The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 123. Canada Decides: Who will be the next Prime Minister? (Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney)

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Why do both former Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, and former Canadian deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, think they’re best placed to lead Canada? How will either take on Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre if they win the Liberal party leadership elections on March 9th? What do they think about the ‘existential threat’ to Canada that is President Donald Trump?  TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics  Twitter: @RestIsPolitics  Email: [e-mail] Video Editor: Josh Smith  Assistant Producer: Alice Horrell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolics.com. Hi, it's Alistair here, and by the end of this week, Canada will have a new prime minister. And that person will be one of the two people that you're about to hear from. Two interviews, back to back. First up, Christian Freeland. And she is a, near to being a veteran, Liberal Party politician. She's done several very, very big jobs in government.

She's been Deputy Prime Minister. She's been a finance minister. But Justin Trudeau, having gone, she is one of the two candidates who may replace him. Once you've heard from Christia, who talked to me and Rory last week, you will hear from Mark Carney. Now, Rory and I've interviewed Mark before, but this is a second. in an interview we've done. But this time, Rory was not in the chair with me, but the Mucci was. So Antonyis Karamucci and I talking to Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, former

Bank of Canada governor, hoping to be next leader of the Liberal Party and next Prime Minister of Canada. He will be coming up after you hear from Christy Freeland. Welcome to the rest of politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alice Campbell. And our guest today is Christian. of Freeland, who has held several very senior positions in the government of Canada under Justin Trudeau. She was Minister of International Trade and therefore got a very good view of the workings of a first-term Trump administration when negotiating a trade deal that he once loved and now apparently he hates. She's been foreign minister. She was Canada's first ever female finance minister.

She's now vying with Mark Carney, having been deputy prime minister, to land the very top job. That's after Trudeau stepped down and Christian's resignation, one of the factors that led him to that decision. Now, whoever takes over, the Liberal Party leadership election is in early March and they've got their work cut out thereafter because Trump Mark 2 seems to have decided that Canada, or the 51st state, as he calls it, is an enemy, whereas Russia is a friend. And the good thing about talking to Christian Freeland now is she knows a lot about Russia. She studied Russian history at university. She worked in Moscow as a journalist for the Financial Times. She wrote a very important book, Sale of the Century on Russia's transition from communism to capitalism and oligarchy. She's also a fluent Ukrainian speaker because her mum was Ukrainian so we can talk about that too. There is a lot to talk about, Christia, and we're very, very grateful that you're with us. Chris, it's a great pleasure to have you with us.

I'm very tempted to begin you with what you're doing after this podcast, which is going to visit a dairy farm because I was a member of parliament for one of our big farming constituencies. And Alistair is the son of a vet and the nephew of a farmer. I remember when I was campaigning four or five in the morning, the very, very distinctive smell and feel of being in a milking parlor, particularly when you have cameras around. So tell us just a little bit about that before we get on and take you back to the grander geopolitics. Give us a sense of campaigning Canada, what you love about Canada, your constituency, and what you'll be seeing in your dairy farm. Thank you very much. And I am glad to start with farming because I am the daughter of a farmer.

I grew up on a farm in northern Alberta. And actually the daughter-in-law of dairy farmers from Leicestershire of all places. And in fact, my husband told my future in-laws that we were engaged in a dairy parlor. How's that? The milking parlor. So I love farms. I know how important farming is to the Canadian economy and also to Canadian communities. A couple of weeks ago, I went back to Peace River, Alberta, where I was born, where my family

farm still is where my great-grandparents first homesteaded. And we still have a 6,000-acre farm there. And for me, that's kind of at the heart of who I am as a person. Growing up on a farm, growing up with really hardworking farming people, defines who I am in really important ways. And I am really looking forward to, I will not be wearing what I'm wearing right now, and going to a dairy farm in Quebec as soon as we're done talking. Just to interrupt Christia for a second. So for those you who are listening rather than watching, Christia at the moment is wearing a very smart top and pearls. And one imagines that when she's in the dairy farm, she will be slightly more protected from some of the occupational hazards of being in a milking parlour. Over to Alistair.

So, Christia, can I take you back to your parents? And in particular, your mum, a Ukrainian and your parents split up when you were fairly young. You then spent a lot of time with your grandparents on her side, also Ukrainian. You speak Ukrainian. You've worked in Ukraine. And I wonder what it's like being involved in the campaign you're involved in now, whilst at the same time there's this huge event going on in a different part of the world, to which you must feel very, very connected. So just give us, give us a feeling. how important Ukraine is to you and how that shapes your approach to politics and life? Well, I'm going to start, Alistair, by talking a little bit about how Ukrainian Canadians have shaped Canada.

Because Canada is a country where we are very proudly bilingual, proud of our French and English heritage, working very hard on reconciliation with indigenous people in Canada, and very aware of and proud of the contribution, subsequent waves of immigrants have made to Canada. And Ukrainian Canadians have a really important role in Canada, especially in Western Canada where I come from, because they were a crucial element of settling the prairies. And in fact, Canadian political leaders put out ads,

had ads in Ukraine to invite the Ukrainians to come settle the prairies. we were a little bit concerned about manifest destiny coming from the United States. Sound familiar? And Canadian politicians knew we needed to get people in the prairies. We needed to have farmers. And there's this great quote from Sir Clifford Sifton saying, Give me a peasant in his sheepskin coat, his stalwart wife, that I guess would be me,

and they're six sons, and they will settle our, prairies. So that was really, you know, the historic role of Ukrainians in Canada. They endured incredibly difficult circumstances. Like they lived in sawed huts underground their first winter, sometimes their first couple of winters when they came to Canada and played a really key role in building my country, Canada. That's the first thing I want to say about Ukrainian Canadians. Second thing, on Ukraine, as someone who is proudly Ukrainian-Canadian and my kids speak Ukrainian too, the poor little darlings have to go to Ukrainian school on Saturdays, my 15-year-old still does that. For sure, I have a personal connection with Ukraine and an understanding of Ukraine.

But Canada's support for Ukraine has never been about our Ukrainian-Canadian community. It has been about Canada recognizing that Ukraine right now is quite literally the front line, quite literally the bleeding edge in the fight between democracy and dictatorship in the world. It is the front line in whether we are going to live in a rules-based world where just because you have bigger armies than your neighbor and are a bigger economy than your neighbor, you're not allowed to decide one day you're going to change the borders and take over your neighbor. And when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and even before that in 2014, when he invaded Crimea, I was an opposition MP at the time, Canadians understood in theory, I think, that standing up for the rules-based international order and standing up for the sanctity of borders was a good thing.

I think President Trump has helped us to understand that our national interest is absolutely engaged in asserting that point. So that's why, from my perspective, it is so important for Canada to stand with Ukraine, and we will. So, Christian, you understand Russia well. You've written very powerfully about Russia. Can you give us a sense, if you were trying to articulate to a European audience, your sense of who Putin is, what his vision of the world is, what kind of threat that he poses, whether one should be worried not just about Ukraine, but the Baltics, Moldova. What kind of person is this? What's his vision of the world? Okay, well, Rory, I think that I'm pretty sure I am the only sort of senior Western elected leader who can say her stomach has been stroked by Vlagimir Pukkin. I interviewed him in late 2000 when I was vastly pregnant with my first child. I was working for the Globe and Mail at the time.

and at the end of the interview he sort of touched my stomach and he said I hope you have a son and I hope he is a very good hockey player. So my daughter, I ended up having a daughter and she dines out on that story quite a bit. Pukin, who is he and what does he want? I believe he wants to be rich and personally secure. He is the first of those already. Yes. And I think that is important. I mean, I think Ann Applebaum and Autocrats, Inc, and sort of putting together the financial side with the political side for these guys is a very important point. And we sometimes miss it because they don't portray themselves that way. But I think he wants to be very rich and personally rich and personally secure. He doesn't want to be assassinated, for example. which is always a danger if one is an authoritarian leader.

I do believe he has an imperialist vision of Russia and wants Russia to be great and bigger. I do believe he has absolute scorn for the whole notion of democracy. Like, I don't think he really thinks it's a real thing. I think he thinks that we're faking it when we talk about democracy. I think he has a lot of scorn for the notion of international rules. I think he's a great believer in the idea that the strong should do what they will and the weak should suffer what they must. And I think crucially, he believes that

his system, his way of doing things is better than ours. He thinks we are weak. He thinks we will cave. He thinks the whole idea of being collaborative, you know, allies working with each other, leaders actually getting elected by people, all that stuff I think he thinks is just a tremendous weakness and fakery and doesn't work. And then maybe the final thing I'll say, because I think this is important to understand where Putin comes from. So I lived in Russia in the 90s, right? I lived in the Soviet Union. I sort of watched the Soviet Union collapse and then what was built out of it. The rise of Russian democracy for a minute, we thought that would happen. And then what followed, the rise of the oligarchs and what followed. And one of the things that happened then that I don't think is

fully appreciated outside Russia is the security forces, the group of people known in the Soviet Union as the power ministries, KGB, Interior Police, military, these had been the most important people alongside the Communist Party hierarchy in the Soviet Union. They mattered. People were scared when they walked into a room. And then the Soviet Union collapses. All of a sudden, they don't matter. And this whole new group of people emerges who no one had ever heard of, the oligarchs, people who had PhDs in physics and stuff and had been kind of at the edges of things. And the best job you could get in the peak Yeltsin era, if you were like a KGB general, the job of your dreams was to be the head of security for an oligarch.

And that paid well and stuff. But still, this jumped up guy who had no power, no role in the Soviet hierarchy, suddenly is your boss with like a thousand times more money than you. And one of the mottos of these power ministries, the people from these security forces in sort of the late Yeltsin era was, am I allowed to swear on your podcast? Please. We do it all the time.

So one of their mottoes was it's our fucking turn. And the idea was that in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the interest group that had been left out was the KGB and the power ministries and this was unacceptable.

And so I think there is also in Putin that sort of certainly at the outset, that sort of deep sense that power had gone to the wrong place and that he and the power ministries, starting with the KGB, were going to take power back from these jumped up business guys, some of whom weren't even ethnically Russian. Okay.

