Sabrina Fernandes, author and well-known Brazilian political commentator, talks about this fall's pivotal elections, which pits incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — Lula — of the social democratic Workers Party against Trump-backed candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his Liberals.

What's at stake for Canada is that while we seek more trade partners to reduce dependance on US trade, a Trump-aligned president will reduce Brazil's current search for increased trade diversification for the same reasons. Brazil has the world's the tenth largest economy by GDP.

In the past year, pro-Trump politicians have won presidential elections in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Chile. Brazil and Mexico remain the most important hold-outs.

Like Canada, Brazil has significant natural resources including oil, forests, farming and minerals. It has a big manufacturing sector, anchored by auto assembly plants and steel mills. But while about 75 of Canadian exports go to the U.S., the United States is the market for only about 10 percent of Brazilian exports.

But there will still be economic pain from the 25 per cent tariff on many exports imposed by Trump last week. The Trump administration claims Brazil's Pix payment system prevents market access for companies like Visa or PayPal. It says Brazilian court orders unfairly restrict U.S. media platforms X and Meta. Bolsonaro says his alignment with Trump will allow him to remove the tariffs, if elected.

Brazil's largest export market is China, which purchases substantial amounts of food and oil. Trump's National Security Strategy overtly states the resources of The American exist to power US wealth, not it's competitor, China. And while even the election of Bolsonaro likely will not change sales of food and oil to China, he would pursue a different path than Lula on mineral resources, which the U.S. president wants to control.

Like Canada, Brazil has significant critical mineral reserves and Lula has promoted a value-adding approach to mineral extraction to develop a domestic industry and maintain sovereign control. But Bolsonaro is agreeable to exporting unfinished products at low royalty costs, a position supported by foreign mining companies and Trump.

A Bolsonaro presidency would also take a different path on the new international alliance created by Trump this spring, The Shield of The Americas. The new organization's stated purpose is to co-ordinate work against drug trafficking. But it's militarized approach raises concern it is a trojan horse for greater Trump influence within national police and military forces and even military intervention.

While several governments in The Americas have joined, Brazil, Mexico and Colombia have not. Colombia may join after it's new pro-Trump president-elect takes office in August. And likely Brazil will join if Bolsonaro wins in October.

Lula's Workers Party (PT) was created in the early 1980s in the context of military dictatorship and as a coalition of unions, church groups and rural peasants. PT candidates have won five of the past six presidential elections.

But the PT has been unable to convert presidential wins into a majority in the federal chamber of deputies or senate. The right has used it's legislative majority to impose spending caps on the government, reducing the president's fiscal power and limiting federal transfer payments to state governments to support health care, education and infrastructure.

Whatever the outcome, October's elections are significant for global politics. They will either result in a president happy to serve Donald Trump or one trying to limit the U.S. president's global power. They will either elect a legislature that supports or seeks to limit presidential powers.

In our view, a Brazilian president with the legislative backing to limit Trump's power over Brazil is in the interests of Canadians, if only because adding to Trump's global power certainly is not.

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Nikki and Tom celebrate six months of Left East to West with a retrospective on federal politics, federal-provincial relations and shifts in provincial politics across the country.

The overriding federal story is continued Liberal strength. But polls show a drop in Mark Carney’s net approval score. Can Pierre Poilievre or Avi Lewis benefit?

In federal-provincial relationships, alignment between provinces and with federal government seems better. But has it come at the cost of having any climate policy and enforcing the Canada Health Act?

Provincially, many premiers face sagging support. Can they successfully increase perceptions of the risk of change? Can opposition leaders lower voters’ perception of the risk of change? Nikki and Tom look at different strategies for addressing risk perceptions.

Nikki gives some love to properly-done long-term land use planning. Tom heaves pollsters who claim decimal-point accuracy or to know the reasons behind poll changes that may not even exist because they don’t exceed the margin of error.

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Carla Beck, leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, sits down with Nikki and Tom to talk about her strategy to defeat Scott Moe and her economic plan to spur Saskatchewan growth.

Carla launched her Grid and Growth plan more that two years before the next provincial election, due in October 2028, just before leaked information from inside SaskPower showed premier Scott Moe's coal-generation electricity plan would cost billions more than admitted and modelling proving it was the most expensive energy option. Carla also talks with Nikki and Tom about help the federal government can give to her Saskatchewan plan, and the significance of Scott Moe's cooling relationship with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Also, Tom talks about new StatsCan data showing a stagnating Alberta average wage despite oil companies pump record volumes and high prices. Nikki reflects on the heat dome that sent temperatures soaring five years ago, leading to 619 deaths, and the unfinished work of preparing for another heat emergency.

