I'm very pleased today to be joined by James Moore, a former member of the Canadian Parliament, a good friend of mine.

We're going to talk about the bilateral relationship.

We're going to talk about Canadian politics, and we're going to talk about our shared North American history, our culture, the differences in the

country, and what binds us together. James, welcome.

Good to be with you, Steve.

You live in the great city of Vancouver, which I think is the most beautiful city on the on the North American continent.

You've served as a senior minister in the in the Canadian government, in government, as a member of parliament.

This is a mostly American audience, but not universally. Talk about Canada. What makes Canada

unique and special amongst the English-speaking countries? It wasn't supposed to work.

The fact that it's not an English- speaking country, but is viewed by the other English speaking countries as such because of its Commonwealth affiliation.

Canada's the country is not supposed to work.

You were the second largest country in size, the 37th largest in population.

We're born out of divisions, indigenous Canadians versus the English versus French. We have linguistic

barriers across the country. So you have this massive continental footprint with a thin population,

80% of whom live within a two-hour border with the United States, our relations with the United States are enormously economically and culturally important.

We've had two referendums on Quebec sovereignty and separation.

Of course, we've gone through world wars.

We've gone through all kinds of crises, political ones as well, scandals as bad as the worst that Americans have ever seen.

So we've had a lot of stresses and stress tests on the fact of Canada, and yet we've endured. There's a parallel narrative

there with the United States as well, but in Canada, you know, it is true. We're less jingoistic,

so we expect more practicality from government. Ideology isn't, and we don't dump as much of our identity and sense of self-worth,

sense of community into government because for where I am in Vancouver,

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