Raj-Russo -- The Liberals Debate Each Other on Iran

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And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with Altia Raj and Rob Russo.

Their Notebook is the reporter's Notebook.

From Raj and Russo, there it is. Look at that.

Look how thick that reporter's Notebook is that Altia's got.

She must have lots to say today.

And let me, let me concede this one point.

We're recording this on Monday night.

So in other words, last night, you're hearing it on Tuesday around lunchtime.

And you see kind of out of focus in the background in Rob's shot,

the debate that's going on in the House of Commons on Monday night.

And the debate is about Canada's position on the Iraq War,

Iran War. Let's get the right place.

Which is interesting after the last week,

because it really hasn't been all the parties have had worthwhile things to say about this.

But the real debate seems to have been the one that's been going on inside the Liberal Party.

After the Prime Minister's opening remarks on the first day of the war,

that got some Liberals upset.

And there's been a back and forth ever since then.

Some Liberals currently in the House,

some what they call former Liberals,

like Lloyd Axler, the former Foreign Affairs Ministry,

but others as well.

So let's start off on that point.

Was this debate in the House of Commons?

Was it the opportunity for all the parties to say something,

which they have been doing?

Or was it really an opportunity for Liberals to have an open discussion

about their party and their country's position

on the Iran War?

Let's start with Al Thierry. Why don't you start?

Well, I'm not sure, because we haven't seen it all.

I'm told it's supposed to go all the way possibly up until midnight.

I would be surprised.

And I say that because there was a caucus meeting last Friday,

where Anina and Anon was presenting to caucus.

And I'm told that they spent half of the caucus meeting

telling MPs not to talk to journalists.

So I really doubt that, yes, I know the irony,

but I'm reporting on this.

I really doubt that we're going to hear

a lot of fervent disagreement in large part

because the government itself seems to have changed its position.

I listened to David McGinty on Monday night,

lay out basically Canada's principled foreign policy.

He talked about the principles that guide our actions.

He talked about Canada choosing responsibility,

the promotion of peace, the protection of human life,

choosing de-escalation.

This is not the statement that Mark Carney issued,

Prime Minister Carney issued on February 28th,

when he said that Canada supports the United States

acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon

and to prevent its regime for further threatening

peace and security.

That statement had no mention of the principles

that he had outlined in his Davos speech,

where he talked about principled pragmatism

or values-based realism,

where he laid out the one of the conditions

that was guiding the King government's pragmatism

was respect for the UN Charter.

And we saw, and it was frankly mocked,

I might say, trolled by opposition leaders on Monday

for changing his position four times.

So the government has settled on a new position,

which you could say heavily influenced by Lloyd Axworthy,

or Wilgraves, one of the MPs in La Brocacca,

who did speak up publicly,

who's also happens to be a political science professor

at the University of Victoria, who's on leave,

so kind of knows what he's talking about.

And now we have a very different position

than what was originally intended,

which is giving the conservative space to carve out

their own message.

But it's also, I think, leading to a lot of confusion

as to what exactly is guiding Canada's foreign policy,

is it trying to please Donald Trump at all cost,

or is it really this values-based pragmatism

that Prime Minister was talking about?

Well, I'm going to ask you to try and answer that question,

but I want to hear from Rob, first of all,

in terms of his sense of what this Monday night was all about.

I've said in a lot of these take note debates,

and often they're devoid of any real insight, any real debate.

I didn't feel like that was happening from what I listened to.

I thought that there were some worthwhile questions asked

about Canada's preparation ahead of this,

whether or not we were ready to get people out,

or whether or not we did enough to get people out.

I thought both conservatives and liberals,

I confess that I didn't hear Mr. Bernal's shit,

made a good point, several good points,

about what we do have at stake.

We are not combatants, we will not be combatants,

but we do have something at stake.

Our standard of living depends on energy

that flows through the Straits of Hormuz.

