Good Talk -- Canada, Carney and The Iran War

Are you ready for good talk?

And low-dare Peter Mansbridge here, along with Bruce Anderson and Chantelle Baer,

it's your Friday good talk, and as we say, always lots to talk about.

We got to start on the fact that I got a lot of mail this week,

a lot of subjects, but you know, one of the leading ones was Chantelle's doodling.

We brought up last week. That's what she's doing now, right? You can see if you're watching us on

our YouTube channel, she doodles. I'm taking notes on the depth of what you're saying.

Don't look for too much depth in anything, I say. Anyway, people actually are intrigued by this,

and they all offer to pay real money if there was an auction on Chantelle's doodles.

I'm sure Bruce can find a charity that could benefit from this. Absolutely.

Okay, we'll get at that. All right, topic one. I think it's fair to say that now that we're

almost a year into Mark Carney's Prime Minister ship, that he's had a pretty good run for a year.

No major stumbles. I'm not sure this week was a major stumble, but I think it's fair to say

there was a bit of a stumble out of the gate on Iran. There's been a continuing period of days

where there's been an attempt to clean up on aisle three and it continues again today with

virtual meeting of the liberal caucus. I don't think Mark Carney will be there. He made dial-in,

who knows, but I need a non to foreign affairs when this is going to try and take it, and this

is to try and get some members of liberal caucus who are a little unsure of how Mark Carney came

out of the gate pretty quick. In support of Donald Trump's moves on Iran a lot of Saturday.

So I want to start on that and try and get a sense from you as to

how serious a problem this is if it's a problem at all. I mean this comes the same week as I'm sure

Bruce will mention where the polls look pretty good for the liberals, but this is a key issue

at least in this moment. And so I want to start with you Bruce. How do you react to what happened

and what has happened on the Prime Minister's statements about Iran?

Well look I don't know exactly what went into the Prime Minister's calculation in terms of

the initial or the subsequent thing. So I'm really just speaking from a distance. How do I

how do I interpret what we've seen over the last several days? And for me it's a continuation to

some degree of a disconnect between the instinct that all of us who pay a lot of attention to politics

want to have which is to to follow and analyze politics in 10 minute increments almost and to

assume that the public is doing that as well and so that something that seems like

is discord with what was expected or it might be a drift from public opinion.

Immediately gets discussed as a major flood or a minor flood or a flood of some sort it's

going to result in a public opinion problem for Mr. Carney and then every time we have one of those

episodes it turns out that the public is reacting somewhat differently. Now in my view what we saw

is a Prime Minister dealing simultaneously with a number of different important priorities.

One important priority is we're at a critical juncture in the Canada U.S.-Mexico trade discussion

and it's evident to everybody that Donald Trump is quite willing to say I'm going to threaten you

with this or that or the other thing at a moment in time where I think a lot of Canadians,

a lot of different Canadian industries are counting on Canada not to do anything that will

cause the latest in the series of Trump threats. I think I read a piece this morning

that identified the six or seven times that Trump has threatened additional tariffs on Canada and

not followed through on them. So this is a recurring theme. We saw the way that President Trump dealt

with Kier Starmer Prime Minister of Great Britain and so I think it's fair to assume that that's

part of what's happening in the government's mind as it initially reacted. The second thing is

you know question that Canada has been on the record saying the Iranian regime is responsible for

great trauma to the people of Iran and great risk to the Middle East and to Middle East peace.

And so the assertion that we support that goal I don't find was surprising. It would have been

surprising if we said well we really think the Iranian regime is a problem but we don't believe in

doing this about it. Now the then circumstances evolved and I think what we also heard was the

Prime Minister saying we weren't consulted. We didn't know the nature of exactly what it was that

Israel and the United States were going to do and then the final phase at least to now is an assertion

that we're not going to rule out participation with our allies. In any circumstance we're going

to maintain a certain degree of flexibility to assess the situation and deal with it as it comes

and I think that you know some people will think that's the wrong approach to take that they want

some more kind of hard lines and principled stance that's taken. That's not the choice that the

Prime Minister has made and it's also I think fairly clear that and I'll finish on this point

that he's also not inclined to make up his policy position based on public opinion. He's

going to describe what he sees as a situation and what he thinks is the right position for Canada to

take and he'll take what comes in terms of the public opinion reaction. All right I get to

Shantel in just a second. I mean I think that the bottom line for you is that it was okay.

