The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- It Costs Money To Fight Russia, Where's Canada's?

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Canada's allies say we are not spending enough on defence and it shows in the support of Ukraine.  Are we and if not where will the money come from to spend more?  Bruce and Chantal with their take on that and a lot more.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, it's Friday and you know what that means. Friday means it's almost the weekend, but Friday also means Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal, Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa, and we, as we always do, have lots to talk about. I want to start on a Ukraine-related topic, and it's related because it involves Canada, and it's related because it involves money, and how much money we're prepared to spend to back up our own defense forces, and in doing so, back up our commitments to Ukraine. There has been criticism of Canada from other NATO countries that we haven't pulled our weight,

that we haven't got up to 2% of our gross domestic product on spending for defense. We're at about 1.5%, I think. And there seems to be a commitment or at least a desire by the government to up that number, especially from the Defence Minister, Anita Anand. So the question becomes, as we approach a budget day, how's that going to fly? Defence spending is not small potatoes.

We've mentioned this before. It's one of the biggest things in any budget. And to up that number is going to cost. And if it costs, does it come from somewhere else? Or do we just keep adding it to the deficit and the national debt? So is there an unfolding debate about to take place inside cabinet about the amount of money we spend on defense and where that money goes? Chantelle, start. A a debate i'm not sure uh

working towards a consensus that politically and practically the next budget is going to show or have to show a significant increase in defense spending as in a defense spending plan stretching over a number of years. I don't believe that was in the cards three months ago. But if I were Minister of Defense, and poor Canada, if I ever were, I would think that this is probably the best time in decades to be pushing for more money for national defense in the lead up to a budget. Because for once, and this is a debate over national defense that has been, it comes and goes, as you know, but public attention on it has not always been terribly focused, and it has not been much of a ballot box issue. The conservatives are more identified with the defense spending,

although that is not always deserved. And the liberals are seen as treating it as not necessarily in their list of priorities. And it certainly wasn't high on the list of priorities of any of the parties that campaigned. When was it? That long ago? Last fall. all. So, I think what we're seeing is in part the pre-budget conversation that must be taking place around the cabinet table. The budget is expected for the first weeks of April. But what we're also seeing is using an opportunity to also use the public's attention on the issue that is really heightened to prepare the Canadian public for a budget that will showcase a spending plan on defence

that wasn't forecast. You're asking me where are they going to find the money? Well, that's the interesting part, because it's easy to come to a consensus that more needs to be spent on defense. But what, if anything, is going to give? Are we going for a higher deficit? Hard to believe. That child care program is not about to go away. Commitments with every province are now on the books, and Ontario is soon coming. So it's going to be interesting to watch, and it's going to be interesting to see how the provinces who want more money for health care in this budget

are going to react to the probable news that they're not getting or about to get a whole lot more money in this round. You know, the difficult always on defense spending is one where you where you're going to spend it um and two how long is it going to take to get the results of those decisions the problem with defense spending often because it involves procurement on whether it's jet fighters or ships or whatever it may be, tanks, these things take a while to deliver. And often when they are delivered, they're kind of already passe in some cases. They're, you know, they've been replaced by other possibilities

in that area of defense. So it's a tricky decision to be made. And Anand, it's interesting to watch her positioning as the person who was involved in procurement on vaccines and considered by many not by all but by many to have done a great job on that Bruce what are you hearing and what do you see as the potential discussion and and debate inside about this well I think there's two separate questions. One is what are the politics of spending more money on defense now? And the second is the one that you just touched on, Peter, which is what do we actually need? What kind of capacity would be useful for us? And so let me

deal with the first one first. Anyway, I think that somewhere along the way, I think it was probably around 2008, we went from being a country where a fair number of people had an idea what the federal deficit was every year. And if it went up a couple of billion dollars or down a couple of billion dollars, especially if it went up, the level of anxiety about it would go up. But after the financial collapse, we saw a conservative government, I think, with a $55, $57 billion deficit, which was the largest that we'd seen up until that point in time, with really no negative political consequences. There was no public opinion penalty paid for having deficits that hit that number. There was no reward subsequently when the deficits came down.

