The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Campaign Day 26: Special Bonus Episode!!!

Episode Date: October 6, 2019

Day 26 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

And hello there, it's Peter Mansbridge here. This is The Bridge, a bonus episode of The Bridge on this day 26 of the federal election campaign. Why a bonus edition on this Sunday afternoon? Well, if you're a little like me, you're probably getting ready for the big debate tomorrow. Historically, these debate nights, the English language debate, roughly two weeks to go until the election, that's kind of been the historic positioning of this debate, is often the first time most Canadians get a sense of who it is who's running for the job of Prime Minister. This is when they tune in, in big numbers.

So for a lot of Canadians who really haven't been paying a lot of attention to the election campaign, this becomes an important evening. That's tomorrow night. So what I wanted to do was try and get you ready for that in two ways. One, to give you a little sense of perhaps how to watch things, how to score things for yourself, if you wish, tomorrow night, Monday night. But also give you a sense of the stakes that each one of those six leaders will be facing when they're grilled by the five moderators. So let's take those two areas one at a time.

One, how to prepare yourself. And you've heard me talk before about this issue of journalists, including myself, I'm just as guilty, if you wish, of this in past years as anyone else, of immediately coming on after the debate and feeling that they have to somehow pass judgment on who won or who lost. Now, sometimes that can be pretty easy because something will have happened to one of the frontrunners that either vaults them ahead or sets them back. But most debates, and history proves this, most debates it's wrong moments. That in the days that follow, it becomes clear from focus groups that are done on the debate, polling, research that's done on the debate, and just anecdotally, you start to discover, well, many of the viewers were moved by something that the journalists weren't moved by.

So you've got to be careful. That won't stop journalists, and quite possibly including myself again, from passing some judgment after these things are over. But here's the way you can avoid that influencing your feelings, because you're going to have them when you watch the debate. So here's one way you can do that. It's two hours long, so let's take some commitment of time. Runs from 7 to 9 Eastern time, Monday night.

I keep saying tomorrow. I mean, this is being dropped, this podcast, on a Sunday night, but I know some of you will be listening to it on Monday morning. So keep that in mind. Monday night, obviously, is the debate. Here's one way you can do this. Get a piece of paper. Get a couple of pieces of paper.

Mark down the six leaders' names. And as you're watching the debate, try to set your own, if you have views already and have set partisan mode, try to set them aside for the experience of watching and judging this debate. Try to set those feelings aside. You've got the six names there. Every time you hear Leader A say something that you think is appropriate, that's good, makes sense, you like it, or you think they did well on that point, give them a checkmark. Every time you hear something the opposite that you didn't like or you thought they didn't handle very well, give them an X.

So do that with each of the leaders. Make those judgments. And at the end of the evening, do some math. Give the check marks one point. Give the X's minus one. Do your math. See where it all works out at the end. Just for an exercise.

See which number, which leader scores the highest number. It's one way of looking at these things. There are many others, depending on who you're watching with, how you do all this. But it's one way, and it's one way to say, okay, this is my judgment. I'm willing to listen to all these people immediately post-debate, give me their assessments. But this was my assessment based on what I saw.

So that's something to consider. All right, who has what in terms of stakes on Monday night? Six leaders. So let's go in the order of sort of bottom up, judging by all the surveys we've seen so far. Everybody seems to agree that the bottom place is Maxime Bernier going into this debate. The leader of the People's Party of Canada, first-time appearance for that party.

He's, well, he's flat-lined in this campaign. He was kind of started at one or two percentage points in most polls. He's at one or two percentage points in most polls now. And nothing has really moved one way or the other for him. He hasn't had a lot of coverage. They complain about that. But he's had coverage. And he's turned down the opportunity for more coverage.

Anyway, tomorrow night, he's there with everybody else. He's an equal on the stage. He's one of six. This is his chance. So what does he do? The stakes for him is if there's going to be a breakout night for Maxime Bernier, and a breakout for him is getting more than his own seat, which he has a good chance of holding.

He held it before as a conservative. He may hold it again as the leader. But he would like a caucus. He would like more members of his party. So how's he going to do that? Well, it seems to me there's only one way he can do that I mean he'll be like everybody else to a degree attacking the incumbent

that happens on debates, that always happens on debates but his real target is likely to be Andrew Scheer the Conservative leader these two guys do not like each other. Scheer beat out Bernier for the leadership of the Conservative Party after Bernier had led on the first 12 ballots on the 13th. Scheer was the leader and the winner. But they have differences on policy,

and the target for Bernier to get more votes will be trying to get them out of the Conservative Party into his party. So expect you're going to watch him attack Scheer. He's going to use every opportunity he can to attack Scheer. If he doesn't, I'm not sure what's the point of turning up, because I'm not sure where he's going to use every opportunity he can to attack Scheer. If he doesn't, I'm not sure what's the point of turning up, because I'm not sure where he's going to get votes. Anyway, that's Maxime Bernier. Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party. She started off extremely well in this campaign, was doing very well, often in third place, ahead of the NDP. She has not had a good run the last couple of weeks.

She hasn't had a good campaign, quite frankly. And all the surveys, polls would suggest she has dropped. So who's she going to go after? Well, she's got to poach some of those votes back from the NDP, because they seem to have gone from the Greens to the NDP, if she's lost votes, which is what the surveys suggest. So, you might see her going after Jagmeet Singh. Now, you've probably noticed that I didn't mention Yves-Francois Blanchet, who's the leader of the Bloc Quebec.