There were no problems in what he said. No issues about international law or nothing.

No well I think that do I think that was okay. If you're asking me do I think that it was

politics conducted in a way that people like to imagine politics can be conducted that there's

never a moment where you know you find yourself on the opposite side of changing facts.

Yeah I mean the facts on the field on the on the stage have changed.

The idea that the regime is a problem I don't think that's changed.

Um I suppose you know you open up by saying is this a major flood or a flood.

Right. Um you didn't seem to believe in either was it a bit of a flood?

Could it have been taught through a little more carefully?

Well you know everybody wants that instant reaction and without knowing what exactly the

United States was planning to do and Israel was planning to do you put a reaction out and then

circumstances give you different signals is kind of how I read the situation.

But do I think it was a major flood? No I think it's a major conversation that is a flood.

Yes. Okay um Shanto. Well I have for again to talk about

analyst rushing to judgment let's talk about the Prime Minister rushing to judgment.

I've been on those trips you have to um in the middle of a Saturday and a weekend is when

you have the least pressure to get a reaction from the Prime Minister which by the way came via

a statement that came before any other statement and that was very short and all of the mitigating

facts that Bruce is now putting forward. Now I'm assuming that yes Cosma is important but we're

not starting to get browning points by applauding President Trump before we even know where he's

going or whether he knows where he's going which is exactly what happened at this point.

Then the three-day silence over the trip not meeting the media

while it became more and more obvious that whatever the US has in mind does not really involve

a lot of well-taught ideas about where this goes from here is also inexplicable. I would

tend to say that none of this would have happened if the Prime Minister had not been on the road

and a different time zone that you do on the road things that are long distance it's day for

night so you're sending instructions probably you're not calling your allies or having chats

with them because they are sleeping while you're awake and so at some point you jump in but

I've also been on on trips that involved substance and Prime Ministers and one of those very long

trips was the free trade election in 1988 which took us across the country and which for a rare

moment in an election campaign was about substantial issues as this is for the entire time

and on that plane as you may remember there was a press secretary with a strong foreign affairs

background and a chief of staff with an equally strong background on free trade and when Brian

Mulroney set out on a limb or as I believe Mark Carney did over other weekend with his initial

reaction or someone claimed something about free trade one of those two persons would come to the

back of the plane and actually provide background context to whatever the Prime Minister

or whoever else was saying about free trade and that is how Mr. Mulroney won the free trade battle

but I go back to Mark Carney substantial trip is got people on that plane with foreign affairs

knowledge they are not in a different time zone if they realized that statement is really

short on specifics and actually not surviving the light of day and the reality test of what's

really going on with the Trump administration they can go to the back of the plane and provide that

instead what happened for three days was a game of hide and seek with the Prime Minister landing

in Australia with no events and no time to actually provide context on his own statement and his

own stance and I believe that that was largely mishandled do I believe that there will be damage

as a result of this to the liberals or Mark Carney no I don't I believe that this conversation for

now is a conversation and on this route is right that we are having but it's not percolating

at ground level can I see the what came out without context again that could hurt the liberals

over the long term is the assertion that you can't rule out boots on the ground or military

participation and whatever is going on because if that turned out and I never from one second

believed that the Prime Minister meant that he was going to join Donald Trump in this operation

but that was not said but if Canadians came to see that happen or the liberal caucus

