The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Mamdani, Maduro, and the Biggest Story of 2026

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

The Everything Political panel with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement discuss the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, his “big hairy audacious goals,” his response to Maduro’s kidnapping, the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party, and if a left wing populism could tap into the same anger and frustrations that Trump has. They then discuss Pierre Poilievre’s response and support for Trump’s actions in Venezuela, what this all means for Canada and Canada’s oil industry, and what the biggest story will be in 2026. Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastX: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.socialEmail us at: [e-mail]

Well, well, well, here we are. First show of 2006, and Martha Hall-Finley and Tony Clement are still speaking. It's a beautiful thing. Yes. We're talking to one another. And Martha, did you make any resolutions for 2026? No. That was simple.

Okay. No. But Tony, do you make any resolutions? I'm going back into my grab bag of resolutions, and I have this one, talk to more people in elevators. Oh, that's nice. Well, it's, we'll see how creepy they find me. No, no, no, that's a friendly thing to do. Trying to make conversation.

Like, all we do is stand there and go up 40 floors when I'm in Toronto. No, you know my go-to line in an elevator? Tell me. When there's lots of people in the elevator, I then put my back to the doors and I look at everybody and I say, I guess you're wondering why I called you all here today. Oh, that's too good. And that usually gets a laugh. Yeah.

That gets a laugh and then we go from there. Okay. Now, I decided to take some advice from about 8,000 different people on X slash Twitter who have given me this advice over the years, and that is my resolution for 2026 is to do better. Because how many times have we been told on Twitter over the years, you are an awful piece of, you know what, do better. So I'm going to try that. I'm going to try to do better for 2026. I'm sure you can. It's a low bar, but you can do it.

I was going to say, a lot of room to grow in my case. There we go. Now, let me do one more thing here before we throw to the animation, which is, Tony, I got an email about you, actually. This is from a guy who's a very loyal viewer. His name's Morgan Fisher. He's from Waterloo, Ontario, and he says, and this is the perfect backdrop for this question, because he says, there are three guitars that Tony Clement has on the wall behind him. A Fender Strat. There's the Fender Strat. Okay. A telecaster. That's actually an Esquire, but it's close to a telecaster, yes. And then another, he says that I don't quite recognize. It could also be a. Stratt, but the image is pretty small and I can't make out the details. Morgan, that is an Eddie Van Halen guitar. Morgan, ask and answered. And with that, let's talk everything political.

Always delighted to welcome back to these airwaves this time for the first time, in 2006, former parliamentarians, Tony Clement and Martha Hall-Finley. And you know what, because the name of this segment is everything political, not just Canadian things political, but everything political. And because New York City has such an interesting tradition of swearing in their new mayors one minute past midnight on New Year's Day right after the ball drops, I thought, you know what, let's talk about this new mayor of New York City a bit here, because I don't know whether you two watched his swearing-in ceremony. the first time he did it, a minute after midnight, or the second time the following afternoon

in front of a crowd, he gave one hell of a barn burner of a speech. And whether you like his politics or you don't, I'm really interested to know what you think of Zoran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York. Tony, fire away. Well, I did not see the speech, but I did read it after the fact. And yeah, a very charismatic figure, obviously, and has the blessing of Bernie and AOC and that ilk in the Democratic Party or the Democratic Socialist Party, I suppose.

It's going to be very interesting. Obviously, one of the things that came out of it was his defense of collective action versus individual action. And that's going to be interesting to watch. I think that I'm not a believer in his philosophy. I'm more of an individualist then I understand collective action in certain areas is necessary in our polity.

But I think he's way down the line for me in where collectivism starts and where individualism ends. I think we don't agree on that. So I will watch him very closely and see what he does. I mean, ultimately, he hitched on the right issues for New York City and for America in general, which is affordability. his solutions are not necessarily my or conservative solutions, but he's got the gavels, so we'll see what he can manage. Martha, have you seen any of them? And if so, what do you think? Charismatic, for sure. But I mean, I think that's a big part of how he ended up winning, right? He ended up, nobody, very few people had even heard of him before the campaign, it seemed.

so clearly that that ability to speak publicly to be out there to be confident was a big part of his winning um i i was struck by how much he was saying his municipal government a city government would help other people right like how much he was going to do to help to help with affordability to help with this cost, to help with that cost. And I just, it's the socialist thing that sounds great, and I'm just not sure how he's going to pay for it. So that will be what I'm watching. It sounds so lovely.

