The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Sorry State of the Conservative Party, Alberta’s Referendum, and Quebec’s Election

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Dimitri Soudas joins Everything Political with Martha Hall Findlay to discuss the state of the Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre’s leadership, Conservative MP Scott Aitchison announcing his retirement, the upcoming referendum in Alberta, elections in Quebec and BC, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and Trudeau’s record on Indigenous issues. 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] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I need some advice here. As we sit here taping this on Wednesday, September 30th, I should let you know I've been a Red Sox fan since before the Blue Jays were born. The Red Sox lost 9-0 to the evil empire last night. And who knows by the time this episode drops, they could be eliminated altogether. The Leafs lost to the Montreal Canadiens last night. And my hometown Hamilton Tiger Cats, there are four wins and 11 losses this year. Martha, what am I doing wrong?

I don't think it has anything to do with you. you, Steve. Oh, no, it does. It totally does. I'm saying, look, when I first moved to Ottawa, I told my kids, oh, this will be great because I'm originally from Toronto, even though I'm in Albertan now. And I say, oh, this is great. I can root for both the Maple Leafs and the senators. And they all looked at me, of course, like I had three heads. So don't, I'm not the right person to ask. Dmitri, over to you. Yeah, Dimitri, I know you were at the Maple Leaf game last night, and I know you were cheering for the wrong team, but the team that ended up winning. So go ahead, give me some advice. What do I do here? This is just how much misery am I expected to have to endure?

I suggest you follow Tony Clements lead and just join the HAB's, Steve. No, not going to happen. Not going to happen. No, I think it's a bit late to teach this old dog that new trick. That's not going to happen. But I think one thing we can do is talk about everything political. So let's do that now. Delighted to welcome back to our little confab here, Martha Hall-Finley, the former Liberal Member of Parliament, now head of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. agree. And pinch hitting for the aforementioned Tony Clement this week, Dimitri Sudas. He was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Director of Communications, and he joins us today from north of Toronto in King City. Dimitri, yeah, you're a Montrealer originally. No wonder

you're cheering for the habs. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Good to have you with us. Thank you for having me. I think you are the perfect guy actually to have on this show because we are learning this week. And we want to start with Block 1, our focus on the Conservative Party of Canada because Conservative MP Scott Aitchison from Perry Sound Miskoka has, well, the Toronto Star has got three sources as we sit here today saying that he's going to retire from politics after the fall sitting is over. So you can add his name to the other conservative MPs who have either crossed the floor or quit to go to the Senate or just quit politics, period, which two others did earlier this month. Demichri, what do you think this all says about the state of the

conservative party of Canada these days? Well, Scott will be leaving, Steve. I know he hasn't confirmed it yet or commented publicly, but not only will he be leaving, but my understanding is that he's going to be taking on a new responsibility, a new appointment that will be given to him by the government of Ontario. Simply put, Scott was fed up. So his departure should force yet again some serious reflection because Scott not only was a member of parliament, he also ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party of

Canada. He's an experienced member of parliament. And when people like Scott decide to leave, it begs a lot of questions. And, you know, if I've had some criticism over the last few months and over the last year for the Conservative Party, it's in the view of many who for far too long probably remains silent, but you're seeing it more now. You know, the Jason Kenney's of this world, the James Moore, the Lisa Raids, former cabinet ministers under the Harper government, people are just fed up that it's just become too comfortable to just be permanently outraged rather than positioning yourself as a serious official opposition and ultimately a government in waiting, which people don't see right now. And you see that reflected through public opinion polling.

Martha, you sat in the House as an opposition member. So I'm sure you have some understanding of what's going on there right now. How does it seem to you? well as you know my political timing my personal political timing was actually pretty awful um but i i would have to agree with dmitri people i think generally people are not interested in permanent outrage um and we see that in the reception that the prime minister is getting um whatever color or stripe they they wear it's pretty clear we have a current government now that is trying to get things done. And I think people are really responding well to that. We have huge challenges with Donald Trump to the South. We have global challenges. We have several wars.

