The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Guess Who's Back and Who's Welcoming Them?

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

The convoy organizers are back in Ottawa town, and one in five Conservative MP's were there to greet them.  What does that mean and how does that play out this summer?  Chantal and Bruce are all in for that discussion, plus chatter as Michelle Rempel Garner makes her decision, and the Liberals summer mess continues. 

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Chantelle is in Montreal, and Chantelle Hebert, of course. And Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. Good to have you with us. This is our last one before this kind of summer break, although we will be on a couple of times during the summer, and I'll tell you when those are a little later.

But let's get at it today. Last week on Good Talk, we really gave the Liberals a thumping for the kind of out-of-gas image they have right now heading into this summer, and it didn't get any better for them this week, and we will get to them. But I want to start with something that I've got to say I found more than a little bit peculiar. The year started, the calendar year started, in the first couple of months with the big protests, the convoy, the freedom, this, that, or the other, whatever you want to call it, that took place in Ottawa. That created its own problems

and the government stepped in, used its emergency act to get it all over and that created a controversy. At the time, there were a number of conservative MPs who kind of embraced the convoy organizers. Well, this week as the convoy organizers say they're coming back to Ottawa, they're going to be around all summer starting on Canada Day, they've been embraced again by a number of Conservatives. Not all of them, but a quarter of the caucus turned out for a meeting on Parliament Hill with some of the convoy leaders and I'm not sure how it broke down some of them ended up leaving before the meeting was over but

there was still a significant number there about a quarter of the caucus so what should we take from that? What should we read from that? Or should we be careful about reading too much into that? Chantal. That the conservative caucus is disunited on this issue. About, you're right, 20 to 25% of MPs attended. But when you look at the list, and not all of them stayed, You're right, 20 to 25% of MPs attended. But when you look at the list, and not all of them stayed, by the way. There wasn't a directive given by the leadership to go or not to attend, but no MP from any other party showed up.

And at least one leadership candidate, Lesley Lewis, was there the entire time. There wasn't a single Quebec MP, which reflects a fracture within the caucus between Quebec and some of the MPs who support these kinds of movements. A lot of the stuff that was said there, and that's why some Tory, some conservative MPs did walk out, was straight out of the Trump book and actually delivered by someone who used to be close to Donald Trump. So on where the party, and this is an issue eventually where the conservatives will not be able to have their cake and eat it too.

They will have at some point to decide whether they want to side with people who are openly saying that the Canadian democratic system is not working, that the government that is elected actually stole the election. All these things were said. Or whether they want to operate within the system that they have operated in for over 100 years. And that question is not resolved, will not be resolved until they have a leader. And at that point, that leader is going to have to decide whether he wants to go down that rabbit hole or try to stay where everyone else seems to be comfortable. But basically, let's agree that this convoy

take two would not have taken place inside Parliament had a Conservative MP not organized it because you need an MP to get you access to rooms in Parliament. We should make mention, you said Laszlolyn Lewis was the only leadership candidate there. And just to re-emphasize that, Pierre Palliev, who said a lot of nice things about the convoy organizers, was not there. Now, whether he was out of the city, out of town, or just thought better of being at the meeting, whatever the case, he wasn't there. I'm still a little puzzled as to what those who were there are trying to do. Are they trying to embrace the convoy movement, the protesters, or are they just trying to look like they're open to listening to all points of view

on whether it's vaccines or mandates or whatever it may be? What is your sense, Bruce, and what, because you do public opinion research, what is the public's mood on the convoy organizers and their apparent desire to keep it going? Well, it's kind of a sideshow. I mean, let me start by saying I think that, you know, I've known a lot of MPs, as you both have over the years, know a lot of them now. And they all generally like people, they like meeting people. But they're all pretty good at saying no to meetings if they don't want to go. They know how to do that, because they do that a lot. They have to do that a lot. So it wasn't just the fact that this meeting invitation was extended to these MPs that made them go, well, I guess we better go because we've been invited. They made a decision to go.

