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Edward Greenspon: Hello, I'm Edward Greenspon, editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail. Welcome to the Globe Round Table, the place to be for an intelligent discussion of the political issues of the day.

Well it's Cabinet making week in Canada. Provinces and various industries are beginning to put their hands out to Ottawa in light of the falling economy. And the United States is nearing the end of an epic presidential election campaign. So we have plenty of ground to cover this morning.

Joining me to help put it altogether are: Jodi White, president of the Public Policy Forum, a non-partisan think tank based in Ottawa and a former chief of staff to Joe Clark and Kim Campbell; Doug McArthur, the distinguished Fellow in Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, and a former Cabinet minister in Saskatchewan and deputy minister to two premiers in British Columbia; John Manley, senior counsel at the law firm of McCarthy Tetrault and Canada's former ministry of industry, finance, foreign affairs and deputy prime minister.

I love reading that list, John. It's so long. And still — still I believe a potential candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party. But John, we're not going to get — we're going to give you a break this week on that question, unless of course, as always, you need to feel the need to make a declaration one way or the other.

And we're going to turn first to the Cabinet that the Prime Minister is supposed to unveil tomorrow. Let me start with you, John. What should he be trying accomplish with this Cabinet and then who should be the key people he turns to to accomplish it?

John Manley: Well he, first of all every Cabinet in Canada requires a balancing act, balancing regions, provinces, balancing gender and to some extent in modern Cabinets, now finding ways to accommodate representation of different groups, particularly visible minorities. So there's a lot of balancing to do.

Secondly, you want people to play to their strengths, not to their weaknesses so you need somebody in some of the key portfolios who can — who is going to be seen as competent. .That's especially true of finance where the confidence factor is very important. You need to (overlap)…

Edward Greenspon: But can he afford to make a change in Finance at this point?

John Manley: I think not. I think, first of all I think Stephen Harper is surprisingly limited in terms of the capacity of people in his caucus to go into Cabinet. For a government that was likely to be re-elected, his party had difficulty attracting any new really bright lights or star candidates who you would say are automatically going into Cabinet. It's a bit surprising.

He's lost I think his two best ministers in David Emerson and Fortier from Quebec. So those are big holes to fill, not that Public Works as a post is a big hole to fill, but Fortier was seen as a very steady, solid performer who really brought wisdom and competence to the Cabinet table. So he's got some challenges ahead of him.

Edward Greenspon: Okay, Jody, how are you seeing it?

Jodi White: Well I should say I hear that the security checks are going to be more thorough this time. I think that's back to the — yeah some of the problems we had.

Edward Greenspon: To what could that possibly refer. (chuckle)

Jodi White:  Yes, exactly. I do think actually that there's going to be a change. Stephen Harper did -- a number of very bright younger women have been elected as Conservatives this time and I think there's a possibility of more women going into the Cabinet. I think just having more women in that caucus will be a good thing and will change it. A number of them are from more urban areas.

I agree with John that it has to be balanced. I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be starting to loosen the control from the centre and letting ministers do a little more. I do think that there's been an imbalance in this government. It may be understandable in early days with a minority government of tight, tight control.

But I think some of the problems that showed up in the election, quite frankly, in terms of the lack of other spokespeople on issues that could take away the heat from perhaps the Prime Minister and I would hope that he's thinking of that with the idea of maturing the Cabinet a little bit and starting to — I don't think he will change all of his spots on this but starting to let ministers have a little more profile and encouraging them to and setting them up with deputy ministers where he thinks that can happen. I think that's one of the things that I will be watching for.

Edward Greenspon: Doug?

Doug McArthur: Well I think that this is a big moment for Stephen Harper. I think in starting to get ready for the next election, one of the most important things he's going to do in the next while is to appoint a Cabinet.

The Cabinet that he has had was not particularly stellar and I agree that also they weren't given much room to do their jobs or be seen as doing their jobs because of the tight control from the centre.

When you're appointing a Cabinet, I agree representation is important, but there's two big important things you want generally from your Cabinet. You want people who are effective at communicating what the government is doing and the policies of the government and the general competence of the government.

The Cabinet is the face of the government and so you need people who are good at that. Stephen Harper's Cabinet to date was pretty uneven in that respect and he needs more people who are good and effective communicators.

