The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "A Bridge Special: The Jagmeet Singh Interview"

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

The third and final in our series of interviews with the major national political party leaders.  NDP leader Jagmeet Singh talks about everything from the pandemic to the indigenous issue, and also his request of the Governor General not to allow Justin Trudeau an election this summer.Then Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson offer their take on the NDP leader's comments.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Coming up next, a Bridge special, the Jagmeet Singh interview. A can of pet food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the A Can of Pet Food team is proud of their entire bag. That's because every recipe has been thoughtfully sourced and carefully crafted with the highest quality ingredients, starting with quality animal ingredients, balanced with whole fruits and vegetables. A Can of Pet Foods are rich in the protein and nutrients your dog or cat needs to Thank you. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. And it's good to talk to you. This is the third and final from the series of our interviews with the national political party leaders.

On the verge, it seems, of an election. A couple of months ago, we had Justin Trudeau. Last week, we had Aaron O'Toole, the leader of the Conservative Party. And today, we get to speak with the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh. This will be his second election. And a lot riding on it. They've got 24 seats. He wants to, obviously obviously multiply that by any number

and get in a greater position of influence and power on Parliament Hill. Can he do it? Well, part of the way you do it is you sell your message, and that's what he tries to do in this interview, and you'll be the judge of how well, in fact, he does on that because it's your votes that matter. So what we're going to do, we have the interview. It was recorded last night.

Mr. Singh's been on a kind of week-long tour of different parts of the country, Northern Ontario, the interior of BC. He was in Kamloops, British Columbia last night. That's where I tracked him down and we had a conversation about 40 minutes. So we're going to run the conversation in its entirety and we'll follow it then with some analysis from Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson, the stars of Good Talk, have come

together for this opportunity to talk about one of the leaders. And so we look forward to their comments as well. But enough from me. Let's get into the conversation. Last night recorded with Jagmeet Singh. Mr. Singh, good of you to join us. Really appreciate you taking the time, especially on a week where you've been, well, literally back and forth across the country

and dealing in many ways with some of the big issues that are confronting the country. And I want to talk about those and what you've seen and what difference it's made for you to see some of these issues firsthand close up. But I want to start on something else where you've kind of made the news this week. I never figured you for a monarchist, but there you were, you know, sending a message to the governor general, basically asking the Queen's representative to step in the way if the prime minister wants to call an election and say, no, that shouldn't happen. Now, why would you do that?

Well, it was not so much as a throw to monarchy as a real mechanism of accountability. And the point of the Governor General receiving the request from the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament is that there's supposed to be a check and balance there where the Governor General does have to analyze whether or not there is a bona fide reason to do so. And we've seen a similar scenario play out with the lieutenant governor in B.C., where Christy Clark asked for parliament to be dissolved or asked for the governor general to take a step. And in that case, the governor said no or the lieutenant governor said no. And so there's precedence. It's happened before. And the reason I wanted to use this this is the right thing to do. And instead, I've been saying, why don't we focus on getting help to people? Why don't we focus on the recovery? Why don't we continue to deliver the help that people need while we're still in the midst of this pandemic?

And so that's why I did that. Well, let me pursue it for a little bit, because if in fact, you know, I mean, every constitutional expert I've talked to this week and all the ones we've read about seem to be suggesting that she would have to say yes if he did ask. But let's assume she said no. You can't have that election. Precedence would suggest on the federal scene that the next step she has to take is ask somebody else to govern. That the prime minister has given up his opportunity by asking for the

election she said no and she would then have to go to somebody else usually it's the person with the next number of seats so are are you suggesting you'd be more comfortable under this scenario with a prime minister o'toole than you would with an election campaign not at all i'm suggesting that that should give just Justin Trudeau pause, that given that there is no justification, there has not been a loss of confidence, and there's no way that he can show a loss of confidence when every confidence motion has passed, budgets have passed. It highlights really the only excuse that the prime minister has for this election is this pursuit of power. And I'm hoping it would give him pause if the governor general said,

well, you know, that is true. The argument that there has been no proof of a loss of confidence would then suggest that the prime minister should continue and we should continue to focus on getting help to people. Not that I'm suggesting in any way

that I'm a rather conservative prime minister. I'm just saying that we should not be holding an election. And this is one tool that I could advance that argument. Do you think, having seen the reaction to what you've said, including from the prime minister himself, do you think there's any chance of that scenario unfolding as the way you would like to see it unfold?

