The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- "A Week in Politics Is A Long Time"

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

It's been quite the week, especially in Quebec, where there are lessons for politicians across the country. Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson join the virtual discussion table again for some Good Talk. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantelli Bear and Bruce Anderson. It's your Friday Good Talk. And as we say, every Friday, there's always lots to talk about, and there is again today. I should mention that as we go to air today, there's a meeting taking place in Washington, Not in the White House, not in the Oval Office, but at the Kennedy Center where they're doing this draw for the World Cup of football or soccer, as we call it.

And at that session are Donald Trump, Mark Carney, and the Mexican President Shinebaum. They're all there. And so naturally, we as journalists would say, well, clearly they're not going to talk about soccer. They're going to talk about trade. But everybody is assuring us that is, in fact, going to happen.

You know, you never know with these things. But there also seems to be an undercurrent that none of the leaders, particularly Canada right now, actually even want to talk about trade. They're kind of looking forward to leaving it in the background for a while. Is that an overstatement or is that kind of the way it looks to you, Chantelle? it does look to me like up to a point we're playing the clock not that there's that much of an option those stocks were not suspended by Canada we didn't walk away from them but the process unfolding in the United States is actually probably of more interest to Canada these days than anything

that could be accomplished in conversations with the president or esteem they are still very much aggressive about what they want out of any conversation with Mexico or Canada, but at the same time, in the U.S., the U.S. dynamics are not in the favor of the administration when it comes to trade. You've watched, they're having hearings about what to do about Kuzma come the summer. Do they walk away from it? Do they ask for a renegotiation? Do they just postpone whatever conversation about it?

for a year, those are basically the three options. And what you're seeing and hearing are serious business lobbies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of them, but not the only one saying, we leave this Kuzma agreement alone, please. And very, very few strong voices coming forward to say, let's tinker with this, let's walk away from this, and it's going to make everything better. And at the same time, the economic numbers for whatever are available these days under the Trump administration are far from great. And the president's own standing on how he's managing

the economy is pretty bad. So at some point, you don't want to meddle in something that is kind of making the case for you in a more forceful way than you could make it yourself. And I will And the Canadian government has a vague, not so vague idea of the concessions involved in getting, for instance, sectoral deals on trade for softwood lumber. And it may be that they have to consider the fact that they will get less credit for making deals than they will get trouble for the concessions that they have to make on the way to sectoral deals. So maybe time at this point is a better ally than a warmer relationship with Donald Trump. Okay. And just to remind everybody, for those of you, sometimes have trouble following all the different initials in terms of deals and trade agreements from the past.

Kuzma is Canada, U.S., Mexico, the trade agreement that was actually signed during the first Trump administration, which he called at the time the greatest trade deal ever signed. Now he calls it the opposite of that. When he does talk about it, he hasn't said a lot about it lately, although you never know. You never know with Trump, especially with Trump who is confronted with so many other issues right now. Chantelle mentioned some of them in terms of some of the backlash that's going on within the American business community to some of the things he's been doing, but everything else from bold attacks and Venezuela to attempts of peace deals in Ukraine and Russia and et cetera, et cetera. Bruce, do you see it the same way as Chantel on this?

For sure, on the question of timing. It's so interesting to me to watch and reading some of the news coverage of this set of hearings that started this week in D.C., which is really the American government saying, to all the stakeholders who have an interest, come and tell us what you think should be part of our thinking going into the renewal or the discussion about the renewal of Kuzma. Trump's favorability rating, which is a kind of a such an important indicator in U.S. politics, everybody kind of focuses on it. It can be a bit of a blunt instrument, but as blunt instruments go, it was at 52% in February.