We have all sorts of national security and economic challenges facing us. People want solutions. And, and I, Dimitri, you're absolutely right. It's the permanent outrage that, that has really upset people. Can I just do a shout out to Scott Aitchison, though? When he first ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party, I had joined to support, was that the Jean Charray one, Dimitri? That's right, yes. So I had supported Jean Charray,

but I did send Scott money simply because he had the courage to call for the dismantling of supply management. And I know, Steve, you might tell, oh God, here we go, dairy again, but that showed courage on his part. And I thought, good for you. And, oh, by the way, he's also my MP

because of the place that I have North of Perry sound. So I just want to say thanks to Scott for showing some of that courage and for his service to the country. Demetri, you did say in your first answer that the latest departure by a conservative MP should prompt quote unquote some reflection in the leader's office. Just put a little more flesh on that bone. What does that actually mean? Well, what does it mean? So let me give you a concrete example. And last night, what, it was around 10 p.m., there's a member of parliament. His name is Brad Reddicopp. I don't know. if I pronounce that properly.

He put out a tweet going after Mark Carney on Starlink. And he created this AI video of Mark Carney basically whacking a beaver up against a Starlink satellite to make his point. So let's have the public policy debate on Starlink, on telecommunications. But when a member of parliament creates. an AI video of the Prime Minister with a beaver smacking up against a satellite, what does that tell you? Which vote are you trying to get here? Who are you trying to convince that you are a government in waiting? And, you know, I just, you know, you have Jamil Giovanni,

Jamil Giovanni on a complete tangent who has yet to pronounce a single syllable criticizing Donald Trump. What is Donald Trump doing? Well, he's threatened Canada with annexation and he's imposed tariffs to cripple our economy and he's made a point to say, we will wipe out your auto sector. So when the official opposition in one united conservative voice doesn't go after a foreign leader who basically says, I want to wipe you out. You know, Steve, you've been covering politics for a long time. Brian Mulroney used to say,

you will never form government if you try to get the extremes, whether it's the extreme left or the extreme right. It's always somewhere in the middle. And right now, my challenge is that you have an official opposition that is not disciplined, does not have a very clear value proposition. They're talking about the right issues, affordability, the housing crisis, the cost of living, but they've become caricatures. Yeah, Martha, it does feel some days like the Conservative Party members, and Dimitri just gave a good

example. They kind of want to win the moment on social media at the expense of everything else. Are you seeing that as well? Oh, 100%. And I mean, I still get the emails, right? And from the Conservative Party, I mean, I've belonged to both parties. I've said this before. I've felt that, especially in Calgary, my vote doesn't count for much in a general election, but it can count in leadership contests. And I do think it's important to have good leaders in the country, right? And so I've participated in those. I still get the emails from the Conservative Party. And my God, they've gotten a little bit better, but it is childish. It is, it is angry, it is nasty. And that's not what we want. But I would say, Dimitri, even when there are ideas being put forth,

they don't strike me as being particularly conservative. They strike me as being not economically conservative or fiscally conservative. They strike me as being way more, here, let's, you know, let's make gasoline more affordable. The attempts to address the affordability challenges in Canada that every once in a while get mentioned by the conservatives are not, how do we increase the prosperity of the country as a whole necessarily, but these one-off popularity pieces, which I just, you know, I know former conservatives are rolling over in their graves right now. Well, tax cutting is a conservative principle, isn't it? Yeah, but not the way it's being done here necessarily, right?

Let me jump into Martha's point, and the perfect example on that is the carbon tax. So, thanks to Pierre Pollyev, he wedged and forced the liberals to get rid of the consumer carbon tax. it was very clear when Mr. Poilev was campaigning against the consumer carbon tax that a Polyev government would keep the industrial carbon tax. I mean, you have province, Alberta, Martha can vouch for this. Alberta introduced the industrial carbon tax under Premier Ed Stelmac. So once he got his victory, and it was a good victory to get rid of the consumer carbon tax, he then doubled down and said, well, are you also going to now get rid of the industrial carbon tax? something that a conservative government would not have done because you can't do. But it's always about always doubling down, doubling down, doubling down, doubling down.