No, at this point, I think it's become really clear that the prime minister is going to call an election and will be in an election shortly. I'll be ready to fight it. I just don't think that's the right thing to do. I also would say in terms of my personal success or my personal party's future, sure, it would be good for me. But I didn't want I don't want a decision to be made that's in the interest of me or my party. I want a decision that's in the interest of Canadians. And that's why, from the beginning, I've said,

what's in the interest of Canadians is to continue to help them and get the supports they need. Okay, well, let's assume there is going to be an election then. You're certainly operating that assumption. You've, in many ways, been campaigning this week, as have the other leaders in terms of traveling around, seeing Canadians, talking to Canadians. What I'm wondering about is what your goal is. I mean, realistically, you've got 24 seats now. You'd have to do six or seven times better than that

to form a government. I can remember when, sadly, I'm old enough to remember when Tommy Douglas was asked in 68, I was just a teenager, mind you, but I do remember the moment Tommy Douglas was asked as the NDP leader, you know, what's your goal? Can you form a government? And he said, no, I can't, but my goal is to make a difference and our party to make a difference. And that's what we do. Now, when I asked Jack Layton the same thing in 2011, he said, you know, I recognize that Tommy Douglas is this giant figure in our party, and he always will be, but I don't agree with that. I think we have a chance, and we could form the government. So where do you fall between those two positions?

That question hits me in a really interesting way because I'm the eighth leader of this party. Tommy Douglas was the first leader. He first ran in a federal seat in the seat that I currently hold. So a lot of synergy there. And the person that got me into politics, actually, when I first ran ever for any position was Jack Layton. I ran under Jack Layton as leader in the 2011 election. So there's a lot of interesting synergy of that question.

It really speaks to me in a lot of different ways. But I am of the school of thought because of what I've seen in this pandemic more than ever. I've always believed this in my heart, but now I believe it in the results we were able to obtain. We were able to save millions of jobs and help millions of Canadians. They were better off because we were there. We just had 24 seats in a minority government, the fourth party. The change that we were able to bring has fortified my conviction that we need to form government, that people will be so much better off with the new Democrat

government. There were multiple, multiple examples. I'd be happy to touch on them where the liberals wanted to do the minimum. They did not want to get more help to people. And I had to fight tooth and nail. I was in negotiations, hard fought. We threatened to go to the brink a number of times and we fought to get more help to people. And I can just, I can imagine now I can see the difference we would make in people's lives if we formed government. So yes, I am in this question firmly in the Jack Layden cap. I want to form a new Democrat government. I want to be prime minister to fight for people. And similar to Tommy Douglas to Douglas, to make lives better. That is always the goal.

So to make a difference, to make people's lives better, I believe that forming government is the way to do it. Okay, well, I hear you on that. But one could also make the argument that you made a difference with 24 seats in a minority parliament. That's the way a minority parliament is supposed to work, right? That parties find a way to achieve certain goals. And they may have been your goals.

They may have been liberal goals that got enhanced by NDP suggestions. But one could argue that that's a good way to move forward. Strengthen your party. Stay in a position of uh of making a difference hold the liberals to a minority well i i would say that the idea of making a difference that speaks to me absolutely i want to be able to continue to make a difference that's that's the honor that i have the joy that i get from being in this position i get to make a difference and i i think about that every day.

The honor that people have given me, bestowed on me, so I can do this. And as a team, we get to do this. As New Democrats, we get to do this. So that's always number one. But I really firmly believe that we need to not just make a difference, which we will do our best to bring forward, but we also want to form government,

because there's so much more we can do. So if I could say both, I definitely want to make a difference. Yes, always. But I know that making the bringing in a new Democrat government would make the biggest difference in people's lives. And we would,

we would change things in a significant way. All right. Well, there were people that you talked to this week who want to see significant change and they want to see it now. They want to see it right away. I'll mention two places in in northern ontario uh that you were at the neskentanga first nation um i've been there as well it's uh canadians if they don't know already should know that it's been for more than

a quarter of a century has not had um clean water they've had to boil water all that time. So you go in there, and I'm sure you follow in the footsteps of many other Canadian politicians of all stripes who've been there, and have said, I would make a difference. I would change this. You would get your water. Now, it's not like nothing's been done there. I'm sure you saw that filtration plant. Millions of dollars have been spent there trying to get clean water. It hasn't worked so far. So what do you tell them? What is the NDP message when you're saying, I can make a difference, I will fix things? And they say, yeah, but now, what are you going to do now what would you do

it's a heavy question i just want to say uh peter i've seen or i know of your work in standiga specifically did some incredible work probably one of the first times they got so much attention was when you provided a lot of coverage and so i just want to salute that because having been there and spoken to the people it was heart-wrenching it was a heart-wrenching experience i i just there's two people that i really think about when i think about that question about what do i what can we do differently i spoke with b who made some national headlines with some of her words and this can't go was evacuated to thunder bay and she was asked questions and she said in a town hall meeting that i was at just a couple days ago she said i'm a 10 year old girl fighting for clean drinking water how does that make any sense and i sat with that it hit me in a really i don't know

in a really profound way i thought about myself at 10 years old and i wouldn't i was not fighting for clean drinking water when I was 10 years old, I turned on a tap and maybe my mom would say, drink more water or something, but I wasn't worried about drinking water. And it just sat with me. And then right beside her was her, it was her cousin,

