The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Could voters in Canada decide who wins the US election? The Race Next Door (#15) with Bruce Anderson and our special guest.

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

We reach out to Aspen Colorado for former US Ambassador Bruce Heyman and how he’s trying to “get out the vote”.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the Bridge Daily. It's Tuesday of week 33. And week 33 comes before week 34, and week 34 is the U.S. election a week from tonight. So we're getting ready for that. And because of that, we have the old podcast within a podcast tonight coming up in about a minute's time. Not much more than a minute anyway. The latest edition of the Race Next Door with Bruce Anderson

and a very special guest coming to us from Aspen, Colorado today. You won't want to miss that. Tell you who it is when we intro the race next door coming up in about, as I said, another minute or so. But I wanted to give you first a heads up on the latest story circulating about masks. Because I think we're getting closer because of the increasing numbers both in this country and south of the border. Really significant, huge, big numbers south of the border. 70,000 new cases of the coronavirus yesterday.

The numbers are up in Canada, especially in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta. Not good. So more and more talk about masks. Part of it due to the fact that if Joe Biden wins presidency next week, he's talking about mandating mask use. And you can only imagine the row that's going to cause. But the need, is there a need? Well, there's increasing evidence that there is, and the latest evidence comes today from Scott Gottlieb.

And I don't know whether you've heard of him. You probably should have because he pops up on television all the time. He's an American doctor. But he's also a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. He is now saying that it's time to mandate mask use across the country. Here's his tweet today. It's time we pursue a national mask mandate. We're dangerously behind the curve in confronting rising COVID spread across the U.S.

We need to maximize steps that are less intrusive now so we can minimize those that are more disruptive later. And you know what he's talking about there? He's talking about lockdowns. He's saying if we don't do something now, they're going to have to do lockdowns right across the country. And if you believe in mask use, like he does, like Scott Gottlieb does, and a lot of other people, we're now saying mask use will reduce deaths. It will reduce cases, and as a result of reducing cases, it will reduce hospitalizations, and as a result of reducing hospitalizations, it will end up reducing deaths.

So, will it happen? Well, as I said, Biden says he's going to call for a national mask mandate. And if Congress won't give it to him, he'll go to individual states, governors, and mayors. He'll go wherever he has to go to get people to wear masks all the time. That that's the only way to properly bend this curve, to get us in the position that when vaccines

or better therapeutics come along, they will take hold as well. But they're not here yet. And in spite of everything you hear about, oh, it's just around the corner, it's going to be very close, could be another week, it's not happening. Not happening yet. It could be months, if not years, but probably months before we see the first accepted, validated vaccine.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that. I know we've got some catch-up to do, but this is in terms of the COVID story, and I'll try to do a lot of stuff tomorrow, as we'll have a more traditional Bridge Daily tomorrow. But today, we're continuing on, and we've got a really big guest coming up later on this week. But right now we have a special guest for this day. And I want to warn you that I said

he's coming in from Aspen. The line's not perfect. Okay. There's kind of some Internet hits here and there, but you can definitely understand what he has to say. And what he has to say is really, really interesting in terms of the situation as we approach Election Day next Tuesday in the United States. But enough of the preamble. Let's get to the race next door with Bruce Anderson. And here it is.

Well, here we are. We're only a week away now, a week tonight, and we'll be sitting there watching the results coming in on the U.S. election. Will it be Trump? Will it be Biden? Well, we'll know. Well, we should have a good idea anyway one week from tonight. It may take a little longer than that, but you never know. We've got a special guest tonight to talk about the various events surrounding the U.S. election. Bruce Anderson, of course, is in Ottawa, but in Aspen, Colorado.

No less. Aspen, Colorado. Former ambassador from the United States to Canada, Bruce Heyman, is with us. Ambassador, good to have you with us. Greetings, Canada. So good to be back with you, even though it's virtually. Virtually is pretty good because virtually I saw on your Twitter feed how much snow you've had in Aspen already.

