The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Encore Presentation - Good Talk -- The 2023 Year Ender

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Today an encore presentation of an episode that originally aired on December 22nd. It's that time of year when the Good Talk panel convenes to talk about the year-end position on the political landscape in Canada. Bruce and Chantal with their thoughts about the leaders and the parties, with some questions unlike any we have asked before.  Good fun and good analysis all rolled into one.

The following is an encore presentation of The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge, originally broadcast on December 22nd. Are you ready for Good Talk, the year-end edition? And welcome to Friday. Welcome to Good Talk. Welcome to the year-end edition. That sounds like so important. It's really important, a year-end edition. The three of us have done many year-enders before. Chantel is in Montreal. Bruce is in Toronto today. I'm in Stratford, Ontario. but they kind of get predictable over time. So we're trying to shake it up a little bit this time by having different kinds of questions than we normally do. So we'll see how that goes, and I know you'll let us know. So let's get right at it, starting with this question.

I want you to imagine that you have a minute or at the most two minutes alone with each of the three main party leaders, and you're giving them one piece of advice, just one, not a bunch, one piece of advice that they could use to better their leadership. So Chantal, you start us with, let's go in the order for this question of the parties in the house right now. So for Justin Trudeau, what's your one piece of advice for him? Well, the Prime Minister spent a lot of time during that vote marathon that the Conservatives triggered in the House of Commons talking to his MPs. What Justin Trudeau really needs, he's not going to work a miracle and convince Canadians he's walking on water,

but what he really needs is for his MPs to be focused on trying to win the next election and to do it under his leadership. So my advice to him would be continue to spend more time with your MPs and continue to build up that team spirit. While they're doing that, they're not focused on stabbing you in the back and organizing a leadership convention. It's pretty well accepted that he has not had a good one-on-one relationship with the majority of his caucus. Would that be correct?

It's an assumption. It's not a bad relationship. It's been a distant relationship. And I think just his presence during that vote marathon and what it did to the morale of the troops kind of shows that there is something more there that can be done. Bruce, your one piece of advice for Justin Trudeau. Well, I think I would probably pick up on something

that he started doing in the last little bit. And you and I talked about it a little bit the other day, Peter. I think that separate and apart from whether it's a better electoral strategy, which I happen to think that it is, I think it's important to have a conversation with Canadians as we watch events develop in the United States around Donald Trump and what conservative means to have that conversation here in Canada. And I think that you see more and more in the last few days that Justin Trudeau is talking about the rise of far right, uh, actions in the United States and what they could mean for Canada.

I saw another piece today that talked about, uh, another Trump presidency and what it would mean for climate action. I think that's a more productive conversation politically for him because I think it does speak to the future and what kinds of anxieties people need to hear discussed and addressed. But as I say, even if it wasn't a good political strategy, I think it's an important conversation to have. Okay. Let's switch to Pierre Poliev.

He, among his different interviews this year, he talked to, in a hard-hitting interview with the Toronto Sun, about the different pronunciations of his name. And he said, if you went by the truly French version, it's Polyevre. He said, but he's very happy with Polyevre. So we really got that out of him, squeezed that out of him in the year-end interview with the Toronto Sun.

I feel you have thoughts about that interview that you should share as part of this, Peter. I thought there was an interesting piece in the Toronto Star today, because they obviously didn't get a year-end interview with Polyev, but they wanted to know where he was on a number of issues and so they went through the 10 interviews he did most of what most of those were with local

radio stations uh in different parts of the country and uh it's a good piece um um that's written on the star today on on his different approaches to different topics. Anyway, moving on to your piece of advice to Polyev. Let's flip it around in order this time. Bruce, you start on what's your one piece of advice to the Conservative leader? Well, I think the most important thing for him to do is to kind of flesh out his offer to Canadians over time by giving them a little bit more meat on the bone of the pitch that he's making. He talks about solving some problems in housing. He talks about solving problems in the health care system. He talks about fighting

inflation and bringing down the cost of living and bigger paychecks and balancing the budget. And I think that I don't mean to minimize the effectiveness of those as political slogans. I think they're quite effective. But they've always been available. You can see in the polling that this is what people say concerns them. And so for a politician to sort of repeat that back with some kind of passion and conviction and, you know, good speaking style. That's not a great trick. It's a it's a kind of a predictable trick. And then the challenge is, is if you're this far out from an election and the focus turns to you at some point,

there is going to be more pressure to say, well, how exactly are you going to do that? When is the budget going to be balanced? What are you going to do to balance that budget? What services are you going to cut? What taxes are you going to increase? So I think that's probably a thing that he will choose to avoid for as long as possible. But ultimately the best thing that he can do is build a strong case for policy measures to back up the slogans that he's been putting in the marketplace. And it's a proven political winner to hold off on solutions as long as you can, as long as people aren't demanding to know what your solutions are.