And then secondly, he needs people that he can depend upon to competently administer their departments and carry out the program of the government without speculating and moving off into areas that detract people from the government's agenda. So Cabinet is a very important part of managing the agenda.

And again I think Stephen Harper is going to be looking at new blood. You can't make wholesale changes at a time like this. You can't make wholesale changes in a Cabinet at any time unless it's a crisis and he's not in that. But we are going to see, I think, a number of new women come in. Leona Aglukkaq from the North will be coming in. Gail Shea, who's got good experience in government in Prince Edward Island. Lisa Raitt I think will come in from Toronto. And this is going to be important because he did not have a Cabinet that had the appearance of being strong with respect to women members.

Quebec is going to be his big challenge. What's he going to do in Quebec? He doesn't have a lot of talent there, doesn't have a lot of room to move. And yet he'd like to use a good, high profile, competent Cabinet to advance his prospects in Quebec.

Edward Greenspon: Now Jodi, you've been involved in making a Cabinet in the Prime Minister's Office. Just give us a picture of what you think is going into the PMO now. Have they basically all gone home and gone to rest because they know exactly what they're doing or is it frantic last minute? What is happening?

Jodi White: Oh yeah, well I think a very thorough kind of analysis and the constant rethinking. I mean there's a lot of things to juggle, as John Manley was saying. And so that I think it's something that — and every time you change one over here there's a domino effect through it often because maybe some of the regional language gender things you have to change or add competence to that and awareness of what's happening.

So I would think really good, solid, hard think is going on and trying to figure it all out and figure out how to get those people into the positions. It's interesting, for instance, I think Heritage is going to be an important one for them based on what happened during the campaign as to what they do there. Is it a francophone in terms of all the problems in Quebec? But it's an area that normally is not seen as a senior position and yet there's a lot of things under that that need to be dealt with. Foreign Affairs is going to be very important and will be an important signal as to whether this government continues to have Afghanistan as its really only foreign policy or if it's going to go back to a more traditional, broader approach to the entire world about Canada's position.

So some of those will be important and I would say all of the work, which is usually held very tightly with only a few people. There are certainly some people who are not in the group because the leak issue is huge and there's no doubt in history there have been people who have invited off — been invited to not stay in Cabinet or not be in Cabinet after they leak the fact that they were going to be appointed. So ah —

Edward Greenspon: Really? Who?

Jodi White: Well I think — I'm not sure I remember the name. But there were certainly I think during the Chretien time there was somebody who leaked out that he was going to be appointed to Cabinet and the rug was pulled out from under him right away. And that would happen with any government frankly if it did, because it's just so serious. It's a bad harbinger of what that minister is going to be like, frankly.

Edward Greenspon: So John, when Chretien asked you to be in Cabinet, what did you do? Did you go lock yourself in the basement for 24 hours?

John Manley: Well, you mean before or after?

(overlapping, laughter)

John Manley: After I did. It's actually quite funny because in 1993 when I got the phone call — and I'll give you the abbreviated version — I went in and saw Mr. Chretien in his office which was the Leader of the Opposition's Office at the time in the Centre Block.

And I went in early on Saturday morning. There was nobody there. There wasn't even — didn't seem to even be any security around. And I sat down with him and he launched the conversation by saying, well, (with accent) I want you to be my minister of finance. And you know what things were like in 1993.

We actually spent 45 minutes talking about what to do about John Crowe who was coming up to the end of his term as Governor of the Bank, what to do about the deficit issue, how do we manage all of the finance issues. And I went home and I said to my wife, it's the F word.

But he said — on the way out the door he said, oh, but I haven't talked to anyone else yet. If it's not Finance, it will be Transport. (laughter)

Two days later he called me and he said, there are problems. Martin wanted Industry and he's got way too many conflicts to do Industry. So I'm going to put him in Finance and I want you to do Industry. But if it's not Industry it will be Transport.

And I didn't actually — and then Paul phoned me to say, oh you got the job I wanted. But you know, everybody on Bay Street didn't know who you were so they insisted that I should go to Finance. So those two didn't quite see the world in the same way right from the first day. (laughter)

But I didn't really know until I got to Rideau Hall whether I was Minister of Industry or Minister of Transport.