Instead of saying, you know what, thanks to conservatives, we got this victory, now we're going to focus on all these other elements. On pipelines, for example, instead of just trashing Mark Carney, hey, it's the government of Alberta. It's the conservative premier of Alberta. Tomorrow's the deadline, by the way, that's signed on to this memorandum of understanding. So why not say, you know what, we applaud this government on moving forward with a memorandum of understanding on pipelines. We will hold them to account on this. And if we were in government, this would have happened faster. Martha?

I agree. And I will say, you know, we're pretty critical of the last 10 years under the Justin Trudeau government. And believe me, I wear the scars from some of that too. And some of the regulations and policies were absolutely terrible. hopefully we'll talk a little bit about the Alberta referendum in a few minutes, because I guarantee that's happening now because of what was happening under the Trudeau government, 100%. But we didn't build a whole lot under the Stephen Harper government either, and this is not a personal thing, Dimitri.

In my view, there was an underestimation of what was happening with indigenous communities and environmental groups and some of the pressures from other places on some of the, pressures from other places on some of those things. And you ended up with court challenges, you ended up with a whole lot of challenges that led us to a country that wasn't building anything at that time either. Right now, we're in a place. And again, this is not about the color stripe that the government is wearing. We are now at a place where Canada has made significant improvements in relations with indigenous communities with respect to economics, with respect to projects of private sector has been, you know, the primary driver behind that, but we're in a

much better place than we were before in the last 25 years. And so this is a moment. I couldn't agree more with Demetri. This is a time you might have disagreements about specific policies or the timing or whatever, but this is not the time to say, you know, grumpy, that's, you know, just critic criticizing all the time. This is, opposition is not, I've heard, heard this so many times. The role of opposition is to oppose. No, the role of members of parliament is to actually do what's right for their constituents in their country. And that isn't always necessarily just opposing for the sake of opposition. Let me give Dimitri the last word in this segment. And to address this question, you were the director of communications for the most

successful conservative prime minister since Brian Mulrooney, three straight election victories for Stephen Harper. I would assume that people in the leader's office would therefore want to consult with you and tap your knowledge of what works. Do they? Well, maybe they have and maybe they chose not to listen. And I appreciate that and I respect that. I do call myself a has-been. But I, and you know, we lived through some of that when we united the party, when we campaigned in 2004, where you had the Mulruni era, who had won two consecutive majorities, saying, you guys should do this, you guys should do that. But what did we do? We actually won. We won once. We won twice. We won three times. And I always remember during the first leadership race, not, not, no. So the first leadership

was for the Canadian alliance. The second leadership, leadership race, excuse me. I asked Prime Minister Harper, who was opposition leader. And I said, how do we win this leadership race? And then how do we form government. And I remember what he told me to this day. This, Dimitri, when you campaign to be leader of your party, you have to find yourself somewhere in the center of your party. And when you campaign to be prime minister of Canada, you have to find yourself in the middle of the country. So Mr. Poliev won his leadership race, thanks to in large part the freedom convoy base, the anti-vaccination base. So that's what delivered him his victory. Then he went into an election campaign. He all of a sudden became a hostage

to that base that prefers Donald Trump, the Maga North. I remember I was mocking liberals at the time when they were talking about Maple Maga. And two years later, I was like, boy, they really hit the nail on the head and that resonated. So right now, his challenge, the real challenge for Mr. Poliev is he's currently being held hostage by an element of a base that did not exist. I cannot recall a part of the conservative base when we were in government or when we were around that would prefer becoming the 51st state or that would glorify Donald Trump versus any Canadian prime minister. And we'll be back right after this. Canada is at a crossroads. Technology is transforming how we work, how we live, and how Canada competes. As AI accelerates that change, moving quickly is not

