The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Is Trudeau wounded or emboldened?

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Strange week for Justin Trudeau --one day a member calls for a leadership review, and the next his caucus almost hoists him on their shoulders.  What's going on?  Bruce and Chantal on that and a lot more.  Tucker Carlson in Alberta, convoy promoters get a court decision in their favour, and the ICJ rules on Gaza.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto, Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal, Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. It's Friday, it's Good Talk, and there's lots to talk about this week, as there always seems to be, but there's quite a bit this week, and I'm not even sure where to start, but let's try this. There was much discussion over the last few days about the caucus retreat on the part of the Liberal parties,

and it got off to an interesting start when one of the Liberal MPs suggested that it might be a good time for leadership review. So people kind of pounced on that and expecting a heck of a caucus retreat. Didn't turn out that way. And within 24 hours, the member had flipped his position. And the caucus was kind of, you know, chanting Justin Trudeau's name and all those kind of exciting things that tend to happen. So at the end of the week, is Justin Trudeau wounded

or is he wounded any more than he already had been coming into a week, 12, 13 points down in the polls? Is he wounded or is he emboldened? Chantal. I don't think wounded. I think from the start, let me give you some background on MP Ken MacDonald, an MP from Newfoundland and Labrador, who's claim to fame until this week was that he had been voting

with the Conservatives on issues such as the carve-outs on the carbon tax. I think you, Mr. McDonald, kind of got something you really wanted this fall that gave the government subsequently quite a bit of trouble and is still giving the government trouble, i.e. this carve-out for people who use oil to heat their homes. And as a result, a measure that mostly benefits Atlantic Canada because that is where oil eating is still prevalent. So to come back and say, well, you know, this prime minister has now reached as fast as his due date and it's time for a leadership review. Clearly, he was not speaking for a group. He was speaking for himself. He would have been hard pressed to explain what process would bring about a leadership review within the Liberal Party. There's nothing in the Constitution, no date on the calendar that would offer a venue

for a vote on Mr. Trudeau's leadership. And you ask, is the prime minister wounded? I don't think wounded or emboldened. I think a lot of MPs came to the caucus meeting having heard all kinds of things about the prime minister and their government over the holidays, most of it negative. But I think they also spent a lot of time considering the notion that they do not have someone who would, on paper at least, do a lot better than Justin Trudeau. They didn't come to this meeting. This was not a Paul Martin caucus rebellion.

This was someone who mounted off and I think was faced with the prospect of having to leave caucus or issuing this strange press release. Oh, I never meant that the prime minister should go. you talk about leadership review. What exactly are you saying that Justin Trudeau really needs a vote of confidence because it's going to be a Christmas gift coming late, but I think that the liberals came back to this New Year's retreat in a less depressed mood than they came back in September. Because the shock of that drop in the poll has started to wear off. You get used to a lot of things in life. Poor heating, suddenly you have more sweaters, being out and down in the polls, you kind of get over the shock and think, well, this is what it is. And I think a lot of them

feel that the time to reconsider the leadership of the party has come and gone. All right. Bruce. Well, on that last point, I want to come back to that. I'm not sure I kind of see it exactly the same way, but I think on a lot of has said this before, repeated it again. It was reported, I think, relatively accurately. If, you know, if there was any possible criticism of the reporting, it would be that it elevated in the course of a conversation that included a number of other things, the specific point about leadership. But that's life in politics. And I don't really see anything to criticize in the journalism there. I also don't find it surprising that there was a, in quotation marks, retraction. This is a very old movie that we've seen many, many times over

the years. And anybody who's watched it enough times knows that the more accurate representation of the view of this MP was probably in the first story, not in the second story. But the disciplines of politics, or at least the feeling that people in leadership positions in politics feel is necessary from a discipline standpoint, created this retraction in quotation marks. I think that to your question, Peter, about whether the leadership issue or question or debate or discussion is resolved for the Liberals, I don't think that it is. I don't think that it's possible for it to be resolved as long as they are this far behind in the polls. I think there's no mechanism by which it can be fully resolved because I think Chantel is right that probably people came back a little bit more rested, a little bit more

