The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Campaign Day 28: So What Difference Did That Make?

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

Day 28 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, Peter Mansbridge here with day 28 of the federal election campaign. This is the bridge. on this, what'll we call it, day after the night before. Trying to pick up the pieces from last night's debate between the leaders, all of them, all six of them, and the five moderators. So what was today? Well, today the leaders themselves were kind of floating around in different parts of the country, and for the most part,

keeping a somewhat low profile and letting last night speak for itself. They were all out at campaign events. They were all doing things. But the discussion was mainly about what happened on debate night. The TV networks, they're ecstatic. They got numbers. A lot of people watched last night. I don't know what the final number is of all the networks.

So, you know, I mean, think about it. There were a lot of networks covering that last night, all taking the same feed. So it was the same coverage everywhere for the actual two-hour debate. And they seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around them in terms of the near-universal condemnation of the format of the debate. A lot of people didn't like it.

Too short, not enough time given to exploring issues, too loud, too much speaking over each other, all of those things. And it was pretty brutal. But as a TV event, it apparently worked because millions watched it. And for the most part, the TV networks seem to have ducked this whole issue about why did you screw the West on this? Why did you start so early? To the point where not very many people in Western Canada would have had the opportunity to watch live the debate.

So nobody was asking, so nobody was answering, and I can only, you know, I can guess. I can guess that the commercial networks who are, hey, let's face it, they are there to make money, and the debate didn't have any commercials in it. And so it wasn't making any money so they wanted to get to their biggest prime time programs and so to do that you put on something like the debate earlier in the evening and there were more commercial networks than there are a private

or a public broadcaster like the cbc so i guess the CBC kind of lost out on that discussion, if there even was a discussion, I don't know. You know, I spent 10 years in Western Canada. I started my career in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. And I can remember feeling a part of that alienation business with Central and Eastern Canada. I used to feel it a lot. Toronto didn't understand the West.

I can remember being the nationals reporter in Saskatchewan in 1975 and 76. And I can remember once sending in a report on something. I can't remember what it was. And it ended up with a stand-up at the end, where I was on camera saying, so-and-so and so-and-so, blah, blah, blah, Peter Mansbridge, CBC News, Southern Saskatchewan. I get a call back from the editors in Toronto, and they said, well, you know, that piece was fine,

except we want to really know that you're in Saskatchewan, so we want you to go stand out by a grain elevator. They used to have a lot of grain elevators in those days. And I said, you're serious? And they said, yeah, you've got to have a grain elevator behind you or it doesn't say Saskatchewan. I thought, really? This is what it's come to.

Anyway, so the TV networks were happy with what happened last night. The political parties, well, it was kind of a gift to all of them because seeing as they were never in a position to have to go into detail on their policy or go into detail on why they felt the other policies of the other players weren't good enough, they were able just to use their canned lines, and they all got them. They all got moments where they got their little prescripted moment to use later in online blurbs and on television on ads and in radio on ads.

So you'll see all those in the next few days. The academics, there were a lot of them talking today and they didn't like what they saw they thought it was it was just not worthy and not helpful to democracy now as somebody who's been in these

coverage of these debates before, that often has been a common criticism of the television debates, but it was loud and widespread on this one last night. The voters. Now, you know, I've heard from a lot of you today, wrote into the podcast,

and not many of you thought it was helpful. Some of you actually didn't mind it, but the majority didn't like it. So that's kind of where we stand on this kind of day after. So what was the impact? Did it move people anywhere? Most analysts are being very cautious about making that judgment. They're all saying, well, nobody really won.

That awful term, knockout blow, has been used a lot by people saying there was no knockout blow. But as I think I mentioned last night, just after the debate, you've got to be really careful judging the impact of these things. Because if history's taught us anything, it's that it takes a few days, because most people, in spite of whatever numbers there were last night, most people didn't see it. And most people will make their judgments about what happened in that debate based on what they

read or see or hear, and mainly what they see. So when those clips start coming out, and many of them have already obviously online, but in television ads and that, when you see that, that's when most people start to make their judgments based on the little moments. So those people, they don't care whether it was a good TV program or not. They just see this. And that's where they make their judgments.

And the pollsters will have been in the field right away last night. The nightly tracking polls will start to reveal what impact that debate had and that will be judged over these next few nights. Last night, tonight, tomorrow night, and there's some people who are daytime polling as well. So we'll start to get a sense, we'll start to get a sense right away tomorrow

from the first nightly tracking poll, the Nanos poll. That'll be out tomorrow. But it's just, it's a three-day rolling poll. So whenever you hear the Nanos number, and Nanos is pretty well respected by most people. When you hear the Nanos number, keep in mind it's three days of polling. So every day they drop off one poll from three nights before and add a new one. So if you see a significant movement in just one night,

you know that either the number that was dropped off was really different than the number they're saying now, or the new number that was added on really had a big impact, or the two together had an impact. You see where I'm going on this. So keep that in mind. Watch it over the next couple of days. By the middle of the week, the end of the week, you'll have an idea whether it had any real impact.