I believe it would not only hurt the Prime Minister greatly and the liberal party in public opinion

polls but I believe it was it would tear apart as caucus but I don't believe this is where this

statement was meant to land it meant that if NATO is going to get involved if NATO countries are

going to be under attack and they ask for support that we will provide it which is a completely

different statement but again if you're going to have these statements on the fly with no context

do not be surprised at every leading publication in this country in both languages titled had this

on the front page because it sounded like we were not rolling out and barking on an Iraq-like

adventure now if the Prime Minister and his staff do not understand the context where this lands

and the memories this brings back then they need to hire more people with more political

sensitivity about recent Canadian history and where Canadians are wrapped on those kinds of ideas

you wanted to jump in there Bruce yeah just just on one thing you know I think about two two

quick points I do think that probably there was some feeling on the part of the people who were

with the Prime Minister and maybe the Prime Minister himself in terms of what they were trying to

accomplish in the in the trip that he's on Shantel City had no events in Australia

public events I mean I do think that they were working to try to make sure that what people were

hearing mostly about the Prime Minister's trip was about the the trade discussions the investment

discussions the economic and other partnership work that that this trip was meant to do and I

think there was a good amount of progress made and good amount of progress reported on

you know I think it's entirely you know fair to debate the way in which the communications

flowed out and the only other point for me though is that we're dealing with such an extraordinary

U.S. administration relative to anything that we've seen in our lifetimes both from the standpoint of

they you could imagine and you could tell and remember last Friday as we were kind of finishing up the

the recording of this podcast we were saying what's on your mind and I think I think I said

something like well it looks like the United States is going to do something in the next 24

hours which is I guess what happened but it's so unusual to have an administration that's so

uninterested in having those kind of partnership conversations with allies having those signals sent

that you know what a whole lot of things are going to be destabilized and maybe you should know about

it maybe you should work with us or maybe not but you should at least know about it be able to

protect your people or whatever and with this administration not only does that not exist

but we also have this spectacle yesterday of Pete Hegseth talking about redesigning the map of

the world or at least the northern hemisphere so that there's greater North America this kind of

instability I think does is part of what precipitates what seems to be an unnaturally inconsistent

flow of communication on something like this and it's not meant to be a political excuse or anything

like that it is just an important fact I think is part of the fact base of what we're dealing with

right now is that nobody knows exactly what the US endgame is are we going to end up with the

son of the of the killed cleric as the new leader is that going to be part of some sort of an

understanding with America about future relationship with Israel or with nuclear conventional weapons

we don't know and that's very unusual I think in the history of the relationship between Canada

and the United States seems to me like Russus advanced a lot of great reasons for taking a breather

before you sent out your first reaction maybe you want some answers to those questions or

you did did we just discover all this about the Trump administration did we have any cause

on the weekend to believe that in contrast with everything we've seen for a year this is well taught

out and we should sign up for with our support or maybe pause and say yeah I know these people

that are not always totally reliable so maybe we should do what we did I think in the case of

Venezuela take a breath here that has a rhetorical question yes and you know make sure that we have

a sense of whether any ducks are aligned anywhere because usually the ducks are never aligned

in any way shape or form under this administration so I still think the I believe Bruce is

totally right that the prime minister and his staff wanted to focus on the trade mission

but that is not how life works and since the prime minister likes this I we take the world as it is

and not as we would wish it to be that is also true of double weapons that happen when you want

people to be really focused on trade when they're focused on the Middle East exploding thanks to

our next door neighbor all right um let me just put a little a little bit more context around this

because the that statement came out you know literally within hours of of the attack being mounted

by the Americans and the Israelis and it was on the prime minister was still not at what that point

he was heading to the plane to leave on this big trade mission and I guess there was some feeling

they're I'm just guessing here I'm presuming that the there was some assessment well you know we

should get a statement out get this behind us so we could just focus on trade from here on in

and so they said what they said I'm sure if they had the opportunity to do it again given how things

were and given how we knew you know listen the Americans lie in the Trump administration lies

they it was unclear as to why they done it where they done it who'd led the attack who was calling

the shots all of that stuff what the plan was for afterwards a lot of that became unclear in the

hours you know following the attack on the Saturday and most of which were hours in which the

prime minister was on a plane I'm sure if they had the chance to do it over again they would have

waited until the first stop before he said something but nevertheless it is what it is and it has

unfolded the way it was I agree with both my colleagues that it's probably that it's not a major

stumble but it was a stumble and there's a degree of cleanup going on including today and I just