used to being behind in the polls. But where maybe we're not exactly on the same pages. I think they're also more anxious for a sense of a plan, a strategy, at least a set of talking points that they think represents something that will help turn around their political situation. And I'm not sure that until maybe last night they saw much evidence of that. So I think it's an unsettled conversation and i think it's the onus is still on the prime minister to convince people in his caucus and his party over time that he's the right choice for them not because they have any other mechanism to

replace him this is that they don. This conversation can't go anywhere where it crystallizes into he's out. It's not like our friends in the UK, where the caucus can replace the leader and a prime minister in one fell swoop in one morning where they get together and decide that's enough. So I don't think the conversation can crystallize one way or the other. I don't think it goes away unless and until the liberals become more competitive in the polls and unless the prime minister is seen as being helping turn that situation around. As I say, I saw something in what he was saying yesterday that made me think, OK, I think this can probably work. And that sits alongside some other events this week that we're going to talk about as well. A couple of points. You have to wonder what would have happened this week if the liberals after the last election had imitated the conservative caucus and had given caucus the power to remove a leader. That is how Erin O'Toole lost the leadership.

The liberals declined to give themselves that power, as did the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. So it's not just the liberals. But it would have been interesting to see if the dynamics would have been different, considering where the party is in the polls, had this motion carried with caucus after the election. The other point is when I say many liberals feel that the opportunity to change leaders have come and gone,

this isn't a reflection on Mr. Trudeau's leadership or the health of the party in the polls. It's a sober look at the calendar. Unless you assume Mr. Trudeau is going to take a walk in the snow in the next few weeks, which I do not, you are looking increasingly at a diminishing amount of time to change leaders, give it six months. That's usually how long it takes, minimum. And then this leader would face a minority parliament and an expiring alliance

with the NDP looming. That is exactly, well, it's actually worse than what happened to John Turner and Kim Campbell, in the sense that they at least inherited majority governments. That being said, they also only had a few months. And it's really hard for someone, and people look good in a leadership campaign, but the fact is that it's a step up. And we've seen it with many ministers of finance federally and provincially in the past decades, suddenly becoming the leader of their parties. And all of them kind of could not adjust or did not have the time to adjust to the difference between being the star pupil in a cabinet and being the person who leads the cabinet. There is a learning curve there.

And no one escapes it. There is a learning curve there. And no one escapes it. So if you don't have the time to go through it, you will be in trouble, as we saw. The other thing I want to raise is when liberals think about leadership and what's happening to Justin Trudeau and the fact that people are seeing him as lightning rod for dissatisfaction. I was really struck this week that Mr. Trudeau's cabinet met in Montreal for three days. Weather wasn't so bad. Everyone knew where they were meeting, and there was not a single demonstration. And I thought, this is really weird. It's not as if we don't know how to do demonstrations in this city,

although probably not as well as Torontonians. The weather is milder there. But no one came to demonstrate against the prime minister and his cabinet for three days. What that tells me is that he is still the best leader for them in this province. Let me just, Bruce, before you jump in, let me just say something about the timetable issue, because you raised it, Chantal. When his father took a walk in the snow in 84, it was three months or so, three and a half months before they had a new leader. Now, he didn't, Turner didn't have the parliamentary clock on his side.

He had to go for an election that year, so he didn't have time. If Justin Trudeau went for a walk in the snow now, I agree with you. Currently, it seems to take six months to get a new leader, but it shouldn't have to if you didn't want to. You could make it faster. But back in those days, you have you didn't have universal vote of members right yeah no there's been changes you're absolutely right but he does have the who he or she whoever might be the next leader if there was something like that to happen has some

time on the parliamentary clock if things happen now compared to say say, 84 and past. But, you know, I hear your point. But there are some issues on that timetable thing that might work in favor, perhaps, of a new leader. But anyway, the point is that I was trying to get at at the beginning is he looks emboldened. You know, after this issue was kind of put to rest, if it was put to rest on leadership review, you know, he came out swinging.