It's at 41% is the best poll that I've seen in a while. Most of them look like they're now in the 30s. That's a dreadful number for all those Republicans. whose names are going to be on a ballot in midterm elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives next year. And it starts to become a real dynamic in the selection process of who will replace Trump or who will be the next Republican presidential candidate. And there is no evidence that I can see that the public is saying these tariffs have worked out so well. well, let's do more of them. Let's keep it going. If anything, the public has never really

liked the idea of the tariffs. They bought into it on some level because we just elected this guy. Let's see what happens. But now people are starting to see enough evidence that the economy is weaker, the prices are higher. And if they look at the Trump administration, it's hard to spot things for most middle-of-the-ground, middle-ground voters that makes them feel, this administration is really focused on the right things, really working in my interest. There's been some of that on immigration,

particularly the question of stopping illegal immigration, but the friction around ICE deportations is high, the sense of frustration with Trump always, always kind of looking to demonize the minority groups like he's been doing with the Somalians this week. That's getting heavy on his polling numbers. I think the Republican Party, the business community, some swing states, some labor unions don't want to overstate that last part, start to weigh in more and more with each passing month as we head into next year, all with the point of you, which is, as it was summed up in one person's testimony yesterday, do not harm the

U.S. economy more. And I don't think Trump has a very strong argument that what he's doing has been helping. And I think that the Republicans would be vulnerable on that point. And so during that, the best position for Canada is don't talk about it? To keep working with the states and with the sectoral groups and company to company. I mean, I think that the end of the day, It's individual companies that have supply chains, that have business dynamics, that get really messed up by these kind of radical tariff swings back and forth, and they've been afraid to speak out against Trump. But the fear factor goes down as he moves towards the end of his time in office. And, of course, the way that Americans count that in actual terms is he starts to become a lame duck pretty soon. Some people think we've had kind of peak Trump a month ago.

I think that's probably close to truth. So the dynamic changes down there, and there are people who believe, even if they don't want to say as much publicly, that this trade deal has been good for them, that's made their businesses stronger, and they'll continue to speak out a little bit more, I think. You know, last word, if you got one, Chantal, on this before we move on.

But I keep being reminded of the things you've said to us before about reminding us about the 10% extra tariff he was going to say. He was going to put on Canada. When did he say that? Like a month ago, six weeks ago. He's never done it. Yes. Should we really go there?

Have you noticed that every single political party in this country, from the liberals on down in the House of Commons and the premiers? No one is raising the, he threatened us with this 10% tariff. That was over the Doug Ford's ad campaign in the U.S. And why is no one saying anything? Basically, because I think there are many fault lines in the Canadian position towards the U.S. But on this, there is an overwhelming unanimous consensus. Let's not poke bears needlessly while we're picking berries.

And that would be the equivalent. But it does illustrate the fact that, for instance, this week, there were musings out of the administration that they could just walk away from Kuzma, give notice, and walk away. Sure, note taken, but beyond that, what does it actually mean is a secondary question. And I think over the past year, the one thing that has happened here, which is a good thing, is in public at least, politicians have stopped taking debate every second that Donald Trump says something. And why? Not just because he doesn't always follow through, but because that did amount to playing his game. And I think public opinion, I'm not the poster here, but what I see on an anecdotal basis

is that a majority of Canadians totally understand that this guy is not some, one that you can normalize when it comes to negotiations, and so expectations should be low. I do think Carney aired early on when he started saying, I hope to have a deal by this date and that date. I thought those were rookie errors. The government now has gone the other route, which is under promise and over-deliver, if you're lucky enough to over-deliver. But someone asked me this week, you know, what's the political cost of Carney not getting or not having gotten a deal? And my answer was maybe less than the cost of making unacceptable concessions to say you have a deal. Can I just add, Peter, I know you were saying that the last thing, but first of all, I just want to salute Chantal for that amazing metaphor about berries and bears.

I haven't heard that one before. It's fabulous. But the point that Chantelle was just making about public opinion and the expectations of a deal and the politics of where's your deal, you said your deal, the public is, it tunes out a lot of issues and isn't, you know, that expert in some of these kinds of issues just because of the way people live their lives. I'm not trying to be critical of people.

But on this one, it's been remarkable. for me to watch the degree to which people went from let's get a deal quickly because they were afraid of the harm to let's take the time that it takes in order to get the better deal that the best deal that we can get to which is about 70 to 75% public opinion now it's just changed the political dynamics for sure in Canada and if you're Pierre Pauliev and you think that you're really scoring a lot of points getting up every day saying where is the deal You're not. Chantel may be right.

