The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge

00:00 are you ready for good talk and hello there peter mansbridge here along with uh bruce anderson who is you could tell from that cup if you're watching us on youtube he's in bainf we'll get to that story in a bit chantelle iber is in montreal i'm in i'm in good old scotland today Well tuned in, knowing what's going on. 00:30 And one of the things that I want to talk about, and there are a lot today, but I want to start off with this. 00:36 The Prime Minister let it out last night that he's been talking to Donald Trump a number of times this week. 00:44 He wouldn't say what they were talking about or what they accomplished in those discussions, so we're kind of left to guess on that. And I know neither of you will want to guess what happened in the discussions if you don't know. 00:58 But here's the question. The question for me is... 01:02 What does it tell us that those two are talking? 01:07 Away from the cameras, away from the microphones, at least as far as we know, they're away from microphones. What does it tell us that they're talking? Chantal? Chantal? 01:17 Superficially, it tells us that when the PMO issues a news release to say the prime minister has spoken with President Donald Trump, they do so selectively since no announcement of these conversations having taken place materialized. 01:37 I don't see this as either a nominous sign or a sign that things are about to get resolved. I see this as a confirmation that although we are in a trade war that has become an existential debate for many Canadians, we on either side have not burnt bridges. They are still there. They may be battered, but there are still bridges to walk back what has been happening over the past few months. I'm not saying anyone is about to walk back, but keeping those bridges functional is part of the job. 02:16 And I don't see this, if anything happened, we have seen no sign of it, but it is part of the job, I think, to keep channels open. 02:26 And we knew those channels were still open between Dominic Leblanc and Jameson Greer. So I always believe talking is better than not talking. 02:36 Well, that's what Churchill used to say, right? Yeah. 02:40 I don't know if it's Churchill, but it sounds like a good recipe for seeing if you can repair a relationship. 02:48 Sure. Bruce, what do you make of it? You know, I ask it because, especially from the Trump side, I mean, he doesn't stop trashing Canada in his public statements. 02:59 And he did it again through the last week. 03:02 And yet here we hear that the two of them have some kind of a relationship, that they're able to talk every once in a while, and apparently more than a couple of times this week. 03:12 What does it tell you? 03:16 Pretty much the same thing as Chantal. I think a few weeks ago when we talked about this subject, I think I used the term duty of care. I think the prime minister has a duty of care and Canadians expect him to be able to continue to have conversations with President Trump, even though they feel offended by a lot of the things that Donald Trump says. 03:38 I think that they expect that the prime minister can separate his emotions from the function that he has to be a good steward for our economy and for our country overall. 03:51 I think the other thing I'd observe is I think the prime minister gave a scrum yesterday and he was talking about whether or not Canada was going to react to the latest round of Trump retaliation to our retaliation. 04:07 And he talked about the fact that some of the things that the president did this week weren't as aggressive as the rhetoric suggested that they would be. 04:20 And I think that was an interesting point for him to make, because from my vantage point anyway, what's going on in the United States is that Donald Trump is in trouble. He knows he's in trouble politically. He doesn't deal with trouble the same way that other politicians do. 04:36 He doubles down sometimes on the things that cause trouble for him. 04:40 But the evidence that he knows that his party is facing a pretty significant threat in a relatively short period of time in the midterm elections, he's not oblivious to that. 04:59 We saw it in the way that he handled some of the, you know, his some of his speech in Dallas. I think it was earlier this week or maybe just last night, offering five thousand dollars to everybody in the United States if they would reelect Republicans to control the House and the Senate. 05:15 But the more important dynamic from my standpoint as it relates to the Canada-U.S. trade thing is there are a lot of Democrats who are now campaigning to win office in a matter of weeks. And they're talking about the tariff war with Canada that Donald Trump started as part of that. That's not their only focus. And they're putting it in the context of what it's doing to the cost of living for Americans. 05:41 But the tariff issue has become... 05:44 an anvil around the neck of a lot of Republican candidates and you can see it and how they're dealing with it a little bit too. So it doesn't surprise me that the president is interested in talking and it doesn't surprise me at all that the prime minister would have a conversation from time to time with the president during this period. 