Lyndon, who's a little older, 12 or 13. He said, we're humans. We're humans too. We're not animals. And just the feeling that these are folks that have been made

to feel less than human because they haven't had clean drinking water and so to them i i said something because they were asking the same question what are you actually going to do concretely and and something that i've learned in this pandemic is that while plans are very important you need to have a clear plan you need to have a clear step-by-step approach to get to an outcome i i believe in that i got have a science background, and I really believe in that methodical approach. If you want to get to a certain outcome, you need to have steps to get there. But the other thing that I've learned in this pandemic is that when there is a will, a political will, it gets done. The Liberals did not present us with a plan or a roadmap.

In the beginning of the pandemic, the banks had asked for a bailout. They wanted financial backing. And over $750 billion of federal money was backstopped to protect the banks. That was just done immediately. And that, to me, was an example of there was no plan. There was no roadmap. It wasn't like a thorough debate. Justin Trudeau made this a priority and got it done. And similarly, I said, this to me is a priority. And I know with the technology we have, being one of the world's largest economies, there is no excuse that this doesn't get done. I believe very firmly, having seen what governments do, having seen Justin Trudeau and other previous conservative governments, the decisions they make, this is a lack of political will. And sure, some steps have been taken, and I don't deny that, but it has not been a priority, and that is why we're here.

Okay, but you're still not telling me what you'd do on day one, other than just sign more checks. I mean, whether it's the water situation, whether it's the terrible situation on residential schools and the many suggestions that Murray Sinclair made that haven't been followed up or have been started to but haven't been followed up. What kind of a priority, like what priority is it for either a Prime Minister Singh or a Jagmeet Singh who is in a position to make real change because of the strength of his party after an election in a minority government? What happens right away? So things that we can do right away. For clean drinking water, what we learned from the community is that they were not, they still do not feel like they were partners in the decision. There was not a clear partnership. So I think that's been a failure in many regards.

I've seen that happen again and again, where Indigenous communities have the knowledge, have the experience, they know what they need, but then they're told what to do instead of being partners. So I think that approach of partnership would be one. Immediate things that we can do to walk the path of reconciliation, stop fighting Indigenous kids in court, I would immediately pull the lawyers off that. The case right now, as you know, Justin Trudeau is appealing a court or a human rights tribunal decision that Canada willfully discriminated Indigenous kids. That court battle is continuing.

I would immediately end that court battle. That's a clear step we could take. We can implement the calls to action. These are not recommendations, and I think the Indigenous community wisely laid them out as calls to action because they've seen recommendations get shelved, and we've seen that happen again and again. If they wanted those to happen, I think those can be implemented immediately. There are a lot of steps we can take in the current short term. Every child, every Indigenous child needs to be brought back home.

Thinking about the residential school or residential institution, unmarked graves, every single child should be brought back home. That means proactively working with Indigenous communities to help bring back those kids. And it means making sure that communities get the trauma and the healing. We did a circle, a healing circle in Thunder Bay after the Shkandaga visit. And I spoke with people that survived directly. It was a very powerful event where survivors spoke. And then children of survivors talked about the trauma that they experienced because their parents didn't know how to be parents.

And then grandkids of survivors spoke about how that trauma made it to them and they need healing they need supports and i would make sure we invest in that didn't they believe you and i i don't say that in a personal way against you but there have been so many politicians of all stripes who've been in and out of these places and dealt with the leaders of indigenous leaders from various parts of the country made promises it'll be different if we're there and you got to believe that they don't believe it anymore they've heard this from so many different people they are cynical for sure uh but what people told me is they, they believe that I had been through trauma myself and they saw me someone that had experienced some of the trauma,

experienced some of the pain and they believe that I, that I meant what I said. And which trauma and which pain are you referring to? Well, they said that a couple of things that they mentioned, they said, one, we know that you have some of the,

some of the folks who read my book and said, we know that you've experienced the impact of alcoholism in your family. And, you know, the trauma of having a father that wasn't there. You experienced sexual assault and sexual abuse. We know that you experienced that in your life and you shared that. And you've you've been someone that has to had to step up to your family when when times were tough and and you had to provide for them so you understand when when parents aren't able to step up because of their own illnesses their own trauma and and when i was a young man i had to provide for my family it was a sole income earner and so i think they saw in me some of the not to say i've experienced anywhere

near what they've gone through just i've experienced a glimpse of what they've gone through and i think because of that they felt that someone who's gone through similar struggles understands it and is willing to do something about it. I mean, in many cases, Indigenous peoples have suffered from intolerance in this country. And the debate sort of exists around whether or not we're a racist country or not. Leaving that aside, are there parts of the country that are more intolerant than others? And you've seen this, one assumes yourself, as well as witnessing what those people you were seeing this week have witnessed. Are there parts of the country that are more intolerant than others sadly this is a canada-wide problem uh i would have thought maybe there's places that

