Canada's Aging Infrastructure – Adversity or Opportunity?

FRANK MCKENNA: We've got $2 trillion of pension assets looking for a home in Canada, and we've got hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure that needs to be improved in Canada, and we can't find the money to do it.
PETER HAYNES: Hey, we're back for another episode of Geopolitics. We're on the August 2024 episode. This is episode number 55, where I got to spend 45 minutes with the Honorable Frank McKenna. It's been my pleasure to be able to host this podcast. My name is Peter Haynes. I work for TD Securities. And we've been doing this now for 4 and 1/2 years, talking about geopolitical issues around the world.
And if you're like me and want to learn, we're talking to the right individual here. So I'm excited for today's podcast. I hope everybody is ready to settle in, and we're going to go through a few of the global issues that are important, that you're reading about in the news, and get Frank's take on that.
So Frank, welcome aboard here. I hope all is well on the East Coast. We're coming to the end of the summer. What do you got planned for the next few weeks?
FRANK MCKENNA: It's been hectic here all summer, and it will be. I've got kids piling in starting today, actually. I've got three grandchildren headed to East Coast universities, parents, and extended family. So we'll have a full house here over the next two weeks.
A lot of politics, too. I'm having dinner with the cabinet minister tomorrow night. We're going to be talking some politics. And next week, I've been invited to appear before the government's cabinet meeting in Halifax on a panel on US-Canada. So yeah, it's going to be wall to wall politics and family.
PETER HAYNES: So they still have your phone number, right?
FRANK MCKENNA: Well, yeah, they seem to be able to get a hold of me.
PETER HAYNES: Well, I'm glad you take that call. I think all of us in Canada are happy that you continue to take that call. So we are going to talk about Canada a little later on. But before we get started here today, I want to actually ask you about something you said last month when we had our live podcast in front of a whole bunch of TD people. You mentioned during your tenure as premier of New Brunswick that you survived a plane crash, and that was news to me. So tell us that story.
FRANK MCKENNA: Well, I'm probably the safest person in the world to travel with because I've actually had four near misses, I guess you could say.
PETER HAYNES: Well, I'm not sure that make you the safest. I'm not sure I want to travel with you.
FRANK MCKENNA: Well, I think the odds are pretty good. We blew an engine on takeoff in one situation and came in with emergency crews. Another time, we had a fire signal on board a private plane and came in with the emergency crew.
So another time, I was in a small plane headed to a rally with a friend of mine, I'll name him Paul [INAUDIBLE], who was campaigning with me. And we hit a thunderstorm, and the plane dropped, I would say, 100, 200 feet straight down. Obviously, we're just cringing and everything.
He turned to me. I'll never forget it. He said, I can't die like this. My wife will kill me. I thought that was funny.
But the fourth one, I guess, was the most serious. And I was in the government plane. I was flying to meet hundreds of teachers who were upset at me. They were on strike. And so I wasn't looking forward to landing. But as it turned out, we couldn't land because the landing gear wouldn't go down. One would go down but not two.
So the pilots jigged around with that for quite a bit, and then they left and returned back to Fredericton, to the airport there, which had more emergency equipment. And so we had to spend two hours burning fuel, which was entirely stressful. I had a chance to write goodbye letters to my children and my wife and to think some final thoughts.
We were in touch with a lot of experts trying to figure out what to do. We would dive down and try to jarred the landing gear loose. They were trying to go through the plane floor to get to the landing gear. At one point, we made a decision, the pilots did, to try to land on one wheel. And just as we came close to the runway, the factory called and said, for god's sake, don't do that. You'll somersault and catch on fire. So we pulled up and didn't do that.
And final decision was that we would crash land the plane. And that's what they did. They pulled up all the landing gear, and we crash landed the plane right on the belly. Pilots were terrific. They ended up keeping us straight on the runway. And we had foam trucks running along beside us. And at the end of the day, the plane was totaled, but all of us were safe on board.
So it tends to sober you up a bit for a while. And at that time, we had miles of cars looking at this from the highway, ambulances, surgeons, and everything all lined up. Half the people lined up wanting this to go badly, the other half wanting it to go well. I've never been sure what the majority view might have been. Anyway, at the end of the day, it was all caught on television and by the people on the ground, and it was a fairly dramatic event.
