Bruce Anderson

And that's true for Mr. Carney as well.

That's not to say that on any given day they couldn't be political, they wouldn't be political, they weren't effective in a political sense.

It's just that I don't think it...

and reading through the Coutts diaries a little while ago, I was reminded of the degree to which Pierre Trudeau really wasn't very interested in that aspect of the job.

For me, the bigger question is,

compared to when.

I can't think of a time in the life of our country or the life of the world while I've been alive that's even remotely similar to what we're seeing right now.

The complete breakdown of the world order.

And so, you know, there may have been prime ministers before that world order manifested itself in the post-World War II years, where

there's something that would be comparable.

But for me, what Carney is being asked to do or challenged to do is to recognize that around Canada and around the world, there are a bunch of different dynamics that require depth and sensitivity and thoughtfulness to a degree that we haven't really been challenged to do as a country.

At the same time, as if there are the normal array of domestic political and public policy issues, our health care system is kind of beaten up, broken down, not really working that well.

There are classic conversations about Indigenous rights, resource development, all of those things.

The kind of the normal issue set for Canada still exists.

There's just this larger screen.

So to some degree, I think that when voters look at Mark Carney, they look at him not so much in the context of just how does he perform on the regular five items.

on the report card for Canadian prime ministers, all of a sudden there's a new five-item list that is more preoccupying for a lot of people and where it's impossible to know exactly how it's going to work out.

So really what people are doing is sort of saying, well, based on what I sense and what I hear and how I think he comports himself, I think he's doing a pretty good job.

So for me, the comparisons are difficult because the agenda for Canada is so different from what we've seen before.

Okay, two-minute warning.