The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Can James Bond Save The Movie Theatre Business??

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Canada elected 102 women to the House of Commons last week which is a new record, but it raises the question, is it enough?  Other countries do better, much better.  The executive director of Equal Voice joins the program for her perspective on all this.  Also, our tease for today, can James Bond save the movie theatre business?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Last week, more women elected to the Canadian Parliament than ever before. But is it enough? Acana Pet Food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the Acana Pet Food team is proud of their entire bag. That's because every recipe has been thoughtfully sourced and carefully crafted with the highest quality ingredients, starting with quality animal ingredients balanced with whole fruits and vegetables. Akana pet foods are rich in the protein and nutrients your dog or cat needs to feel and look their best. Available in grain-free,

healthy grains, and singles for sensitive dogs. Akana, go beyond the first ingredient. Yeah, last week was a big election. There was a lot more to it than just the fact that it ended up as a minority government. This issue of women in politics, women in the House of Commons, is an important one. We're going to discuss it in a couple of moments and look at the new numbers reflected in the Canadian Parliament as a result of last week's election. More than ever before, more women than ever before after this latest election. But the question remains, is it enough? But first, I want to update on yesterday's.

We had a lot of reaction to yesterday's kind of feature interview with Dr. Isaac Bogoch on the pandemic. And I found it interesting that our friends at Nanos, the research firm came out with a a new study this morning that suggests that once again after politics not surprisingly the number one issue the number two the two top issues on the minds of canadians unprompted so in other words the the research firm says okay what's your number one issue? They don't actually give you examples. You have to prompt it, not them. And the number one issue and the number two issue, the pandemic, coronavirus, and the environment. So those are top of mind for most Canadians right now.

A couple of things to point out as follows to yesterday. One of the big reactions was, geez, what's happened to the Americans? You know, they led the field on vaccines. They developed the new types of vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna. They were instrumental in the development of those vaccines. But yet they are a drag on the world in terms of the number of people vaccinated. I mentioned that number yesterday. 55% of Americans are fully vaccinated. Our number is over 71% now. And we're in the top strata of nations around the world.

But the Americans are still well back. Now, there's been much discussion about that in the States and why they're anti-vaxxers and why they're vaccine hesitant. Well, there's a new piece in The Atlantic that tries to answer this, and they give an answer that I hadn't heard before as to why has America dropped to number 36 in vaccine distribution. And the Atlantic, you know, points out why this matters. It matters because countries as varied as Canada, Malta, Mongolia, Ecuador,

they've all surpassed, and not by small amounts, the U.S. in vaccination rates. Now, Atlantic concludes that there are three key data points that explain the reasons why the U.S. has lagged. Here they are. The U.S. is unusually uninsured, unusually contrarian, and unusually polarized.

Well, we certainly knew about the last, perhaps the last two, but I was not aware that the insurance issue is part of the reason they're lagging on vaccinations. Here are the details on that, or, you know, a simple explanation. I mean, you can go to The Atlantic and read the full analysis. It's pretty interesting. But in the details, they conclude America's historical contrarianism about vaccines has many potential sources.

Uninsured people who can't afford to see doctors may be conditioned to trust in their body and hope for the best. Say that again? Uninsured people, and we know the debate over in medical insurance in the U.S. and the number of people who are not insured. Uninsured people who can't afford to see doctors may be conditioned to trust in their body and hope for the best. Isn't that interesting? Here's the other development that came out yesterday, and it was on NBC News. A year ago, when we were talking about how we're going to deal with COVID, there was obviously focus on the rush to find a vaccine.

As it turned out, it was a rush to find a number of vaccines. But there was also a great deal of talk about antivirals. You know, pills that we could take if we had COVID to lessen the impact of it. Well, the news yesterday, at least on NBC, was that at least three promising antivirals for COVID are being tested in clinical trials

with results expected as soon as later this fall or early winter. So within the next couple of months. This could be the world's next chance to thwart COVID. later this fall or early winter. So within the next couple of months. This could be the world's next chance to thwart COVID, a short-term regimen of daily pills that can fight the virus early, after diagnosis, and conceivably prevent symptoms from developing after exposure. Look, we know that antivirals are already, you know, pretty essential treatments for other viral infections, including hepatitis C and HIV.