If we played back the last few minutes of what you've said and removed the name Putin, and you talked about he wants to be very rich, he wants to be very secure, he doesn't want to be assassinated. He doesn't really believe in democracy. He thinks that the rich and the powerful should basically be able to do what they want. He doesn't really enjoy the fuss of having to get elected. And he thinks the security forces should just be there for him. It's kind of, it starts to play into your mind why Donald Trump has this kind of fascination and admiration for Vladimir Putin. And given what we've seen recently with Trump's seeming shift of American policy with regard to Ukraine, are we not seeing a kind of mirror developing here that we should be

very, very worried about? Yeah, we should be very, very worried, Alistair. I think that this is not the beginning. This is not the first warning. I think we had a lot of signals, you know, between 2016 and 2020. There were a lot of signs, I think, that a Trump administration was not interested in being the cornerstone of the rules-based international order in a way that the United States has been since the Second World War. And I actually, you know, as foreign minister, gave a couple of speeches about that, one in the House of Commons, one in Washington. when I got an award.

I think we need to take it very seriously. I do think, you know, we, the Western allies who are not Americans, need to acknowledge that Americans have a right to choose. You know, this has been a heavy mantle that America has born since the Second World War as someone who is America's neighbor and has a great admiration for many Americans. and for so much America has accomplished.

I kind of think that being the leader of the free world has worked out pretty well for the United States, but it's their choice not ours. And if as a country they choose to no longer carry that mantle, then that's their right. I think we need to spend time talking with Americans and explaining to them why we think maybe it's not a good idea and the consequences. But I think above all, we, the Western Alliance X. the U.S. need to be working very, very hard and I would say with more disruptive urgency on how we're going to work together with each other.

And that is, you know, absolutely critical. There's a lot of us. and we have a lot of strength and power too. You mentioned I was trade minister. I negotiated a trade deal for Canada with Europe. It's called CETA. It's actually our best and closest trade, our strongest trade agreement in the world.

It's actually a closer relationship economically than the one we have in North America. Canada is very glad to be a NATO ally. Canada actually today leads an enhanced forward presence battle group in Latvia. So Canadian soldiers are right there today on the front lines. Canadians have been training Ukrainians since 2015 in Ukraine, so before the full-scale invasion. And I really think, Alistair, that the principal challenge for Western leaders X the U.S. right now. is to understand and then to work with each other to build security and economic partnerships

amongst ourselves in a world where perhaps, and I don't think the die is fully cast, but where perhaps the U.S. is deciding to take off that mantle. And, you know, you guys talked about at the beginning, I am talking to you from a hotel room in Sherbrooke, Quebec. I'm about to talk to some dairy farmers. And by the way, they are very engaged in these issues. I saw them at an event last night. And all they wanted to talk about was geopolitics, a little bit about milk, but mostly geopolitics.

Canadians are totally focused on this. And I'm running to be prime minister because I have been thinking about this clash between democracy and dictatorship, how the hollowed out middle class in Western democracies facilitates that. and I know how to fight for Canada and to stand for Canada. You guys are European, so I'm going to say to you, I know how to build a partnership with you and across the channel. And that is what we have to urgently do, and we have to do it faster than we've done in the past.

There are some disruptors out there. They are not scared of moving quickly. And we need to kind of throw away the textbooks. and get used to working really, really fast. The new world is being built right now. Just to sort of get into this, one of the things that's happening at the moment is that it feels as though people are not really sticking together.

So when Trump announced these astonishing tariffs against Canada, you didn't suddenly see Denmark jumping to Canada's aid. And vice versa, when Trump had a 45 minute. call with the Prime Minister of Denmark and said, give me Greenland, you didn't really have the rest of the world standing up for Denmark. And you can sense this was with Britain. There's a sort of slight tendency in the British government to think, well, maybe, you know, we'll be able to get a special deal with Trump. And while he's getting crossed with Europe and Canada, we can come in through the back door. And obviously, he's going to try to use this sort of divide and rule.

How is it that one begins to create a world where countries can line up together rather than at the moment, which is that Denmark, you get the sense, feels frightened of criticizing Trump. Jordan feels frightened, criticizing Trump, despite the catastrophic impact of what Trump is proposing with Gaza and aid to Jordan. How does one bring all this stuff together? How do we stop us all being scared individually and feeling that we don't want to annoy him? That is such an excellent point in a critical question, Rory. I think it starts with uniting the home team. You know, when I was getting ready for my first trade negotiation, CEDA, our trade deal with Europe, Canada has, we have brilliant trade negotiators.

It's one of the areas where we have real national expertise because we are a trading nation and we're pretty small, so we need to be good at it. And our best trade negotiator is a guy called Steve Verhewell. I think Canadians should put up a statute to the guy. And he kind of trained me. And he said, okay, you're going to think that this negotiation is all about what you're you say to the people across the table. But where it starts is uniting the people on your side of the table. And a trade deal succeeds or fails first based on the foundation you have built. And if your

home team is united, you will succeed. And if your home team is divided, you will fail. Actually, looking at you, Rory, I realize the Brits might have an understanding of that point from your own recent experience. Anyway, so it starts with uniting the home team. And the great thing about Canada right now is our country is united in a way that we have not been in my lifetime. There is a wave of patriotism in Canada across the whole country right now that is beautiful. Canadians have recognized that it is not only economic warfare we're facing. We recognize that our sovereignty is being directly challenged, and we get that we have to stand for Canada and fight for Canada.

So we start there, and then the next step is, yes, get the rest of the world, starting with the democratic world, to understand this is a moment where if you kind of hope you're not going to get noticed, you are making a great, error. And what I would say to you Brits and you Europeans is stand with Canada, help Canada fight and succeed, and that will be better for you. Because if we get beaten up and trampled, and by the way, we have no intention of letting that happen to us, it's going to be easier to beat you guys up. So stand with us. If I am chosen as leader of the Liberal Party and the next Prime Minister of Canada, the first thing I will do is convene a summit in Canada of the Prime Minister

of Denmark, the President of Mexico, two strong women, by the way, the President of the European Commission, the President of Panama. I'm going to invite MacRuta, the Secretary General of NATO, and maybe I'll invite Zelensky. I think I should invite Zelensky. He likes being invited to talks which affect his future. I think we know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we will talk about how to stand and fight together for the rules-based international order. We'll talk about what I believe we need to be building, which is an ever stronger economic, but also security partnership between Canada and our democratic allies, starting with the EU and the UK.

And I think we should have the Norwegians as part of that too. Christian, are you at all annoyed, upset, surprise that there have been so few British voices that have come out in support of Canada? I mean, I've asked Rory, and he agreed that there might even be a case for his friend the King getting involved at some point. This feels like an existential threat that's being made. Once you start calling another country a state, a state that belongs to another country, i.e. the U.S., that feels pretty existential. Is that how it feels to you? Yeah, it is existential. And, you know, British leaders, European leaders should be calling it out.

And you guys should be saying, no way. And by the way, we are your military allies. So remember that. And since I'm speaking to Brits and my paternal grandfather fought in the Second World War along with two of his brothers, three Freeland boys traveled from Peace River to Britain to fight, one of them died. My grandmother was Glaswegian. She was a war bride. And actually, my father was born in Britain in Dorchester while his father

was fighting. He was seconded to the RAF. Do you remember, we stood up for you guys. Remember that great line? If we have to fall back to our dominions, we will. And we were ready. So I have great confidence in the British people. I think you guys understand democracy. You understand that capitulation is not a negotiating strategy. Canadians certainly understand that. And you will be better off if you stand with us now. Christian, you are now about to go pretty soon, I guess, into a campaign, your party at least,

and possibly you as prime minister against Pierre Poliev, who has a person. particular vision of Canada, a particular way of doing politics. And clearly it's a vision and a way of doing politics that you disagree with because you're running against him. Can you tell us, for European listeners, a little bit about what he represents, what makes him apparently quite a successful, articulate politician and why you think he's not the right course for Canada? You know, Rory, I'm going to disappoint you because I'm not going to be a publicist for Pierre Poliev. And I don't think it's really my. job to describe what might be his appeal. But I will tell you my strategy for defeating him at the

general election. And it is very much of a piece of this conversation we've been having. The ballot question in the next general election for Canada is going to be very simple. It is going to be who can fight for Canada, who can. who can stand for Canada. Canadians get that. I said a moment ago that we have this wave of patriotism in the country. And it is so true. There's actually been a measurable decline in Canadians traveling to the U.S.

Because Canadians are saying we're not going to go on holiday to the U.S. this winter because they're beating us up. You know, when we play the Americans at hockey or basketball, Canadian fans are booing, not because we don't like individual Americans, but because we see our sovereignty is under threat, and that is not okay. So Canadians get that. The ballot question will be who can stand for our amazing country, and I can tell you who Canadians know cannot do it. And it is Pierre Pauliev. He's in a challenging position right now, because he has spent the past couple of years, denigrating Canada, talking Canada down, saying that Canada is broken. You know, you know what it's

like to be in the House of Commons? And there was one day when just the insults towards Canada were so terrible that I just couldn't stand it anymore. And so I stood up and I said, you know, the conservatives seem to have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the United States. And I said, I sure don't. And that is true. And right now the challenge for Pierre Poliev, and as Prime Minister and Liberal leader, I will drive this home, is Canadians don't trust him to stand up to Trump. He is a maple syrup mega. The only thing he wants to do with President Trump is imitate him. the only job he wants is to be the apprentice. And in this critical moment for our country,

that is not the person, I am utterly confident. That is not the person Canadians will choose to fight for us. Where did you stand in relation to the, you mentioned the hockey match, those amazing three fights in the first nine seconds. Were you with the guys who threw the gloves off and just thought, right, I'm steaming in here? Was that a good thing for them to do?

Yes. Cool. Yes, absolutely. I've got to say, whenever that happens in football, these fights break out, the commentator who said, this is the last thing we want to see on a football field. I thought that was the best ice hockey match I've ever seen in my life. Well, only except the result was not good. But there's going to be another game this week.