There may be people who say, well, why did Mark Carney say what he said back in May, June, July? But that's more of a game for people like us, right? There's just, I don't see a lot of voters who are going, I'm just sitting around. I'm feeling really fed up with the way that I felt that this was going in June. And now, because basically what people are saying is if we've got headwinds in Canada, challenges in Canada, Most of them are coming from outside the country, and in particular in the U.S. And they see Trump enough to know that he's an unguided Minnesota some of the times. And the worst thing that you can do is imagine that you can play him with public commentary all the time.

My last word, yes, and I wasn't saying that people were saying, why don't we have this deal? My point was that it was a rookie mistake. Yes, I agree on that. And it can't be that every time that Mark Carney steps into it, only people in the bubble care, but every time he does something right, Canadians care immensely. I think somewhere, somehow, the two. I thought I would hear you again on this point. Yes, it's such a glib argument.

He screws up, and so people don't care of it. Only we care, but he does well, and everybody agrees. It's, you can't have vote. You figured me out. There you go. Okay. Okay. You guys have had three or four last words on this topic, so I'll take one. The difference I see in this situation right now between Trump and Carney, Trump and Shinebaum, for that matter as well, is that in the past, Trump, whenever he seemed to be in trouble in one area, would get everybody to shift their focus, shift their eyes to another.

area. Every time he tries that right now, it seems to backfire. He's on a bad run right now. You know, the whole Venezuela thing initially a month ago, six weeks ago, seem to be, look at this shiny ball over here. This is what we're doing in Venezuela. Stop looking at the Epstein thing. That's backfired. He's got all kinds of problems on the Venezuela front right now, including allies. I'm wondering what the heck he's doing and saying they're not part of it, like Britain and France to some degree. But there are about a half a dozen different examples of that working against Trump right now that he can't seem to find that shiny ball over on the side

that will take everybody's minds off what he's doing in the forefront. And that seems to have affected the trade stuff. Now, I could be proven wrong today. he could say something, a while to get things going again for him on that front. But it just seems that he's at a loss right now, and he doesn't look well. He really doesn't look well right now. I don't know whether he's getting any sleep or whether he's got other issues, but he doesn't look well. Okay, let's move off that.

Knowing Trump on the way these things work in Washington, he's probably already said something. they'll change everything we think about this issue right now. Let me, you know, a week ago all we were talking about was pipelines in Alberta and BC and Ottawa. And then things this week changed. They certainly changed in Quebec. And I want to get, I want to get Chantelle to give us a, you know, the overview on this. So the rest of Canada kind of checks into.

You're not going to ask me to go first. on this. No. That's surprising. Okay. That's fortunate for you. I'm sure you'll have a lot. I'm sure you'll have a number of last words on it.

I've been looking for you. I would just like to sit back and listen for that. Okay. So, Chantelle, give us the sort of the overview so the rest of Canada can plug into what has been a remarkable week in Kouban. So let's just set something aside. in the Quebec, the debate is not over a pipeline and distant British Columbia. It's about climate policy. And that is, and that conversation is ongoing.

But because the Minister of Heritage called the Minister of Culture now, Stephen Gilbo resigned. He was replaced this week. And he was replaced by Mark Miller, an announcement that was initially and still is, rather welcomed with the many groups in Quebec. Culture is a big thing here. Don't need to say this, but ask the conservatives when they meddled with culture funding.

They lost prospects of a majority in 2008, and they never came back from that. So he appointed Mark Miller. And on facts, this is as good an appointment as many cultural groups could hope for in this province, Why? Because he's a Quebec minister. He knows the scene. But also he's being an experienced minister. He was passed over in the two carne shuffles, but he has had tenure at immigration and indigenous services. So he and everybody understands politics here to the level of you can't afford, you can afford to lose one heritage minister from Quebec.