One of the best known, and you'll remember this name because it's been around for some time and was definitely a player in the last 20 years. That's Tamiflu. It's one of the best known, the widely prescribed pill that can shorten the duration of influenza and reduce the risk of hospitalization if it's given quickly. The first signs that you might have the flu, a serious flu. Anyway, that Tammy flu, nobody's saying that Tammy flu is an antiviral for COVID.

They're just using that as an example, okay? But the important news here, the headline is, they're feeling pretty confident about these three new antivirals that are currently being tested in clinical trials. They'll have the results, and they could be available later this fall or early in the winter. So we will keep our ear to the ground on that one. Because that'll be another way of, you know, dealing with this new reality that COVID isn't going away anytime soon.

For lots of different reasons, as you heard yesterday. And I would strongly recommend if you didn't hear yesterday's program with Dr. Isaac Bogoch, that you go into your podcast and you pull it up and listen to it because it's pretty interesting. And thank you for a lot of the mail that I've received, emails in the last 24 hours since we had Dr. Bogoch on. People found it quite informative and important for this time as they kind of refocus their minds after the election last week and looking at the reality of what continues to face us and is likely to face us for some time yet.

However, one of the things that's received little attention from last week, from the election results, were the number of women that not only ran for election, but who won? More women won seats in the new House of Commons than has ever existed before in the history of our country. It's an interesting year for that to happen, or it's 100 years since the first woman was elected to the House of Commons. But the question remains, is it enough? So we'll run through the numbers, and we'll talk to somebody who cares deeply about this issue,

and get her assessment of where we are. But first, a quick break. You're listening to the bridge with peter madsbridge so All right then. Let's talk House of Commons. Make up the number of women in those 338 seats that exist in the House of Commons. Canadians elected a total of 102 women to the House of Commons. This is a slight increase from the 98 women elected after the 2019 general election. There were a couple of by-elections

after the 2019 election, which actually increased the number to 100. But 102 is a new record total, if you wish. It brings the percentage of women elected federally from 29% to 30%. That's what raises the question of, is it enough? Is progress being made at a rapid enough rate? Now, I don't know whether you've heard of the organization called Equal Voice, but Equal Voice is focused on striving to move towards gender parity in Canadian politics.

Equal Voice looks forward to working with all political parties, partners, and women, and gender diverse people across Canada to achieve this ultimate goal in future elections at all levels of government across Canada. Reading off their website. Equal Voice. Now, Equal Voice put out a release just in the last, well, I guess just late yesterday, trying to assess these numbers from last week and what they actually mean.

So looking across the numbers by party, most of the party caucuses will also see slight increases to the women within their own teams in the House of Commons. The Liberal Party increases the women in their caucus from 33% to 35%. The Conservatives move from 18% to 19% women. The New Democrats will increase women in their caucus from 37.5% to 44%. The Bloc Québécois and the Green Party will see slight decreases in the women in their caucuses. I've always wondered, is it caucuses or is it caucus?

I don't know what's right there. The Bloc Québécois team will include 36% women rather than the 37.5% they had after 2019. And one of two Green MPs, or 50%, is a woman compared to the two out of three, 66%, that the party elected in 2019. Unfortunately, on the terms of the big number, even with the small increase, Canada's ranking

in the inter-parliamentary unions, global rankings of women in national parliaments, will actually go down to 58th in the world from the 55th place that was attained following the last federal election. Canada's global ranking actually decreasing even as a few more women are elected to the House of Commons shows clearly how Canada is not moving fast enough to increase the representation of women in Parliament. Okay, those are the headlines and those are all the numbers and lots of facts and figures to throw at you there.