It looked like about six or seven inches of snow sitting on top of your picnic table on your back porch in Aspen. So winter is with you. Yeah. Instead of winter is coming, winter is here. And thanks for all that good conditioning I had in Ottawa. I was well prepared for it. Well, you loved Ottawa too.

You and your wife, Vicki. You had a great time. Yeah It's always exciting to see the first snowfall and the excitement I know wears off quickly but it's been fun. It's really beautiful. The ambassador also wrote a great book that was about his experience in Canada during those years that he was Barack Obama's ambassador really for the United States in Canada during those years that he was Barack Obama's ambassador, really, for the United States in Canada. And it was a book about diplomacy, but it was also really a book

about what's a pretty special relationship between Canada and the United States. And we'll get to that in terms of what this election could mean to that relationship in a bit. But why don't you start us off in giving us an idea, because you're never one who shies away from the action of the day. And I'm wondering, and we're wondering, what it is that you've been doing during this campaign. So what we've been doing really came out of our time in Ottawa, actually. And back when the HATDAQ, which was a rule that, you know, if you work for

the U.S. government, you're supposed to be nonpartisan, which we followed faithfully during the Obama administration, worked on the get out the vote effort for Americans in Canada. And Vicki and I, you know, went through the videos and a little humor and but really did outreach, but had no real concept at that moment how many Americans lived in Canada and what kind of turnout there would be. So after the election, the U.S. government did this analysis that we just happen to be reading. And it said there were millions of Americans living abroad. And the largest number of Americans eligible to vote were in Canada, north of 600,000. And they voted in 2016 at something like 5%. And then we started doing the math and realizing how much Hillary

lost in the Michigan vote, less than 11,000 votes, and started thinking, gosh, there's got to be more than that in Windsor. And so we sat down, and really, this was in our craw. In 2018, we got out across Canada, did morning television, did podcasts, and did earned media, and did some op--eds and been encouraging to vote in Canada, still nonpartisan. And but there was no analysis done. So we don't know how we did exactly. But this year, we got on the phone, Vicki and Bruce, called the members of the U.S. government that did this analysis, called independent organizations, called Democrats abroad, interviewed former ambassadors, and came to the conclusion that there are something north of 6 million Americans living abroad that are eligible to vote.

And they voted at something like 7.7, 7.8% rate in 2016. And we said, oh my gosh is there's a strategy here and when we started talking to people we realized no presidential campaign has ever really addressed the american abroad um got get out the vote effort and so we made a proposal to the Biden campaign and said, we would like to run this effort and focus on American voters abroad. And we have a plan, which we can talk about in a minute, but a plan in terms of implementation on how to drive voter turnout. Plus, we told them this was a swing state strategy, because in 2016, just about 50% of all the votes that were cast were in swing states, and the number one state by a lot was the state of Florida. And so we made the pitch. I don't know

if it was one of those that we're the only ones raising our hand for something. So you get picked or everybody took a step back when they heard the story and we were the only ones forward. But we got it. And they said, run with it. And basically gave us a license to run half of the campaign. And in a multi-factor model model organizing ambassadors who used to serve the United States all around the world, all types of ambassadors from Republican, Democrat, career people, engaging Democrats abroad or implementing organizations, getting influencers

involved. And so that's what we've been doing literally day and night, literally for months now, for just about six months. And that's all we've been doing all the time, engaging Americans living abroad for the Get Out the Vote effort. That's a stunning number in terms of the numbers just in Canada, if not around the world. Let me ask you one quick question before Bruce jumps in here. And that is, when you're out trying to have this impact on Americans who can vote, who are living outside of the United

States, is there anybody trying from the other side to do the same thing? The weird thing is, the answer is no. Maybe with the exception of a little bit of disinformation we've seen in some short period of time without spending untold fortunes. And even then, I'm not sure how effective it would be because of the data that we have is that most Americans living abroad are more progressive in nature than Americans living at home. And so the numbers are looking 75, 80, 85% pro-Trump, excuse me, pro-Biden, anti-Trump. And so, you know, it's just a matter of education and then facilitation and then helping them along, which that's what we're doing. And we've been able to, we have a stand-up organization. Democrats Abroad has 200,000 members globally. We have an 18,000-person volunteer force right now.