And from my standpoint, it's a bizarre political calculation for them to make. It is the kind of political calculation you make if you are either kind of indifferent to your personal electoral circumstances. In other words, you think you will win no matter what. Or you think your biggest risk is losing votes to the People's Party, who typically, you know, the People's Party voters are people who really believe that freedom is the crushing issue of the day that needs to be litigated in Canadian politics. But the real opportunity for the Conservatives right now, and I would have thought that the

leadership could have sent a signal, maybe not saying you can't go to this meeting, but really think hard about what signal it sends. The real opportunity for the Conservatives is to pull votes from the Liberals. I think the Liberals pull votes from the liberals. I think the liberals are extremely vulnerable right now. I think that they look as though they don't have a clear path in terms of the policies that they want to pursue. The economy is a struggle for many people every day from a cost of living standpoint. Yet the liberals seem stuck in this kind of, let's talk about our utopian vision of the world and how we're going to fit in it. It doesn't sound very practical.

And we live in a time when people want practical. They don't want kind of formalistic statements of kind of high-mindedness from government. They want practical solutions, or at least practical talk, straight talk, if you like. So I think that liberals are very vulnerable and the conservatives would be much better advised to just be focusing on reaching out to those soft or disaffected liberal voters and trying to pull them on side with policy ideas that make sense. But the last thing I'll say is talking about freedom and trying to pretend to people who don't believe that freedom is a problem in this country, trying to pretend to them and

convince them that freedom is the thing that they need to be concerned. It's not going to work. It just won't work. You can't convince people that all these people who came from wherever they came from in Canada to participate in this meeting did it without any barriers to their freedom. They met with a bunch of MPs on Parliament Hill. They expressed their point of view. It was picked up by the media. Where is the freedom barrier? If they want to talk about vaccine mandates and vaccine or COVID-related policies, most of those are gone.

So it's a rearview mirror, crazy political calculation for a party that is at a point in time where it needs to be making smarter and better choices about its competitive situation. I have no doubt that in the list of MPs that did attend. Some just went to see and inform themselves and see firsthand where this discourse had moved. There could have been a possibility that it would have moved towards a more consensual place on the Canadian landscape. That was not the case. I also have zero doubts that among the MPs that did attend, there are those who share and have always shared the views of the convoy on vaccines and on mandates. And that Aaron O'Toole, let's not forget, could not come to a firm position on the occupation of Parliament Hill because he was being pulled in two directions.

So, I don't expect an interim leader to have been able to tell caucus, please stay away from this meeting or do not partake in what has been happening there. The fact is that if I don't know the number, because it keeps coming back, but Bruce probably has it at the tip of his fingers of conservative voters who believe suggest that some members of the conservative caucus share that persuasion and believe that Trump should have been reelected and was reelected, and that the system is rigged against them, but that they should be in government. And that is something that the next leader will have to deal with, because it's toxic to members of that caucus. It's not a disagreement over abortion rights that the party has long dealt with or the death penalty. It is an appeal to a kind of politics that I agree with Bruce cannot help the conservatives form a workable federal government. And it's playing also into a sandbox. It's decided to be in a sandbox that might feel

like it has some short-term promise, but in the end is going to doom everybody in politics. And this has got to do with this misinformation and conspiracy theory poison that has been kind of creeping into our democracy. We put out some more information on that this week. And I think one of the most interesting things for me is that people who believe one of these conspiracy theories generally believe more than one. It's not as though they consumed a bunch of information that said, you know what, the moon landing didn't really happen, but they go, I don't believe there's a problem with COVID vaccines. They start with, typically, it looks like secret societies control the world. And if they believe that, they also believe the royals killed Diana and the moon landing was a hoax. They're much more likely to believe those kinds of things. And the point that I'm making

is that reasonable people in politics of whatever part of the spectrum really need to confront, not nurture, this mistrust of basic facts, because it will come back to bite us all one way or another at some point. And politicians who know that people are trafficking in things that are completely bizarre and untethered to reality, know that one of the consequences of that might be when we need people to pull together, it might not be as possible as it has been in the past. And so we've got some responsibilities, all of us on that front, I think. You know, you always tell when Bruce gets worked up,

