The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Campaign Day Seven

Episode Date: September 17, 2019

Day 7 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 i'm peter mansbridge this is the bridge my election 2019 podcast on the road for the rest of this week so the podcast will be coming to you from montreal it may sound a little different because using different equipment on the road, but nevertheless, we will try to keep it interesting, informative, perhaps even a little bit entertaining. On the road, because I'm working on this documentary that I've mentioned to you before that will be running near the end of the campaign,

it's more about what you're thinking, kind of the way you see things. And I can tell you finally, because we just got it today, I can tell you when this documentary will be running, for those of you who have been asking. It will run on the main CBC television network on the Friday night before the election. The election is the 21st of October. It will run at 7 p.m. on the 18th of October. That's a Friday night. And then it will run on News Network three times in the three nights leading up to the election. 10 o'clock on that same Friday on the 18th,

8 o'clock on the night of the 19th, and 8 o'clock again on the night of the 20th. A one-hour documentary, kind of crisscrossing the country, getting your view, your concerns, your issues, the way you feel about politicians, politics, and polls as we get to the 2019 election. So that's a little update on that. What was today like? Well today, man, you could almost get hit by the money that was dropping from the sky with the latest set of campaign promises. Everybody was making them. And there's a general theme to these things. Once again, like last night, I encourage you to go

through these promises because this is the way the country will be shaped if one of these parties wins power. These are the promises they're making. This is the way it would will be shaped if one of these parties wins power. These are the promises they're making. This is the way it would affect your life. So you should go through them. I'm not going to stand here and detail what each promise was. It's available to you through the party's websites and through various news organizations where you can read it. It's all online.

But you should take a hard look at these things. And these are the important developments. Like some people wondered last night, gee, Hanspruz, you never mentioned the Bernier debate appearance, that decision to put Maxime Bernier in the debates. Well, you know why? Because at the end of the day, does that really impact your vote? Are you going to decide to vote one way or another because some election

debates commission put somebody in the debate who hadn't been there before? Probably not. It might give you an opportunity to listen to them and to the others debate the issues. But I thought last night's big deal was new policies that were dropped by the various parties, and they have done it again today. But there's a common theme to what they all do. They tell you, this is what we'll do. They give you a rough idea of what it's going to cost. And when asked the question, okay, so how are you going to pay for it?

You usually get, as we saw a couple of times today in an answer, you get something along the lines of, well, we're calculating that now and we promise we will tell you before the election. Really? You know now what it's going to cost and how you're going to pay for it. You just don't want to clutter up the announcement with the difficult details of the how you're going to pay for it. You know, there are really only a few ways one can pay for these promises. You can raise taxes.

You can increase the deficit. Or you can cut programs, social programs perhaps. Well, none of those things you want to talk about on the day you're announcing a new program, especially that first one, raise taxes. Who's going to say, oh, by the way, I'm going to raise your taxes? You know, you can have the argument about the carbon tax. It's kind of a separate issue, but it's a good issue to debate.

But generally on these promises, raising taxes, nobody's going to say. You know why? Because people usually who promise they're going to raise taxes are going to lose. The last big one that I remember, federally, was 1980. John Crosby had been the finance minister for Joe Clark in 1979. In his budget, he promised to raise gasoline taxes by 18 cents a gallon. That's how long ago it was. We were talking gallons, not liters. 18 cents a gallon. And into the 1980 campaign, after the government fell in December of 79,

they kept that promise. Oh, yeah, we're going to raise your taxes. 18 cents a gallon on every gallon of gas you buy. They lost. They lost big time. Pierre Trudeau came back with a majority government. So that is, you know, sometimes what happens to parties that promise they're going to raise taxes.

But the bottom line, more promises today that affect your life if any of the parties who are making these promises end up in power. Impact on RESPs, the education fund for kids from the Conservatives, more discussion about daycare and spaces for kids by the Liberals, and the list goes on. Lots of promises out there, still the question of, you know what, how are you going to pay for this? So I want to give a nod to those journalists who are working through the election campaign, a lot of them Ottawa-based journalists, who aren't covering the election as such, but they are covering this story that has broken in Ottawa since last Thursday. And I think it was the CBC who broke it, but all the news organizations have had developments

on it, including the Globe, including global television, including CTV in the days since. It's quite a story and it's all around the RCMP and one particular RCMP officer who is now being charged in what is almost like a John le Carré novel. It's all about spying. We don't know all the details of it yet, but there's a lot of good journalism taking place on this story by a number of reporters. As I said, it's not directly related to the election, but it pops up. Andrew Scheer talked about it today. He was asked at a news conference about this story, as all the leaders have been. But Scheer immediately turned it on Trudeau and the Liberals, which I guess is fair game.