And the whole country is going to be with our Canadian boys. When you resigned from the government, Donald Trump took time out to say that you wouldn't be missed and that you were toxic. And you mentioned earlier that when you have this great new summit, if you become prime minister, you can have all these women there. Did you feel when you were dealing with Americans during those trade talks that there is a sort of misogyny going through his kind of politics? Have you ever had a sense of that? Or didn't that was just because he saw you as somebody who maybe got in the way of his kind of politics? I think it's because he saw me as a formidable fighter for Canada. And actually, when we had our meetings, when I walked into the room, he would say, oh, there's the killer.

You've brought your killer today. And he actually said, at one point, I mean that as a positive. And I think, you know, a couple of things to understand about President Trump. He despises weakness. and he can sense weakness. And there are some people who think the way to deal with President Trump is capitulation, sycophancy, that that's the way international leaders can somehow get on his good side and that that will work.

I have never seen that work with him. I think he senses weakness and he sees an opportunity and he just pushes further and harder. I think what he respects is strength. And actually, he thinks it's a good thing to fight for your own country. After all, that is what he does. And the other important thing to recognize about President Trump, and we experience this in the first Trump administration, is there can be a lot of rhetoric, there can be a lot of insults,

a lot of yelling and kicking and screaming and terrible things said, things that, you know, were never acceptable and polite international discourse in the past. But at the end of the day, I do think President Trump cares about a good economic outcome for the United States. He is alive to that. That matters to him. You know, remember the February 1st tariff threats against Canada. That was a Saturday. The stock market fell on the Monday. And as soon as I saw the futures trade down, I knew those tariffs would not be in place later that day. And sure enough, that was the case. And so our experience with President Trump was a lot of yelling, a lot of kicking and screaming.

But at the end of the day, Canada's economic relationship with the United States is balanced and mutually beneficial. we uniquely, uniquely have economic leverage over them. You guys, you know, on your island may be thinking, oh, those Canadians, they're kind of cute, they play hockey, but they're much smaller than the Americans. How can they really matter? Well, the fact is we are the largest export market for the U.S. by far. The U.S. exports more to Canada than it does. to China, Japan, the UK, and France combined.

That means a single Canadian Prime Minister can exert standing by him or herself has more economic leverage over the United States than China, Japan, the UK, and France acting together. And that leverage works. We've already had a trade war with Trump. He imposed steel and aluminum tariffs on us. 2018, we retaliated dollar for dollar, and it worked. A few months later, the United States unilaterally lifted the tariffs on our steel and aluminum. And what helps us further

in this standoff with them is the stuff they get from us they need. So after Trump threatened those 25% tariffs on Canada, the American Farm Bureau, which is an important, important Trump constituency came out and said, this is a bad idea. And you know why? Because more than 80% of the potash that American farmers use crucial fertilizer. Without it, American farms cannot function. More than 80% comes from Canada. Aluminum on which they are threatening to impose tariffs. Aluminum is basically electricity in solid form. So they are threatening to put a tax on their own energy at a time when they need more energy in the AI race with China. And so I am utterly confident that if Canada is united, strong, and smart, the economic fundamentals are such that we will get a

good deal with the U.S. And President Trump has an excellent capacity. You're going to be surprised to hear me say that, an excellent capacity in a political leader, which is he is prepared to pivot. He'll try something. If it doesn't work, he'll do something different. And we saw that in our last trade standoff. He was like, oh, Canada, Canada is so bad. I'm going to tear up my trade deal with Canada. We fought for a couple of years. We renegotiated. The new deal for us is actually better than the old one. He gave it a new name. It used to be called NAFTA. And he said, it really needs to be called USMCA. We said, fine. And I believe that kind of. of you have to give them an exit ramp, you have to give them some dignity, and I'm certain we can

succeed. One of the challenges, I guess, when you become prime and state, is we're now in a world where liberal progressives like you are being made to seem as though they're too slow, they're too inert. Some ways, the battleground of the modern world is between the kind of right which is portraying itself as disruptors, dynamic, getting stuff done, breaking institutions, abolishing international aid, you know, a new bit of news every day. And the centre and the progressive left is made to seem kind of slightly status quo. It's all too difficult. You can't get stuff done. And maybe also slightly too woke, slightly too soft-edged, not really responding with urgency to a population that feels frustrated,

that feels that their housing's too expensive, costs of living's going up, everything's unbelievably slow, growth isn't delivering their children are not going to be better off than they are. So how would a Prime Minister Freeland deal with that? How on earth does somebody from the center-progressive left get that sense of charisma energy dynamism,

which at the moment feels like it's in risk of becoming the monopoly of the right? Yeah, so really good question, Rory. And you have talked about three weaknesses. One being slow, two being woke, and three being soft. And I think we can't be slow. We have to be fast. I think we have to act with the fierce urgency of now.

And I led a government effort that did that. Canada did a good job during COVID. We saved a lot of lives, and we did that by moving really, really fast because we faced, you know, a threat to the lives of our people. And we did it in a united way across the country. So I actually do think this is a moment when government and leaders have to move fast. And part of the reason I'm talking to you guys is I want our allies across the Atlantic to be moving. faster with us. I have lived through as a journalist, disruptive moments in history, collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Ukraine, for instance. And I do believe

there are these hinge moments, and in these hinge moments, you have to be fast. And I don't think, you know, people in the center liberals, we can't be slow. So I believe in moving fast. Two, is it a problem to be soft? Actually, I agree it's a problem to be too soft. And, you know, when I talk about Canada's response right now, we need to be united, strong, and smart. And this is a moment when we absolutely need strength. For me, my version of strength is, you know, comes from the core of who I am. And that is being a mother. I have three kids.

And being a mother is the single. most important thing in my life. As a mother, I hope my kids would say I'm loving and caring. I try to be, but I am also ferocious in defending them. And I think we all know in nature, there is no creature more ferocious than a mother in defense of her children. And I feel today just incredibly passionate about the need for me to be ferocious in defense of all of Canada's children and all Canadians. So strength absolutely essential. What about the woke bit? Was Justin too woke?

Probably. But what I would say about that is this. It depends on how you define it. and what Canada cannot accept and what liberals cannot accept is to allow American political culture ever to take over our culture and particularly today's American political culture to take over our culture. And what I do not accept is a notion that somehow strength means. picking on and bullying the most vulnerable in your society. That is not true strength and never has being. And that is now how Canada works. We are a country that is proud of all the ways we're different from the United States. We are proudly bilingual. That is important. We are a country

that believes that our diversity is our strength. We are a country that does have a social safety net. And I believe that social safety net gives us a lot of strength as a country and unity as a society. And I think it is very important not to let hard right culture warriors bully us as a country into thinking it somehow makes us stronger to pick on vulnerable people and to walk away from what I believe are essential Canadian values. Just on that one, we spoke a couple of times on the podcast to Mark Carney, who you're now, I know you're quite friendly. Isn't he a godfather to one of your children? He's a godfather to the benighted 15-year-old who has to go to Ukrainian school on Saturday. Yeah. And he was christened in a Ukrainian church in Toronto. Right. So you're clearly

pretty close, but you're now rivals. Can I just jump in, Alistair, and say one thing about that? because you'll be familiar with it, right? Like, this is a race inside the liberal party. We really are all friends. We all share liberal values. We all know that the job is to defeat Pierre Pahliav. And, you know, I'm 100% committed to that. I said, actually, when I stepped down from the cabinet,

it was important for me to say to my constituents and to Canadians that I was a committed liberal, and I would be running to hold my seat in the next election. And that's a commitment that I made at the beginning of the leadership, whatever the outcome. And look, I'm in it to win it, and I intend to win, and I think I am the woman to lead Canada in this critical moment. No matter what the outcome, I will proudly stand and run as a liberal, and I intend to win my seat. I've been elected four times, and I intend to be elected a fifth time this year. Okay, well, the question I was going to ask is when we talk to my first, I was a lot of Mark, I sense that, I mean, Mark is, you know, you know and I know, absolutely passionate about

climate change, but understands, I think, politically, that the dial, whether we like it or not, has moved. And I just wonder whether you feel the same and that you feel that one of the reasons why, as Rory said earlier, the right does feel that it's on the march, is they've successfully weaponized the issue of climate, and it's put the progressives on the back foot. Yes, I do think that's the case. And, you know, I was the first candidate in this leadership race in Canada to say that as prime minister, I would drop a consumer facing carbon price. I was the first one to say that.

And everyone has now followed my lead there. And I said it for a very basic democratic reason, which is what we've heard from Canadians is that doesn't work for them. And, you know, there are hundreds of Canadian professors of economics who've said it's the best thing ever. The IMF loves the system that we have. But real Canadian voters have said we don't like it. And I think one of the fundamental jobs of political leadership, yes, you lead, you have your values, you have your convictions. You also have to figure out how to listen.

and you have to recognize that you are not the only smart person in your country. And you have to recognize that, you know, Canadian citizens, they actually understand their own self-interest. And if they're telling you something, clearly you need to listen. And I actually think that that is something, you know, as a reporter, I knew the value of listening. A good reporter shuts up most of the time and just scribbles or runs now. people don't even have tape recorders anymore, their phone. I've been now an elected MP for nearly 12 years. And one of the things that I've learned in that time is talking less, listening more. You have two ears and one mouth. That is what real democracy is. And that is what actually works.

Christia, my last question. And then I'll hand back to Alistair. We were both people who made our professional careers in the 90s, which felt, you know, like the great moments of the liberal global order. And then we both became members of parliament. Just after the beginning of the social media rage, the moment when Twitter and Facebook were really beginning to have their, I don't know, their tsunami effect on politics, I wonder whether you could just reflect on what this world of politics has become, how it's changed over the last 12 years. And I'm What are the conditions that are making it feel so, so very different from the world that we knew in the 90s? Look, clearly media and how it works and how we get our message to people has changed a lot in the past 10 years and is very different today from where it was in the 1990s.

