The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- How Do You Fact Check In The Era of Lies

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

We could be only months away from an election in Canada, so is there anything we need to learn from watching the debate over fact-checking in the US?

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, welcome to another Friday. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This is The Bridge. The Friday episode, of course, is Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert is here. Bruce Anderson is here. And we've got a few things to talk about, so let's get right at it. I'll tell you that one of the frequent questions I get, and especially it's been the case this year, for a lot of us who've watched the American debates and the presidential debates, the two of them, one with Biden and Trump and one with Harris and Trump, and then just the other night, the vice presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Waltz. The question is, how do you deal with this fact-checking issue?

And what I found interesting this year is the networks, all who've been kind of under the gun, the different host networks, about fact-checking because we're in an era where lying seems to be an acceptable part of politics. And they are trying different ways, but I'm not sure anybody's really grabbed hold of it yet and figured out the best way to do this. So why don't we have a little bat around on this one? And why, you know, Bruce, why don't you start? Yeah, I think that for organizations that are involved in organizing, putting debates together or news organizations and journalists who are involved in the production of them, this is a real Hobson's choice. If we go back in time and wonder, well, why didn't we need fact-checking 20 years ago, 25 years ago?

I think it was because the amount of lying was a lot smaller than it can be today. And not everybody lies equally today. So I want to make sure I'm going to get to that point. But I think it would have been the case, and I remember helping prepare leaders for debates roughly about that time ago, that you would never think about advising them or encouraging them or permitting them to the extent that you had the ability to shape what they did, to go into a debate preparing to lie, preparing to state mistruths. Because you would expect that after the debate, at least, if not during the debate, at the hands of your opponent, after the debate, everybody who is kind of observing and commenting on it and reporting on it would say, so-and-so lied, and that there would be political consequences to that. Well, if we look at the situation that we're in today,

in the U.S. elections anyway, in the U.S. debates, especially those involving Donald Trump, we saw in his first run that there was really no consequence for him when he said things that weren't true. It created this whole kind of mini industry associated with journalism, of fact-checking, of which Daniel Dale, a Canadian, is one of the kind of the leading experts. But it doesn't feel like it was an industry that we needed before. It does feel like we need it now, but nobody knows how to do it right. In the course of a debate,

if you've got moderators who are trying to jump in and stress test everything that a Donald Trump or a J.D. Vance in the case of the debate the other night has to say that might not be exactly accurate, it'll be like watching a sports match when the referees are calling non-stop penalties. The audience will be frustrated, the politicians will be frustrated. It really won't work. So I think they're trying to find a middle ground, something that encourages the politicians to know that if they do lie, there are going to be some consequence, either in the moment or after or some combination of both, but they won't just get away with it, in quotes. I don't think that

what they did the other night necessarily worked, but I do think that there does need to be fear of consequences on the part of politicians that helps reduce the amount of misrepresentation or lies that happens. I think it's risky for news organizations to put themselves in a position where they seem to be challenging one candidate more than the other, even if one candidate is lying more than the other, because then you have this whole phenomena of, pardon me, which we saw in the Trump debate, where he was saying, well, and the Republican line is it was three against one. It was the journalists and my opponent against me because they only fact-checked me. So I think it's an unfinished piece of business. I think it's important work around debates. I think we need more debates, not fewer debates, but it seems as though we haven't figured out how to limit the lying and how to limit the impact of the lying among the voters who hear the lies,

because that's why the lies are told, is that it sounds as though, it seems as though, a lot of people will believe what politicians say, even if they're constantly reminded that it's not altogether true. I think this is important for us as well, because, uh, you know, I'm not suggesting we have a Trump in our midst, uh, in terms of, uh, next year's election or earlier, if it's, if it's an earlier election. Um, but we do have a stretching of the truth that we haven't seen before. And it's, you know, it's not necessarily restricted to, to one party or another. There's become more of an acceptable part of politics because of this lack of consequence. More done anyway, and it seems to impact the polls less,

