The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Cabinet Decisions

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Chantal is in Montreal, Bruce is in Scotland as we tackle three issues including should the next minister of defence, if there's to be a new one,  be a woman? Should whoever it is have military experience? All this in light of continuing allegations of sexual harassment in the military.  But we start with Quebec's decision to hold back on its plan to have started vaccine passports in the health care system --  could that have an impact across the country? 

Are you ready for good talk? And good morning, Peter Mansbridge here. I'm in Toronto today. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. There's a little road that kind of sneaks its way up from Aberdeen through Northern Scotland to Inverness and then up into the Highlands and then onwards to a little town called Dornick that's home for one of the greatest golf courses in the world, the Royal Dornick Golf Course. And that's where we find Bruce Anderson today. He's touring Scotland, going to some of his favorite haunts. If I'm lucky I'll be bumping into him next week when I'm in Scotland as well. But Bruce has connected

with us through well, through the Wi-Fi that exists in the building that he's in, in Dornick, Scotland. It may not be perfect, but it's a start. You can hear us, Bruce? I can hear you fine. Hey, that sounds pretty good.

That sounds really good. And Chantel, good morning to you in Montreal. And I am not headed for Scotland, for the record. Yeah, you should. I'll keep the fourth here. Yeah, you keep the fourth is right. Okay, we're going to start today with actually with Chantel and a story that's coming out of Quebec.

Because I think it's interesting in terms of what it may signal in other parts of the country as well. This was the day, October 15th, that Quebec was going to initiate the vaccine passport for all health care workers. In other words, they had to be vaccinated if they were going to get paid. They've eased that restriction by a month. They're now saying the deadline's November 15th. Now, Chantal, what were the pressures around that and what is the fallout from it? Okay, so the Quebec government, when it talked about healthcare workers, did cast a very wide net. Anyone related to healthcare, if you worked in administration, if you worked in the kitchens, if you possibly in Montreal because of the population here, where it was possible to do without people who refused to be vaccinated and still ensure most services. and remote areas where five of eight people in a given team for long-term care, for instance, or taking care of people at home, home care, were not vaccinated, would have disappeared overnight and could not be replaced.

This against a system that is already stretched to the limit and amongst labor shortages. So the choice the Quebec health minister faced was not a really pleasant choice. It was to lose face a bit because the day before he announced it, he had said, we will not budge on this October 15 deadline, or face possibly a series of crises, some of them fairly serious, intensive care, not able to take care of people, go down the list in the healthcare system. So he pushed back his deadline. What does it mean?

Well, a couple of things. The first is for all of the face losing, and there is some face losing here, half of the people in the healthcare system who had resisted or waited to get vaccinated did get vaccinated over the period coming up to today's deadline. So that is progress of a sort. Also, the downside is that the anti-vax movement, obviously, and others claimed a major victory this week in Quebec. And the bottom line message was, come November 15, they will be in no more of a shape to do without us than they were this month. And so, you can question the seriousness of the November 15 deadline. I should add that over the course of that month, a number of new measures were also

announced. If you're a doctor, you're going to lose your license to practice if you're a nurse in Quebec if you do not get fully vaccinated. That's per your professional order. If you are not vaccinated by November 15th, you will lose the COVID bonus that has been given to healthcare workers. You will also have between now and then to be tested three times a week, which sounds like a fairly painful prescription. But I think what that shows, and there's a message here for other governments, I think also for the federal government on other fronts, is that the healthcare restrictions that have been implemented across the country have mostly rested on the moral capital and authority of governments.

And at this point, it is increasingly severely depleted, more so, for instance, in Alberta than in Quebec. But if the most popular government, provincial government, or just about in the country, cannot live up to its own ultimatum and looks like it blinked, having called a bluff that it could not sustain, that is not good news for any government. And it's coming at a time, and that's what makes this kind of doubly interesting. It's also coming at a time when both Quebec and Ontario, for two of the major provinces,

or the two major provinces, are beginning to ease some of the restrictions and signaling how other restrictions are going to be eased in the weeks ahead. And all these things coupled together makes one wonder where, you know, where we really are on this story and, you know, what may be ahead. The last time there was serious easing of restrictions in the country, you know, resulted in the fourth and and the troubles that it has brought in different parts of the country especially as Chantal mentions in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Bruce you're sitting in Scotland where they have their own issues surrounding COVID obviously and in the UK where they've tried a number of different things, but they seem to be living a life without COVID, or at least without recognizing COVID in a lot of ways.

