Conservative

Three weeks ago we had Ginny Roth on to defend the idea that Canada should have taken the U.S. trade deal, and to talk about the "Maple MAGA" label that came with it. The label was aimed at Sean Speer, and he wasn't on the line. This week he is.

Sean is editor-at-large at The Hub, was Stephen Harper's senior economic adviser, and is one of the more prolific policy writers in the country. He also spent the last month arguing a position most of Canada had decided was closed.

What we got into:

• The deal in the parallel universe. Sean's read of what was on the table on August 21: tariff-free access for 85 to 90 percent of Canadian exports, at a real cost to autos, steel, and aluminum. His question is what the people who called it unsignable would have said if Carney had signed it.
• The madness of crowds. A 60 percent consensus is healthy. A 99 percent consensus is something else. Sean's best line: "I don't tend to make good judgments when I'm mad. I think that scales to governments and countries."
• What might get Carney back to the table. The investment summit, and the investors who won't commit until the U.S. file is settled. Sean's theory of the catalyst.
• Andrew's Brexit rant, briefly. Associate membership doesn't exist and won't, ten EU states still haven't ratified CETA, and Erasmus alone costs Britain a billion dollars a year. Here endeth the rant.
• Managed multipolarity. Sean's provocation: Carney may not just be responding to a less reliable America. He may welcome it. The New York Times interview and the reserve-currency line are the evidence.
• Winning the ideas, losing the elections. Tax cuts, airport privatization, labour reform, all from a Liberal government. Sean on why the Reform Party, which never formed government, might be the most successful party of the last 50 years.

Also discussed: Sean's drinking game for anyone who can't name the new B.C. Conservative leader (Lorne Doerkson, for the record), Andrew's theory of political breakups, Carney's approval numbers as "Saddam Hussein territory," what "no direct payments" to the EU covers, and the minivan-driving normie in Surrey who has a nine-to-five and better things to do than politics.

Sean's closer: the measure of a conservative is a commitment to ideas, not a temperament. Reagan said he was a conservative but wasn't in a bad mood about it. Somewhere along the way that got flipped.

Find Sean at The Hub and on X @Sean_Speer.