06:02 Well, I guess I'm asking it for all those reasons that you've both mentioned, because I have this kind of recurring image or dream even at times that I'm going to wake up one morning and there's going to be this announcement that the two guys, the two leaders have worked some kind of arrangement out. 06:24 And you see them plugging it out. I don't know if I see that, but maybe there's. 06:29 I mean, yes, there are people who wake up in the morning. I'm not saying you're one of those, but folks who believe that there will be armed forces from the U.S. at our border. Right. 06:44 I think my dream is more likely than that. 06:48 Although I think we've got to be prepared for any eventuality. But just the very fact that they're talking and they've got to be talking about something other than sports. They're talking about something other than sports. 07:01 There's lots to talk about. Ukraine, Iran cost fuel, Keystone XL if you really want to go there. 07:09 I fear when we go into waking up one morning, it's going to be like this versus waking up one morning and it's going to be dire, which would be two weeks ago. I fear we're doing something that we used to do when we covered the constitution. 07:24 That is a good day, a bad day, but nothing really happening. That there is noise, but no movement to show for this perception that we have. By the way, apparently that $5,000, people will not be able to spend it in Canada. 07:42 That's interesting. An interesting concept, considering that it's worth a lot more in Canadian dollars, and it buys you more. Yeah. 07:53 I'd love to know how he's going to monitor that. 07:55 Yeah. 07:58 My other not important point is Mark Carney shared a while back that he had the president's cell phone number. And to my point about the PMO not saying these conversations happened is I suspect they're not happening always in the context of Mark Carney sitting in his office with a note taker and the president and the White House and the usual channels possibly happening at odd times and without... 08:26 either organizations being in play to make them happen. But yes, this week's response, it was an interesting week, not just for the, and I'm not trying to diminish the impact of the US response to our counter tariffs on the industries that are affected, that is real. But overall, Some tariffs were taken away. There was a trade, like the US and the administration used its response also to adjust its own tariffs on Canada because they realized, as we did with seafood, that they were doing more harm in a way that was really visible. 09:07 But what I thought was also interesting is the president this week and Canadians have seen the limits of how much you can harm Canada without harming yourself politically and in real time. And that would be the Bombardier threat. 09:22 So we're not going to be buying Bombardier airplanes anymore. They've been cheating us. What happened right away was uproar in Kansas, where thousands of jobs are related to Bombardier and the same in Arizona. 09:38 And someone in Canada this week pointed out to me Bombardier was really wise to issue a press release lining all of that up. Sure, but people who live in Kansas or Arizona did not need a press release for Bombardier to know that they had thousands of jobs related to Bombardier. 09:57 And Bombardier was a flashy thing. I'm not sure it's going to come back. 10:03 in any way, shape, or form, but it did not materialize any further. And I suspect that's because the political reaction and the notion that you would be losing even more grounds that you can't afford to lose in the midterms was interesting. Final point, I can't resist. There are two movies going about these days about General de Gaulle and his role in the Second World War. They are great movies. 10:29 But for those who were older or older, they will also remember how the gold's demise finally came about. And it was because he held a referendum on something related to agriculture and said, I'm putting my face on the line, my job on the line on this referendum. Guess what happened? 10:53 People voted him out. And as I watched President Trump this week say, imagine in the midterms that you're voting for me. 11:01 I thought, yeah, that probably works in that room, but he's just told every other American that is not happy with him that they have good reason to go vote because he has made it about him. And I'm wondering if that phrase will come back to haunt him in the way that it actually haunted the goal when he believed that just saying I'm on the line would lead people to vote for his reform rather than vote him out of office. 11:31 That's a great story, and it's one that I didn't know. So I feel more informed as a result of that. Next time we see Trump doing that shtick, I'll think about Charles de Gaulle. Okay, let's talk about Banff for a second. Bruce is in Banff. Banff is where Mark Carney and the Liberal Caucus are holding their retreat. Caucus and the Cabinet, right? They're all there. 11:57 Just the Cabinet. 11:58 Just the Cabinet? Okay. And they've invited a number of different people from outside that circle to come and talk to them. And one of those people is Bruce, a well-known pollster in the country. 12:12 To try and explain the mood of Canadians, and I, you know, I mean, we've seen the numbers. The numbers are overwhelming on this issue, on the trade issue for certain, and the Canada-U.S. relationship. 