Canada lost 55 Canadians,

when a Ukrainian airliner was brought down by the Revolutionary Guard in 2020.

There was a Montreal named Zara Cosmi,

who was brutally tortured in 2014, I believe,

by the Iranians as well.

We have things at stake,

whether there is a reason why we should care about this.

I thought that was worthwhile, those were worthwhile reminders.

That being said,

I don't think that the debate was as dramatic

as the debate that probably took place inside the caucus room,

and there was a debate that took place inside the caucus room.

All you had to do was look at Will Graves' initial reaction

to this online,

and his questioning of his boss, the Prime Minister,

and see how many liberals liked what he'd said,

and there were several of them.

I believe there was initially a cabinet minister who liked it,

and then, unlike it,

subsequently because she was brought into the line.

Well, we don't really know that, do we?

Like, we heard,

it was Mattel Sahimichel,

that she blamed her staff for basically liking videos

from all caucus members,

and then they realized what she had done.

I don't know what is true,

but I don't want to assume that there was something...

A heavy hand of the PMO coming down,

because he was...

Will Graves was not acting alone.

There are clearly other people who supported his taking on the Prime Minister

at a critical time.

So, I think that that debate probably had more tension

in it than the debate we saw tonight.

One could make a very interesting or entertaining debate

that Mark Carney might have with himself.

Mark Carney from day one versus Mark Carney from day three,

from day five,

and therein, I think, lies the Prime Minister's problems.

I think that he looks really polished most of the time

for a rookie Prime Minister.

But in this instance, he looked like a rookie Prime Minister.

Okay. He wasn't, by the way,

he wasn't in that debate.

Yes.

Yes, he wasn't, or yes, he was.

No, he was not...

He chose not to go.

Right.

I think it's worth noting.

I'm glad you did so.

Okay.

Apparently, he had some other event in Ottawa,

but nevertheless, after the past week...

He did, but you can choose to go

if you want to prioritize it, right?

Like, you can come after,

meaning with community members.

I think it may have been like a dinner

with the almost community.

Yeah.

Well, who knows?

Maybe by the end of tonight,

you know, if he really does go along,

this debate he might turn up in the house.

But, you know, all the dancing and maneuvering aside.

At the end of the day,

what's Canada's position on the war in Iran?

Do we have...

We definitively say we have an hour position.

Yeah.

Okay, go ahead.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's okay.

Well, Anita Anida Nanan called out

for rapid de-escalization

and a return to diplomacy.

And that is a far cry from where we began.

But that is now a Canada's official position.

That they want the fighting to stop in a hurry,

and that for this to be settled by diplomacy.

I'm not sure, you know,

I've said this before,

but when I was on the trip with the Prime Minister

and I think it was in Doha,

he was asked about joining the board of peace.

And he said he was interested in it.

And then he had to backtrack from that.

That tells us in this instance,

and in that instance,

what is the common denominator?

It's Donald Trump.

Donald Trump asked him that time.

Donald Trump was launching this war.

There seems to be probably

because of our trade situation

and the delicacy and the enormous importance

of our trade discussion with the United States.

That in both instances,

Prime Minister reacted and then had to backtrack

that his initial reaction is for an audience of one.

In this instance, he was reminded

that there is a domestic audience,

and then there's also,

he's the Prime Minister in a Westminster system.

He can be undone by his caucus,

and his caucus reminded him

that he was a Prime Minister in the Westminster system this time.

And I think Canadians would have reminded him

that it is folly at this moment

to put your trust in Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth

when they launched a military adventure.

So at the end of the day,

was this past week?

Was it just a blip?

Or was it something serious?

Does it tell us something about

the way that this government,

that caucus,

is going to operate in the future?

Was there lessons learned?

Did something happen this week

that makes a real difference?

Did you pinpoint on the calendar and say

that was an important moment?

I think a few things have been revealed.

I'm going to say five.

Maybe I'll lose count.