PETER HAYNES: Wow. I was wondering whether the teachers had something to do with your plane given you were going to visit them and they didn't want to speak to you. So anyways, that's a great story. And honestly, I'm very happy to hear that it had obviously a safe ending for everyone involved.
So last month, when we were doing the live podcast, we spent close to an hour dealing with global geopolitical issues. And we never once mentioned China or Russia-Ukraine, which I found quite interesting. And obviously, US politics was dominating the discussion. But I do think it's important that we'll start in the geography of Eastern Europe and the Russia-Ukraine war since we haven't discussed that issue in a few months.
Just recently, Ukraine changed tactics and entered Russian territory, what war analysts are saying was a very aggressive move that appears to have caught Russia off guard. Now more recently, there was a drone attack on Moscow that Russia is claiming they've been able to fight off, but it is clear that Ukraine is changing tactics here. Do you view this as a bargaining chip, or are they legitimately saber-rattling Russia?
FRANK MCKENNA: Yeah. I think it's more than a bargaining chip. At the beginning, we thought this was more of a feint, a minor incursion. That has turned out not to be the case. It now appears there are as many as 10,000 battle-hardened troops involved in this. They've moved as far as 35 kilometers into Russian territory, seized over I think it's 1,250 square kilometers of territory and about 92 settlements.
So it's a very aggressive and embarrassing event for Russia. And what it does, and I think what Ukraine is trying to do is to say, look, have a little taste of your own medicine. This is what it's like when war is brought to your communities, and you're saying, why bother us? We're innocent. Well, the Ukrainians are saying, we're innocent as well.
So it puts Russia in a very difficult spot because they're going to have to do something which I think is going to be very distasteful. They're going to have to attack. It's going to cost them huge numbers of troops to do this. They're going to have to get the Ukrainians out of Russian territory. And they're going to have to destroy their own towns and villages to do that, exactly what they are doing in the Ukraine.
So I think there are a number of things Ukraine is trying to prove with this. One, they wanted to let ordinary Russians know, look, you're not safe. You're declaring war on us. We can take war to you as well. There's also a refinery that's been burning now for three days. So the Ukrainians are really being aggressive.
So one, let the Russians know they're not safe in their homeland. Two, I think it's to speak to the politics of the United States with the election coming up and that both political parties know, listen, we're alive, we're kicking, we're fighting the good fight, and get behind us. Don't sell us down the drain. And of course, there's a real worry that if Trump were elected, that he would very quickly make a deal with Putin.
And then it looks as if they're going to use this as a bargaining tool on a number of fronts. One, in terms of manpower, they've seized thousands of Russian troops. They'll be used to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war. And the territory itself, three of the bridges have been knocked out now, which is pretty dramatic, and it makes it very difficult to recapture.
Russia is going to have to recapture it. And so it's going to open up a new front in a battleground and a trading card if and when negotiations take place between Russia and Ukraine. This gives Ukraine a pretty significant trading card.
PETER HAYNES: Frank, I just don't see how this war ends in favor of Ukraine. The worry, of course, is if somehow Ukraine does gain an apparent upper hand-- which maybe it has just in this recent incursion-- then Russia can always play its own trump card with its nuclear arsenal, and that scares me. Are we at the point where we can find some sort of an off ramp that is mutually satisfactory to avoid that worst case scenario?
FRANK MCKENNA: People have to realize that this is always going to be a tough fight for Ukraine. I think it was Stalin who said it best when somebody said, your troops aren't of a very good quality. And he talked about quantity has a quality of its own. And that's just the truth. The Russians, first of all, they seem to be totally immoral about the lives of their citizens. And secondly, they have more people that they can throw into battle and conscript.
So ultimately, they are always going to be a difficult force to defeat. On the other hand, the Ukrainians are bleeding them to the tune of as many as 1,000 deaths a day. And at some point, Russia and Russians may just may get tired of the cost they're having to pay in treasure and in blood in order to do this.
So I think that's the game now. It's somewhat of a stalemate. And both sides are trying to get maximum advantage in the coming months so that any type of peace negotiation will have them in a better position to bargain.