Edward Greenspon: Well there you go. That's probably good. Keep you guessing. Doug, did you keep people guessing when you were making Cabinets in B.C.?

Doug McArthur: Certainly people were kept guessing. A lot of this was done, as has been said, in a very small circle first of all. And you've got a very sensitive topic. There are people who are afraid of losing their Cabinet post. There are people who want promotions. There are people who want in who haven't been in. And so it's a pretty tense time when you're making Cabinets and they don't spread the discussion very widely.

In fact, I think some people would be surprised how small the range of discussion is. Generally speaking, Cabinet members themselves aren't involved in the premier discussion about Cabinet other than with respect to themselves and maybe some very particular ministers will get involved in some parts of the discussion.

But it's done with the premier or the prime minister and their staff. You get things happening right up until the last minute. Things change. You have this group who the hardest part is moving out the people who don't understand and don't accept which is most people who are moved out. That's the hardest part to face.

The second most difficult one is where you've got ministers who don't want to change posts and you've got to tell them and negotiate with them and pull them, use whatever techniques you can. And then of course the nice part of the job is the people who are getting a new job or a promotion and they're always extremely happy, regardless what post they get.

Edward Greenspon: And how do you build them in a team right away? How do they know what to do?

Doug McArthur: Well of course there's an extensive process of briefing materials, of course the famous briefing books put together by the Public Service and usually coordinated by the premier or the Prime Minister's Office.

One thing that new Cabinet ministers these days aren't short of is instructions about how to do their job. There's just tremendous amount of information provided to them, briefing provided to them. Today premiers and prime ministers place people in their staff, in their offices who partly run the affairs of the minister.

So it's not so much that they don't know what to do. The real thing about being a minister is to learn how to carry out your duties such that you are a good representative of the government and you don't screw up or you don't say things that are causing problems.

If you can get through that, get that down and still have a public presence, you'll make a good minister.

Jodi White: One of the problems I think is sometimes and certainly with this government perhaps in 2006, if it's a new government, a change of government, of party who is in government, it is the Public Service who's briefing the new ministers. And if you've got ministers who are suspicious of the Public Service and not sure, fearful they're about to become prisoners of some other order, that's a bad situation.

Because of course the Public Service is extremely knowledgeable and can provide them with an awful lot of advice and help on historic things about issues, the breadth of issues. Ministers often think that there's only one thing that they're being sent to do and in fact there are always many, many non-discretionary kinds of things that ministers have to take care of.

And I think if these newly appointed ministers go to the briefing and don't want to be briefed by the Public Service or don't think it's valuable, it sets up a very bad chain or probably not very effective ministering frankly.

Edward Greenspon: Let me just ask you one last thing and then we'll move on. For John and Jodi particularly, in Ottawa in your careers is there one person who you could say was an exemplary role model as a Cabinet minister?

Jodi White: I'd actually say there were a lot. I mean I've got a lot of admiration for an awful lot of Cabinet ministers. Because it's only been two parties in Ottawa, both parties, Liberal and Conservative, frankly. I mean there are some who aren't very good and it's fairly evident.

But I think many work very hard, have the interests of the country at heart, have a great deal of integrity and are trying to do their best.

Edward Greenspon: John, have you got your all-time greatest Cabinet minister who you wanted to model yourself on or anything?

John Manley: No, I wouldn't put it that way. But I would say that there are some teachers that you really want to try to emulate. You hear a lot when you talk to people around the government about who's done well and who hasn't and why. And I always thought that it was very important to demonstrate not only skill which is something that maybe you have or maybe you don't, but also respect, especially respect for staff and for the Public Service.

I think it's important to be well prepared for Cabinet, pay attention in briefings. It's hard work. And some of this sounds like really obvious stuff, but I'll tell you, anyone who's put in a position of authority, sometimes it just goes to their heads. And the stories that I heard of people who, and usually their staff follows this example, that are abusive of the Public Service, that are dismissive of it, that are erratic in decision making, that are incapable of taking decisions, these are the ones that don't succeed.

And the last thing I'd say is that making a decision is an art. It requires concentration. It requires being clear on what information you need and then it requires coming to a point where you take a decision and send it and understand in government particularly how you move it through the process.

