The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Inflation versus Climate Change, Who Wins?

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Bruce is off for this week's Good Talk but Rob Russo fills in with Chantal.  Is there reason for optimism with progress on Truth and Reconciliation? And in a fight between climate change and inflation who wins? Plus the Quebec election is next week and so is the search for a new premier in Alberta.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Winnipeg today in the Manitoba capital for a number of events over the next couple of days. First one was last night, I'll tell you a little bit about it later on. Rob Russo is filling in for Bruce Anderson this week, and Rob is in Ottawa, and Chantal is at her usual post in Montreal. Okay, we have a number of events to talk about. I want to start with, you know, what is an important day on the calendar of events for Canada each year? It just started last year. It's the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Last year, let's face it, did not get off to a good start.

After his own government had proclaimed this as a national holiday, the Prime Minister chose to head to Tofino with his family and hit the beach. He got severely criticized for that from all sides, including his own. So here we are a year later with version two of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. And Rob, why don't you start us as the prime minister doing it a little differently this year? Yeah, he will be appearing everywhere all day on reconciliation, and he'll be doing it without a surfboard this time. He acknowledged that he made an error last year and he asked for a mulligan for a do-over and he's trying to do better. It'll be interesting. This is going to be an enduring

issue for him. He has lost some trust and some confidence, but not just because of what he did last year. I think everybody understands that reconciliation has no end date, but it does have a date where certain things should be done. And everybody, including Crown Indigenous Affairs Minister Mark Miller, says that they've made a stumbling beginning, a very slow beginning. Everybody acknowledges that this is a multi-generational effort. But if you look at the 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, only about a dozen have been enacted on in the six or seven years since the report was issued. And that's a pretty lousy score. And when you look at some of the basic things that they could have done, one of them is keeping score. They asked for an annual report to

Parliament so that people could keep track of whether or not the government was keeping faith with its promise to enact all of the 94 recommendations. And something like that hasn't happened. That being said, there's about 60 recommendations that are being acted on as we speak. It is a multi-generational effort. The problem with a very slow effort is people like residential school survivors, a lot of them are not going to see us make enough progress before they're gone. And that's a really sad thing to think about. Again, Mark Miller has acknowledged this. He's acknowledged that it'll be the next generation that really kind of benefits from this effort,

which leads to the other question, political question beyond will Justin Trudeau win redemption from Indigenous peoples is when Justin Trudeau leaves, is this going to be an effort that is going to be an enduring one? If his government is replaced by a Conservative government, what happens there? And there are a lot of questions about that. Not a lot of policy in the conservative leadership campaign. Very, very little policy about that. So there are enduring questions about how long this effort will be maintained. All right. Chantal. Yes, I think this is actually where the government would have you prefer to would prefer you to think of this as the real first truth and reconciliation day after a messed up one last year. And the good news is that by not having the prime minister surfing or whatever, there is not a distraction from the actual purpose of the day, which is what happened last year.

It wasn't just that the prime minister was surfing. It was that the controversy over the fact that he was off to Tofino surfing basically took over from whatever meaning that they could have. So today is off to a better start. Now, all that being said, and Rob is completely right about all that work in progress that seems to be going at a glacial pace, the channels of communication between this prime minister and this government and the indigenous communities, nations at large, because it's not an homogenous heterogeneous group of people are still more open and more active than under any previous prime minister. And Rob is quite right that the risk is that whatever work is in progress will slow down or come to a halt with a change in government. And that is probably something that the indigenous leadership looks at.

Now, about the pace, well, some of the issues, logistical or others, pertaining, for instance, to drinking water, have turned out to be a lot harder to solve than whatever political will was behind it. In some cases, because there is just not in isolated communities, the expertise to put up and maintain, and the emphasis is on maintain, infrastructures that actually deliver what they should deliver. And anyone who has lived in an isolated community, not just indigenous, knows about these issues, that sometimes things don't work because there's no one to make sure that they continue to work. The other issue that explains space is that the cultural change is a long process. And on this cultural change issue,

I mean cultural change within bureaucracies, including the civil service. It's one thing to say, we are going to have reconciliation. And that means we're going to be doing things differently. And to have that will seep down into the culture of bureaucracies to different issues, often enough, and that goes for provinces too, often enough, the federal government opens doors that indigenous communities then have to go to court in provinces to keep open or to pry open. And I would say that the political will for change is, you know, the geometry of it is not a straight line in every province and in every jurisdiction. And that does make a difference. Let me just say a couple of things about the, because you're hanging on on the maintenance issue.