He's only running in one province, his MPs, in Quebec. And they're doing well. They're either in second or third place. Most polls right now put them in second place. They went ahead of the Greens, they went ahead of the NDP, they went ahead of the Conservatives, and they are behind, significantly behind, the Liberals in Quebec.

But he's going to win seats. But he's just running in one province. So what does he do tomorrow night? Well, he has the luxury of kind of, you know, it's a no-lose for him. He goes in there. His big debate was last week, the French language debate, but he goes into this one with nine out of ten provinces and the territories not even having a chance to vote for him

no matter how he did, no matter what they might think of him. So it's no-lose for him. matter how he did. No matter what they might think of him. There was no lose for him. He can go in there and be a disruptor. Remember Gilles Doucette used to have a field day in the English language debate. And most English Canadians, or at least a lot of English Canadians, loved his performance. They never voted for him. But they thought he was great in the debate. So we'll see what Blanchet does with his opportunity.

Jagmeet Singh. You know, he's had a good campaign. He's had a very good campaign. His numbers have gone up. So tomorrow night is another, Monday night is another great opportunity for him. Who's his target? I imagine he's gung-ho going after Justin Trudeau

with a couple of side swipes at Andrew Scheer. He's got a lot at stake, Jagmeet Singh. His numbers have dropped considerably in Quebec, and that's where their major numbers of MPs have been in Quebec. Ever since Jack Layton lost half of them to when Tom Mulcair was the leader, and they run the risk of losing a lot more than maybe all of the Quebec seats, the way things look right now.

So he had a good debate last week, and Quebec didn't seem to move the needle. He needs to continue to move the needle in English Canada. That means Ontario. That means Atlantic Canada. That means the prairies where he can, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, for sure, will be trying to move the needle upwards for the NDP and in BC. So Jagmeet Singh's had a good campaign.

He's likely to have a good debate. The issue will be whether it makes a difference or not. Then we get to the two heavyweights. Andrew Scheer, he had a bad week last week. A lot of things went wrong from him. The talk about what was he really when he was in the insurance business? He had dual citizenship. Why? Was he really signed up for the draft? Why did it take him so long if he was going to renounce his citizenship? Why hasn't that happened? That didn't help

him. And by all accounts, he didn't have a good debate, the French language debate last week. So here's a guy with his back to the wall, and his target is one thing, Justin Trudeau. He's being tough on Trudeau in a lot of his speeches. He calls him a liar all the time. Will he call him a liar to his face? And if he does, how's that going to play out? But a lot of pressure on Andrew Scheer.

If he's going to change the channel on the way his campaign is looking right now, it's got to start Monday night. Justin Trudeau. He comes in like most incumbents come in. They know as they walk into that studio that they're going to be the target. They're going to be the primary target of most people

on that debate stage. So nothing should surprise him. He knows that. And you can bet that he's spent all the rehearsal time that most of these leaders do in mock debates, probably this weekend and previously, under attack and working out the lines he'll use, his comebacks, his defense position,

and where he can go on the offense to not only defend his own position and his party's position in the past four years, but to attack on the others. So if you go in knowing you're going to be the target and accepting that and preparing for that, then it comes straight up, it comes down to your ability to debate. Now, those are all kind of the knowns.

What are they kind of unknown unknowns? Well, you know, what if some other story hits tomorrow there's been lots of talk and lots of rumors in the last couple of weeks that there's some stories coming out on Justin Trudeau

there were rumors that there were stories on Andrew Scheer and we certainly saw some last week what if something drops tomorrow, before the debate, and becomes a part of the debate? Well, that's an unknown. Can't prepare for that. So keep an eye on the news during the day tomorrow.

I'm sure everybody else will be too. So that's kind of a sense of the landscape for the debate tomorrow night. There's one other area where there are stakes involved. And that's the actual debate itself. 51 years ago, first debate in Canada, TV debate. 68. Trudeau, Stanfield, Raoul, Coethe, David Lewis, or was it Tommy Douglas?

Tommy Douglas. So we've had all these debates since, and pretty well everybody who's watched them has said, you know, the sort of TV critics and the journalists who analyze them say, we haven't really found the right formula yet. So they'll be looking at this one, because this is a formula unlike anything we've seen before. Five moderators who represent the different media participants in the group that's organized these debates. How will that work?

How will it work with five different moderators? Well, we'll see. It could be great. We'll be watching. I know you'll be watching. So, if you can, remember that paper and pen, or paper and pencil.

Keep score. If you want to send your score to me, do that. MansbridgePodcast at gmail.com. TheMansbridgePodcast at gmail.com. I'm not going to do any letters tonight. I've got some great letters that you sent over the weekend. We'll get to them, but they're not kind of debate-focused. So we'll just keep this bonus edition just to that, just to the debate talk.

And I won't file the bridge until after the debate tomorrow night. So it's going to be a late one. If you tend to listen to these in the evenings, it'll be certainly well after, you know, at the earliest 10 o'clock Eastern time before the bridge is uploaded or downloaded or whatever it is that happens to it after I send it away. Email it off to destinations unknown. The next thing I do is I see it pops up in my podcast feed, which is great. I love this. It's so much fun. Anyway, there you go. Special bonus edition for this Sunday night on day 26 of the election campaign.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. This is The Bridge. Thanks for listening.