And we have more than 200 ambassadors plus partners who have served every administration going back through Jimmy Carter and career and political. And this includes the Trump administration. And then we have all these artists and social media influencers doing postings. And so I don't think anybody could do this on the other side at this level. So we have a kind of an open runway and with very little fight over there. We've had some challenges back in the U.S. with voter suppression type issues, you know, at the state level and local level. Remember, everybody votes where they last lived in the United States. And if they didn't, they grew up outside the United States and didn't live there.

They vote from where they're 37, 38 states. You vote from where your parents last lived. And so, you know, you've got thousands of individual, you know, vote registrars and offices that you'd have to, you know, start circumventing and doing things. There's a little bit of that, but, you know, no, we've had a pretty good open runway here. Bruce. Bruce, I'd love to ask you a question. I just want to start, though, by saying that it's great to see you again. When you lived in Ottawa, we had a great time getting to know each other. We were fortunate enough to kind of spend a number of evenings having dinner together and talking

about the relationship between the two countries. And I was really struck by the public-spirited way in which you approach your job. And I'm so delighted to see you continuing, you and Vicki both continuing in that spirit now that you're not here in Canada. And, you know, I know that there are a lot of Canadians like me who really welcome and appreciate the effort that you've made using your voice to talk about the Canada-U.S. relationship and who also admire from a distance what you're trying to do to promote voting. And that's kind of really where I wanted to go with my first question for you is I was watching a coverage today. It's kind of like every day is doom scrolling for me watching the U.S. election and just kind of hoping that there'll be a little bit more, just a smidgen more good news tomorrow than there was yesterday.

And so far, it's going OK, I think. exercising their franchise against a concerted effort by the state, by the government to prevent them from voting. And I know that this has gone on for a long time in one form or another, but it doesn't feel to me like it's ever been the central strategy of an incumbent president to try to prevent as many people as possible from voting. And so I think your efforts are really timely and very appropriate to that circumstance. But I wanted to kind of ask you, when you see that, and when you see everything else that you've seen for the last few years, is this election, as it feels like to me, you know, one of, if not maybe the most important one in the history of your country?

I'd just like to hear you talk a little bit about that, if you don't mind. So many thoughts on your comments and always so thoughtful the way you raised it and we did. Let me first say that the Republicans for a long time have recognized they don't have the numbers the Democrats do. And so how do they win? They do it by both legal and some nefarious ways of, one, making sure their team gets everybody out to vote they possibly can, and two, try to circumvent the vote for the other team. Either discourage them or make it incredibly difficult, knock them off the rolls, limited the number of polling places with large communities of Democratic voters, gerrymandering, everything they can do,

because they don't have the numbers. And so they are trying to work the system. What Donald Trump is effectively doing is he's saying out loud what a lot of people, I think, have been doing a long time in the Republican Party. It's just they try to do it and say it in back rooms. I think the shocking part, which is a little bit of Donald Trump in the way he plays, is he says everything just out loud. And bad, not very much good, or indifferent, but he says it. And he says it out loud. I will say it's the most important election of my life. And perhaps in the history of our country, albeit a lot of people talk about the election of 1864 during the Civil War and the future of the Constitutional Union.

But in your lifetime, the most important. Not my lifetime. You may look at me and think I was there in 1864, but that's the ballot is less about two men, even though two men are on the ballot. This is about democracy, the rule of law. This is about the kind of country and set of values that we want to establish on a going forward basis. Who are we and what are we about? The character of the country. values that we want to establish on a going forward basis. Who are we and what are we about? The character of the country. The character of the country. That's what Obama said, I guess.