I mean, for those of us, you know, when I was in, you know, many, many decades ago, lean towards socialism in the sense that you need to do the right thing for people and all that kind of stuff. and then didn't take too long to realize that as a system, parts of it don't actually work because you have to actually pay for stuff. And so finding that middle ground has been a challenge for governments for a long time. I just, yeah, I'm going to be watching to see how he takes the stuff that sounds so good and actually be practical about delivering on it.

Martha, well, let's try one thing here. Yeah, go ahead. No, I just wanted to recollect for Mark. Martha, the famous line from Margaret Thatcher, the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money. That is her famous line. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, well, let's just pluck one thing out of his policy quiver here, for starters. And that is he wants to, and it's ironic that on this first week of 2006, there is an automatic transit fare increase that actually goes into effect in New York City. But he ultimately wants to make public transit free, which is a lot of. is something that I think, you know, a few select municipalities in North America have experimented with and tried, but nothing on the scale of New York City. And obviously, he'll need the cooperation of the state government, the governor, who is of the same party, but certainly not of the same wing of the Democratic Party as Mayor Mamdani is. But, but, I mean, you two have both sort of

been in there, and you've seen how the numbers work. Tony, is it possible? Never mind desirable, But is it possible to offer free transit on a system as big as New York cities in this day and age? I'm a former transportation minister, Steve, you remember those days many moons ago. I do. Sure. I mean, anything is possible. Is it affordable given all of the other things that you want to do? New York City has to do things in education, has to do things in housing, has to do things fighting crime.

There's all these other things that are jostling for the agenda of the mayor and the governor. for that matter. And so, yeah, I mean, yeah, if that's your priority, you can do that. But he's got 15 other priorities as well. So he wants, you know, he wants state-run grocery stores. And for day one, he was going after the terrible landlords who are making life difficult for housing affordability. So, yeah, I mean, that's your priority.

And that's what you want to, that's the arrow in your quiver. Do that, but you can't do 15 other things at the same time. Martha, I remember 40 years ago covering Toronto Transit Commission meetings, which used to happen every other Tuesday at Young and Davisville in Toronto. And the then metropolitan Toronto chairman, Paul Godfair, used to say, I'm not running a social service here. I'm running a transportation system. And because they used to get requests all the time. Why don't you make fares free? Why don't you make the system free?

And he said, I'm not running a social service. I'm operating a transit authority here. Is it actually possible to make transit free in 2020? Well, the thing is nothing is free, right? So it might be free for the users, but somebody else is going to have to pay for that, right? So if you pay for it through property taxes is certainly here, that's municipally. That's the largest source of revenue. Well, who's paying for that, right? So it might be free for it for users, but it's certainly not free. Somebody's got to pay for it. And so then the question becomes, why would you make it free? Do you want to make it free because you want to declutter downtown traffic, right? That's a laudable goal. If you want to make public transit more desirable, you know, less cost, more people use it, that could be a very interesting accomplishment. I think that's been the case in a couple of cities around the world. But if you do that and you really successfully reduce the amount of traffic, then you might actually

be facing a different problem, which was overcrowding on your public transit. And if you have overcrowding on your public transit, then you have to actually pay for more because you need to enhance your public transit. If your desire is to make public transit free because there are people in your city who have trouble affording it, then is that the best way to help them or is the best way to help them to provide support for the people who can't afford it? Because they're an awful lot of people who ride the public transit in New York City who don't need the financial help. So it just is another example what I said at the beginning what he was saying sounds lovely but but why and how I think are going to be really important questions for him yeah Tony obviously you as a conservative and he

as a socialist you two don't um you know you're not on each other's Christmas cards list let's me let me put it that way but but there's there's an expression in politics I think they call it a be hag you know like a big hairy audacious goal a be hag and is there a part of you Tony, that just is a little bit curious to see, hmm, especially as a former transportation minister, I wonder if this guy could do it. I wonder if you could actually get away with it. You got that little bit of curiosity in you? 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And you do need big goals. I think that is important if you're a game changer, if you're not a status quo politician. And Mom Domney did articulate that extremely well.