I'm exaggerating a little bit, but my larger point is, do we know what the deficit number is this year? How many beyond us might know it? You lose track of the numbers. They're so large in the last several years, in the last couple of years with the pandemic, that amazingly enough, what we might want to commit to in terms of increased spending would feel almost inconsequential in the context of the budget numbers that we're

looking at now. So I don't think there's really much politics in it one way or the other for the government. I don't think if they decide to spend more, I don't think there's any reward, or I don't think there's really much politics in it one way or the other for the government. I don't think they, if they decide to spend more, I don't think there's any reward, or I don't think there's any angst about it, because Chantal's point is right, which is there's probably never been a time when more people were more seized with the, well, maybe we do need to have more, especially if we've exhausted the supplies of certain kinds of weapons support that we can give to Ukraine. Which takes me to the second point, which is really what kind of capacity do we need? And Peter, you're right that there's always this kind of time lag. But there's also this huge technology question, which is what sort of war, what sort of conflict

are we going to be needing to be ready to participate in? What's the role of our partner to the south, our ally to the south? Are we going to be looking at them in the same way when it comes to North American defense or even NATO? If the House flips in the fall, if Trump or somebody like Trump gets reelected, I think there's a lot of uncertainty about what sort of capacity we need, which is not unrelated completely to how could we procure more efficiently, but is a bigger question in my mind. If I can pick up on that, my imagination is not at a high enough level to imagine how this current crisis would play out if Trump were still in the White House, given his positions,

and how Canada and the rest of the world and the rest of the G7 would position themselves in the face of a Trump administration. And the prospect that this could be the next normal in the White House, that he could return sooner rather than later with this conflict potentially unresolved, probably means that the discussion over national defense has to be, the terms of conversation have to be different because we cannot count on an ally we could count on, despite who was in the White House for decades since the Second World War. My other point is on domestic politics. I totally agree with you, Peter, that the government could announce in two weeks that it has a spending plan for defense.

And by the time we see the outcome, whatever is happening in Ukraine will be resolved one way or the other. And the context might have changed dramatically. And the decisions that are taken today end up looking like we were fighting the last war, which is this one. But the government is also on a much shorter timeline that is called the next election. And that timeline is 18 to 24 months at best. Once there's a new conservative leader in September, we're going to start talking again about whether the government survives next year's budget. The conservatives in that shorter timeline will come down hard on defence increase defense spending they probably politically need to play defense by spending more on defense if they are thinking about an election and it

might seem trite because there's a war on but no minority government takes decisions without thinking down the line at the election that is probably just around the corner there's so many unknowns on this question and they all involve you know big bucks you're right we you know by the time this is all resolved one way or the other the you know the ukraine situation may have passed the crisis point but having said that there there seems to be an indication that we're you know we are spending so much on our commitments to Ukraine in terms of supplying them with lethal weaponry that we're kind of on a shortfall of our own stockpile on lethal weaponry, which is clearly a problem that you don't want to have, that no country wants to have. That is an unknown. Actually, it's maybe an unknown to me.

It's probably not an unknown to those who keep tabs on this kind of stuff. But, you know, I'm puzzled by, you know, what Bruce said, and I'd like him to expand if possible because, you know, I know I'm an old guy and I know we've all been covering this for, you know, what Bruce said, and I'd like him to expand if possible, because, you know, I know I'm an old guy, and I know we've all been covering this for, you know, covering budgets and deficits and debts for a long time, but it really has slid right off the table, this apparent concern. Even within the Conservative Party, you always made this a key part of their platforms about deficit and debt.