But I think it's important for politicians like me not to spend a lot of time hand. ringing and whining and complaining. We are hardly the first generation who has experienced a change in media and forms of communication, right? Going from the spoken word to the written word was a big thing. Going to having printing presses was a big thing. Some time ago, Christia, that particular change was... No, no, but you know what I mean? Like, you know, like, this stuff happens all the time, and the job of political leadership is to find ways to communicate with people. And communicate, meaning, like, not just telling them stuff, but finding ways to listen to what people have to say. What I would say from a very Canadian perspective about what you've said, and our position is quite unique.

I believe today that part of fighting for Canada today, standing for Canada, defending our economy, defending our economy, defending our sovereignty includes a sophisticated defense of our cultural sovereignty. We exist in a U.S. media space. Our platforms are owned by the country whose president is challenging our sovereignty. That is something we have to be mindful of, and I believe very strongly that we need to think urgently about supporting Canadian content. content, Canadian media, ensuring we control our platforms. In this regard, I am so glad we are a bilingual country, and I am so grateful for the Francais, because that is a real moat and an area of real Canadian cultural strength.

And that's a very Canadian aspect of this, but it's very important. My last question, Krista, is this. Given we had an experience in our country, which you alluded to, I think earlier, where two journalists, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove, were responsible for what I considered to be one of the most catastrophic acts that has ever befallen our country, namely Brexit. Do you think journalists make good politicians? Well, I'm a journalist, and I think I'm a good politician, so there's at least one example. And I'll give you another example, Volodymyr Zelensky.

He is not a journalist, but he certainly is. is a media master. Something a lot of people don't know about him is up until 2014, he was actually a Russian movie star. He appeared only in Russian. Russian is his first language, and his principal market was Russia. And he made a decision in 2014 when Russia invaded his country to be Ukrainian.

I think we have seen that his media skills, have been an essential weapon, which he has deployed in defense of his country. And mine, such as they are, I intend to deploy for Canada. And the final thing I will say, though, Alistair, is for me, the part of my journalism that I feel equips me the most for this critical moment for Canada is having lived first in the Soviet Union and then in the post-Soviet Union, in Ukraine and in Russia. And having seen the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of national democracy, the way democracy became oligarchy, you alluded to this at the beginning, those sort of disruptive moments that I saw, you know, democracy versus dictatorship, oligarchs versus middle. class people and seeing how quickly things can change and how, as Rory pointed out, in these

moments, you have to be fast, you have to seize the initiative. And also seeing how the courage of regular people can win. That's what we saw in Ukraine in 1991. That's what we're seeing in Ukraine today. Those experiences, I do believe, uniquely equip me to lead Canada and to fight for Canada in this existential moment. That's why I'm running to BPM. And I think the cows and the dairy farmers will have some thoughts too. And I do want to tell you, you're laughing.

But I did an event here last night with the father of the farmers who I'm going to visit today. And the only thing he wanted to talk about is Canada's national sovereignty and how we have to stand up to Trump. And he said to me, why aren't the European

standing with us. So this is an issue which is not just discussed on podcasts with fancy British people. This is an issue which is discussed in the milking parlors of Sherbrook, Quebec. And I am so proud of Canadians. We are the best educated people in the OECD. Canadians get it. And I know they're going to choose a leader who's going to stand for Canada and fight for Canada. I hope liberals choose me as the next the leader in the next prime minister. And I know that we liberals are going to beat Pierre Poliyev in the general election. Well, you've got two Europeans here who are, whether we're fancy Brits or not, we're kind of with you on that one. And all I can say, we've talked both you and Mark now. And I've got to say the liberals have got a pretty strong choice there.

So we wish you all the best, both of you. And we certainly wish you well once you get to the election campaign. Thank you so much, Christia. Thank you for giving us your time and we should let you get back to your dairy farmers. But thank you. Well, he's on. Bye. So, Alistair, we have interviewed a number of Canadian politicians now. We interviewed Michael Ignatyev, who was a leader of the Liberal Party. We've interviewed Mark Carney and we've interviewed Christy Freeland. And of course, the last two are vying at the moment for who's going to be the next leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister. I mean, the first thing is, often when I go to Canada,

Canadians can be very self-deprecating and describe their politics as being bit parochial and budget. But in fact, what strikes me consistently in our interviews with Canadians is that amongst other politicians who might be more kind of standard street politicians, there are people with these extraordinary international experiences, public intellectuals like Michael, famous central bankers like Mark Carney, distinguished journalists. And I could add to it, you know, Catherine McKenna, who was Trudeau's Environment Minister, Chris Alexander, who was an immigration minister under the Conservatives,

who'd been the Deputy UN Special Representative in Afghanistan and Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan. There is a sort of sense of some really impressive, worldly international thinkers operating at the top level of Canadian politics, and I guess she's one of them. No, I agree with that. I think that, you know, I said to her at the end there, if you put Mark Carney, and her against most kind of top flight people viable leadership in most parties around the world. They're both very, very impressive. What I liked about her, very different.

You mentioned the Danes and the way that they seem a little bit cautious. I mean, she is giving Trump no quarter. I mean, she's absolutely out there. And I love the way, you know, sort of how did she feel about the Canadian ice hockey players? Were they right to take the gloves off? and start laying into the Americas, yes, sort of story.

I did think her understanding and her assessment of Russia and that direct experience and how she was making that relevant, I found very, very interesting. Also, another thing that I noticed, but you maybe noticed even more than me, is the extraordinary message discipline. I mean, she really has worked out her narrative and her story. So just to sort of step back and be a little bit unkind, but take the curtains back on politics.

When you're running to be leader, of course, what you're doing is you're working a great deal with your own advisors and your own media advisors on how you portray yourself. So you will be asked to think about what your backstory is. You know, what is it in your personal life that makes you equipped? So in her case, she talks about her time in Ukraine, Russia. She talks about the farming heritage of her family. and she talks about being a mother and the kind of strength that comes from being a mother. But she does it very smoothly.

It doesn't feel laboured. There's quite a lot of sense of humour right at the beginning of just before we went on air we were chatting. She's quite light-hearted, humorous, but equally she knows how to land a message. It's not wooden. It's not like some British politicians

where you sense they're reading a script. But it's also very, very calculated and very professional. Those are not accidental things she's landing on farming motherhood. in Russia. No. However, I thought that whenever, whether it was you about woke or me about, well, actually me about woke as well, is Justin Trudeau woke, yeah, a bit, yeah, a bit too much. I mean, she was very direct, took a little bit of time to think sometimes about answers. No, I thought she had an energy there that was very powerful as well. So it's going to be an

interesting contest. The vote for the leadership is on March the 9th. Because Trudeau is stepping down as Prime Minister, either she or Mark Carney becomes. prime minister and then within a certain time period they have to take on polyoeuvre for the next election can i just finally just come in once more i mean if you were let's say you were working for a prime minister and you were trying to assess somebody's communication skills their media performance as a politician what would you say her really strong and less strong points were if you were let's say you were thinking that she was going to be a british prime minister going out in front of the media what do you think her strongest points are and what may be less strong

You know when we talked to Mark Carney and he talked about his strength is his weakness, so he's, you know, and all that, I think with her it's the same. I think her strength is her seeming naturalness and authenticity and straight talking and kind of being a mum, being a kind of human being. That's the strength in the communication. I think that the weakness, it's interesting when she said, you know, we've got two ears, but but one mouth, there's quite a few times when, I don't know if she could see you, but I could see you would try to get in or I was trying to get in. When she's on a role, she's on a roll. And sometimes I think you just, you know, that maybe just sharpen the message a little bit.

But listen, I think both she and Mark are very, in different ways, very different ways, but they're both very, very, very effective communicators. Look, I don't want to do too much inside baseball. But the other thing I noticed is that she had obviously made the decision that she didn't want to focus too much on Pierre, If I was in that situation running, I would have some very, very clear definition of what's wrong with the conservatives, what's wrong with their economic vision, why they're bad for Canada, why his style of politics is damaging. She, for some reason, didn't want to be dragged down that path. Why do you think it is she's calculated that she doesn't want to get into a big ideological conflict about Polierev's policies? I think both of them have decided the best way to portray Poliev and just keep saying it,

is that he's this mini-Trump, he's this wannabe Trump. And Polyev could probably point all sorts of policy areas, whereas no, Trump doesn't like, Trump wouldn't do that. So I think it's partly about use your own space to project yourself. I also think it's to both of their credit that they, at no occasion, did they take even side swipes at each other, Mark and Christian. Very interesting. You know, I think when you were running against Boris Johnson and all that lot,

I mean, sideswipes left, right and center, there were none. And I think maybe that's also part of the thing. She said the thing, we don't want to absorb American political culture, especially the culture as it exists right now. So she's basically saying, Palliev represents that culture. we don't want it. I'm not going to play that game. I thought that was quite smart. Well, I was very encouraged. I mean, encouraged about democracy, courage about Canada, encouraged about international response to Trump. So, yeah, I mean, obviously we're a little party

pre here. I guess we'd probably be Canadian liberals, although we'd love to have Pierre Polierf on the show whenever he wants to come on. We've said it many times. Where the hell are you, Pierre? Come on. And I'll say, Rory, what small thing, both of them, both Mark and Christia in the small talk around the podcast, say how significant our books were to them. Again, as I say, very, very fine sense of skilled politicians flatter the interviewers without literary skills. Right. Thank you, Alistair. That was terrific. Have a great day. See you soon. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye. Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to us talking to Christia Freeland.

When we come back after the break, Rory will be replaced by Anthony Skir. I'm Ritchie and we'll talk to Mark Carney. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers. The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. We often think of beating cancer as treatment, but imagine stopping it before it begins. After years of work, Cancer Research UK scientists are launching a clinical trial of lung vax, the first vaccine designed to prevent lung cancer. It builds on TracerX, the world's largest cancer evolution study, which tracked lung cancer cells

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visit cancer researchuk.org forward slash the rest is science. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Samarach here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, appeared with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment

when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels

between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher,

obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and we'll be talking about one of the grimmest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time,

to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. Mark, rest his policy's leading listeners will remember we spoke to last year. And we spoke mainly about his role as a bank governor in Canada and the UK. And I don't even remember, Mark, but I ask you whether there was any chance you might sometime go into politics yourself.