And he's pushing the hard line that he started to develop over the holidays about the right wing and the influence of the U.S. and things played into his hand this week with the fired Fox host, you know, Tucker Carlson parading around Alberta. And we'll get to that in a second. But he didn't look to me like a guy who was walking out the door, as you said. Now, sometimes not looking like the guy walking out the door helps when you walk out the door because nobody was expecting it. Anyway, Bruce, go ahead.

You know, I think that the, I agree with your point that he looked more feisty in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure I felt that way earlier in the week, just watching some of the scrumming coming out of the cabinet retreat. I'm a little bit cautious about saying, okay, so he's found the stride because, you know, to go to a boxing analogy, and he's a boxer, he can find a good round. He can deliver three minutes of concentrated kind of effective politicking.

But does he have that 12 round bout in him? I think is the question that has been on a lot of people's minds who are hopeful for the Liberal Party, but not confident in the Liberal Party right now. And part of why they're not confident is I think that the arguments for Justin Trudeau have too heavily relied on in the last little while this idea that he's the best loss scenario. In other words, that anybody else other than him would lose even more badly than he will in the next election. And that may be true.

I don't happen to think that it's true, but I think that it's also, it's arguable, but it's not a very strong argument for him. And I'm not saying he's making that argument, but people on his behalf are making that argument. People who are saying we shouldn't have in the Liberal Party a leadership race are saying effectively, because anybody that we would replace him with is likely to save less of the furniture. And I think to your point, Peter, about how much time there is between now and the next election, at least for the next few months, there are going to be people who say, well, actually, we do have enough time, because the other argument that you hear is he's the best loss scenario, and there's no time to do anything

else. I think that no time to do anything else window is still, in my view, a little bit more open. And then the question of is what we saw in the last 24 hours from Justin Trudeau more likely to be what we're going to see over the next two or three or four months, in which case I do think that the Liberals have a chance to be a lot more competitive than they look like right now. Just one last point on this. One of my colleagues did an analysis of the words that the leaders of the parties have been using the most over the last two or three years, I think, two years.

We're going to put this information out on the weekend. And he's using Hansard as the source file. And what it showed is that the two main opposition leaders running nationally, they say the prime minister. Prime minister are the words that they use the most. They're making the conversation be about Trudeau. The word that Justin Trudeau use the most. They're making the conversation be about Trudeau. The word that Justin Trudeau used the most was continued. And I think this really kind of puts the question

for the liberals squarely, because there is a mood for change. And if the liberals don't sound like they're for some version of change, if they sound like continue doing what we've been doing, it puts them in a pretty bad and a pretty uncompetitive situation heading into the next election. So this is where I think Trudeau has an opportunity to find another way of approaching the political conversation with Canadians. We'll see if he embraces it. Okay.

Let's take a break and come back. You know, it's actually a continuation in some ways of this line. We'll deal with the Tucker Carlson thing. We'll deal with the court decision on the convoy as well, both of which could play into the way things are going to unfold, at least in the short term. But we'll be right back with that right after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to Good Talk on the Bridge for this Friday. Chantal's in Montreal, Bruce is in Ottawa, and I'm in Toronto today. You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our special Friday YouTube version of Good Talk. All right. So we all know who Tucker Carlson is. I assume we all know. You know, a long time kind of right wing commentator in the US. He's written for different periodicals.

He was on CNN for a while. He was on MSNBC for a while. And then he was on Fox for a while. Until, according to Fox, he lied so much that it cost him three-quarters of a billion dollars. So now he trots around the U.S. mainly, but not exclusively, giving his version of the truth. And this week he was in Alberta for two almost sold-out presentations, one in Edmonton, one in Calgary, thousands of people attending. So big buck speaker fees there, and who could take that away from him if he can track those kind of audiences,

with his pals Jordan Peterson and Conrad Black and Danielle Smith. Seemed to have everybody there but Rex Murphy. Rex always draws a crowd. Anyways, so much has been made about whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, what it said about Canadians, about Albertans, about Danielle Smith. Where do we come down? It's not that he didn't spout his untruths about all kinds of things,