I've been in to maintain a relationship with some of the people in the Neskintanga First Nation, which used to be called Lansdowne House way back in the past. And they haven't had clean water since the mid-'90s. You know, it's the one in Canada that's lasted the longest. And you look at it and you go, come on, this can't be possible. Well, when you go in there, they've got a plant that has millions of dollars have been spent on it, many millions of dollars.

And they're flying in maintenance crews all the time. It's never worked. And you look at it and you go, this doesn't make any sense at all. But part of it is this maintenance issue that Chantel raises. The other point I wanted to make, you know, earlier this week, I talked to Alicola Fontaine, the Indigenous President of the Canadian Medical Association about, you know, some of the CMA issues, but more broadly on the Indigenous issue. And I asked asked him because he's in so many different meetings with politicians or senior bureaucrats and asked him about can he sense change in that room when

he's in that room and he was very careful about the way he answered the question but he he basically basically says when change is happening you can sense it last night here in winnipeg uh i was part of a an evening honoring lloyd axworthy for his public service both in politics and and in academia and um i asked him that question as well in the kind of Q&A that was taking place as part of the evening. And I asked him about change and whether he could feel change, because this has been a big issue for him, Indigenous Affairs, throughout his career, especially so in the last 10 years through the university. And he was more positive, partly because I think he wants to be more positive and see some outcome to some of the work that's been done.

But he particularly pointed at young people on both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous side, that that's where change is happening. And you can feel it and you can see it. It's still in its infancy, but that it's happening. And that is reason to feel perhaps more confident about the future in terms of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. Any thought on that, Rob? Yeah, I look at my own kids or university age and their circle of friends. The number of them that want to get into this area of being there to help, to push, to nudge government, business into working with the fastest growing element of the population in Canada is remarkable.

They want to get into this. It'll be interesting to see if that enthusiasm is maintained, as Chantal says, once they become senior public servants or senior business people, because the government's goodwill is running in often to brick walls but i i am i'm surprised even among younger bureaucrats i'm seeing that as well that there there's a desire to get into this area it's a growth area uh and it's an area where there are opportunities there isn't a a resource business in canada that doesn't have a plan to make Indigenous people partners, or there's scores of bands across the North that are deciding that they're going to become the owners and the operators of companies as well. And that's attracting people into this field.

So there is some, I think, optimism about the future. I see it in my own kids, I see it in their circle, I see it in younger bureaucrats, as well. You know, there's also, I think, an optimism about something that's in the TRC. And that's the learning of languages, there's an explosion in interest in learning Indigenous languages again. And it's a wonderful thing to see people who never spoke that language, you know, Mohawk, for instance, on Akwesasne and other places, that language is coming back. People in their 20s and 30s who are having kids want to learn it so that they can speak it to their children. You're talking about indigenous.

That's right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we all know, having gone through the national unity wars, that language is culture, that it's fundamental to culture. And if those languages can thrive, the cultures can thrive as well. So there's lots of reason for optimism.

I've given the government a pretty bad score, a stumbling start, but there are optimistic things happening out there as well. All right, Chantal. I come from a different perspective in the sense that one of the side effects of the pandemic is that I've become someone who has gone back to her very first job in life, that is homework help for kids in elementary school. I've been doing this for nine, 10 months now. So I've run into how history is now taught, Canadian history, Quebec history in elementary schools.

And it has nothing to do with anything you guys were ever taught as far as history is concerned. But last year, I was treated to the moral indignation of a grade three kid about the way that indigenous people were treated by Les Premiers Colons and the church and whoever came and settled here. And I looked at that moral indignation and I thought, yeah, we are having a cultural change and it starts in school, regardless of what governments do or do not do. As you know, in Quebec, the Quebec government has issues with the word systemic racism when it comes to indigenous people, and there's quite a battle there. But at the school level, when they are really young and learning about their country, that debate is non-existent. And clearly, those kids are much better informed. I am too. I actually learned a lot of things because that is not how we were taught history.