Exactly. That's exactly what's on the ballot. And, you know, we're here and we're at this moment. What's interesting is with those long lines is that people are saying, at least in my belief, what kind of country they want. And if we give a large enough mandate to President Biden, which I hope is the case next week, that if they give him a large enough mandate, then we can begin to even the playing field on the rules and give everyone the right and access to vote. But I think, look, members of Congress, and you know this as well as anyone, I think we're

gonna have a record turnout, and we may have at least a record in 100 years in the percentage of the population who are eligible to vote. And while it's still low relative to some other countries and historical standards around the world, it is very high for us. And it's really heartening, heartening to see young people whose age is 18 to 25, the numbers that are coming out. Just so you know, the vote from abroad, we look at those statistics as well. In 2016, 60% of the votes came from over 45, 40% under 45. In 2020, it's the flip.

It's 60% under 45, 40% over 45, which is much like double and triple the numbers. We didn't talk about that, but the vote from abroad website is up 3x what it was in 2016. And so we're looking at hopefully generating from abroad between a half a million and a million new votes in addition to what we're seeing. And so, but the youth engagement has been quite encouraging for democracy and where we are. So let's see how it plays out. You never know whether you've cannibalized votes on the waiting in line side from November 3rd, or you've added to the vote turnout. And I guess we'll only know that when we see what happens on the 3rd. It's hard.

Peter, I won't let you get in here, but I just wanted to pick up that one thread on the early turnout. I do think that there's a – it's hard not to be optimistic looking at those lineups and seeing the data rolling in about how many people are voting. I saw something a little earlier this afternoon about 80% of the 2016 turnout in Texas has already voted. And there's an irony here, I think, for Trump, which is most of that advanced vote is Biden vote. And a lot of it is probably going out because of the pandemic. And the more he looks like he doesn't care about the pandemic

and wants to change the channel from the pandemic, it feels to me this is a kind of a self-defeating position that he's taking. And, you know, we can get into the psychology of him a little bit later. But good for you to be doing that. And I do want to kind of follow up with a couple of other questions, but Peter, why don't you, you go ahead. Well, I just wanted to check one thing with the ambassador and that's, you know, the puzzle for a lot of Canadians,

that's not to say there aren't some Trump supporters in Canada because there are some, but the overwhelming numbers are for the end of the Trump era in Canada? Because there are some, but the overwhelming numbers are for the end of the Trump era in Canada. That's what I've seen, the data I've seen, the data that Bruce has collected. Most Canadians would like to see the Trump presidency end. The puzzle that a lot of Canadians have is why is this even seen to be close right now? You know, I mean, the numbers are certainly seem to be in Biden's favor, but people are kind of edgy and nervous. They learned from 2016 not to assume anything. And so the assumption is, if there is one, is that it's

probably a little bit closer than the numbers would seem to indicate. And that's the puzzle. Like, why is it even close, given the record this president has had on almost everything and certainly on the coronavirus? Why is it so close? So I would answer that in a couple of buckets. First of all, I think in the U.S. people are more partisan than in Canada. While there are people who are liberal and they'll vote liberal for their whole life, and it just doesn't matter who you're putting up as leader, that they'll vote liberal or

conservative or NDP. But the fact of the matter is, I sense, in large part, that isn't as much the case in Canada as it is in the U.S., and especially at the core Republican side. I would suggest that anybody that they would nominate, they would support because it would be the nominee of their party. That's point one. Point two is that we have a lot of special interest voters in the country that may vote along certain lines. If you're pro-choice

or pro-life, if you are anti-tax or you have other certain beliefs, this president may be delivering on those individual issues for you, even though his behavior in every other area is, you know, abhorrent. You know, you kind of go with it because this is your important issue and he's delivering for you. Especially, look, if you want judges and you want conservative judges, you've got to admit that this has been where he's been delivering. And, you know, I think that there are people who are supportive of that. We are seeing, though, Peter, and I've never seen this in my life, where you see large numbers of Republicans who stand up and say, I am a Republican, but I cannot vote for Donald Trump. And there are these groups and organizations that have established themselves to do that. And, you know, they may only represent 3, 4, 5 percent of the Republican Party.