To Martha's point, you know, the reason, let's face it, the reason he won was, he won the Democratic nomination. As soon as he got that, he was going to be mayor of New York City. Let's face it, there's, I think there's only 10% of the voting population in New York City that's registered Republican. But having said that, you know, he gets to set his goals. And audacity in today's day and age, that might be the secret sauce, Steve. Do we need more audacious politicians who are willing to swing for the fences? I would say we do. And so I'm going to be watching him very closely.

There does seem to be a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party right now, Martha. And to that end, yes, he had Bernie Sanders there. He had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez there. They were not the slightest bit abashed about the fact that they were there as Democratic socialists. and they're not there as sort of pragmatic, centrist, moderate Democrats, there's a fight for that soul, for the soul of that party right now. It's one thing to do to New York City. Do you think this movement has legs beyond New York City? I don't know. Almost half of the people in the United States voted for Donald Trump. So, you know, and you know me, I don't like the word centrist because

that sounds like you're sitting on a fence. I have very strong opinions about a lot of things. But for those of us who are, you know, very focused on economic issues, understanding, you know, the role of capitalism, not to run uncontrolled, but the importance of capitalism, how markets work, but the importance of, you know, the libertarian, I don't care who loves whom and who's doing what with whom as long as you're not hurting somebody is, I think, actually a libertarian slash progressive perspective. I actually think an awful lot of people are like that. I certainly think in Canada, I would say a tremendous number of people are of that ill. But it's hard to find a party that represents that. And Bernie Sanders and AOC don't in my view. But no one else seems to be jumping out of the woodwork. And frankly, the members of the people, the Democrats in the United States,

in the United States seem to still be almost paralyzed like you know if they're waiting for a savior well shame on them they should be actively working at what does their party stand for and why and and I think that's also still missing which I think is going to be really problematic when the midterms come around totally I think that's a very fair point the the energy in the Democratic Party today seems to be on the socialist left as opposed to in the moderate middle and and you know it i heard this oh i don't know if i guess five years ago for the first time which is that bernice sanders and aOC's angry populism from the left kind of taken to its logical extension can link up with donald trump's angry populism from the right like they're sort of

the opposite sides of the same coin and have more in common than say you know what used to call a Rockefeller Republican or a, you know, moderate Democrat. That's not forget. How do you see it working out? That's not forget that in 2016, Donald Trump had a lot of nice things to say about Bernie Sanders and used that and said, look, you know, Democratic Party, you nominated Hillary. You should have nominated Bernie. Bernie and I agree on a lot of stuff.

That's what he said in 2016. And when Mom Dani was elected, you know, he, Trump invited him to the White House and they had very nice talk. And yes, we got to work together for affordability concerns of the average person. So, you know, Trump probably instinctively recognizes that he can't lose that affordability battle with the Democrats who are focused on that issue. And so, yeah, there's a lot of commonality there because both the MAGA Republicans and the left Democrats are saying that the system is broken. And that this is affecting people's ability to be, be, you know, pursue the American dream or however you want to frame it in the United States. So, yes, I think there is some similarities there. I think there's also a similarity in the fact that their solutions aren't practical.

Like, on the one hand, Donald Trump is not going to help affordability by imposing tariffs all over the place, right? And, you know, AOC, Bernie Sanders are not going to improve affordability by being unaware of what actually is needed for a thriving economy. I mean, some of those, it's like, you know, those of us are old enough to have studied history for the last number of decades. Some of these ideas were great ideas, but they didn't actually ultimately work very well. And so I think they are coming. I think there absolutely are some similarities in what they are seeing. people being concerned about, both clearly have different approaches to solving that problem. But I think in both cases, some of those so-called solutions are equally impractical.