And I found the experience totally interesting, including the way that the kids really get engaged in this story in a way that you would think young kids would not. So, yes, I'm like Rob. I find cause for optimism. Because if we're going to have reconciliation, it does start with us all talking about the same thing. Yeah, and listening as well. And Mark Miller is one of the most impressive cabinet ministers on the Hill. And if you talk to him about these things, the first thing he says that we need to do is listen. And he's a really good listener.

You ask him what he's doing today, he's not talking very much, he's listening. And that's a great example to follow as well. The thing I like about Miller, and this is not designed to get into the sort of, let's root for Mark Miller story, but he's one of the few ministers, and perhaps the only minister I've ever known,

in that portfolio, which has gone through a number of different name titles, but basically Indigenous Affairs, one of the few that I've known over the years that has fought to stay in it because he thought progress was being made, or he thought he could lead the issue towards progress. We'll see how successful he is on that. But if I believe what I'm told, he could have been shuffled in the last shuffle into perhaps a more senior portfolio. But he says he still believes this is one of the most important things that's happening in Canada right now. He doesn't want to leave it at this point. And just the last thing on youth, Lloyd and Denise Amini's son, Stephen, Lloyd Axworthy, Stephen Axworthy is,

you know, finished graduating university, got his teacher's degree. Where is he working? He's working on a First Nation in western Manitoba. He and his girlfriend, his partner, Manisha, who's a guidance counsellor, they're both, they chose to go there. I mean, part of the issue is teaching jobs, but nevertheless, they wanted to make a difference, and that's where they are uh so you know good for them and and i think it kind of underlines some of the things you were talking about in terms of young people all right we're going to take our first break and we come back and uh different topic right after this All right, back with our second segment of Good Talk right here on The Bridge, Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal, and Rob Russo, filling in for Bruce Anderson, is in Ottawa. Okay, I've been trying to kind of watch the national debate among the national parties take place over these last couple of weeks since Pierre Pelliev became the leader of the Conservative Party. And I've been trying to watch it without constantly going, man, who's winning? Who got the best punch in there? Was that a left hook or a right jab or what was it? And instead trying to determine, okay, what are the issues that are shaping up? And I know you'll both criticize me for being

shallow and looking at these things too easily. But it seems to me we've got kind of two issues heading towards each other. One is cost of living or inflation, and the other is climate change. And the conservatives are on the cost of living side, and the liberals seem to be on the climate change side. Now, if those are the two issues, and they're running towards each other to eventually an election campaign. Which of those is the winning issue, if that's what the situation is? Chantal? I don't think there are two trains running towards each other. I think there are two trains on parallel tracks, and one is more easily managed than

the other, and that's cost of living, frankly. We have all gone through those cycles where inflation takes a toll and energy prices go up. Remember that famous energy crisis and recessions. And up to a point, we know what the levers and and more or less how you contain or or offer relief on it and it's not going to be by getting rid of the carbon tax by the way because the carbon tax the federal one that the conservatives are aiming at actually does not exist in many provinces including quebec and British Columbia. So if you don't like the price of gas in Quebec or British Columbia, don't blame Justin Trudeau for it.

You need to blame the guy who's about to get reelected in my province in a campaign where this was never an issue for any of the five parties. No one wanted to go on a battle horse to say, let's bring down taxes on fossil fuels or in BC. But the other train, that of climate change, which we have seen in action over the past few weeks, is not only very, very hard to stop beyond the control of the Canadian government, despite what some of the arguments we heard, and I'll come back to that in the House of Commons this week, but it's about to accelerate at large cost to whoever is in government. Whatever you think about climate change, it's going to cost billions. The question is, can you make it cost less billions by preparing Canada's infrastructures for what is going to be happening, or do you just wait to pick up the pieces, probably at greater cost?