That's enough to tilt an entire election. You know, it's enough if you almost virtually had a third party that took that much to move an election. We've seen that before in our country. So, you know, it's discouraging for people to say, yep, you're right. He dot, dot, dot, dot, dot does all these incredibly awful things. And but I'm still supporting him. And you're like, what are you thinking?

But, you know, you can't get caught up in that. You've got it. You've got to understand that we are a center right country where I think Canada is a center-left country, and some of those individual policies. You hear the language, knowing that the U.S. is a center-right country, you hear the language that they're trying to use to create the fear so they don't lose any more or get back some of those Republican women in the suburbs or some of the things that are loose for them when they call those socialists they're coming. They're going to, you know, they're going to tax you to death. They're going to socialize.

They've got socialization of, you know, health care is going to destroy us and et cetera. You watch the language he's used on Kamala Harris and you see the emotions that we have in the country in this divide. And so that's just where we are. Right. You know, I think you're probably right that this whole kind of center right, center left, is government the problem or is government the thing that helps us solve the problem? Those are some pretty significant differences in shading politically north and south of the 49th parallel. I wanted to ask you a question that relates to your experience as a diplomat. And I saw you, I had the opportunity to know many of your predecessors and at least one, I think, of your successor. And what I felt was really unique about the way that you approach the job of ambassador to Canada is you're a fixer. You're somebody who

says, ah, bring me a problem that's a real problem for which nobody has the obvious solution right now, and I'm going to roll up my sleeves. I'm going to figure out what it will take to solve this problem. And it was almost like bringing a business person's skill set to issues that sometimes had lingered for years or decades without solutions obviously being picked up and run with. And I think it's probably fair to say, in some respects, the diplomatic corps is as good at anesthetizing an issue as it is at solving an issue. And you were a bit of a paradigm buster in that regard. I think the other thing that struck me is that you had a thirst for knowing how people

felt about your country outside your country's borders. And one of the things that I think a lot of Canadians react to is when Americans say, we're the leaders of the free world. You know, Canadians might go, well, who voted for that? Did we decide that? Did we get a say in that? Is that really true? Do you even want to be leaders of the free world anymore? Do we know what that means? So I guess a double-barreled question. As you think about the relationship between America and the rest of the world, how big a problem is it that America has positioned itself as wanting to be outside and apart from whatever rest of the world consensus there may be. And specifically on the Canada-U.S. relationship, what are the priorities to fix if things are damaged by the four years that we've been living through? So, first of all, thanks for your generous comments.

I'll tell you, though, I had a learning curve. And, you know, you don't always come in and try to do things in the business way. I learned when I had to deal with Prime Minister Harper and his team on Keystone. And I probably could have used a little bit more diplomacy along that road. But the world is a big place with a number of problems that no one country alone can sort out. We're learning very quickly about a pandemic and how this is not a one country problem. We're also facing a real crisis with climate change and manmade. And this is not a single country problem. And then we have other issues. And it's all about creating alliances and partnerships and coming together and dealing with those. And in the world I was in under the Obama administration, we tried our best to tackle the large problems of the world in a multilateral way. One perfect example of that was my working relationship, which I still value, with Ron Ambrose. And when he and I worked together

to try to talk about Canada's participation in Ebola effort and how we all came together on that money, resources, talent, doctors, understanding the risks of a pandemic. And I will tell you, it's scary to watch what Donald Trump has done over these last few years. Not only has the U.S. pulled away, but we've created this vacuum that sits out there. And I don't think it's really been filled yet, fortunately. And the Chinese have become more aggressive as we know. But they haven't filled that entire large vacuum. The Russians have been troublemakers, but they haven't filled the vacuum. And nobody in Europe has stood up.