It's kind of like a slide rule, the old slide rule. The closer you get to an election, the more demand there will be for solutions. But we could be some time out from it now. I think the challenge in his case might be a little bit different. I think that's right as a general rule in the past. I think this far out from an election means that there's more opportunity for people to start to focus and say, well, where is that? You know, rather than just sort of lurch into an election campaign and decide you're not going to do a policy book, that can happen.

But I think especially with the anxiety that I expect will happen in Canada around the U.S. election, I think there will be more pressure on him. And so he's probably going to have to break that rule a little bit and put more meat on the bone. All right, Chantal, your one piece of advice for Pierre Poliev. Yeah, and a couple of points before that. Sometimes not getting a year-end interview is better than getting a year-end interview.

Because you're not wedded to having to report whatever the person said in that interview. You can actually do this very helpful condensé of all the other interviews. And by the way, in the La Presse interview, Mr. Poiliev, to Bruce's point, Mr. Poiliev seemed to believe that it could be two years to an election.

So basically he is still in a killing time mode. My advice is more personal and less policy driven. As far as I can tell, this leader has not stopped and taken a real break since he has become leader. He's been on the road when he has not been on the house. And when he's been on the house, he's been on his feet. I think he should take a break, step back from the fray to kind of consider where he's at a good place, but where he's going from there, because it is a bit of a marathon. And I also would encourage him to think that possibly the average voter is not as

angry as the voters who show up at his rallies. And that is going to matter at some point going forward. It's a tone issue. If the opposition leader is even more angry than you have ever felt in your life, think of Thomas Mulcair. You may think, I'm not sure I like the notion that this angry person will be the leader of my country going forward. So that would be, you know, my two bits of advice. You got to be careful. Can I ask Chantal a follow-up here? Is that permitted? Because it's the year end, I think. I'm not the prime minister, but ask. I'm going through the rules of the game here and it says that's forbidden,

but I'll make an exception. I'll make an exception. Go for the follow up. So I've been wondering as I was watching another rage clip from Trump this morning talking about how the Democrats were pursuing this anti-Christian crusade and that if he was elected, he would create a special agency to fight the anti-christian movement and to prevent the security services from tracking catholics and trying to uh marginalize and other um take other acts of prejudice against them and it just seems to me like these are coming one day after the next and that we're getting a preview of a level of friction and division and intensity that will make the 2016 version of Trump seem like child's play. So the question is on my mind, is it going to be incumbent at some point on Pierre Poliev to put distance between himself and trump understanding that a significant number of his voter base is essentially a mega base it's not

everybody it's not even probably half but it's not 10 percent and uh i don't know the answer to that but i'm asking myself that question because i saw trudeau talk about trump in that in that context uh in the last 24, 48 hours. I can't help but think that Polyev might have to at some point, too. What do you think? Probably, possibly not now. The comparisons will be inevitable because the liberals are going to use them almost on a daily basis. There is a point where those comparisons can go too far

and they backfire. There was a lot of effort to try to paint Premier Doug Ford as that person, which totally failed. So, you know, these voters that you talk about, they're real and they are part of the base. They could go to Maxim Belny, but at some point they have nowhere else to go. So Pierre Poitier is going to have to decide whether he wants to continue to appeal to them strongly and lose votes in the process because they drive away other voters. The voters that Pierre Poitier wants are voters that have not voted for the conservatives in the recent past.

