The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Campaign Day Eight: Bombshell

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

Day 8 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

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the bridge from Montreal tonight. So if it sounds a little different, it's a different microphone. I'm in a hotel room, so things aren't quite the same. However, that's kind of irrelevant given tonight's news. Bombshell. Bombshell hits the campaign. Bombshell definitely hits the Liberal Party of Canada and Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader. What happened? Well, if you've been on another planet in the last couple of hours, this is what happened. Time magazine put out a picture tonight from 2001, so it's 18 years old, of Justin Trudeau at a school in Vancouver where he was teaching and was part of the drama team. He was dressed in costume and in brownface, which may or may not have been acceptable in that day. It

certainly is not acceptable in today's world and certainly not acceptable for a major political leader. So that comes out. Apparently, it's been around for the last couple of weeks, time trying to get confirmation from the prime minister's office that in fact it was real they finally confirmed it today and put out the story and it's hit the the whole campaign in a big fashion i'm talking to you now just a couple of minutes after watching justin trudeau give his statement to the media and And he took a lot of questions. I'm not sure exactly how long he was up there, about 20 minutes, on his airplane in Halifax, I believe.

He was extremely apologetic, didn't try in any fashion to try and defend himself. Instead said, you know, I shouldn't have done it. I'm really sorry. It was a racist action. He said it wasn't racist at the time. I didn't consider it racist at the time, but when I look at it now, it's racist. And he more than a few times said, I'm pissed off at myself. Is that going to end it? No. These things don't end with one statement. One can assume that he took the right position of immediately saying he was wrong and not trying to find some way to defend himself or to deny any aspect of it. But nevertheless, it happened. And it happened in today's world

where that's just a non-starter. And it happened in today's world where the Liberal Party has been attacking its main competitor, the Conservative Party, for being intolerant. So what happens now? Well, first of all, this comes out of nowhere. Nobody expected this. Campaigns plan for all kinds of things, mainly announcements they're going to make, how they're going to counter the opposition, what policies they'll use and when, where they're going to travel to, who they'll speak to, what interviews they'll give. All that's plannable, and all the parties do it. What they can't plan for is when something comes out of nowhere and hits them like a thunderbolt. Well, that's what's happened to the liberals tonight. It's hit them like a thunderbolt. The next 24 to 48 hours will be critical.

How others react to this, and already different interest groups are out, and everyone's condemning Justin Trudeau. So what will happen in the days ahead, in the hours ahead, really? A lot of questions are going to be asked about what took them so long to confirm this, one Time magazine was asking. But more importantly are going to be questions like, you knew this was sitting there. Apparently there was an earlier similar issue

when he was in high school, he said tonight. You knew those pictures existed. Why didn't you be up front a long time ago? You knew what was happening in different parts of the world when issues like this came up. Political leaders, governors in the states, senators who had similar situations, some had to resign, others were called upon to resign,

you were sitting there knowing you'd done the same thing. You were sitting there knowing you were attacking others for being intolerant, where, in fact, you had done something that, by your own words today was racist why didn't you get out in front of it you know he's had years to get out in front of this he certainly had the last four years as Prime minister. He knew there were photos. He could have had it, you know, revealed himself. He could have revealed it.

He could have owned up to it. He could have turned it into a learning moment. But none of those things happened, and one assumes there will be continued questions in these next 24 to 48 hours about all of that. How the other parties will react. Jagmeet Singh has been out already, was out almost immediately, personally very much offended,

insulted by what he had seen. Andrew Scheer will speak later tonight, apparently he's on a plane right now. So this kind of throws everything else to the side. The Liberal Party, the organizers who are closest around Justin Trudeau, will be trying to organize these next hours in such a fashion that somehow can turn the tide for him.

It's going to be tough. They would have worked on exactly the phrasing of everything he said tonight. I bet, including right down to the use of the word pissed off. And now they will be trying to figure out how to deal with tomorrow. He's going to be in Manitoba, I believe, and Winnipeg. How will that crowd react? What can they organize for that crowd to react in a certain fashion? Will there be calls from within his own field of candidates,

his own cabinet ministers? What will they say? A number of whom are people of color, who I assume, like Jagmeet Singh, will have been insulted, even more so than most other people by what they've witnessed tonight. So I don't know how this is going to unfold, but I can tell you, you haven't seen the end of it,

far from it. You're just seeing the opening moments of a story that is going to last a bit and could have devastating effect for the Liberals on this campaign. But it's early. No one knows for sure how this will play out. But by his own admission, the Prime Minister said tonight what he did 18 years ago was racist. What he'd done earlier in high school was racist.

Made no doubt about the fact he shouldn't have done it, that he's really sorry, and he's very upset with himself. So, there you go. The podcast tonight was going to be on a number of other issues that are important as campaigns go and I want to tell you about them, but tonight's not the night. So I will hold them for tomorrow.

Tonight's also not the night for your mailbag, and you had lots more questions came in last night. I will get to all of them at some point in the next few nights, so I appreciate those. But tonight is a night for all of us to think about this one. What it means. What impact it will have. What impact it should have. So we'll all spend some time on that.

So for now, this is Peter Mansbridge and The Bridge. Thanks for listening.