experienced it more until i was a part of the fight against carding in toronto one of the most diverse cities one of the cities that has welcomed people from so many parts of the world that's where carding was the most prolific where people were being stopped because of the color of their skin and incredible investigative journalism highlighted how a small percentage of the population was the vast majority of the stops when it came to carding and so there's clear evidence that that systemic racism and racism generally is across our Canada-wide issue in policing, in the justice system, in education, employment, healthcare. And so it is truly a Canada-wide problem and we've got to tackle it that way. It doesn't benefit us to assume it's worse in one area when it really

is something that exists everywhere. I want to talk about the pandemic for a moment. I want to know, you've already said that you made improvements in the way the government handled the pandemic and certain different support programs it had. Overall, how do you grade the Trudeau government's handling of the pandemic? What do you give them? Well, it's hard to grade Justin Trudeau because he cheated off me so many times. So in the exam, he probably would have failed for that.

But in all honesty, I would say he would have got a failing grade, genuinely, and not for partisan reasons. CERB was $1,000. That was what he started off. And I said, that is not good enough. That doesn't cover rent. And we forced the government to double it.

The wage subsidy was introduced at 10%. I've spoken with many, many small businesses who've said, a 10% wage subsidy covering 10% of a worker's salary would not have got us through this. And we fought to increase it to 75%. Brought together some unlikely partners, brought together the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the president of Uniform, myself, in a joint letter.

I'm pretty sure that neither of those folks have ever met each other, let alone considered writing a letter together. But we brought those folks together and fought for 75 percent and in doing so saved a lot of jobs. We brought in paid sick leave that would not have been there. But for us, we fought for that tooth and nail. OK, but overall, overall, you would give them a failing grade? But for the changes that we made. And now because of the changes that we were able to obtain, the victories we were able to obtain for people,

certainly a passing grade. But without our help, it would have been a failing grade. Absolutely. Without our input, without the changes we brought in, paid sick leave, doubling CERB, increasing the wage subsidy from 10% to 75% students yeah they would have failed but we were able to increase the help to a point where there was a passing grade remember steven harper have you been remember do you remembering steven harper this week as he's made a number of comments about the handling of the pandemic situation in

canada and he's referring specifically to the Trudeau government, but you just claimed authorship of the size, at least, of some of these support programs. Harper disagrees with the amount of the spending that the government provided during the pandemic, rejecting it as overkill. Now, you obviously supported the spending when it reached the point where that you were able to support it. Was it overkill? No, not at all. I would say there were things I would have done differently, but it certainly wasn't overkill. We know that in

this pandemic, there was a clear difference between the ultra rich and everyone else. The ultra rich were able to get out of this pandemic. The richest, I'm sure you've seen the reports of the richest Canadian billionaires, the 44 richest billionaires that increased their wealth by over 70 billion. So for the wealthy, they made out fine. Large corporations made out fine. And without putting in the help in place, it would have just exacerbated the inequality. Sure, the ultra rich would have been fine. I've made this analogy, which I think

is so appropriate in responding to this question. We were not in the same boat in this pandemic, not at all. We were in the same storm. And all of us were impacted by the storm, but some went through the storm, made it through the storm in a large luxury yacht, and some were living in leaky lifeboats. And so without the help, the leaky lifeboats would have sunk. And so what I would have done differently, though, is I said this in the beginning, that any public money that goes to a corporation has to have strict strings attached, like Germany did, where no money can go to a company that increases

executive pay, pays out dividends to their shareholders, or in any way doesn't direct the money directly to keeping workers employed. And we've got lots of examples of companies that took the wage subsidy or other public supports and paid out dividends. And so that should never have been allowed. And that's what I would have done differently. And I would follow up on those companies that paid out dividends, because that means they didn't actually qualify with the spirit of the idea of giving help to companies that are struggling. I want to talk about power bases and parties power bases. We're a little more than halfway through our time for this.

So I want to move on a little bit here. All parties have power bases. NDP is no different. You know, it used to be Western Canada. Under Ed Broadbent, it was kind of the union-stacked Ontario. Jack Layton built his base, as you know, in Quebec. Where's yours? You got 24 seats.

The majority, I think, the largest number is in Ontario. But overall, or sorry, it's in BC, I think the largest number is in Ontario. But overall, or sorry, is in BC, I think. BC. Overall, what's your, where do you see your power base? Don't say, well, it's a little bit everywhere. No, I would say a clear area of support that we are far and above where the party has ever been, probably is among young people. We see a lot of young people who are optimistic about the future, who want to see change happen, who believe that where we're at is not good enough.