They are not voters who want to go to conventions where you deny climate change and you're into conspiracy theories. So that is a choice that may loom down the road. Me, I'm thinking that the big risk for the Conservatives in the lead up to the election is going to be nomination meetings and the kinds of candidates that end up being on the ballot as the result of single issue interest groups organizing to make sure that they place their candidates. and I'm not talking about just social conservatives at this point, but some fairly extreme points of views, could damage this conservative party under this leader in a way that has not happened since Preston Manning and Stockwell Day left the scene. But it has damaged them in the past. Stephen Harper was very, very adamant in keeping these eruptions under control

because they hurt. And I think Pierre Poilievre is going to have to make sure that he does that. And it might be harder, right? I was watching some of the Peter story. Let's continue this for just one click, if I can. Oh, sure. Go ahead. This horrible cartoon that the Toronto Sun ran,

which is hard to describe, but basically it showed Vladimir Zelensky picking Joe Biden's pocket and the way in which the figure of Zelensky was described was clearly an anti-Semitic trope. And a lot of people were horrified by it. And the first reaction of The Sun was to, you know, in an answer to a letter to an editor, was to kind of defend it on the basis that, you know, cartoons are exaggeration. And lots of Americans feel this way, which seemed like a very odd way to defend that cartoon. And then the Sun subsequently

apologized quite profusely. People are left to their own devices, I think, to decide whether they think that's sincere, whether it was really a mistake, or whether they just didn't like the way the people reacted to it. But what was interesting to me, apropos this conversation we're having about the tensions that Pierre Poliev may have to manage, is that the responses on the Sun site by Sun readers to the apology for this horrible cartoon were a pretty 50-50 mix. of readers who were like there was nothing to apologize for we shouldn't send any money to ukraine we shouldn't back this guy he's siphoning money and putting it into uh hidden bank accounts and it feels to me that we're in a time where the ability of a conservative leader to kind of tamp down those arguments at a time when they're ramping up in the United States and in other countries

presents a bigger challenge for Pierre Poliev than maybe Stephen Harper had. And I know Stephen Harper had a pretty big challenge with it. Okay. The only point I'd make is that when you're 10, 15, 20 points down, one of which is where the liberals are right now to the conservatives, you've got to look for a box where you can force an issue and you can try to paint the other guys in a certain way. And it seems to me there's no doubt that Justin Trudeau is trying that now. It started with the Terry DeMonte podcast interview a few days ago, and it seems to be cropping up.

And he's getting help from some of the ways that conservative supporters are suggesting, like the one you just, you know, given us the example of with the Toronto Sun cartoon. But I'm assuming there's going to be more of this. I think Chantel's point is an interesting one. You've got to be careful how you play this, but it could backfire.

But right now, it seems to be careful how you play this uh but it could backfire uh but right now it seems to be a a tool in the toolbox of of the liberal party and justin trudeau in particular that he's trying to do trying to use to paint a real difference between him and uh between liberals and conservatives we'll see how far it goes uh and we'll see whether in any way it's successful. But that's still to come. Okay, next question. And it's the final leader, and it's Jagmeet Singh. Your main piece of advice to him,

and this time we start with Chantal. I'd say be prepared to pick a lane that you cannot go into the next election talking about all of the good things that you wrestled out of this parliament from fourth place, which would be true. The anti-strike breaking legislation, dental care, etc. And at the same time, say the liberals are terrible and they don't get anything done.

So it's going to be, and I think the bigger challenge for the NDP going into the next election is to find a way to present this parliament and its cooperation with the liberals as a reason to vote NDP rather than the standard campaign, just I'm going to become prime minister and Justin Trudeau is a terrible person. You can't get both into a voter's head.

So if you're the NDP and unless you're deluded, if you think you're not likely to be in government, then you want to present your pact as a building block, a way to change the way politics is done in parliament that brings results that new Democrats want. And it's, I think, a big challenge, but I don't think you can avoid it. It's too difficult to listen on one day to the NDP saying how bad the Liberals are and the next day saying how great it is that they got this and that from this Parliament. Bruce? Well, I agree with Chantal about that. I think that the two-lane kind of idea, the idea that on any given day you're going to stand beside the government and say, isn't it great this thing that we're doing together then you sort of step into another room and you say they wouldn't have done it without us they're horrible they don't have the right instincts they

don't have the right values it feels uh dishonest um i mean in the way that politics can sometimes be can can can stretch what is honest uh so i'm not trying to pretend that there's a that there's a kind of a perfect track record anywhere on this um but i uh you know my thought would be just a little bit in another direction which is that i i think that the ndp has a instinct always to characterize uh the ideas that they're championing as a product of the fact that there's a corporate enemy or that there's a kind of a conspiracy by wealthy people to take advantage of less wealthy people. And I think that comes naturally from the historical roots of the party,

that this is kind of a working class kind of party that has to use as part of its energy, this idea that there's a ruling class that needs to be taken down, a corporate class that needs to be punished. I find that that leads them to a way of talking that makes it hard for a lot of people who are progressive to relate to the party. You can want better social programs without hating corporate Canada. You can want a stronger economy without wanting a deficit that is unlimited in its size.