Don't expect you to remember them all, but the headline is more women than ever before, but not enough says equal voice so as promised let's talk to eleanor fast she's the executive director of equal voice she's in ottawa and here's our conversation eleanor a lot of uh a lot of numbers there but when you crunch them all together at the end of the day what what does it say to you about the uh the success or lack of it for women in the uh in the federal election well with 102 women elected um that comes to 30%, the highest number we've ever seen. Well, the highest percentage we've ever seen of women MPs in the House of Commons. And we always want to celebrate

a record number, and it's good to see things going in the right direction. But 102 is only four more elected in 2019, and only two more than we had at the solution, because there was 100 women in the House just before the election with a couple of by-elections having taken place. So it's good news, but it's certainly not good enough news. I mean, prior to the election, we were hoping for 40% women, which was probably an overly ambitious goal. But I think it's time now to be ambitious and to set those high standards and high goals for all the parties. Well, what is the ultimate goal? I mean, your organization is called Equal Voice.

So should we assume that you're looking someday to see 50-50 on, in terms of the gender split in the House of Commons? Yeah. I mean, we're looking for, our vision is gender parity, which doesn't necessarily mean a 50-50 split. I mean, we're sort of, if we have at least 40% men and at least 40% women, I think that's a fairly good representation of men and women in the House. And, of course, we also want to see more gender diverse people in the House. I mean, we've never had, for example, non-binary um or openly non-binary mp elected so

it's not just about uh more women but it's about um more gender diversity and in the house of commons when you look at these numbers and you break it down by parties, which we've done here. Are you satisfied that all parties are actively trying to have women on the ticket for them? Yeah, I mean, we work with all of the political parties, you know, not just during election periods or the time just before it, but all the time, to encourage them and support them in nominating more women, and particularly focused on nominating more women in winnable ridings. And when you look at the numbers of women that each party is actually nominating, I mean, we have the data for every party, but overall, at this election, it was 43%. So you can see that the parties are actually nominating women at a lot higher rate than actually getting elected. And of course, that's because women are not being nominated necessarily in winnable ridings.

And a part of that is the incumbency effect. When you go into an election where, you know, 71% of all of the MPs were men, vast majority of those men are seeking re-election and a lot of them are going to you know get elected they're obviously winnable ridings um it makes it even more important that parties are nominating women or gender diverse people in winnable ridings whether that means that an MP has stepped aside and isn't seeking re-election or if it's a riding that those parties are really targeting they're going to put a lot of resources into the leader's going to turn up all of that you know the parties all know where those writings are and those are the writings where they should be running women you know i did a little little bit of research over the weekend trying to determine how, you know, how other countries were doing towards that goal of an equal voice.

And there are only three countries in the world that I could find that actually have more women than men in their parliaments. Rwanda, Cuba and nicaragua now i i don't think you're going to be looking to any of those necessarily for a guidance as to how we can reach those numbers but there are countries that are close mexico is roughly 50 50 uh sweden 47 percent women uh finland 46% women. What are those countries doing that we're not? Yeah, and of course, the research you've just cited is going to be changed as of today because Iceland has just elected a majority woman. I'm not sure if they call it a parliament or a legislature. I haven't seen the full details of that because it just came out today.

But certainly, you know, that's just another example of a country where they're making much better strides than Canada. We're stuck at 30 percent. As of last week, we were 58th on the list. Elections in different countries happen all the time. So by now it may no longer be 58. But certainly considering how high Canada ranks on so many other indicators, you know, that people measure to see us 58th in the world in terms of women's participation in our national parliament is um pretty um not where we want to be that's for sure um to answer your question though about what other countries are doing um there's a lot of different um things going on in a lot of different countries. So some countries actually have quotas for women MPs or for women legislators.