Peter, this war will end. All wars end. This war will end as well. Whether it's in the coming weeks or it's going to be in the coming years, this war will end. And the sooner, the better.
And at the end of the day, I would say both sides will walk away declaring victory. Russia will probably end up with some of the Ukrainian geography, and Ukraine will probably beat back Russia from its most ambitious aspirations. It will end, and the sooner the better because it's a toll on the entire world, not only on Russians and Ukrainians who are fighting there and dying, but also on Europeans who are paying a price on energy costs and food prices around the world. So the quicker, the better.
PETER HAYNES: Yeah. I think we speak for all citizens of the world to see this end as soon as possible. So let's cross back over to North America, where the political drama in the US, I would say, is at an all-time high. And this week, as we're taping, we have the Democratic National Convention that's dominating the news cycle, and that's keeping the blue side on the front page of the news.
The Trump campaign seems to be trying to find its footing after the Harris for Biden switch, and Republican handlers continue to try to keep the former president on point, and I would say that's with limited success. Do you expect Trump to mount a comeback once the convention ends and we return to more of a normal news cycle, and do you think his team's strategy is to put all of its eggs into the presidential debate, the first of which is on September 10?
FRANK MCKENNA: I think we've witnessed a couple of the most remarkable weeks in US history with Biden stepping down, and with the extraordinarily rapid ascension of Kamala Harris, and the choosing of a vice president, and the excitement and the joy that people are witnessing on their television sets.
And all of this really just restores the status quo. It doesn't propel the Democrats into the White House, but it gives them a huge amount of enthusiasm. And enthusiasm and energy are really important in political campaigns, and momentum is really important.
So I would say instead of this being a lay-down Trump victory across the board, probably in the Senate, the House, and the White House, it's now a fight all across the board because of this sudden reversal of fortunes.
We should be very realistic in level setting, however. Trump has a very, very pronounced ceiling. He can only go so far, but he has a very solid floor. He can only fall so far as well. So even though right now, Democrats have a lot of momentum, Trump and the Republicans are very competitive in all of the races, and just we need to level set a gain. There are probably, in any given election, more Democrats than Republicans in the United States that don't always vote, but there are more of them.
On the other hand, the Republicans have certain structural advantages. The Senate is almost 50/50, but the Republicans have 30% less popular votes supporting their 50%. That's a huge structural advantage to them. And as well, the ability of governors to gerrymander represents a huge structural advantage.
We have to remember, when Hillary Clinton lost, she had two million more votes than Donald Trump, and she still lost by a very bit, as little as 11,000 votes in Michigan. When Biden won, he had seven million more votes than Trump. I mean, if one talked about outrage and stolen elections, if you were a Democrat, you would have to argue that it shouldn't even be close if you're seven million votes ahead. And yet it came down to 40,000 or 50,000 votes in key states sprinkled over a couple of the voting districts.
So all of that to say that after all of the excitement of the last couple of weeks and the momentum, which will drive the polls even higher for Democrats, we are still in for a very tight race. Republicans have a massive amount of money. Very wealthy donors support the Republican Party-- Miriam Adelson. You've got Elon Musk. Now, these people are putting hundreds of millions in. You've got big companies and rich people who have a big stake in this election. And then you have evangelicals and other ideological supporters who are strongly supporting Trump.
So there will be a massive wall of money deployed in the next few weeks. If you're in the battleground states, you should just turn your TV off and go to a cabin and eat canned food because it's just going to be a total blitzkrieg for the coming weeks.
And at the end of the day, it'll be very close. The Senate is still probably going to go Republican because Republican, the math favors that. There are more Democratic seats up for grabs than there are Republican. So it's very, very closely divided.
The House is very evenly divided. The new enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket may help the Democrats pick up some of the marginal seats in California and New York, and the House is evenly divided almost anyway. So the House possibly could switch. And then the presidential race is going to be extraordinarily close, even after all of the excitement of the last couple of weeks. So we got a long way to go yet.
And as to the debate, no, I don't think that Trump would say the debate is the key to him winning. The key to him winning is getting his vote out, and attacking, and attacking, attacking the Democratic team and trying to knock their numbers down. And I think that would be their key.
