Episode Details

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! This one's for anyone tired of the heat-with-no-light that passes for policy debate on Twitter. David brings together three super smart policy minds who understand government — spanning different ideologies and varying degrees of partisanship. It’s a rare, respectful, rational, 90-minute conversation about the predicament Canada finds itself in and what policy steps the country should take next in this trade war with the US.

Tyler Meredith, Jennifer Robson, and Ginny Roth dig into whether Canada should still be racing back to the table with the Americans, or whether this is finally the moment to build real independence from that relationship. They debate what's actually achievable through internal free trade. Tyler makes the case the economic models behind it are, in his words, "bullshit" and why Canadian businesses have been sitting on their capital for the better part of a decade.

They’ll also discuss what it means that the federal government has quietly become one of the country's biggest investors: building and owning pipelines, de-risking major projects, and increasingly deciding which sectors to grow. 

They dig into the politically thorny stuff too: interprovincial trade barriers nobody wants to touch, the tanker ban, First Nations consultation, and why "brain drain" needs to come back into the conversation. 

And they close on the immediate question of who's actually hurting right now: auto workers, steel workers, forestry towns … and whether EI, retraining, and liquidity supports are anywhere close to adequate for what's coming next. 

This is a substantive episode that spans real disagreement and real depth. Pour yourself a coffee and settle in with the panel:

Tyler is the former Head of Fiscal and Economic Policy for Prime Minister Trudeau and Ministers of Finance, Chrystia Freeland and Bill Morneau. Today, he’s a Founding Partner at Meredith/Boessenkool & Phillips Policy Advisors.

Jennifer has served in senior roles in policy development and research with the Federal Government. She’s now Program Director and Associate Professor of Political Management at Carleton University.

And Ginny has spent a life in politics, most recently as Directory of Comms for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative leadership campaign. She’s a sought after commentator across various media and a Partner at Crestview Strategy advising clients on public policy. 

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