and sometimes it seems to impact the polls in favor of the people who tell the lies. Carbon tax, for me, is one of those situations. Anyway, I'm keen to hear what Chantal has to say. And she's keen to share it with us. I'm keen to not be enthusiastic. If there was less fact-checking back in the old days, it may well be that pre-internet,

it was a lot harder to check facts quickly and to arrive at the definitive answer. We may not have called it fact-checking, but it's not a new industry. We used to call it reality checks. And they've been around during election campaigns for decades. They don't happen on the podium of the debate for obvious reasons. Considering how hard the debates commission has been to come up with an English language debate formula that actually works well, I would suggest not to add a fact-checking mission to the people who will be on this

podium. It does show that people have been stretching the truth and possibly lying, but let's be real here. I covered an election campaign in 1997 where the Liberals went out of their way to put the Reform Party on trial for wanting a balanced federal budget. Oh, lo and behold, a couple of years later, with the Liberals re-elected, the books were balanced

and Canada was still standing on its feet and blood was not pouring in the streets. The same Liberal Party went after the Reform Party in 1997 and prior to that for wanting to put rules around Quebec's referendum bid. It's called the Clarity Act now. So the notion that people, that Jean Chrétien, when he was telling Preston Manning that he wanted

to rip apart Canada's social fabric by balancing the books when it was clear from projections inside the government that they would be balancing the books, sounds to me like a fairly significant distortion. I'm not even going to call it a lie. Bruce talks about the carbon tax. We've just watched how many weeks of debate where the Conservatives and the Liberals have both quoted the Parliamentary Budget Officer to make their case about the rebates that come with the carbon tax in the provinces where the federal carbon pricing system is in place. And both of them are finding fuel for their fire in those reports. So where I totally come on Bruce's side is I don't believe that you can actually do fact checking

in the middle of a debate without looking like you are trying to put your thumb on the balance of how the debate turns out. And I believe that is unwise because in an election campaign, as we all know, one person's lie is another person's truth. And it's very, unless you have a blatant lie, black on white, and I've seen a few of those, but not so much on the debate podium, by the way. It's really hard to call a lie when you then have to give a five-minute answer as to why you think it's a lie, which basically would take that debate off the rails. But then I'm not the person who was doing the debate thing you are. So I'm curious to see how you would call out someone who you think is lying and whether you would feel in the heat of action that you are on solid ground. Well, part of the reason I'm asking the question is because I'm not sure how I would deal with it. But I think it has become an increasing problem because blatant lies are in fact, what are being told, uh, especially now in the States. Uh,

and I have a, every reason to believe we'll see more of it happening on this side of the border too. Not, not just the leaders, but you know, in candidates and in individual writings. Um, and so it was interesting for me to watch how things have unfolded this year, and especially in this last one, the vice presidential debate, because at first CBS said, they were a host network, at first they said, we're not going to fact check at all.

We're going to leave it to the contestants to fact check each other. They will use their time to do it. So they got kind of bombed on this one by one of their former icons, Dan Rather, who wrote a substack on this saying they were, you know, losing their credibility in terms of ignoring their responsibility. So they came up with kind of a middle... Well, they came up with an interesting idea, which was put a QR code on the screen and that viewers could click on the QR code,

go to it, you know, with their phones, and they would be backed up by a team of 20 CBS journalists or something going through whatever was being said and whether it was accurate or not. But that didn't hold either. They ended up, the moderators, fact-checking the contestants. And it was bizarre in a way because you even had J.D. Vance at one point saying, you promised you would not fact-check. Which was like the strangest thing I think I've ever seen in a debate that somebody would say that. But they did.

So like of those three options, is there a clear one that's a winner that would help the situation? I don't think journalists can just sort of stand by and say, we're just going to let them say anything they want, whether it's true or not. Although we have. Although we have. And we have. You're right.