You can't afford to lose two, basically, which means Mr. Miller's word when it comes to defend. his turf at cabinet or will have weight. But then he is also someone who is very outspoken and sometimes veers off in this territory which we love, remember Brian Mulroney used to do with, of veering away from policy to becoming a pundit and wanting to be on good talk. And so he has asked, do you believe that the French language, it's kind of a trick question. There's always a question, right? Right of passage. So he's asked, do you believe that French language is in decline in Quebec? The easy answer is, of course I realize that. Why? Because I

have been part of a government that so realized that that we amended the official languages act to take that into account a few years ago. And I am happy to be the minister who will now get to put many of the features of that act into practice. Instead, they said, oh, I'm getting really tired of this debate on whether there's language declined because it's so politicized. Well, when a politician tells you that a touchy issue is politicized, that politician is basically politicizing it. So that should have stopped there, bad beginning for Mr. Miller, the Black Quebequa, and the

conservatives on the attack. except the Parts Quebecoe leader, whose polls have as the next leader, the next premier in Quebec. This time next year could be the premier, decided that he was going to take real shots, not at Mr. Miller, but at the culture groups in Quebec. Natural allies of the sovereignty movement since Bruce and I were born. And suddenly you have Paul St. Pierre. Plamondon saying these groups are kind of, you know, they're on their knees, they're crawling to the federal government, they're a shame on Quebec. He was kind of building up on what the Premier had said about Mark Miller. Mark Miller was called by François Legault a shame for all

to Quebec. But then Francoislego and Mark Miller dislike each other intensely. They've had run-ins over immigration a few years ago. So now the conversation in Quebec has shifted to a battle, believe it or not, between the Patschkevikoa leader and the culture groups that are as allies. And guess who's not winning that battle? The Patsi Kewiqa leader. Groups are up in arms. So to give you a taste, because this is really inside, but it's big here,

people talk about it on the street, those comments. This morning, someone from the cultural culture, community, tweeted, or I think overnight, because Mr. St. Pierre Plamondon is in sense that the culture group said good appointment, we're going to be happy to work with you, et cetera, which is kind of pro forma when you get a new minister. So this morning you will read tweets. It's a tweet from Paul St. Pierre Plamondon from the day after the U.S. presidential election where Paul St. Pierre Plamondon congratulates. President Trump on his election victory, which to anyone reading it goes to, yeah, right, you know,

we're taking people, telling people they're disloyal to Quebec for congratulating a minister for being appointed to the cultural portfolio, but you congratulated Donald Trump for winning the election. It's a big break, I think, for the Karni government. Why? Well, for one, it deflected all the attention away from Minister Miller at the time when it needed deflecting. It cut the legs from under the Block Quebecois attacks on Mark Miller because François is not keen to defend this friend, the PQ leader. But also because it allowed the government to, the federal government, to remind Quebecers that it has been a major and so far reliable partner on culture in Quebec.

And that really matters on a week when the environmental and climate credentials and the worth of the word of Mark Carney is being questioned on another front. So a lucky break that stemmed from a stupid mistake on the part of the new Minister of Culture goal figure. It's going to be an interesting year. there will be more of those. Poll this week showed the Pats of Quebecois on the day that this happened. The Legey Polled on Voting Intentions in Quebec put the PQ 29 points ahead of the runner-up in Francophone, Quebec. If those numbers materialized, there would be a tiny, tiny little group on the West Island that would not be the Patskebecoa.

That was before all this happened. Yes, but voting intentions, you need to divorce voting intentions from that conversation. Why? Because at this point, Quebecers do not want change, do not want to see Francois Legault ask for another term, are unhappy with the Quebec liberals who have been doing terribly in the polls because they're stuck in battles of their own. And so the only person standing as an alternative to Francois Legault for now, is the Parts of Quebeco leader that could change if the Quebec Liberals and the Coalition of Neer Quebec were to undergo leadership changes between now and say the spring.

The election is set for next October. But at this point, he is the only one who seems to be leading a party that's not falling apart or led by someone who is becoming incredibly unpopular. Okay. I want to get Bruce's thoughts on this and how it fits into the bigger the bigger picture as well if it does. But we better take our first break and we'll give Bruce extra seconds to think of how he's going to respond to that.