wondered before we leave it is this caucus issue a serious issue like our caucus members

some of them and some old party stalwarts like Lloyd Axeworthy has been a critic of

a number of foreign policy issues already by the new government but is this big enough that

they've had to hold a caucus meeting today to explain what the position is Canada's position

anybody I think all of this in the discussion that we're having the the media commentary about

the way that this week is gone I think the caucus discussion I think it's all healthy I mean I

just kind of look at it and say you know what it's better that we live in a country where we're all

talking about this and trying to figure out what's normal or what's better than what we're seeing

right now or how could we how could this have been handled better that's very healthy we don't see

very much of that sometimes says at the border and maybe in other places I don't happen to think

that the caucus is going to end up deciding that the the position of Canada is a problem

might they voice some of the same kind of thoughts that that you and Sean Talley have had about

the way in which it was done and I think point your point about when that first statement went out

and the timing relative to the trip and everything else and you're getting on it playing and you're

going a long distance you got to put something out and I looked at the wording again

Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon

and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security

you know in the retelling of it it was as though he hugged Donald Trump and said let's you know

you know go fight win or something like that I don't think it was that but it certainly was

interpreted by many people that way and and that interpretation led to a lot of debate this week

and probably the conversation with the caucus and I as he said that's all healthy

any of us weird on it as Shanta yes a couple of points the that initial statement but it's a lot

more supportive and a lot less ambiguous than the first comments from France or other European

countries to start with too I don't know if the prime minister is an aerial plan member but

I get to communicate from a plane so this notion that you need to put something out before you

get on a plane because you're not going to be able to reach anyone when you're on the prime

minister's plane I find that slightly dubious but be that as it may I also believe that the

caucus meeting was deemed to be useful and then became essential after the prime minister

would not rule out military participation in whatever unfolds because at that point I believe

that lots of caucus members would make sure that they are heard on the notion that they are not

supportive of which is not on the cards but they would want to make sure that we're not supportive

of anything that looks like signing up for Donald Trump's bid on Iran we are if Canadians and the

liberal caucus then would not trust George W Bush on Iraq do we seriously think that this liberal

caucus would say you're such a great person Mark Carney that we trust you to sign up for anything

Donald Trump does that will put Canadian soldiers in harm's way I suspect now

okay let's take our first break come back and we'll we'll talk about the flip side of liberal

fortunes which were the polls that came out by the end of the week we'll do that right after this

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and welcome back you're listening to a good talk for this Friday I'm Peter Mansbridge along

with Sean Telly Bear and Bruce Anderson you're listening on Series XM channel 167 Canada talks

are on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel glad to have you

with us um okay so more polls this weekend you know we like to say we don't you know we don't

really watch the polls but then and again we always end up talking like you always like to see

that and then and then he raised it like he was still in there for like 40 years but here's

there it is but uh since it's there we wouldn't want the cook to be unhappy about all that we're

going to waste yeah right listen it's been a long time since one party had almost half the uh

support of the country in terms of uh polling whether it's polling in between elections or whether

it's polling at election I think it was Brian Mulroney was last one had 50% and that would have

been in the 84 election uh but it's 49% for the liberals in this latest leje poll and the other

polls haven't been that high but they've been high and there's been a spread you know significant

spread between the uh liberals and the conservatives um and the NDP is just like not in the game

even though they're in the middle of a um a leadership race which leads me to

this question whether or not you believe the polls um are we you know I think Bruce used the

term last week we're in a we're in a two-party system here plus the BQ is that where we are

I mean the numbers would suggest that but is that where we actually are in the country are we

heading towards that a two-party system plus the BQ and Quebec you know one of the things that

I've been most uh surprised by in the last few years is the instinct on the part of some who do

the same kind of work that I do in the polling business to to predict the future and we all

follow victim to it I'm sure I've done it sometimes but you know I feel like if we

the instinct to sort of say because we've seen something happen over the last several months it

will continue to happen going forward is it is not a great instinct in this in this business and

that's just because you want people to buy more polls although you know that's certainly part of

how the industry works but it's just um there are so many different dynamics and they're not the

usual dynamics it's not like everybody is watching you read the news on the cvc or you know

occasionally people would watch ctv as I recall it but uh but you were always like the uh the