Well, Graves, I spoke to him last week

before the caucus was still not speak to journalists,

just so I don't get him into trouble.

And he said he read the statement over coffee

and basically almost spat it out

because he was so stunned that this was the government's position.

And he felt like he needed to do something

to kind of like save the liberal government from itself

and that if he didn't say anything,

it would be like,

we would be going down like a worse path.

And it kind of made me think a little bit of similar words,

or similar theme, maybe that Stephen Gabo

with a heritage minister also described

when he came out against the MOU with Alberta.

I do think that for some MPs who care

very strongly about certain issues

and they feel like their party is not reflecting

like the tenants of the liberal party as they know it,

you will start seeing a change.

And there are like on the MOU stuff,

I think there's been a few changes on the background,

at least the government realizes that maybe it has

some vulnerabilities on the environmental front around Mr. Perney.

I think this front we've clearly seen a change happen.

The other thing that we've seen this week

is that there is,

the Obsistence has tried for several weeks,

probably months,

to try to suggest that Carnie says,

one thing to one group of people

and another thing to different groups of people

and he doesn't really have any values that he seeks to.

And that fits in that frame.

I don't know if their messaging is going to start getting traction.

I mean, clearly Paul suggests that it's not,

but you can see that this fits the narrative

that they're trying to create.

Something else I think is worth noting,

which you just said,

is that Prime Minister Carnie did not go to the house

for this debate.

And this has been causing him problems for the past week.

And he chose not to come.

He also chose not to come to question period.

When he is an Ottawa,

he often does not come to question period.

He does not value the legislature,

even though I certainly criticize Justin Trudeau

for not going to question period all the time.

But Mr. Carnie has been to question period four times this year

since the house came back in January.

He doesn't mean when he does that.

Does he not basically take all the questions?

No, he does not.

Justin Trudeau did that.

Mr. Carnie does not do that.

He does not.

No.

So he's in Ottawa.

When the shooting in Tumblr Ridge happened,

he came down to address the House of Commons.

But he had not been in question period that day.

But he's in the building.

So I do think that there is kind of a lack of respect

for the institution of parliament.

And you hear it from MPs,

special opposition MPs and senators who feel like the government

is railroading legislation through that through,

mainly we've talked about C5 and C50 in these bills.

But I do think that that is another kind of like sub theme

from what has happened this week.

Now I feel I've spoke too much.

And there are two other points.

No, don't remember what they are.

But I'm sure we'll come back to it.

Okay, well let me ask Rob the question this way.

Because I can tell you, whenever we do a thing like this

and the same with the good talk crowd on Fridays,

if it comes across like its criticism of Mark Carnie,

the letters pour in.

Yeah, people don't like it.

They don't want to hear that Mark Carnie has made a stumble

or a misstep.

Because they reflect what the polls are reflecting.

There's a lot of respect.

There's a lot of light for Mark Carnie.

More so than necessarily as government,

they really like him.

And they don't want to hear anybody putting them down.

So this is interest because I know the mail will come in again.

Tomorrow, later today and tomorrow,

from those who feel that way.

And some of them will write and say,

you know, I never voted liberal until Carnie.

And here you guys are dumping on them already.

What do you say to that?

Obviously you guys have a job to do.

You're covering parliament.

You're covering what's happening in the corridors.

And that's what's happening.

But what do you say to the viewers like that?

Who write letters like that?

Our job is not to wave pom-poms.

Our job is not to cheer for any particular politician,

any particular prime minister,

any particular party leader.

Our job is to call balls and strikes.

And when we don't do that,

that's when we get into trouble.

I think the prime minister, obviously very intelligent man,

if he was asked, he would say, yes, I spoke too soon.

I moved too quickly.

Politicians are loath to admit that they made a mistake.

I think Carnie has shown a few times since he's been prime minister

in the last, it's now 11 months almost a year,

that he is quick to acknowledge when he made a mistake.