And you said, well, it's not a no. it's not a yes, and now you've gone and done it, because Mark Carney is currently running to replace Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party, which means that he will become Prime Minister, but that could be a brief tenure because then there will be a general election, and right now Pierre Palliever,

the populist leader of the right-wing party in Canada is still doing pretty well in the polls. So Mark, welcome. First of all, I'm really, really impressed that already early in your political career, you've decided there has to be a flag in the shot. Well, first off, thank you, Alistair. Thank you, Anthony, for having me on.

Yes, there has to be a flag in the shot, not least because today is Flag Day in Canada. It is the 60th anniversary of that flag, the Maple Leaf flag, becoming the official flag of Canada. And it was a symbol, you know, obviously it's a symbol of nation, What happened was we got rid of the old ensign, which had the union jack on it and crest,

and had a flag that represents the greatness of this country. And just on that, let me let's just, let me drill down a bit. Why did in the end that you decide you were going to go for it? A few reasons. One, I read your book, All seriousness. What can I do? And in the context of, you know, kind of in the run up to the holidays, run up in December to the holidays.

Country is in a bad way. A lot of pressure on similar effects in the UK and the U.S. Pressure on people, cost of living, housing gotten away. Government hadn't focused on those issues enough. Prospect of a government that, you know, conservative, very populous government coming in, you know, Trump acolytes in effect coming in. And then with President Trump coming in in some of the early stages of the risks that are now quite manifest, I'm sure we'll talk about them later, I felt I really had a duty to put my hand up and run when the prime minister resigned.

So, you know, there are times in life, and you both live these where you've got to stand up and be counted, and this was one of them. Luch. Yeah, well, first of all, welcome to the show, Mark. And I think Alastair knows this, you and I started a long time ago at the same place. And so I want to bring it up because Goldman has gone through the arc of Bob Rubin and the government, John Corzine going to governor, Henry Paulson, become the Secretary of Treasury. And there's a little bit of a globalist label on Goldman. And it's a little different world today in terms of where people are thinking about their identity and the identity. and the identity of Canada.

So make the case. Let's say I threw a rocket, you or an egg or a tomato. I wouldn't throw a rock at you because I love you, but I'm like an egg or a tomato. And I said, oh, you're a Goldman globalist. What would you say? Well, I think there's a couple of things there. And that is right.

And I would add Mario Draghi to that list, former prime minister of Italy and head of the European Central Bank. Look, pardon, and I'm looking at you on my screen, Anthony. you'd never forget where you're from. You still live where you grew up. I'm from, you know, I was born in the north of Canada, northwest territories, grew up in Edmonton and western Canada. I always came back to this country.

These are where my roots are. And, you know, you live those values. The second thing I'd say is that, you know, the world's a complicated, interconnected place, those connections are changing. You've got to understand the world in order to make sure that it's working for real people. the middle class and hardworking people. I don't think you can ignore it and hope that it's going to go away. And we're seeing it right now in Canada with very, very rapid changes in a world,

a world that's more divided and dangerous. And that's starting to affect us. It's going to affect us in a much bigger way. I'd rather have a leader who understands that, who can influence it, but also is anchored where they came from, anchored in the country, and working for the people here. Anthony, do you think that the right wing will go after Mark on the basis of being, as you say, the globalist?

Is that a useful line of attack for the right or does that just play up his kind of economic credentials? Well, I mean, it is, but I think a more useful line, and this is my follow-up question, if you don't mind, Mark, is we're in an anti-incumbency world, Alistair. So it's in addition to the globalist label, and I think more can parry that well. And obviously Mario Draghi is a brilliant statesman.

And I think we need common sense integrated with the populism. And it's interesting that the conservative right has hijacked the electorate that voted for the left, okay, after our whole lifetime. And so, you know, the question is, how do you make that rearticulation to those people? And how do you get them off of what I would call the anti-incumbency fever that everyone's facing. Well, I think, look, I'll keep it obviously focused on Canada. I mean, people want change. They want change in Canada. They deserve change. They need big change. And that change starts here with a focus on the economy. I don't think the incumbent government, the liberal government, had focused enough on the economy or executed as well as they needed to on certain things

like government spending, the impact on investment, keeping prices down, increasing competition, all these aspects. So it starts with recognizing that and then focusing a series of policies initiatives that are going to address that. And then secondly, look, I'm not an incumbent. I haven't been a politician up until now. I was still thinking about it when Alster and I last spoke, as he alluded to. And I'm coming in at a time of crisis. And part of the issue here, I think it holds elsewhere, but again, I'll focus on Canada, is we are in a crisis. It is not of our own making, but it's a full-blown crisis. And for better or worse, by accident or design, my career has been one of managing crises and helping to build strong economies. And that's what's

needed at the moment. So when people look for change, it's, you know, what type of change, the right type of change, you've got to make it tangible for people so that they can see exactly what they're getting. But it's also, it's an attitude and it's an experience set. What I wanted to ask you, Mark, is what did you, you said in that interview that you did with me and Rory, that there's different ways of doing public service. So, like, you saw yourself as a public servant when you were a bank governor. I would have said the same when I was working for the government. The mooch would have said the same when he was, you know, briefly alongside Trump. There's different ways of doing it.

What do you think is the big difference between doing it as an official, which is what you were, and an active politician who has to go out and get. people support. Yeah, well, I think there's, there are a couple of things. One, and I'm very conscious of the first point I'm going to make, which is as a governor of a central bank, you have the power and the accumulated credibility of the institution behind you. And that gives you much more weight, assuming your predecessors had done a good job, and they certainly had in the case of Canada. So it gives you much more weight in terms of your actions and influence. on markets and on general overall public confidence when they need to look to you. That's different as a politician.

You have to earn that. You have to earn that right from the get-go. You have to earn it every single day. So that's the first difference. The second difference is you're supposed to lead. And in leading, you need to help build consensus and you need to have followers. I mean, you're not leading. Stephen Harper told me this one's former prime minister.

If you turn around, there's no one behind you. You're not a leader just because you've struck out. in a certain direction. So it's making the argument in building that consensus. I will tell you right now in Canada, in part because of what we've been through, through cost of living and other pressures that have been on COVID, you know, the after effects of that.

But now the attacks from, you know, are what had been our closest friend and ally. Now is just our neighbor, to be clear. The Americans are just our neighbor, you know, it's geography as opposed to kinship. Canadians are looking for that leadership, and they're looking for positive change. They want a positive agenda as opposed to a negative agenda. So, again, by accident or design, that's the situation I find myself in.

And it starts with the economics moving up. That last comment heard, Alas. Did you hear that last comment? Yeah, but listen, before you jump in, Mouge, I want to point out lots of comments coming in here, Mark, saying that you threw a little bit of shade on the Bank of England there. You talked about the Bank of Canada. Gary, Kristen. Having had some great predecessors, what was the point you were making there?

I'm influenced by my geography. I pay full respect to my predecessors at the Bank of England. Boy, I forgot about just the level of sophistication of your collective audience, yes. Absolutely. But lots of them are saying at least this guy called Brexit, right? We don't need to get into that now. Muj, where do you want to go? No, I want to talk about the former kinship and now the,

the border, because I do think that it's a little unfair where we are right now. And I could be wrong. I think there's a phase. And remember, Donald Trump won by 50.5 percent of the vote. I certainly didn't want him to win, but he's there now. And he's presenting this antagonism. But the rest of America isn't antagonistic towards Canada. You know, I meet with business leaders all the time. I was down in Miami recently with a group. of Canadians, you know, they, you know, and, and Alistair, you know this. The America relies on Canada for energy, aluminum, electricity. And so I guess the question is, how do you reset that and not create more intact? Because the business community is with you, Mark. The American

business leaders look at you and say, that's the right guy to be the prime minister of Canada. Yeah. Look, I think there's a lot, look, let's be clear. There's a lot to work with. And there's, There's decades and decades and centuries of relationships and deep, deep ties. What is striking at the moment is that the business community in private is with me. The business community in public is pretty quiet. And that's not unique to this situation. You see it in a host of other initiatives that the administration is taking where CEOs, we would know many of the same people and have many of the same conversations I do.

And they're 180 degrees in opposition to what the administration is doing, but they're not saying anything about it. And, you know, with some degree waiting for the equity market to take a view and provide the discipline. So we're in the age of equity market vigilantes as opposed to principle and approach. So that doesn't go unnoticed. the good news is that I think that there is going to be a point where we're going to show our strength here in Canada. We're going to show our strength. We've got lots of options. We've got lots of things we can do at home.

And in fact, Moj, if I may, we should do at home. One of the good things about this situation is it creates a set of opportunities to take some big reforms and big measures here at home. I'll use a Canadian expression, Met Sheenou, Masters of our. in our own home. And that really resonates because we can't control President Trump. We never could control an American president, but we can't control President Trump. We might be able to influence a bit the approach over time. But what we can control are things here.

We're going to focus on that, be strong, and then when it comes time to come back together and talk about how we can work together with those business leaders, with the governors, with broader America will draw on those historic ties. Mark, have you been surprised, you talked there about the business community being pretty silent. Have you been surprised how the Commonwealth has been pretty silent on the noises that Trump has made? The Canada is an important member of the Commonwealth. And also, insofar as Canada has a, quote, special relationship, of course with America because of the geography. But historically, I'm assuming the special relationship with the UK is still pretty strong.

And yet the level of volume from British leaders has been very, very low. Has that disappointed you? Well, it's early to get disappointed, but I'll tell you a story. I had an interview with Faisal Islam, who you'd know well, British journalists. And it was like this. It was actually on the same laptop. I was in a rural town hall in Nova Scotia, Amherst, Nova Scotia. And at the end of the interview was for Newsnight, BBC Newsnight.