And that's why I'm saying I'm kind of searching for the answer myself. I mean, we're not all Daniel Dale, who seems to be able to come up with this stuff. Some of these things are not like the others. I think it's important to say that, right? I mean, I take Chantal's point that there was always some form of stress testing the honesty of politicians, and it was in different form than it is now. But I think there's a qualitative and quantitative difference over time. And I think the main protagonist of that change has been Donald Trump. And I think more of it has happened on the conspiracy theory, mostly right side of the spectrum than not. And, you know, I know that people will say, well, you know, there's a lot on the left too. There's some, but I think there's

been more on the right. I think that Donald Trump created a version of doing politics where, you know, he even kind of said the quiet part out loud that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his followers wouldn't be troubled by it. And what he was really saying is he can say anything he wants and people who want to support him will be inclined to believe it. So he has kind of raised, I don't want to say raised the bar, he's almost created a new category of how to do politics in an era where there aren't the same kind of media institutions that people turn to, to modulate the content that they see, whether it's done in print after the fact, or, you know, live in debates or in news broadcasts or what have you. So I think that is different and it has incentivized other politicians to kind of follow suit.

I think the other way in which I think there are some things are different than others is that if you say climate change is a hoax, which essentially Donald Trump has said, and we see, you know, a guy who's running for the premier of British Columbia to be saying similar things. For a lot of people, myself included, that's a lie. But other people will say, well, it's not a lie, it's debatable. And I get that. And I understand that there's no easy answer to that. But if you're in the news business and you believe that the body, overwhelming body of evidence and expertise says that climate change is happening and humans are causing it, then you should feel some obligation to push back rather than just give a platform to somebody saying it's not true, it's not happening. We saw on the vaccines similar kinds of things.

We see things that Donald Trump says about immigrant minorities that are intentionally designed to provoke division in society, hatred in society. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats, those kinds of things. They're not true. And so I do think there does need to be some pushback on them. Otherwise, you're just platforming those statements. But again, if only one side seems to be doing it all the time and journalists end up looking like they're only calling out one side, then that has its own political consequence, which is kind of unhelpful and unpleasant for everybody. But I don't know that the alternative is just to say, well, we can't figure out a good way to do it.

So let's let these people say these things, even if we know they're not true. And they're causing generations of people to kind of consume political ideas that don't have much basis, in fact, or are directly contrary to the facts available for everybody to consume. I like your idea of cue cards at the bottom of the screen and fact-checking taking place in the back room and not amongst journalists who are trying to figure out what their follow-up question should be and who is going to intervene. The examples that Bruce gives are real examples in the US, but when you think about vaccines, climate change, and eating dogs and cats, you would think that it would be up to the other

leaders to also push back and not wait for some journalism exercise to push back. I've seen no evidence that we will have someone on the debate podium next time that will be arguing vaccine climate change is a hoax or eating cats and dogs. I've seen no evidence of that in the mainstream political arena. I understand the influence of what's happening in the US to what we want to do about debates in this country. But I watched the last two election debates with Erin O'Toole and Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer and Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh. The conservatives mostly have been changing leaders over that period. The other party's leadership has been stable. And I have not noticed that people got away with terribly huge lies. I will suggest or submit that all this mail you're getting is totally driven by the notion

that Pierre Poilievre will do all this misdirecting and untruths, because otherwise we have not had debates in this country where someone has been arguing something that is as patently false as climate change as a hoax, nor will we in the next election, or trying to drive a wedge in immigration, which has not been happening at the federal level from any leader. So there is a point where it becomes a matter of opinion. You can argue that the carbon tax is the best mechanism to act on climate change, the most effective and the least costly, and that people are getting a lot of money back. But you can also argue that there are other ways to do this that may be more efficient and that may drive support for climate change policies from the public in a more effective

way. And you are totally in a gray area to make a demonstration that no, no, no, carbon pricing is the best way to go. I agree with that. And that's why I'm saying I think some things are different than others in this. And, you know, the argument that it's a hoax is different from the argument that I don't like the carbon tax. The other thing that we've seen in the United States, which has sort of really kind of raised the temperature on this, is this question of what happened in the last election and the refusal of J.D. Vance to say the other side won. He was caught yesterday, I think, saying, no, Trump won. And it didn't seem to me plausible a few years ago that you could convince a large number of people that the election result that happened

actually didn't happen. And I was wrong. Apparently, you can convince a lot of people of that. There's a remarkable number of people. It's not 50% of the population, but it's not two, who become persuaded by these lies that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And so for me, that is one of those things that's kind of in the category of if you don't call that out all the time, every time, then you're platforming stuff that is destructive to the health of your democracy. And Chantal, I completely agree with the point that you're making about it. There's no evidence that that's the level of which we have a problem in Canada. I think most of these issues that come up and look sort of like that in Canada are largely debatable points.