And there are pros and cons of doing that. And certainly some countries that I visited to learn more about where there are quotas that parties have to put forward women. There are problems, accusations that people are putting forward their wives or their daughters as proxies and so on. And and then and but then you also see other countries where, for example, they might have a proportional representation system, which has been shown to lead to higher numbers of women. If, you know, under certain circumstances and obviously proportional representation, there's many different ways of doing that as well. So I think the answer to your question is complicated and really depends on which, you know, which particular country that you're looking at. But certainly, I think that there are things that, you know, Canada could consider, or more importantly, different parties could consider to increase the numbers of women and really, like I said before, those winnable ridings, which is really great. all your candidates as women is awesome but if you're not electing anything like that proportion then that says something about where those women are actually running you know the one of the old

excuses used to be that it's it's not just about getting elected it's about having a situation that would encourage women to actually be running for politics and running for parliament given the other issues that confront women all the time whether it's family raising or what have you is that much less of an issue now than it used to be or is that still at play in the decision making process that that women who women who perhaps may want to run for politics just simply can't? Well, I think that yes, it's still an issue. And actually this election in particular,

I think is very interesting because we know that COVID has had a disproportionate effect on women and it's actually why we're sort of uh cautiously celebrating um that we did have an increase in the number of women in this election because one of the things that we were quite concerned about when the you know over the summer when everybody knew an election was going to be called um was like well what what does that affect you know the effect that covid's had on women's participation in the workforce and so on what what is that going to mean for women um running in the

election and then the other concern that we had was about it not being on a fixed election date, because that's also shown to lead to fewer women running. So certainly, you know, those two things were worrying us before the election. And so we were pleased to see that even with those factors we did see a slight increase in the numbers um but then you know we do know from both from um polling and also anecdotally that um yes like women are very concerned about being able to balance being a politician with family life. And of course, that's particularly acute for federal members of parliament, some of whom are traveling right across the country to be in parliament. And one of the things that Equal Voice has been advocating for for many years is modernisation of Parliament so that in emergency situations,

personal emergencies, people could use a proxy vote or perhaps vote remotely. And prior to COVID, we were all met with, well, it's tradition. You have to come to the house. You have to stand up to vote. That's the way it's always been done, and that's the only way we can possibly do it.

And, of course, I mean, as you know, we've seen people on their deathbed, basically, coming into the house in order to stand up, vote, and then go back home. Not a good situation for anybody. And so, you know, prior to COVID, we were always given the tradition argument. Now, COVID has shown that in an emergency, in this case, a global pandemic, public health emergency, that it is possible for people to vote remotely. It is possible actually to participate and fulfill your duties as a member of parliament

whilst not being physically located in the House of Commons. And so one of the things that we really want to see after the pandemic is those are those measures being extended to personal emergencies so if someone you know is very ill but still able to you know participate but at home that they would be able to to still vote and fulfill their responsibilities that way. Or if people have family health emergencies, for example, and it's not appropriate for them to leave their families and go to Ottawa for their child, for example, having a health emergency, that they could still fulfill their voting duties remotely. So fingers crossed that that might happen. And I think that that will hopefully lead to less concern from not just women, but anyone with a young family, for example,

or caring for elderly relatives, that they actually in an emergency situation, they would be able to be with them. That's really an interesting take on our post-COVID world and the new way of looking at things. So I'm glad you brought that up. Just two quick final points. One, you know, the next big decision that will be made coming out of Ottawa will be on the cabinet um this prime minister has maintained a policy of a basically an even split between men and women in cabinet um are you assuming are you hoping are you uh convinced that that will continue uh I think it's fair to say we're assuming it will continue and assuming and hoping. Yes. But it's not just about having the numbers again.

It's about seeing those women in the most senior cabinet roles. And I know everyone says, oh, you know, all roles are equally important. But there are certainly some higher profile cabinet roles that we want to see filled by women. And the last point is this. You know, you have this cohort of women coming in of more than 100 into the House of Commons from all parties. If you had a single piece of advice for them as they enter this role some who've you know been there before but uh you know there are some some rookies what's your um what's your single most important piece of advice goodness that's a interesting question i think uh be uh be brave, speak your mind, but be collaborative.