But one way or the other, the future is not that climate is changing. We are in that, and it's not going away. And as a result, many of the world's economies not only are adjusting to this reality, but they are also transitioning to an environment where they will be trying to mitigate that acceleration. And if you don't mitigate it, it's going to get even worse than the worst that is already coming. So I look at the debate in the House of Commons and at the arguments of the Conservatives, a party that would form government, and I find them to be not only off topic, but off

reality. This week, one of their MPs from Saskatchewan said, actually asked, well, if the liberal carbon tax is of any use, why did it not prevent Fiona and Atlantic Canada? Let's be serious here. In clear, a good plan, a good government plan to mitigate climate change in the conservative book I'm concluding is one that will stop climate change.

I cannot wait to see Pierre Poiliev present that plan. I'm sure the entire planet will want to steal it if that is where the conservatives are going. I believe it's a strategic mistake. It pays off in the short term, mostly with their base to say Justin Trudeau is making you pay more for gas when there is a cost of living crisis. But in the longer term, it makes them look terribly unserious on an issue that will not be going away. Ron? I think Chantal is right. The last two or three elections have shown that if you don't have a credible climate plan, you're not really in the game during campaigns. That being said, I'm accused of being cynical, and there are times when I just don't think I'm cynical enough. Canadians, I believe,

are among the least virtuous virgins when it comes to the environment. I think that we have a government that has not met a single emissions target once in the seven years that it's been in power. It's been promising adaptation and mitigation strategy. It has not done so. Canadians continue to burn more fuel, buy more SUVs than people around the world. We just don't walk the walk. We don't. But we do

punish those who don't have a plan. And so I think Chantal's right that you have to have a plan. But there, you know, in my three or four decades of watching these things happening, environment's always up there as a priority. It's always pushed down when the economy becomes an issue. It's always pushed down. And for now, inflation and cost of living is a priority. And I think that that's that's the drum that Poirier is beating successfully. I think the example he used in the House of Commons this week was, why is it that tomatoes grown in Manatee, which is in his writing, are more expensive than tomatoes grown and imported from Mexico? It's because the carbon tax is applied to the fuel to get the tomatoes to market in Manatee.

I'm not sure if that's right or not. But what he's doing is he's plucking that string that always sings the note of the economy and the cost of living being more important than the environment. It used to be health care. I remember when health care was the most important thing until the economy faltered. And now it's the environment. I still don't understand what it's going to take to have people focus. And, you know, it's not just people.

We all fall prey to this at times, each of us as individuals. But you look on the one hand, you look at the inflation numbers around the world. It's not like we're alone in the fight on the cost of living front. My God, we're actually doing pretty good compared with most countries. I mean, look at Turkey at 80%, Argentina at 78%. These are annual inflation numbers. Iran, 52%, Pakistan, 27%. It goes on and on. Way down near the bottom, you see Canada, India at 7%, Australia at 6%, France at 6%, and so on. Way down near the bottom, you see Canada, India at 7%, Australia at 6%, France at 6%,

and so on. But, you know, it's not like this is only happening here. On the other hand, on climate change, in the last week, just the last week, we've seen two of the worst, if not the worst storms to hit their particular regions, one in Canada and Atlantic Canada, and the second just in the last couple of days in Florida. It's not like these things are just, yeah, oh, well, you know, another hurricane in Florida. This is like the worst in terms of damage. You see some of the images that continue to come out, both in Atlantic Canada and Florida. And it's horrendous. Now you look at that and you

go, okay, this is going to trigger it. This is how it's finally going to become the issue. But you also know at the same time, well, the thing about storms caused by climate change,

if you believe they are, and I believe they are, we're in the middle of it one day, and 24 hours later, it's gone. It's back to being Florida. I mean, there's a big cleanup underway, lots of high insurance rates, but it's kind of over. Same thing in Atlanta, Canada. Cost of living crisis, inflation, we're going to live with that for the next couple of years.