So I think that the NDP at some point, if it wants to go past the range of success that it's had, has to deal with the fact that more people increasingly, I think, are pragmatic as they think about their politics. And the NDP doesn't always look that pragmatic. And the best example of that might be the amount of effort that is put into this single-payer pharmacare program, which we talked about before, is being not really driven by that much public demand, but more, I think, a theory of how the society should work. Okay. I mean, for Jagmeet Singh, I mean, clearly, you know,

the next year or two is going to determine his political future. A lot of people suspect that his political future does not include yet another term as leader, but who knows? We'll see what happens. So whatever lane he picks, he has to be considering his own situation as well. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our

first of what I think are some really interesting questions. Well, not that that first one wasn't interesting, but this is different. We'll not that that first one wasn't interesting, but this is different. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the year-end edition of Good Talk.

Chantel's in Montreal. Bruce is in Toronto. I'm in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Thank you. We are glad to have you with us,

no matter which platform you are listening or watching. Okay, here's our next question. If you were the leader of, we'll say the conservatives this time, if you were the leader of the conservative party, name one member of one of the other parties you would want to steal. So you're a conservative leader. Who would you steal from one of the other parties if you had that possibility? Bruce, you're first.

Well, I'd probably look to take somebody from either from the GTA, from the Liberals, or from Quebec, like a François-Philippe Champagne, to bolster the idea that this is a party that's comfortable in Quebec, that's got some visibility in Quebec, but also somebody who's a kind of a champion of business and a champion of the idea of a strong economy and a government that is supportive of the business community rather than trying to design the economy, you know, without a close relationship with business. So Francois-Philippe Champagne, in some respects, might be the kind of person who could fit into a conservative caucus.

And even as I say that, I know if he hears this, he'll be kind of horrified by that. So it's such an awkward question, and I can't wait to hear how Chantal handles it. Because I feel really like I've said something inappropriate. No, it's not inappropriate, but it is a bit of an April Fool's suggestion in the sense that I don't think François-Philippe Champagne is about to bring Jean Clétien's former seat, because that is where he gets elected, inside the conservative fold anytime soon.

But if you can wave a wand, right, and just make it all happen. That's all we're doing here. But you never know. You never know. Who was that guy? Who was the liberal who switched sides right after the election so he could stay in cabinet? Who was that? He was from B.C.

Mr. Emerson. David Emerson. Exactly. Yes, but that's different. You're talking now, and you're talking about the official opposition. And let's be clear, none of our suggestions are based on rumors or any indication that this is about to happen. Big disclaimers. That's good.

Yes. But then having laughed at Bruce over François-Philippe Champagne, or any indication that this is about to happen. Big disclaimers, that's good, yes. But then having laughed at Bruce over François-Philippe Champagne, I too picked Quebec MP, although not from the same area. I would pick Anthony Housefather for all kinds of reasons. One of those is that there is a large Jewish community in his writing, and there are other writings like that. What Bruce didn't mention about that Sun story yesterday a large Jewish community in his writing. And there are other writings like that. What Bruce didn't mention about that son story yesterday was that the front page of the son was Pierre Poiliev

casting himself as a better friend of Israel than Justin Trudeau. But I also think Pierre Poiliev would really like Antonia Housefather to join him because he happens to sit in Pierre Trudeau's former seat. So there would be some bragging rights. And the Conservatives have long, long had their eye on Mount Royal as the A riding or possibly the riding that they had the best shot at winning. I don't think that's happening. I don't think Mr. Housefather is about to go over to the Conservatives. But if I had to target one MP and I were Pierre Poiliev, I probably would try my luck with Mr. Housefather.

