Can Carney Leverage the Hype from the Canada Investing Summit?

Frank McKenna:
We've got 350 billion from Canadian banks that were committed. Pension funds committed hundreds of billions of dollars. A venture capital community committed money towards Canada. Just this massive direction of effort towards Canadian assets.
Peter Haynes:
Welcome to the September 2026 installment of Geopolitics, a monthly TD Securities podcast. My name is Peter Haynes and I'm the host of this monthly series where I speak to my colleague, the honorable Frank McKenna, about global geopolitical issues.
Frank, we got a lot to cover in this episode, including AI, midterms, a referendum vote in Alberta, the UN meetings, an election in Quebec that might lead to a separation vote, the Canada Investment Summit and more. I really hope for the time that we'll be able to turn to a topic other than tariffs as front and center, but that is where we're at today. So Frank, can you bring our listeners up to speed on where things stand from your sources in terms of the trade discussions between Canada and the US and when can we expect some form of breakthrough in the apparent stalemate?
Frank McKenna:
Well, we're at an impasse at the present time, but the differences are not vast. We ended up having two or three issues that we simply couldn't agree on. A big one was around the definition of automotive as to whether it included trucks or not, for example. And then the question of whether or not any agreement that we reached would be binding or have a dispute mechanism. The United States basically seemed to want to have the ability to change the terms at any time and also effectively have veto power over our ability to do trade deals with other countries. So those were sovereignty issues, those were process issues, but the big content issue was around automotive. I know for a fact that conversations are continuing between the parties. There's a lot of goodwill between the lead negotiators, the president and the prime minister communicate. So it wouldn't surprise me if we were able to bridge our differences and get to a deal.
It makes total industrial logic for us to be able to do this. What's happening now is not good for either country and it's certainly creating a tailwind of popularity for the government in Canada and a headwind for the government in the United States, which might even affect two or three of the Senate races or other races that are taking place. So I think there's some motivation to try to get to a deal and I'm guardedly optimistic that we will end up bridging our differences and get there.
Peter Haynes:
Okay. I'm going to just double click on something you just said there about how this has been arguably helping the popularity of the current leadership in Canada and harming the popularity of the current leadership in the US. On that same vein, the US does continue to rattle cages with threats on banning diesel exports, going to Belarus for cheaper potash and so on. And on the flip side, Prime Minister Carney's become a little bit more playful with the media in response to questions about the president. Do you buy into the fact that the criticism from the right will be that Carney has in fact manufactured this dispute with the US over tariffs to help keep inflation artificially higher to impact midterms and also to help the commodity sensitive Canadian economy? Is there any justification to this argument?
Frank McKenna:
No, I don't believe so. Certainly the government is popular, but on the other hand, they're going to put a lot of that capital at work in their legislative agenda this fall. I think quite frankly, the prime minister is just trying to be an adult in the relationship. But I think at the end of the day, we have to look through, if I can use that expression, all of that rhetoric, which is part of the approach of the president and get to the substance. And substantively, the logic of us having a strong trade relationship is compelling. And I think it spills over into the politics of the United States. Some two thirds of Americans are opposed to the tariffs on Canada. I think it spills into the midterm elections coming up, and I think there will be a certain amount of pressure from industry in the United States and from politicians in the United States to try to get to a deal with Canada.
But I don't think, to answer your point, no, I don't think there's any effort by the Prime Minister to try to artificially increase inflation or anything. I would say this, just in the interest of being honest, I think the prime minister could not help but be mindful of the fact that we've got political events going on in Canada, including the Quebec election, referendum in Alberta and so on. So you can imagine that any political leader would say, "I don't particularly want to get into issues around supply management or export tax on oil or things like that that could influence current political events in Canada."
Peter Haynes:
Frank, if you were leaving the podcast taping right now and walking into a meeting with Prime Minister Carney one-on-one privately, what advice would you give him? Is there anything that he should be doing differently?