I would be interested in hearing him

on whether or not he acknowledges that he moved too quickly.

I'm reminded of Stephen Harper, who was very quick

in 2003 to support George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq

on the pretext of Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction.

I think if you asked Stephen Harper that question now,

he would admit that that was a mistake.

John Cretzian gets a lot of credit for saying no

because the United Nations didn't sanction Iraq.

A lot of people don't bring up the fact that John Cretzian said yes

to Afghanistan where we lost 155 Canadians

and where we just ended up turning it back to the Taliban

after a really bitter deadly war that cost us blood and treasure.

I can't imagine how many billions.

I would be interested in whether or not John Cretzian now regrets

whether or not that was a just war as well.

So, you know, Afghanistan was a little different.

First of all, it was 159 Canadians, including the public servant

who died there.

But that was a NATO mission, right?

The United States had been attacked.

Iraq was a different situation.

But in terms of Stephen Harper, I can remember asking him in 2011,

I asked each of the party leaders during that campaign.

What was one thing that they did that they regretted in their political life?

And that's a year right, that's exactly what Harper said.

He said he regretted buying into the intelligence in 2003 about Iraq.

And he was sorry, done that.

And in this case, you're buying into the...

You're buying in Pete Hegsett and Donald Trump's war.

But that should give any potential leader pause.

Well, you know, I watched Trump this evening, Monday evening,

as we're recording this.

He sounds like he's ready to declare victory and get out,

which is exactly what Janus Stein said earlier today on the bridge.

But he's looking for that excuse.

I mean, he hasn't got victory yet, but you can declare victory and say I'm done.

I mean, he didn't do that, but he came offly close to doing that tonight,

so we'll see where the week leads.

Okay, let's get back on track here.

Before I take a break,

you know, in the past couple of weeks, we've seen both the Prime Minister

and the opposition leader on the road out of the country,

making big speeches in different places.

I can't remember the last time that happened.

We're both the number one in the number two figure in Canadian politics.

We're both in foreign capitals and non-un-significant ones with major speeches.

Any thought about that? Is there anything you want to say about that?

I'll see you.

Not particularly.

I really enjoy when they give long speeches to international audiences,

because they tend to pick venues where they're more comfortable.

And the conversation, I don't know, it feels like they let their guard down,

and they're more revealing.

Like in the conversation in India, for example, we heard from Mark Carney

that he and Donald Trump had talked about the possibility of Iran.

And he's never since mentioned it.

In fact, now the government says they were absolutely not consulted,

but that this could be a possibility, he said,

in that sit down with the journalists in Mumbai.

In Australia, he talked about how the war basically was spreading across the region

and that was entirely predictable.

I got a little upset on that issue.

Because I thought if you knew it was predictable,

then maybe you should tell Canadians to get out of the region.

That would be the wise thing to do while there's still commercial flights.

But I find, so I enjoy that.

What to make of Pierre Pauliev and Mark Carney speaking to different audiences at the same time?

Nothing. I don't find it particularly insightful,

but I do think Pierre Pauliev is trying to kind of rebrand himself a little bit.

I think his interview with you did more for that though than his trip to Germany or London.

Rob, what did you make of it?

Well, we're in a plan in our history where we are compelled to go abroad.

What's interesting about the Prime Minister's fortunes and going abroad

was he has been launched in a higher-earth orbit according to the polls

because of his Davos speech.

And I think that that prompted Mr. Pierreiev to go abroad as well.

I think he felt like he needed the patina of that sort of stature,

being somebody that was consulted, listened to,

that would have things to say on the international stage.

It's rare in Canada that foreign policy plays a part in our politics.

Clearly, it has in this case.

Going back to your interview with Mr. Pierreiev,

though you asked him why not Washington, I believe,

because he chose to go to London and chose to go to Germany.

There was a poll, a recent poll by Abakus just a few days that came out recently.