So I'm not suggesting that we're in that same situation, but I think that we always need to be aware of the fact that there's a slippery slope. And it only took Donald Trump, I think, in the United States to turn it from something that was unpleasant to see in politics to something that was shocking in the scale and the impact of it. And so far, 80% of Canadians really want Donald Trump to lose the election. So it's not as if there is widespread admiration for what's happening. Just to highlight the differences, even when the Conservatives were pushing really hard on the foreign interference issue and its role in the last election, no one on the conservative benches claimed that Justin

Trudeau had stolen the result of the election or that the outcome would have been different. That is what happened in this country, that the party that came second and that I think had a case to make about being targeted by Chinese foreign interference did make that case very forcefully, but never ever suggested that it should be sitting on the government side and would be if not for that. Yeah. In fact, they said the opposite, right? Yes.

Not just suggesting, they said... opposite right? not just suggesting and made it clear from the start they never veered from that which I think is a sign of political health that we should and Bruce is right we should protect and cherish I think we all agree on that

let me just make a couple last points before we move on we all understand as Bruce pointed out and Chantel pointed out, this is kind of a Trump thing. It started in 2016 and then, you know, they elevated it again in 2020 and still does. But I, you know, my feeling in watching the American situation is that we're past Trump on this now because it has

infected other elements of the American political system and the candidacy of a lot of different Republicans, especially, but not solely, but Republicans. And to the point where, you know, the politics of the lie has become an art form. Because it's been successful for Trump. He tells a lie. And before you can knock it down, he tells another lie. And so the focus moves on and it just keeps going. And then people sort of say, well, he's just lying, you know.

And so it sort of sits there. So he's proven a point that goes beyond just him in the American system. And I hope, as we all hope, that Chantel's right when she talks about, hey, you know, this hasn't happened here, this hasn't happened here, so on and so on. We have had problems, as Chantel acknowledges, in trying to figure out the best debate you know formula how to do them in canada the english language ones especially um and i'm sure that will carry on again into next year as well uh and and because tension levels are so high in the Canadian political system right now,

it does leave the potential of a breeding ground for this kind of back and forth. Now, just as a final point on the other side of this, on Tuesday's debate, most of the press about that Tuesday debate, the Vance-Waltz debate, is that it was pretty polite. You know, and there was an actual exchange of policy ideas. And, you know, it was the kind of debate that, you know, so many of us have said, this is what we want to have. This is, you know, like a real exchange of ideas. Well, here's what's interesting about that debate lowest television audience in years that's like hockey fights that's what cherry used to say right they get a fight in a hockey game and

who's standing up cheering the crowd they're not walking out disgusted with what happens so i don't know how you know that plays out on the debate forum. Anyway, we're going to move on, but I'm glad we had that discussion. Not that we resolved anything, but we at least had the discussion. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back with our next topic. Back right after this and welcome back you're listening to uh the bridge the friday episode good talk with sean telly bear and bruce anderson i'm peter mansbridge you're listening on sirius xm channel 167 Canada Talks.

We're on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Some people who watch the YouTube channel don't realize that in fact, the bridge is there every day, every weekday. Various topics. Friday, of course, is the

big draw. Biggest audience and I think that's credit to both Shantelle Friday, of course, is the big draw, biggest audience. And I think that's a credit to both Chantel and Bruce for getting us invigorated on various topics, political in terms of the country. So let's move on to our second one. We've talked about this the last couple of weeks, the BELT-Québec was dominance in terms of our situation on confidence votes. They've had their, they only get one in this period of this session, they've had it.

But they could be instrumental because the Conservatives still have, I think, two more. Maybe three. Three? Two or three. Three? Two or three. Okay. And the NDP haven't used theirs yet, have they? They have one.