We know that women work better across party lines, and I think that's something that's really needed in our parliament at the moment. And I think women can lead the way on that. I think that's a really good piece of advice. And I think we could all respect and embrace something like that happening in this in this new parliament. So we'll, as you said earlier, fingers crossed, let's wait and see what happens there. Eleanor Fast, thank you very much for your time today. Thank you so much. So that was Eleanor Fast. She's the executive director of Equal Voice. That is, you know, part of its mandate is to encourage more women

elected to public office, not just to the federal government, but provincial government, municipal offices, you name it. We appreciate her time today. Now, a little story before we go. This was the day, September 28th, that I was supposed to be in London, England. Or at least I had the opportunity to be there. And you say, for what? Well, listen, this would have been a thrill,

but as it turned out, I couldn't make it for a number of reasons. But I had an invite, one of those like gold-embossed invites. To what? To perhaps the most important day in the movie theater industry in the last two years. Today is the day they're going to premiere the new James Bond movie. No Time to Die. Daniel Craig, James Bond.

And they're going to have a special kind of private party. And for saying, hey, you say, man, Mansbridge must have connections. Well, I have connections on that front, right up to the Fleming family. Ian Fleming, of course, wrote the Bond series, or at least the initial ones, and his family carries on the tradition of the Flemings by being a part of the bond industry still today. Anyway, through a series of events and reasons, and acquaintances, I had an invite. Both Cynthia and I had invites to the premiere, the red carpet.

There you'd be, right there, James Bond, Daniel Craig, right there. But no, I'm sitting in Stratford doing my SiriusXM program, The Bridge, available on your favorite podcast platform as well. But listen, this is no small thing, this premiere of the James Bond film. Because as you know, theaters, at least some of them, opened in the last couple of months. And they need vaccine passports in many of them. But it's been a struggle.

And the people who run the movie business, movie theater business, are worried. Not surprisingly, they can't fill a theater. You know, box office champions each week are making just a few million in sales, as opposed to the few hundred million in some big sales in the past. But this may be the biggest premier to date. You know, the ones that have been running for the last little while, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Black Widow,

those films have been, you know, moderate, very moderate successes. But they're looking for a blockbuster that in some way may turn the tide and get people back in theaters. So there are a number of them coming out, but this is the biggest one. No Time to Die. James Bond. And I could have been there.

But no, I'm not. Because I believe in the bridge. I know you wanted to hear from me today on all kinds of other things rather than my review tomorrow of James Bond. I've seen the, you know, they sent me trailers some time ago, and it looks pretty good. It looks pretty good. It looks pretty good. Daniel Craig's my favorite Bond, and I've seen them all

from the very first one that came out in the early 60s. So I've seen them all. In the theater, most of them. And I like Daniel. I've liked all the Bonds, except that one guy who did one film, and I can't even remember his name. That was not really very good. But I like Craig.

I like Daniel Craig. I think he's terrific. Be sad to see him leave. This is his last Bond film. We still don't know what's going to happen. Lots of rumors around what might happen for the next one, but part of that will be determined on how well this does. So we'll be looking for that.

So that's how we're going to close out. Tomorrow on Wednesday, you know what Wednesday is, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce Anderson will join us. Not sure what we're going to talk about yet, but I'm sure we'll find something. And we look forward to doing that. Thursday is your turn. So I have quite a few, as I said,

emails come into the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com yesterday and last night and this morning about the pandemic show. So if you have more thoughts on that, don't be shy, send them in. Thursday's your turn, your opportunity for whatever topic you want to talk about. You may take issue with my Daniel Craig assessment on James Bond. Who knows? Friday, good talk with Chantelle Hebert

and Bruce Anderson. You can also check out my website, thepetermansbridge.com. It's the final days of the special contest for a special copy of my new book, which comes out a week from today. Off the record, I'm holding a copy here in my hand. It's going to be interesting to see how this does. But you can check out all the details on it on my website, thepetermansbridge.com.

All right, that's it for this day, this Tuesday. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.