The people reporting that what they're seeing is a, you know, a maskless society for the most part in a lot of places, not everywhere, but a lot of places. What's your take on this from a distance? Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is that the vast majority of Canadians have been vaccinated, Canadian adults, the vast majority have been vaccinated. And any polling that we've done about this question has made it increasingly clear that they are losing patience with those who choose not to, or who continue to delay getting vaccinated. They're not against people having medical exemptions that are legitimate, but they're frustrated and fed up with the duration and the severity of the pandemic in terms of its

impact on their lives. And they're mad. They're mad at the idea that people are free riding, that people are basically saying, I'm not going to take the jab because everybody else did. They don't really understand the nature of some of the hesitancy. And every time they read stories that say, well, we really need to try harder to understand people who are against getting the vaccination. I don't find that the reaction from the majority of the vaccinated is to say, yes, maybe we should, maybe we should listen to them a little bit more.

It's rather to say, no, this vaccine maybe was developed in a short period of time, but it's been administered to a very large number of people around the world, and the evidence that it works is overwhelming, and the evidence that it's safe is overwhelming. It's always been the case that politicians have been reluctant to get to the stage where they were requiring mandates. I remember when the pandemic started and there were no vaccines, we were wondering if there ever would be vaccines. And then there were, and we were starting to wonder, well, will there ever be a requirement to take them? And it seemed to me always that there was going to be a time when governments were going to have to require that those who

were hesitant make a choice between getting a vaccination or enjoying all of the elements of regular life that everybody else did. And it took them a while to get there. And that was probably judicious, except, I would say, in Alberta, where I don't think that the right choices were made. And I think they were made on the basis of politics rather than hard science. And so where we're at today is I think the Quebec government, I agree with what Chantal was saying, I think. I think they made a decision based on the latest evidence of how well or not they could accomplish the objective they had set within the timeframe. And if they didn't think they could accomplish it within that timeframe, rather than scrap the idea entirely, they said, well, what is the data telling us about how long it will take us to get to where we want to get? And so we'll add a month to the schedule. I think most people can look at that and say, that's a reasonable thing. It's not a

capitulation to the anti-vax movement. If they did start to think that there was capitulation to that, I think there would be public opinion outcry. And so I'm sure that some other governments are watching this. But, you know, I think from my standpoint anyway, I hope that other governments don't flinch and continue to pursue the kind of mandates that have been discussed. What about the issue of, you know, further easing of restrictions? Because they, I mean, they've been quite dramatic in the last couple of weeks. You know, you're now seeing the NHL season open and it's opening to, you know, almost full crowds. And, you know, when the

cameras take the shots around the arenas. Some people are wearing masks. Other people aren't. And it seemed to me that the games that I've watched, the majority are not. The teams are asking people to wear masks. But it's their own decision inside the arena. To get into the arena, they have to wear them and they have to have proof of vaccination. But you can see things are starting to open up, same in restaurants and in some cases in dining areas where patrons are allowed in, once again with proof of vaccination. But nevertheless, things slowly inching towards

not normal as before the pandemic, but a lot closer to that than we've seen at all in the last 20 months. Is there, you know, like how do we feel about that? Chantal? Something has to give. You have to give people who are vaccinated and those who are not some incentives to go down that road. You also need to look at what has been happening in places where they have slowly reopened more than we have and their outcomes. And, you know, some of the things we say may sound glum, but there are things that worked well or have so far worked better than many feared.