He might have. All right, Jagmeet Singh. Who would you steal if you were Jagmeet Singh, if you could, Chantal? Well, he certainly could not. But if I were him, the NDP used to do well in some sections of the GTA and in the city of Toronto as such. It does not do well these days, nor does it do well in the suburbs. But if I were Jagmeet Singh and I could be delivered an MP, strangely enough, because this MP is just ran for the provincial liberal leadership, I would go for Netanyahu, Erskine Smith and Beecher's Woodbine, a writing that the NDP has held in the past and an MP that has managed over his time in parliament, and I did not follow the leadership campaign, but over his time in

parliament to build enough independence to the left of his government to be a viable NDP candidate. Bruce? Yeah, I think he's the right choice, probably. I think that you want, you know, I think the NDP lost some strong voices like Andrew Cash, for example, in the GTA, and they've been missing that. I think that I don't have the feeling that Jagmeet Singh connects with the GTA NDP voter anywhere near as much as the NDP needs a leader to connect with those voters. And I don't think you'll find in the rest of the Liberal caucus people who have as much kind of passion for the same sort of

issues as uh erskine smith and i think erskine smith has obviously declared an interest in some other version of his political career by choosing to run for the ending for the liberal leadership provincially so um yeah i think chantal's got it right okay um you're just Justin Trudeau. Who do you steal from the other parties? Which one person? person, I would probably hurt his political standing. But if I were the liberals, I'd go and poach Michael Jong from the conservative caucus. He is one of the more thoughtful MPs in that caucus. He is the foreign affairs policy critic in that caucus. And he is not being used by his leader to anywhere near the fullest of his capacities.

On the contrary, the impression has been over what I call a debauch of the conservatives over Ukraine and their repeated votes against the Ukraine free trade agreement on some flimsy pretext that it includes carbon pricing. His voice was mute, and he has not also been heard very much of on the Israel-Imao ceasefire issue. So I think the liberals would gain from having someone that's got gravitas and also from using talents to their maximum in a way that Mr. Poliev does not seem to. Bruce? talents to their maximum in a way that Mr. Polyev does not seem to. Bruce.

I was sort of thinking about this and trying to, you know, think about in the past, what have been the most successful versions of poaching or bringing somebody in from the other side and what is the measure of success? And I think Chantelle's put her finger on one measure of success, which is are you adding people of talent with specific wisdom and with a manner that will be additive to your political operation? But the other is what would destabilize the other side?

And if we're talking about the bare knuckle version of politics bringing somebody from the other party often has as much to credit as an idea for destabilizing the other side and so if I'm thinking about it that way because I think Michael Chung is a great is a great idea if you're the liberals and you think you could bring him on board why wouldn't you try but if you wanted to kind of disturb the other side a little bit more, two names come to mind for me, both from Alberta, Shuvaloy Majumder, who recently entered Parliament in a by-election,

and Michelle Rempel-Garner. There's no evidence whatsoever that Shu is interested in doing anything like that, nor Michelle Rem rample garner although she's carved out a bit of a role for herself as an independent voice and an independent thinker um and of course for the liberals you do need uh to be more in touch with sentiment in in the west and in alberta in particular and uh and shuv is a is a very smart, capable individual. Some of the things he said recently on issues I've sort of been surprised by. But he's a talent to watch in that caucus for sure.

Of course, the government that is falling in the polls does not get to poach any of these people from the winning team. Yeah, that's why this game should be serious. Something else. any of these people from the winning team. Yeah, that's why this game should be serious. You want something else. Okay, well, if you had trouble with that one, you're really going to love this one. And Bruce, you get to start. And the answer would be Andrew Scheer, whatever it is.

Here's the question. You're leader of one of the parties, and you decide you have to dump one person in your caucus. You've got to get rid of them. The answer for Pierre Palliev is Andrew Scheer. So I'm done on that one. Are you going to explain why? Yeah, I think he's been more of a weight than a lift to the Conservative Party for a number of years. I think that he...

So why did Palliev give him such a prominent role? Oh, I think because the nature of what Scheer brings to the leadership race is support in a particular constituency in the party and a sense maybe of continuity or something like that. But, you know, I think Pierre Poglio sits on top of a party that is not a settled piece of work, that has a bunch of different factions in it. And Andrew Scheer became leader. Remember, it took 13 ballots

because he started with a reasonable base and he kept on adding to it as other candidates dropped off. But I think also his performance as House leader has been surpassingly poor. And I think that he's probably frustrated a bunch of his caucus with the way that they handled the run-up to this Christmas season and the threats to have everybody stay in Ottawa until Christmas, which didn't materialize, and specifically also the incredible lack of form and consistency

on the Canada-Ukraine trade deal. So that has to sit to some degree on Pierre Poliev's desk, but also, I think, on Andrew Scheer's. All right. Staying with the Conservatives then, who would you dump? Chantal? Having warned about the Yahoo factor in nomination