Oracle of the news or reading you know so it's how people are being informed and the degree

that they're consuming politics and at the end of the day we've got 15% of the population that

is at like you know two-thirds will vote one-third well of the two-thirds who votes 70% have made up

their mind so it leaves us with 15% who pay attention to politics and whose opinions might migrate

all through last year I saw people in my business predicting that unless

Mark Carney managed to solve the housing crisis by the fall he'd be in the toilet unless he

managed to solve the food cost crisis by the fall he'd be in the toilet and I remember thinking

there's no there's no way that that feels right to me uh and it doesn't feel right to predict

so I do think though that what we're seeing happening is a significant part of the population

who didn't like the liberal party for the last 10 years thinks that this version of the liberal

party that Mark Carney is articulating is a good bit with their centrism and their slightly more

conservative values and at the same time what we could have heard predicted and maybe

some did which is that the more of those center-right votes that Mark Carney wins over the more he'll lose

on the left that hasn't happened we have not seen that in the polling data um and that was true

regardless of how people reacted to the MOU with Alberta it's just been true across all of the

you know cutbacks in government spending it's been true across a range of things that we have not

seen the left decide no this this liberal party is too right for me we need to shore up our left flank

option where it goes from here I think does have something to do with who the leader is of the of

the NDP I don't see any sign in the data and we're gathering some I'll kind of share with you

guys over the weekend we'll put it out it doesn't look to me like Abby Lewis is going to be the answer

to that um especially if you can't get a seat and get a a soapbox um but even if he tried to use the

same soapbox he tried to use years ago I just don't see that working in this context I think that

the the sense of anguish that many left of center voters have but what happens with ultra-right

governments um as long as Pierre Paulier was that conservative leader those left wing voters

are going to want to have the liberal party if the choice looks like it's going to be between

liberal and conservatives so for the time being in the circumstances we have it does feel like it's

more likely to produce a binary choice but whether that's true for the long term I think is

very much up in here Chantone um let me kind of pick up where we're Bruce left off

I believe we're still in the same mode as we were during last year's old action campaign now

we are still looking at options as voters and picking whoever can deal with Donald Trump best

and I've looked at you know the polls and what you see is in February for instance

eight different polling firms placed the liberals in majority territory four of those polls had

the liberals with a double digit lead then literally this week put the liberals at 49 percent

well well ahead of of the conservatives what happened at the end of January the conservative

members who gathered in Calgary told Canadians you're going to have a choice between Pierre

and Mark Carney in the next election and on that basis I believe that people were even more convinced

to tell pollsters if we had to vote today we would vote for Mark Carney because they did pass

judgment on Pierre Carney last year and that judgment we have seen for months in the personal

popularity or appreciate in each and index of the two leaders that Mark Carney was well ahead

now you talk about the NDP and Bruce talks about progressive voters well there is no one

leading on that left flank that that campaign is happening in a universe that does not in any

way shape or form correspond to the narrative that is currently determining ballot box issues

and Bruce is right of the three it's not just David Lewis I'm not sure that any of the three major

candidates moves that needle I'm not sure any of the NDP premieres really wants to be working with

any of the people who will come out of that box and I have ideas for David Lewis if he wins and

wants to be noticed if not elected you should probably run in the Rosemond they's writing that's

going to be vacated by his only Quebec MP at least people would take notice that he exists and

it was on a message that they care about Quebec but other issues are happening that drive those

numbers the BQ tends to do more poorly in Quebec when sovereignty is back on the radar and a

referendum is on the radar which it is these days and so a lot of people and you see it in polls

saying I don't want to have this conversation now it's not the conversation that if Francois Blanche

wants to lead either but it reflects obviously on his party and then in Alberta a number of conservative

voters are looking at their provincial government toying with maybe a referendum maybe a referendum

on separation maybe not and thinking that's not the conversation we want to have and that reflects

on the standing of the Liberals in Alberta so at this point you've got kind of a perfect alignment