We're going to live with climate change for the next century. Exactly. So why doesn't the penny drop? What is it about us? And I include all of us in that. Because we have to pay. I mean, if we want to do something about climate change, we have to pay. And it's a very difficult political pill to force down people's throats to get them to pay. It's a difficult pill to get people to swallow when you say to them, you're going to have to have maybe a smaller house and not a big house. There's that element. But there's also a global element. The reality is that the majority of GHGs are now coming from outside of North America, outside of Europe. And we have a very, very thorny relationship with the largest emitters of GHGs, namely China and Russia, and to a certain

extent, India as well. And they're not inclined to do what we're doing. And when Canada represents 1.6 or 1.7% of GHGs, and we're trying to tell the Chinese, we can't even get them to return our citizens after they've snatched them off the streets. Imagine if we have to tell them to change their industrial policy to prevent us from choking on our own air. It's not easy, but it has to start somewhere. And it should start in our own places. It should start with the kind of vehicles we drive. It should start with the kind of houses we live in. But it costs money and we have to sacrifice. And it's very, very difficult for a politician to say to somebody,

you're going to have to do with less. It's not a politically popular thing to do, which is why there isn't a single government. I know I just lambasted the Liberals for failing to meet a target, but the Conservatives never came close to meeting a target either. There isn't a government in Canada that has succeeded in meeting its GHG targets. What about BC? Not there. I mean, they've got the highest gas tax in Canada. And again, it's brought in some revenue. It's no longer revenue neutral. And at the same time, they also don't have an adaptation or mitigation strategy. We all remember that there were hundreds of seniors

who essentially died in their apartments a couple of summers ago during a heat wave because BC wasn't ready for climate change and still isn't ready for climate change. You know. Chances are, because it's the easy way out to have a debate over the carbon tax, frankly, in the House of Commons, because the shift that is ongoing in the real world is do you have not what is your best plan to reduce emissions? That should be a given that someone has a plan. But the next big thing, and that is a challenge for the conservatives and the liberals, is to show a serious mitigation adaptation strategy that actually involves money. And that will require intergovernmental cooperation on a scale that we've not seen in decades.

Because municipalities, provinces, federal government are all going to have to get into the act. And it's going to cost billions. So those billions need to be budgeted. And regardless of what you think about the carbon tax, this is a different debate. It's happening. But if we do to this debate what we have done to the debate over the aging of the population, which is basically ignore it and shovel it forward to the next government until you get to generate revenues and if you don't think climate change will take a toll on your economy then uh you probably failed that basic economics course that they made you take in university let me um let me just ask one last question on climate change before we move on um you know it, I can remember 20 years ago,

doing the adaptation story, and are we ready for adaptation, and who's pushing forward, and where is it actually happening in different parts of the world, where in fact it is happening in some countries, but not here. And that was 20 years ago.

And I think all of us who worked on that show, including some of the people we interviewed with, oh, things are going to change. Things are going to change in the next 20 years. Well, they haven't changed. It's basically, we're still in the same situation. So here's the question. You gave us reason, both of you, to feel some degree of optimism about the future on truth and reconciliation. Is there any reason to feel optimistic about the future on this issue, climate change, in Canada? I walked, last Friday, there was something called Walk for Climate in Quebec, organized by the CEGEPs and the universities.

And thousands and thousands and thousands of younger people showed up and walked, not just in Montreal, but obviously more of them in Montreal than anywhere else. And some non-students also participated. Some politicians tried to participate and were booed away. That starts with the current provincial minister of the environment. But I am looking, and I'm trying not to be cynical here, so I'm looking at the demographics of the electorate,

baby boomers on the way out, and the younger cohorts increasingly becoming the majority. And the fact that at this point, if you go to 40 and under, those voters, not just in Quebec, massively favor parties that are more serious about climate change than those who say don't worry about it. Now, the betting in some conservative circles, and I've read it in emails this week, is by the time they have a mortgage, they're going to get themselves a SUV and they're going to forget that. It's something you do when you're young. I'm not sure that that is true, because when they get that mortgage, they will also have kids. And kids are a profound driver

of wanting something to be done about climate change, because that is the world as parents that you are leaving to them. So I'm going to go the uncynical way and say what's going to force governments to make decisions is those voters who increasingly will be the voters who determine whether you win or lose. Boy, are we loading up the issues in terms of young people, but we placed them in that position. You're not going to be around in 10 years, right? I won't either to say I'm the big voter cohort and if you don't do it my way. If we were the drivers now of the debate, the

entire election debate at all levels would be about seniors' homes. So, great. But all it does is underline how we failed them, right? Like our generation and the generation ahead of us. Peter, the first time we heard about acid rain or about the mercury poisoning and the English Wabigoon network. I covered that. We couldn't even imagine that things like that could happen. That's right.