mainly Canada. I mean, let's not forget this was a guy who a year ago was suggesting Canada should be invaded, to be liberated, liberated from the Trudeau dictatorship. So what do we make of this? What do we make of Tucker Carlson in Alberta, or do we care? Bruce? Well, I think these events were the best thing that's happened

for the Liberal Party in a while. I think that the conversation that I think Justin Trudeau has signaled that he would like to have about politics in this country is about what is conservative and do you want it? What is it today? What's underneath the hood of the Conservative Party? And is it something that Canadians want? I think it's a relevant conversation, especially given what's happening in the United States and what has been so overt about the transformation of the Republican Party in the United States. But I also think it's something that Pierre Polyev desperately doesn't want to have be the conversation in Canada. Pierre Polyev

has made it pretty clear that he thinks his path to victory is not talking about how right the convoy participants were, or how much we should question the role of women in society like Jordan Peterson would do or whether or not there's racism in Canada. He wants to talk about, aren't you tired of Justin Trudeau? Don't you think houses should be cheaper? Don't you think the carbon tax should go away? Those are winning most days. To have such a high profile kind of embrace of these ideas that Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson and Conrad Black represent is awkward, at least. Now, it's not awkward for Daniel Smith in Alberta. And it's not to say that people aren't entitled to hold those views. That's not my point. There are probably about 20% of Canadians who hold those views, but it's 20%. It's not the 40% that Pierre Pauliev is looking at every time he looks at national polls. And for the picture that

I saw trafficked yesterday, the one where Danielle Smith looks so happy to be standing with Conrad Black, with Jordan Peterson and with Tucker Carlson. And for people who aren't familiar with their arguments, I'm not going to put you at have said about the role of women in society, about the place of Indigenous people in society, about the LGBTQ community. And most Canadians would not find themselves liking that. And that's why I think it's an awkward moment for sure for Pierre Polyev and an opportunity for the liberals to press this argument about what do we want in terms of the values that guide our national government. Okay, well, let's not forget Pierre Polyev was not on that stage. He could have been if he wanted to be, I'm sure, but he wasn't. That doesn't mean he doesn't agree with a lot of what was said,

but he wasn't on that stage. Chantal. I'm not sure that Daniel Smith should have been on that stage. And I'm not sure that in hindsight, she still believed that she should be there. She did preface her remarks with the caution that she was not endorsing all of the things that were going to be said going forward, which is a strange way to say, yay, we're here. So looking at Daniel Smith there, I was reminded, remember when Brian Mulroney used to say, you dance with the ones who brought you to the hall to dance. And I thought that we have evolved, in the case of this premiere, as far as dance partners are concerned.

There is no doubt that what made this irresistible for Daniel Smith was not Tucker Carlson, but rather the 4,000 and 8,000 people who came and attended and who almost certainly voted for Daniel Smith in the last election and probably made the difference between a win and a defeat at the hands of the NDP. So that's her. Mr. Poiliev, I'm sure that when the news broke that this event was going to be happening, there was no one who was thinking, what a great thing this is, and why don't we go along with this? I think Maxime Bernier maybe was there. Yes, he wasn't on the stage. He would have liked to be. But those were his people, and they are people that Pierre Poiliev also wants to have on casting ballots for him in the next election. But I also suspect that the message was sent loud and clear to every single member of the caucus, the federal caucus, to please find some other activity and not go grace that event. And I have not seen reports that any of Mr. Poiliev's MPs showed up, which I suspect some might have been tempted, if only for curiosity's sake,

to drop in and give it a look. So the fact that none of them was spotted tells me that they were discouraged in the strongest terms from showing up there. I think the entire event and that picture, which you will see again, probably created a fair amount of discomfort within conservative ranks, both in Alberta, but within the larger conservative movement and the conservative party. For sure, I don't expect to see, although Mr. Poiliev has supported Jordan Peterson in his conflicts with his professional order on X, I don't expect to see Mr. Poiliev attending such meetings. And Bruce summed up where he is. This is not the kind of rhetoric that he wants