There is one thing that the socialist left does tend to do, and that is there is a tendency to get up on a very high sanctimonious horse when they see something they really don't like. And the mayor, Mayor Mamdani, did that, I think it was probably on day two. or three of his administration. And that is when Donald Trump did what he did in Venezuela, one of the first, two things immediately happened. Number one, Mayor Mumdani put out a statement saying, I've just been briefed on the situation in Venezuela. What the United States has done is wrong. It's a violation of international law. This is illegal. Should not have been, it really came down hard on Donald Trump. At the same time, there looked to me anyway to be

thousands of Venezuelans in the streets of New York City. who were thrilled at this turn of events. Okay, Tony, if the mayor really wants to represent his people and he says he is there to represent all of the people, was his initial knee-jerk, sanctimonious reaction, even though he may be right, but was that initial reaction ill-advised? Yes, I think that was a mistake that he made. That was off, you know, putting in a purity political terms, it was off message, had nothing to do with affordability, no matter how.

much lipstick you put on that pig, it's not about affordability. And so I think he can get away with it once or twice, Steve, but if he continues to appeal to some elements of his base that care about those issues because whatever Donald Trump does is an existential threat to democracy, etc., etc. I'm not minimizing that. I'm just saying that's the way they look at everything that Donald Trump does, then the mayor of New York City is going to spend a lot of time responding to Donald Trump. I don't think that's his job. His job is to make life more affordable for New Yorkers, and that's the way he's going to be judged. Martha, was there a part of you that was asking yourself, what is the mayor of New York City doing

weighing in on these kinds of foreign affairs and developments over which he has absolutely zero influence? I had questions, absolutely. You know, if you look at other leaders from around the world, there was a fair bit, including Mark Carney, by the way, our own, Maduro is a bad guy, right? Like, there are lots of countries that never actually recognized his government as being legitimate. Right. And he's been an unmitigated disaster for the country of Venezuela. So is it good that he's gone? I think an awful lot of people, including, as you say, an awful lot of people in New York City, pretty glad that he's gone.

what what's who what is going to replace them is going to be very interesting is it actually going to be better for the people of Venezuela um but to your point steve he's the mayor of a city he has no he has no impact on this he has no control over this and to say just oh this is that sort of elitist it's illegal or whatever there are all sorts of things that Donald Trump has been doing that has no basis in law, has no respect for the law. Saying so does actually sound a little bit out of touch with what is happening in the American political discourse right now. And I really get troubled by this anybody, regardless of where you are on the political

spectrum, this concept of I'm right and you're wrong or that's right and that's wrong. It's just arrogant no matter who it is, right? I think it really prevents a more nuanced ability to say, okay, what's the problem? How do we deal with it? How do we, you know, find a solution? And I think the right, wrong thing is not helpful. There does seem to be a sense that many, I think mostly younger politicians today, but I guess it's a feature across the generations.

They feel that regardless of what happens anywhere in the world, I need to weigh in and provide you on the record and comment on. Yes. I don't like that. Like it matters. Yeah, well, I mean, that's how you get the clicks, right? Well, but, you know, you're entitled to your own opinions, but in an awful lot of those cases, you know, you're not entitled to your own facts.

And I do find that this has gotten so carried away that everybody weighs in on every little thing, every single time. An awful lot of times, you really shouldn't have an opinion unless you have the backing and the expertise and the experience and the knowledge. And that's impossible to have on every single issue, every single time. Well, this very interestingly, I think, will take me totally to you because the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition weighed in on this with a very strong tweet. Pierre Pahliav put a tweet out there saying, you know, congratulations President Trump. You know, you were the guy who had the guts to go after this criminal and it's a good thing for everybody that

he's out of the way and I mean oh my goodness I actually I actually spent 10 minutes on X looking at all the comments that came in after that and they were 90% negative saying what are you doing weighing in on this and anyway what did you think of Pierre Pollyev weighing in yeah no I thought that was perfectly fine you have to I mean in our a lot of concertives and non-concertives understand how evil Maduro was he was not president of Venezuela he was illegally there as a tyrant. He was not, he was not elected. And in fact, lost the election very handily, 80, 20 or something like that. And then refused to acknowledge the results. And that got, there have been sanctions by Canada on Venezuela since 2017. And so I thought it was

perfectly fitting for the leader of the opposition to say, this is good news for the world. It's good news for Venezuela. It's good news for the hemisphere. And of course, say, we want freedom and democracy to be the rule in Venezuela moving forward. We're not there yet. So there might be some chance to level criticism if Trump doesn't allow that to happen. But I think that his position is a position that many conservatives and others feel very, very forcefully in their hearts. They feel the same way about Iran as things, all the protests. We're in day seven as we record this about the protests in Iran. Many, many Canadians and like 100% of conservatives want to see a regime change in Iran.