campaigns, I think I would think long and hard about how happy I might be if either Lesley Lewis or Cheryl Galland decided not to run for different reasons. I went back to the social media feed of Lesley Lewis or Cheryl Galland decided not to run for different reasons. I went back to the social media feed of Lesley Lewis,

who is part of the shadow cabinet, for the anti-vaccine rhetoric that she put forward, including telling people that it was dangerous to have your kids vaccinated against COVID and doing that under the name of Dr. Leslie Lewis. She is the doctorate for sure, but she is not a medical doctor. And I thought that was quite appalling. And Cheryl Gallant probably has accumulated even more. She's been in the House of Commons for a long time. But one of the last best hits I found of her was how Justin Trudeau and others

in a global conspiracy were about to force, to have climate lockdowns and impose climate lockdowns on people. These are exactly the kind of MPs and the kind of candidates that Pierre Poiliev cannot afford to drag into a campaign because it begs the question, what is your cabinet going to be made of? We had an example earlier this week. People say, well, these are not people who will necessarily be in cabinet. Well, it was interesting this week to read that the Alberta government is convinced or forced its health agency to not promote vaccines, to basically be quiet about their merits, to not mention influenza or COVID and telling people they should get vaccinated. And if at all possible, not to just tell people vaccines exist was basically the line

this is a sitting government in one of canada's major provinces so yes i do pay attention to people who say um interestingly conspirationist unfounded things when they are mps in opposition and it could end up in power and in cabinet all All right. Let's do the liberals. You're Justin Trudeau. Who would you like to boot from your caucus? And one choice. Chantelle just violated the rules by going to two choices in the last section. But let's stick with one here. We'll never make it through.

She'll be in the penalty box i picked goody a chain from newfoundland for a single reason uh with one interview this minister rural development minister undid much of the narrative that the government was desperately trying to put around its decision to carve out home oil eating uh from the carbon tax by saying, well, if you want the same measure for yourselves, well, all you have to do is vote liberal. If that's what you think on the spur of the moment, you probably have a judgment issue. And I'm sure that there were times over the weeks that followed when Justin Trudeau himself must have thought, did I need this on top of the rest of everything else? Bruce.

Well, Peter, you know, as I thought about this, of course, I couldn't narrow it down to just one until you told me I have to, but I was thinking of one, two, or possibly. Why don't you think that one? We'll never get through this. If any, it's three Ottawa area MPs. But if I had to narrow it down to one, which you told me I do, I don't know why the rules are so tough.

It would probably be Yasir Naqvi. He's actually the Member of Parliament for my riding, Ottawa Centre. It's not so much that I don't think he's a good MP, it's that he's been pursuing the Ontario Liberal leadership for a good many months. After he didn't succeed at that, he put out a statement talking about it's time to help rebuild the Ontario Liberal Party. It feels to me like if you're Justin Trudeau, you really need, especially at this point in the life of this government, trailing in the polls. You can't afford to have too many MPs holding on to ridings where you can get a share of voice who don't seem necessarily committed to the project going forward. And as I said, I think that's probably a little bit the case with more than one Ottawa MP, but you've decided that I can't mention any other names, so I won't.

And Ottawa Centre would be such a nice landing place for someone like Mark Carney. Oh, gosh, I hadn't thought of that. Hey! What a surprise! A number of people in politics or around politics who want to run, and I think he's being occupied by somebody who doesn't seem like he's committed to that right now. It sounds like Bruce wants to run.

I mean, he lives in the riding. I thought about it a few years ago, and it was voted down unanimously in my two-person council. Okay. Okay. I'm having to skip ahead. I know I'm dropping the NDP here. Well, I could find the one that Mr. Singh wanted to dispose of.

He can't afford to get rid of anybody, even if he wanted to right now. Okay. I want to skip down to. But I did spot an NDP MP, if I was a liberal, who I would bring over. And that's. Now he's trying to get back into an earlier... No, no, no, never mind. That's for next year's show then.