So it's easy to say we failed them with the knowledge that people have today. We didn't have that knowledge. You and I witnessed the advent of the first environment ministers. But if someone had told you in 1970 that the lake you are sitting next to is threatened by something called acid rain, you would have thought this guy is talking about acid, not the rain kind. So we all started with zero knowledge here and the sense that the resources were infinite. It's easy to say, oh, yeah, well, you know, we failed them. But how can you succeed at something that you don't know that is a challenge that you will face? I remember when Reagan came to Ottawa in the early 80s

and Parliament Hill was crowded with these signs about acid rain and all the American reporters were coming up to us and saying, on the early 80s on Parliament Hill was crowded with these signs about acid rain. And all the American reporters were coming up to us and saying, what the hell? Acid rain? What the hell is that? Like I had no idea. But give it to Reagan, of all people, Reagan actually did something about it, right?

It took a while, but he did it. Mulroney compelled him to do something about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, together they made it happen, but you guys have been talking, using the word drivers a couple of times, and I want to use it in a different context.

When we were kids, the day, the day we turned 16, a lot of us were in the office to try and get our learner's permit and learn to drive. That's no longer the case. Kids are not interested in that anymore. They're the, the, the, the veneration of the car isn't a thing. If I go by the kids around my kids,

very few of them own cars. They're not interested in owning cars. There seems to be less of a reliance on that. That gives me a little bit of optimism apart from their constant scolding of us for having left behind a poison planet to them, justifiably. The second thing that gives me a little bit of optimism is business. The bus has left the station as far as business is concerned. They are going in a different direction. You know, coal, the United States was once the king of coal. Coal is on the wane in the United States. They are leaving it behind. It's on the decline. I know right now, because of the situation in Ukraine, coal is on the upswing in places like Germany. Certainly, China has never really stopped opening coal-fired

plants. They've been opening them at an accelerated rate. But business is going in a different direction. They are feeling the pinch of the cost of energy. So they're changing the way they do their businesses. Fleets are now going electric. And I do think that there is a relentless technological push towards environmental innovation that may, may save us. I don't think it's going to be done by governments because governments, particularly democratic governments, respond to the will of their people. And their people don't want to pay the price for the climate change that they've created over the last century and a half of industrialization.

And so I think that the change is going to have to come, not necessarily it's coming from young people, but it's going to have to come from business and through technological innovation. Okay. We're going to move on. I don't want to make light of what you just said, because I agree with you. But you could also argue that this current generation, they don't have anything like the 66 Mustang, or the 67 Camaro, or the 68 GTO. Those made a difference. Guys, this is turning into an old boys conversation here. You haven't seen me doing donuts in the Loblaws parking lot in my Chevy Bolt. Good for you. How do you keep it plugged in when you're doing that?

Anyway, nevertheless, let's move on because there are other, there are two big things happening in the next week or at least, were they that big? Did the rest of Canada,

does it even care what happens in either of these two big things that happen next week? We'll find out when we come back. And we're back with our final segment of Good Talk for this Friday. Chantel is in Montreal and Rob Russo filling in for Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. You know, I don't think most of the country ever got like totally engaged in other provinces elections or leadership conventions. There was sort of a kind of a has always been a degree of indifference to what happens in beyond their borders with the possible exception of of quebec through the years of the partie quebecois and and the debates that were raging in quebec that often the rest of the country would

at least look in and on occasion during campaign however um you know the, the last couple of months in the case of Alberta, where they're picking a new premier, in effect, on next Thursday, on October 6th, and in Quebec on Monday, which is the rest of the country missing something here? I mean, is there something that's happening in either of these two events that the rest of the country should say, you know, I should follow that. This could impact me. A couple of things. I would say somebody who's looked at it from the outside that has struck me. Until Poilievre was elected, I think some of the most, certainly the thorniest and the most preoccupying opposition, as far as the prime minister's office was concerned, to Justin Trudeau, had come from François Legault. He was seen as a dangerous interlocutor, somebody who could affect the fortunes of the Liberal government here in Ottawa.