I would suspect that both of these candidates are very able debaters, and both in their own way, I think, will be able to energize their particular base. And my last comment-- I think this to be true, and we'll see-- but I've always felt in debates that as important as the words of the candidates was the appearance of the candidates.
People want to vote for people that they like. Likability is really important. Humanity is really important. And if these two candidates are able to project likability in the living rooms of Americans, that will have a profound impact.
I think that's a little tougher challenge for Trump than it is for Kamala Harris because he tends to be very hot on television. So we'll see if his handlers can really tone him down, and make him presidential, and allow him to focus on the economy, immigration, his issues rather than get into personal attacks.
PETER HAYNES: One of the points that the Trump campaign has harped on for the last few weeks is that Kamala Harris has been unwilling to sit down for unscripted interviews. Why is she not just doing that and eliminating this from the ammunition for the Republicans?
FRANK MCKENNA: Because it's working for her. She's doing rallies. She's in the news cycle. All people want is to dominate the news cycle.
So I'd ask you two questions. One, Trump has done two news conferences in the last two weeks. How's that work for him? I think most independent people would say that he stayed on script as long as he was on the teleprompter and then proceeded to become very hot and very controversial when he got off script. So has it added a vote to his total? I don't think so.
And so why would she do the same thing when she's occupying and dominating the news cycles right now? She will ultimately have to do that. The people that care about this, Peter, are talking heads. The people in the street are not sitting there saying, oh, man, well, Trump did two news conferences, and she hasn't done any. I don't think that is an issue that resonates with the public at this stage.
PETER HAYNES: OK. So Frank, and some breaking news here this morning is that RFK is considering dropping out of the race and is potentially considering-- and I'm sure Trump is as well-- the possibility of being part of a Trump cabinet should Trump win, namely in health and human services, which kind of scares me. I'm curious what your thoughts are. I think RFK thinks that he would be hurting the Trump vote more than he's hurting the Harris vote. Do you agree with that, and do you think this is impactful?
FRANK MCKENNA: Yeah. Everybody has always wondered what third party candidates do. There's no doubt the Green Party usually get a couple of million votes. That comes right out of the Democratic Party. The Green Party has basically elected the Republicans now for the last couple of elections.
In the case of RFK, there's a general sense that he took from both sides. I think with Biden there, that was more true. I think with the energized base of the Democratic Party now, that is less true. So I think that he would take more from the Trump side.
Two or three things, Peter. First of all, he's flaming out. He's only got one funding source, and that's his vice presidential candidate, and she's going to run out of money at some stage or run out of enthusiasm to keep putting money in. And his campaign seems to be going nowhere, especially with the energy that's now in the Democratic Party.
Secondly, if I were doing a calculus on this, I'm not sure why Trump would want him or would suggest that he would be a cabinet minister. He's an ardent environmentalist. He would be totally contrary to the drill, baby, drill, baby philosophy of the Republican Party. I would think that if I were an oil producer, I'd say, what the hell are you doing with Kennedy in your cabinet? Come on.
And secondly, he's, of course, an ardent anti-vaxxer. And I would think that not everybody is pro-vaccine. In fact, a lot aren't. But man, there are a lot of people, especially suburban women, who would not be happy to know that somebody who's so virulently anti-science, so-called, or anti-vaccination would be in the cabinet in a position like health.
So it just puts Trump on the defensive, in my view, and something that he doesn't need. Already he's spending time that he shouldn't have to spend defending his vice president, some of his views like the childless cat lady comments and so on. So I think that it would not be a game changer for Kennedy to go with the Trump campaign. And in fact, it might end up being a negative.
PETER HAYNES: OK. Final question on US Politics here. Last month, you downplayed the importance of the VP candidate as Harris hadn't made the decision when we were speaking and ultimately went with Governor Walz from Minnesota. You downplayed the importance of that announcement, as most elections don't-- we're not voting for the VP. We're voting for the president. Do you think that Vance versus Waltz on October 1, which is their debate day, will in any way, shape, or form be important for this election?
FRANK MCKENNA: I do. And I think two things can be true at the same time. Historically, vice presidents don't really matter all that much. But we're so closely in a contested election that the results will probably be so close that even a few votes could make a difference.