12:27 How are you explaining it to them? 12:31 Well... 12:33 I don't think I want to describe how I'm explaining it to them. I can tell you what I think the major picture is from my standpoint in terms of public opinion is that there have been times in our political history where people are really attentive to politics and how they feel about the different parties moves around quite a bit. 12:57 and their anxiety level is high and their stress level with an incumbent government is also high. 13:06 This isn't those situations. This is different. What's been going on right now, at least in our work, has been pretty stable and high levels of satisfaction with the way in which the federal government is dealing with the challenge. Now, when I use the term satisfaction, it's not like saying people are sitting at home going, everything's fine. 13:26 It's as though people are saying there's a lot of pressure right now that Canada is facing and we can't think of a better way to be handling it than the one that we see being brought to bear by the prime minister principally right now. 13:43 But it's so stable that it really defines that idea that people are dialed in and kind of riding some sort of emotional roller coaster and reaction to things. They are, to some degree, having a lot of emotional reactions to Donald Trump. People... 14:01 are angry and anger feels right. But people do want an outcome. They want a steady, thoughtful leadership from the federal government. 14:13 And so that stability in public opinion in Canada has been a really remarkable thing. I don't think I've ever seen a context like the one that we have now. And I don't think I've seen stability in the context of extraordinary pressures the way that we're seeing right now. 14:30 No question that people are giving the government lots of latitude to make the choices that it thinks will be in our best interest, given the complex and dynamic challenges that the Trump administration has brought to the table. 14:49 Also true that people are hoping that we get to a better place in terms of our relationship with the United States again. 14:57 And whether they will or won't forget soon how they were treated by Donald Trump, I think it's easy to speculate about that, but it's hard to know exactly how that's going to turn out. I think people will want to feel that there's an America that they can trust and Americans are people that they can deal with on a friendly and mutually beneficial basis going forward. 15:21 I think there are other, you know, important issues in the world, obviously. And having a good conversation about climate change and how people are feeling about it, or AI, how people are feeling about it. I think those are the kinds of things that these kind of retreats or planning sessions are meant to try to do. And... 15:44 I could tell you what I see in the public opinion around those issues. 15:48 Let's leave that for the moment. 15:51 I want Chantal's thoughts on this and also a sense of how fragile that common feeling seems to be right now. Is it fragile? 16:02 It doesn't feel fragile at all. I don't think I've ever seen... 16:09 Canadians so massively in support of someone or something on a top line issue. Think free trade, think abortion, think the issue of the day. You don't see those numbers. 16:24 And there are variations by regions, but there are not the kinds of variations that you see, for instance, on climate with BC and Quebec mostly in, and Alberta and Saskatchewan, not so much. 16:39 You really don't see that. And when you talk to people... 16:44 You hear a lot of anxiety, anger is part of it, disbelief always, but you do not hear a lot of, I mean, the normal thing would have been some premier and some constituency, mainstream, I mean, not a section, a marginal section of the Conservative Party, going around asking people like us, do you think Mark Carney should have made a deal? Do you think he should? Those conversations are not happening. 17:15 It's taken as a given that Mark Carney was right to walk away. Relief at the notion that he walked away is more likely to happen than skepticism. And every attempt to kind of insert into the narrative, and I'm not criticizing the notion that you should question some of the presentation of what happened, but any attempt to spin that, for instance, in the Quebec election, Mark Carney said one of the reasons that it was unacceptable was Quebec culture and issues related to its protection. 17:51 And of course, there have been attempts to say, you overhyped it, or that is clearly not true. And it doesn't seem to have percolated outside the ranks of those who believe or support those who have tried to advance those notions. The Conservatives have had very little traction with this, show us the deal mantra. 18:17 You know, and you all know that because you've covered campaigns, you start to know that something is resonating when you hear people repeat lines that politicians have. The best example, I guess, is Stephen Harper in 2011 saying, I need a strong, stable federal government. 18:36 And suddenly people, voters would start telling you, I think maybe we need a more stable government. We're not getting that. in any way, shape or form. Now, if there is fragility, and it's a bit of a paradox, if we get to that better place, I'm not saying I believe we will tomorrow or the day after, but if we get to that better place, then all of those other issues that Bruce is talking about, climate, AI, Cost of living, housing will resurface. 19:08 It's a bit like the pandemic. Gratefulness only goes so far in politics. Look at what happened to Justin Trudeau, François Legault after the pandemic when they went from up there. to suddenly when the other issues resurface to maybe we've seen enough of those people and they're not up to the job. So it's kind of an interesting paradox, but it also is a reminder that nobody walks on water forever and storms of other kinds await any government once that big mobilizing issue fades from the radar, if it does. 19:49 Okay, I want to move on. 19:51 I will. I want to move on, but I'll give you a quick response on this, Bruce. Go ahead. 