And he was seen by other premiers as well as somebody they should go to and partner up with when they wanted to try and advance an initiative to take on Ottawa. I've been astounded to watch a guy who is still going to win a majority government, if all the polls are correct, run such an awkward, disorganized, bumbling, stumbling kind of campaign. Now, don't get me wrong. The race, it seems, in terms of the Quebec election, is really going to be who's going to form the official opposition. It seems there's a very, very tight race for who comes second. And he's facing a divided opposition.

But François Legault really seems to have lost a step during this campaign. Doesn't seem to have run a very good campaign at all. And has apologized, it seems, at every turn for one gap or another, either from him or from one of his ministers. And the latest one from his minister is the second thing that I've been struck by. One of the most important debates, one of the most important issues in the campaign has been over immigration in the province of Quebec. And it struck me how much it is a non-issue, it seems, in the rest of the country, and while it remains an issue in the province of Quebec. Everybody seems to agree that 50,000 has to be the absolute limit of annual immigrants into the province of Quebec. Earlier this week, Jean Brulé, who is the immigration minister in Legault's cabinet, said something incredible

in Trois-de-Gare, who told an audience that too many immigrants come into Quebec, don't want to work, they don't respect Quebec values, and they don't learn the language. It was, you know, it actually left jaw prints in carpets right across the province. Legault was forced to say, this is a guy who can't stay in his job, not necessarily going to kick him out of cabinet, which is what most people believe should happen. But he's not going to stay in his job. In the rest of the country, this debate has been settled. This is an issue where Canada is admired around the world. Even Pierre Poilier has come out and said, immigration is a good thing for Canada.

We need the labor. Now, I understand that in Quebec, immigration is tied to identity, that in order to preserve the French language, they have to make sure that a lot of the immigrants come in either speaking French or prepared to be on a fast track to learning to speak French. But I've been surprised how big a role the immigration debate has played in the rest in the province while in the rest of Canada the issue is pretty much settled.

And that is a change in the Quebec debate. Just to fix something that Rob said, actually, two of the five parties are saying we should have more than 50,000 immigrants. Quebec Solidaires and the Quebec Liberals all believe that Quebec is totally possible to not only have more than 50,000 immigrants come to the province, but to integrate them into French language society. The biggest change I've seen in the immigration debate in Quebec has been that when I first moved here almost 25 years ago, everyone talked about the children of Bill 101. And by that, they meant the kids of immigrants who came to the province, not necessarily with French as one of their spoken languages, who had to go to school in French because of Bill 101 and who, as a result, obviously became kids who were people who are talking about this debate have abandoned the concept that second generation is French. If you come here and you don't speak French, is a byproduct of the. Both the Liberals and the Pats Québécois had to have a policy of open arms to immigrants because immigrants eventually vote in a referendum.

But now that the issue of a referendum is not on the books, you can win an election. You always could in Quebec with Francophone votes and elections are not won or lost on the island of Montreal, they're won or lost in the rest of the province. And at this point, Premier Legault is about to be re-elected, but he is going to more likely miss out on one of his big initial objectives of the campaign, which was to win seats in Montreal.

That conversation that he's been having about immigration has been led in such a negative way that by now he has insulted more voters than he has won over on the island of Montreal, where it is a fact the population is a lot more diverse than in other areas of Quebec. But let me talk to you about François Legault himself, because he has been the story of this campaign for the wrong reasons. This is the guy who came out and had news conferences to announce things like lockdowns and curfews, and who managed to rally Quebecers behind him in a way that many other premiers looked at and thought,