Ontario and Quebec brought the kids back to school. It's now been a month and a half. And yes, there have been COVID cases, but catastrophes did not happen. It does look like before Christmas, kids under 12 will be allowed to be vaccinated, which will be a relief to many parents, but will also diminish some of the risks attending to having schools open. Maybe for the first time in three school years, Canadian kids in most provinces will be able to attend school in person all year, which is a victory as opposed to where we were before.

I think by now most Canadians understand that when governments loosen some restrictions, that does not mean that it will be forever if it does not work out. And I think the next test, we've just had Thanksgiving. A lot of people gathered at Thanksgiving. That's anecdotal evidence. But just from around are feeling their way to normalization. And I think that's been the pattern since the beginning of the pandemic. Bruce, do you have a thought on that? Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

And I think public opinion has actually been very consistent in two respects. One is that people want as much freedom as they can have from restrictions. But at the same time, they want government to be as cautious as necessary. And governments have only ever really gotten themselves into trouble when they have showed a lack of caution or less caution, and they've never really gotten themselves into trouble erring in the opposite direction. And this, I think, stands our political culture in some contrast, obviously, with that of the United States and some other parts of the world. But it is, I think, a part of our peace order and good government DNA that we believe that it's better to be safe than sorry. And it's better to let people who have data and evidence and decision-making authority make those choices rather than people who are trafficking in kind of hopes and dreams and false information and on the internet. So I think we've been well served by that public predisposition. I think politicians,

if they ease cautiously, will find the public saying, yes, this works for us. I remember that the only time that the federal government really took a hit on its ratings around pandemic was when people started to feel like it was going to take too long for us to get vaccinations relative to when they were available in the United States. And as soon as that gap stopped looking like it was going to be large and started looking like it was going to be fairly short. The federal government numbers improved and people basically were saying, okay, I know it's going to take months before I get a shot. But I'm okay with that. And I'm okay with living with restrictions. So I think that governments, you know, if they're in any doubt whatsoever about how to get in trouble, all they need to do is look at Jason Kenney in Alberta. And it's a billboard for any government anywhere in the democratic world for how to do this wrong, how to think that you're going to be popular because you give people a few more weekends of fun without involvement of these COVID restrictions and find yourself polling at 22% approval, an unheard of number really for somebody of Jason Kenney's pedigree as

a politician. All right. We're going to move on. A good discussion on that. But I want to talk now about, you know, it was almost a month ago that the election happened, September 20th. We're at October 15th and the big weekend that follows October 15th. And we're finally getting an indication that, OK, I'm sure there was an election.

Maybe it's time we got together. You know, that we announced a cabinet, that we had Parliament reopen and get to some of the issues that we've just been talking about and more and we're going to talk about that uh right after this roll up to win is back at tim hortons with more prizes than ever this time you might roll a tim card a samsung galaxy smartwatch a hilton getaway or even the all-new 2022 volkswagenos. You're allowed to push your luck a little because every roll wins. Just scan the Tim's app when making a purchase on select products and win. Every time. Rules apply.

Open to registered Tim's Reward members in Canada only. No purchase necessary. Full context details on the Tim Hortons app. Copyright Tim Hortons 2021. You're listening to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. All right, you're back with Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Dornick, Scotland, getting ready to go and tee off. Aye. And it's, you know, I was looking at one of the CCTV cameras of Dornick

to get an idea of what things look like there today, and it's, you know, I know things change very quickly in Scotland as they do in parts of Canada on weather-wise, but it looked pretty sunny, pretty inviting to hit the course. All right. You know, it's not unusual for a parliament once it's been elected to, you know, get its feet, figure out what they're going to do. The government of the day form its cabinet and eventually parliament is

recalled. And sometimes that takes weeks, sometimes it takes months. I mean, you know, one of the examples that's often pointed to was Joe Clark, May of 79 he wins. It was November of 79 before Parliament met. Now, that was a long gap, and for that reason and others, he paid the price, his government fell a month later and the rest is history so here we are uh with justin trudeau and we see a press release today that almost reads like like a throne speech in terms of what

their plans are uh for the immediate future, which is the new cabinet being announced in another 10 days or so, and then parliament going to resume before the end of November. I think November 22nd is the date. Has this been too long? I mean, and I mentioned this because I've actually had some mail this week from our listeners saying, what's going on? Like, why is it taking so long for Parliament to get now? I don't know how many Canadians sit around and actually think that. But clearly some of our listeners do. And I'm wondering, you know, has it been too long?

