Do you see this new Canada-EU partnership as necessary for Canada to survive?

I think survival is a little dramatic and there may be listeners thinking, boy, he's had too much coffee this morning.

I do think, however, we're faced with an existential challenge, at least a challenge on both sides of the Atlantic.

And it's the same challenge.

It's having spent 80 years with Europe being essentially rebuilt by the Marshall Plan and protected by NATO and America's security guarantees, and suddenly feel all these dependencies are being weaponized has scared the hell out of Europe, given that Russia is currently attacking a sovereign state in Ukraine.

And it scared the hell out of Canada because, you know, 75, 80% of our exports go there.

And we've grown up simply taking that economic link for granted, and also the security protection we got.

How would you describe Canada's place in the world at this moment in time as we grapple with the likes of President Trump?

Is illiberal democracy the most common and most successful form of government?

Well, I can't actually answer that question, but I can answer one right next to it.

Is there such a thing as a liberal democracy? And I would argue that it's a contradiction in terms.

A democracy either has checks and balances, free media, rule of law, the whole apparatus of power, controlling power to keep the people free, or it's not democracy at all.

It's just majoritarian tyranny.

So I dispute that contention, number one.

Point two in relation to Kishore.

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What was this transformation about?

Well, I, I, I think first of all, Rune, it was the coming of age of my generation.

Um, uh, we were born after the second war.

Our parents had served in, um, in the war.

Um, we were spared the horror of the Second World War.

We came of age at a time when, um, we were given unprecedented freedom.

This was the era of the pill.

What of, what of, what of the old UN do you see being revitalized in, in, in the next years? Uh, w- what would be the parts of the Wilsonian heritage that we could pick up and revitalize?

Hmm.

And the interesting thing about the stoic language is that all his male friends say, "Come on, Cicero, shape up.

You know, get a grip.

It's, she was just a, a woman.

You know, she's just a, a, a female.

What, what's your problem here?" He can't get over the loss of his daughter, and none of this stoic stuff, which is self-command, grin and bear it, reduce your expectations of life, self-control, resignation, all this stuff, none of it works when the fierce pain of losing his daughter occurs.

So yes, you're quite right, Kate.

But I would certainly never assure people that they'd have something like it.

Why do you think Mark Carney wanted t- to communicate in that way to delegates at Davos? What did he need them to take away from his address?

Well, this is not a knock on Mark Carney, who, who I think is the right prime minister for my country right at the moment and I've known for a while, but he's a, he's a Davos guy.

He's ...

So he knows his audience.

He has perfect pitch for that audience.

And I think he was trying to do two things.

He was essentially, as a medium-sized country, Canada's big in geography, but we're small, 40, 45 million people, so we need friends.

"You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when that integration becomes the source of your subordination." Now, you know, th- there was a tr- an awful truth in that, I'm afraid, um, that you can't just turn on a dime.

Do they contain enough good to compensate for their evils and make their preservation desirable?"

Well, let's put it in context first.

She's in 1943.

She's writing for the Free French.

She's writing in the expectation that Nazism will be defeated and France will have the task of rebuilding itself after the defeat in 1940, and she's working off the back of the collapse of the Third Republic and the inability of the French political system to effectively resist Hitler and the inability of France to defend itself.

She's reflecting on one of the great catastrophes in French history, and she's asking herself, "What went wrong?" Like so many other people are asking what went wrong, and her answer is, "One of the things that poisoned us were political parties, and they poisoned us because they encouraged group think." They encouraged a political form of arguing about what is true and what is false, what is happening and what is not, that was propagandistic.

It, it said, "I'm gonna tell you what you ought to think," and since the real goal of all political parties is power, everything they said was oriented and driven by their desire for power.

sympathy.If we were to beam her into the 21st century now, what do you think she would advise to those hoping to revitalize the health of their democracies?

Why do you think Mark Carney wanted to communicate in that way to delegates at Davos? What did he need them to take away from his address?

Well, this is not a knock on Mark Carney, who I think is the right prime minister for my country right at the moment.

I've known for a while, but he's a Davos guy.

So he knows his audience.

He has perfect pitch for that audience.

And I think he was trying to do two things.

He was essentially, as a medium-sized country, Canada is big in geography, but we're small, 40, 45 million people.

The citizenry of Canada, how do you think they're sitting around and talking about all of this, Michael?

which case, I want to hear Michael Ignatieff then on whether Hungary or the U.S., which concerns you more in terms of its authoritarianism?

Well, I'd agree with Janice.

I've been agreeing with Janice for 40 years, so why don't I continue? I would add a caveat again.

One of the most extraordinary phenomena that nobody is watching but is crucial is Victor Orban is facing the most serious electoral democratic challenge in the 15 years that he's been in power.

So let's not say the game is over.

And I would say the same thing in the United States.

Let's not say the game is over.

Do we suspect that the administration is going to use this assassination of Charlie Kirk to do its worst?

What do you think the most significant consequence of that for Canada is?

I think, Vashti, the question for Canada has always been, right back to Confederation, can we maintain an independent national state and have economic integration with the United States? John A.

Macdonald was doubtful, so he put protectionist tariffs around the Canadian economy to build it up.

Then we had an election in 1911, and Laurier and Borden fought out this question.

And Borden won, and we went towards free trade.

In 1988, some of us will remember that election when, you know, Mulroney and Turner squared off.

It always is the same question.

Do you think that Canadians have settled on the answer to the most existential question that you pose there? Or do you think that there needs to be a very public conversation or debate about what the answer is?

Can it, can it manage that?

I think it can manage a lot of things, um, but it all takes time, and the critical political question is how much time Mark Carney has got.

He doesn't have a majority in the House of Commons.

I think he can manage that.

But fixing the productive challenges that an economy faces is, you know, takes five, ten years.

You've got to change the, the, the taxation system.

You've got to break down the internal barriers.

Until the midterms, maybe four years till Trump, uh, leaves office, uh, and we can get through this"?

But then suddenly he's talking about economic pressure in the context of making Canada the 51st state.

Yes, I think that Canadians are aware that we actually have a pretty tight border.

There are a couple of places where there are holes in Quebec where people squiggle in.

But anybody who's gone across the Canadian border knows it's a serious border with serious controls.

And if you don't have the right papers, you're not going to get in.

So that seems a false issue to most Canadians.

There are issues about fentanyl and drugs.

Do you think they can revitalise before the election? And how much do they need to change the Trudeau formula?