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Technology will change our future, and Ontario Tech is preparing the people who will shape it for the better. Learn more about Tech with a conscience at this website, OntarioTechU.ca. That's Ontario TechU.ca. Okay, let's move on to Block 2, excuse me, and to that end we are going to talk about the developments in the Alberta referendum story, because as long as we're talking about Pierre Poliev, who of course represents a writing in Alberta now, he did come out with a statement in which he said, yes, by all means be strong Alberta, but within a United Canada. And he left,

I guess, no stone unturned to the notion that he's going to vote no in the Alberta referendum later this month. Okay, Martha, you're the Albertan here, although you happen to be in Toronto right now. what do you think in terms of whether he hit the right notes in that speech? It's a very fine line. It's a very fine line for anybody involved in the federal government right now. You know, I think there are questions, how come the Prime Minister, why Prime Minister Kearney hasn't weighed in. I would suggest, given the emotions that are running pretty high in Alberta, that any engagement from outside of Alberta right now would not be terribly welcome.

And so I think that some of our federal leaders are conscious of that and are wary of getting too engaged. On the other hand, clearly there are other emotions that are saying, but we really want to. We really want Alberta to stay in the country. We really want to make sure that the vote ultimately ends up being no. So you can watch it, right? you can see some of these federal politicians not really being sure whether they should engage or not.

I mean, the Premier of Alberta has said she will be voting no on that first question, on the separation question as well. She has been less clear about how she would likely vote on all the other questions. And I, you know, that's for perhaps more detailed debate. But yeah, I just, I think it's touchy for federal politicians, even though, yeah, I mean, peer politics. of represents an Alberta riding, but let's be honest, his entire political career, he represented a riding in Ottawa. He is not seen as an Albertan. And frankly, Mark Kearn, even though he's, you know, he spent much of his growing up in Alberta, he's, you know, he can't play that Alberta card when you're the Prime Minister of Canada right now. Um, uh, so I just, I think they are being

appropriately careful, truth be told. So I'm of the, of the view, probably better, you know what? This is an Alberta question. Albertans need to answer this for themselves. Well, let me ask Dimitri about somebody that who is unambiguously pro-Canada, but who is also unambiguously pro-Alberta, and managed to be a pretty successful politician walking, I don't know, what sometimes is a tightrope, but otherwise it can be a very nice coming together of two different elements in our political country.

And that's your former boss Stephen Harper. I presume you've talked to him about this. Does he plan to be more public in his pro no side at some point? So no, I have not talked to him about this. And when we do have conversations, we try and keep politics out of it. And I want to be abundantly clear. I am no longer his spokesperson. So I do not speak for him.

But what I will tell you is this. So Martha makes some very interesting points here. I also believe that Mark Carney has made statements on Alberta. He's doing that through demonstrating and understanding that national unity has an economic dimension and that Western alienation, as we know it, over the 10 years of Justin Trudeau, and I'll be as gentle as I can, where Justin Trudeau said, you know, your oil, keep it in the ground. There's going to be caps on emissions, caps on production. There won't be pipelines. We're going in a new Pumbaya direction. So I would say that Mark Carney's strongest statement is the Alberta Energy Cooperation Agreement on project approvals.

Absolutely. Dmitri, that's really well put. He's not commenting specifically on the referendum, but he absolutely has been commenting on the importance of that collaboration. So I appreciate that. I think that's very true. And I think the prime minister's argument is that Alberta can and should prosper and exercise influence within. in Canada. And we're seeing that with the pipeline that they want to build from Alberta to British Columbia. But we also, you know, in our case here in Ontario, Steve, the Ontario government and the Alberta government signed an agreement or a memorandum of understanding to bring a pipeline from Alberta to Eastern Canada. And hopefully, as a Quebecer, I hope it's going to go even further

and go through Quebec. And there's ways to find to do it in Quebec. So the last point I'll say is I have a PhD in referenda. I've extensively studied this as a Quebecer. I campaigned in 1995. This is not a referendum in Alberta on separation. It's, can I ask you a question if I can ask you a question? They're not putting the question to Alberta and saying, would you like to separate from Canada as we have twice in Quebec and possibly a third time in the next three years?