I wish I could be this guy. And he goes into an election campaign and runs one of the most tone-deaf campaigns that an incumbent has ever run. And not only is he on a roll in winning, but he looks grumpy and unhappy about it. Last night on that issue, I used the term sore winner. I've never seen a sore winner in an election until this week. But there is François Legault looking terribly unhappy. What consequences would that have in the rest of the country? Well, for one, I think that it's not this campaign, but the federal one that demonstrated that François Legault's bark is stronger than his bite. And I'm saying that because last year at this time,

he was going around Quebec telling Quebecers, don't vote for Justin Trudeau. The future of the Quebec nation is at stake. He and the NDP are a threat to our aspirations. And what did that result in? Trudeau victory and not one seat more for the Bloc or the Conservatives. Increasingly, a stock on immigration is leading, I suspect, people who are sitting in the back room of Fyat-Polyev's Conservative Party to think we're not going to win an election

nationally by standing shoulder to shoulder with a guy like that. Not when you win elections in the 905 area of Toronto or in the suburbs of Vancouver, which are all very diverse. And I think what's going to be happening over the longer term is that you will see the federal parties, except for the Bloc Québécois, taking more and more distances from François Legault and some of his demands, in particular on immigration. And we saw some of that this week when the Bloc Quebecois came up with a motion or a private member's bill to say all federally regulated industries in Quebec should operate under Bill 101, i.e. the language of work should be French only.

And the Conservatives declined to vote with the Bloc Québécois on this issue. They voted with the Liberals. So that, the Conservative campaign and the leadership candidates all saying they support Justin Trudeau's decision to go to court to challenge Bill 21 or Bill 96, if and when the Supreme Court hears the case, that tells me that Premier Legault is isolating himself and losing his influence on the national scene. One other thing that we haven't talked about. Make it very brief, because I'm almost out of time, and I still want to touch on Alberta.

Yeah, just the demise of the Sogde issue has meant that the Liberals, one of the most powerful parties in the province of Quebec, are a spent force. They were the de facto alternative either to lead government or an opposition. They're a spent force. And that's something that most people who grew up in Quebec or watch Quebec politics never thought that they'd see, you know, Quebec Solidaire, which was a French party five, ten years ago, threatened to displace the Liberal Party of Quebec. It's a remarkable thing. I still love the sore loser line. Love to explore that.

Sore winner. Sore winner line. Okay. line love to explore that soar winner soar winner line yeah um okay uh i've got like a minute left which is unfair to alberta because something tells me that while we've been ignoring this story for the most part as soon as that election is over on on next thursday we're going to be talking about it a lot because it's going to enter the federal provincial arena. Who can tell me that story in a minute or less? A strange way to pick a new leader, which makes Jason Kenney sound almost like he doesn't belong in the party of the successor. A challenge for the federal government, but for party unity, I think everyone in the party can't wait to see the result. But also Rachel Notley of the NDP election next spring.

And if the Conservatives pick a difficult leader, imitate their UK friends, for instance, which they could, then the NDP could be on the same kind of role as Labour is in the UK. Ron? I think we're going to see a clash between the old Alberta and the modern Alberta in the next few months. You know, you look at who the mayors are of the biggest cities in Alberta, and they're both, you know, from South Asian families. Alberta is not the Alberta that a lot of the UCP leadership

candidates are talking about. And right now they're fishing in a very small pond to try to win leadership votes. It'll be interesting to see when that pond comes up against the modern Alberta and who emerges. What is the real Alberta right now? That's what I'll be watching. Yeah. Will there be a pivot? Pivot, the word of Canadian politics this year. Listen, thank you both. Thank you especially, Rob, for filling in for Bruce this week.

It's been an interesting discussion on a number of levels and lots of food for thought there. Monday, I should let listeners know the long-awaited return of the Moore-Butts conversations. James Moore and Jerry Butts will be back with us on Monday for I think this is their fourth or fifth conversation they've had in trying to keep it on a non-partisan way about some of the issues that confront the country or the political parties. And we have a special one coming up on Monday.

So looking forward to that. I thank you to the people of Winnipeg, University of Winnipeg, and all those who were involved in the tribute last night to Lloyd Axworthy. You know, there were some great comments last night from members of all different parties. Bill Blakey's voice was missed from the NDP. We lost Bill Blakey just in the last few days. He would have been there. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Winnipeg. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again on Monday.