And it showed that Mr. Carney was favored over Mr. Pierreiev

and handling relations with the United States under Donald Trump by 55 to 17.

So there's no way Mr. Pierreiev could go to Washington.

He's not seen as trustworthy on Washington.

He needed to build trust abroad.

But Washington was never going to be on his agenda.

And I think those numbers explain why.

Okay, we're going to take our break.

I was going to wait to the end of the show to say this, but I'll say it now,

because you both mentioned the interview I did with Pauliev.

There's one thing I didn't share with the audience about that that I should have shared

in terms of straight-up transparency.

At one point during that interview, I asked Mr. Pauliev,

we were talking about defense contracting.

I said, you know, I said the F-35 or the Gryppin fighter jet.

He said, I'm not going to get into that right now.

There's two early in the process.

I said, okay, German submarine or Korean submarine.

And he basically gave the same answer.

So that was it. We moved on.

What I didn't share with you and I should have is that, you know,

in my life outside of podcasting, which involves a lot of different things.

As many of you know, as I've talked about in the past,

I'm actually doing some contract work for the Korean submarine manufacturer.

And I probably should have mentioned that.

Not probably, I should have.

I should have been more transparent about that.

Not that the answer got us anywhere.

But nevertheless, that was that.

And I mentioned it now out of that question of transparency.

I should have done that.

Okay, we're going to take a break.

We'll be right back right after this.

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Anyway, you bank.

And welcome back here listening to the bridge.

The Tuesday episode.

It's the Raj Russo reporter's notebook.

I'll see a Raj from the Toronto star, Rob Russo, from the economist.

Now, Rob, we've mentioned on one side of his screen as a television,

as watching the debate going on in House of Commons as recorded on Monday night.

If you look hard at the rest of the screen,

you can probably tell he's in a hotel room.

So he's no longer here.

I hope.

The laundry's clean.

I mean, there's room service is knocking at the door there.

And where is he?

He's in Alberta, again.

And quite frankly, a lot of us have been going to Alberta already this year.

I've been...

A couple of times, I think.

Shantel, I know it's been a couple of times.

This is Rob's second or third trip there in the last year.

And this is interesting.

It shows that the spotlight is in many ways on Alberta for a lot of different reasons.

But perhaps primarily one reason.

It's all related to oil, pipelines, referendum.

And they're all kind of knit together.

Tell us about this focus on Alberta.

I mean, you're there for the economist, Rob.

And not the first time for the economist in the last few months.

So why?

What's the interest?

Well, I think a lot of our international readers are surprised to learn

that one third of the world's oil reserves are in Alberta.

And that's not true.

It's the third largest reserves, proven reserves in the world are in Alberta.

That is a huge, huge resource.

It's particularly important and germane now.

The other thing that my readers are surprised by is the level of discontent in Alberta.

I would say frustration.

I'm careful, careful not to exaggerate the support for independence or separatism.

I went to a pop-up petition signing in sort of the North Calgary.

And watch people come by to sign up.

I have to say that there wasn't a lot of activity there.

And that for everybody that turned up to sign during the hour and a half, I was there.

There are also people who slowed down, rolled down their windows,

and hurled sulfurous epithets at the people collecting signatures as well.

I was surprised by that.

I was surprised that the, the vociferous, the sort of passion.

And the mean is quite frankly of those taking on the people gathering signatures for independence.

So there's real passion here.

What else am I surprised?

I'm surprised at the evolution in the stand of some of the supporters, some of the leaders of the independence movement here.

Some of them now say it was a mistake for us to go to Washington, which surprised me.

Then there are others who have their position has clearly evolved.

There's a word that's very much involved.

Lots of people, you know, were saying some of them that we have a few options.

One of them is to be a U.S. territory, one of them is to be a U.S. state.

Those are part of, well, they cannot run faster and farther away from Donald Trump than they have been lately.

And why? Because Donald Trump is a loser.