Bruce, why don't you start us on this? I remember a good mutual friend I won't name him because he might not wish to be cited this way but I remember working with him for the years for several years and he had worked in government communications at a very senior level and he talked about the syndrome of feeling as though you had to feed the goat. And what he meant by that was that there was a whole journalistic community, which is going back in time. And now there's a journalistic and pundit community, a market that requires feeding of some kind of news, some sort of information that wasn't available yesterday in order to kind of feel like they're doing their jobs.

And so I think part of my reaction to this, you know, relatively recent discussion of has this been too long is to recognize that it's a question being asked, I think, legitimately, I suppose, by people whose job it is to have more to report than they have to report right now. Second thing I would say is that I think this is, you know, Justin Trudeau probably planning the last part of his time as prime minister in Canada. And what does he want to see done? And what can he get done within a relatively short period of time, say two years? And that requires some careful thought and some revision of that careful thought. And I don't personally feel like this has taken more time than it should. I don't know exactly what's going on in the discussions, but I can imagine that there's some complicated choices to be sorted through and to take four weeks or so, maybe a little bit longer than that doesn't feel long to me. And the last thing I'll say is it feels a little bit like the conversation where people sometimes argue

that MPs are off if they're not in the House of Commons, as opposed to the reality for them, which is they're doing work. It's just not work in the House of Commons. And this work around the government agenda is not in the public eye for good and logical reasons. But it doesn't mean that people are just kind of binge watching the latest shows on Netflix. As much fun as that may be. untested team and a minority situation. By comparison, Justin Trudeau has been reconducted for a third term. A year ago, almost now, he was laying out a roadmap that stretched way beyond the next nine to 10 months. So, it's not as if suddenly he is to this. And he has just run a campaign on most of those same themes.

So he cannot be suddenly reinventing his agenda. It's also incumbent on a minority prime minister to meet parliament and test the confidence of the House sooner rather than later. So this is a bit on the long side. That being said, there are interesting things, logistical and otherwise, to be said about it. For one, the last Quebec recount of the votes took place and was concluded on Tuesday. The person who won there, Pascal Saint-Onge, a liberal, could very well fit in a cabinet, especially since the prime minister does need to replace a number of women and has committed again in this long news release to gender parity in cabinet. So the making of the architecture of cabinet has more to do with a house of cards than anything else. You need to know all the cards that you have.

You can't build one and then take out one card and put the one that you suddenly really have in hand. In this case, the election of a promising MP who happens to be female in Quebec and everything else will fall in place. The cabinet is going to be announced on October 26, and the House of Commons will not meet until November 22. That's two full months after the election. And again, it begs the question, does this mean that the cabinet ministers will be appointed or reappointed in about a week will need time to settle in the jobs. If they do, does this mean that a lot more people are switching posts or are coming in cabinet than we have assumed? Because if you were reappointed, you would basically know where your files stand at. You wouldn't need too much time to be up and running. So that one-month gap is interesting on that score. It also means that the House of Commons

will not sit for more than four weeks maximum before the end of the year, probably not to come back until late January, maybe February. And that only gives the government time to present its own speech, seek the confidence of the House. So there will be a confidence vote before the end of the year. And then they are off duty when it comes to running a House of Commons where they don't have the majority until pretty much later in the winter. Part of the decision-making process that has to take place over these, in this case now the next 10 days, is the final decisions on cabinet. And you gave us an insight into one particular decision that may be being made. Another one comes as a result of the continuing kind of horror show that is the senior levels of the Canadian military.