We are seeing a tremendous amount of support from young people. So I would say that that's something that is probably starkly different than ever before, that we've inspired the next generation who make up a significant portion of voters. If you put together the under 40, under 45 block, make up a significant population. And for the first time, we've really engaged those folks in a new way. I think consistently new Democrats often do well with young people, but I think we've been able to inspire them in a way that we haven't seen in a long time. Not necessarily just in one region, but are you seeing this across the country? Yeah, it's Canada-wide.

The outpouring of support is pretty dramatic, and we've seen some publicly available polls that back it up. But we've seen it just anecdotally. When I walk the streets, I get stopped by young people all the time. People tell me they never cared about politics. They've never seen themselves reflected in it. And they see someone who shares their values, that likes the things that matter to them and wants to build a better country. And they are coming out and saying hi to me on the streets. And I've seen young people take to the streets in the climate crisis protests, as well as in the Black Lives Matter protests.

So there is a there has often been i mean we've seen this throughout history that young people have been at the forefront of change but there's been an activism that's that's brewing in a way that's really inspiring amongst young people do you think there's still a working class in canada and uh if there is how do you define it how do you define the working class segment of the population? Well, I really want to make the argument that, that a lot of people are working class, that everyone that has to punch in and punch out, they are working class. If you're going to exchange your time for money, you're working class.

And there might be some exceptions. Once you start exchanging your time for a lot, a lot of money, maybe you step outside of that, but most Canadians find that are our workers in some way. And I want those workers to know that I'm there for them. And we are always going to be a workers party. We've always been based on that. And it will always be the case.

A lot of those workers now are part-time and gig workers. But workers are the foundation of our movement and always will be. You know that in recent elections, many of those people that you just classified as working class voted conservative, right? There have certainly been people that have voted that way, but I think what we've been able to show in this past pandemic, and I think we're seeing that in people's responses, is that when people were in this tough time needing help, who was there for them? The conservatives can't point to a single item, a single thing that they fought for

and won to make people's lives better. Not a single thing. We can point to multiple things. For small businesses, we're the ones that led the charge on the subsidy program, the rent subsidy program being inherently flawed when it was landlord based. We said it's got to be tenant based. It's got to be the small business that applies, not the landlord that has to apply. And so we were there for small businesses. We were there for workers. We were there for people in a way that the Conservatives can't say they were. And so I put that to Canadians and we're seeing people say, you know what, my Conservative MP in one of the worst crises that Canada has faced in my lifetime, certainly in many people's lifetime, the Conservatives are nowhere to be seen. And so I think where in the past people might have been frustrated and voted Conservative, now they're going to be frustrated with the lack of action

of the Conservatives and seeing that the Liberals wanted to do the bare minimum and saw that we were there for them. How do you define middle class? How does one fit in the middle class? Give me some numbers that would tell me whether I'm middle class or not. Well, I look at it as working class. That's my analysis, rather than middle class. But if you've got to exchange your time for money, you don't own a large factory

with massive wealth coming in, most people fall into the working class. They've got to work for their paycheck and they've got to work to pay the bills. And if they're not working, they're worried about paying the bills. They're worried that they're not going to be able to. I think a lot of people

who are in the middle class and were more comfortable in this pandemic and other struggles have been pushing them out of that zone where they were comfortably able to pay the bills. More and more workers are actually on the brink. We saw a lot of bills that came out or research that came out that found that nearly half or over half of Canadians are just a couple hundred dollars away from not being able to make the bills at the end of the month. So I think more and more people are kind of at that precipice,

but things are getting tough. Okay, well, the reason I'm trying to get you to put a number on something is because I want to try and understand if there was an NDP government, or if there was a government that was supported by the NDP and had to go along with certain NDP ideas. Who should expect to pay more in taxes if the NDP had that kind of clout, either in power or supporting power? I would say if you've got an offshore tax haven, you're definitely going to have to,

you're no longer going to be able to use that. If you make money in Canada, hide your profits in a bank in the caribbean you should definitely consider stopping that because we're going to end that what does it make more than a hundred thousand dollars a year a year tax is going to go up no we're our focus is on the ultra rich all of our measures have been focused very clearly on the ultra rich we focused on offshore tax havens you. Most people that even have a good job don't use offshore tax havens.

That's not something that regular folks use. We're focused on companies like Amazon and the other web giants that make money in Canada off the backs of Canadians, but pay virtually no tax here. We believe they should be taxed. We've been saying that for years and now France has shown some leadership and has said that they're gonna tax the revenue

of those companies, which I think is a very creative and bold way to make sure they pay their fair share. We want to put a tax on the extremely wealthy with a wealth tax on those who've got fortunes of over $10 million. So any amount above $10 million in fortunes would be subject to a tax. But really, we want to crack down on the ultra-rich. That's where we think there are opportunities to increase revenue. And we know that people are worried. And I'll wrap up with this. People are worried because they see debt and deficit, and they see kind of a rerun.