because you hear him starting to pound the table when he's talking. Yeah, it wasn't me. Yeah, no, I'm just drawing flowers here on my notebook yeah let me just ask one more question on this because i i you know chantelle quite rightly pointed out there were you know roughly a quarter of those uh mps were at this meeting and you know some of them left, exactly how many we don't know. But within that caucus, not necessarily within the party, but within the caucus, is there an open division between these kind of two sides of conservative reality? I mean, is there a voice on the other side saying,

this is crazy, like why are we going down this road? We have every reason to believe things are working in our favor and all this does is make people think twice about us is there is there anybody saying that i mean i know is saying that he's not in there he's not in who in the caucus, who talks like this? More than a few. I'd say the majority of MPs are actually saying that. And they sit and listen to stuff like this or watch yesterday's news conference in their office and go. The Conservatives have up to a point won the vaccine mandate debate over the past month in the sense that they made a case that many Canadians who supported vaccine mandates agreed with, that the federal government was

asleep at the switch and maintaining these mandates against reason and logic, and that they should be lifted. And by pursuing that argument on the basis just of what came across as common sense, they actually scored points. Instead of losing points on vaccine mandates, the liberals lost points and eventually caved to a degree and looked foolish for having said, this is impossible. And a week and a half later, doing exactly what they'd said shouldn't be done, suddenly science had come to them in the shape of a major turnaround on what they had actually been saying. But these scenes yesterday, there is not a conservative MP who wasn't there or even amongst the half of them who walked out who doesn't know that it defeats the purpose. It's like shooting yourself in the foot, having won a race, and then you say, I ran so well, I'm going to see if I can take out a toe or two and still run just as well. I do hear it in

conversations, not just from people who say, well, if Pierre Poiliev wins, this is what we're going to become, because a lot of them are still thinking that they want to stay in the party with Pierre Poiliev. And they still believe that they can make the party an interesting alternative to up on Aaron O'Toole because he didn't seem to be able to take on that side of that fringe in the caucus. And they believed he was damaged goods and would not be able to survive and lead them to victory. So it was a surgical decision on the part of many of them to say, we can't continue with their own tool. I think one of the things about what Chantal is saying that I couldn't agree with more is that there is an idea inside the Republican Party in the States, and I think the Conservative Party here, that if you don't talk about this schism, and if you try real hard to knit it together and find common ground,

that the schism will disappear over time. I don't believe that's true. And I think Aaron O'Toole found that out, that you can't straddle both these horses. You got to pick one horse. And it may look like a risky choice to make in the near term, but of the two horses, the one that's the conspiracy theory-fueled kind of anti-intellectual, anti-science, that's not ever going to win. And the longer that you give it any credibility, the harder it will be for a conservative party that wants to win on the centre and centre-right to succeed in Canada. I'm still puzzled. I agree with you both that there's definitely another side within the, and it may well be the majority side, but the fact that we don't actually hear them speaking out, we know they're speaking internally, but they're not speaking in such a way that the public can hear them.

So the public is getting this kind of one impression of, you know, to a degree of who the Conservative Party is. You know, Michelle Rempel's letter, maybe we're going to talk about it. Yeah, we are going to talk about it. It's kind of an interesting thing. Right. I mean, because she describes it as a kind of a human resources management challenge for a leader. But really, a lot of what's in her letter, and I hope people read it, is kind of an indication of some of these schisms and the tensions and how they manifest themselves inside the caucus conversations all right um you've given me two off ramps here we can either take the off ramp we're going to discuss both of these but we can either take the off ramp right now to the rempel letter that came down yesterday and her decision not to run for the alberta leadership or we can take the off ramp that goes back at the liberals for another seemingly disastrous week for them and it's

starting to show in the numbers um so pick a ramp which one would you like to go for first i think in logic the rample ramp okay makes sense because we've been talking about conservatives and her letter does talk about what conservatives do to each other. OK, then that's what we'll do. But we're not going to do it until after this quick pause. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Chantelle's in Montreal,