You know, there are times these days, because it seems like there's one a day or one every couple of days of yet another senior officer being investigated over charges of sexual harassment. There are times when you start to think, think you know is there a single officer in the canadian forces of the senior level that that isn't being investigated and of course there are you know dozens if not hundreds who are not being investigated but nevertheless these are pretty senior officials that are and this, we've talked about it before, the culture in the military,

especially in the senior levels, there's something clearly very wrong there. So we've had the same minister in charge throughout the unfolding of this story over the last six years. Does he have to go? Bruce, does there have to be a change in that minister? Look, I'll separate this into two parts. I think that the question of civilian oversight of the military is a tricky question. There has tended to be a tradition, I guess, that military get to have their own system of justice and policing of their own internal behavior, and that if you subject it to too much oversight by politicians, that that creates other problems that you don't want in your military apparatus.

Having said that, yes, I do think that it's hard to look at this minister through this whole period of time and feel like you can have confidence that enough decisions have been made in the right direction in a timely enough fashion to correct what is clearly a cultural and systemic problem within the military. Does that mean that he didn't try to make some of the decisions or didn't make some of the right decisions or is responsible for the behaviors. No, it doesn't mean that. But I do think that in politics, you have to sort of, you have to marshal more credibility to deal with this

than that minister has been able to do so far. So if I were the prime minister, for sure, I would be looking to make a change there. Arjun Sajjan is the person we're talking about who had a distinguished career in the military himself. He was a leader on the battlefield in Afghanistan. You know, obviously knows the portfolio, knows some of the players. But, you know, obviously knows the portfolio, knows some of the players. But, you know, as Bruce says, he's been in charge, at least in terms of being the minister, since 2015.

Chantelle, do you have any disagreement that he's got to go? No, I don't. But to go to Bruce's first point about civilian oversight on this, there is a limit to how long you can ignore the advice that you seek on the issue. And a former justice of the Supreme Court put a report on the desk of Justin Trudeau six years ago, Maggie Deschamps, where she recommended civilian oversight. Here we are six years later, and does anyone think that Louise Arnault, the latest retired Supreme Court justice to be asked to look into this, will say, no, no, no, you don't need civilian oversight, there is no doubt that she will again recommend civilian oversight. Now, there are many things you can say about Algiers Sajan. And yes,

it's too late now to redeem him as a defense minister. But this also goes all the way back to the prime minister. He is the one who found that Deschamps report on his desk, and he is the one who did not instruct in the mandate letters that he gave early on to Minister Sajan, never instructed him on that score specifically to see to the follow-up of the Deschamps report or civilian oversight. So, it wasn't just that the minister did not get things done. It was that he was under no orders from the prime minister to do so. And now we are in a different era. And yes, it will call for a different minister. You're right that Sajan was from the ranks.

And it somehow brings back the memory, at least in this province, of having had a series of doctors, medical doctors, in charge of the health ministry. I think Christian Dubé, the current one, is an accountant, or at least he is not at all from the medical family. Frankly, he seems to be doing a fine job. So the notion that if you're from the inside, you're going to be better at it than someone who brings different eyes is one that has not been demonstrated in either case. Which does raise the question, there's a couple of questions actually, in terms of if they're replacing a sergeant, who should it be? Should it be somebody from, you know, without a military background, partly for some of the reasons you just mentioned? And perhaps this being asked more and more, should it be a woman?

Should the new Minister of Defence be a woman? And should the new Minister of Defence be somebody who is not with a military background, given the times we're in? The first answer is this should be a minister, male or female, that has clout with the PMO. Because without clout, you're just being thrown into a mess with or without military background. No minister possibly will need, or with the exception maybe of finance, but will need as much clear, direct support from the prime minister in decisions that will have to be taken, then this

particular minister in that particular trouble spot. Now, as to the notion that it should be someone from the military, I would tend to say no, at this point, the portfolio would be better served by someone who has absolutely no links to the boys in the club. Can you tell me what you mean by clout? I mean, I think we kind of get it and you kind of said it, but in real terms, what's clout? Chrystia Freeland can pick up the phone and get over minions in the PMO and talk to Justin Trudeau.