They've seen governments in the past either cut the help that people need, bring in austerity, one option, or a second is they increase taxes on the very people that have gone through some tough times. We are proposing a third option, which is let's tax the ultra rich, the super wealthy, those that have got the means to contribute more and haven't been contributing fairly. Let me follow up on the one idea that you had in there. Because the parliamentary budget officer has said that a one-time tax, one time, between 3% to 5% on Canadians worth more than $10 million, so your value is more than $10 million, could raise at least $44 billion to help defray some of the costs of the pandemic. That's your idea. You suggested that the tax be permanent, and you've kind of said that right here.

Wouldn't that send many of these people, I mean, they may be the ultra wealthy, they may be the ultra rich, but wouldn't that send them Canadians who've made a living and made money? Wouldn't that send them and their capital out of the country? Would you care if it did? No. And the reason why I say that is that we looked at a 1% tax on that wealth. And with some of the economists we work with, they found that it would be more expensive to try to change jurisdictions than just pay the 1%. And so long story short, we believe that it will take courage to take on the inequality that exists. But it's only fair.

If you've made this excess wealth and you're not paying your fair share, which many times it's the ultra rich that aren't paying their fair share, that can't continue. That's unfair. What if it drives them out of the country? What if it drives them out of the country? Does that concern you at all? I don't think they're going to be.

I don't accept that. There's no way that people are going to leave this incredible place, which is ranked consistently one of the best places in the world to live, with the health care that we have, the stability of the government that we have, the systems that we put in place. It could be a lot better. There's some serious problems.

But we're not going to see people leave Canada in droves if we ask the ultra-rich to pay their fair share. I don't buy that argument. A lot of your promises, a lot of the things you want to have happen, whether it's free dental care, free pharma care, drug coverage, what have you, these are expensive propositions, right? You concede that. Some of them cross you know jurisdictional lines and you know some people have said well you know it's really interesting idea that singh is saying but he doesn't seem to understand you know there's provincial rights of federal rights and you can't just sort of lump them all

together you're going to end up in big constitutional battles do you recognize that as a potential problem in some of the promises that you've made? Well, inherently, anytime we do anything at the federal government, we're going to have to work with provinces and territories. That's just the starting point. That's kind of the obvious. But if we... Well, not if it opens up the Constitution, which some of these things might have to do to make them operate the way you want them to operate and do you really want to get into that well this is this is what i say to folks that that are concerned about this

if if canada had always taken a very strict complete hands-off approach to any sort of cooperation with federal and provincial and territorial governments we wouldn't have the universal health care that we have that That took cooperation. That took working together. And it took having the vision that we can do things better. And I always say this because it really speaks to me that a leader is not someone who looks for excuses. It's someone who looks for solutions. And if you want to look for excuses, yeah, the federal system is complicated. It's tough. We could look for excuses all day long. I'm not that kind of leader. I don't want to look for excuses. I want to look for solutions. And I know with the right levers, with the right initiative, with the right incentive, we can actually make changes. always envisioned that we were it was always envisioned that we were going to have dental

care included and medication coverage included it was always a part of the vision when you look back at those reports the royal commissions it always said that that was supposed to be the vision and i just want to complete that dream that dream of head-to-toe health care coverage a worker shouldn't have to worry do i have the right job or the right benefits to determine whether i can get my teeth fixed or if i don't have the right job i'm not going to be able to afford my medication and we only when we know that without the right job without medication coverage a lot of people don't take the medication they need they get sick and they end up in the emergency room and it ends up costing us anyways so it's the right thing to do i think morally it's the right thing to do

fiscally it'll be an investment that'll save us money in the longterm and it'll be better for Canadians. It'll be better off. Here's a last one for you. And this is out of my, I was going to say comfort zone. It's out of my knowledge zone for sure. You've got 625 000 tiktok followers okay it's higher now it's almost 700 000 but who's counting yeah how does that translate into votes and who are these voters are these just the young ones you're talking about or i'll give you i'll give you the i'll give you the behind the scenes scoops i don't think i've told any journalists this yet uh but uh my followership is vast majority canadian

so i've got uh almost 80 of the people that follow me are canadian and on many of the videos that are the most popular there's something like a 95% view rate from Canadians. So it's a Canadian audience and a lot of young people, a lot of people that can vote. And it is a platform to share ideas, to hear their thoughts. And I am absolutely convinced that young people are going to make history in this next election. And having an opportunity, a space to be able to connect with them is going to be really helpful.