Frank McKenna:
I'd just declare I'm a big fan of the direction the country is going in now today. It's where I would've taken the country if I were the leader. I think we need to build strong. We need to have as many diverse markets as we can around the globe. We need to continue to recognize that the United States will always be our best friend, neighbor, and trading partner, but we need to reduce our dependence as well and have other options. I think that's exactly what we're doing. I'm really quite overwhelmed at the success of the investment summit that just took place and the audacity of some of the measures that were just introduced in the House this week, things that we should have been working at for years. Quite incredible, really taking on the issue of process, of getting to one project, one review, one year.
If that can actually happen, that will unclog the arteries, making it difficult for labor stoppages to affect investments in ports, railroads, and other critical infrastructure. That's just absolutely necessary in our country. And I know that further measures will be coming around interprovincial trade barriers. There's a high level of frustration in Ottawa. Provinces aren't doing their share and I think that's going to be forced down their throat. And I applaud that as well. So right now I'm just sitting there cheering from the sidelines, hoping that we can get all of these things done and make Canada really realize its extraordinary potential.
Peter Haynes:
Frank, let's dig in on the summit because that was definitely a topic I wanted to focus on. And you mentioned unions briefly as there was some legislation introduced in Parliament as they returned this week. The unions are obviously in pushback mode here. They don't like the sale of infrastructure. That's historically been the case. I know there was some suggestion in the US that Canada didn't have unions. Of course, there's a much higher percentage of our population with unions than the United States. Can Carney push through legislation without causing too much pushback and noise from the unions?
Frank McKenna:
I think you can separate that. I think he can push through the legislation, but I think there will be huge pushback from the unions. I just want people to look at it realistically. If you've got a port and we're going to pour billions of dollars in, let's say the Port of Vancouver and a work stoppage could shut it down for weeks on end, all of the investment that we're putting in that port is basically wasted, and all of the effort that we're making bringing new industry into Canada is basically wasted as well. What the government's trying to deal with is disproportionality and bargaining power. When one party in a dispute has the power to literally destroy the other one, such as shutting down railroads for two weeks or even airlines, then that's disproportionate bargaining power. Other unions don't have that. So I don't think it's fair to other labor people who don't have that same leverage.
So it's only fair, I think, if we're going to invest tens of billions of dollars in critical infrastructure across the country, that we're able to keep the trains running on time, keep the ports open. The processes will be carefully calibrated. There'll be a lot of effort to try to get to collective agreements. There'll be a huge amount of effort to introduce processes that protect workers and as well as the employer. So I just think there'll be a real effort here to create fairness in the bargaining. But at the end of the day, we've got to think about the collective good of the country and that requires that we be a country that's open for business and that if you invest in Canada, you're not going to lose your investment capriciously. So I'm a big supporter of the direction that we're headed in. And I think the government, having opened this Pandora's box, is prepared to see it through.
Peter Haynes:
Okay. I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second here, Frank, and challenge you on the notion that airports can be run more efficiently by the private sector than the public sector. I think there's a recognition that if the private sector is part owner of the airport, that has been discussed, and I know it's not unique, obviously there's airports owned by a private sector all over the world, just not in Canada, that you will see a potential rise in prices. What does the general public benefit? How does the general public benefit, other than the fact that the government gets to take the money that they gain from the sale of the asset and reinvest it in other infrastructure projects? How else does the public gain when a private sector takes over a key asset like an airport?
Frank McKenna:
So Peter, that's a separate issue from the issue around collective bargaining and trying to deal with that. So we'll move right into that, and that's the question of privatization of airports. I think the argument would be, first of all, we've got all these huge assets in Canada, the pension funds, the Maple Eight, who really don't have investible assets in Canada and invest around the world. This is the money of Canadians, quite frankly. It's you and I, it's our pension funds. So it's almost like taxpayers owning these assets and they're looking for places to invest in. I think these are good places to invest. I'm a fan of it. I've watched the way it's worked around the world. I travel a lot, as you do. I see other airports that are virtual mega shopping malls that are full of choices for people, from restaurants to shopping and run much more efficiently than we are.