In Michigan, Hillary Clinton lost by 11,000 votes, which cost her the election. Biden only won Michigan by 2.78%. Wisconsin, Biden won by 20,000 votes. So what I'm saying is if you can move 20,000 or 30,000 votes in the right places, that could decide the election.
Even then, I was a little skeptical the vice president would make a difference. But I do believe that Vance represents a net negative for the Trump team, and here's my reasoning. Trump, let's face it, put age out as an issue attacking Biden. All of a sudden, Biden's gone, and Trump is the old guy. He'd be 82 by the time his presidency ended. He'd be in his 80s. And all of a sudden, he's the guy.
So then they've got to call him an old grumpy man in Trump. So they look at who would replace him if anything happened to him. Well, what he did was come up with a young grumpy man in JD Vance, who's controversial and ideological and doesn't expand the base at all of the MAGA Republicans the way that he was supposed to do. So I think he's at the margins, a minor negative for that team.
On the other hand, Walz seems to be a good old boy, somebody that would be your next door neighbor, that you would have a beer with in a barbecue. And he seems to appeal to people who would say, well, he just seems like a good guy, football coach, and high school teacher, and served in the National Guard.
And I don't know that he brings huge positives, but he doesn't have negatives. And I think for the Midwest, which is critically important, that he is an asset. I would have said before, and I'll say it again, I would have gone with Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania. If you don't win Pennsylvania as a Democrat, you're not going to end up being president of United States. I think they have to win Pennsylvania, but their calculus is that Walz will help them win Pennsylvania, and he may also bring them some votes in Wisconsin and other states in the neighborhood-- Michigan, for example.
PETER HAYNES: And Shapiro might have been a bit controversial given the conflict in the Middle East too and his views with respect to that. So we'll switch over to Canada here, Frank. And last month, we were discussing the decision by Biden to step down, and that was just really fresh news. And I asked you whether or not you thought it might give pause to Prime Minister Trudeau, who's been in office now for nine years, and his popularity is fairly low.
And your answer was yes. You thought that there was a possibility that Trudeau may make the decision not to run again. And then I asked you if it was going to be a walk in the snow like his father years ago, and you said that would be too late. So we're a month later here, and we haven't heard anything more on that topic. When is too late?
FRANK MCKENNA: To start with, I think that if any leader around the world looked at the outpouring of affection for Biden at the convention, they would start to assess timing as an issue. I mean, I've never seen a love fest like when he walked in. And I think that he will end up being rated as a consequential president, and I think that he will leave with a huge amount of respect and affection.
So if Trudeau were looking at that, I think he might say, wow, I've got a chance to cement my place in history and do for the party the ultimate unselfish act. On the other hand, people may now look at what's going on and saying, wow, Biden just did a hot change with Kamala Harris, last-minute change, and she's created great energy and really a lot of enthusiasm. So maybe it's better to go later than earlier. I'm not of that view.
So my view is that if Trudeau were to leave and maximize the potential for his party, it would be in the coming weeks, so that you could end up having a new leader in place who could put his or her stamp on the government and have about a year to show that inflation is coming down, that productivity is improving, size of government is reducing.
Let's say that the government is more efficient, effective, the train's right on time, and all of those things. So I think you need time to do that because I don't think Trudeau is the only challenge for the current government. I think it's the fact the government's been in office for nine years.
So it's not just the leader that is close to stale dated. It's the government as well. And for that reason, I think the best chance of success would be to have a complete new face to the government, ideologically a new face, new direction, new ideas. And that takes a bit of time to implement.
PETER HAYNES: OK. So that can happen in one of two ways. This is hypothetical. It could mean the prime minister steps down now, and a new person comes in as prime minister for the remainder of the term. Or alternatively, Prime Minister Trudeau would announce that he would not run again. The party would pick a new leader who would lead the party in the next election. Is there a likelihood of which direction that would potential scenario would go in, or is there one that you would think is better than the other?
FRANK MCKENNA: I haven't looked into the legality, but there are people telling me that can't have such a thing as an interim leader. I just don't understand that. When I left, I left 10 years to the day that I was elected, and I left as member, leader, premier, and a deputy premier was elected to be the acting premier. My deputy premier became the acting premier simultaneously.