So those are the things that I come back and I've seen since I've been here that are kind of new developments.

And I've also been surprised at the shyness, the reticence of a lot of federalist potential leaders to get out there and get in the game.

The business community is talking about it.

They talk about it a great deal amongst themselves.

They don't want to talk publicly about it.

They don't.

So there's passion on the street, reticence to talk about it in the boardrooms,

some resident reticence to talk about it amongst federal leaders as well.

So I've always found the province heartbreakingly beautiful, fascinating politics.

And this story is evolving in ways that are very, very interesting as well.

Just before I get to Althea, what was it they were hurling?

Selfers epithets.

So what they would, they'd call them traders with some spiky profanity around the word traders.

The people collecting signatures were invited to go to the United States and jump into Donald Trump's lap, that sort of thing.

Althea, you've been to Alberta a number of times too.

And tell me about your thoughts on that.

This focus that we have, that the Eastern media, or Central Canadian media, call them whatever you want,

have determined that Alberta should be a place we not only report on, but report from.

I think there's a few things. First of all, this calendar year, like 2026,

I've only been to Alberta because of the conservative convention, but yes, I do spend a fair bit of time in Alberta,

but I have family in Alberta too.

I think part of it is Danielle Smith, if we go back a little bit before.

You know, she introduced a number of pieces of legislation that were quite controversial using the notwithstanding clause.

The sovereignty movement obviously in Alberta has always interested in sovereignty movements,

whether they're in Quebec or in Alberta is an interesting story.

And I think we felt like we didn't really quite understand how deep and how wide it was and what to make of it.

I think that's what brought a lot of people, especially last year.

And of course, the MOU kind of changes the conversation, the federal government is spending a lot more attention thinking about Alberta,

going to Alberta, and therefore our attention as well is focused on Alberta.

And now there's a lot of things on the to-do list between the federal government and the Alberta government to get that MOU kind of across the line.

There's several things that have an equal first deadline, whether it's the methane regulations or getting the clean electricity,

regulations like some fighting emissions that would be comparable through the tier system.

I think there's something else that hasn't even first deadline on that.

Oh, the provincial assessments, where we're already seeing the federal government, the Alberta government.

Basically open consultations to say, Ottawa just wants to have one assessment, thinking about, you know, can Ottawa trust basically Alberta to do that job?

And so you see the other way around, it's can't Alberta trust Ottawa on whatever the issue is.

In this case, they're like, well, Prime Minister Kerney has said that he wants one review for one project, not two reviews.

The federal government is behind the scenes, changing the environment, the assessment process, going from in practice five to what they aim for to, they don't need to change a lot to do that.

But there are people who are raising concerns that the assessment process in Alberta is not as stringent, if you will, than the federal system.

Anyways, they're in consultation. They will decide what to do with that.

I don't think I asked Julia to Bruce in this last week, the environment minister, if they were going to meet the equal first deadline on the clean electricity regulations.

They equivalency and it doesn't, I don't think that's going to happen. I think somebody is going to have to announce that that process is being punted a few weeks or months down the line.

The government is seemingly committed to getting this pipeline through the natural resource minister also said that.

I think he was at West last week, where he said the government is working to get the pipeline done.

Again, pipeline politics, good story for us. There's a lot of tension.

People who don't want it, two provinces fighting, indigenous groups wanting to claim their rights.

There's a lot happening on this coast.

There's something else that's happening that's interesting as well, Peter.

Kathleen Petty are a friend of this on her podcast last week.

Westman Carney is suddenly very popular in Alberta.

The numbers for the liberals are surprisingly high.

Again, are they ephemeral? Are they enduring?

We're seeing the kinds of numbers that we haven't seen for a federal liberal party.

Maybe since Laurie, for God's sake.

No, Alberta was in a province when Laurie was around.

Peter Trito did well there in 68.

Didn't win the province, but he did well.

He won for a number of seats.