So I think the approach of not overly, you know, going to Alberta and say, don't you dare separate. As for Prime Minister Harper to close that loop, we're still two, three weeks away. So let's be patient. Maybe he will have something to say. Well, that's okay. Do you know something when you're saying that? Because we are just under three weeks away. And do you think Stephen Harper is going to get more active in this campaign? It's not a question of active. You know, a former prime minister doesn't need to go around campaigning, door knocking, going to rallies. He can say something, something, two, three things that will give Albertans a very clear idea of why Alberta within Canada has a strong value proposition,

as it always has. I mean, Martha, do you, it seems to me that Stephen Harper has almost a unique role should he choose to play it in this referendum in as much as he's trusted by Albertans. He's still, you know, decently respected enough by a large number of Canadians so that he could play a role that perhaps Mark Carney can't play, Danielle Smith can't play, Pierre Poliev can't play. What do you think? Well, yes, I would say yes. He still needs to, for all the reasons I said, he would need to tread carefully. But I'll do a con, and just I want to say something about Demetri's comment. This is a referendum to have a

referendum. There are an awful lot of people who are seeing this ultimately as, yeah, but this is, this is the decision, right? And so if there's a decision to vote yes to have another referendum, that will be seen as ultimately in effect a vote to support separation. So it's weird to say, like it's awkward, but it's still a very important decision on October 19th. I'll contrast what former Prime Minister Stephen Harper could do versus what Jason Kenney can do. Because Jason, as you know, Jason and Rachel Notley are actually collaborating through the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in this regard. the challenge that we have is it an awful lot of the people who might be inclined to support separation or be separatists, they don't like Jason very much. A lot of them are members of the UCP that kicked him out already. And so I think you're seeing, you know, Jason is engaged, but he's not too engaged because I think there's a recognition that that might just actually inflame some of the people who are involved. So I appreciate the effort. But I do. think Stephen Harper has more of an opportunity to weigh in, but he still needs to tread carefully.

Right. And maybe Steve, Stephen Harper has already weighed in. He did, after all, close off the investment summit that was organized and held by Prime Minister Mark Carney. And why is everybody talking about Stephen Harper? It's more than just he was a conservative prime minister. He was a reform MP, as you recall, Steve, and he fought Western alienation by doing what? By helping Western Conservatives to the center of national power. So that's why he has credibility to explain while Alberta's future belongs within Canada. And we'll be back right after this. Well, let's move on to two different provincial elections, the first of which in your native Quebec, Dimitri, is happening before the Alberta referendum, and I'm sort of fascinated by your take on where we are

in that campaign. What has captured most of your attention in the Quebec provincial election so far? So Quebecers in general have found this election boring, believe it or not. There's five party leaders, which is the first time we have five political party leaders actually competing and vying to win seats in the National Assembly. You will expect and you will see a breakthrough. It's going to be the first time in more than 50 years that conservative members of the National Assembly will be elected. So that's one. Number two, the governing party completely flopped its strategy on campaigning against Trump.

They abandoned the ballot question of who is best to protect you against Donald Trump for two reasons. Number one, inexperienced campaign team. Number two, Quebecers said, hold on a second. We already have Mark Carney for that. So that's failing. and I'll make that parallel very quickly. This is where David Eby, I believe, will gloriously fail. He is not the guy who British Columbians will perceive as the one who will beat Donald Trump.

Finally, I think next week the only question that remains to be answered is whether or not it's going to be a PQ majority, party Quebecois majority or a Parti-Chebeco minority, a Parts-Chebeco majority will call for a referendum in the next two years ago. back, a real one, by the way, Martha. I thought they said that as long as Trump was in power, that they were not going to call a referendum. Trump's gone in two years. We're almost in November, Steve. After the two years.