We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to our Friday Good Talk, Bruce Anderson, Chantelli Bear, Peter Mansbridge here all in the house. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us, whatever platform you are joining us on. All right, Bruce, all these developments in Quebec over the past week,

how do they fit into the bigger picture here? Well, I think it's very interesting. I don't know that they, I think it is one of those situations. where the effect on, if the bigger picture means the rest of Canada is going to be nil, except it does change the, potentially change the electoral dynamics somewhat, although I think Chantel's right that I think is mostly contained to outcomes in terms of provincial politics in Quebec right now. I, you know, I certainly could mount a different perspective on Mark Miller,

but I'm going to pass on that because he is a good friend of mine. Somebody who's judgment and skills I have a lot of time for, but I don't, I think I'm going to leave Chantal's kind of comments about what started this Ruhaha to sit on their own. And instead, I'm really interested in the dynamic around who gets to decide on matters of Quebec culture. Is it the politicians or is it the artists? And I was at a dinner last night after a movie that we showed as part of our political film festival in Ottawa. The movie was about the FLQ crisis and the War Measures Act. And I got a group of people together afterwards, including several people from Quebec, who were very, very thoughtful about this. And the conversation did turn to what we're talking about because Chantal's right.

It's a big conversation in Quebec. and an important one, and has been important since we were born. So all of that does fascinate me, and the degree to which the PQ used to be more or less different times, the champion of the movement that artists were part of, and that coalescence was an extremely powerful force in Quebec politics. and for this leader of the Patsi Quebec to so mistake his relationship as being one where he was the boss who was going to tell them how they should react to whatever it is that they want to react to, misunderstands as I see it, the role of the politician relative to

culture if the alternative voice is the voice of the artistic community in Quebec. I don't think there's an analog to that in other parts of the country, and that's not being disrespectful of the cultural influences in other parts of the country. And there are plots that play out like that within different parts of the country, but none on the scale that what we see happen in Quebec. And so it's fascinating to me, and I do agree with Chantelle's analysis for what it's worth, that this is a real setback for the PQ leader. And it's not the kind of thing where you can go,

well, I'll just change my policy. He said something that implied a dynamic that did not exist in which the cultural community said, stop right there. And that opens up opportunities for his political opponents, but his political opponents are not in a very strong position right now. So it remains to be seen what happens as a consequence of that. I should note that because we haven't been spending a lot of time, and that's not criticism on Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, the man who might be the next Quebec Premier. But this is not the first instance where he is gone and been very aggressive and over-the-top in comments.

His relationship with the National Assembly media parallels that of someone called Pierre Poiliev with the National Press Gallery. And this week, increasingly the comparison between Pierre Puehliev's style and his style started to surface in commentary that he is, you know, he is his own advisor, that he has his few MNAs, because we should remind people that the PQ fell to less than a handful of elected people in the National Assembly in the last election. He's got one of his MNAs, actually, I'm trying to argue for uncivility on the social media. And she kind of think, really, you really want to go there. And remember, the National Assembly usually gets points for being a lot more civil in the tone of its exchanges than anything you see on Parliament Hill. So if Mr. Paul St. Pierre-Plamondon does not pay attention to these comments, He stands to allow the perception that he's going to bring Pierre Paulyev's style conversations to Quebec politics. And as you know, in Quebec, the Pierre Paulyev take no prisoner style actually cost the party any traction with voters.

So he is in a danger area. The upside is it may convinced Francois Legoe and Pablo Rodriguez to think, well, in dangerous waters, we should stick around both of us and we're going to do well, which would be major error, especially on the part of the Premier. It's a fascinating story. I mean, you know, Canadians outside Quebec often have a problem trying to understand what's going on in that province and the impact certain things can have and simple statements can have. No matter what he says now, the PQ leader is going to have a hard time ever backing away from that.