Bruce is in Ottawa. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. And you're listening either on Sirius XM Canada, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Michelle Rempel-Garner is no stranger to

the news in this country. She has been a dominant conservative federal MP for more than a few years now. She's fiery when fiery is needed. She's thoughtful when thoughtful is needed. She's had quite a reputation, and for the past three weeks, she's been pondering. I think it's the last two or three weeks anyway. Pondering running for the leadership, Lev Fakin by Jason Kenney in Alberta. She's decided against that. But it wasn't a simple get in front of a microphone and say,

well, you know what, I've decided against that. She's written a letter and as bruce said before the break you should read it no matter where your sympathies may lie politically you should read it because it's a great letter uh it really details uh her thinking what she's gone through over these past few weeks what she sees in terms of the situation in Canadian politics in general, but specifically how she sees things in the Conservative Party, both federally and provincially in Alberta. But it takes a name out of the play in Alberta. It also, at the same time, she'd already taken herself out of a major role for Patrick Brown in the federal leadership.

And so where this leaves Michelle Rempel-Garner, I'm not quite sure. But let's talk about the letter, because it touches on some of the things that we've already been discussing in terms of issues within conservative caucuses. So let's see who wants to start. Bruce, why don't you start this round? Well, I think the first thing that occurred to me when I read it is I love the way that it was written. It stands apart from a lot of the communication that politicians use, which is kind of stilted. This was not stilted. This was very well written, an easy read, a mixture of kind of argument and emotional kind of points that I think gave people who didn't maybe know very much

about Michelle Ramble-Garner a chance to kind of get inside her head and have what our old friend Alan Gregg used to call a glimpse into their soul. I think that she, there's a paragraph in there, in this letter, that I think is maybe the best written description of what conservatives at the federal level, and probably in Alberta, need to represent in terms of what will succeed for them. And here's what she said.

It's one paragraph. I believe a fiscally responsible, socially inclusive approach that asserts more strength against Ottawa, supports the energy sector, but is more aggressive about encouraging economic diversification and retaining skilled workers is the path we need to be on. We need political stability for investment to happen. We need to fight for the energy sector while not relying on oil booms to balance the budget and have a plan to make life more affordable. This is the, this is, anybody else saying those kinds of things within the conservative movement would have been judged to have been too soft in their enthusiasm for the oil sector.

There's qualifications to the points that she's making about the oil sector that I think are important ones to make. And I like the way that she talks about fiscally responsible, socially inclusive. The language of that paragraph says to me that if she had decided to run, I don't know how she would do in Alberta, but she'd be a pretty formidable candidate in the federal leadership race. But she has decided to do neither. Possibly because she, as far as I know, cannot do all of that in French. And it is still very useful for national leadership of a major party to be able to address voters in both official languages efficiently. That being said, her timing was impeccable, and she is a politician.

And why do I say that? Because it comes this letter and this decision just after a poll showed that if she were the leader of the United Conservative Party in Alberta, she would have a fighting chance to be the NDP in next year's election. She's not leaving at a moment in time when she would look like she was wasting her time. This was not a poll about voters of the Conservative Party and who they would want for leaders. And she does stress that she would come at it as an outsider. And that is one of the reasons why she's pulling out, which is probably wise because this is a party that is just disposed of an outsider. That being said, Earl Latter talks a lot about how conservatives deal with each other.

And what he writes there, you can put in federal conservatives or UCP, and it's one and the same dynamics. And reading it, I was reminded that the conservative movement in this country has a history of handing the liberals power. And it did so, gave Jean Chrétien three majority mandates and at some point all of Ontario but one seat, which speaks to a capacity to put your internal war on issues that are not make or break. This isn't sovereignty versus federalism, and even that is not much of a line anymore. But they do manage to do that to themselves. In reading it, I was reminded again that the two biggest casualties of the past year,

since this is our kind of end of season thing, have been conservative leaders. And that both of those main casualties were taken down by conservatives, not by liberals and not by new Democrats. One, a premier, Jason Kenney. The other, someone who had won the popular vote, Aaron O'Toole, and who in other parties might have warranted the second kick at the can. So, is there a unifying figure running for the federal leadership at this point that can bring all this together? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that this will not become a we're going to settle