They have one. At some point. So there are more to come, and the bloc is suggesting through its leader that circle the date October 29th, because this government will be history by then if they don't deliver on what the bloc wants. And every indication is they're not going to get

delivered in 100% anyway of what the bloc says it wants. So what are we saying here? Are we saying election end of the month? Or is all this just the same old he bluffs, she bluffs, everyone bluffs? October 29th is very close to Halloween, but there is no evidence that the government will turn into a pumpkin on the day of October 29th because the Bloc Québécois says so. There are not that many days of sitting left until October 29,

because after next week, there is a one-week break for Thanksgiving. So that basically leaves with maybe a dozen days at most before you get to it. And the Bloc Québécois might say that, but again, another reminder that neither the Bloc nor the NDP hold exclusive balance of power status in this House of Commons. So where are we at? It was an interesting vote that took place this week.

The Bloc put a motion that asked for the government to recommend the private members bill that would see the old age security payments for people from 65 to 74 increased by 10%, which would put them on par with people 75 and over, who the government moved to increase by arguing that if you're 75 and inflation hits the way it's hit, your savings are probably a lot more depleted than if you're 65 and going into retirement. The vote was interesting because every single party in the House of Commons, except for the Liberals, voted for this motion, including the Green Party and the independents, including newly independent former minister Pablo Rodriguez, who is going to be running for the Quebec Liberal leadership. But the most interesting vote was that of the Conservatives because in clear, Mr. Poilier and his party are signaling

that they would be okay with spending $3 billion a year to make this change happen. Now, $3 billion sounds like a lot of money for a government that would be incoming with the notion of rebalancing the books. So their support for the bill opens up a whole lot of questions, as in, where would you find the money? Where you say you would cut $1 for every dollar of new spending. This is recurrent new spending, a structural spending, not a one-off. So that was the interesting part. The government voted against it, which basically says it should be dead on arrival because the

government has to decide to give that royal recommendation. And it does not have to bow to the majority in the House of Commons that told it to do so. But the argument the government used, there were two arguments, there are a lot of partisanship, but two core arguments. One, this change is not targeted enough to the most needy seniors. There are seniors between 65 and 74 who could use more money, but there are many in that large category that the blocks change covered that don't actually need it or do not need it enough for that money to be taken there rather than spent somewhere else. And the other argument was procedural.

We should not set the precedent that we allow private members' bills to create significant new spending for the government by giving it a royal recommendation. So where do you go from those two government arguments? One, a hint that come the fiscal update that will come later this fall, there might be something more targeted to seniors who need more money. It would not be the black bill. It might not come on before October 29th. But if it did come in the fiscal update, you need to ask yourself whether the NDP could not find it,

and it's hard to support it because it would achieve the most basic purpose of what the NDP supported this week. And by arguing procedure, the government has left the door open to making its own move on that score. So do I believe that Mr. Blanchet, who has now lost the initiative to move a non-confidence motion because he does not have another opposition day to use to do so, will by October 29th have manufactured a great alliance with the CPC and the NDP to bring down the government. I have my doubts.

Do I think we will not have an election this fall? I'm not sure. I mean, this is a very fluid situation. But I did hear something in one of Mr. Blanchet's interviews on the French side. At some point, he said he talked about moving before it is too late and Christmas gets in the way. As we know, Christmas does not get in the way, really. So he seems to be suggesting there is a point where he'd rather stand down than have a campaign that stretches over into January. Maybe he didn't mean it and said it on the spur of the moment. So don't set your clocks on October 29th necessarily for the election to begin. Necessarily. Well, I mean, I am not in the head of the NDP and a strategist,

but I do not believe that they want to go to a campaign just because the bloc and the conservatives want to. I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Well, it certainly is for them, given a lot of different factors. Bruce, where are you on this? Yeah, I certainly agree that it's a fluid situation. And it's unclear from one week to the next how much the NDP might or might not be willing to roll the proverbial dice and see themselves in an election. I don't think that any party really wants to have an election right now, except the Conservative Party will take an election anytime that they can get it in the current political context. And so I think it's

still on balance, more likely than not, that there won't be an election. And maybe, you know, Chantal's scenario number four from last week will be the one that becomes operational or the Liberals will continue to kind of push through the fall season and see if they can rekindle some support on the other side of New Year's. What happened this week is clearly a reminder of the fact that the liberals, after the NDP ended the supply and confidence arrangement, find themselves in a situation where they can be pushed around in terms of the discussion of the day, the ideas that can be left is that they are under pressure to react to other parties rather than setting the agenda for the country. And I think on this particular question, I've been hearing people be a little bit critical of how could the conservatives have supported this.