So, yeah, that's very consistent with who he is, who conservatives are and who Canadians are, I think. And Martha, I wonder, my follow-up for you focuses on the fact that we do have to keep in mind that Pierre Polyev is married to a woman who's from Venezuela originally and whose family essentially left as refugees to come to Canada because things had deteriorated so badly there. Do we have to show Pierre Polyev a bit of grace here, given his family circumstances? I think the leader of any party has to be a bit careful about personal issues having significant effect on your position. I mean, sure, of course, we're going to Fordham Grace.

I think that's an important thing to do for any politician most of the time. But my concern, and this is the lawyer in me, Steve. Like, it's really hard for me to say that this was an appropriate thing for the president of the United States to do. I mean, Maduro, bad, bad guy. And, you know, we all agree on that. I'll agree that he wasn't even legitimately the precedent of the country. You can't see an awful lot of countries around the world where, you know, it's not terribly

black and white either, but I think it's totally inappropriate for the United States to make a decision as, you know, we're just going to go in and invade and take the guy. I mean, there have been some really interesting commentary in the last few days about an awful lot of countries in Latin America have very bad memories of American U.S. involvement, some overt, some covert. And, you know, you might think, well, Maduro is a bad guy, but there have been times where there are lots of significant political decision makers in the United States who decided that, speaking of Mamdani, socialism was a bad thing and evil. And so, you know, we're going to invade and have regime change. Yeah, I think we, there's a reason why we've had the

this international global order, respect for the rule of law, respect for sovereignty, I think I'm a little more worried about this. Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama. This is not the first time. I mean, we've got a bit of a pattern here. There's a pattern. But not always for the same principled reasons. Correct.

Correct. And, you know, look, I know everybody's talking about the oil. And so I want to acknowledge that right up front. But there are other aspects of this where there were Chinese and Cuban and Russian members of security services in Venezuela, involved in the drug trade. There's lots of things going on behind the scenes in Venezuela. So there were some probably some that the Chinese were seeking to have a base, a military base in Venezuela. These things were happening too. So there was a geopolitical aspect to it, not beyond the oil.

I'm not saying the oil wasn't a factor because it probably was. But there was other things going on there. And, you know, a lot of people interfering with Venezuela, not just the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans. So let's Iranians. Iranians were, you know, they got a Hezbollah and the Iranians got some funds out of the drug trade in Venezuela. You're quite right. Devil's having a party and inviting all his friends. somebody once said.

Okay, I'm going to do an ad read for Bruce Power in just one second, but one last thing I got to say about Mayor Mum Donnie's inauguration speech, to me, if you quote Frank Sinatra in your inauguration speech, you're okay in my books, at least for that part of it anyway. He got to a part in his speech where he said, and as Mr. Sinatra said, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, boy, kids, I was sold at that moment. I really liked that part of the speech. Frank, who? Anyways, sorry?

Nothing. You did not just say that. You did not just say that. No, I did. Anyway, get comfortable you too because I want to talk about our friends at Bruce Power, who are one of our, we're happy to say, sponsors of this program. And here's what they have to say today. As Ontario's demand for clean, reliable energy continues to grow, bold action is needed

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with $172 billion flowing into Ontario's economy alone. It's a strategic investment in energy independence, innovation, and long-term prosperity, and you can learn more about how Bruce Power is powering Ontario's future at brucepower.com. There we go. Okay, I wanted to move on here to, I want to know from you to what the biggest story in Canadian politics that you were going to be watching over the course of 2006 will be. Martha, start us off.

What are you watching? It actually will be oil and Venezuela. What's interesting to me, Steve, is that most Canadians don't, it's going to sound arrogant. But in all of the conversations, so few people understand that oil is not oil everywhere the same.

Canada produces a heavy crude. Venezuela, the other two countries that produce heavy crude happen to be Venezuela and Mexico. That's really important because when Donald Trump goes out and talks about oil and I've been reading commentary saying, well, this is so Trump can make more money and sell oil internationally. It's not that easy. One of the things to recognize is that the U.S. depends. the U.S. the refinery complex on the Gulf Coast depends on heavy crude.