scores internally the day after the leadership, no matter who wins, and set ourselves up for defeat at a time when victory is looked closer than it has in a decade. That's certainly what she's saying in the letter, is the internal dynamic is the reason that she didn't have a stomach for it. I don't know, maybe didn't have a stomach for it is the wrong way to put it, but understood what she would be in for and elected not to to do it. Well, you know, I find it a fascinating discussion to have to try to understand what happens to the Conservative Party, the federal Conservative Party, the day after this vote takes place in September, the decision is made. I mean, is there an all-out war? Is there a kind of civil war as one side decides going to, you know,

take out those who tried to prevent them from winning? I'm not sure how many of them are going to be left in the party anyway. You know, I don't see Jean Charest sticking around if he loses to Pierre Polyev. I don't see Pierre Polyev sticking around if he loses to Jean Charest. So I'm not sure that fight is out there, but the party could look very, very different than what it looks like collectively at the moment.

Yeah, look, I think, I don't know what Chantal thinks. I think if charrette wins it will be hard to hold that party together and if pauliev wins unless he gets a chance to run against a even more weakened liberal incumbent uh party um he's going to have trouble winning. If the liberals kind of find a way to refresh themselves between now and the next election, Pierre Poliev will have a hard time convincing people that the positions that he's taken are consistent with what they want to see running in the country. But that's a big if, and competition in politics is really what it's all about at the end of the day, and it's easy to sort of hypothesize

about somebody not having a chance. But not having a chance does depend to some degree on who you're running against and when. One thing – If they get their act together, it used to be, you know, small letters. Now it's capital letters, IF they get their act together. I think if the polls continue to turn in favor of the conservatives

and Poirier or Chagas wins, most MPs will be willing to see how far this gets them and whether they possibly set aside their dirty tricks and backstabbing habits long enough to see if there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There are some MPs who may find it difficult to stay, depending on the outcome. But I don't think that Jean Charest, if he loses and will not be running, that's obvious. I don't think he's going to be taking out 20% of the caucus. They won't leave with him.

They will wait and see. That is what usually happens. On the Poitiers side, this is a smart person. I don't believe that he's going to want to go and shoot down half the caucus just to say, I can do this. I don't see that happening. He knows the critical mass is actually not on the side of the French that he is bringing along. So it makes it easier to marginalize the French. His campaign manager does look like she enjoys doing that, though. Yes, that's probably not false. And we will see where that gets who. I'll take probably not false on a Friday. I'm always wary of people who look really aggressive and who play cutthroat politics,

that sometimes that cutthroat feature gets in the way of their intelligence, which is also real, but sometimes it doesn't. So I'm always inclined to take a deep breath and wait and see rather than pretend that I know the future. Let me get back to Michelle Rempel, because where does she now fit in this puzzle? Not only for this summer summer but for the future she comes back to the federal party that appears to be her plan uh where she had been a senior figure in the patrick brown campaign um she withdrew from that to ponder the leadership there's no evidence certainly in her letter which is lengthy and covers a lot of ground it does not suggest anywhere that she's going to go back to patrick brown um and it doesn't talk about what she wants to do in the future in the federal party under whomever i mean she she made an early decision not to support

polyev when it was the popular thing to be doing on the part of a lot of conservatives. She said no, she wasn't going there. So what happens to Michelle Rempel now? She's not going back. She's staying in federal politics. One. Two, she's not

going to be quitting on September 11th, regardless of the outcome, because why would you? And three, she speaks for a side of the party. I don't want Michael Chung to think that I'm saying that he, the Ontario MP who campaigned in a leadership campaign on climate change and lost decisively on carbon pricing, and is a very you're going to present the Canadians a team that will look like a cabinet in waiting, you cannot afford to lose. So I think she's part of the leadership team of whoever wins on September 10th. That's my take. Now, I watched the Paul Martin types drive Sheila Copps out of the party, which was one of the dumbest moves that I've ever watched.

