Althea Raj

And because we have Mexico there to compare ourselves against in the same way that things seem to be progressing with Mexico.

The rack the puck strategy is what we employed, some would say successfully last time.

I think

what's different this time is that the government is actually kind of conditioning us for not having a deal like i was struck last week when dominic leblanc had um a scrum in ottawa and he said i'm going to quote okay if on july 1st there is no agreement or consensus between the three parties the agreement of course remains in effect and it goes on for 10 more years with annual reviews

You know, like it's odd to have the government say it's possible that this this will not be what kind of you've been conditioned to expect.

And in some ways, I think, you know.

Back in November, we are told that there was a deal to be had on kind of conditional tariff relief for the major sectors and that the deal did blow apart because of Doug Ford and the ads airing during the pandemic.

World Series?

Some sporting event, I'm sorry.

Yeah, World Series, you're right.

Some things I'm not an expert on.

And I think one of the early lessons that was, so that kind of kiboshed things and the Americans did not want to basically touch Canada.

But one of the early lessons that Prime Minister Carney learned was when he gave up preemptively, some would say, the digital service tax and got absolutely nothing in return for

back almost a year ago in June when there really was this, it felt like Canada was building towards momentum, signing some sort of agreement with the United States.

And then, you know, this was a hindrance that the Americans had talked about and Canada was like, okay, great, we'll remove it.

Now there's a sense that, like, why are we putting up things that we are willing to give up and get nothing in return?

And I don't know that the government has really effectively made that argument, but it seems to be what they are suggesting kind of behind the scenes.

And I think, you know, to loop back to our first conversations, the fireside chats are...

are there in case things don't work out the way people have been conditioned to expect them.

And I don't know that we will have a deal or even a clarity on what the path forward is in the next weeks or months.