to win the election on. And I don't think it's the kind of rhetoric that he could win an election on. So he must want this event to disappear as quickly as possible. You know, I sometimes puzzle. I love the fact that people can draw a big crowd and are listened to, and in some cases those are journalists. Chantel, you've had a lot of speaking engagements in Alberta, so have I. You know, I played, I don't know, 1,200 just a couple of months ago in Alberta. You know, and that's all good. But I am kind of fascinated by this Canadian thing

about getting controversial American commentators and packing the hall. And that this is like, this is, you know, packing the hall with telling untruths about Canada, about the situation in the States, about his trips to Hungary to visit Viktor Orban, who he thinks is fantastic, and obviously that's had some influence on his friend Donald Trump,

who is said to be considering Tucker Carlson as a possible VP candidate. I don't know. I just find it odd at times. I'm not trying to say we shouldn't listen to others for their opinions and their thoughts, but it just puzzles me that somebody with Tucker Carlson's background gets that kind of a reception with premiers and business or past business magnates sitting beside him and all that.

We live in a time when celebrity and celebrity that's fashioned out of non-traditional media channels like Jordan Peterson's millions of followers on YouTube and Tucker Carlson being able to create out of nothing except his reputation as being a combustible commentator, you know, an audience that follows him wherever he goes. I don't think Conrad Black enjoys the same degree of followership, and I'm happy about that personally. But I think the point is that it's almost the case that for these individuals, their renegade status, their alt-media status is an important part of what makes people want to come to hear them, makes people like the fact that they are challenging the orthodoxy of what is appropriate speech. Certainly, that's the case for Carlson and Peterson. I do want to just pick up one other thing based on what Chantal said, that the incongruity of what some of these individuals talk about

with Mr. Polyev's expression of the idea of freedom is again something that I think should be in the center of the conversation politically in Canada. Because when Pierre Polyev talks about wanting to make Canada the freest country in the world, I think that has a lot of appeal to some people, to a good number of people, let's say. But if you look at what Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson stand for, and Conrad Black on some issues, it doesn't square up very well with that. And so I think that's another reason why.

And I think Chantel's right that Pierre Polyev didn't go. And not only did he not go, I don't think he tweeted or commented about it. And it's not because he doesn't know how to use the Twitter machine, he decided that he did not want to be within a thousand bits of this particular event and conversation. Okay. Do you want to close the door on this, Chantal, before we move to the next subject? Just to say that, you know, decades ago,

it used to be figures on the left that were controversial and were invited to speak with ideas that had no currency really in the mainstream Canadian spectrum. And now in this era, this is happening on the right. But I'm not convinced that it's that new a phenomenon. It's just that it's happening at the other end of the spectrum, and a lot less so on the left, which I think is kind of interesting, says something about what has happened to conservative movements around the world and the pressures they're under. Just watching what's happening in the US tells you all you need to know about what's happening on the right.

It's interesting in a kind of scary way sometimes. You know, what I find interesting too is that while there is this clear, you know, kind of movement on the right that has picked up steam and a lot of things that weren't acceptable to even discuss 10 years ago now are, that there doesn't seem to be any push from the other side and i don't mean politically i mean sort of on the public spectrum a push at least i don't i don't see it i i mean last weekend in germany now i i appreciate this country of a very different history but last week in germany there were more than a million people in the streets opposing and protesting against the development of the right and the ascendancy of the right and around a new party

alternatives for Germany I think it's called but a million more than a million people in the streets just protesting against that and what they were hearing from the right. But you don't see that. You don't seem to see that elsewhere. Certainly don't see it here. What you also don't see is a rise of Maxime Bernier's People's Party, which, and I'm sure that if in the next election, Maxime Bernier elected 20 MPs and to make up for a shortfall, Pierre Poiliev made a deal with Maxime Bernier to form a government.