You don't do that. And, you know, someone somewhere should have said, gee, guys, what in the world are we doing here? And no one apparently did. And I was there that night. I remember seeing it. So I know that, you know, leadership teams do stupid things. But it depends if you've

got your eye on the ball to becoming prime minister as those leadership contenders claim to have, then you can't afford to throw out solid material and stay with a shaft that you brought along. You know, I think that's objectively true. I think the emotional part of politics is what sometimes gets in the way of this. I agree with Chantal about the Martin Sheila Copps episode. or provincially in Alberta, ironically, also coincided with her becoming a more influential voice on what the future of the conservative movement should be about. And so I think that should lead to, let's say, Paulie Evwins, an embrace of her in a high-profile role. But my judgment of him is that he doesn't seem like that kind of person who talks a lot about the team around him, who profiles other MPs.

I think it was a problem for Aaron O'Toole as well, for that matter. And Aaron O'Toole taking Pierre Polyev out of the finance critic role and then having to put him back in was a pretty good example of how not to do that kind of thing. And I can't help but think back to the Brian Mulroney example. There was a way to conceal your visceral dislike or disagreement with others and kind of manage your professional responsibilities as a leader. And I don't see as much evidence that it's there. You know, maybe Chantal sees more than I do, but I think she should be an influential voice. And I just don't know whether or not that will continue if Pierre Polyev wins. You know, I'd forgotten until reminded by Chantal about the Sheila Copps, Paul Martin split there. And his attempt at a recovery by bringing Belinda Stronach out of the conservative benches into the liberal benches.

That worked out well, too. Isn't politics fun? Man, some of the stories that we've witnessed over these years, and we're witnessing them again now. Okay, we're going to go for that other exit ramp. We'll take a quick break and be right back. All right. Coming back for the final segment for the first half of this year of Good Talk.

Chantel and Bruce are with us from their normal locations in Montreal and in Ottawa. I'm in Toronto. I think I said I was in Stratford at the beginning of the show. I guess I just traveled the distance. I don't know. I can't remember. Whatever. We have brought our little traveling road show here to another look at the Liberals. Chantel and Rob Russo, who was filling in for you last week, Bruce, did a pretty good job of carving up the situation

that the Liberals find themselves in as the summer begins. And they were clearly listening and changed everything this week. It only got worse. And I'll be honest, Bruce, I don't think I've ever heard you talk the way you talked in the first segment about the situation that the Liberals find themselves in right now. And it's not just numbers that are getting you to say that. It's just your obvious observations of what's been going on.

So if you want to expand on that before we get into it, go for it. Well, look, I think that any government that's been in power for a reasonable length of time starts to run out of gas and energy, and it has only a few choices of what to do about that in order to find another gear again. And sometimes that's a change in leadership. Sometimes it's a kind of a shake up in just the humans that are kind of working day and night. And it doesn't necessarily mean that the people who've been working day and night are doing a poor job. It means that if they've been doing it for too long, it gets harder for them to to kind of look at what they're doing and say, what should we be doing differently?

That's just human nature. It happens in every organization, not politics, not only politics. I think that the second thing that's going on is that I think, and I mentioned this in another conversation we had about this, is that Trudeau was a leader who kind of came to power in a period of time when the kind of the utopian conversation about what we could all do together was a lot more in vogue than it is right now. And I don't say that happily. I kind of wish that we all could believe that we could teach the world to sing in perfect harmony now. But we're going through a period of time where a lot of things seem to be going wrong. And some of those things are kind of big, giant existential issues like climate change. And a lot of those things are, why can't I get a passport? Why don't

our airports work? Why is everything becoming so much more expensive? Can't government do anything to help solve any of those problems? And I don't think for a minute that those are unique to Canada, but it doesn't really matter because people here don't get to say, well, I want to punish Boris Johnson for the fact that's happening in the UK or Joe Biden for the fact that gas prices are so expensive in the United States as well. who they've got to send a signal to. And then they start thinking about that signal. And then the question is, what is the incumbent government going to do about it? What are they going to say about it? What actions can they take about it? Can they be agile? Can they compete politically? And I think the government has kind of struggled with these kind of long, overflowing mandate letters that describe in a minority government really kind of epic things that need to happen. And it sort of distracts the politicians from the fact that they need to live in the real and the here and the now, the practical issues that