We are in an election campaign. They are the government. But he kind of left the door open to criticism of the government suggesting that it's on their watch and they've let this thing slide. It should never have happened, and somehow implying it would be different if the Conservatives were in power. I assume he has not forgotten what happened when the Conservatives were last in power,

when a naval officer in Halifax was charged, convicted, and I believe is still in jail, Jeffrey Delisle, on a somewhat similar situation of spying that caused all kinds of problems, not only internally but externally with our allies, as this current one is. So, you know, you've got to be careful when you try to draw direct links to the government in power. The RCMP clearly had a major problem on this one. And they've spent, I think from what I watched this afternoon in terms of the news conference by the RCMP commissioner, they've been working on this for

a couple of years at least, trying to figure out where the problem was within their system and the likelihood that they had, in spy terminology, a mole of some kind within the operation. Anyway, the main point I wanted to make is that it's been some great journalism, some great work done by a number of reporters on this story in the last few days. So good for them. Three cheers for them.

All right. It's mailbag time. And, you know, listen, we keep getting lots of letters. And I do appreciate all the things you've been writing in about. And so let me quickly go through some of them today. Once again, I'm not sure I'll be able to get to all of them because we're trying to, you know, we're trying to keep the mailbag to eight or ten minutes, mind you. It would be a lot better if I didn't babble along so much. Bronwyn Hearspink in Regina writes, I've been enjoying listening to the podcast on my commute to university. It's a

nice concise way to prepare for polysci class. Some quick preamble before my question. I just turned 18, and this will be the first election I'm eligible to vote in. Good for you. My riding of Regina, Wascana is a liberal stronghold. Ralph Goodale has been a member of parliament for us since 1993. Even though there's some polarization in my area, there seems to be some consensus that Minister Goodale is good for Regina. She's got that in quotes. I wanted to ask you, how can a voter weigh party politics with riding representation in Parliament when casting a vote for a candidate?

Okay, that's a good question, Bronwyn. I used to live in Regina, Moskana, and the first time around for Ralph Goodale, you say he's been the MP since 93, which is correct. He was also the MP, I think it was 74 to 79. So he's been around a long time. He was a pretty young guy in that first time appearance, but Ralph Goodale's name is extremely well known in Saskatchewan, and it's often been the last Liberal standing at the end of election nights in the past. Your question, though, is really not about Ralph Goodale. It's about this issue of what do you vote for? Do you vote for party politics, or how do you weigh the sort of party politics situation

with the representation by an MP at a local level? Listen, the primary responsibility of any member of parliament is to represent their riding in the House of Commons in Ottawa, to represent the views and the concerns of the people in that riding. Now, over time, things have got tied up where parties whip their MPs into supporting whatever the party chooses to support, and that's the way the system works for all parties

in the House of Commons. But still, good, strong local MPs do stand out. And that's an important factor for some people. I mean, you'll have to decide yourself, Bronwyn, what's the most important thing for you. And, you know, one of the ways is to, you know, is to pull the record sheet. Find out all the votes that were taken in the House of Commons

and which way Ralph Goodale voted on them and whether you think that that was representing your views. It shouldn't be hard in Goodale's case as a cabinet minister, and therefore he will have voted almost certainly with the government on every single issue in the life of that parliament. But then you might challenge the other candidates to tell you, well, what would you have done? Would you have been different?

Would you have voted for this or that or what? So there's your answer. Lauren Duggan writes from Washington. He basically wants to know, is it more likely that there would be a minority government? Is there an opportunity for a coalition or more informal arrangements, such as Liberals plus Greens plus NDP?

Those possibilities always exist. Conservatives plus the People's Party of Canada? That would be an interesting one. Those two guys really don't like each other. But some of their members do like each other. However, could this happen? Well, there will be all sorts of theories played out if we wind up in a situation where no one party has a majority. So, you know, look forward to that deep into the night on October 21st.