Now, there is another debate coming up on Thursday night. It's the French debate, the French language debate. In a similar location, and I assume a similar format, it'll be interesting to see whether the French producers say, hey, that really sucked and we're going to do it differently. Or whether they say, hey, it worked, they got numbers. We'll find that out on the Thursday night. And I can warn you right now,

I won't be doing an after the French debate podcast. I'll be doing one earlier in the day because I'm in London, Ontario that night giving a big speech to a big fundraising operation in London and looking very much forward to it. But I will be kind of out of the loop on Friday night after that debate ends. All right. That gives you a sense of where we are on this day 28 following the debate. I got lots of mail,

and I got to catch up on some of this, so let's get to it. All right. I do have some mail to catch up on because it's been a couple of days since I've done letters, so let me see how many I can get through here without going on too long. Zoe Ritchie writes from Toronto. Here's what she has to say. Seems like a lot of political pundits are focused on the conservatives

versus the liberal race. However, in my hometown, she writes from Toronto, but her hometown is in southwestern Ontario. However, in my hometown, we've seen a lot of ridings federally move to become a race between the conservatives and the NDP. I was wondering what you think of this phenomenon. That seems to be becoming more and more common, especially in rural areas. I'm not aware of that becoming common in rural areas, but obviously you're noticing

something going on, and that would be very interesting. That's a big move, especially in areas that are traditionally conservative, for the conservatives, for voters to move from the conservatives all the way over to the NDP, bypassing the liberals. Now, for that to happen, they'd have to be, first of all, unhappy with the Conservative fold, and that could be because this is Ontario, it could be because of them being upset provincially.

Being upset with the Liberals, federally and provincially, and moving all the way over to the NDP. It's quite a move. It's quite an ideological move. But it could happen. So I'll be watching that, Zoe. You think it's becoming more and more common. I would like to see some actual proof of that.

Rahul Balasandaram. On Rahul, I hope I got it close. Hi, Peter. I'm actually in Brussels. He's a student. He's at the University of Ottawa. But I'm actually in Brussels for the semester. My son is going from U of T to University of Edinburgh

for the second semester this year. He's in third year at U of T. I think it's fantastic that students are getting to do these kind of movements now around the world in kind of trading off on semesters. I know it's been going on for a while, but I just think it's great,

the opportunity to do that for five or six months a year, in a year, and the opportunities you get not only living in a great place like Brussels, but from Brussels you can go like anywhere on the weekend. And I'm sure Rahul is enjoying that. Anyway, I'm actually in Brussels for the semester, so I ended up staying up until 3 a.m. for this debate last night. And I can promise you that it was not worth it. The format didn't allow for more than one-liners,

and Bernier and Blanchet shouldn't have been there, in my opinion. You said that the English debate is usually when people finally tune into this election. But with such a poor format, no time to properly answer questions, and leaders talking over each other, do you think that this debate actually reinforced the discontent that the public has with Canadian politics? Do you think it could ultimately turn more people away from voting, even though our turnout rates are already so embarrassingly low? Because if there isn't another English debate, how can people be convinced that they should continue to pay attention after such an embarrassing night

for Canadian politics? Sorry to sound so cynical, but that's kind of what I was feeling as I was watching the debate last night. Listen, thanks, Roel, for your comments. Look, you know, it wasn't a great night, especially if you wanted to hear the, you know, various leaders talk about their policies and try to explain them and debate them. I mean, there was no debate last night. We called it a debate, but there was no debate. But I'm not sure that's really the leader's fault. It wasn't the moderator's fault. It was kind of the fault that we jointly have

in trying to make these evenings work properly. There have been some that have worked over the years, both federally and provincially, but most don't work that well. This one certainly didn't. But it gives us, once again, that opportunity to try to sort this out. But the debate isn't the only way you make your judgments. Maybe the only way you can from Brussels, you know, aside from reading a lot online. but, you know, for people who are here in country, they do have that opportunity to go and see,

I keep harping away at this, it's important, the various all-candidates meetings. They're good to go to, important to go to. But, Rahul, when you graduate and you come back home to Canada, maybe you can work in trying to change the system and coming up with a formula that does work. But don't get overly cynical and don't get overly depressed. Eventually we can make this work.

Lauren Abbas writes from Halifax. The Green Party candidate in the Halifax riding is a former CBC journalist. Although this career switch does happen from time to time, I always had the assumption that journalists should not become politicians, and vice versa. What are your thoughts? Is there a general opinion or argument within the media industry on moving into politics or leaving politics to become a reporter or columnist? There are varying opinions on this,

but listen, if you're a journalist and you feel very strongly about entering politics and you have certain beliefs that fit with a political party, then just like if you were in any other profession, you should exercise your right to do that and try that. Now, coming back may be difficult. Switching from active politics into journalism can be difficult. You're obviously not going to go back into a straight-up reporting job on politics.