Gotcha. Martha Hall-Finley, can I get you on the British Columbia situation? You've got a premier who's called, he's got a majority government, and yet only two years into his term, he's called for a new election, which he, I guess, technically doesn't really need to have. but the Conservative Party is in utter disarray, and I guess the question is, is it appropriate to take advantage of your opponent's misery

by exploiting that situation and calling an election now? Well, I think the voters are going to give Premier Eby a big message on that. You and I both remember a certain Ontario election where the Premier Peterson called did pretty much exactly the same thing and was handed a resounding defeat. people don't like, you know, for all the ills and challenges of Canadian democracy these days, people really don't like people taking advantage of other people's, you know, challenges. And this is completely opportunistic on the part of Premier E.B. I just, so it'll be very interesting. This could, this could be one of those historical elections where, yeah, that might have been a big misjudgment.

Well, I note that Doug Ford called an election just two years into his four-year term, and he used protecting Ontario against Donald Trump as the reason why he wanted the early mandate renewed, and he got it. So. But Doug Ford and David Eby are very different personalities. That is true. That is true. And Ontario and British Columbia are very different. As are multiple regions in this country are quite different, one from the one from the other. I think the context of Doug Ford, it wasn't taking advantage of the disarray of his particular

opponents. It was, I'm going to be that guy to help deal with the craziness south of the border. Very, very different message. In the case of British Columbia, it is absolutely, to Dimitri's point, David Eby's not going to stand up and be the guy who fights Trump. We have Mark Carney, who is actually perceived as doing a pretty good job at that. And in fact, we'd really rather have provinces say, you know, that now is not the time for an election. Now's not the time for these, these, you know, domestic battles. The time, now's the time for us to rally in dealing with the challenges that Donald Trump has given us in that global security challenges are, are handing us as well.

So, no, I would not be at all surprised if this opportunistic election call fights Premier E be very badly. Even with an opposition and disarray, you know, the new leadership of the conservative party, you know, is coming across as being relatively reasonable and thoughtful. And, you know, people will respond to that. Dimitri. Two points on that. When did Doug Ford become win his third election? Oh, it was in February of 2025. At the very beginning of the crisis before Mark Carney became Captain Canada.

So Doug Ford was actually wearing the Captain Canada cape and shield before Mark Carney took it from him. So that's why Doug Ford won. And that's why it's not credible when any other Premier today tries to pretend to take away that cape and that shield that Mark Carney is wearing. And the other thing I'll say, and I guess it's Brian Mulroney Day, Mother Teresa is not on the ballot. So when David E.B. called this election, when David E.B. called this election and he was foolish enough to listen to British Columbia, the elections, elections BC. Elections BC, because he wanted to call the election on the Saturday, while Kerry Lynn Finley was still leader. And Elections BC told him, we need a few more days to get a few ducks in a row.

And I don't know if I can say this word. He was dumb enough to listen to them rather than walking over to the lieutenant governor and triggering the election and telling Elections of BC get your act together. I'm calling the election. So he gave the BC Conservatives three days. And what did the BC Conservatives do? They got rid of Carrie Lynn Finley. They told her they're not signing her nomination papers.

They've completely distanced himself from the crazies and some of these influencers that post all these weird videos. And they did what? They got a leader who is what? Normal. He looks like a normal human being. Wow. That is the key success factor to becoming a premier and defeating a government that is so unpopular. So good luck to David E.B.

Well, I note the date on the calendar. Well, we're sitting here taping this on the 30th of September, but on October 1st, 36 years ago, the guy who was told he would never, ever be Premier of Ontario, was sworn in his Premier of Ontario at Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto, and that'd be Bob Ray. So you're absolutely right. You never know what can happen.

Let's move on to Block 4 here. And to that end, I am doing what I guess a lot of people in the country are doing today, and that is wearing an orange shirt in recognition of National Day for truth and reconciliation. Martha Hall Findlay, can you tell us about the button you're wearing as well

because that has a relationship to today as well? Yes, it does. And so I'm leaning in for anybody who's actually watching it. This is, it's absolutely stunning,

beautiful needlework brooch that my friend and colleague Sean Willie, who's the CEO of the Desnetti in Saskatchewan, gave to a few of us colleagues of his. And they're all different.