I think that if we have accountability, because right now there's really no accountability, but if we have accountability, I think there'd be an effort made to repatriate traffic to Canada that currently goes across the border to try to get easier access. I think that you'll see major effort made to bring traffic in from the United States to transship through Toronto, for example, or Vancouver, around the world. I think there'll be more investments, there'd be more ability to raise capital as needed to invest in those airports. And I think that with a regulatory framework in which there's some check and balance on the ability to raise rates, et cetera, that we'll end up having a better service for Canadians. And I like the idea that that money would be distributed across the country to smaller airports to increase their efficiency as well. So I think for a number of different reasons, it's a policy choice that makes sense.
I recall speaking with the former minister of transport who set the airports up in this fashion. He's the same one who ended up privatizing CN and did a lot of other innovative things at Transport. He told me it was the one mistake that he made that he regrets forever, creating a governance structure without accountability. There's nobody that sits on the board of these that brings other than their judgment and their common sense, but there's nobody that has skin in the game. Whereas I think if we change that structure, people will have skin in the game and I think you'll see stronger governance, quite frankly.
Peter Haynes:
Okay. So just to tie a bow on this whole issue, and I did get you to pivot a little bit there. When unions push back because they're going to, you referred to disproportionality in terms of the unions being able to disrupt these assets we've made such a huge investment in. But on the flip side, is there any justification that the unions might have that this might be a job security issue, that it may result in less employment for unions, et cetera? Is there any sort of precedent or historical analysis that would suggest that if the private sector owns some of these public assets that there will be less employment and that the union membership may lose bodies?
Frank McKenna:
Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern. But the flip side of that, Peter, is this. Let's say you've got a Port of Vancouver that continues to be overmanned dramatically up against a port in Long Beach, California that's using all of the latest innovation that's available. Pretty soon the traffic goes to the port that is most innovative and the union members lose their jobs anyway. We just can't put our hands up in the air and say that we are not prepared to consider automation, and the cost of that is that we become a less competitive port or a less competitive country. So I'm a fan of saying the ultimate protection for unions is to be in the most efficient industry possible, and that means using technology where necessary.
We just can't live in a world, a highly competitive world like this with featherbedding. The old railroads used to have unions that were able to extract concessions, including having an extra couple of engineers lying on a feather bed behind the engine just so they could continue to create jobs. It just doesn't work anymore. If you keep a ship anchored a couple of miles offshore just because you don't have the right schedule, the work schedule for people, then that ends up going right to your credibility as a port owner or manager. So I'm a huge fan of workers being looked after well and extremely well. But to stop progress, I think by avoiding to deal with automation issues, I just don't think that works in the long run or even the short run for that matter.
Peter Haynes:
Okay, so let's come back to the summit for a quick second. I know you had some involvement, peripheral involvement. You were speaking at Milken or involved in the Milken Summit that ran coincident to the Canada Investing Summit. It was clearly a home run for Carney and capping it all off was praise from former Prime Minister Stephen Harper who gave the final words and he praised Carney by saying, quote, "I wished I had thought of that one," referencing the summit event. Tell us about some of the activities that you were personally involved in, some of the people that you met with, and in your opinion, was the hype justified?
Frank McKenna:
Yeah. By the way, I thought Harper was very classy in his comments and his participation. And I also thought that Opposition Leader Poilievre was very classy in his comments when he did interviews in the United States about Canada. That's what One Canada looks like, and I like it a lot. And I was in a number of the events and I thought that it lived up to its hype. One of the events that I was involved in was having the premiers of Alberta and Ontario and Saskatchewan and the premier of Nova Scotia. We did a Q&A with them and basically allowing them to make the case for their province and their projects. I thought that went well. We had federal cabinet ministers speaking. The industry people I met were just top drawer. We had the leading people from all over the world. I hosted a breakfast that had at least three or four people that were a little short of incredible, the Chinese investment corporation, a royal family in Bahrain. We had the richest man in Nigeria there who'd just come back from doing an IPO in Nigeria. These people were all there, they said, because of the credibility of the prime minister, they found this to be a place that they had to be.