After it was over, I picked up my laptop and I rotated it 90 degrees and showed him that there was a portrait of King Charles III. Okay. So those, you know, those ties are deep. They're historic. And they reflect, they reflect not just common history, but common values. And one of the questions that's going to come out of this. this period. And again, it's, in the end, it'll be welcome because it shakes people up and it asks people, okay, what do you really believe in? Who are your real friends? Who are you aligned with?

And a question for the UK. And it is very much a question for the UK, as it is for the European Union, the Koreans, the Japanese, others. Okay, where are you going with this? Are you going for a transactional world? Or do you view that you have certain, you can do a lot of transaction, you can be commercial about it, but where do you have those common values? And I think, yeah, it starts with the UK. They've been relatively quiet. I don't think, last point, if I may, I don't think being quiet is a good strategy because I don't think the approach of the U.S. administration is going to let certain countries off.

Let's put it that way if they're, if they hope they're not. going to get notice. So it's a time to figure out where things counted. And actually, I might flip it back to you, Anthony. This may be unfair. It probably goes against the rules. But if I can ask you your perspective with respect to the president, because I think one of the things, in my experience with him, you've had more, but is he respects strength and being clear about what you want, what you have and what you want, as opposed to just hoping, you know, ducking and weaving and hoping everything will be okay. Well, you know, you have to have, you have to have surgical contact with him, Mark. And so as an example, your premier in Alberta went to see him in

Marilago. And the tariffs in Alberta, I believe, are 10% as a result of that, not 25. And so, but what you can't do is you can't just show up without an agenda that's clear, because that's why he started calling Prime Minister Trudeau, the governor. You know, he's, you know, he's a demeaning sort of a person. He just is a meanness to him. And so when you're a leader of another country, you've got to be surgical and you've got to be in his face because he hates conflict, Mark. This is a keyboard warrior, so he hates conflict. You get in his face to negotiate, he'll usually bend on something.

And that's something people have learned about him. But my question is about the campaign, if you don't mind. This is related to Prime Minister Trudeau, his popularity and the anti-incumbency movement. And this is something that Vice President Harris could not do. And that is break from Joe Biden. I think one of the things that really hurt her campaign was when they said, well, would you do anything different from Joe Biden? She said, no, I really can't think of anything. And I know when Hubert Humphrey broke from Lyndon Johnson, the polls narrowed, but he broke too late.

And so are you going to break from Prime Minister Trudeau or are you? Yeah. What are the differentiating things that you say to your constituents? Yeah, it's an important question. And the answer to that is yes, I already have, and there'll be more. And it's, these are, these are on principle. So let me give you an example. There was an increase that the prime minister and his then finance minister brought in on the capital gains tax rate.

And so the increase, the rate of tax on capital gains. And it wasn't just that. It was brought in and it was talked about in a, I'll put it in simple terms, Alster, your term, like a class. war type approach. These people don't deserve what they have. I think that's fundamentally wrong. I thought it was wrong from a tax policy perspective and I think it was wrong from a messaging perspective. We have to, and the core message of my campaign is, it's time to build. This is about building homes. It's about building infrastructure, energy, intelligence infrastructure for AI, new trade corridors. We've got to invest in build. And if it's time to build, we like builders. We like

people who take risk, who put money to work, and we're going to set up the system to reward that. So that's one example of a break that's not just a policy, but it's an attitude, and which is, and it's the attitude backed by policy, I think, is critical. We also change something which was a practical or pragmatic change on the carbon tax, retail carbon tax, where we've removed it. We've, and we can get into it if you want. We're doing a bunch of other things that make sure that we still accomplish the emissions and people are made whole. We've made those changes. I think just the scale of change at last point I'll make on the economy, on building out,

and really driving investment here. It's just a different emphasis from what Prime Minister Trudeau's government did. And look, it's also part of the times. It's what we need, but I think it's more stark because of that. do you worry mark that you will have to go down some agendas that you really don't believe in so for example you mentioned climate there your climate is like your big thing it's been your big thing since you left the bank and yet the politics of climate have become much harder and maybe that's what you were just alluding to likewise just in Trudeau fairly or unfairly was constantly being

defined by your neighbours as the king awoke and you know again I worry that the sort of because the right are on the march, because the populists are on the march against what they define as woke, which I often define just as social justice and looking out for other people, do you feel you have to soften some of your actual beliefs because you know that we're in a very different political environment to the one that Trudeau was in even a few years ago? So there's a couple of things there. I think, let me take them in order on climate. very much we're emphasizing the commercial aspect of it, the competitiveness aspect.

This is where the world's going. It'll go, you know, you can see where the trend line is. It'll go and fits and starts. And the U.S. cared about climate a lot three months ago. It doesn't care, you know, at least the administration at all right now. At some point, it'll swing back and care again. In the interim, what we have an opportunity in Canada, and we should take this opportunity, is to leapfrog the Americans on this.

Well, America's turning inward and turning back the clock on some of these issues, there is an opportunity to really move ahead. That's what the Chinese and the Koreans did the first time around. The Europeans and fits and starts are moving in this direction. They need to more fully get their act together. But we can drive that forward. It's got to be ruthlessly commercial. It's got to be the kind of thing that, you know, Anthony would invest in,

just to be clear, aspirational. So that's the first on that. So hold on. So you're more interested in Anthony's views on climate than, say, Greta's. I, yeah, we are conscious that, yeah, if you give me those two pulls, that's, that's right. I'll just. But I'm, but Alist, I'm a climate realist. I'm not a climate denier. I'm more interested in Anthony or someone he, you know, broadly represents investing in, something that's going to get emissions down but is going to make money and create jobs here in Canada. That's the punchline and that's the big. But then the second thing, I think the

diversity, like you, War on Woke, which is the term of the moment, you know, there is a big, big difference between Canada and the United States. We're very different countries. And it's, this is, this is a country where you do have multiple identities. You're all Canadian, but you you have your heritage, it's more prominent than it is in the U.S. I mean, there's some exceptions in the U.S. We have the, I'll say the indigenous peoples, not the term we would necessarily use, they are first nations in Canada.

They are first nations. It is a totally, bilingualism. We are officially bilingual. And these are all things that are unthinkable in the United States, quite frankly. I mean, the diversity element, maybe just a little less. although diversity and the promotion of diversity and inclusion is becoming an insult. And in some respects, you listen to some of the initiatives out of the U.S. could be a crime in the United States.

I mean, look, like, that's a big, big difference. And then you get into some of the institutional and social policy choices we make here. You know, healthcare is a right. It's not a business in this country that comes with challenges. But that reflects the nature of the country. So yes, there's those pressures. And if I may bring it back to the current election last point, I think these are on the table. Like, do you really believe in these elements of Canada?

Or have you been basically mouthing MAGA talking points with a Canadian twist for the last three years? And don't buy into them and wouldn't protect them. And that's, you know, in the end, that's the choice Canadians are going to face. I think if you're a full. full-time experienced politician, you've left that hanging mark. I'd have gone straight for Polly-Evres. Yeah, you're right, you're right. You would setting it up, but then you pulled your punch.

You know, I don't want them to, yeah, you're right. Fair enough. Go on land a few punches. I want to know about Pallierev. First of all, how do you pronounce it? Because every time I call him Pallièver, because as you say, it's a bilingual, I get told it's Pollyev. Yeah, it doesn't.

He doesn't use the he. So, Polyev. Polyev, okay. Polyev. And tell us about him. Look, he is, you know the type. He is a lifelong politician. The only job's ever had, he got his being a politician.

He was a political staff where he got elected to the House of Commons very early on, his low 20s. Said he was only going to serve two terms. He's end up serving, I think he's probably into his fifth. He's got the biggest pension, publicly paid pension of anyone. and he's that lifelong politician that, you know, you can only believe so much in the free market if you're a tenured professor at Chicago or you're a lifelong politician, right?

And he just sort of worships in that world. He defaults to the same solutions all the time. And he's also, I honestly believe he disdains much about the country, much of what I just described, which to me and I think to Canadians is the nature of the country. country, he disdains. So he's been on this mantra for the last several years. Canada's broken, Canada's broken, and Canada's broken because we're stupid. Canada's broken because we're stupid. And, you know,

he finds an echo chamber with Jordan Peterson and other people who he sits down and talks with. So there's a disdain for the country that he envisions. It's pretty awkward for him now that the country's coming together and is Canadian pride and we're under attack by the very people. that he's been cozing up to. So literally as we speak, he's trying to find a Canadian flag to wrap himself in and play patriot. Last refuge of a scoundrel the last time I checked. If I know my American history, Anthony.

Well, but, you know, why right now it's working. That's the thing that has people like me and Alistair and you concern. So it's not working, though, because now it's being called out. We're in a position where, if I may, where the consequences of these attitudes are becoming apparent. And, you know, so we have what is an economic attack, economic force to use the word of the president against Canada, a series of insults that were the 51st state and our prime minister as a governor, et cetera. And it's, and that's, and Canadians are looking for two things. Well, who, who's been defending the country and who's been running it? down. He's been running it down. I've been defending it. And who can build, you know, who can

negotiate with President Trump, but also very importantly, and I think this is more important, it goes back to being masters in our own home. Like, who is going to drive this economy forward? And that, as you know, Moog, it puts you in a better negotiating position if you're strong at home, right? You've got to be strong where you are in order to negotiate abroad. So let me just ask this question from an American perspective. The right, they disagree with each other, Mark, but they all locked together. They get very well organized in the United States. There are many senators, so a donor to some of them, that they dislike Donald Trump, but they'll say very positive things about them in the press. The left in our country, Barack Obama once made a comedy,

said, I'm a member of six organized parties. I'm a Democrat. Everyone laughed. But is that true in Canada, and if it is, how do you, as the leader, when the party's leadership, how do you galvanize everybody and have the organization and skill set to keep everybody in the boat the way the right does? Yeah, it's a great question. I think the first is that the Liberal Party in Canada has traditionally balanced the two. and so to use the color scheme here, red is liberal, blue is conservative. And so you'll have a component of the liberal party, which is a blue, you know, blue liberals

who are fiscally conservative, care about the economy, but also care about social justice. Then there's a big wing of the party, if I can talk about in those terms, that takes the economy more or less for granted and thinks about those social justice issues and where should we move forward on those? And the job of the leader is to balance the two. And when things get out of line to bring them back into equilibrium, goes back to an earlier discussion we have. I think things got out of line in terms of less attention on the economy and fiscal responsibility.