And if he starts not taking her calls, there is a political penalty for that. I'm not sure that was the case with Jody Wilson-Raybould, to name one glaring example. Dominique Leblanc has a longstanding personal relationship with the prime minister, and if he needs or feels he needs to, he can get himself in a meeting and influence its outcome. Other ministers are not in that loop. And the next defense minister has to be able to be in that loop and not have three layers of, as high up as they may be, PMO personnel managing the minister. It has also to be a minister that is able to manage a portfolio and not be managed to manage. And there are ministers, there always are, it's not just on Justin Trudeau's cabinet,

who are actually happier or limited in their talents and do need to be managed to manage. You can't afford to have that kind of a minister at national defense over the next two, three years. I agree with that. I think the criteria for me start with you need to give a minister a very clear mandate that this systemic problem needs to be addressed and is the most important priority. And they're alongside that, the idea of clout, that if the minister goes to the prime minister and says, here's what's happening, here's what I'm doing about it. Do you support this? He needs to, he or she needs to get the right answer. So I think it's very much about a focused determination to not just manage these issues

and hope that you can cap each of them as they come up or find some plausible way of explaining them away through the news cycle. This needs to be addressed. It's not, you know, it's well past the point where it needs an issue manager. It needs a systemic overhaul. That does probably lead me to the view that it should be someone who isn't at the same time as they're trying to change the culture in the military, trying to empathize with the culture in the military. So somebody not with a military background is probably where I would go, but I'd be indifferent on the question of gender. For me, the quality of the individual,

the clarity of the mandate, the absolute determination to take that mandate and make it, make change happen. I think those are the criteria. Before we leave the cabinet, is there any one other portfolio that you'll be looking at in terms of a new face or a signal of change? Let's face it, aside from Chrystia Freeland, because of events, the defense minister, and generally kind of foreign affairs. Those are the ones that most people tend to identify with in terms of having some knowledge of who's actually in the portfolio. Most of the announcements we'll hear on Cabinet Making Day, you'll never hear of these people again until the next cabinet shuffle.

But is there one face or one portfolio that you're looking at when that new cabinet is announced in the next 10 days? Chantal? There are two for different reasons. The first, I am looking at foreign affairs. Mark Garner has been the foreign affairs minister of late. He's a state, of course, person and a relatively stable hand. He's also a senior member of the liberal team. But he is not someone who has been breaking new grounds or shown any sense of a way forward at the time when Canada needs to rethink, I believe, not only its relationship with China, which is kind of an obvious one, but also where it goes

on the Canada-US front. Because we have come to the end of the Joe Biden is great because he's not Trump. And there are a series of serious issues on the landscape. So I'll be curious to see if Minister Garneau is reconducted and if he is, how long he sticks around in politics and in that portfolio. And I'm also curious to see who the House leader will be, because Pablo Rodriguez burnt a lot of cartridges on the way to the end of the last session of Parliament. They need this Parliament to not start off on the next page from last spring, because if that's the case, we will have just taken a break from a toxic environment to another toxic environment. And it could well be that it would be a good call to have a fresh House leader to rebuild or shore up some of the bridges with the opposition parties, because they do need some rebuilding or some shoring up. Bruce?

I agree with Chantal about foreign affairs, or global affairs, I guess is what it's called now, that that would be an interesting one for me to watch. And I have a lot of time for Mark Garneau. But I guess the question in my mind is similar to hers, which is, is it time for a more activist and agenda setting kind of approach in that portfolio. But the other for me is the intersection of natural resources, environment and climate change and industry, where if we're really going to be serious about decarbonizing our economy and having a strong economy, the policy, the policies of those three departments need to network and integrate really well, perhaps better than they have in the past, because that's the thing that will have the most effect, the greatest effect on our ability to attract the kind of investment that we need in