And will it all work? I don't think in its entirety it will. Not every project will pass muster. Not every investor will put money in Canada. But we had over a hundred trillion dollars in Toronto and some of it will end up sticking and we have people taking another look at Canada. Not only that, but we excited the passions of Canadians as well. We've got 350 billion from Canadian banks that were committed. Canadian pension funds committed hundreds of billions of dollars towards Canada. A venture capital community committed money towards Canada. You saw all kinds of innovative deals, the hookup between Brookfield and CPP, insurance companies, just this massive direction of effort towards Canadian assets. And then it was all followed up with an extraordinary tax concession that wasn't anticipated plus a commitment to do advanced tax rulings. Plus the week later, legislation involving one project, one year review and further legislation that would de-risk major investments in critical infrastructure. I don't get blown away too often because I've been around and watched a lot of governments, but this was pretty impressive.
Peter Haynes:
That is great to hear. Frank, I'm going to circle back to tariffs for just one second before we move around the world. And I just want to come back to some of the comments that came out actually at the UN conference, which we'll talk to in a second. Trump friend Javier Milei in Argentina is the latest leader to ask for some concessions from the Americans in terms of their trade agreement. And the Americans are saying no, they do not want to entertain a potential precedent of giving back some concessions, all on the back of the fact that the Argentina deal was negotiated before the Supreme Court made their IEPA ruling. And now obviously we're in a different environment, so they've gone back. I'm curious, Frank, whether you think that some of the hype around Prime Minister Carney's pushback on President Trump is emboldening these other leaders like Milei to do the same?
Frank McKenna:
No, not directly. Milei has a different problem, and that's his Congress. Congress has spit the hook, so to speak. They've rejected the deal, and so they're asking that it be renegotiated. The US government's in a quandary on it because if they renegotiate the deal with Argentina, it creates a precedent for everybody else to want to reopen their deals. I would call that a kind of a one-off situation. I think Trump would like to get to a good place with Milei. They like each other, and I suspect they'll find a way to compromise and get through this. But the problem there is really Congress just refusing to sign the deal that was negotiated. I'm talking about the Argentinian Congress.
Peter Haynes:
Yes, I understand, and so politics will find a way to make this work. Trump will make Milei look good with his Congress, and Milei will quietly make some concession somehow to Trump, and they'll be able to both show it a win. That's your expectation for how that will play out.
Frank McKenna:
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think they'll find a way through it, but right now it's a real problem. Milei's got a real problem. He cannot get this through his Congress.
Peter Haynes:
Okay. So with that, I wanted to ask you about how Trump you expect will handle trade negotiations with the third partner in CUSMA, which is Mexico. Prime Minister Scheinbaum has agreed to help direct more trade to the United States or more purchasing from the United States in order to help reduce the trade deficit, which is a concern for President Trump. I'm curious though, when they get to the negotiations, are you expecting Trump to have a hard line on Mexico like he did with Canada or maybe a softer approach to stick it to Canada?
Frank McKenna:
Yeah, I think he'll have a softer approach with Mexico. The Mexican situation is so dramatically different from ours that it does bear looking at. To start with, they've got so much more that they can give because they're offside in so many other ways. They've been probably the major source of fentanyl in the United States, not us. They've been a halfway house for Chinese production, not Canada. And they've had a porous border that's allowed as many as a couple of million illegal immigrants a year to cross into the United States. Whereas if there's any problem on our border, it's people from the south coming north. So very, very different issues. I think they will try to get to a deal before the midterms.