and like Bruce I believe that as long as the alternative to Mark Carney is Piaplier I don't see

that changing in the same way that like Bruce I did not believe that they cost of living our

housing issues we're going to suddenly transform the political landscape to Mark Carney's

advantage last fall Bruce yeah I just wanted to pick up a couple of threads so one thing that I

do see in the polling that hasn't been reported a lot but I saw another company see the same thing

and kind of put it out there it's a liberal party federally is becoming competitive in Saskatchewan

in Alberta which is almost an unheard of thing but isn't really surprising if you look at the agenda

that the Carney government has had and the relationship building that the Prime Minister has

done with the Premier Moe of Saskatchewan he's been on I think on a couple of these trade trips and

it was a big win for the Uranium mining company a chemical from Saskatchewan and the India trip

I think those relationship efforts and the efforts to to talk about unshackling a little bit our

resources sector I think those have paid off in terms of mainstream voters in those those two

provinces in particular saying this is a version of the liberal party that we can get behind I

agree with Sean Tal that the that the question of sovereignty and a referendum is reshaping

Quebec politics a little bit different effects at the federal level but we're seeing a tightening

of the race between the PQ and the liberal party of Quebec presumably mostly because one of those

parties wants to have a referendum that voters don't want to have I think our data show that

86% or something of Quebecers would agree with something that sounds like I might like the idea

of sovereignty but I don't want to vote for it now that's a pretty overwhelming obstacle for a

party to be kind of running at in the context of all of that that kind of Trump thing and the last

point is we saw a version of Pierre Paulier that I don't know whether it was the Empire Club or

the Canadian Club was you know one of those clubs in the economic club and then everybody

obviously you know saw the interview or heard the interview that you did with him and there was

a lot of discussion about this is a different Pierre Paulier and and I think that you know those

were two for him pretty successful communications initiatives and then I saw some of the coverage

coming out of his trip to to Europe this week and especially the clip that was put out yesterday

where he talked about net zero as grifting and bullshit and for the life of me I couldn't

understand why he would put himself in that situation especially after trying to establish a

different frame of reference for himself now why do I think he does that because I think he

can't quit the bots all of the kind of the rage farming instincts are still there and and nothing

so excites that hard edge conservative than talking about climate change but I mean the reality is

is it even if America is changing it has changed its position on climate change under Trump

something like 83% of the world's GDP is produced by countries 138 or so of them that have net zero

goals that of the biggest companies in the world presumably companies that can't even under Paulier

would want to attract investment from companies like Nvidia apple alphabet Microsoft meta all have

net zero goals so he he wants to wrap his arms around this orthodoxy of climate denial at the

same time as he wants to portray himself as a steward a better steward of the economy than Mark

I don't think those two things work together I think he made a big mistake and that again tends to

reinforce over time that sense of well one guy is really serious about this and the other guy is

playing a role and it's a role as a politician on to to to go to that trip I also talked that there

was a lot of Paulier that we have seen since he became leader that uh uh uh uh they was like

you know almost every day a bit more of that first page was kind of feeling off and the real

person was coming back to light um but I noticed mostly I saw that interview he was in a scantford

zone with like-minded people who happened to be usually a minority uh but I saw his comments in

Germany as promised that if he were a prime minister he would get rid of every single obstacle

environmental or otherwise that would stand on the way of pipelines and I talked to myself

uh I'm not sure he understands that the more he says that the more he is building a kind of

dynamics and Nixon to China dynamics for Mark Kerney that is if Canadians are going to come around

to the notion of more pipelines getting more natural gas or or oil uh to tide water so that it

goes to Europe or other sections of the globe they're more likely to trust the liberals to do it

because they have some I'm not saying great credentials because I don't want you to be swamped by

climate policy people who tell you why are we saying this but they're more likely to trust

liberals on this than they are to trust the conservatives uh neither choices perfect from

climate policy perspective or always totally coherent but if you're going to say I'm going to have

a bit of a leap of faith here and give someone a pass to build more of those pipelines you are not

going to do it for the guy who says I don't care what the problems are I'm going to come hell or

high water drive a pipeline through your heart to get more oil or liquid liquefied natural gas to

to tide water even if it means war with the First Nations war with the environmental movement war

with premiers and provinces that actually care about climate policy so I I'm not sure that