There are issues about social media, and we're not going to go into them now, but obviously this is an area that works for you. You're kind of an innovator on this front. I don't know. I don't know who's got those, that kind of number on TikTok followers in the Canadian political scene. Oh, nobody. It was something that, you know, I want to demystify social media and for me me, I, you know, sure, every platform is a bit different, but I really think of it this way. And this is what helps me wrap my head around all these different platforms when they pop up. I'm the type of person, if I'm walking down the street and I see a bunch of people hanging out in a park, I want to go over there and chat with them, hear what they have to say. And maybe they got questions, I'll answer them. If I see people hanging out in a coffee shop i'll pop in and say hey how's it going and chat with them i love hearing people's ideas i love spending time with people and social media is just another way where people hang out and the same way i wouldn't hesitate to go up to people and chat with them where they are i do the same thing on social media chat with people where they are and hear them out and share what i have to say apart from all the back and forth in parliament or in a debate stage or wherever,

what do you think of your main competitor, Justin Trudeau? I was going to say my main competitor is cynicism more than Justin Trudeau. I think a lot of people are cynical about politics. That's my main competition because I'm all about dreaming bigger and believing that we can make things different and we can fight and change things for people. I think that's my bigger opponent is that people become cynical and they don't believe that the change can happen. I remember being like that myself not too long ago. I was an activist that would fight against poverty, fight against the struggles that refugee and immigrants face. And I remember being really cynical. And I think that's the bigger opponent that we have.

And with Justin Trudeau, I think at the end of the day, he has shown that he has chosen to help the ultra rich over people time after time. When push comes to shove, he's shown voted against pharma care, voted against getting profit out of long-term care, voted against taxing the ultra rich. And he's doing each of those things that hurts people that that he doesn't take that sense and doesn't show the conviction to actually put people all right we're gonna leave it at that jagmeet singh it's been uh i really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today and uh as i do to all the other uh candidates and as i did with the arnold tool just last week uh we wish you luck out there be safe and uh it should be an interesting campaign thanks so much appreciate the time it's

been an honor and a privilege to chat with you take care thank you you too all right there's the leader of the ndp talking to us from cameloose british Columbia, last night for this special edition of The Bridge, the Jagmeet Singh interview. We're going to get some thoughts and analysis from Chantal Hebert in Montreal and Bruce Anderson in Ottawa right after this. And we're back on this special edition of The Bridge, the Jagmeet Singh interview. You just heard it for the last 40 minutes. Now we're going to talk about it a little bit with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson.

Chantelle, why don't you start us, your thoughts. What interested you in that interview? First, the positive. I thought Jagmeet Singh's tone was a lot more self-confident and self-assured than it was in the last campaign two years ago. So those two years on Parliament Hill in a role that did have some significance have clearly given him more confidence. I'm not sure he would have gotten through what was it, 38 minutes with you without faltering two years ago. And in this case, he tried to be on message. I have a few issues on message, though.

The hook that the NDP seems to want to bring to the election campaign, listening to the interview, is we basically were the genius behind Justin Trudeau's pandemic response. And you should want us to be in the driver's seat because as backseat drivers, we drove, we literally gave the directions. I'm not sure that at this juncture, that's much of a hook in the same sense that I don't believe the liberals can write a campaign on. We did okay during the pandemic and we delivered vaccine. I don't think that's enough. And on that note, the two things that I felt were missing one, because the liberals now own it and that's childcare.

Childcare was always a big hook for the ndp uh affordable universal child care it's even more relevant now in the sense that if housing is going to cost you a lot and you have a family child care is one way to allow you to have more money for housing for your family what i found really striking is he didn't really go out of his way to work climate change in anything that he told you over 38 minutes at a time when the Green Party is faltering through internal divisions and at a time when climate change, especially this summer, is lining up to be as uppermost and maybe more in the minds of many voters as a pandemic.

You're quite right. He's left that field wide open for the Liberals. Bruce? Yeah, I was really struck by the climate change omission, basically. But I'll come back to that in a moment. The first i i think i noticed is that this interview helps explain why he's arguably the most popular political leader in canada at the federal level right now he's amiable he's empathetic he used a term like heart-wrenching to talk about his experience talking with indigenous communities. And I think just the use of language to talk about personal relevance and personal experience, exploring issues with people, I think that resonates quite well. And he's got obviously progressive ideals. So those three things alone helped set him up for

a potentially more successful campaign than he had the last time. And certainly open him up for a potentially more successful campaign than he had the last time and certainly open him up to the idea that he can reach a larger audience than uh well for example Aaron O'Toole can't right now because um he does he has trouble reaching out to towards progressive voters and he doesn't always sound empathetic um I guess on the downside, I saw two things. One is I struggled to see this version of the NDP and relate it back to the earlier versions in a number of areas. There wasn't really much talk about the role of labor. There wasn't much talk about environmentalism. Generally, there wasn't much talk about feminism. There wasn't a hook around childcare. And obviously there was not really much discussion of climate change.