There's surprising support and patience among Alberta for Mark Carney.

If you're not a hardcore separatist, you want to give the guy a chance.

People are saying that among those that I've spoken to here as well.

It's an interesting phenomenon.

It's funny because one of the questions about Canadian politics right now is how real is it?

How real is it about Carney, about this potential breakthrough in Alberta and Saskatchewan?

The numbers in Saskatchewan haven't been bad as well.

On Pierre Paulier, how real is it?

You talked about the interview, but the things as well in the last couple of weeks

where he seems to have, is it a new polyf, or not, or is it real, or is it just an act?

We're asking that question, interestingly, about Canadians themselves,

and how real is it what they're saying to pollsters, how real is it about polyf?

Can Carney operate in spite of missteps, which seems to have been the case so far with polling?

It's only interesting to me, I mean, we talk about it all the time,

but it's really only interesting during election campaign.

When there really is something, you know, as Brian Moroney used to say,

elections are like a hanging, they focus the mind, right?

I don't know where I was going, but this great piece of thought here.

I think there's a lot of hope.

I think the referendum question is ultimately going to be,

does Canada still work as a country for Albertans?

And that's the answer, like that's the challenge from our Carney.

He needs to show Albertans, frustrated Albertans, that the country still works for Alberta,

and that's not no small challenge.

He's got a formidable task ahead of him, and it's an important one.

Because there are lots of people who are considering saying yes to the referendum

so that they can pressure the federal government.

That adds more leverage to the discussions with the federal government.

Having covered referendums in Quebec, that's a dangerous road.

It is a very dangerous road that Canada could go down.

Okay, we've only got a few minutes left.

I want to touch on the by-elections because they've been called,

what are there?

Three of them.

And everybody knows that three more seats, if the Liberals were one,

one, all three would mean actual majority government in terms of numbers,

whether it would actually play out that way or not, and not sure.

But tell me about by-elections, Alty.

You've been following the three that are coming up.

Well, there's three by-elections, two in Toronto, Scarborough Southwest,

which the Liberals poached the provincial NDP deputy leader to run in that seat,

big coup for them.

University Rose Bell, where the Liberals poached Danielle Martin.

I say poached because there were rumors that she was going to be running provincially,

and so they've managed to convince her to run federally.

Both of these women are strong, centered, less credential candidates,

that Danielle Martin could find her way in a mercurnie cabinet.

Tec Bun is the wild card.

Basically, this is a writing to the northeast of Montreal,

that the Liberals won by literally one vote in the last election.

The Balequibiqua has been elected in that writing for many, many years.

And they think that they have a good shot of winning it back.

And the Liberals also acknowledge that the Balequibiqua has a good shot of winning it back.

And so it's not necessarily a done deal to get that one seat.

And when you talk to Liberals, especially those in the executive charge with the agenda,

they will tell you that a majority of one is not really a great gift,

because you have to make sure that everyone is in their seats,

that nobody's sick, that no one is at the bathroom,

that no one has a family emergency,

it would help on committees where they feel they have most of their problems,

because they need to court the support of the block,

or the conservators, because the NDP don't have seats there,

and either does Elizabeth May.

And so they could reset parliament and have a majority on committees that would help them.

But in terms of actual votes, it could get tricky.

I think there's a possibility that we actually have an election call the day before the election.

This is a general election.

A general election call.

You're still pushing that story, are you?

The one seat, I think in Quebec, they have a better shot of winning,

but had the seat hasn't been vacated yet, is that Exxon Bouliris?

He has the NDP seat, which is just north actually of Stephen Gibos writing,

and that's kind of like a hipster francophone writing,

and you could see with the kind of center,

less liberal candidate that that is a much better shot than Tecban.

But Mr. Bouliris would have to actually leave his seat,

which he has not done so yet.

Let me ask you, Rob, about Tearbonne.

