In House Panel looks to upcoming ISIS mission announcement

What should Prime Minister Justin Trudeau be doing to help the Albertans struggling with low price of oil? In House panellists Paul Wells, political editor at Maclean's, and Rosemary Barton, host of CBC's Power & Politics, tackle those expectations and the future of Canada's anti-ISIS mission.

Paul Wells: My strong hunch is that the budget is going to be very Alberta-based.

Chris Hall: Oh? Walk us through that.

PW: Organize the infrastructure money so it rolls out in ways that are congenial to skill trades and construction groups in Alberta, in Calgary and Edmonton. Whether they benefit other groups elsewhere, that's a bonus but that's going to be a key design component. The prime minister's time at that of his principal secretary are valuable commodities -- any prime minister, any principal secretary. Gerrald Butts, the prime minister's principal secretary, spent two or three days in Calgary and Edmonton a few weeks before the prime minister went himself. That's a substantial allocation of scarce hours and it suggests that a substantial allocation of dollars will follow.

And changes to EI would be one to because Alberta is hamstrung by the current rules.

Rosemary Barton: Yea, I think that would be the easiest thing. It was something that they already signaled they were going to do during the election campaign and they could easily follow what the Conservatives did after 2008 which was we're going to extend benefits by about five weeks. They may have to do a little more for these people as they wait for the infrastructure projects to get up and running. 

And I agree with Paul, I think there's some risks to doing what they're going to do though. You sort of saw it bubbling a little bit on Twitter and in other places this week. If you are going to help Alberta -- really, really help it substantially --what signal does that send to southern Ontario? Who during the manufacturing downturn went through a horrible crisis as well, got a little bit of help but maybe not as much as we are going to see Alberta get. And are you then suggesting that one thing is more important than the other? I'm not sure but I'm putting it out there as as the political risk when you make those calculations for the budget.

CH: I want to turn to ISIS: we're expecting an announcement next week about what the new mission will look like. We've all listened to Harjit Sajjan talk about this for the last week and a half, not saying a great deal, promising it will come soon and it will be different focused. Paul, what are you expecting and how important is it to get this right?

PW: It's more important with regard to domestic --  the interest and attention of the electorate in Canada than it is internationally. Frankly, I don't see a lot of global clamouring for Canada to keep its CF-18s in there. There is a strong sense that Canada is more of a help than a hinderance. There is a strong sense that by moving to rapidly accept a large number of refugees from the region, Canada turned around the tone. The former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Guterres, former Portugese prime minister, was in town last week and at a dinner with some diplomats he said Canada's refugee policy with regards to the region was the only good news the West has had in the last half of a year. And no foreign leaders are saying you've got to keep those CF-18s in. They would probably prefer those CF-18s stay in, but if there's one thing a Western leader understands: it's a campaign promise. Above all, Barack Obama understands that he's in his ninth year of trying to close down Guantanamo Bay. So he's going to be fairly indulgent towards another guy who had to say some stuff to get elected.

RB: I don't think anyone's going to say, when the CF-18s come out and we present the plan whatever the plan looks like -- and I expect it will have a strong humanitarian component -- I don't think anyone's going to say, "Oh you horrible people, you did what you told the electorate you were going to do. We don't want to talk to you anymore." I still think, though, there is a level of frustration among allies around the way has been managed. Not necessarily the pulling of the planes but the level of communication, what they've been telling their allies, why it's taking so long to articulate the plan. Especially if the plan comes out and it's sort of not very complicated, which is maybe what we're thinking. Then how do you explain to the coalition partners why it took so long to get there. What was that about? And that's the part that I'm not sure I understand either.