people are talking about that maybe can't easily be solved, but certainly need to be in the conversation. And I think that you can see some signs of, but certainly need to be in the conversation. And I think that you can see some signs of the prime minister trying to talk about those things. But the weight of the mandate and the priorities and all of the announcements of government and just the structure of government communications gets in the way of having what sounds like a in the street conversation with regular people about the things that are keeping them up at night. So I think it's a very vulnerable period for the Liberals, and not because anybody's really looking at other parties and saying, I'm sure they could wave a wand and solve all of these problems. Quite the contrary. But if you've

got the job, it comes with a certain amount of this kind of scrutiny and unpleasant as it can seem. Chantal? Let's agree that this isn't a government that is so different from every other government. It wakes up in the morning trying to do its best and then it's tired and it doesn't do its best, and then it's tired, and it doesn't do its best. It spends an uncommon amount of time, at least as much as the previous government led by Stephen Harper, trying to game whatever it does for maximum points. That is what minority governments tend to do. But there is a point where your head is so into a game. My teenage kids, when they were teenagers, used to talk about friends who got lost in a game, meaning they got so engaged that they forgot to eat

and they would spend the night playing that game. There is a sense of that when you look at the liberal government at this point, that they're so busy playing little games, that they get caught in, by the way, that they lose sight of the big picture. They're not even looking at the big picture. I drove past today the passport office in downtown Montreal. Under any prime minister, it would be a shame to drive past a federal building

that looks like it has become a homeless camp with picnic tables and tents of people who are camping in the rain overnight, some with kids, to get a passport. One of the things that your federal government is supposed to be able to deliver to you. At that point, all nuances about the team doing its best and the government struggling with a big mandate, it falls by the wayside. And people say, I can't believe anyone could be worse than these people who cannot even equip themselves of basic fundamental delivery issues such as passports. Now think, this is a prime minister who in a few months is going to be sitting across from a re-elected Ontario premier, a possibly stronger and re-elected Quebec premier and others,

and who will be telling them that they need to fix the lineups and the wait times in the health care system. Oh, great. Take a few pictures of what I saw this morning and showcase it. Don't even go into the intricacies of running a health care system in a province. Just show the prime minister who tells you that and the health minister that comes with those ideas federally and who is giving you lessons. Really, you are going to give us delivery lessons. You know best.

This is what is happening on that front, but also the tangled explanation. The defense minister who announces billions of dollars for an initiative that is already in the budget but takes two days to have her office come up with what is actually involved in the spending, and the list goes on and on. It suggests that the federal government is not up to the task of fulfilling its own duties, let alone exercise leadership on the national stage. You know, we raised the question of what's... What do you think, Peter? Don't apply for a passport.

Yeah, I brought the passport thing up a month ago and said, this is going to be a problem, right? Yes. And then you brought it up as well, Chantelle, shortly thereafter after seeing it at the airport, I think, or hearing about it. And hearing it. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, listen listen i was the one who said last september let's go come on that he'd be gone within a year trudeau right at the end of the year your money is looking better than it was uh three months ago but still no but here's my question and not to uh not to go over past predictions or suggestions um is there any whispering going on we asked about it and earlier in this hour about what was going on inside the conservative party and the divisions are there divisions in the Liberal Party, in that caucus, in that cabinet? Is there whispering going on about saying, you know what, he should probably really think about moving on now?

I heard both. They recast your team. He has been with the same chief of staff since day one. That's uncommon. And when trouble comes, it tends to start by focusing on the chief of staff and the immediate palace guard. And at this point, it's happening big time. That's one. But I heard the other, because then when people talk to you, you kind of argue with them, you push back. So you say, well, I don't think this is desperate. They could recast, shape up. And I was amazed by how many said,

no, no, no, he's got to ship out. The reason why it's not going to boil over, that's my prediction, is because a lot of liberals believe that they at this point would be trading Trudeau for Freeland and they feel that they would go from damage to not necessarily different enough to bring the party back on track. Does he want to stay? I mean, part of this situation is always, does the person in that job want it? Do they still want it? Do they still want to do it? And, you know, he says he still wants to do it. Well, if you want to choose your own departure, you have to say you want to stay.