The United States desperately needs some credibility around trade. They've had 50 outstanding issues. They've been compressed now to about 14. And the easy give for them, which we don't have, by the way, we have one of the largest trading relationships in the world with the smallest trade discrepancy. Mexico has got a very large trade discrepancy with the United States. So I think they'll be bullied into agreeing to purchase more US agriculture, more energy, more manufactured goods and so on because of Trump's false equation of trade balance with economic progress. No economist in the world agrees with him on that measure, but he believes it to be the case and he hates trade imbalances. So he'll try to extort them literally into buying a lot more stuff and they can give on that.
Tougher issues will be Section 232. They don't have as big a problem on steel and aluminum as we have because they're minor producers. The big one will be around autos. As I indicated before, we run into a big problem around the definition of autos as to whether it includes light trucks or not. They'll have a problem around autos because if Trump insists that no autos can be made in Mexico, like he's saying no autos can be made in Canada, that'll give them some grief because they probably build over 20 to 25% of North America's autos. So they'll have to find a way to finesse that, but I think there'll be a big effort by Trump to try to end up doing something there because they've been so offside on so many issues, really has much more to give than we do, and they did not introduce retaliatory tariffs, whereas Canada and China were the only ones that did. That gives them a lot more goodwill with the US than we have.
Peter Haynes:
I see that they postponed negotiations until I think after the G20, so we won't be hearing about that for a few weeks, but that leaves only a little bit of time before midterm, so we'll see whether or not they can get through some of those tough hurdles.
Frank, I'm going to turn to other global issues. This week I made the mistake of going to New York and note to any traveler, unless you want to stay in an overpriced fleabag motel and be stuck behind motorcades for an hour, then stay away from New York during UN week. However, I must admit, it actually was a pretty cool environment. Let's talk about some of the goings on at the UN this week. Frank, what struck a chord with you?
Frank McKenna:
The contrast between President Trump threatening to annihilate Iran and Iran having their president speaking about how they would never bend their need to the United States, that's quite striking. And quite striking, I think Canada and other underlying countries speaking now much more openly about trying to create a new world order that doesn't require them to bow to the knee of the hegemons on the planet. Those were all interesting, I thought.
But what really caught my attention, even more than all of those ominous speeches and so on, was the AI debate. And you had two of the leading AI companies in the world, their CEOs saying this is a real danger to the world. And Canada's own AI specialist from Montreal saying that this is real, this danger is real and we need to deal with it. I thought that was quite chilling actually, Peter, and for that to be raised at the United Nations in the way in which it was tells me that this is an issue where you just wish and pray that the recognized leaders of the natural world, which would be China and the United States now, could find a way to bridge whatever differences they have and try to join a global effort to bring some regulation and some control over the development of AI.
Peter Haynes:
It can be likened to nuclear proliferation and finding ways to sort of have a balance on that. Do you expect that the Trump Xi summit that's happening right now, that this will be a primary topic? And can we get President Trump off of this notion that slowing down allows others to catch up to the United States and they might lose the AI race?
Frank McKenna:
Well, that's the big question and the answer is I just don't know. It is very much like nuclear proliferation and responsible leaders understanding the gravity of those weapons were able to find arrangements that have stood the test of time, quite frankly. And that's what we need now. And that requires that we end up having leadership from the United States that's statesman-like and that's visionary and that can get over petty grievances and everything else because we're talking about something much more serious than even trade issues. So I don't know the answer to that. China doesn't seem disposed to slow things down, and the United States is not going to do something that will allow it to fall behind China. So let's cross our fingers, Peter. It's important.
Peter Haynes:
What role can Prime Minister Carney play in this, or should he just obviously allow the two hegemons to discuss this themselves and hopefully come to an agreement?
Frank McKenna:
Well, I think that he has a role. I'm not nominating Carney to be the leader of the rest of the world, but he's one of many leaders, could be in Europe or could be leaders from Asia, Latin America, all around the world who I think should raise their hand on this one and come together. And that seems to be happening. I've had exchanges with some ministers in Ottawa on this very issue, and I believe that they're seized with the urgency of the moment. I know the Vatican actually is seized with the urgency of the moment. The royal family in the UK are seized with the urgency of the moment. And right now our prime minister does have credibility on the world stage. So I think he'll be one of the people that will be very involved in trying to come up with a kind of a global response to this that won't be in the nature of being a Luddite and just trashing all technology and evolution of technology, but finding a way that we can introduce controls and regulations and responsibility and ethics.