They're all really incredible work. put into them, but I'm super proud to be able to wear this today. Well, as much as Justin Trudeau has come in for criticism on this show, mostly from you, Martha, I think it's also fair to say that he probably put indigenous issues higher on his personal agenda than any previous prime minister in Canadian history with some tangible signs of progress to point to as well. I want to ask you, too, about the current government and how committed do you think they are

to seeing progress made on indigenous related issues. Martha, you first. I would take some exception to your comment about the progress made under the Justin Trudeau government. I think there has been a lot of talk. But frankly, and you know, I've been in Alberta for at least 10 years now and involved in the industries in that part of the country, the massive progress in relationships with indigenous communities has been. been frankly due to the private sector.

Mistakes were made, no question, but over time, you've seen big companies realizing the way to move forward is to actually have economic participation, right to the point of full equity participation. Those are the things that matter far, far more than words. And I will say, I was pretty ashamed when Justin Trudeau went to the United Nations and did his speech where, you know, the mea cope for Canada on the global stage, yes, we've had a historical challenge. We've had a number of historical challenges, but we don't go running to the globe and say, you know, we've had problems with this. We've had problems with, you know, the treatment of

francophone Canadians, which is one of the reasons why we have separatist sentiment in Quebec. I mean, I just, I'm a big fan of actions as opposed to words. And I just want to, I just want to take that back a bit. I don't think that all of that credit is necessarily due to the justice to the real government. And Paul Martin did an apology, by the way, followed by an even more official apology in the house, which I was super proud to be in the front row for when Stephen Harper did that. You remember that, Dimitri. I mean, it was really important. So I just, I, context is, I think. No, a fair point, I think I was referring more to the boil water advisories of which there were multitudinous when Trudeau got into office and 10 years later, you know, there were far fewer

boil water advisories required on it reserves across the country. And I think he gets some credit on that. Anyway. Yes, but I would, but I would say you can solve boil water advisories by economic prosperity. True enough. True enough. And there's been a significant improvement in the economic prosperity of not all, but certainly a number of indigenous communities where those, those arrangements have become ever more equal, not equal, but respectful and engaged from an economic perspective. And I think that's super important. And I think this is, you know, sorry, Dimitri, sorry, I'm going to get to you in a second, but this is probably a good point. This is a good point to sort of remind ourselves that the Harper government had a

a guy named Jim Prentice, who was the Indigenous Affairs Minister, who made a lot of good agreements with a lot of different First Nations across the country and had a pretty successful run in that portfolio, the late great Jim Prentice. So we remember him on this day as well. Demetri, what are your thoughts on this day of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation? Well, for me today, and everybody can interpret today in a different way, for me today, really above anything else is about remembering the children who never came home. That's what strikes me the most as a father. So while I won't repeat everything that Martha said, because I agree with everything she said, let's look forward. Because Martha made an interesting point.

She talked about private sector involvement. So where this government has an opportunity, and we're starting to see it, they seem to be putting a stronger emphasis on economic partnership and ownership. So how do we help First Nations acquire stakes in the projects that are being developed across their territories? So the current government has actually, I believe, doubled the existing indigenous loan guarantee program, if my memory serves me right. So long story short, we can apologize.

We can have all that rhetoric about whatever we choose to have rhetoric. about, if we are able to forge a relationship whereby ownership can generate lasting revenue, employment, and above all else, greater economic independence, we can sit here five or ten years from now and say we are making real tangible progress on what truth and reconciliation needs to be about. I've talked in the past about the fact that I got a little cabin on Manitoulin Island where I spent some time in the summer. there is a reserve, oh, I don't know, about a half an hour away from my camp. And it's called chiging.