A couple of decades ago, Venezuela was actually a pretty big supplier to the Gulf Coast refinery complex. Needless to say, that has fallen apart. U.S. sanctions, the governance of Venezuela has obviously been problematic. But Venezuela does still sell a lot to China. China does actually have a significant demand for heavy crude. One of the reasons why the Trans Mountain expansion has been so successful, far. And they're saying we can't even keep up with demand. There's significant demand for heavy

crude for petrochemical feedstock. But for Canada, there could be a couple of different outcomes here. If the United States does use Venezuela as an opportunity to take in significant amounts of heavy crude, the way used to come from Venezuela, that's going to have a significant impact, it could have a significant impact on Canada. As in adverse. As in adverse. There's no good story here for Canada. There are two things that could be what Trump is thinking about.

One is they don't like Canada. You know, we're hearing that, you know, the joke is we get up, nobody in Washington wakes up and thinks about Canada. Well, what we're understanding is that there are, in fact, a significant number of people in the administration who are thinking about Canada. It's not just Greenland. It's not just Venezuela. they are thinking about Canada. It's not a positive thinking that goes on. And so there could be

very well a sense of the businessman of Donald Trump does not like relying on one supplier, just as Canada should be leery of relying on one customer. Is this a way to reduce reliance on imports from Canada? That's not good for us. The other thing is that you just bring more Venezuelan oil into that refinery complex. The WCS, the West Canada Select Price becomes very problematic for Canada once again. So there is a lot of concern for the country for this. And I can't stress enough, this is not an Alberta problem. This is a Canadian problem. These numbers are significant for the entire Canadian economy, whether it's taxes, whether it's suppliers, manufacturers in different parts of the country. This is a Canadian economic challenge. So

it will be something that I absolutely will be looking at. There's a long answer, but this is important. Yeah, no, I mentioned earlier that when Pierre Pahliav put his tweet out on X about how pleased he was to see Maduro knocked out of power in Venezuela, a number of the comments afterwards, many, dozens of comments afterwards said, you might want to take that back. This is potentially very harmful to our domestic oil and gas business, and you represent a seat in Alberta right now, so you may be on the wrong side of this one at the end of the day. Anyway, I saw a lot of those comments. Tony, the story you're watching for in 2026.

Yeah, and first of all, in response to Martha and you, Steve, I think the, there's a lot of The oil question is a question. I'm not sure it's a 2026 question. I think it's going to take a few years before Venezuela is able to commit. But for 2026, what I'm looking for beyond the headlines, first of all, let me give you the red herring of 2026. The red herring of 2026 is whether Mark Carney has a majority government or a minority government. It's whatever. If he's one seat over or one seat behind or two seats over or two seats behind, all it does is change who chairs the committees on Parliament Hill.

That's all it does. It's still a precarious. Well, it means he doesn't need a dance partner. I mean, it's precarious, yes, but it means if he can get everybody to show up, he doesn't need a dance partner to get anything through. Whatever. I mean, seriously, do you really think that somebody's going to be forcing an election in the spring of 2026? no so so that is the same thing in December of 1979 telling you my red herrings may not be your red herrings okay so I think that's just an irrelevant issue I still think we're going to have an election

well before the four year mandate of a government so that's that's that what I'm looking at is whether the chickens come home to roost in the Canadian economy Martha and I have talked about productivity. We've talked about resiliency. We've talked about the need for big projects. We've talked about the need for cutting the red tape. We've talked about all these things. And the other thing that I've talked about on this program is how capital flight is accelerating. More capital is leaving Canada than is entering Canada. All of these things are happening will, in the context of the uncertainty behind no trade deal with the United States of America. You can go to Indonesia, Mark Carney, you can go to Europe, Mark Carney, you can go to the UAE,

but what is happening with the trade deal? It's going to be the year of the negotiations on, you say Kuzma, I say USMCA, doesn't matter. It's the, it's the Canada-U-S-Trade relationship. Is anything going to come out of that? Canada, U.S. Mexico. And Mexico. Okay. Sure. Yes. Big trading partner for Canada. Not. It's all about Canada and the U.S. And from that perspective, is there going to be progress that Canadians can swallow in order to satiate whatever Trump is thinking about that particular day? So that's the headline story. But behind that story, Steve and Martha, is the Canadian economy resilient and dynamic enough to get us through this precarious period?

