not look just at the cost of providing something. Let's also look at why are these things becoming so much harder for people. Gotcha. Okay. Let's move on to our next block and we like to call this one letters to the editor.

And interestingly enough, I received a couple of emails this past week about our prime minister from two very different points of view. And let's start with the first one here. This is from someone named Arjun, and he writes, Mark Carney is a Harvard-educated Goldman Sachs millionaire. He didn't bet on Canada for his education. He then proceeded to take credit for Stephen Harper's leadership during the financial crisis. Then he begins his tour of the world,

spending more time outside Canada than inside Canada in the last 15 years. His tenure as Bank of England Governor is not exactly remembered fondly. Then he becomes the Duke of Davos, advocating for policies on climate economics that have proven to be disastrous. So much of his life has had nothing to do with Canada or average people.

How can I, Arjun writes, a normal Canadian, trust him to know what I'm going through over born and raised Pierre Poliev or even Avi Lewis for that matter. Tony, did you write this? Are you taking a... I was going to say, like, this is Arjun, you're the man, okay? I don't know how I was channeling my inner Tony to this guy, but he's definitely speaking my language. Let's put it that way.

I had a feeling you wouldn't disagree with much of that. There's not an iota that I disagree with. Martha, do you want to come to the PM's defense a little bit in this or what? Well, I actually think education and experience are extremely valuable. Canada is an extraordinarily outward-facing country. We were extremely export or export and import, extremely trade dependent. And so spending time outside of Canada right now in particular, given the stresses with the United States, I think is really, really important. And he comes to that role with extraordinary experience.

And so, yes, I actually, you know, I think that kind of experience, that kind of education is something I do respect. and I do want to see that being used to Canada's benefit. I would hesitate a little bit about jumping on the bandwagon of somebody who's only been a politician for his entire life. I'll go back to you. I actually really appreciate education and experience. Look, we had a young person when he first got into politics, very little experience. very little real world experience, not a whole lot in the way of that kind of, you know, high level education. And we got 10 years that we frankly, you know, we voted for it and we got it.

And I don't think it left the country in a great place. So, you know, is anybody perfect? No. But I'm going to default to experience, life experience, extraordinarily well educated and some pretty tough global experience. not always perfect, but that's going to be my default for right now. And I think the prime minister is trying to do an awful lot right now that I support. All right. Here is the other side of the coin. We got this email from somebody named Daniela Nardy, whom again, full disclosure. I know Daniela. She is a great singer, actually. But here she is writing about,

okay, well, I'll just read it. I wanted to share a few thoughts. She writes on your recent podcast episode, The Infatuation Syndrome with Carney. I have to admit, I found myself quite disappointed by some of the commentary, not because I think Mark Carney should be above criticism, far from it, but because the discussion seemed to reflect something we Canadians are notorious for, our inability to embrace success, competence, or leadership without immediately looking for reasons to diminish it. I am not infatuated with Carney, she writes. I am not naive, nor do I believe he is a savior. Like any leader, he will make mistakes, disappoint people, and face difficult tradeoffs. But I do believe there is something worth acknowledging and even celebrating in what he

has already accomplished. For perhaps the first time in my lifetime, I see a Canadian leader who is positioning Canada on the international stage with confidence, credibility, and strategic purpose. Even Janice Stein noted that we have rarely seen, if ever, a prime minister promote Canada with this combination of strength, intelligence, and composure. Why is that so difficult for us to acknowledge? Daniela does go on much longer, but I'm going to, I'll just stop it right there. Okay, Tony, you get the first kick at this one. I know you did not write this one, but does Daniela have a point?

Well, look, I also agree that the tall poppy syndrome of this country is sometimes hard to take, namely that people who have succeeded and exceeded expectations. Let's chop them down now because that is not acceptable in Canada. So that point of view, I understand what she's saying. I would only say that I think it's reasonable for Canadians to have regard for for Mr. Carney's international and national experience, but also say, okay, well, you come to the table with those sets of experiences, fair enough,

but what does that mean for me in Canada now? And what I do not agree with is when somebody says, Carney has all this international experience, therefore he is doing or will do a great job as prime minister. There's no intersection there, okay? There's his past experience and then our present situation and our future goals and aspirations. And I don't automatically connect the two.

I have regard for what he's done in the past, but that does not mean that I'm going to give him a free ride on what he's doing right now or what he might do tomorrow. Gotcha. No, and I think, Martha, the tall poppy syndrome that Tony referred to, I think the best story I ever heard on that was when, I think he was then foreign minister, Lester Pearson, back in the 50s, won the Nobel Peace Prize for the peacekeeping efforts related to the Suez. And apparently, a group of Rosedale matrons were sitting around having tea, and the news came over the radio that the Nobel Prize was going to Canada's Lester B. Pearson, to which one of them responded, wow. How, how dare he? So that is the attitude. God bless the Rosedale Matrons. Well, that's sometimes the attitude that Canadians express. It is, it is very much.

And I'll just say to Tony's last comment, just because Mark Carney has extraordinary international experience for which, by the way, he is roundly respected. It's not just the experience. He's actually globally, very highly respected. for the work that he did. He has business jobs, right? Like, you know, you don't,

you don't do the Goldman Sachs thing without, you know, while being a slouch, okay? So all of those things. And chairman of Brookfield. So, so all of those things are incredibly important. Do they automatically mean that he will then use that experience to do a great job? No.