And the unemployment right there is 75%, which is intolerable. You know, it's just simply not acceptable. They have a dynamic young chief there who is trying to do something about that. But yeah, all of what you two have had to say about the need for economic partnerships could not be more true nationwide and could not be more true as we put the lens in on individual places in the country as well. We're going to have one more item for Martha and Dimitri to talk about in just a moment. But first, let me do a little housekeeping here. And that is to remind you, folks, that we do love the fact that so many of you have dug into

your pockets and decided to support this show. You can do so at patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. Let me also remind you that you will get some web exclusive video there. And we have dropped a mini documentary there in the last few days. We call it Canada Rewind. and we were actually looking back at the events of nearly 40 years ago when Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan signed a free trade agreement which seemed to usher in a new era of prosperity,

but which many people are wondering, was that such a good idea these near 40 years later, given what's happened to our trade relationship with the United States? Anyway, Canada Rewind, about nine minutes long, worth watching and available to those who support us on our Patreon page. And to that end, I want to thank a few folks who did this. that this past week. Brian Field came to us from Gabriola Island or British Columbia, and he's come in at the highest level of support. Brian, we thank you very much for that. Janet Zlatnik and Paul Shaker

in Port Moody, British Columbia. All right, BC, you're coming through for us. We appreciate that. A fellow named Bish Bora in Sudbury, Ontario. Bish, I'm going to be in Sudbury on Friday night. I hope I'm going to see you at the TVO shoot that I'm doing there. And finally, how about this? Do you love this? Patrick Lasage, the former. Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in the province of Ontario. He is now a part of our Patreon community because he was watching one of our shows, kind of like what we were doing and decided to support us as well. Mr. Justice LaSage, thank you so much for that.

Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast if you want to get in on that and all of our shows now and in the past, over the past, how long have we been doing this now, Martha? 12, 13, 15, 15 months, something like that? Yeah. Yeah. They're all available on Stevepakin.com, so check that out as well. Now, we are going to finish up everything political in the way we always do by encouraging our two guests to offer a good on you to somebody in politics over the past couple of weeks. Maybe you saw something that was not from your political party, but was from one of the other ones.

And you thought, yeah, that's kind of cool. Good on you. Martha, who do you want to pay tribute to this week? Stephen Harper for closing out the big investment summit. I thought that was a real boost to the Carney government's efforts in a very strong, this is not about partisan politics, this is about what the country needs. And I hadn't realized he was going to be doing that. And when I saw it, I thought, good on you.

He had a nice line in there where he said, this was such a good idea. I wish I thought of it. Got a good laugh in the room at that. That's a tough thing for a former prime minister to say. Like I just think that showed that showed humility and a real passion for the country, which was great. Good on you, Stephen Harper. Dimitri, how about you? So I'll tell you a quick story.

In 1964, the Guanax nations in British Columbia were forcibly relocated. And at the time, they were promised a big house. So a place for their ceremonies, their culture, and their governance. So that was in 1964. 62 years later, that promise had gotten unfulfilled. So my shout out is going to go to Mark Miller because credit should be given where credit is due because in 2022, Minister Miller joined that community to break ground with only $9 million of an investment.

Think about it. It was a $9 million investment from the federal government. So just yesterday, I saw a picture where Mark Miller, the big house, has seen. finally opened. It opened a few months ago. So 62 years after the promise. So credit to the elders, the chiefs and the families who never gave up and to Minister Miller for making it happen. Good stuff. I'm actually going to join you two this week. I normally don't, but I just got back from a little weekend in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and had the really extraordinary experience of touring Province House, which has been closed. That is, of course, their legislative

Assembly in Charlottetown. And it has been closed for the last 11 years to undergo a nearly $140 million renovation because the place was quite frankly falling apart. And I just want to give a shout out and a good on you to Brian Willis and his team. He's the project manager there who has seen through the work of bringing Province House back to its previous splendor. Remember, this is the place where Sir Johnny McDonald met with, I guess, our multitude of Fathers of Confederation back in 1864 and put Canada together in the Confederation Chamber in Province House. And I can tell you both, it looks glorious. I've got a column actually up at TVO.org if you want to see some pictures from the place. It looks just fantastic. They did a

wonderful job. And they will be later this month, after 11 years away, moving back into Province House. And the business of the province will continue where it started. all those many years ago. So good on you, Brian, and your team. And with that, I'm so glad that Dmitri Soutis, you could spare some time for us this week. I hope you'll take our call again in the future. We'd love to have you back.

Martha Hall-Finley, until next time. Peace and love, everybody. Peace and love.