And that's not happening, by the way. You would probably see those kinds of reactions. What you'd see in this country would probably also be a resurgence of the Quebec sovereignty movement in the face of that evolution on the federal scene. But I think the reason why you're not having those demonstrations is at this point, people notwithstanding Daniel Smith attending that evening, people do not feel that Canada's political class is heavily invested in alt-right policies. That could change. And if it does change, I expect you would see some of those same scenes here. Bruce, thought on that?

Yeah, I think that's right. I agree with Chantal. I think that we do from time to time see those kind of demonstrations happen in the United States. But I think they're muted somewhat right now because the left or the I guess the Democrats don't have a candidate that is particularly involved in challenging or in fighting that fight, at least up until the last week or so, where Joe Biden, I think, really has taken off the gloves about these issues and decided that he's going to have to fight the fight that people who don't like Donald Trump want him to fight. We'll see how capable he is of mustering the kind of the energy and the enthusiasm for that fight that leads to those kinds of turns turnouts i think in canada um we've been slow to understand the degree to which our conservative movement has significant proportions of these influences um and i think in part it's because we don't want to think it. There are a lot of people who would rather vote conservative in this election because they're tired of the liberals. They would rather not believe that the conservative government that they would get would be very influenced by these MAGA notions.

But, you know, I think that that has to be part of the conversation. I think it's hard for Justin Trudeau to make it that part of the conversation without sounding self-interested, but I think he has to do it nonetheless. And I think he has been doing it a little bit more, and I think he started to do it pretty effectively with his caucus last evening, at least from what I saw in the clips. And there will be people who will criticize him for that. But I do think that this point of getting the public engaged in deciding, is this the Conservative Party that they want, or is it not the Conservative Party that they want? And that could cause some improvement in the Conservative Party from my standpoint, because I don't like those influences, but I think it has to be part of the conversation. All right. Let's take our final break. When we come back, we'll talk about the court decision on the convoy.

We thought that was all a story behind us. It's not. It's still there and it still has an impact. So we'll get to that, as we say, right after this. And we're back for the final segment of Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal.

Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. I'm in Toronto today. You know, it's funny, the day, going into one of these breaks, I used the phrase, we'll be back on the other side. I used to hear that, or I still hear it all the time on American shows and on some Canadian shows, and I always laugh and I think,

that's so stupid you know on the other side it's like and there it was spilling out of my mouth without even thinking so i guess we all copy um okay another court decision well not another court decision a court decision on the convoy this is after the commission last year ruled that the prime minister and the government of the day had the right to introduce certain emergency measures and it was justified this court decision a different uh a different decision uh coming down that uh said well you know upon reflection and looking at all the details and sort of as a Monday morning quarterback, I don't know whether they did. And, of course, those who believed in the convoy and argued for the convoy

have leapt to that decision as a defense of their actions. Does that change the picture at all on this story, Chantal, first? Not necessarily. I think it's very healthy that we continue to have a debate over what the threshold should be or what the threshold is for using this law. It was the first time ever that it was being put to the test. It's interesting that two different justices came to two different conclusions, but in both cases were very tentative about their conclusions. Justice Rouleau, who chaired the Commission of Inquiry, concluded that Justin Trudeau had met the threshold when he used the Emergencies Act

to try to put an end to the convoy and the various uprisings that stemmed from it. But he also said, the body of factual evidence that I'm basing this on is somewhat fragile. I'm not, you know, it seemed to suggest others with the same facts could come to a different conclusion. Now we have Justice Mosley of the federal court who actually writes, it's very rare that you read admissions like that in an actual court decision, says, when I first came to this case, before I heard the arguments from the Civil Liberties Association, etc., I tended to

believe my gut instinct was that the government was right in using the Emergencies Act. And later, he says, if I'd been sitting around the cabinet table back in the heat of the action, I could have come to the same decision as the Trudeau government did. One of the criteria for determining that there is a threat to national security that justifies the use of this law is an assessment by CSIS that goes to that. That threshold, the CSIS one, was not met. And both, you know, he suggests maybe Parliament would want to lower the threshold or at least change the criterias or expand them to take CSIS out of the mix. The government is arguing the CSIS assessments are based on other types of situation. Justice Rouleau suggested also that the CSIS criteria be looked at and possibly modified going forward.