The vacuum still sits out there. And I think that there's still a tremendous opportunity for the U.S. to come together. We're going to have to do some repair work for our relations internationally and rebuild the trust component, which is not easily done. It cannot be done overnight, and it'll have to be demonstrated. We're going to have to not just talk. We're going to have to do. But I think we're going to need to do that, and we've been most successful in doing that with Canada at our side, as a partner, as someone we can look to to help us accomplish

some of the toughest goals that we've had. Look, while I was ambassador, conversations of, you know, opening Cuba were happening between U.S. and Cuba in Canada. And I deeply recognize the role Canada has played historically with us at our side. And also, you know, helping us in doing things and communicating with third parties which we don't either have the access to or have the relationship look we're going to have to deal with china we have to deal with climate change we're going to have to deal with the middle east and and in iran who is now not handcuffed at all with a nuclear deal, we're going to have to repair and figure out how we're going to enhance NATO and dealing with Russia.

And what are we going to do there? Remember my last big meeting in Ottawa with Obama just prior to his speech, President Obama, excuse me, just prior to his speech before Parliament, was called the Three Amigos Summit. Now, can you even imagine having a summit under Donald Trump with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister? Can I even call it even the Three Amigos Summit? I mean, there are no amigos here. And so we're going to have to rebuild the North American set of relationships. You know, it's not just about the trade deal that was extracted or, you know, negotiated, but it's about the relationship. And so the role of Canada is large,

but it has to be large in partnership. The first thing, the very, very, very first thing that we need to do is we've got to start tackling with a plan, a strategic plan, and then tactics this pandemic. Because this pandemic has effectively closed our border, not for trade, but for non-essential. And you quickly realize how many people are deemed non-essential for the importance of the border. And, you know, I think that that's the first thing we have to work on together. I think we're going to be partners in global climate change. I think we're going to be partners in NATO. I think we're going to be partners in having to counteract aggression by China. I think we're going to be partners in having to counteract aggression by China. I think we're going to be partners in a lot of things.

And we will need Canada more than anybody even knows. But I think the Biden team knows. And I know they do. And I know how much he values the relationship. Because I was with him with Prime Minister Harper and I was with Vice President Biden with Prime Minister Trudeau. And both times in Canada, Vancouver and Ottawa. And I can tell you it isn't about Biden. Presidency is not going to be about, you know, what party you are.

It's going to be about working together. It's going to be about finding paths for, um, for collaboration and by and by national work that we're going to do on a nonpartisan basis. Ambassador Bruce Heyman, this has been a terrific conversation. You've given us lots to think about and great insight into not only what you've been working at, but what's at stake in this election a week from tonight. It's really been fascinating listening to you. Let me ask you one quick last question before we sign this one off. If Joe Biden wins next week,

and Joe Biden calls you up and says, Bruce, you've got to be a part of this administration in some fashion, what would you do? If a president of the United States called and asked me to serve my country, I wouldn't say no, but I'm not looking for that. And right now I've had what I consider to be the best job in the United States government anybody could ever have. And I just can't imagine a better role that I could play. And, you know, it was a fantastic time. I've run my leg of this relay race and we've handed that baton off, but I'd never say no. And in fact, perversely, in a weird way, and I'll share this guy. And it wouldn't be about representing this guy.

I swore to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. And I never swore to protect it, to work for any guy. And so we were going back and forth. You can just imagine these two know Vicki and me, and we've been going back and forth every day, every night. No way. Yes, I think that. So who is the, who is the,

who is the person we went to for advice on this subject? And it was Joe Biden. And we sat down with Joe and said, Joe, Vicki thinks this, I think this, you know, what do you think? And he said, you're not going to like my answers. I said, answers. And he said, yeah. He said, first answer is he's not going to ask you. So he said, I said, okay. He said, but in the end he does ask you, please do it. Please stay for our country. Please stay and dedicate yourself, because we need people who have experience at this to continue on to do these expecting the call, but if the call did come.

Guess what? He was right on the first point. He didn't have to worry about the second one. Listen, you know you're always welcome back in this country anytime, officially or unofficially. Certainly when the borders open up again. We'd love to see you back, and you know we would in whatever capacity you come back as.

Once again, I know for Bruce, he too was really grateful that you agreed to do this, and we look forward to letting our listeners in on some of your thoughts tonight. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks, Ambassador. What a lot of fun to talk with you again, Bruce. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so that's it for this edition of The Race Next Door. It was another good one. We'll be back in 24 hours.