It doesn't seem to fit with the fiscal idea. And I think that's true. I think it was a, you know, it must have been a bit of a difficult decision for the conservatives. But do I think that they're going to pay much of a price for it? No, I don't. I think it'll kind of dissipate pretty quickly. And it probably have a few caucus members who feel as though they wish they didn't have, they hadn't had to vote that way. But I don't think that they're going to feel necessarily committed to, you know, if this idea comes up again, finding themselves in a situation where they push it over the finish line. Do I think the liberals were really against it? Probably not. But of course, if you're the liberals and you're going to find a reason to spend $3 billion a year to give more money to

seniors, the last thing you want to do is to make it look as though you were forced to do it by opposition parties. So this idea might come back in another form. Although I would say that I think the liberals have to be very cautious about spending money on more things, given the fiscal context. And also, there's been a part of this conversation on this particular spending initiative that has been unique to the times. And it's about young people saying, hang on just a second. We thought that we were the people who were seen in societies having the most trouble with affordability, whether it's housing or other aspects of the cost of living. And we thought that we were going to be the priority. Now, I'm exaggerating to make a point here, but

there is a question of intergenerational equity that has been part of the political conversation in the last year or two to a degree greater than it has been in the past. So all I'm really saying, I think, is I think the liberals will want to take care in terms of how they deal with this spending pressure relative to the declaration that they've made and the initiatives that they put on the table to signal an overriding preoccupation with easing the cost of living challenges for young people, because there's no question that they found themselves under real pressure from that younger age cohort, who in the past would not have normally been as willing to look at the Conservative Party, but have been hearing this version of

the Conservative Party say things that sound like they might have a lower cost of living. And I don't want to overstate that either. But I think that's got to be on the minds of the Liberals as they think about this spending matter going forward, too. You know, it's been interesting watching this past week develop, especially after listening last week to Chantal's, you know, it's been interesting watching this past week develop, especially after listening last week to Chantal's, you know, four options that Trudeau could have, five actually, but nevertheless, because a lot of people have been picked up on that conversation we had and their own theories about what it all means.

In terms of the way the week unfolded, the most interesting thing seems to be in terms of Trudeau is this, you know, he's really into podcast interviews these days. I mean, he seems to be doing those more than anything else. And the one that he did with a liberal MP, actually. Nader's conspiracy. Right. It's had a lot of attention because he seemed to be more forthcoming in that

than he's been in any interview that people can recall for, you know, as long as he's been the leader. You've both listened to it, I assume, certainly read about it. What's your one takeaway from that? I have one. Justin Trudeau, a person who has never lost a political fight in his life, which makes him totally different from Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper, who either lost elections or leadership campaigns, Brian Mulroney. running. I guess you guys have not always won at everything. You've lost stuff. I have not gotten jobs I applied for, etc. So I can't speak to that feeling that even when people think that you're

the underdog and you don't have a shot, you always come through. But it must do something to your psyche, your self-confidence. And it comes true in that podcast. Even with all the experience of having been in government, having lost battles in the House of Commons or elsewhere, having been reduced to a minority, being 20 points behind, he still goes back to 2015 and says, look, everybody said I didn't have a shot, and here I was prime minister. So that sense is really, really strong. There is no, when you listen and read the transcripts of this podcast, there is no sense of, you know, maybe I have used up this immense political capital that you bring to government. And that is normal. And that's a part of why. And I think, you know, Lucien Bouchard had this story when he was the leader of the Bloc Québécois,