Yeah, okay. All right, here's your next question. This is a good one. Who of the leaders has the most control over their party, the party caucus? And I don't mean, you know, falling in line with what he wants to have done. I mean, the leader who has the most of their caucus,

who are willing to sort of follow them off the cliff, if it comes to that, the most loyalty, the most control. Who's the leader who has that? No, no, but follow them off the cliff is different from having control over a caucus or a functioning caucus. Yes, I believe most conservative MPs at this point would follow at government over the past two and some years, and that they have found that it made them feel better about their job than to be perpetual opposition critics. Over time, I believe the seeds of this experience could stand to change the NDP, if not the party, at least those of its members who have participated,

and also gotten a taste at compromise. It wasn't necessarily easy to go and say, we had a convention where our members insisted on having a pharmacare outlined by the end of the year, and to navigate away from that without a peep from members in caucus saying, well, let's trash this out in public. So I think, by and large, there's been a huge gain of maturity inside that caucus, and I think that reflects well on the leader. Bruce? Well, you know what?

I mean, I was going to have a different answer maybe but chanel persuaded me of that that was a very strong answer and i think she's right on all the points if you ask me to choose between the liberals and the conservatives which of those two leaders has the most control um you know i think control is a tricky word there, because I think that the Conservative caucus and the Conservative movement is made up of a more cantankerous number of groups that on any given day are a little bit more likely than what's underneath the hood of the Liberal Party to bring their grievances forward, to challenge their leader. And that's been true. That's true not necessarily in the case of Mr. Polyev, but it's been generally true of the conservative movement,

especially in the last 30 years. And so I can look at that and say against that challenge, Pierre Polyev has pretty remarkable control over his caucus. Does it mean that it endures? You know, yeah, with a 10-point lead, with a 14-point lead, no question. I don't know how good it would be if it was only a five-point lead again. With Mr. Trudeau, I think there are people who are wondering whether or not they can win again, but also don't know what else would work better and don't dislike him and have a certain amount of confidence in him and appreciate his policies.

Is that control? I don't think it's control, but I think there's a bond there for sure. So control is a hard word to use in this context, but that's what I think. All right. But as I say, Chantel's answer was better than mine. Right, right, right. Another member of Chantel Nation sitting right here on the panel. Charter member. Charter member.

Okay, listen, I've only got 10 minutes left. And so I want to very quickly deal with this one, and then we'll take a break and come back for the final. What issue are the two main national opposition leaders, Polyev, Trudeau, what issue are they the weakest on? Bruce, you go first, and once again, quick answer. I'm just trying to tease you by eating up claw. Quick answer is fiscal.

He's coming back next year. He's into the holiday spirit already. I haven't signed the contract yet. But anyway, so yeah, Justin Trudeau is exposed on the fiscal issues. No question about it. And I think Pierre-Paul Yves is vulnerable on the, will the country be more divided? Are we going to stoke division?

And I think the more he works to be a unifier, the better he'll do. But Justin Trudeau on the fiscal side, for sure. All right, Chantal. I agree. Fiscal policy is a weakness in the armor. It's not a great armor. And the housing issue is also a big vulnerability because you can't fix it easily.

You can project a more fiscally responsible image possibly between now and the election. You're not going to see houses spring out of the ground like mushrooms. I still believe that Poitier is vulnerable on climate, that with every measure that he trashes, he leaves less measures for himself to put in a plan. And I'm starting to wonder whether he's weak on foreign policy. He has enough people in his caucus, including Michael Chung that we talked about earlier, to come across as a serious foreign policy leader. It doesn't usually matter in an election, but this is different. We've just had four months of parliament dominated by foreign policy issues, India, China, Ukraine, Israel. And I don't think it's going to change between now and 2025.

So foreign policy courses that someone can follow that would certainly make Pierre Poiliev's leadership to the country more appealing. All right. We're going to take the last break right now. And welcome back. Final segment of Good Talk for 2023. And the final question to Chantal and Bruce. Here it is.

One year from now. So we're sitting here at the end of December 2024. Are all the leaders of the three main parties, will they be the same then as they are today? There's your question, Rick, keeping in mind that we'll probably replay this answer at this time next year. Oh, and we will replay your wager, your collective wager that Justin Trudeau would be gone by the end of which year was that? Is he still here?

Yeah, I think we should go first on this question, Pete. No, you know, I'm just the moderator. No, no, no, that's not the deal. You know, I like to use the kind of answer that you use, Bruce. I really think Chantel is right there. Okay. Let's see what Chantel says. Okay, so since I won that wager um justin

trudeau still being around of your many different versions of the bet yeah and i'm going to answer your question being because it now got lost in the shuffle are all the leaders going to be the same a year from now right and my answer is yes but i have two asterisks. Here we go. This is how she wins the bets. They're full of asterisks. The first is there will be a by-election in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's, a place where I lived for 20 years, so I know the riding well. It's normally a liberal riding.