The minister is not like the CEO of a company who makes a decision and that's it. You've got to contend with Cabinet, you've got to contend with caucus and you have to contend with the House of Commons.

Edward Greenspon: Let me just interject.

Doug McArthur: Ed, can I offer a suggestion?

Edward Greenspon: Sure, Doug.

Doug McArthur: Mazankowski was one of the great ministers in government. I think in the current government, Prentice stands out as a really top minister when you look at it from all points of view of what a minister should do.

Edward Greenspon: Okay, just tell us in a few seconds what made Mazankowski great.

Doug McArthur: Well Mazankowski first of all had a very sound understanding of what's needed to make the prime minister look good and to make the government look good. And that's the first thing a minister needs to be able to do is understand that this is not about themselves. This is about the prime minister, this is about the government, this is about the Cabinet.

Secondly, he had confidence. He had a great deal of confidence. And so he was able to carry out the program of the government and take responsibility for not just his own particular ministerial responsibilities but he did that rare thing which a lot of ministers can't do — I shouldn't say rare — but a lot of ministers can't do and that is look as a Cabinet minister at the overall program of the government and think about priorities in political terms and in public interest terms broadly speaking.

Edward Greenspon: Okay, we're going to send this out to Don Mazankowski in Vegreville as soon as we finish and I'm sure he's going to be very appreciative of it.

I want to turn to the U.S. but I just have to ask you one other question because we're already seeing people lining up on the door of this government, on the door of this Cabinet. We had two days in a row, the front page of the Globe and Mail had auto parts manufacturers want a billion dollars and then people who are running corporate pension funds, company pension funds, want a relaxation of rules so that they don't have to pump a lot of money into the plans at a point where they're obviously feeling a lot of business pressure.

This is going to be a pretty difficult time here and how do you think Ottawa is going to handle this?

Doug McArthur: I think that what we're going to see is Ottawa is going to, first of all they're going to probably look upon the Obama government, which is going to be elected, in just about the same way as they'd look at any other government. Ottawa is going to believe that this is the government that should take the lead on the economy and that our policies have to adjust and adapt in relationship to Obama policies.

I think what we're going to see here in Canada is the use of traditional — some use of fiscal policy measures to try to respond to the recession and there's a recession coming, there's no doubt about it. I don't think this government is particularly well prepared for how it will handle a major recession and how it will handle those demands, for instance, from Ontario for relief, some of the types that you've mentioned.

This is a government that ostensibly does not believe in that kind of relief for industry and I don't think really has — has really shown us yet what they would do in the face of a recession.

Edward Greenspon: Jodi, a lot of businesses, a lot of people under pressure, they're going to go cap in hand. How do you think the government (overlap)…

John Manley: Well, I mean I think some of it has to start with process. I don't think they have the answers right now. So in fact, they are having a meeting of all of the Finance ministers, fed-prov, in the next few days I think. And a First Ministers meeting in early November.

It's almost the kind of process that Stephane Dion called for quite frankly. But I think process is important in fact and they do all have to get in a room together and talk and plan. Because it's affecting the country in different ways in the regions obviously and then I'm not sure they have the answer.

I do think there's no doubt Jim Flaherty will be back at Finance and I suspect also that Jim Prentice will be at Industry because those two departments are going to be so key to this, what we're looking at and so leaving them in place make sense.

But other than I don't think they know right now and I'm not sure anybody does know right now because there's no doubt we are heading into something that's quite serious and scary for many people. And so that they've got to deal with that as well and make sure that they're showing that they're addressing it.

Edward Greenspon: John, you've been in Industry, you've been in Finance. People have come, you wanted to back winners, not losers presumably but these are tough times. People come and say we need some relief on the rules around pensions. How do you handle that as a minister? How do you think this government is going to handle that?

John Manley: I must say I should tell you I have a bit of a bias on that because I chair a couple of pension committees for companies, one of which is federally regulated and is hoping for some relief. In fact, what's being hoped for is that the federal rules will move into line with provincial rules which essentially you still have to make up a pension fund deficit, but you've got a little bit longer in order to do it.