19:58 Yeah, I just want to underscore, I think, what Chantal is saying, that this is, for many people, when they think about... 20:04 federal politics, they see it as a very serious time. 20:08 And so they're looking for people to be serious. And I think that to the point of what Chantal said about the conservatives really not getting any traction with the show us the deal kind of stuff, they had a relatively good day yesterday, I think, when Pierre Polyev went down to the United States and And, you know, showed some sense of unity and a bit of grace, showed that he can be a serious campaigner on behalf of Canada's interest. And, you know, I think doing that or being more like Mr. Blanchet, which is kind of being quiet during this period, basically trying to stay out of... 20:48 the trouble that comes when you try to look like you're performing politics, when people actually want serious attention to the issues. 20:56 That's a big takeaway. And I agree with Chantal that who knows when that moment will come when people say, well, everything is more or less stable and I'm less anxious. And so I'm going to judge Paul. I'm going to use a different scoring form when I look at politics, but it's, it's not now. It hasn't been for the last year and a half. 21:16 You know, I'm glad you mentioned that Polyev thing because it's not a new position of his. I mean, he outlined it in that interview I did with him in the spring, that if he was in the U.S. or any country outside of Canada, he would not criticize the prime minister or the Canadian government's actions, that that's not the place for the opposition leader to do that. It does it at home. 21:40 Yeah. 21:41 He was very clear saying that again yesterday or the day before on U.S. television. 21:48 To the point where I almost wondered whether that was the whole reason he went to the U.S., to do that interview and to make that statement. 21:56 Because it did look like he was, you know, he's not part of the team, right? 22:01 But he is part of the United Front that Canada is trying to put forward. 22:06 But the difference between that interview and today is the risks to Pierre Poilier for doing that yesterday have become greater. 22:14 And I don't mean from the average Canadian's perspective, but from the internal perspective. You saw immediately, Jamil Givani, MPU has been going rogue on the issue, come out with a, they always tell you to just line up behind the Liberals and they're doing it now and this is wrong. He didn't name Poilier, but this was clearly not a statement that was aimed at the Prime Minister. So you can see that the There are the internal tensions in the conservative movement are becoming greater. 22:47 And what Mr. Poiliev did this week, I think, was rally people. I saw Jason Kenney having good words about what he was doing. Try to rally that side of the party back to him because there is a realization in conservative ranks that the after Poilievre thing is not guaranteed to deliver a more saleable leader as opposed to a more marginal one. 23:17 And so I think a lot of what happened this week was no longer for can we improve Pierre Poilier's position in the polls. It's about I'm you know this is my side take it or leave it uh and whoever answers the call and i saw some senior conservatives answer that call and say well this is yes where we should be and where our leader should be so as interesting times which will be become more interesting when i know you want to talk about this topic later if and when stephen harper delivers the closing remarks at the investment summit that the Prime Minister is hosting next week. 23:58 Yeah, that is next up on my conversation list is the investment summit. 24:04 I do wonder on Jamil Giovanni, do you think he cares, like Polyev, do you think he cares at this point anymore about what Giovanni says? 24:15 He's got to care because a section of his caucus, and I include in that virtually every Quebec member of his caucus, but not only, has saying do something. But the problem is that there is no certainty that if Mr. Poilier wanted to do what he should be doing, which is say, you know, if you're not inside the tent, then leave the tent. There is no certainty that he can win a caucus vote on that. 24:43 So he doesn't have a choice but to care because there are MPs who are saying we can't put up with this anymore. 24:51 We can't sit in a caucus that has freelancing for the pro-MAGA side so publicly and in defiance of the leader. 25:02 So which way does Poliev turn these days to see good news? 25:09 Okay, I think that answer tells us all we need to know. 25:12 There's no good news for him in politics. I mean, one of the other things that sort of Chantel alluded to, I think the remarkable aspects of public opinion now. 25:25 I was just watching in the day or two leading up to this Banff meeting and the evidence of liberal ministers being in Alberta. You know, Minister Champagne, I think, was the finance minister was in Olds, Alberta, and somebody was saying that's the first time a federal liberal cabinet minister's ever been there. I think Tim Hodgson was in Fort McMurray. 