That's what we need. And maybe we'll be in a situation where whatever the United States and China end up doing or not doing, the rest of the world will blow by them and seize this issue and demonstrate leadership on it.
Anyway, I'm not an alarmist about this because I truly believe in the ability of humanity to constantly evolve and deal with issues. I do hope and pray that the people that we elect as leaders take the responsibility seriously.
Peter Haynes:
It's interesting, we don't hear from Russia on this topic. I know they've got a lot on their plate right now, but if you think of the third leg of the global hegemons, Russia's quite quiet on this particular topic.
So Frank, I want to switch to midterms in the US. We'll have Chris Krueger with you at our conference on November 5th. That's two days after midterms. Prediction markets are now suggesting that the Democrats will win both the chambers of Congress, yet there are a lot of wild cards to be played, namely the fact that Republican PACs are better funded and that's led by Trump's Super PAC, and that the Democrats seem to have at least one senator, and that's Fetterman in Pennsylvania that's flirting a lot with Republicans. How do you see things progressing as we approach November 3rd? And do you believe the Democratic hype that any seat that Trump won by less than 10 points in 2024 is likely to flip at midterms?
Frank McKenna:
Just over the last couple of days, the phenomena that you're talking about has turned into a bit of a tsunami where almost all prediction markets are predicting a blue wave. There's a lot of puts and takes in it, and at the end of the day, I think we can say categorically that the House will switch. I think there's only four times in 64 elections when the House didn't switch midterms. So even if there wasn't any kind of other factors at play, it would be likely to switch. So the House will switch. In terms of the Senate, it seems to have gone from a bit of a toss up now to leaning Democratic, but there's so many factors at play. I think North Carolina is definitely a win for the Democrats. I think they hold Georgia, New Hampshire is a challenge for them. They own the seat now, but the Republicans have a very good candidate.
In my previous political life and diplomatic life, I got to know the Sununus very well in New Hampshire. They're highly respected, and one of the Sununus is running for the Republicans. In spite of that, with the mood the way it is in the country, it looks like Pappas will probably win that one. Ohio looks like a turnover there. Maine is touch and go. And the problem is the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot in Maine with the way in which they've gone through their candidates. Michigan, they've had a problem as well. Even in Alaska, they have their own problems. I think it was Will Rogers who said that, "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat." And it really rings true. The Democratic Party's a little chaotic.
But having said that, Trump has opened up a lot of veins around affordability. When he talks about Bombardier, he really hurts the Republican candidate in Kansas. When he talks about diesel, it hurts in Michigan and Iowa. And so there are states in play now that would never have been in play. And every time he tries to fix something, he brought in cheap beef from Latin America, the farmers are furious about that. Any effort to try and deal with diesel prices could result in higher gas prices. There's just so many issues all crowding in at the same time. The potash issue, even talking about it sends shivers throughout the farming constituencies in Iowa, Kansas, and Ohio. So I would say right now, even with all of those puts and takes, the overall trend line is quite strongly Democratic and there's better than a 50/50 chance that the Democrats will win the House.
And the problem there, Peter, and you've outlined it, is even being ahead by one just means that you're prey to rogue senators and Fetterman would be one. He claims to be a Democrat, but he tends to be all over the place. So you really need to have a lead of a couple of Senate seats. So I think the Democrats to really prevail, need to win Texas and need to win Ohio, for example. It would be a big bonus if they could win Iowa or Alaska, but they need to win by one or two so that they can take away the ability of one senator to create havoc. But right now, the trend line is very definitely towards a bit of a blue tsunami.
Peter Haynes:
All right. Well, we'll carry that one on in October, and then of course at the conference in November.