Mr. Puelly have realized is how he makes it easier for Mark Kerney to be the moderate figure on

pipelines by being who he is on this and seeing just black and white it's um it's a really good point

I work with a lot of companies in the mining sector and have for years and there were times when

they were just so frustrated with what they felt was kind of indifference on the part of the

liberals over the years to their sector and they don't see that now they see something different but

they also understand that to follow the rhetoric of the Pierre Paulier would mean that fewer and

fewer projects would ever go ahead because the rhetoric is so it's it's it's so kind of trying to

take us back to a place where the the role of indigenous people doesn't matter at all as it goes

to how do we find that progress that you know that symbiosis um which I think is is elusive and

to shantel's point it's not perfect and it's never going to be perfect including the climate policy

mix but I completely agree with shantel that Pierre Puelly have is creating more of a sense of well

at least one party is trying to figure it out and the other one is just saying well we're just

going to pretend that these problems don't exist or these challenges don't need to be overcome

I don't think it works you know it's funny um that interview that that I did with him last week

um you know once it was over um he got a lot of good uh press on that as a result of the things he

said and the apparent would look like a change in the way he positioned himself on a number of

a number of different fronts um and I think you know the they worked out well for him was a smart

decision to do the interview but within a week now well first of all at the end of it a lot of

people including myself were left with the question how real is this is this really a new

a new position for Puelly of is this a new guy um I didn't expect we'd have an answer to that in

the first week but some of the things he said on this trip to Berlin and London have made people go

oh well obviously that didn't mean anything yeah everything he said last week now I don't sure

I don't think that's fair either but I think it did raise the doubts again I think one of the

great things about your interview with him was that it you know our old friend Alan Gray used to

talk about those moments where you get a glimpse into the soul of somebody is that your conversation

with him brought out a kind of an unplugged version of him that we're not really that used to

seeing and we're not used to hearing an unplugged version that is kind of aimed at centrist

sometimes we hear the unplugged version that's aimed at the base and there was another clip

this week and I don't know if you guys both saw which is him talking about the apple chomping video

and I guess the two people that were asking the question loved it and we're like this was a great

moment you went viral around the world or something like that and his response was yeah we you

know when we did it we didn't think anybody would notice it or care it didn't seem like a thing

to us and I remember watching that clip yeah and thinking the average Canadians reaction to it was

why are you being so surly why are you being so chippy there was a kind of a condescension and a

smariness to it that didn't work and this many months later in an unguarded unplugged with the

base kind of moment there was pure polyf saying that was just me being me I don't know why anybody

should have noticed it so it was an interesting again glimpse into the soul a little bit the people

who loved it were the right-wing media bashing people they love that they love that and then the

people are disliked or they're also raised their heads not to be intellectual bullies and not to

use their intelligence to treat other people in such a manner okay we got to take our final

break come back with some final thoughts right after this bringing your business dreams to life

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wireless connecting changes everything and welcome back here listening to the final segment of

Good Talk for this week Shantilly Bear Bruce Anderson Peter Mansbridge all here with you and

okay introduce this one last week we kind of had a you know free flow of thoughts spin

what have you whatever you want to call it over the last 40 minutes or so so for the final five

minutes um what's on your mind like what is on your mind this week um as the prime minister

comes back to Canada the opposition leader comes back to Canada the House will be sitting again

there'll be lots of talk about Iran Canada's position what's on your mind um

Shantilly you start okay a couple of things the first is bio elections and why am I interested in

federal bio elections three vacancies to an Ontario fairly safe liberal seeds one in Quebec tell one

to whose result was cancelled by the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago because I believe that

there is still a general election temptation within the liberal party and those polls that we saw

this week probably drive that mood of what if only we could have a general election

um the narrative of obstruction and parliament doesn't work anymore uh Piaplaya has kind of gotten

himself out of the way but I believe that if those bio elections are called maybe this weekend or