25:50 And why I'm bringing that up is that Obviously, part of what's going on is there's concern about the Alberta referendum and a desire to kind of stress the relevance of the Canadian Union to people in Alberta. 26:06 But the first time I ever came to Calgary was the day after the National Energy Program. And I came with the Liberal Cabinet Minister that I was working with. And we went and he spoke at a lunch at the Petroleum Club and people threw their bread rolls at him. 26:22 And so fast forward to today and the relationship between this federal government and Albertans is a lot different. I'm not saying it's perfect and people are, there's still a lot of grievances there, but it is quite different. And I think that's another challenge that Pierre Polyev faces. If he looks at the so-called heartland of conservative party support, Um, Mark Carney has been kind of eating his lunch a little bit in terms of his relationship with Premier Mo in Saskatchewan and obviously some of the work that he's been doing around the energy file. 27:07 But I'm with Chantal. He can't afford, Pierre Polly can't afford to take this seriously, but I think he also can't afford to keep Jamil Giovanni in his caucus for very much longer because it just makes him look as though he's weak and he's being a victim. 27:23 Okay, I've got to take a break. I'm going to shuffle the deck a little bit. We will get to the investment summit. But seeing as you've touched on the Alberta referendum, I want to touch on that as well. So we'll do that next. But that's all right after this. 27:45 And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge for this Friday. 27:48 This is Good Talk, of course, with Chantelle Hébert and Bruce Anderson. 27:53 You're listening on SiriusXM, Canada Talks, or listening on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Glad to have you with us. 28:03 The buzz comes out tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. in your inbox. Look for that. 28:09 Okay. 28:12 The Alberta Referendum. 28:14 We're, what, just over a month away from that now. 28:20 And some of the stories this week have suggested, it's funny, it's ironic in a way, because six months ago this was starting to build up. A lot of people were saying, boy, they better not make the same mistake that the no side, the Canada side, made in the 95 referendum in Quebec by not being organized and taking a lot of things for granted. Right? 28:44 You're starting to hear that that, in fact, is kind of what's happening in Alberta. Now, as we say, there's still five or six weeks to go. Stephen Harper's got a big speech coming up that may touch on this at the Investment Summit and is likely they're going to make a big speech in Alberta as well. 29:04 What are you hearing? You're there, Bruce. 29:08 Chantel is watching, has been in and out of Alberta a number of times. So, Chantel, you start us on it. 29:16 I guess the issue isn't that the polls, I'm stealing stuff from the poster here. It's not that the polls are showing that there's a sudden upsurge of support for the saying yes to a referendum on separation. That has not been happening. 29:34 But the issue is who is most committed to showing up to vote and getting votes out? The more the perception gets built in that the yes side is going to lose, so let's shrug this off and move on to more serious things, the more the percentage of voters the yes vote stands to be high because people who want, they may be a minority, but the people who want a referendum on separation may be more committed to going out to vote than the people who think the status quo is imperfect, but it's all right. 30:16 And so up to a point, it's interesting because we have spent a lot of time rightly pointing out that the no side is not terribly organized. It's organic. It doesn't have any elected figure leading it officially, although there are sympathizers in the Legislative Assembly in Edmonton. But we didn't spend a lot of time, I think, until a Globe story this week focusing on the same that can be said about the other side, that it's not terribly well-funded, that there is no real no camp in the sense of the word, because it's a number of organizations and that they may not be financially or logistically equipped to do a good get the vote out operation. 31:04 And that the people who are best placed to lead the get the vote out tend to be people who are already elected. And when you talk about people elected, not all conservative MLAs in Alberta would want to be getting the vote out for the no side and for let's put the issue to rest. So it's a paradox, but it does speak to the fact that this is happening in a province where neither side is really prepared for formally or in a way that ensures that the results, including the elections, Alberta's challenges with just getting the votes to happen and counting the votes. 31:49 None of that sounds very well-taught out, but if you end up with a moral victory of a 40% vote to let's have a referendum on separation, pressure will only grow and the issue will become more attractive to more people who want to kind of make their names by standing on the barricades for separation. 32:10 Bruce. 32:10 Yeah. 32:12 Yeah, I have two thoughts really. And the first is to Chantal's point about who will be motivated to go out and vote and how will that affect what the ultimate numbers are. 32:24 I remember, and we probably all do, when the Reform Party first started to gather some momentum, one of the things that was most interesting and surprising in a way was how much money that party was raising with $5 and $10 donations at events. And why am I raising that? It's that, um, that grassroots grievance based, uh, political organization, um, can be really quite powerful. 