And this is really the next shoe to fall because the requirement to make up those deficits is going to eat up really capital expenditure budgets of all kinds of companies over the next couple of years, simply because ah they are not going to have the cash to do — to do other things. If you're not doing capital expenditures that in turn is contractionary in the economy.

So I think that one might actually be an easier give. It doesn't affect the fisc at all and it does give the companies a bit of relief so that they can spend their own money on other things that may be more helpful to the economy.

On the asks, things like the auto sector, I think that what finance is going to be looking for is coherence. We can't go down the road where we're bailing everybody out because there are going to be lots of companies that need bailouts in this circumstance. So we've got to find a way where if we're going to intervene we're going to do it in a coherent fashion that we can explain to people why this one, not that one.

And finally, I'd say it's never a problem of picking winners and losers. The problem is usually getting rid of the losers. And you know, the winners we don't usually get too many complaints about those.

Edward Greenspon: Okay, look, in the last three-four minutes let's just turn our eyes south. Everybody is fascinated by the election there. It looks like Barack Obama will become the next president of the United States, certainly what all the polls are indicating. An historic moment of course it will be and if you want to talk about somebody who's going to have a huge load on his shoulders and extraordinary expectations for him, I guess that's the guy.

Jodi, what do you think that the Obama effect will be on Canada and the world?

Jodi White: Well I hope on the world it is terrific and successful. But again that's adding to the expectations and I don't want to be there because they are going to be horrendous. In many ways if you looked at it you could say that a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress and Senate is not in fact a good thing for Canada.

The Democratic party historically has been far more protectionist. And so I think we've got to be alert to some of that, especially because of the kinds of things we're talking about on the economy. This government will want to set up a relationship with them.

I mean I was noticed — I mean the Prime Minister after he first got in and had his first meeting with Bush, I mean then there was almost nothing with Bush for the last couple of years. And I think Canada has to look and say we need a serious relationship with whomever is the president of the United States and the Prime Minister needs to start working at that and making sure that we develop that.

We've got a lot of issues we've got to deal with. The border is a huge issue still and is not getting better it doesn't seem. Energy and Environment are going to be huge issues and then the economic one. So we're going to have to keep alert because, as I say, you would look at it historically and say the three-peat of Democrats in all of those key positions has not usually been good for Canada.

But I see the possibilities of definitely building a relationship and I hope both sides will take it seriously.

Edward Greenspon: Doug, rarely has a president come to power in such trying times and with such huge expectations. How do you see that playing out?

Doug McArthur: Well I think that's obviously going to be a problem although this is not totally unusual for new governments to come in with huge expectations. But there are really high expectations here.

I think what we're going to see is Obama talking down those expectations. I mean to some degree you could say he's been doing that already with respect to the substance of some of the things he's talking about -- Iraq as a policy of gradual removal of troops from there, not instantaneous. And there's a number of places where he's tried to put these expectations down.

I think the one place where Obama is going to have a real challenge is on the economic issues because he's not necessarily seen as being prepared, nor probably is he well prepared, although he has many great advisors, but he's not seen as being well prepared. So expectations will be lower which will help them, I think, but it's going to be a real challenge.

As far as Canada is concerned, I think on trade things won't change very much. I do think on the security issue which affects our borders that you'll see a change in approach. I think we may have better luck at working our arrangements on our borders with this new administration.

Edward Greenspon: John, last word on Obama to you.

John Manley: Well, I likewise keep hoping that the U.S. will realize that they need to manage risk at their borders and not prevent everything that they imagine could happen from crossing over. It's I think our number biggest bilateral issue.

But I think the challenge for Stephen Harper is going to be getting any air time with Obama at all. As always, the U.S. president's agenda is jammed with domestic issues and international issues only occasionally become important and it usually has to do with a zone of conflict.

So getting our issues o his agenda is very difficult and it will require diplomacy at the top. It will require Stephen Harper to try to establish quickly a relationship with the new President and build from there. It won't be easy in difficult times.

Edward Greenspon: Alright. Well look, that's very helpful. I know we'll all be watching that election with great interest on Tuesday and we'll be looking at what Mr. Harper, who he brings out tomorrow to run our government. You guys are a great cabinet yourselves. I appreciate that. And I want to thank you John, Jodi, Doug for your contributions this week and look forward to talking again next week.