And if you ask me underneath the hood of the public opinion, yes, he's right that he gets a lot of support from young people, but young people care about a lot of those issues. And I didn't think that he was very good at articulating how he was going to make housing more affordable, what he was going to do on student debt, where he was coming from in terms of some of the daily cost of living issues for young people. And so I thought there was, I don't want to say a lack of discipline to what he was doing there, but I thought it was fairly sloppy in the sense of if you only have so much time, there's a few things that you need to do. And the last thing I would say is this. His argument is that there does not need to be an

election because liberals get to do everything that they should have done. But at the same time, he's saying they would not have done the things that they did had it not been for him, which is arguably the definition of, Trudeau doesn't have the confidence of the House. So I think he's kind of trying to have it both ways on that argument. Either Trudeau was forced to do things that he otherwise wouldn't have done, in which case his argument may be, well, I should get a mandate from people because the NDP is forcing me to do some things that I wouldn't have done in which case his argument may be well i should get a mandate from people because the ndp is forcing me to do some things that i wouldn't otherwise do or it doesn't really hold

up and so i don't know that that's a very strong argument and i thought his miss i thought it was a mistake this week for him to use the artifice of the governor general um to make a point that's really about i just don't want an election even though I'm ready to fight one. I wish you'd seen his face when I called him a monarchist. I didn't see his face, but I did notice how fast he walked away from his own strategy on this. He didn't even pretend to still be holding on to it, which I thought was interesting.

I also thought that if he's going to go for stunts, because I believe that was a stunt to write to the governor general, maybe he should think of the context and the environment a bit more, and so should his advisors, in the sense that he talked to you about BC's former premier, Christy Clark, being refused an election by the Lieutenant Governor. Problem is that since then, the only NDP government in the country, that of John Horgan, in a minority position, called an election at this time last year in the middle of a pandemic for no other reason than to have both hands, as former Premier Jean Ch-jacques would say on the on the wheel uh so it's it's kind of

you know you're saying something about justin trudeau that would have applied last year i did not notice mr singh telling john horgan why would you plunge bc in an election just to increase your power and also it's worth noting that mr sing Singh campaigned for Mr. Organ during that election. So he obviously didn't have a problem with it then. I've got time for one last question, Bruce, and it's to you. One of the criticisms of Jagmeet Singh is that he sounded at times a bit naive about how the jurisdiction plays out in Canada between feds and provinces. And, you know, you could argue could argue you know in terms of the gg as well but so many of the things he's talking about doing would involve you know pretty heavy

duty negotiations with the provinces and he just kind of dismisses that as so that you know like swatting that off his his arm like a mosquito i, do you think he realizes just how, how challenging those things are? You know, I actually have been wondering that myself. Is he really not as knowledgeable as he would need to be to be an effective prime minister about how the system works? Or is he just pretending that there are no real barriers that if you wish something strongly enough enough it can come past and in which case he's um he's trying to take advantage of of maybe voter naivety either way i

think it's going to come to haunt him at some point i mean he used a line in the interview where he said well i really believe that you need to have a plan to get something done but then when you ask him well how would you get something done in that indigenous community that's struggling with water? How would you make things happen? He sort of defaulted to a well, the first thing is partnership. And I felt myself listening to that going, well, does he really believe that none of that has been done, that there's been no effort to create a partnership, that those that that nobody's thought of any of this. I heard him say that Justin Trudeau has no plans for anything and it just sort of things just sort of happen. And I don't know if that's going to be credible.

I kind of feel like he's really he's in he's in heavy water when he starts getting challenged on those kinds of things. And I think he's got more work to do to prepare for the election campaign, if I'm right about that. But I don't think that's a Singh characteristic. It's an NDP characteristic. Thomas Mulcair spent the last campaign saying he would abolish the Senate. He certainly knew better than to be saying things like that. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this go-around. But something tells me we're going to it at that uh for this go-round but something tells me

we're gonna have lots more coming up in the future chantelle bruce good to talk to you both we'll talk to you again soon and there you go there is our uh our sense of a some initial analysis to the sing interview so now you've heard all three of the main major national political party leaders, Singh, O'Toole, Trudeau, over the last couple of months on these special editions of The Bridge. Back in a moment. And Peter Mansbridge here to wrap things up on this special edition of the bridge as i said i hope you've got something out of these interviews with the three major national political party leaders give you a sense of kind of where they're coming from

in terms of their positions that are obviously going to be debated in this election, if it in fact happens. And the latest kind of assumptions are here are that it will be called within the next couple of weeks, by the middle of August for some time in the mid to late September. So we don't have long to go. And I can tell you, we'll announce it all next week, we have a full slate of programs

to keep the bridge on top of the election campaign. It'll be the place you want to go to find out what's happening in the election. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you again next Wednesday.