I want to turn to reflection here for a moment, Frank. When I was in the New York office this week, the trading floor has an American flag on the wall and it has the names of everyone that perished in 9/11. It's an incredibly moving symbol of what Was a terrible moment in history. What do you recall about that fateful day some 25 years ago?
Frank McKenna:
Peter, it's just infinitely sad. It's the day we were all Americans, everybody on the planet. It's when we saw Article Five of the NATO charter invoked. The only time in its history where everybody came to the aid and support of America. Personally, that day is seared in my memory. I was in my office in Moncton with my suitcase heading out the door to go to Washington for a board meeting of the Carlisle Group chaired by President Bush, 41. And one of our members was Bin Laden, the stepbrother of Osama Bin Laden. It was a really strong global board. And my assistant yelled at me as I was headed out the door, "You've got to see this. Something terrible is going on." And we watched in horror.
Obviously my trip to Washington was called off. And I ended up driving from my office home because it was one of those moments I wanted to be with my family. And as I passed the Moncton Airport, I saw these giant planes that we've never known in the Maritimes, big 747s and 787s from overseas all circling around to land. It was a horrifying sight.
Within a short period of time, Peter, another sad element of it for me, I was called to New York for a board meeting. I was on the board of AMAC. They were a big construction engineering firm and who had been responsible for some of the work on the Twin Towers. And we ended up being briefed by the fire chief on what structurally had happened. And then we ended up having a tour of the site with the smoke still pouring out of it. It was just dystopian, a terrible memory that I'll never forget. And then we ended up getting briefed on Washington where we had also worked on the Pentagon. And as it turned out, the plane that hit the Pentagon, I guess that's probably well known now, hit the part that had been hardened, and as a result of that, far less damage had taken place.
But all of those memories are seared in my mind and I'm sure everybody listening would remember where they were on that terrible day.
Peter Haynes:
Certainly do. Frank, you mentioned the planes that were circling in Moncton. Were you able to catch any of former Prime Minister Chretien's speech at the Gander Newfoundland 9/11 memorial event? Some would say it was one of the greatest speeches ever by a Canadian leader.
Frank McKenna:
I sure did. And I watched it over again as well. And by the way, I watched Come From Away three times.
Peter Haynes:
Yeah, I've seen it twice.
Frank McKenna:
I'm moved emotionally every time. I think it speaks to a deeper spiritual connection between us and our neighbors and one that someday will flourish again. I know that to be the case. And I listened to Chretien's speech and it just made me so proud. I mentioned before how proud I was of former Prime Minister Harper, and I was so proud of Chretien at 92 years old, basically speaking for every Canadian with emotion and conviction and rallying us to stand up and be strong and we'll all get through this together. And I thought it was very gripping, very moving.
I think what we have in Canada is whatever's coming at us, we've got one country and we've got one massive set of resolve. We love our country. Our patriotism has always been muted. Now we wear it on our sleeve and we're all prepared to fight for the country, and at the end of the day, we're going to prevail. We're fighting for something that we believe in and that's more powerful than any economic force on the planet, quite frankly. And at the end of the day, we will prevail, we will get through this and sanity will be restored. People like Chretien help keep me grounded when I listen to what he's saying and he speaks for me and I think he speaks for the country, the words that he uses.
Peter Haynes:
Frank, you always speak about one country and we do have two provinces within our country right now that are going through arguably similar referendums. In the case of Alberta, they're having a referendum vote in less than one month on whether or not to have a referendum on separation. And in Quebec, there's an election coming up on October 5th, I believe, that is also a form of referendum on a potential referendum. Can you explain what I mean when I say that to our audience and what are your expectations for both of these events, Frank?