That's just kind of the basic reality of it, I think. And I don't think the answer is kind of knowable for him. I think that it's been such, I know Chantal says, That's true. That's true. in politics trying to figure out how to manage their way through the various crises that have emerged. I know Chantal also scolds me for pretending that there was some golden era, but it's not as fun to go into politics. I know a lot of people who feel that the psychic rewards that were really the reason to be involved have kind of evaporated. And that's true in almost, well, it's true in every party. So, you know, I don't really know. Look, I think that he's had good staff support for a number of years. So, you know, when people say it's time to change that up, it's not necessarily them saying that these people are not competent or gifted or skilled. It's more a question of if it feels as though it's a little bit

long in the tooth and it's not working to become its own opposition, which is really what the trick is for incumbent governments, then you have to look at all of the choices that can contribute to that revitalization. That's only rational, I think. But I also think that because of the alliance or the accord, I should say, with the NDP, there isn't the same sense of urgency. And I think the Liberal Party has seen itself in some difficulty from a polling standpoint in the past, and tends not to panic in the face of that. But it isn't as though there's an expectation that an election could happen at any time,

which would create a different kind of chemistry around this question, I think. Incumbents do not panic, they just wait to be dead. And look at Brian Mulroney's conservatives. They thought they'd found a magic bullet and Kim Campbell, yeah, right, two seats. Look at Stephen Harper. Do you really think he went in that election campaign just to see how badly he could lose to Justin Trudeau of all people? John Turner, his organizers were saying, we're going to run this as a Turner team. They're going to forget Pierre Trudeau. Yeah, right. I have never seen an incumbent government actually intellectualize the fact that the people across the aisle could be sitting in their seats in three or four months, even when the numbers are really bad. So that's not going to be happening. They're

going to find, you know, all kinds of silver linings, he's unelectable, the NDP is on side. That will not change reality. And the reality is that a lot of Canadians are starting to think the government is reaching its expiry date, which by the normal cycle, it is. I've got a minute and a half left. The NDP must be, and Jagmeet Singh must be wondering what the hell he got himself into, because he's got on one side a partner who looks like they're in serious trouble, and on the other side, a party that he's 100% opposed to, and they're 100% opposed to him, and they seem to be on the rise.

Any words of wisdom for the NDP in the minute we have left? I don't know if I would say that they're on the rise. I think the, you know, I do think that we see in large urban centers people voting for progressive politicians to run local issues. I think the question for the NDP at the national level, though, is a little bit more like the paradox that is befalling the Democratic Party south of the border, which is that if you believe that you have to champion the most progressive position on all of the issues that matter to progressive voters, you quickly find yourself in a situation in Canada where you can't possibly win an election. And so the trading range for the NDP might be 15% to 21%, but it never gets to a number much above that.

And I think Jagmeet Singh is enjoying right now a period where people aren't really scrutinizing what he's doing or what his party would stand for or how they would run if they were going to form a government. And for the NDP, that tends to be better than if people were really scrutinizing that. 30 seconds, Chantal. I think the NDP is probably the party that is going to have the most relaxing summer of all of the federal parties by far, and that they will get their heads around where this is going as the next budget comes around, because they're not going to be able to sustain their line about supporting the government just by saying there's money allocated to dental care. They're going to need, and we don't know what the situation on the economic front will be, but we don't expect it to be very rosy, and where the mood of the country will be at that point. Well, there you go. The last hour has given you all you need to know about where the direction is going for the uh the three

traditional federal parties in this country so there you go now i want to sell it almost a month from now on july 22nd in the middle of the summer we'll have our next good talk and at which point we'll all say everything we told you in june forget about it because things have changed and look what we're looking at now who knows, but we will be here June 22nd with Good Talk Chantel and Bruce, thank you both, have a great next month we'll talk to you then, I'm Peter Mansbridge in Toronto this has been The Bridge, Good Talk we'll see you in a few weeks.