when they are called will be a signal that the temptation will have been given a pass so I'm

curious to see if that happens I would also um I understand there is a major disagreement

between the conservatives and the liberals is to the identity of the parliamentary budget officer

but I believe it's incumbent on the government not to leave that post vacant and it has been vacant

for a week which is resulted in we can no longer operate because we do not have someone to lead

this office and it's a really critical post because this is where you go with here in MP to ask

someone independent to evaluate uh government budget policies so I'm looking for that to be

resolved and finally the Quebec polls really interesting Quebec polls um the show sovereignty is

that it's lowest point in decades uh and as predicted uh and Bruce alluded to that earlier the the

election race is tightening up why because they they the referendum plan of the Particle

is dragging it down uh and that means that we are going to have a real election campaign next fall

whose outcome anyone should be wary of predicting because as Quebecers resistance to the idea

of revisiting the sovereignty issue has never been higher than it is now and that is that is how

the Quebec liberals I believe part of the Quebec liberal numbers are based on the popularity of

the carne Liberals in Quebec um and and the same goes for the bloc but it's been interesting to

watch I'm curious to see how the PQ is going to handle this uh and what it does to their referendum

promise Bruce yeah a couple of things for me at Peter uh obviously uh I spent a lot of time

thinking about these uh canned US trade issues and I think the resumption of conversations between

Dominic LeBlanc this US counterpart is really important I think uh an important new dimension to it

is the destabilization caused by the US and Israeli actions in um in the Middle East and by that I

mean there are really important trade flows that are hugely disrupted by this and I think this

is going to start to factor into um the conversations a good example is how much aluminum is actually

shipped from the Middle East to the United States and that aluminum is basically um is being

stockpiled over there because it can't move so there are going to be dynamics to that trade

negotiations that are I know flow of the of the of the war in in Iran that weren't necessarily

part of the conversation before which I think are important and potentially beneficial for the

for the Canadian perspective if you like terms of what they need from us that we're already providing

to them that they decided to tariff even though they don't have a reliable source of supply to

to replace what they would get from Canada and the second thing is the the political dynamic in the

US around the the competition heading into the midterms we saw you know the first and maybe

the most important of the early primaries in Texas this week uh where the democrats chose

James Talleriko a really interesting figure terms of a democrat who's trying to

use faith as part of his argument to bring some soft Republican voters over to the democrats side

most important part of that was the democratic turnout in that primary was twice what it was the

last time so it's obviously a bunch of energy around uh those voters who want to see a different

a different house a different Senate and and somebody eventually different in the White House

you know you talk about the impact of uh of what's going on around Iran and and clearly

the impact on oil is quite it's quite significant uh price of oil now up around whatever it is

$80 a barrel is up like $20 a barrel US dollars a barrel more than it was before the war um

and that's not an insignificant figure on the one hand on the plus side you know for certain

kinds of oil extraction like the uh oil sands the higher the price the more beneficial and

economical it is to go ahead with projects and move forward on projects like that um on the

other hand of course the impact on consumers we've all seen that the pumps already a significant

increase that's got the White House panicking apparently uh inside the the White House and

Trump's running around screaming you got to get that price down how are you going to do that

and they're trying to figure out ways and tax credits in the Sun the other thing um but that'll

have an impact on everything everything in terms of affordability uh so that is uh that's a big deal

um okay uh thank you for this interesting discussion today uh as always i don't know what

shuntels doodles look like this week but we're working on that and i'm not showing you

i talked too much so not enough drawings okay um thank you to both and uh out there uh the

buzz comes out tomorrow morning uh seven a.m. in your inbox if you have subscribed no charge for

subscribing you do that at national newswatch.com slash newsletter uh and you'll get uh some of

the articles that i found fascinating this week um uh they who helped me try to understand what's

going on in our world and in our country uh so that'll do it uh for this week we'll be back on

monday janestine we'll be here and uh with her latest thoughts obviously on uh the Iran story

and uh and elsewhere um thank you boost thank you shuntel both of you have a great weekend

have a great weekend too yeah talk to you soon bye for now

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