That's going to hang around his neck for a long time. Let me ask this, though, of you, Chantel, because you did, you know, earlier when we were talking about Carney and the trade deal and everything else, you called certain elements of what happened a rookie mistake. Is this a rookie mistake? There was a rookie mistake this week. It would be Mr. Miller's mistake. The others were real mistakes. If you are in line or you are the Premier of Quebec,

because I include Francois de Gauss comments and the mistakes with a capital M, that is not the tone that you should be taking, and neither of them is in a position that should allow them to either describe a Quebec MP as a disgrace and a shame on Quebec, or to declare that people who represent the interest of their members in a community that is essential to Quebec

or disloyal to Quebec for engaging with the federal government. So Paul-Saint-Qa-Mont-on can't afford to be a rookie anymore. And what is really, you know, striking is this happened on a week when Eve François Blanchet of the Black Quebecuer and others figured that they were going to have a really good week because of Stephen Gilbo's resignation and that Legé pole, actually, although sovereignty is still way back, it showed a five-point gain over the past few weeks for sovereignty

versus federalism and the PQ lead unassailable. And in the middle of all that, Paul St. Pierre-Plamondon trolls himself into the mix and changes the... conversation completely you have people on the street like you go shopping and i you know women coming out of shops yesterday were stopping me quoting the pq leader word for word to laugh at him and those words were very long words that let's uh or whatever it's his his quote has been on radio just me i heard that ten times yesterday uh so which gives you a an idea. When Quebec gives wall-to-wall coverage to something like that, it's really wall-to-wall.

And now he has, what was his response being yesterday? Radio Canada is on the federalist payroll. That would be news to outside Quebec, Canadians, who have always been told that Radio Canada is on the sorrentist payroll. But you can see the similarities with the Pierre-Poliev approach. If you say I'm wrong, you're on somebody else's, you know, payroll and you're my enemy. And I'm not sure where he goes from there, but this, yeah, will stick. He's going to have to mend a lot of fences and he's not been someone who's good at mending fences. Okay. I have this image, though, and I'm sure you have it as well, Bruce, because we hear this every once in a while from Chantelle, she talks about when she's on the bus or the street car or the train or when she's

going in and out of the grocery store. A woman hugged me on the rim on Sunday, and I didn't even know her and my grandchild was looking at me thinking this is a good time to not say anything. I want to put a camera on Chantel to just follow her around because that's, I mean, she gets the on the street view of things. much better than, you know, all reporters try to get that, try to feel that they have a sense of what the people are feeling. Chantelle has no choice because they come out of the grocery store and grab her and tell her what they're thinking. Yes, and it makes my, my, my, my, my, it informs

my analysis to a degree that individually they don't realize those people who talk to me, but collectively it makes a big difference. Okay. I want to, I want to get, I want to expand this to the national picture, and Bruce is the one to talk about this because he's been doing in and out of research surveys and doing a lot of polling lately, and I want to get a sense of that. But I do want to underline the fact.

I think it was Harold Wilson, the former British Prime Minister from years gone by, who had that great phrase, a week in politics is a long time. Just think about this past week that we've had in Canadian politics, whether it's in BC or Alberta or Quebec, or wherever it may be. The agenda has changed so much, so frequently, so quickly,

on different things that have happened, that a week is a long time in Canadian politics, too. Okay, Bruce, what is this data you're collecting telling us, or what is it showing is probably the good advice for politicians of all stripes in Canada as they look at the end of one year and heading into another year about what the priorities are

that Canadians want them to be addressing. What is it saying? I think the things that really stand out for me, Peter, are since the Trump 2.0 effect really landed, Canadians have been more concerned with the underlying strength of our economy, the future health of our economy than I've ever seen before. I think, you know, without being critical of people, it's fair to say that there had been a kind of a complacency on the part of most Canadians when you talk about questions like productivity and competitiveness and what we need to do to

improve our productivity and competitiveness. And people still don't gravitate towards those words and try to lift up the hood and say, what can I do to affect that? But they're definitely more interested in governments focusing on what will it take to make sure that our economy two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now is as strong as we hope it will be because there are forces in the world and forces in the United States which could really damage our long-term economic health. So people can say, well, it's always been the economy stupid you know that line from i think james carville back in the early 90s days but it's there's a twist to it now it used to be axiomatic that if people thought the economy was in

trouble that they wanted to throw whatever government was in power out that's not really what's going on right now instead what people are saying is we don't know what the answers are but we need solid people being serious about the economy, and we need them to pursue politics with a degree of gravity that politics does not always show. And so when they see people playing politics and it looks like it's politics for its own sake, they're not entertained by it in the same way anymore. They're annoyed by it, sometimes infuriated by it, often just not distracted by it. and they just get on with their lives. So there's a seriousness to the moment

that is reflected in public opinion and it shows up in a number of different ways, including the fact that a lot can happen from a policy and politics standpoint in a week and then nothing can show up as having had an impact in public opinion, which has been the case really in the last week on national issues in public opinion.