It has a Jewish community that can tip the balance, and that community did tip it, but it goes back 40 years when Joe Clark was leader and promised to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. If the liberals were to lose that writing, Trudeau, I don't think could survive that defeat, because it would send a signal the Liberals in and outside caucus that no seat is safe. If you can't keep a downtown, well almost downtown, Yonge and Eglinton is downtown now, mostly Liberal riding in Liberal hands at this point, then you're not keeping much of anything outside of the West Island of Montreal. And the other reason why we might not have the same leaders is if an election

took place in 2024, and I don't think that it looks like one will take place, it is totally possible that Trudeau would be gone if he had lost it. Bruce? Yes, so setting aside the election scenario, which I agree, if there was one, the chances are if the Liberals lost, which I think on the basis of the numbers now, you'd have to assume would happen, that Trudeau will have at least announced his departure by the end of next year.

But setting that aside, because I don't think the election will happen next year, I think on the balance of probabilities, all the leaders will be the same. I think that Trudeau has enough support within his party and his caucus to maintain a hold on the leadership. I think that the slight narrowing of the gap that was apparent in a few polls, whether or not people should be using those kind of movements as a, as an important inflection point or point for consideration. That's a topic for another day or many days and lots of people have opinions about it, but I think it does affect the mood. And I think it has affected the mood in the Liberal camp.

And so it's given Justin Trudeau a chance to enter the new year, not trailing by 19 with the only question being, can he survive, but heading in with a little bit of a bounce in his step, taking the fight to the other guys, a little bit more on offense, and I think that's given him more room to maneuver, but there's no question that this coming year will be the year in his leadership where Justin Trudeau has faced, will have faced the most questions and testing of whether or not he's the right leader.

He will not have experienced anything like what next year will feel like before. But I think in the end, he'll probably be the leader at the end of next year, yes. Well, under extreme pressure, I'm called upon to make a prediction on this one too. And I have enormous respect for both of you, as you both know. I think we will know by the end of March. There's only one leader whose future is up in the air, you know, barring some huge scandal

on part of anybody else. And that's Justin Trudeau. I think we're witnessing the roll of the dice, if you will, on an issue right now and trying to link the conservatives to the MAGA movement and Polyev to Trump. I think there's risk involved in that, but it's also quite possibly the only real option he has at this point. And I think we'll know over the next couple of months whether that is in any way working to give him the space to run in the next election.

If it does, he's there. If it doesn't, maybe a game-set match. So you didn't answer the question, right? That was the we don't know. He didn't produce himself. i'm covered all the way around next year dude that sucks man i'm covered i'm you know if he goes i was right if he doesn't go i was right so like what i can't complain um we have uh 30 seconds left politician of the Year in Canada, who was it? Well, it was, you know, no contest. I call it L'année poilière, the poilière of the year. My question, Mark,

is it good enough to be Prime Minister in the polls in 2023 to be that person in 2025? Okay, Bruce. Well, I don't like these questions of Politician of the Year because it implies that they're to be lauded. And I think that if the, you know, so the Newsmaker of the Year version of that question, yes, definitely Poyer.

But I'm not going to, you know, use your- He just can't. He can't. If Poyer sweeps the country in two years, Bruce is going to get laryngitis. I will. I definitely will. But no, I just, I think that if it's Newsmaker, if that's the interpretation, then no question. Yes.

Okay. Listen, thank you too. Best politician, I don't know. It's not where I'm coming from. Well, I didn't say best politician. You don't do best politician because you don't want to be in their social media feed as having said that. Fair. That's true.

Okay, listen, the two of you, it's been another great year of your analysis and commentary, and I'm looking forward to another one coming up. Have a great holiday season season and you have fans coast to coast to coast. There's no doubt about it. Good Talk is the most successful podcast that we do here on the bridge and it continues to be

the number one rated political podcast in the country. So good for you guys. Alright, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Have a great holiday season. Talk to you in the country. So that's good for you guys. All right. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Have a great holiday season. Talk to you in the new year. Happy holidays, you guys.

Yeah, you too. You've been listening to an Encore presentation of The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge, originally broadcast on December 22nd.