32:55 Um, and nowhere can it be more powerful probably than in Alberta. So I think, um, Those who are against separation need to be cognizant of the fact that the turnout dynamics can work better for those who feel that grievance and want to express that grievance in their vote because grievance politics has a history in this province and grievance about the federal government doesn't just go away because the premier says some of the laws that i call bad laws are are no longer on the books uh i was fortunate enough to have a conversation with janet brown um yesterday who's kind of a legendary pollster in understanding the alberta psyche and and so we had a good conversation about those turnout dynamics and i agree with chantal that that's probably the most important thing to to be aware of but for one other which is that Alberta is probably the place in Canada where the most effort has been put into describing how investment interest declines if people see a political risk. 34:09 In other words, policies that they won't like, that business won't like, that will make it harder to do business someplace. So here we are days away from probably the single big, well, not probably, the single biggest effort that evidence of global investment interest in Canada. 34:31 A lot of it would naturally be interested in things that can be done in the West, including in Alberta. 34:38 And there's a risk that voices from the Alberta perspective aren't saying enough about what happens if Chantal's point of a 40 percent What happens to that question of is Canada a good place? Is Canada a risk-free place to invest? Probably people would say yes. 35:00 What about Alberta? At a 40% level, I think, you know, I'm not the best placed expert to say, but 40% isn't 20%. 40% sounds like it could be another referendum down the road, even if the majority vote against it. 35:18 And yeah, so for Albertans, I think there needs to be a conversation about it. Probably those who are soft separatists probably don't want to hear it from federal politicians or maybe even politicians generally. And I've always felt that businesses in Alberta need to speak out about this. And I don't know if they're doing enough at this point to talk about those risk consequences, or at least if they are doing a fair bit more is always better. 35:44 All right. Let's talk about the Investment Summit, which is next week in Toronto. 35:52 And some big money is coming to town in Toronto to attend this summit. I was reading a piece. Frank McKenna gave an interview about it. You know, the former Premier of New Brunswick and currently a big executive in the Canadian banking system. 36:11 saying he knows he's going to be sitting at a table where there's more money than he's ever seen in his life at that table, stuffed into the pockets of the investors who were there. 36:25 Talk about the importance of this meeting. Given the current situation, in light of what's going on, whether it's Alberta, whether it's the relationship with the U.S., that they are still coming to Canada, to Toronto, to talk about investing. 36:46 Chantal. 36:48 Well, first, I don't believe that any prime minister... 36:52 in the past could have organized this to that level. I think at this point it's the former central banker that is Mark Riley and the former person who was hanging out in circles like that that has made this happen. 37:08 It takes a set of contacts that Stephen Harper, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien Paul Martin couldn't bring to the fore, and obviously not Justin Trudeau, not quite as crowd. So that is one. The other is, it's one thing to have a summit, but people like that do not come to talk. They don't have, you know, this isn't a summit for pundits and university professors to talk about concepts of social justice. 37:39 These are people who are not going to be spending hours or one day or two days out of their agenda if they don't believe it's worth it. 37:49 There is a political message part of the trade war in this, in the sense that it is sending a message to the Trump administration that you may not think you need anything from Canada and that it's a worthless economic colony, but others beg to disagree, and the others who beg to disagree happen to have deep pockets. They're not just... pundits and others who are saying that. And that is a language that Donald Trump and his cronies are bound to understand better than the language of economic sanity, I guess. 38:23 But part of this, and I'm going to take the example of Venezuela and this great deal that Donald Trump says he negotiated to get all this oil from Venezuela. What's been happening since then? 38:37 A bunch of American oil companies are showing up at the summit in Toronto because they are a lot more interested in exploring options in Canada than trying their luck in Venezuela. Not just for distance, the infrastructures are in bad shape and there's a lot of government instability. We were talking about the Alberta referendum. 38:58 It's very stable Alberta, even at 40% compared to Venezuela. 39:04 Overall, as for the what are we going to get out of this, time will tell. 39:11 We all have seen all those trips over decades to China with all those deals announced. 39:18 Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it takes time to see if promise materializes into investment. But it is an interesting play, quite a unique play, I think. 