and he left to become the premier in Quebec. And some of his MPs, as he was leaving, were saying, but, you know, once you become premier, you're going to have to make unpopular decisions. And that's going to take a toll. And you are sovereignty's main champion. So why wouldn't you stay here and, you know, above this dangerous fray? And his answer was that when his mother gave him a football uniform, she also told him that she did expect him to bring that uniform back dirty when he came back from playing. And she didn't want him to come home clean, which was a way to say, if you're doing this, you will take hits and that uniform will get dirty. But what you should say at the end of it was, I played hard and it was worth it. But you should recognize that you've had

your fight and that you lost something in the process, i.e. a brand new uniform. Justin Trudeau doesn't see as uniform as having been stripped, torn, muddied, as it should be for having been in office. He seems to think he can make it new again in time for the election. I found that troubling. I want to get Bruce's thoughts on this, but we'll take our final break. Let me get that out of the way way and then we'll come right back. And we're back for our final break on this week's Good Talk. I'm Peter Mansbridge with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. You know, I was thinking during that break of what Chantelle mentioned there, because I don't think I've ever thought of it that way in the sense that

compared with all the former prime ministers, I think going right back to Louis Saint Laurent, they all lost at one point something. You know, even his father lost, you know, to Joe Clark in 1979. And he'd won three elections in a row, bang, lost his fourth. And so here's Justin Trudeau having won three and seemingly heading towards his fourth election.

And how he does in that will, you know, obviously we'll end up seeing. But that certain mindset that that uh appears to have developed in him because he's never lost he's never lost anything in politics nothing bruce well i think this is a good format for him i think he does a good job when he's having a conversation with someone better in the sense that his thoughts are better expressed. He's lucid. He's conversationally accessible for most people. It doesn't sound like government speak. Obviously, that was the case

with a member of his own caucus, but it just seems like a more comfortable way for him to get his thoughts across rather than in a scrum or in a formal setting or even in a more formal interview with a journalist. So I think it's a good idea for them to see him as someone who's quite knowledgeable about the issues, who's got smart things to say, who kind of knows more than you might think that he knows about everything that's going on in the world and the way in which things are happening for Canadians too. Having said that, I do think that I'm with Chantal on a couple of points here. One is that if you're 20 points behind, which I believe he is consistently in the polls, I don't question that size of that gap. I think that's what it is.

Then I think part of what that polling data is telling you, that people would like to hear you say something that sounds like you hear them, that you're aware of their frustration and that you don't just brush it off as being part of what comes with the territory. You may be acknowledged with some humility that you need to do more to earn their votes. And I think that Mr. Trudeau, you know, his default setting is, I think, one of pride in how he conducts himself and his political success. And that pride is his response sometimes to these awkward questions. And I can imagine it's quite a natural instinct. that pride in who he is and what he's accomplished and instead kind of increase the amount of, you know, a lot of things that we've done have worked out really well and we've helped people,

but other things we, you know, we struggle with, like every government has, and we need to do better. I think a little bit more of that will draw more people towards the Liberal Party and towards Justin Trudeau potentially. And the last point I would make is that I saw a little clip from this yesterday, I guess, where he was talking about what makes liberals excited is the future and the big ideas and that kind of thing. And it felt to me a bit like an unfinished thought. And maybe, you know, it's hard to finish the thought now, except he is in government. And if you want to win another election, I think you do need to finish that thought a little bit more.

I think you need to say, here are the three things that if you grant us another term in office, if you consider supporting us again, here are the things that we will do to try to make your life better in the future. I think that part of the pages is, is not really written by the liberals right now. And if he wants to battle his way through this, this period that he's in this trough, if that's what it is,

I think he's going to need to do more of that, more humility and a little bit more of here's what I do. And it's got to sound more like we need to earn your vote, not claim your vote. We're not going to get your vote unless we convince you that we're more worthy of your vote than you seem to feel right now. That's the reality. And I think that's the way to communicate into it. And I think he's capable of saying that, but I don't think it's necessarily the first instinct when he puts himself in in interview mode or in conversation mode either let me ask you as a kind of final question here um about the other guy

about polyev you know based on your experiences of uh you know watching other politicians over the years as chantelle and bruce uh aiding someiding some, both on the liberal side and the conservative side at different times. How hard is it right now to beat Pierre Polyev? I mean, he's on the other side of that 20-point gap, and it has been for most of the past year. Problem is, there's no election tomorrow, and likely not on the 29th of October.

