The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Campaign Day 14: Toronto Pearson International Airport

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Day 14 of Canada's 2019 Federal Election. | Thank for subscribing and for submitting a rating and review! * TWITTER @petermansbridge | INSTAGRAM @thepetermansbridge ** https://www.thepetermansbridge.com/ *** Producer: Manscorp Media Services

Well, hello there, it's Peter Mansbridge here with the bridge for this Tuesday night of the third week of the election campaign. If I sound a little different than normal here tonight, it's for one reason. I'm on an airplane. I'm on an Air Canada flight that's about to take off for Vancouver. So this is going to be a short bridge tonight, but I do have a couple of things

I want to try and get going. I was going to do it actually from the air, but unfortunately there's no Wi-Fi on this flight tonight. Imagine that. I thought most Air Canada flights, especially long-haul flights, had Wi-Fi, but apparently this one does not.

However, it will be interesting nonetheless to try and knock this off in between Air Canada announcements as we get ready to take off from Pearson Airport heading to Vancouver where I have a speech tomorrow morning and then fly back tomorrow night. A couple of things to to talk about here today. I want to start off by talking a little bit about polls. You know we've had this discussion before about concerns that I have on the different methods of polling and the different way results are handled by the media. Today was an interesting day.

If there's one thing you should know about pollsters, you may have noticed this over the years, is it's very rare you can get two pollsters from differing companies on the air at the same time to talk about polling. It has happened, and it will happen again, I'm sure, but it's rare. For the most part, these people don't particularly like each other. It's a very competitive business, is the bottom line on that. And today, if you're reading carefully, because there were a lot of polls out today, if you're reading carefully

some of the discussion online, not between the pollsters, but about polls and results, then you probably notice the differences of opinion about how these things were calculated and who felt what about which poll was better. Nevertheless, oh, there, so you hear the flight announcement. I love flight announcements. Some of you may know how I got the job.

Initially in broadcast, I was a 19-year-old working for Transair in Churchill, Manitoba, where I was doing everything from loading bags to checking in passengers. And one day, the ticket agents were really busy, asked me to announce the flight on the PA system. I got up and said, Transair, flight 106 for Thompson and Paul in Winnipeg is now ready for boarding at gate one. We only had one gate. But nevertheless, everybody off, they went to the gate. One guy came towards me and said, hey, you've got a good voice.

Have you ever thought about being in radio? And that's how I started at the CBC. He was the manager at the station there. I try to tell that to journalism students, they think I'm crazy. Now, back to polling. The point I was going to make about today was not about the pollsters. It was about the media and the way they handle it. There was one poll out today that one news organization,

a major news organization in Canada, took an ad out. They had commissioned the poll. I assume they paid for it. I don't know, but nevertheless, it was credited to their news organization. And the ad they had in the paper was headlined with something like, if the election was held tomorrow, this would be the result. Well, that's not true. That's fake news.

The poll they were advertising was taken last week, between the 20th and the 23rd, so it was up to five days old. It had nothing to do with tomorrow, nor could they ever do a poll about tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes anyway that was bad journalism as we've said before

a poll is an accurate reflection with a certain degree of margin of error an accurate reflection of the way the result would have happened if the vote had taken place when the poll took place. And that's the way it should be advertised, no other way. Anyway, that's my point about polls. The other thing I wanted to mention was this issue, I think it was the NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, who promised that he would work towards

lowering the voting age to 16. And that has received some differing kinds of reaction over the last couple of days since he made that promise. All I ask you to think of is, have you watched Greta Thunberg? She's 16. A year ago, she was by herself, alone, demonstrating against the lack of action on climate change. Well, today, she has 4 million people at demonstrations around the world, and she also spoke, as you saw, passionately at the UN yesterday. Some people, including the President of the United States making fun of her. But

she's a powerful 16-year-old young woman. And there are many other 16-year-olds around the world and across this country who are powerful too in their right and what they're fighting for. There are a number of countries that allow 16-year-olds to vote. Not many. Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua. They all allow 16-year-olds. Our voting age, as you know, is 18. Will it ever come down to 16? Never say never. Last point in this sort of collection of things I'm talking about,

what I wanted to do was do this podcast as we were flying over the country because, you know, we start off over Ontario, powerhouse province in terms of seats, 121 seats at stake in Ontario, and often it comes down to how the split works out in this province. Right now the polls are, you know, most show the Liberals with a slight advantage. Some show the race in Ontario tied. Either way, last time around the Liberals had 80 seats out of that 121.