the country, especially the ESG-influenced investment, the companies that are looking to put their money into places where environmental and social and governance issues are taken seriously, where we know that if we don't get that policy right, being an economy that does have a very significant extractive sector, if we get it wrong, we could do ourselves more economic harm more quickly than many people, especially those who live in cities, might imagine. If, on the other hand, we get it right, we can attract a good deal more investment into this country in those traditional sectors as they change to be part of a decarbonization process, but also attracting a lot of other investment from around the world that just will like the shape of Canadian public policy. And so I think there's a lot of potential there. And I tend to think that we've shorthanded collectively, not the three of us maybe, but the finance department as the only department that

really matters in economic policy in the country. And I don't think that's true. And I especially don't think it's true for the next 10 years. Okay. We're going to pause once again, and when we come back, we're going to talk about a vote that takes place on Monday. It's only in one part of the country, but it may have an impact on everyone. That's when we come back. This is The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge.

All right, back with Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Scotland today. You're listening to Good Talk, either on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. And we appreciate that you do so.

All right. Monday, one of those words that sends people scurrying to the doors or to hit pause on their podcast, equalization. Now listen, that's a fundamental part of kind of who we are as a country. Yet there's always been debate and controversy surrounding how equalization works

and benefits or not every part of the country. So on Monday in Alberta, there's a vote on equalization. And Jason Kenney, back in the days when he was riding high, saw this as a way to encourage Albertans to be on his side in the fight on equalization and, I assume, benefit him politically. Now, those days are gone for Jason Kennedy. I don't know why I keep saying Kennedy, but it's Jason Kennedy. So I'm not sure when he first decided on this referendum this vote in alberta for certain

reasons whether those reasons still exist today given the dilemma that alberta is facing on covet and his leadership is facing on covet so how important is this vote and how should the rest of the country be looking at it? Chantal, why don't you start us on this one? Well, a vote of any kind is only as important as the people who call it consider it to be important. And in this case, this plebiscite is taking place in the context of a municipal election in Alberta. It is a question that is being tagged on to the ballot right next to a question about whether to keep daylight saving time. So, that kind of sends one message. This is not the plebiscite on Quebec's future and the federation kind of thing.

And that will have consequences on participation, because in most provinces, I believe Alberta is one of those. Mine certainly is. The turnout for municipal elections tends to be low. And the lower the turnout for any plebiscite question, the less the answer happens to matter. Then the other problem is, what are you asking versus what you are seeking? Alberta has issues with how equalization works, whether those are valid issues or not, is open to discussion. But what Albertans are being asked is to vote to get rid of equalization. And that's a very different proposition. And by its own admission, the Kenney government does not believe that equalization will disappear, and nor will it, no matter what the answer is, because there will not be a federal provincial consensus strong enough to take it out of the Constitution.

But this is meant to give Jason Kenney leverage in discussions on equalization, and I'm not so sure that if you want one thing, you should ask the other. So, two points. Jason Kenney made that promise during the election campaign. What always goes unsaid is that the equalization formula, as you know, is renegotiated at regular intervals. Fascinating discussion that most of us tend to run away from. And the last time it was reviewed and the formula that currently applies was under Stephen Harper's government, where Jason Kenney had a seat at a good spot around the table. So it's kind of interesting that he would now go through this yes or no plebiscite

question in the hopes of having a discussion that he was a party to the last time it was discussed. Bruce? It seems to me that Jason Kenney is probably secretly wishing he had never thought of this idea and is trying to minimize the idea that it will equip him with the result will equip him with a lot of leverage in conversations with other premiers or the federal government because he's good enough at math to know that it won't give him very much leverage. I think the turnout on average in at least the two biggest municipalities, Calgary and Edmonton, is in the 40% range. The second thing I think we know about referendums is that the no side wins more often than the yes side does. Now, I don't think that will necessarily be the case here, but if you look across so many

different jurisdictions and over a long period of time, it's easier for an idea to start with, to finish with 50% plus one, if it starts with something more like 65% plus one, because what happens over the course of a discussion is that people sort of say, well, that sounded like a good idea. But now I can think about some reasons why maybe it's not a good idea, maybe the status quo isn't so bad. And the last thing I would say on it is that the heart of the idea that he was campaigning on was kind of just, I want to tug on that thread of resentment, the idea that Quebecers in particular didn't want to go along with some of our pipeline ambitions and benefit, it seems to us, from this equalization formula. So let's make a vote on equalization, the political equivalent of forcing Quebec to accept our pipeline. Well, those days seem like ancient history to me right now. There's no real demand in the marketplace for that pipeline. And there's not