It's part of my role is, look, that's what I know. I care about those other issues. But I know that, look, we can't redistribute what we don't have. We can't be strong abroad. If we're weak at home, we can't build. for the future if we can't manage the present. So let's do all those things now, make ourselves strong. And that's what's going to ensure that, you know, we have big, I'll make one other point.

We have big challenges in our health care system here. Many countries do. It's a provincial responsibility, not a federal responsibility. But if the federal government isn't helping to make sure that our economy is strong, those provinces don't have enough resources to fix their health care system. I mean, that's the reality. And I think that's how you broker it. And I'm being very upfront with people as I go around the country, that that's part of what's at stake.

Mark, on the podcast recently, we put a shout out to Palliev to come on and do an interview. And I can't believe that there won't be at least somebody in his team who's watching this interview. So I want to repeat that now. They're in the log chat, I'm sure. else. I'd like to get to know better. I actually watched his interview with Jordan Peterson. You're right. It was a kind of, you know, right-wing populist talking point. Love it. But who do you see when you're in a, you're, you've got two campaigns running simultaneously. You're in a campaign for the leadership. Yeah. And you're in a campaign which you want to win that. And then you're straight into a campaign for the country. Okay. Very different challenges. Potentially straight in. Potentially. Potentially.

That's not decided. Okay, but you know, you don't have long. Put it out with. You don't have long. I'm going to see how many scaramuchis I get in this rule. And I'll be counting them. And just so, you know, I'm the official score. So if analysis says four scaramuchies, wait until I give the final referee review of everything.

Okay. Just make sure. But what's just tell me what's the core of your strategy to win the leadership? And beyond that, what's the core of your strategy? then to get elected against Polyeuf? Well, look, there are two things on the core of the strategy for the leadership is versus Poliab. It's straight against Polyev and straight more positively what we can do for the country.

I think it's important to have that. You've got to have that positive vision. That's why I'm in is to build the country, make us stronger so we can bring everyone up with our broader social programs and others. What has to come alongside that for the leadership process, though, is galvanizing the base, building the base of the Liberal Party. You know, we've increased the Liberal Party membership collectively. It's gone up almost four times to 400,000 members over the course of the last month.

I'm spending the vast, vast majority of my time, crisscrossing, the country, meeting with liberals. You know, we're getting huge crowds, thousand people out, that those kind of numbers, you know, minus 30 in Saskatoon on, on Wednesday. This is the, you know, and that's energizing, as you know, right, when you're going out and meeting people and hearing what, what they need and coming back and forth to them. So, you know, core for the leadership, apart from, I mean, basically it's a general election

campaign type strategy, if I can put it that way, going where, what we see for the country, what we're going to do, showing the sharp, sharp contrast with Polyev. but in parallel building the party because we've got to build the party back up and so far it's it's going well and when you sit down with your key people and you're being absolutely honest with yourself and with each other what do you define as your as your core strengths and your core weaknesses uh look your your strength is always your weakness um so my strength is i think you touched on it at the start my strength is i know how the world works i know how to get things done i'm connected I can deliver for the country.

My weakness is, you know, people will charge me as being elitist or, you know, a globalist to use that term, which is, well, that's exactly, you know, it happens to be exactly what we need. My weaknesses, a politician is I've not been a politician, right? So I didn't go straight into, as you observed, the killer. The point was right, but the delivery was, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I am, but that's fair.

I haven't been a politician. I am a pragmatist. I am a leader. I'm a leader of organizations. I'm a leader in crises. So that's the strength that I'm trying to project and it resonates. I feel it resonates across country. Anthony, if you were on the other side of a fight with Mark Carney, how would you take him on?

Well, he's tough. He can't be under-est. because he knows the policy and he knows how to come back to you in a very subtle way, right? So Trump has all that bombast and the right is, you know, like a rockam-sock and robot. So I would probably go after Mark on, and again, Mark, forgive me, but I would probably go after you that you left the country. You were at the Bank of England. You know, it's not a carpetbagger label because you're a Canadian native and a Canadian citizen. but I would try to position you that you're out of touch with the mainstream common citizen in Canada.

That's probably what I would try to do. And your response to that would be? Well, my response would be twofold. One is that I'm not because I live here and work here. And I'm, you know, my life has been in service or most of my life in Canada has been in service of those. of Canadians. And then secondly, who's more in touch with everyday Canadians, someone like me or someone who's been a lifelong politician, who lives in a taxpayer-funded mansion, who's driven around by a chauffeur and bodyguard, who has a lifetime pension paid by Canadian taxpayers,

and whose diet of news is from the United States, is Fox News, whose favorite people are podcasters in the US and who if you subbed out, if you could swap out Canada, if you swapped in America for Canada and in most of his talking points, you'd think, okay, this is Trump. I want to ask you both, Mark's out of 10, how surprised were you when Trump came in and literally the first other country he attacked along with Mexico was Canada? How surprised were you, Mark? I'd say six. I wasn't totally surprised. The relationship between him and the prime minister, current prime minister is not great. Number one, number two, I felt that he would want a renegotiation of a quick renegotiation of NAFTA. And in fact, I'll tell you a story very quickly. And so that's

the second thing, but on the morning after the president was elected, the message from someone in the government was, Canadians are anxious, don't worry, everything's going to be okay. And I contacted the PM, and I was like, why is that the message? Everything is not going to be okay. You know, these guys are going to come after us, and we're going to have to adjust. And it's better to prepare Canadians for that that reality now it happened so quickly that it quickly moved to dealing with dealing with that reality so i was i was i was i was somewhat surprised i'm surprised by the scale of it that i should be more succinct i'm surprised by the scale of it uh as opposed to the direction of it i did expect that we wouldn't have a good start anthony i i i would say that uh you know look it's

write down as checklist, right? I mean, so, you know, he's Vladimir Putin's president. And so what would you like to have? You'd like some destabilization of North America, some reordering of that. You'd like a lot of xenophobia and nativism in America. You want to turn the opinion of America to non-Americans as a cynical, harsher, harder country. And I always tell my friends here, the outside world looks at America very differently than we as Americans look at it. And so, yeah, I mean, he's doing very, very predictable things. I guess as a Canadian, though, I guess what I would say to you, can you wait out Donald Trump? And maybe Trudeau's message is it's going to be fine because we can wait him out.

You know, and the issue is, you know, is he ever leaving? I mean, there's a group of people here. I think he's going to try to figure out a way not to leave, at which point there'll be a constitutional crisis. But as a Canadian, you have your interest. You have to put Canada first, but you're also a North American. So how do you go about this more? I think I'm going to answer this way. I think it would be a mistake to just assume it is a mistake to assume that this is an aberration.

This is the second time the president's been elected, as you've detailed. And I do listen to you guys both on the rest of politics and Trip, Trip U.S. Who do you like more, Corny? Who do you like more? Caddy and Rory. Oh, ho. Oh. That was like a seven. Hey, Allison, that was like a seven, ten split in bowling.

Okay. No, that's in being a political. He's learning. He's being a big ten. I'm trying to keep. I'm big ten. Hold on a second. I think I've, I think I lost something down here.

Let me just pick it back up. It's a big tent. No, look. So I think it's a mistake to see it as aberration. This is a point. you have made, Anthony, several times, you know, the sort of depth in terms of, you know, the reorientation. I listen very carefully whenever the vice president speaks, you know, and there's depth in terms of the orientation there. So that's first thing. The second is,

where does Canada, US go medium term? Look, there are certain areas where it makes sense for us to be quite tightly tied under any type of administration. the nature of our auto sector, for example, conventional oil and gas, there's existing relation. I know the president's going after it, but just the balance on energy security. We need to diversify our markets for conventional oil and gas, and we will. I think security, including the security in the Arctic, very much, hugely important issue.

We're going to spend, my government will really focus on this, but doing it in concert with the U.S. makes all the sense in the world, and I think that logic will play out. But at the same time, an absolute imperative for us is to diversify our commercial relationships internationally. And, you know, we are the energy of the future. We are the, you know, we have the biggest deposits of uranium. We're the biggest non-China on rare earths and metals and minerals. We are a clean energy superpower starting and that's going to expand. And those are huge, those are great cards. And we're not just going to give those cards to the United States. In fact, we're going to play them with other jurisdictions as well as the United States.

And so diversifying that is important. And I think it's welcome to have a silver line on this is that the last few months have really shaken Canadians, if you will, or those who make those decisions, that that's what we need to do. How would you take it? Let's say you become Prime Minister. How will you handle it psychologically, politically, diplomatically when he starts calling you the 50th governor? Well, he shouldn't. But he will.

We'll see. Because? You know, change creates opportunity. And there are some serious issues between the country. serious issues that we can work on together quite effectively, the border issues around fentanyl. You know, I've made this point that I understand why the president has focused on that. It is a full-blown crisis in the United States. It's a very, very serious, you know, it's a tragedy in Canada as well, but he's focused on

America and we need to work with them on that. Issues around security and others, we can work together. We'll have to see when that serious conversation really happens with the United States, whether it's after this process is finished, we have a new prime minister, obviously I hope it's me, and before an election, whether there can be constructive engagement then, that would be the best circumstance,

at least or after a mandate from the people. But we will have a Canadian government with a strong mandate, I think, to negotiate with the United States. and my government will have many other options than just going in there and accepting a piece of paper. Pahliav will have the agreement written for him. You see what Mark is saying that he's not going to say because he's obviously, you're actually a really good politician, Mark, way better than me and Alistair. But what's happened here is Trump has been brief now.