But it positions him to do a better job than somebody who does not have all of that experience. And so I would just say, look, I'm glad we have somebody with that kind of experience in the prime minister's office. I'm encouraged by the drive. I'm encouraged by the overall attitude of we want to make what we can of this country and look after our own best interests, particularly in challenging times. Is he going to be perfect?

No, of course not. Nobody is. And that's part of our problem. We go around expecting perfection. And then as soon as you have something less than perfect, like the condo thing in Vancouver, like, what's going on? But with all of that said, Lillianna, great letter. Thank you.

And I agree with you. Daniela. Danielle, great letter. I agree with you 100%. Daniela finishes off the letter by saying, I am not infatuated. I am relieved that at this particular moment in our history, we have a leader who seems equal to the challenges before him.

For now, I believe he is meeting the moment. Warm regards, Danielle Anardi. Thank you, Daniele. for that. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Oh, Tony. Low blow, low blow. For those who didn't getch the reference, that's how Donald Trump signs off all of his tweets. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Let's move on to our next block, and that is where we ask our two former parliamentarians to share a good on you with somebody who was not in their party, who did something over the past couple of weeks that they liked. Okay, Martha Hall-Finley, who gets your good on you this week? well we we were hoping that we might have been joined today by christine elliot who uh on her own as somebody i've i've long admired um we were not in the same party and although i think now we probably could quite easily be um but also her late husband jim flaredy uh and i was in office at the at the same time as jim federally and in both cases both jim and christine continues with this

a really strong effort at insisting on decency and respect for people who may not be in the same party as you are. So again, you know, they were in the conservative party. I was in the liberal party. I only ever got respect and friendship from Jim Flaherty only got, you know, respect and support from Christine Elliott. And so there's my good on you. And I hope that we can get her on the show so that I can, uh, say that to her on her behalf and with respect to her late husband, Jim Flaherty, in person. Thanks, Martha. Yeah, Christine is part of an effort by a group of people who, I believe this

movement started in the United Kingdom. It was called Decency Matters. And she has now imported it to Canada and created a bit of a movement here in an attempt to, well, I'll just say this bluntly in an era of Trump introduce more decency into public life, academia, media, everything, you know, we could use a little more decency in our world these days. And in the interest of full disclosure, we wanted to get her on the program today. We had some technical issues, but she will join us on a future show and spread that message. Okay, Tony, who gets your good on you? I never thought I'd say this, Steve, but Heritage Minister Mark Miller gets my good on you.

How come? Well, just breaking news at the time of recording, he has expressed some reservations about this Nakba exhibit in Winnipeg at the Museum of Human Rights. This is the one that documents from a pro-Palestinian point of view events in the Middle East. and it certainly raised some concerns within the Jewish community of Canada. And Mark Miller has indicated that while he can't direct a museum to do this or that, he has certain reservations about the nature of the exhibit and that he feels that the controversy could have been avoided.

So you may recall, Steve, that one of the direct. directors who happened to be a Jewish-Canadian of that museum did resign, I guess, last week. So the controversy continues. And I'm pleased that Mr. Miller saw fit to at least intervene with his personal opinion about how that exhibit could have been handled in a better, more balanced way. We'll have to follow this story because you're right. It is a very controversial story between, well, I guess it's a bit of a Canadian chapter on a Middle Eastern problem, and we should probably do something on it on this podcast

here. Note to other producers. We should do something on that issue because it's a very big story based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but frankly of concern to all Canadians. So, okay, good to know. Now, just before we go, we had a little homework to take care of here. We, of course, love that the fact that this program is free, and we will always have it be free. But we also love when people go to our Patreon page. That's patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. And if they want to shell out a few bucks to help us with expenses to keep this program free, we always love when they do that. We have web exclusive content there and let me bring people's attention to an interview I did just this morning with former deputy prime minister John Manley.

On the approach of America's 250th birthday, I was very interested in how John Manley might be reacting to that. Mr. Manley was Canada's foreign minister, finance minister, industry minister. He was our border czar after 9-11, working very closely with American officials to try to make sure trade continued between our two countries in spite of the added security concerns around 9-11. He's got American-born grandchildren. He has a kid who lives in Seattle, Washington. So he has very interesting and complicated feelings as the approach to the 250th birthday of the United States takes place. So that interview is on our Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast.

All of our shows are archived at stevepaken.com. Tony, Martha, any last words? Fun fact about John Manley. When I was industry minister, a post that he held, as you mentioned, the boardroom that I used was the John Manley boardroom. It's named after him. There you go. And were you okay having meetings in the John Manley boardroom?

I had no problem with that. I had a desk that was used by C.D. Howe. Hey. And CD stands for what, Tony? Christian Dior. I don't know. Clarence Decatur. Decatur. Oh, my goodness. So, Tony, I have another fun fact associated with your fun fact. There was a change in government at a certain point. And certain people took down the John Manley, the reference to the John Manley room

and it was our former friend Jim Prennis who actually made a point of getting it the sign put back good for him how about that so do I infer from this Martha that there was some sort of ungenerous overly partisan conservatives that wanted the liberal minister's name taken off the room but conservative cabinet minister Jim Prentice put it back

sounds like it I think that's exactly sounds like a difference I did not know that. He was my predecessor at industry, so I got the benefit of his decision there. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And speaking of, you know, decency matters,

a nice way to round out that little comment. Yeah. For sure. Right on. Right on. Well said. Anytime Jim Prendez's name gets mentioned on this show, I'm happy because I do remember him as being one of the great guys

in public life in this country, for sure. And with that, everybody, peace and love. and we'll see you next time.