And sometimes, you know, I can, as somebody who likes to see an engaged public, say, well, I wish people were paying a little bit more attention. They were reacting to some things. So it can be a mark of disengagement and the lack of an information flow that informs our democracy. There's certainly a good argument to be made that that's the reality that we live in now. But it also could be just a good reminder, as you say, Peter, for politicians of all stripes. to just take a beat and think about the fact that people are having trouble with the rent, they're having trouble with the costs of groceries, they're worried about what industries are going to survive the Trump era,

they're wondering what industries are going to be able to retool, find new markets, diversify, innovate, manage AI, all of those challenges. And so to the degree that they want politicians to do important work, The work they want is mostly focused on get serious about that. Don't try to distract me with funny politician games or silly politician games. So I think it's quite an interesting time, even if the numbers sometimes look like they're not moving at all. Okay, I want to get Chantel's thoughts on this, but I go take our final break first. We'll do that now and come back with Chantel right after this.

And welcome back. Peter Ranspich here with Chantelle Abert and Bruce Anderson. It's your Friday good talk. That was our final break, but we still have lots of time left. Chantel, your thoughts on the way Bruce described the kind of stuff he's seeing in his data of late. I agree that the economics and being serious matters, but I also would say we have had a chance to kick the government out because of economic challenges just a bit more than six months ago. And despite what people say about voters, they are not inconsequential in the sense of I didn't get dessert tonight, so I'm going to kick them out six months later. I believe they're still watching and deciding. And at this point, I think what polls also show is that many, many voters may have qualms about some of the policy directions, for instance, of the federal government or if you're in Ontario, the Ontario government or in BC this week. But they're looking at the alternatives and they're not finding that the alternatives inspired.

you're enough trust to be saying we need to try someone new. If you're a voter this week and you're not happy about David E.B. and plenty of BC voters are not, you do not have an alternative. What you have is an official opposition in disarray with a leader that has resigned with a divided caucus. If you're in Ontario, you could argue that the opposition parties, the liberals and the NDP both have so far not gotten their act together since the last, well, since this year's election. And we talked about what's happening to Quebec. That being said, me, I have never looked at polls about any government from week to week

or about any event from week to week. Because I have found over time that especially big policy shifts take time. And rightly so, the public gives it or those things time before they, They start expressing unease or actual support. And I'll give you an example. It is fairly standard. We've all lived through it. The Meach Lake Accord.

Do you really think we would have seen a week after I was struck with all the premieres signing off that we would have seen in the polls, which was going to happen to it? Where I am on this is some of the undertakings of governments take time to deploy. And time is rarely the friend of governments to do ambitious things. So I'll give you an example where I think, for instance, this Alberta Ottawa, since it's the elephant in the room, where I think the problem may be, it may be that a year from now, the prospects for a new pipeline off to the coast of BC will look dim. at the same time as more people are saying

we do not have a climate policy that is serious enough. And at that point you lose the pipeline crowd but you also lose the climate policy crowd. And I'm not talking huge numbers. We keep forgetting that in this country you can

the votes, where the votes go matter. You don't need the huge NDP revival to hurt the liberals. And you do not need the bloc to take 50 more seats. There aren't 50 to be had for the liberals to be in significant trouble overall. So me, I'm willing to live, and I've always done that with the French saying, it says, let's leave time for time. And I'm basically sitting there, not coming, not rushing to judgment on how things will unfold.