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Economist Jim Stanford discusses the cost of Trump’s Iran War to Canadians and Mark Carney’s economic agenda. Jim estimates the direct economic cost of high fuel prices will reach $50 billion and go higher if it prompts the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates to reduce inflation. Jim also explores the investment banker vision of Mark Carney and concerns that his proposed “sovereign wealth fund” will be a mechanism for privatizing airports, ports and other public infrastructure.

Nikki looks at the series of federal-provincial deals from the Build Canada fund but questions why Nova Scotia seems to have no plan in the works to get federal assistance for provincial priorities.

Tom digs into some new data showing the sales margin for food and fuel retailers is growing at twice the rate of inflation, pouring money into the accounts of food billionaires like the Weston family, who are now using their wealth to fund a new media platform.

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Stefan Löfven, former prime minister of Sweden and now president of the Party of European Socialists, talks with Tom about the Nordic model, the key role played in it by the labour movement, and its ability to deliver strong economic and social results.

Nikki dives into the results of the B.C. Conservative leadership race and how Kerry-Lynne Findlay will shape the contest leading up to the election in 2027.

Tom looks into a recently promoted success of Mark Carney's Major Projects Office and finds it has little to do with creating jobs or speeding permits for projects and a lot more to do with buckets of public money for G7 priorities.

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Shauna Sylvester, Founder and Lead Convenor of Urban Climate Leadership, sits down with Nikki and Tom to talk about Canada's city halls, convening nascent economic sectors, and long-term change that creates jobs, increases energy efficiency and helps people.

The Urban Climate Institute is currently convening those who bring social capital -- skills, knowledge, production, finance, policy -- to switch many urban apartment heating systems to heat pumps. The initiative brings air conditioning to many tenants who don't already have it while reducing total electricity demand and the need to spend on more power plants. Shauna sees the approach as a model that can be used to develop other sectors.

Shauna has worked as a convenor in other transformation projects, including Canada’s World, which worked to help decision-makers other countries see a modern Canada, and in that a potential partner an friend.

Below the Fold

With municipal elections happening in several provinces this fall, Tom connects with Saman Tabasinejad, executive director of Progress Toronto, for an update on her city's civic elections.

Tom also gets the details on the recent Smith-Carney oil and gas MOU from The Breach contributor Desmond Cole, who reports that key environment groups are raising concerns Carney has agreed to cut the industrial carbon levy so deeply that private sector investment in the promised carbon capture and storage plan -- The Pathways Project -- will never happen with just private money.

Love it or heave it

Nikki is loving that the BC legislative session and the BC Conservative race is now almost over ans everybody can heal.

Tom is loving seeing Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew deal a very public correction to the "fake framing" of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about à recent court case.

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Jennifer Howard, former Manitoba Minister of Labour and Finance, and 2025 NDP campaign director, joins Left East to West to talk about Mark Carney's direction for Canada, the Liberals undoing pharmacare, the NDP's unsolved strategic challenges and building a stronger brand for the NDP on jobs and economic development.

Nikki checks in with James Valcke from Viewpoints Research with an updated on a recent Nova Scotia poll showing a long-term care strike is accelerating Premier Tim Houston's slumping support.

Tom looks at the coal plant controversy in Saskatchewan, where leaked documents show a total refurbishment and operation cost of $26 billion, far more than previously admitted, after Premier Scott Moe shot-gunned the province in to the most expensive option possible when his government wasted time and ran out of runway.

And Nikki and Tom discuss Prime Minister Carney's meeting with BC Premier David Eby and the a tribute to former premier John Horgan.

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Coree Tull, chair of the the BC Watershed Security Coalition, explores the challenges facing Canadian watersheds in our Feature Interview. Canada's watersheds face intensifying demands from industry, including new data centres, while Donald Trump makes unsettling comments about US desires for Canadian water.

Coree believes that to protect jobs and the natural water so central to Canadian identity, Canada needs to think of watersheds as key infrastructure and give them active monitoring and management plans to maintain them.

This Week Below the Fold looks at a couple important new stories that didn't make national headlines:

• Tom checks in with Farouk Karim, Quebec political analyst, about polling shifts after the CAQ and Quebec Liberals picked new leaders and Quebec Solidaire put a focus on affordability
• Nikki takes a look at how Canadians' data security concerns are showing up in responses to the Canada census and the BC Conservatives' leadership race

Love It Or Heave It is about something you love and want to keep, or something you'd like to heave and forever forget. This week:

• Tom loves that he called it right three months ago when he predicted the Ontario Liberal Party old guard would try to defeat Nate Erskine-Smith by any means necessary
• And Nikki is also loving the BC Conservatives claim of 42,000 members doesn't appear to be true, something she predicted a few shows ago

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