Chantal Hebert

I was more interested, I'll leave Mr. Poiliev to his caucus management issues, and obviously he does have some, but I was more interested in the perspective from the US administration and Trade Representative Greer in particular, because this took place or that meeting took place as part of an American Chamber of Commerce event

where Conservative MPs showed up, but also the Canadian ambassador to the US and some oil industry, energy industry executives.

And Mr. Greer was there to talk as increasingly you are hearing the administration talk about how we could do great with energy and critical minerals and we want to cooperate with Canada on this.

And I tied this to, earlier this week, the visit of the new Quebec premier, who also got to meet Representative Greer.

And I thought, if I were the Americans, and I was looking at the Canadian position and Mark Carney's strategy on this, which is basically, we are not going to come begging to the table.

We're not going to offer concessions on the way to negotiate more concessions with the Americans.

But if I were looking at this and thinking, this is really not satisfactory, we want them to come with concessions, and they're obviously not doing it.

And Mark Carney at this point looks like he's in a strong position and is backed by a consensus, a multi-partisan group.

I would try to find pressure points.

that would in the end translate into, if not a broken consensus, increasing pressure on the Canadian government and the Canadian position.

And how would I do that?

I would do that by opening my door to premiers like Christine Fréchette, thinking from all that I'm briefed on about Quebec,

This is one place where there have in the past been fractures between Quebec and Canada.

Those of us who are on this side of the debate know that that's not going to happen.

Mark Carney is the most popular politician in Quebec.

Christine Fréchette is going in an election.

There is no mood here for Quebec freelancing on this issue.

Maybe Alberta Premier Daniel Smith can, from her perspective.

But that wasn't going to happen.

But if you're Greer, you know, it's worth a shot.