Bruce? I agree with a lot of what Chantelle said. I think that I'm staying very focused these days on swing voters in terms of trying to understand where the dynamics are that could make a difference because Chantel is absolutely right. It's not everybody that's at, you know, risk and it doesn't need to be the last number of elections have seen really small differences between the number of conservative votes and liberal votes. and the outcomes can be really remarkably different based on small movements. Swing voters, as I estimate their size down, but 12% of the total electorate.

And yet we look at public opinion sometimes. It's reported as though the kind of the top line aggregate numbers are really the only thing we need to look at. But a third of people won't vote. Of the people who will vote, most of them have made up their minds who they're going to vote for. So really focusing on that 12% is important. And those people disproportionately right now are women.

They're over the age of 40. They have weaker incomes, lower incomes. They're very worried about the cost of living. And they're going to be attentive to a variety of issues. These are people who describe themselves mostly on the center of the spectrum, 77%, I think on the center of the spectrum. So they're not. you don't have a lot of ideology in it and I think Chantelle's description of them as people

who will take a moment will think things through will react over time I think that's right and the two things that in my experience anyway ultimately affect how they where they net out first is the consequences what are the consequences of what a politician what act a politician or a leader has taken. And sometimes those will take time to be seen. Will there be a pipeline? Will there be a climate policy 2.0 that will become clear over time as a couple more pieces are laid out

and as more effort is put into describing, okay, we're removing these policies and replacing them with these. And then people can judge whether or not that new approach to climate policy is the one that they're comfortable with or that they can believe in. So consequences of the actions, which sometimes does take a period of time to flow. And then the other is what are the motives? People often don't have enough policy knowledge to really say, get under the hood and say, I think this will work, but only if they do that way.

Sometimes they default to what do I think this person, this leader is trying to do? What do I think their motives are? Are the motives good, or are they questionable to me? And that's a big question because sometimes people can just look at politicians and say their motives are self-interest. Their motives are purely political advantage. So I think those two things are always important for politicians, sometimes ignored. And politicians, to the extent that I give them advice,

is make sure that people always understand what's motivating choices that you make. and what the consequences are for those people and try to describe the consequences. And I think people are patient, as Chantelle says. And they're not of a mind, obviously, to have another election because they just had one, which doesn't mean they're happy with everything, doesn't mean that they're waking up every morning

wondering what happened in Ottawa either. Yeah, only we do that. Actually, do we? We just look at what happened in Washington and how many tweets were issued overnight. I agree with that, too. It has, it has changed what we do. It's been going on in the U.S. The way we look at news in the morning is not the same as the way we looked at news

when things were put it this way more normal. I was in a conversation earlier this week with a lot of really smart, intelligent people who spend time thinking about politics and I was asked the question about, well, what does it mean if an issue that was at the top of the public opinion priority list has moved down to number 11 or number 12? And why have people lost, you know, concern about that? And I said, well, it doesn't mean that they've lost concern about it. I mean, I can wake up in the morning and be horrified by what Trump is doing with Venezuela or, you know, any number of things. that can all of a sudden shoot to the top of my,

this is a really big priority because this is going terribly. But it doesn't mean I'm not concerned about the thing that I was concerned about last week. It just means the question is too much of a blunt instrument to understand that I can be worried about 25 things. And I think that's the reality for a lot of people today. Okay, I'm going to have to call it a day there.

It's been a good conversation. I appreciate both of your times on this. We're rapidly closing in on the end of the year. In fact, next Friday is Chantel's last one before she takes off for her holiday break. We'll keep going the following week we'll have. So we've got two more weeks to go before we take our break. Filling in two weeks from now for Chantel will be Bob Ray, the former UN ambassador. He's going to join us, Bruce and I for a conversation, which I'm sure will touch on some of the things we just touched on.

this last segment in terms of what politicians are thinking and what their constituents are thinking and in terms of how those two should join in some discussion over the holidays breaks, perhaps. Okay, that's going to wrap it up for this week. Thanks to Bruce. Thanks to Shantelle. And thanks to you for listening. We all hope you have a great weekend and we'll talk again on the bridge coming on Monday. Bye for now.

Have a good weekend. Bye.