We won't know. This will go to appeal. I don't think that we will have some definitive word on where we are on this until the Supreme Court judges or comes with a decision on its reading of the law as it stands today versus the way it was used when it comes to the convoy. But I'm going to leave Bruce to have a stake, but I have thoughts about the political ramifications of this, which I believe are not as dire as some of the convoy supporters would like them to be. Bruce? Well, Chantal just said what I was going to say.

But I have numbers to back you up once you've said that. Yeah. So here's the thing. I think, you know, there's an overused expression in politics and nothing burger. I think that the political consequences of the court decision is a nothing burger i i don't think that anybody who felt that the convoy was justified um i i i don't think that that's going to make them want to have more convoys necessarily or think that the convoy is now the you know the legally sanctioned way to uh you know to press an issue that you care about. And I don't think that people who thought the convoy was a terrible thing are going to go, well, I guess it wasn't a terrible thing because the judge decided that it didn't

meet that particular threshold. I absolutely agree with Chantal that it's great to be in a society unlike the one that we see south of the border that has a court system that isn't overly influenced by politics and the politics of appointees and where parties on all sides listen to a court judgment and say, okay, the court has ruled, there'll be an appeal, but that's the process that we have. And it seems to hold up to the kind of scrutiny that you want an independent judicial system to hold up to. I think that if you're the government or the liberals and you kind of walk away from the – and I like the way that Chantal framed the arguments by the judge as tentative. I think that's right.

I think the judge was basically saying, I don't think that the law was designed to be used in this way. But if I had been in a position to make the choice, I probably would have done it myself. And I think that's the dilemma that the government felt at the moment in which it chose to do this. I don't think it felt absolutely convinced that there was never a possibility that it would be subject to a court challenge. And I think that hindsight is useful in figuring out what you would do in another circumstance. And maybe for the government, they would look at this ruling and say, well, maybe we would do something different. And on that point, and I'll finish on this. I did read the comments of one commentator on X the other night, an author who's kind of well known in political circles anyway, Mark Borey. And he said something that stuck with me.

He said that he thought that in retrospect, Trudeau needed to learn straight me. He said that he thought that in retrospect, Trudeau needed to learn straight talk. He said that he should have called out police chiefs slowly, the Ottawa police chief. He should have verbally smacked Premier Ford and Mayor Watson. He should have used words that were clear and blunt instead of kind of reasonable daddy, and he used an expletive.

But the point was there were things that Justin Trudeau could have done that he chose not to, I think, in the interest of trying to bring this to a more peaceful and calm solution. And it was only after so much time had elapsed that there were a lot of mounting pressures on the government to do something to end this. And that's when the government made the decision with the Emergencies Act. But there might have been other choices that they could have made in the run up to that. The one thing you do not want in this country is for the courts or any group to make it easy to use such a law. That's a slippery slope, much more slippery than a government being found in the wrong by a judge in a federal court. So you kind of have to welcome the fact that we're still

debating this, and only the courts can do this. To go back to numbers, this was probably Justin Trudeau's most popular decision of the past five years, 66% supported it. And for a court to say, well, it wasn't appropriate, will probably not change the minds of that 66%. And why am I saying that? Because I went back to what happened to the federal liberals after they used the War Measures Act in 1970 to end the October crisis. And remember, the War Measures Act in 1970 to end the October crisis. And remember, the War Measures Act was a lot more draconian. People were arrested without cause. There was a massive abuse of civil liberties, and it was widely demonstrated over the decade

that followed. But what happened in the ballot box? Well, the 72, 74, 79 have four elections here. And I only use Quebec numbers because this is where it happened. I didn't expect to find outside Quebec uprisings against the use of the War Measures Act. Oh, the Liberals won a majority of seats, 56 out of 74, 60 out of 74, 67 out of 75. The year 79, when Trudeau lost to Joe Clark, unclear in the decade that followed the War Measures Act, Quebecers literally kept Pierre Trudeau in power, even when other Canadians were tired of Pierre Trudeau, which kind of suggests to me that there will not be a movement away from the government, from people who supported this use of the Emergencies Act on the basis of a court ruling. I don't know what a nothing burger is. We don't sell those in Montreal, which is why Bruce comes here when he wants a good meal.

