WINTER 2025 // Canadian Government Executive / 25 GOV GURUS JONES: To start the show off and to introduce our guests this week, I’d like to introduce Laurie Turnbull. She is the editor-in-chief of Canadian Government Executive Magazine, as well as former deputy minister and executive editor of CGE Magazine, Mr. David McLaughlin. Greetings to you both. Turnbull: Hi, John. Hi, David. McLaughlin: Hi to you both. JONES: Q: his is a really exciting initiative. A video stream with podcast audio to go. Why don’t we begin with you, Lori? Tell us a little bit about the mandate for Gov Gurus. Turnbull: Sure. As you know, John, we’ve had CGE Radio available by podcast for a while now. But David and I wanted to introduce something that he and I will do on a regular basis. Sometimes it’ll just be him and me going back and forth, and sometimes we’ll invite guests to talk with us, to just have a conversation about what’s happening in governance. David and I are both really into politics and governance, and we’re going to try to tackle issues that have significant political consequences and that are hot topics. We’re going to make this space no-holds-barred, really get into the meat of what’s going on and how it affects Canadians. JONES: Q: I’m not aware of any programs in Canada like this. I’ve seen them in England and the United States, so it’s pretty exciting. David, how do you see it shaping up? McLaughlin: Well, governance is not exactly dinner-table conversation for most people. Very few people come together and say, “Hey, let’s talk about governance.” But it matters. It’s really about how governments operate, what they’re doing, and how they do it. Whether you get a passport on time, that’s governance. Whether there’s political trust by citizens in their government, that’s governance. Whether the institutions are working together, that’s governance. There’s a wide sweep of stuff here, and Lori and I have been kibitzing on this in different ways over time. We thought, “You know what? We want to bring this to the fore.” This is a time of transition and uncertainty. There’s more attention being paid to what the hell government is doing. We want to get into that and have deeper—and perhaps edgier—conversations, as Lori said, about what’s going on and why. We want to lift the hood on what’s going on inside the government and bring in some interesting people to talk about it. Lori and I have been writing, talking, and dealing with politics and government for some time. We have a few things to say, and I think this is a great forum for us to do it. So we are the original Gov Gurus, but we’re going to bring on a whole bunch of other Gov Gurus over time as we head into a really big and fascinating 2025. It’s a great time to be doing this. JONES: Q: That sounds exciting, so let’s get started. Lori, why don’t we start with you. What’s going on in the National Capital Region and on the Hill? “You know, unity of the country with premiers and business, Team Canada, and the rest of it, to figure out how to tackle this uniquely disruptive situation of an incoming president who is a real disruptor in chief, and in a way, an outgoing Prime Minister in the last leg of his mandate.” — David McLaughlin
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