Are we going to fall into a campaign? It's possible, but it seems to be unlikely. It could be as long as another year. How hard is it to be in that position? You know, one would assume that, oh, that's great. What a great place to be. But is it also difficult? Who wants to go after that? No, it's great, what a great place to be. But is it also difficult? Who wants to go after that?

No, it's not particularly difficult. I think that, you know, I say that because I think that it gives him the luxury of, I mean, right now he is not being stress tested. And that is, you know, that could change if he faces different competition or if for some other combination of reasons, the polls narrow. Then I think that that stress testing of him becomes more of a thing. And people get a chance to say, is this really the guy that we want? But it's not happening now. And I don't see it happening in the near term.

So it also is easier for him from the standpoint of internal party unity. The Conservative Party always has had, other parties have too, but the Conservative Party's had its share of troubles staying unified. But at 40% in the polls, it tends not to have very much trouble staying unified. And so that doesn't need to be part of his daily set of preoccupations, the troubles that sit on the top of his pile of to-do items every day. Nor does he have a problem of how do I find candidates and how do I raise money? So all of those things that otherwise might be troubling and preoccupying, I don't think are big problems for him right now. And he therefore has time on his hands to improve the things where he needs to improve or where he might want to improve.

Whether he's doing that or not, I think people will debate. But I guess what I'm saying is that being that far ahead at this juncture in this particular context is giving him no need to do some of the hard, ugly work that sometimes exists for an opposition leader and more time to focus on the areas where he can improve his political skills and his policy chops too. I agree that for an opposition leader in the lead up to an election, one of the main jobs that can be really difficult is caucus management. Remember Jean Chrétien and the nervous Nellies after Kim Campbell took off in the summer of

1993. He doesn't have to worry about that. When you watch question period, what you are seeing are caucus members auditioning for cabinet roles in front of the leader. And no one wants to get on the wrong side of the leader because they all know that there will only be so many cabinet spots and everyone in that caucus wants one. So there is very little freelancing, which isn't always the case when you lead the official opposition. I think that Pierre Poilievre's biggest challenge is not going to come until the campaign starts. We have seen really large swings in voting intentions over the course of election campaigns.

It may sound short, but I think experience tells Pierre Poilievre and others that no election is a cakewalk. And Canadians in the past, even as they've wanted change, have tended to like the underdog. They like the story of someone who starts poor and ends up winning. And that is how Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau won. They came from behind. It was one of those stories. Mr. Poiliev starts very high, and it's going to be more difficult to find the right tone over the campaign than it will be until the campaign. I don't really see that people are going to come to wildly different opinions of Pierre Poil platform, see where the kings are, ironing them out, while no one is really looking at that because they're all busy looking at the train crash across the aisle in the House of Commons. I'm glad you reminded us of the Kretchen Nervous Nellies comment because he played that card quite a few times, not only when he was in opposition, but when he was prime minister at different times when it looked like they were in trouble,

he played the Nervous Nellies card. Okay, great conversation, as always, with Chantal and Bruce. We thank you both. I look forward to you being back next Friday. Reminder that The Buzz is out tomorrow morning, 7.30 a.m. or 7 o'clock a.m. in your mailbox. You've got to subscribe. You can do that at nationalnewswatch.com slash newsletter.

All you need to do is add your email. There's no cost. And my sort of look at some of the big stories of the week. You can also access our YouTube channel version of this discussion if you're not already watching it. So that's it. Back on Monday with the bridge, Janice Stein, of course, on Mondays. My gosh, still so much to talk about on that issue in the Middle East and on Russia-Ukraine.

But for now, that's it for this day's Good Talk. Once again, thanks to Bruce and Chantel, and we'll talk to everybody on this program seven days from now. Good to see you guys. Have a good weekend. Good to see you.