Conservatives 33, the NDP 8. And their majority, the Liberals' majority, was based on their performance in Ontario. So I'll be looking down from whatever, 35, 36,000 feet at Ontario as we fly over. Then we hit Manitoba, 14 seats. Saskatchewan, 14 seats. Alberta, 34 seats. So a good chunk of seats across the prairies right now.

The Conservatives in all the polls are consistent on this own, the prairies. Upwards of 70% of the vote and that's a kind of unheard of so if the Liberals are hoping to hold on to their 12 seats out of that whatever is 62 seats on the prairies they They're going to have to work hard. In B.C., another major battleground state where I'll be landing in a few hours, 42 seats at stake. Liberals had 17 of them last time. The Conservatives 10, the NDP 14.

All I'm told, it was pretty close in the polls that you're seeing right now. It's a three-way race, as it was back then. The Greens had one seat back then as well, of course, Elizabeth May. So we'll see how it unfolds across this stretch of five provinces that I'll be flying across tonight. 121 seats in Ontario, 104 seats in the other four provinces. Almost a balance there in terms of the numbers on both sides. So that's where we are. A little chat about a variety of things while this plane gets ready.

And you heard the announcements going on there. The captain's made his announcements. The flight attendants have made theirs. I do think I have time to squeeze in a couple letters from the old mailbag, which we'll get to right after this. Okay, mailbag time from the Air Canada flight from Toronto to Vancouver tonight, which is just getting ready to back away from the gate and start taxing. Here's one from Riley Dueck in Langley, BC. My question has to do with not aligning with any of the political parties. When it comes to politics, I'm a centrist. On some issues, I'm liberal and on others, I'm conservative. I used to enjoy not conforming to any political label,

but it's making my vote a very difficult decision. What voter tips do you have for people who find themselves straddling the political center? Rightly most Canadians straddle the political center. They tip one way or the other between left and right over time. Except for those who are wedded to one party and never change their mind. But if you're one of those people who does kind of straddle the center and could be convinced either way, then, I don't know, the advice I'd give you is pick the issues that are most important to you. One or two of them that are most important to you. One or two of them that are most important to you.

Then study where all the parties are on those issues. And see which one aligns closest with your particular feelings on those issues. That's probably your answer. That may be your answer. That, along with who do you believe, and your trust. You're hearing the leaders talking. And you can make that decision about trust.

It's important. Nathaniel Mullen from Ottawa. My question, with everything that has gone on so far in this campaign, opposition research has clearly had a big impact on media coverage. What is the best example of a piece of opposition research blowing up in a party's face that you've seen over the years? That's a good question. Here's the first one that comes to mind.

We're starting to back away from the gate, and the next thing you know, one of the flight attendants is going to come over here and tell me to stop talking into this microphone. Here's what I'd say. 1993, the last couple of weeks of the campaign, it was the last 10 days of the campaign, the Liberals were clearly ahead, perhaps way ahead. And as it turned out, they were way ahead. The Conservatives, the party in power, Kim Campbell, were in trouble.

Their research, still called opposition research, you're opposing another party. So their research told them that a significant number of Canadians were embarrassed by Jean Chrétien's performance, not during the campaign, but sort of generally. And so they decided to make up an ad campaign based on that, what they thought was embarrassment. So they had some pretty tough ads

showing Jean Chrétien, and he has a speech impediment on one side of his face. And they used those ads, and all hell broke loose. It was seen as unfair and just in very poor taste. And after a couple of days of negative coverage, they were pulled. That blew up in their face. There's no question about it.

And they went on to lose in huge numbers. They only ended up with two seats after going from a majority government in 88 to two seats in 93. So you can certainly argue that one blew up in their face, although some of the people involved in that campaign still maintain that if they kept on with that, it would have worked. I don't know about that. History seems to have proved that it didn't work at all. But that would be the one that

comes immediately to mind as our plane starts to pull away from the gate. So listen, letters, send them to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Don't be shy. themansbridgebridge Podcast at gmail.com. Don't be shy. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Vancouver tonight. Be flying back tomorrow night. Maybe try this again if I'm on a plane that has Wi-Fi.

If not, I'll do it earlier in the day from Vancouver. One way or the other, I hope you have a great evening. It's been fun talking to you from this very different location. And thanks for listening. Thank you.