Graham Nowlin from Ottawa. Is the SNC-Lavalin scandal really only a story inside the Ottawa bubble? I don't think so. I mean, a lot of people have been asking that for the last week, saying everybody talks about it inside the Queensway in Ottawa, but not outside. Well, I've actually found that not to be the case in my travels around the country. It's not a major issue for most people. It doesn't come up a lot in my conversations, but it does come up. So it's not an issue that's only related

to Ottawa. And every time it sort of bubbles up again, it gets talked about outside Ottawa. And as you know, it bubbled up a little bit last week. Seems to have disappeared already in the 24-7 world we live in. Nathaniel Hack from Regina. My question is, how much of a threat do you think Maxime Bernier and the People's Party are to Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives? Do you think they could win any seats

that would normally be won by the Conservative Party? Well, they got a good chance at one, and that's Bernier's seat, which he won as a Conservative. Now he's running as the leader of the People's Party. But I noticed that part of the decision to put him in the debates is based on some polling that the Election Debates Commission did in a number of writings that Bernier says their party is doing well in. There was some in Ontario, one in Manitoba, one in Saskatchewan.

And the polling would indicate not that they were leading, not that they could necessarily win any of those seats, but that the numbers were significant. So it, you know, we'll have to wait and see how obviously he does during the campaign and whether he gets a lot of attention. Will it hurt Andrew Scheer? It won't help him.

They're drawn from the same pot. Bethany Collicutt writes, what do you think about the Greens and PEI, given their recent successes provincially in PEI, given their recent successes provincially in PEI, and the fact that PEI has so much to lose due to climate change. Bethany, listen, you won't get me predicting what happens in PEI. I've watched that wonderful province. I got married in PEI.

I've watched that wonderful province ever since I started covering federal politics in the 1970s, and it's always so close, right? It could go either way. One party could sweep PEI, but the other party not be embarrassed by the results because it was so close. But the Greens are a new force. After traditionally being a kind of liberal, conservative back and forth for decades.

The Greens are a force provincially. And, you know, I was out there for a charity dinner not that long ago and had discussions with some of the people there, all of whom said, you know, the Greens are a force. Don't know whether they can win a seat federally, but they are a force. And here's the last one for tonight. Amanda Huggison, don't know Amanda, I'm guessing here. She writes a great letter. Thanks for starting your podcast. I'm finding it very informative because I'm a new Canadian. I'm from Australia originally. This will be my first time voting in an election here in Canada. Having come from a country where voting is mandatory for citizens aged over 18,

I'm surprised that Canada, a country with similar values to that of Australia, does not have a higher voter turnout. Australia's last federal election, I believe, had a 91% voter turnout, considered low due to disengagement of the younger voters, whereas Canada's was 68.5% in 2015. My question to you is, do you think mandatory voting in Canada would work to engage the public more in what is going on in Ottawa. Ooh, mandatory voting. That means a fine or worse if you don't vote. I'm not sure we want to go that far, but we sure want to go as far as we can

in trying to encourage people to vote and explaining why it's so important. You know, you talk about that voter turnout in Australia, 91% last time, which is great. 68.5% you're not impressed with in Canada last time, and we were impressed. You know why? Because it had been 59% the election before. So it had shown a bump up into the high 60s. People are hoping that trend will

continue and it will bump up again. That could be, that could be, well, let's hope that that is the trend line. Because we'd all like to see it move up. And we'd all like to see some encouragement to people to ensure they do vote. And Canada's been trying a number of things, more advanced polling, better hours for advanced polling, trying to get people to come out early to vote. And I'm sure that will happen again this time.

But as of the moment, there's no serious discussion at all of mandatory voting, and I'm not quite sure how much support that idea would have. Okay, that's it for this night. And it's been another treat to talk to you and to read your letters. Keep them coming. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com is where to write. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. So as I said, in Montreal the rest of this week, and we will be trying to do our little podcast from some hotel room somewhere during this week.

This isn't one of the big fancy podcasts that's supported by some network organization or some powerful institution. It's just little old me working in my little old microphone and talking to you and enjoying every moment of it. So this is Peter Mansbridge for The Bridge. Thanks for listening. Thank you.