Trump made his bloviating comments and then his team. got to him and said, okay, just so you know, this is the amount of electricity that California gets from Canada. This is the amount of aluminum that our car manufacturers get. Oh, by the way, we built our refineries in such a way to refine Canadian oil. Okay. And that's why that pipeline that they were all fighting over was put in place. And so Trump has been told by his advisors, be careful what you wish for with Canada. So when Mark is saying, we'll see, he knows that a reset up in Canada will give Trump a chance to reset because the Canadians, whether the Americans like it or not, can really damage the U.S. economy. And so, you know, Trump goes off half-cocked,

but he's now been briefed, and this will give more. And this is the most compelling case you've made for your prime ministership, is that if you want Canada to be strong and you want Canada to be vibrant, independent and sovereign from America, the Canadian people have to go, with you, Mark, because you don't want a slave in that position to Donald Trump. And hopefully the majority of the Canadian citizens will see that, and you'll be in the best position, I think, to keep the integrity of what we love about Canada. I hope your comms people are listening to that last bit, Mark. Do you want a leader or do you want a slave?

I'm available for 11 days, Mark. I'm a question for a slave. I expire. We need some front stabbing up here. Anthony, because somebody's only ever done the job for 11 days, I thought that was pretty good messaging. But, you know, he was still at 51st state stuff yesterday.

And he's hard to get off these schicks when he gets into them. Yeah, look, understood. But, you know, you can go from, you can go from that to a partnership. Things change, right? Anthony knows this. Things can change very quickly, and we can be in a position where we have,

once again, the greatest trade deal in history, which is what the President Trump described what they call USMCA as, and now he says it's the worst deal. I mean, it's the deal he signed. So things can go back the other, the other direction. And part of our job is to, my job would be to

accomplish that in a way that's best for Canada. But of course, you're not going to get a deal unless something also works for the United States as well. Underscored all of this, though, is, in the mood of the country, rightly, Canadians are very, very smart.

And they clocked the fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. And they want to build out from at home. We'd love to do a good agreement with the United States. I think that agreement is possible, but it takes both sides to come to it. But at a minimum, and I'm going to quote former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, conservative, did appoint me as governor of the Bank of Canada. So I own for that.

And he said, look, the country should be prepared to take significant economic, pain to protect our sovereignty versus the United States. Words to that effect last week, which is the mood of the country. And, you know, I'll give you one fact, though, which just, which is the hit from U.S. tariffs. Let's say President Trump does 25% tariffs across the board, including on energy and various things, maybe a little more on aluminum, a little more on autos. that impact on our GDP is significant, but it's smaller than if we move to free trade in Canada. We've got a lot of interprovincial trade barriers.

So when we talk about being masters in our own home, being control of our destiny, we can have free trade in Canada and offset President Trump. And that's before we do a bunch of these big projects and build all the homes and everything else we need. So if we really set our minds to it, we're going to be fine. You mentioned the vice president, and yesterday he was in Munich at the security conference, and he made one of the most extraordinarily charmless, offensive, infantile on many levels speeches I think I've ever seen a senior politician make. I'm not expecting you to agree with my analysis.

But I just wondered whether you felt, as I did watching it, this is really, really weird. these guys have decided that their friends are their enemies and their enemies are their friends. He's nicer about Putin than he is about Germany. That is weird. I think the following. I actually, I read the speech. I didn't see it live. I read it this morning and maybe delivery different.

I thought the points about, I'm going to call it liberty, freedom of speech, liberty. I think bare reflection. I don't know that all the examples are exactly as they were depicted. They weren't. Yeah, okay. But the general point, which we face is democracies of what is free speech and what do we allow and what is positive and negative liberty, I think. You know, these are important things in this age of disinformation.

This is a guy who pretends that Trump didn't lose the election against Biden. This is a guy who says the AP have been banned from the White House because they refuse to say Gulf of America. Okay. Okay. I'm, I, I. You're a politician. You're a politician. I'm taking what the vice president said, not what the vice president said in that element there.

I thought that the, of course, it's often what's unsaid, which is your point, which is that, you know, you're at the Munich Security Conference and you're not talking about the biggest threats to our democracies, which are China and Russia and Iran, particularly. And so it was, you know, life is all about choices. it was an interesting choice. But I wouldn't totally discount the, you know, these issues about freedom of speech and getting those right and getting the balance right

and being up front about how you get the balance right are hugely important. And, you know, last point I'll make, and I hand back, which is we have a real issue in Canada, as other places do with foreign interference in our election or in our democratic processes. And we've seen it from, you know, most of the major power.

including the tech powers, I might add, but also the major powers. And so it's a very live issue of how do we preserve a public space where it's battle of ideas, battle, you know, with common facts. So Canadians can make informed decisions. Mark, I got to ask you this. Put your different hats on that you've worn in your career and think about it historically over the last 80 years. Has America been abused and taken advantage?

of by the global community. And if it hasn't, make the case why it hasn't. And if it has, what does it say about where Trump and Vance are speaking from? Yeah, I think the, I'm not sure those are the adjectives or the verbs I'd use. But those are Trump's words. That's why I'm using. I think, yeah, fair enough. The, I think that, you know, the whole thing around Pax Britannia before and Pax Americana

after is that you're so dominant as. a part of the global economy that it's in your interest to support the institutions and peace and things because you get more of the gains of it, you know, you get a disproportionate of the gains. And as you get smaller relative to the global economy, that becomes less and less the case. Okay. So that's just a natural dynamic that works there.

It's not all altruism. The second thing is that I think there has been an element of taking America for granted and the scale of American commitments for granted. And people, Canada included, have to catch up. This is something that didn't occur overnight. It's occurred over decades. So there is some merit. There's quite often merit in what the president is saying or elements of merit.

I think what is most concerning, I'll stop on this, and this is a domestic and an international point, which is around the rule of law and what are the norms and structures that operate. And if I can go, if looking at you in the backdrop, the New York skyline there, you know, when you look at financial markets and how the global economic system is, you know, one of the most important things is you operate where there's rule of law and under certain rules of the game. And look, the rules of the game are changing pretty rapidly. I don't think the market is, you know, the market kind of sometimes goes through these periods where it doesn't realize things and then all of a sudden starts to price them in. I think we're getting close to that.

If this trade war continues to intensify, we're in a very, very different economic world. So yes, there's yes to the first part of your question. I'm just adding on some of what's at stake. Mark, we got lots of questions on the chat, which I've been looking at. We haven't got to be, as I said at the start, we shouldn't keep you forward than an hour because you've got a campaign to run. You've got to get out and talk to the party. You know, in fact, you should have been much tougher with us on the timekeeping, but there we are.

But we also got some, once we advertised we were doing this, we've got some questions from the global mail. I don't know if they've been chasing you, but they sent in lots of questions. They were really interesting your take on China. Your position on China in relation to foreign interference in Canada, which you alluded to there, what measures you take against China, if any, and what sectors of the Canadian economy you might limit. And it is interesting, this is the thing about Trump.

Before Trump, if we were having this conversation, we probably would be talked a hell of a lot more about China, instead of which we've been talked mainly about Trump. Yeah, so look, we have a very challenging relationship with China because of Chinese actions, Chinese foreign interference, which is well documented, unfortunately, well documented in previous Canadian elections and attempts at foreign interference. And I would commend actually our what's called our foreign office called Global Affairs.

Canada, that recently caught some more attempts in this leadership election, actually, against Christian Freeland, apparently from Chinese sources. So these are serious issues. There cannot be accepted and be without consequence, first thing. Secondly, you know, we had a longstanding issue with a kidnapping and effect of two of our citizens. And that rightly has had consequences. So the relationship with China has been deeply affected. And we will have some opportunity to reset, but from a very different, very different base.

elements of trust will need to be built up in certain areas. But the era of convergence, I'll make an obvious point, the view of the 90s and 2000s that there would be this economic and ultimately political convergence with China, you know, that's decidedly over ended a long time ago. And so we'll be very clear to eye in terms of our relationships there. Much, last question, I'll leave it to you. It's 2008, Mark.

Where is Canada? It's your vision for your beautiful country. 2008, we are much stronger as an economy. We have deep trading relationships with Europe, with like-minded countries in Asia, particularly Korea, Japan, Australia. We've got a balanced budget. budget, we've got full employment, we've got real wages growing, and at the same time, we've made real advances in terms of economic reconciliation with First Nations and growing jobs for

all strata of society, including very much, let me make two final points, you know, white working class young men and final point is that. we're confident in ourselves. We celebrate our diversity. We recognize it. And we're an example to the Western world that you can balance social progress with economic strength.

And we start to get a few imitators. And does the G7s that exist? Yeah, we're going to stop at seven. No, if you're not looking at. Actually, let me reframe that. I'm not sure. We could add, we're not adding Russia.

We tried that. We tried that. Listen, Matt, it's been lovely to talk to you again. Your team's got a football match this afternoon against Crystal Palace, but I suspect you've got to be out working. I will check the score at the end of the day. The big match or game tonight is Canada, United States, ice hockey in Montreal, in what's called the Four Nations. It is probably, it's the biggest hockey game in the country. 25 years, well, I don't know.

Maybe since we played the Soviets, it's the biggest game in Canada since we played the Soviets in 1972. And where do you stand on booing the American National Anthem right now? Well, when the U.S. team disassociates themselves from calling us

the 51st state, then we'll cheer the American anthem. Look, it's Canadians in the very, very short term have few outlets for their frustrations. In the medium term, in the not too distant future, I'm going to provide them with an outlet, which is a positive agenda.

But if the way they express themselves is to boo the American National Anthem, while our country is under attack repeatedly and daily, fair enough. Well, listen, Mark, I've known you for over three decades, and you have the right combination of kindness and tough. that your country needs. And so I wish you nothing but the greatest success. And I hope I can be helpful to you in the future. And I've enjoyed our friendship over the years. Thank you very much, Muj. And thank you, Alster. I'm obviously just too good. You are now my two favorite.

No, no. It's too late. It's too late. I already got buried in the chat. I mean, I'm ranked fourth out of the four hosts. It's terrible. I'm not even on the Olympic medal stand. It's just terrible. All right. See you soon. Take care, Mike. Thanks very much. All the best. Bye.