There's going to be a change. That's what I would like to see, is an acting leader take over and a leadership take place. So that's not clear. I suspect people are thinking about this. They're probably thinking that a leadership convention would be called and that the current prime minister would stay in office up until such time as that convention produced a new leader.
The process is complicated by party constitutions and so on and other things, making it very difficult to make this kind of a change, Peter. And at this stage, I'm just not sure which way it would go. At this stage, in fairness, there's absolutely no evidence to indicate that the prime minister is considering leaving either. So there's just not a lot of speculation on that.
I will tell you from some experience that no leader will ever signal that he's going to go because when he or she does that, they become a lame duck instantly. So if it happens, it will be a total surprise.
PETER HAYNES: You mentioned that you thought that President Biden's legacy would be one that when the history books are written, would be very positive. And one of the things that Biden was able to accomplish was a significant budget for helping the infrastructure of the United States.
And I wanted to talk about infrastructure in Canada as it is not a topic that we've had spent any airtime on. But anyone that visited Calgary during the stampede is aware of the major water main break that has hampered that city since the beginning of June. And more recently, there was a break in an underground water main near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in Montreal that unleashed what people were referring to as, quote, "a wall of water." And it led to a boil water advisory for 150,000 homes in the area.
A 2020 report from Canada's Core Public Infrastructure Survey found that 1 in 5 kilometers of water, sewer, and stormwater pipes was reaching the end of its useful life, which is in the 50- to 70-year range, having been built in 1970. However, municipalities that carry the majority of the burden for this infrastructure do not have the financial means to spend on upgrades as they receive less than 10 cents of every tax dollar.
What would your advice be to government officials, and is there some role that Canadian pensions so desperate for infrastructure assets, that they could play in this ongoing ownership and maintenance of these assets?
FRANK MCKENNA: What Biden accomplished here is almost miraculous. Governments have been trying for 50 years to do a major infrastructure deal in the United States. In fact, in Nancy Pelosi's book, she talks about opening days of the Trump administration, going to his office, along with other leaders, congressional leaders, to talk about exactly that infrastructure.
As soon as the conversation started, Trump said, you know I won the popular vote. And she said, no, you didn't. He said, yes, I did. I won the popular vote. And she said, no, you didn't.
She said that was the end of the conversation about infrastructure because it was clear they were going to be fighting about other issues. All of that to say that Biden really accomplished something significant here. Both parties deserve credit for going nonpartisan on that, on this.
Canada, we seem to have a Gordian knot around these kinds of assets that we can't untie. Part of it is that we're not desperate enough. So a lot of countries in the world have no other sources of financing, and they're so desperate they have to do something, so they make difficult decisions. We don't seem to have reached that stage in Canada.
We have a very high degree of unionization. Municipal employees would be entirely unionized across the country, and provincial employees are entirely unionized across the country. They do not like the private sector being involved in any of these assets.
So we've got-- exactly what you're saying-- we've got $2 trillion of pension assets looking for a home in Canada, can't find them. And we've got hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure that needs to be improved in Canada, and we can't find the money to do it.
What we need to do is to do more public-private partnerships, allow the private sector much more participation in these projects, taking out some of the risk. We need to involve First Nations, who are a significant source of capital, and the Canadian Infrastructure Bank as well. And governments have to come up with some courage if they're going to do that. They're going to have to take on some entrenched interest if they want to get this stuff done. But they should be doing that.
And look, I did a lot of private-public partnerships. I built schools that way. I built a youth correctional facility that way. I built a highway that way, health care institutions that way. In every single case, the auditor general of our province and the auditor general nationally and everything would always say, this is a bad use of taxpayers' money.
And it's for this reason that I can use the provincial balance sheet or the feds can use their balance sheet and get a lower cost of capital. And therefore, we cannot possibly compete in the private sector with the cost of capital of governments. So that is a myth that's been very hard to crack.
Now, the truth is-- and I used to ask our auditor general, when we built all of these projects, did we build them on time? No, never. And did we build them on budget? No, never.