But I'm hoping we don't have to ever try them. Good meals are available also in Ottawa, where Bruce and I have an interest in a restaurant. Of course you'd say that. Anyway, you know, it's funny when you say that, you know, it was probably Trudeau's most popular moment in his prime ministership, which is true. It's also, you know, when he testified at the commission, people went, who is that guy? I've never seen that Justin Trudeau accounts, by all people from different political persuasions, pretty amazing sitting in the witness chair at the inquiry.

But, you know, I don't think we've seen that guy again since then. A lot of the world and a lot of Canadian politicians have been sitting on the edge waiting for a decision that came out of the International Criminal Court today, or no, sorry, the International Court of Justice. Let me get it right, the ICJ. And this was on this question of whether or not Israel was conducting genocide in Gaza. Well, the decision came down as we've been recording the podcast for today. And let me just read the headline from Reuters. I'll read a couple of sentences from it. The top court for the UN on Friday ordered Israel to take measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in its war in Gaza. The state of Israel shall take all measures within its power

to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, the ICJ said. In a sweeping ruling, it was an interim report really, a large majority of the 17-judge panel of the ICJ voted for urgent measures, which covered most of what South Africa asked for, with the notable exception of ordering a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza. The court ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and also ensure that its troops do not commit any genocidal acts in Gaza. Israel must report to the court within a month on what it's doing to uphold the order. The decision is legally binding, but the court has no way to actually enforce it. So that's the headline out of the ICJ. And, you know, the Canadian government was anxiously awaiting this. The Prime

Minister has said they support the ICJ and they support the UN and they believe in the integrity of whatever decision would come out. So how do you think that Canada responds or reacts to this decision from the court? We've got a couple of minutes, only a couple of minutes here. With a sigh of relief, because this is probably as good a decision as Israel could hope for, the substance of the case that will come in some years, was the order for a ceasefire. And that is the missing part in the ruling. The rest is mostly made up under the basis of what little we've all been able to read.

It's mostly made up of things Canada has been advocating for, more humanitarian, one act, more access for humanitarian aid, of course, preventing and punishing calls for genocide. And they have come from some sections of the Israeli government, not from the prime minister himself. But in the end, there is not much there that Canada can say we have not been advocating already for the past two, three months. Bruce? Yeah, I agree with Chantal about that. I think the absence of a call for a ceasefire creates a way in which people who disagree very strongly about what's happening in the Middle East in terms of how they see it will find different ways to interpret this. I don't think there has been a, a point of view, um, expressed anywhere except attributed,

I think to the Netanyahu administration that says, it doesn't matter that there are civilians being killed in Gaza. Um, so I think for all of those who's, who's increasing preoccupation in the last several weeks has been the number of civilian deaths in Gaza, this will come as an encouraging decision. I think those who worry that the anti-Semitism and the genocidal statements of intent by Hamas

are the thing to be preoccupied with, they will perhaps be less comfortable with this decision, but also understand that the court didn't ask for a ceasefire and understands that there are increasing rumors on this day, on the Friday going into this weekend, that there may be a deal close on the hostages, and it might come in over this weekend. That would be a good sign, depending on what the conditions are that are attached to it and what it means in terms of the future of Gaza. So we'll see about that and obviously monitor it.

This weekend, Catch Your Edition of The Buzz comes out tomorrow into your mailbox if you subscribe, no charge, at nationalnewswatch.com. And Good Talk will be back with more exciting Good Talk next week. Meanwhile, have a great, I guess this is the last weekend in January. Um, enjoy it wherever you are and hopefully we've got good weather to enjoy it with. Thanks to Bruce.

Thanks to Chantel. We'll talk again in seven days on good talk and we'll talk on Monday on the bridge. Take care. Take care of you guys. Bye.