After 10 years of Trudeau, sorry Martha, I'm not so sure of that. And it's going to be very interesting to see whether Mark Carney, who talks a big game, by given that, can actually come up with solutions that will be available in 2026. Well, Tony, you don't need to apologize to me. On a previous episode, Steve Bacon asked about, you know, have we ever done something on principle in politics? And my first answer was, I didn't run. Yeah, I know.

In 2015. Fair enough. Because Justin Trudeau was the leader. Yeah. Not a fan. And so no apologies. And I, listen, I've been in Alberta for 10 years. It has been a very, very difficult decade.

No question. I've said before, we've had, we have larger issues in Canada. They didn't just happen in the last 10 years. Productivity, interprovincial trade barriers. All of those things have been around for a long time. I will just say Venezuela does actually still produce, I think, close to a million barrels a day. Absolutely.

Almost all of it goes to China. So it depends on what Trump does, but that's not a small amount of oil. Canada produces in total about five. So it's not requiring building new infrastructure. It could, you know, some very interesting geopolitics here. I will bet. I will bet you a tunny. There's a bigger pivot possible.

I will bet you a tunie that that oil will still be going to China. I will My response to the tuning is that not as much of it as is going now. We'll see. I think that I'm going to be right about that. But I do think it's a worry. But listen, Tony, I agree the Canada-US relationship and how Canada's own economy actually rises to the occasion of we've got to get our act together

is going to be very important. Okay, friends, for this first week of 2006, I need to get a good on you from each of you, something you saw over the past couple of weeks in politics that you thought, hey, good on you for doing that. Martha, what you got? There was a story in, I believe it was a Globe of Mail about the NDP MPP, Salma Makwa. And it was a story about how unfortunate his wife had passed away this past year. But the whole story was about how he got so much support from colleagues, not just Ontario MPPs, but federal MPs, Doug Ford, Wab Canoe. And so, you know, very tough circumstances for Mr. Mamakwa, but a good story in the

sense of when things are hard, it's really nice when people of different parties step up and offer that kind of support. So I thought that was a really nice one. Great. So Mamakwa, I believe is the only indigenous voice in the Ontario legislature out of all 124 MPPs. And he's only in his mid-50s. His wife was only in her mid-50s. So this was a really shocking development for them. And yeah, like you, Martha, was pleased to see so many people from across the political spectrum reaching out. Including Doug Ford.

Yeah, including the premier. Mr. Murmaqua has not been kind to Doug Ford. He's been pretty rough on him. And so, you know, I think if I were to pick any of the other MPs or other people who contacted them, I was particularly heartened to hear that Doug Ford was one of them. Good. Tony, who gets your good on you? Steve, I want to thank and show my appreciation for every single parliamentarian, provincial, federal, territorial,

who did not spam social media for a good couple of weeks, you know, It was the holiday break and the New Year's. And, you know, I just like it when they just cut it out for a little while, you know? You know who you are out there. You know who you are, the ones who didn't just continually give us, as we said earlier, your opinions about this, that, and the other thing. Just gave us a little bit of a respite from all of that. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Here, here. Now, Tony, I got to ask you, because I know you love the social media, Tony. Did you take your own advice and stay off it as well? I was pretty, I did, I did promote some of your podcasts, Steve, and some of our podcasts. Well, that's allowed. That's allowed. But no, no, I wasn't out there quite a bit at all. No, I just took it easy, you know, just enjoyed Muscoca and enjoyed life, played my guitar, and went to the gym and all of those good things.

Good, good. As somebody once said to me, you know, we're never going to get sitting there on our death. at the end of our life thinking to ourselves, geez, I wish I'd spent more time having fights with people. I have no idea who they are, or even if they're real on social media. No one is going to say that. Right. Well, it's, I wish both of you, the best of 2026, I sure hope the beginning of this next quarter century in the 21st century begins a lot better than the last year of the first quarter of the 21st century ends, because the world certainly looks like it's in a hell of a mess right now. But let's see what we can do about getting

2026 off to a good start. And in part, we can do that by asking people if they are listening or watching this and they like it to show that they like it. Like, subscribe, share all those other good things. And in the meantime, peace and love to everybody watching.