Frank McKenna:
Well, I guess it's part of the Canadian psyche that we try to do everything by consensus and we allow people to take advantage of that at times. I suspect if you held a referendum in Prince Edward Island, you'd have 25% of the people voting to separate, not because they want to, but because they could. It's a free shot. So I think it's a mistake. I think that Canada will win that referendum, if I can use that terminology, by a wide margin. And in Quebec, I think it's just ironic the leader who may end up forming the government and who's dedicated to a referendum won't have won while Trump is in office knowing Quebecers would never end up leaving Canada and the safety and comfort and support of Canada with any kind of an external threat. So what does that say about the whole referendum mission that he's on?
So I hope that cooler heads prevail in Quebec. The support for referendum hasn't moved up and if anything, it's plateaued. It's just a disruptive force that we don't need in the country. We're fighting for our survival as a sovereign nation, and the last thing we need are disruptive forces as we do it. What's interesting is that every time you poll Quebec, they are strong supporters of Canada and the most popular politician in Quebec is Mark Carney, our prime minister. So I think that ultimately Quebecers will not vote to leave the country, but in the meantime, like Alberta, some damage will be done, some scar tissue will remain.
Peter Haynes:
Yeah, the leading PQ party only has 30% of the popular vote. It's so split, more split than I've ever seen a province, Frank, across four or five different parties. And I believe the latest stat on separation, Quebec was 26% were in favor of it. So those are still fairly low numbers.
Frank, just as we finish up with a couple minutes left, we obviously have to talk about the Blue Jays. It was absolutely a disappointing last couple of weeks, but as my baseball buddies would say, and I bet you agree with me too, if you told me at the end of May that we would be playing meaningful baseball until late September, would you have said, "Yes, I'll take it?" And I know you would've said yes, and I said yes, for sure. So my question for you, Frank, is what do you do next if you're the Jays brass? Do we need to change the manager or do you need to make a splashy trade that might include moving out a popular player like Ernie Clement?
Frank McKenna:
I think that before we do too much, we need to reflect on the assets we do have. Bateman, I think is a gift. I think he can be a big part of our future. Dylan Cease is a gift. I think he can be a big part of our future. Louis Varland is a gift. You can build around people like that. And remember, before we throw the baby out with the bath water, that we still have a huge amount of money invested in Anthony Santander and he hasn't produced an at bat this year. And Barger, who was a big hope for us, a big basher and hasn't produced for us. So I think we have to evaluate the health of those assets before we look at others. What is clear is Vladi has got to step up. In the off season, as we've talked about, maybe he goes home and has some home cooking or gets to the gym or goes to a psychiatrist. He's got to get his head straight and he's got to get back at it. And then I think we've got to shore up pitching.
One thing that we all know, at the end of the year, it's always an arms race and we ran out of arms. We just literally pitched the arms off the ones who could pitch. There are a few people, Spencer Miles showed up as a great asset and there may be a few others, but we've got to get a whole bunch of arms. And if we have to trade for those, we're going to have to trade for them. But there were times during the year I got excited. I loved some of the players. It was exciting, but at the end it was just a very disappointing way to end it all. Not much fight in our team in the last week or two.
Peter Haynes:
No, and you could see they were being beaten by better teams that wanted it more.
Okay, just as we finish up, give me your World Series pick. Who do you want to win? Who do you want to win and who do you think will win?
Frank McKenna:
Well, who I want to win is not LA.
Peter Haynes:
Yeah.
Frank McKenna:
I don't know who's going to win, but I just hate to see rich teams end up overmatching other people because they can afford the best players. So I don't know. I'm just going through one of the stages of grief right now, Peter.
Peter Haynes:
I'm going to watch though, and I'm going to take Tampa Bay. I'm cheering for Tampa Bay. I'd love to see the small market win. I'd hope that they can fill the stadium, whatever seats are available. That's my team of choice. Although I admit, watching the Yankees and the Red Sox in a wild card series, three games, that will be fun though. That's a great rivalry. So I'm trying to get over it and move on here.
Frank, thanks a lot for your time. And a month from now, we'll definitely have a little more clarity on some of these issues as we approach midterms. Thank you.
Frank McKenna:
All right. Thank you, Peter.
Peter Haynes:
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