much conversation about it. And I don't think that Jason Kenney really wants to run the next election on pipeline access. If he did, I don't think it would work out very well for him. So I think he wants to diminish it. I think it's going to look like just another political miscue on his career scorecard where he overestimated the value proposition of rhetoric and trying to inflame rhetoric and found himself in a situation where governing is a lot harder than that. And people have different expectations than just kind of rallying resentment. Now, how about the daylight savings time? What do you think on that? I vote yes to scrapping it, but I don't have a vote in Alberta, and no one is putting that proposal to me.

I'm mindful, though, of schoolchildren waiting in the dark for school buses, which is one of the main reasons why there is some use to it. It gives them a bit more daylight. It used to be for people in agriculture, but if you don't live in a big city, I was reminded this week, spending my time not in Scotland, but outside of Montreal, that there are lots of kids standing in the dark on rural roads in Canada waiting for a school bus, and the more daylight you can give them, probably the better. On the other issue, equalization, which is not as sexy as daylight savings time, there are questions that will land on Justin Trudeau's desk if the vote is positive. Whether the participation is low or the question

is faulty, etc., it will still require some response from the federal government. I'm curious, for instance, if there was a narrow yes, 50% plus one, Bruce raised. Well, Justin Trudeau is the only federal leader on record to say that the clear majority, one that should trigger, for instance, a discussion on Quebec's secession, is not 50% plus one. So, does he look at this and say, well, equalization is not the same as breaking up the country? You said it was a fundamental part of the fabric of the federation. And I agree, it is a serious issue. We may not like to talk about equalization, but it is part of the glue that holds this federation together. And that ensures that if you live in New Brunswick, you get the same

basic level of public services as if you live in Alberta, a wealthy province that does not even require a sales tax, apparently, to finance all those services. So what does he do in the face of that? And be sure that Quebecers who never miss a beat on anything related to a plebiscite, a referendum in the Constitution will be watching really closely to see what the response is. I can give you a minute, Bruce, before we got to go. Well, I guess I think the other thing about these plebiscites is that, you know, most politicians who think they're a good idea and launch one end up wishing

they never had finding that they're a lot trickier and more complicated. And I definitely think that in this case, Chantal touched on what the basic idea is behind equalization, which is to make sure that people in Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick have similar health care and education services as people who live in other parts of the country. And I don't really feel like the majority of Albertans are against that idea. And so, you know, if there's an upside in this, it might be that Albertans express a point of view that says we're not those people who can be caricatured by politicians who, you know, want to make us seem like we're angry and resentful of how other people in other parts of the country are doing. And Chantel touched on the sales tax question in Alberta. And I think the studies have basically shown that Alberta has the potential to

raise the money that it needs to cover its costs. It doesn't use the same mechanisms as others. And maybe that's a thing that it should do. You know, you mentioned how some leaders can end up wishing they hadn't initiated something that they initiated in terms of plebiscites. And you're sitting in, you know, in a part of the world that has a prime example of that in the former British Prime Minister David Cameron, who decided to have a referendum on or a plebiscite on Brexit, convinced that he'd win, absolutely convinced that he could win. Well, that was a mistake. Brexit became Brexit as a result of the vote and david cameron was out of a job and has kind of disappeared from the scene occasionally pops up in some kind of scandal investigation but uh his prime ministership ended with the plebiscite that he probably wishes he'd never called

all right that wraps it up bruce has got a tee-off time in the next few minutes, and we wish him luck on that. Hit him straight, my friend. Thank you, sir. And Chantel, thanks for everything, as always. And we'll talk to you both next week. You can both say goodbye now. All right, take care. Okay, sir. Okay.

We'll be back in well on Monday