So you basically are telling me that if I totally de-risk a project, so there's zero risk to the taxpayers because it's laid off on the private sector, that you should not give that any weighting in your evaluation? And their answer is always, we can't evaluate that. We can't assume that governments are going to be over budget or take too long. So the end result is that our municipalities, provinces, and feds always get pushed off the puck. We just don't end up making the infrastructure investments that we should be making.
PETER HAYNES: Wow, that's just not encouraging. There's nothing good that I'm hearing there. What else needs to happen? If you're in Calgary right now, aren't you beside yourself? I mean, you visited Calgary in the middle of this problem. What were the local people in Calgary, local executives and business leaders, saying when you were there about the water main? They must have been embarrassed.
FRANK MCKENNA: It's ironic to say this about the water issue, but what we need is a burning platform. We need municipalities, and provinces, and the feds to be desperate enough not to have money and to be desperate enough that they'll say, well, why don't we leverage the strength of other balance sheets, pure private sector, pension funds, et cetera, et cetera? They just have not reached that point.
And then we don't recycle assets with election where the government had promised to recycle assets. But when it comes to something like Pearson Airport or something like a rail link or a road or anything, there's just no appetite to have the private sector do it. Unfortunately, the end result is that we just don't get stuff built.
PETER HAYNES: We need to keep that issue on the front burner here, Frank, and not just talk about it once every several months. And I'll be back to you with more questions on that topic in the future. So we'll finish off with the Jays.
Some of my friends who I'll call casual Blue Jays fans actually seem to be more interested in the team since it tore things down at the trade deadline. Because the players that are on the field now are younger, they're unproven, they make mistakes, but it makes things more interesting. Personally, I'm not sure I agree with that take. But I can say one thing for sure. Vladdy Guerrero is on a heater right now. What's your take on the Jays?
FRANK MCKENNA: I'm embarrassed to say that I can't not watch. I am such a fanatic. And right now, I'm watching Vladdy Guerrero.
Not only is he leading all baseball in the last couple of weeks in terms of slugging and home runs, doubles, and average, and everything else, but he brings a simple joy. He plays the game with total joy and love. And I absolutely love watching that. Even as a fielder, he plays the game hard. He's throwing his body into everything. So I enjoy that.
Having said that, I think the raw material is for a really good team there. Varsho, we have contractual obligations with him, but he plays the game with a huge amount of art as well. He's a spectacular fielder, great baserunner. I think differently led, he could do even better.
Springer, we can't do anything else with him. We've got a huge amount of money invested in him. I think he plays the game hard. Great speed. I love watching Spencer Horwitz. I think he's going to be an on base machine for us or for somebody for a long time to come. Ernie Clemens, the same thing. He's got power, can get on base.
And I think Rodriguez, our Cuban pitcher, has potential to be a Big League pitcher. And Orelvis Martinez should be back after his suspension. And Wagner looks interesting and so on.
And Bichette I haven't even talked about. I've always thought Bichette was as good as Guerrero in many ways. He should be good for 30 home runs, 30 steals, 300 average.
I did an event with him once, and I said, how do you feel about being a 30-30-30 guy? You could hit 30 home runs, couldn't he? He said, yeah. He said, but why not 40 stolen bases, Frank? I thought that was fun because I think he's capable of really breaking out in a lot of areas.
So all of that to say that I think we've got a bullpen issue, and we've got to get more depth, and we got a lot of holes to fill, and so on. But it's not hopeless to think that next year, we could have a pretty good team. Look, management are going to have to make a decision whether they're going to compete or not. And when you get Bassitt saying what he did-- essentially after we missed out on Ohtani, we just stopped trying-- there's probably some truth to that.
With that amount of money, you could buy three or four other talents that would have transformed the team. So I'm a fan of a number of the players. I love watching some of them play. I'm not a big fan of the way the team is owned and managed, but it doesn't stop me from watching the television every night, see what's going on.
PETER HAYNES: It's hard to imagine that Shapiro, Atkins, and Schneider are all back next year, but that seems to be the impression that people are getting right now. It's hard to believe. That I don't think necessarily makes sense in a season that's been so disappointing. But you're right. We have hope.
So Frank, I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer, and I'm sure we'll see you walking the corridors around the TD buildings here in September. Look forward to running into you, and we'll chat again in September.
FRANK MCKENNA: OK. Thank you, Peter.

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