39:31 I will just forward the letters from the university professors. 39:36 I know, but I included us on purpose. 39:41 So I'm not just saying it about you guys, I'm saying it about us guys too. 39:47 Okay. Bruce. 39:49 Yeah, every day around the world, there's a lot of money looking to be invested in projects. 39:59 We've never, to my knowledge, I agree with Chantel, we've never been... 40:05 prominent part of that conversation we get our share sometimes our foreign direct investment levels go up they have been going up in the last little while and we have a relative always had a relatively good brand it hasn't been as good in the last number of years as it is right now and why do I say that because I do think that not just having the meeting but Creating the policy dynamics that Carney has with his government that sends signals to that investment marketplace that they will find interesting and appealing has been part of the run up to this. 40:45 What do I mean by that? I mean, you know, emphasizing the amount of clean power that the country is going to be able to produce and offer to industries in the coming years, including the Churchill Falls Agreement, including the the expansion of nuclear capacity in Canada. That's a big storyline because a lot of the questions that businesses have when they want to think about where to locate revolve around energy cost. 41:14 Creating the trade corridors and agreements with countries around the world, even if a potential investor can look at the Canada-US trade agreement and say, Canada-US Mexico trade agreement and say, it seems a bit unstable now. 41:30 You know, the Carney government has been working on a lot of other trade options and looks like it can be a place where you can make things and ship them to many parts of the rest of the world. 41:42 We've got a rule of law that isn't under any question or duress, and that same can't be said for our neighbor to the south. We've got a more stable political system than theirs. 41:56 And I compare it to the United States because What Donald Trump has been trying to do, ostensibly, his words, is to bring that investment into America. And instead, what he's been doing has been creating almost a contrast between Canada and the United States for investors who might be willing to think about Canada instead of the United States, where... We're stable. We're investing in things that businesses find appealing from the standpoint of locating their investments. And we look like we've got a sensible eye out to how to do business successfully in the future. 42:31 And America's failing all of those tests under Trump right now. 42:35 So it is a very unique thing. I don't think we've ever, well, we've never seen anything quite like it before. 42:43 And it's also, this is my last point, This whole dynamic with Trump and tariffs and trade has made Canadians more interested in economic policy than they ever have been, in my experience. They're more interested in how we think about building our economic future. 43:03 And that's a boon for a prime minister who cares a lot about that and would have always cared about that in any event. 43:10 Give me 30 seconds on the decision to move forward. 43:14 The idea of having Stephen Harper on that speaker's platform in the investment summit. 43:23 Bruce. 43:23 I mean, well. 43:25 Okay, whomever, somebody. 43:27 For internal Alberta purposes, it's a good play, but also I think a lot of people believe that Stephen Harper's strength was on the economic front. He was the prime minister during the global financial crisis, and he also appointed Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of Canada. But notwithstanding what's happening in the conservative movements, Stephen Harper speaks more loudly to conservatives, mainstream ones in this country, than Pia Poliev. 43:59 And he does so on a basis different than partisan politics. Their roles are different. So I don't see that as a betrayal of the conservative party, but I see that as a sign that... 44:11 In theory, even if Mark Carney were out of office tomorrow and replaced by a conservative government, that stability, the thread line, would not change when it comes to investment. 44:22 Okay. Yeah, this event should be something that conservatives are very happy about. It should be the kind of thing that they would have been able to cheer for if partisanship didn't get in the way. And I think it'll be interesting to see how Pierre Polyev deals with that next week. 44:40 Okay. We're going to take our final break, come back to talk about the Quebec collection because it's getting closer and it looks like it's pretty close too in terms of where things stand. We'll see. We'll ask Chantel and see whether Bruce got any numbers on it too. 44:57 Do that right after this. 45:05 Welcome back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week. This Friday, Chantal Hébert, Bruce Anderson, Peter Mansbridge, all with you. 45:14 Chantal, the Quebec election. 45:18 They're out there campaigning. 45:20 Complicated election to cover. 45:22 There are five parties on the ballot. All of them could score more than 10% of the vote, which means the dynamics riding per riding are really hard to predict. The Parts Québécois is still leading, but it's leading. It has hit a ceiling months ago at 30%, and it is stuck there. 