If an Ottawa reporter for the Globe and Mail suddenly ran for the Conservative Party and lost, they're not going to go right back and cover politics on Parliament Hill again. That would be a problem. But they could be in Toronto covering, I don't know, the Argonauts, you know, urban transportation issues. There are other jobs other than politics.

So I think that's where it gets tricky. It's not tricky to come back into journalism and cover politics if you're a columnist. You've got experience in politics, and that's known and would be added to your, not your byline, but the description of your work at the bottom of your column. You know, so-and-so ran for the Conservative Party in the last whatever election.

Or worked for the Liberal Party, or did whatever for the NDP. I've always believed that there should be some mechanism for movement back and forth between these two professions because it gives you a whole different dimension and understanding of the story. It would be tricky. Like a lot of other journalists who've covered politics in this country, I've had the opportunity to run.

All three of the main parties have all asked me at different times over the last 50 years to run for them. I've always said no, obviously. But I've also had the opportunity of being asked to be in a position of a job working for a prime minister or in the public service

I've also turned that down but I have to think long and hard for it because I thought this could be an interesting way of understanding the other side of the divide. And there have been successes in that. It's much more common in the United States.

You see it often. Okay. How are we doing on time here? Yikes. 21 minutes. I'll keep going with a couple more letters here. I'll try and make it faster. Sarah McKeever, my question is this, which cohort of voters do you think will make the biggest difference for this election? Good question. One of the reasons that Justin

Trudeau won a majority government in 2015 was he got the youth vote, significant number of youth voters to actually come out and vote, and the Indigenous vote. There are serious issues for him on both those fronts this time. So they could have enormous impact on what happens on October 21st. Pat Wharton from Vernon, BC. People I talk with are very worried about climate change and plan to vote, but many like myself have

quit watching the news because it overdoes every issue. Just the facts please, is how most of my friends feel. We will make our own judgments, so give us the details and let us think about it. An election should not be about sensationalism. It should be about issues and policy. In this new 24-7 news era, the stories seem to require pizzazz more than facts.

I realize the different outlets need to cater to this news norm, or this new norm, but I think that is part of the problem. Repetition causes loss of interest. What do you think? Well, if it's simply repetition, just repeating the same story over and over and over again with no new details or no new context, no new broader look at the issue, then it would cause a loss of interest. But some issues are very important and can't be covered in two minutes. And they need more explanation, more context.

And that's what we try to do. Do we always succeed? Obviously not with Pat. And if we're not, then we've got to work harder at it. Okay. What do I have to do with this? Am I going to read all this letter?

It's from a Mr. Lee in Markham, Ontario. He's talking about, well, a number of things on the election cycle, but he does make a point, and I'll just repeat it. I mentioned it just a few moments ago. The importance, especially after we watched kind of the debacle last night, that there are still good debates that exist, and they exist at the local level and he sent me a youtube connection to a local candidates debate in 2015 that he thought really worked well and and had a good

format i haven't screened it yet but you know i will at some point in the next few days but it does underline the fact that there's more going on than just the leaders' debates. And you all have an opportunity to watch them. And they can make a difference in what you decide to do because they're involving the people who are running for your riding to represent you. Two last ones. One from Paul Jones and one from Colleen Frizzle.

Paul is on Vancouver Island, Parksville, BC, and Colleen's in Winnipeg. And they're both writing about the same thing. And I had a number of letters like this, but I like these because especially Colleen, she sent a picture in as well. I'd suggest a couple of nights ago how you could score the debate. And a lot of people actually tried it and enjoyed it and thought it was worthwhile and were surprised at times with the answers I was God.

As Paul says, I was shocked because I finished up with a winner that I didn't expect. They gave me their results. I'm not going to go through them. And Colleen included a picture of the notepad, the very neat notepad that Colleen had of how she kept track of everything in terms of the check marks and the X's on the night. Anyway, there we go with the mailbag. That brings us more or less up to date.

There are a few others still hanging around. I'll try to get to them if possible. But let me keep hearing from you. It's great to hear from you and your involvement with this election in 2019. It's been an interesting one so far. I guess that's the least we could say, but there hasn't been any significant movement on the part of the top two parties. They're more or less still sort of trading places. First or second, either one each day. Very tight. This means some movement in three and four.

The Greens had a very good front half of the campaign. They've fallen back. The NDP has moved up. And the NDP seemed to be in third right now. And Mr. Singh had another great run last night. Remember first four weeks of the campaign, I picked on the winner in the first two in the player of the week contest that we do on Fridays.

And so he had another good night last night. He'd probably, he's probably the early leader in the player of the week, but it's only Tuesday. A lot's going to happen in the next few days, and I'm sure it will. Thanks for listening tonight. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This is The Bridge. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.