Should we expect to see Mark Carney in their campaigning for Tearbonne,

or would he be best to stay away?

He's already been there.

He's already gone in with no sense, the by-elections call.

Not before the election call.

That's right.

Yeah.

Not after, sir.

I think the weekend before the election,

there's going to be the convention in Montreal, the liberal convention.

They're all going to be there.

You can bet that anybody who has any kind of horsepower

is going to be there ahead of time,

and knocking on doors, and pounding on pavement.

They need it, if they have it, hope to win.

It was a real aberration for the liberals to win that.

This is a writing that, except for 2011,

during the Orange Wave, has been solidly blocked.

It's writing the East End of Montreal,

that part of Montreal, historically,

biggest supported the parts of Quebec,

wafer, ever and ever and ever.

It's a BQ writing.

It's what it is.

It's not a liberal writing.

It's nothing but a block writing.

Why did they vote for the liberals last time?

Well, you can bet that the argument that the block is going to make

is you guys voted for the liberals last time

because you were afraid that it was going to be poisev,

instead of Mark Carney taking on Donald Trump.

Well, you're going to get Mark Carney, no matter what,

taking on Donald Trump.

You can safely vote for the block Ibekwa this time.

And so that's going to be their argument.

The argument that the liberals are going to make,

I mean, interested to see if they actually make this,

is you want stability.

The whole show that the parts of Quebec want to come back

is coming down because people fear the instability

of a referendum while Donald Trump is there.

The liberal argument is going to be if you want stability,

give us this vote, give us this majority,

and then we can really turn our attention,

keep both hands on the wheel, turn our attention

to what's going on south of the border.

Do you, are you at all on Althea's side

on this possibility of general election?

No, I thought that the quick call of the Violetions

short campaign periods suggests that that option

has been put aside, but boy or boy,

there are lots of liberals who are left a job print

in the carpet because they so badly wanted an election.

These are like trained political animals,

and the idea is that you try to stay in power

for as long as you can,

because it's hard to get things done

if you don't have long runway ahead of you,

particularly on some of the projects

that Prime Minister Karnie's talking about.

So there are a lot of people who thought

they're never ever going to get another shot like this,

that it's very unusual for a party

to be more popular a year after that's unusual,

but to have that to continue to go up,

to be maintained would be difficult,

so that there are a lot of liberals who think

we're given away a shot at getting that extra year,

that extra runway to do some of the things

that are going to take time.

Okay, you got 30 seconds if you wanted Althea

for if you want to rebut on election call.

I don't know, time will tell whether that happens

or not, and nobody's more concerned about that

than the conservators who are all worried

that they're going to lose their seats notably in Ontario.

I thought the Alberta thing was interesting,

because I think one thing worth noting

from the polling that we've seen over the last week

is how many conservatives say they approve

of the job that Mark Karnie is doing.

It's like 25%, plus I saw a survey earlier today that said 37,

but I'm going to go with the legit number,

a quarter of the people who voted for Pierre Pauliev,

really approve of the way Mark Karnie is doing his job.

That has to be really concerning for the choice.

Can I give you a prediction, Peter, for talking predictions?

Sure.

But now that I'm in Alberta, I ask people

who is going to lead the Federalist side here in Alberta?

Who should it be?

Because nobody's really stepping forward.

And somebody suggested a prominent person here in Alberta

that Pierre Pauliev would be the person to do it.

He's not going to run an Alberta probably next time.

And it would be a way of him turning into a national statesman,

the way Jean-Séret became a national statesman

during the 95 referendum.

An interesting prediction there.

It is an interesting prediction.

And we'll hold you to it.

You made it.

You're not recording this, are you?

Thank you both.

Rob Russo, Althea Raj, the reporter's notebook for this week.

Tomorrow, it is, what will it be?

It'll be an N-Bit special tomorrow.

We've got some really good N-Bits for tomorrow.

So join us then.

I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you again in less than 24 hours.

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