45:44 And the Coalition Abner-Québec, the incumbent, Premier Fréchette's party, has come out of the basement, but it's not out of the woods yet. So what we know today is... There are two parties that are actually vying for office. The Quebec Liberals are not managing to get through to Francophone Quebecers, and the real battle taking place on the territory that will determine the outcome is Francophone Quebec, and that's the Parti Québécois and the CAQ. 46:17 Voters are conflicted. They don't much like the idea of a referendum, and they don't really totally like the current leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon. 46:29 They like Christine Fréchette better, but they really are not keen to keep the CAQ in government for another term because the mood for change is still over 60%. So where are we going with this? Well, if the needle does not move at some point, and I'm not sure what will move it, we will end up with a minority government of some sort that may or may not be viable, depending on who leads it, for very long. 47:00 because those other parties, the Liberals, the Conservative Party of Quebec, and the Quebec Solidarity will likely have also representation in that National Assembly. So it will be quite unique. And I have been, I mean, the newest thing under the sun is the place of Mark Carney in all this. 47:23 To have a CAQ premier, as happened this week, say that she totally trusted Mark Carney on the trade file is novel. 47:31 And to have an election in the shadow of a prime minister who is more popular than any of the leaders who is running provincially is also novel, but it plays two ways. Quebecers at this point have a lot of trust in Mark Carney. 47:50 they understand that Mark Carney would rather work with a federalist or non-sovereignist government like the CAQ. But on the other hand, they could also feel that they can have change because they are reassured that in any event, the person leading the file that is on their minds, the Canada-US file, is not going to be sitting in Quebec City, but sitting on Parliament Hill. So it's kind of a... 48:16 a complicated scenario, and I'm not sure. Voters are not happy. They feel that the conversation on the election campaign trail does not match what they're talking about, and they can't make those two fit easily. 48:34 So how they resolve that conflict on October 5th, for now, the jury is still out, but it's hard to see a majority come out of that ballot box today. 48:46 less than a month before the vote. 48:49 How are you reading the numbers, Bruce? 48:52 Yeah, our numbers are very reflective of what Chantal has said. But I also had a chance to chat with Sébastien Dallaire of Leger yesterday, a very well-reputed firm, and he's a very, very good pollster. And so I'm kind of borrowing some of his knowledge. But... 49:12 It does feel as though there isn't a single idea other than the referendum idea that has really captured the election and made it the central focal point. And the referendum doesn't seem to have occupied that place in part because... Mr. St. Pierre Plamondon has said he wouldn't have it imminently or while Donald Trump is in office, which I think was useful for him, but it still is a weight around the PQ numbers. 49:43 Given that there hasn't been a captivating idea, it feels to me like these debates that are coming up and the long form interviews that are coming up are going to be extraordinarily important. The people are gonna look at these individuals and they're gonna say, Is there another Charles Millard in there that I haven't seen so far? 50:08 Is my feeling about Frechette positive enough that I can get over my sense of the need to change out the government? 50:19 When I listen to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, do I trust him not to be a flamethrower in office, somebody who's destabilizing in a world where we don't need more destabilizing forces? 50:31 I think the stakes for all of those leaders in these debates are extraordinarily high. 50:36 Maybe that's always somewhat the case, but I think even more so because of the lack of a singular promise or a point of differentiation between the parties. Absolutely. 50:47 If anything, it's shaping up to be a heck of a night. 50:50 Journalists who cover election nights, no matter where they are, kind of hope on the one hand, it's not going to be all over in 25 minutes. You want to see something that's interesting and exciting. 51:02 It certainly seems like this is shaping up to be that. 51:06 And when you listen to Chantal saying it's hard to see a majority, any way you look at this, it seems to be hard to see, you know, even an order in which the parties are likely to finish in. 51:17 And what happens the day after. Exactly. Like, suppose the incumbent prevails narrowly, and then... 51:28 goes to a vote of confidence. It's really hard for the liberals not to vote confidence in the CAQ if the alternative is the PQ. 51:37 The PQ is on top. Who props up a minority PQ government for that first vote of confidence? Not the liberals, not the CAQ, and not the conservative members, if there are some, and I believe there will be some, and probably not you. So it could be that we will be doing this again sooner rather than later. 52:01 Okay. Well, on that point, we're going to leave it for this week, which is really actually the first real week of Good Talk for the new season. We had a couple of shows during the summer, which were very successful, and people seem to really enjoy them. Hopefully, they'll enjoy today's as well, and we'll see you two again next week. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Take care. Stay safe. Have a good weekend. 52:24 Take care, you guys.