Why is that? What has happened in the public mind to say, you know what, this actually, maybe it matters, but it doesn't matter that much that I'm going to make all my decisions based around this question of how much money we're spending and how much we're spending that we don't have. What's happened there? Where have people's thoughts gone well i think there's two or three things that all sort of contributed to the same direction one is that if your if your conscience permits you to believe

that no harm can come from having more government spending a a lot of people will go, I'm going to go with that because it feels better than talking about cutbacks. It feels better than talking about high taxes. It feels like if there's enough experts saying this isn't a problem, then I'm going to focus on other things and kind of enjoy whatever benefits might come, whether it's the child care program or whatnot. But I also think there's a couple of other seismic changes that occurred that were meaningful. One is when the Republican Party in the United States basically stopped talking about fiscal issues. And that happened before Trump. But Trump actually kind of confirmed that you could have a business person come into i say business person in the loosest possible sense the you know come into the

presidency and immediately do things that expanded greatly uh the fiscal challenges that the united states was going to have didn't seem to care about them at all. There was nobody in his party that were really talking about it. And that used to be an organizing dynamic in the Republican Party. This kind of the Democrats are out of control spenders and we've got to be the fiscal guardians. And you could see two or three cycles to go in the United States that there were these groups forming of Republicans and business people that were doing advocacy and advertising efforts saying we've got to get this under control. And now they seem to have just disappeared. Second thing is when you have persistent low interest rates, the argument starts to be material that you can borrow money for a long period of time at one percent and the carrying costs of that are really quite small now that math doesn't work and the logic doesn't work anymore if

interest rates really start to rise and so there's a you know there's a level of anxiety i think in some quarters about that but we've now had a good 10 years or so of the public, not just in Canada, but in the United States being permitted to believe that it isn't a problem to have the levels of debt that we have. And I'm not saying that because I'm, I'm not an economist. I'm not convinced one way or the other. I can hear the arguments on both sides.

I'm just saying the public opinion has ceased to provide any kind of sense of lash for uh the for the idea that the deficit is higher than it used to be and very little in evident rewards if you're seen as a cutter and we've seen conservative candidates who had promised all of a sudden lose momentum when people started to think that they were going to cut spending and and you know we've seen that in ontario for sure but also i think one of the things that's plaguing just one of the things and i know we're going to talk about jason kenney that's plaguing jason kenney is the sense that he you know when he saw oil prices go down and he saw the fiscal situation

go negative he started talking about cutting health and education and he's paid the price for that for sure um okay i don't want to i don't want to get to jason kinney quite yet no i'm not going there okay go ahead we will eventually go there but not yes okay i just want to pick up on something that bruce said and i know he didn't mean it that way, but I'll still make the argument he talked about, you know, people not being worried about deficits and thinking, yes, I'll take that child care program. Just to mention again, that child care program is not a perk. It's not like getting a check back in the mail to deal with inflation. It's a structural measure that actually increases the entry of women and parents in the workforce, and that economically ends up paying off, especially at a time of labor shortages when the population is

aging. It is also a much more structural way to address cost of living and inflation issues, a burden that falls really squarely on the shoulders of young families. And I worry for having covered the childcare debate at the federal level for 40 years, my kids have kids, I was supposed to get a program like that when they were toddlers, that we will once again engage in the, well, you know, the liberals are such free spenders that they're giving perks to parents in the shape of a child care program. And if we come to office, we're going to just cancel this because we are not free spenders and we know that we need to be fiscally responsible. And if that were a casualty of this narrative, and I'm not accusing federal politicians of going for the simplest, dumbest narrative all the time, but there is a tendency for that to happen. It would be

structurally unsound to come to that decision and to present it as a way of cutting off a perk. Can I just, Peter, because Chantal helpfully said she knows I didn't mean it that way. And I accept that with gratitude because I don't. I actually believe that that is an important program. It was probably a poor example in one sense, although it is fair to say that the conservatives have not indicated that they would continue with that program if they were elected. But I think it is an important and positive economic program. there were others, you know, massive spending on transit or some of the other spending on social programs could have been a better example. My point was really a more general one, and I'm 100% behind the idea that the child care projects and programs are a good idea for the economy and

fiscally as well. All right. Before I tie the knot on the defense angle on this segment, I just want to try and understand how urgent is this? Is there an urgency attached to it? Obviously, I understand the Ukraine situation. I understand what Chantel suggestedal suggested that you know if this suddenly uh is resolved you know that that issue isn't as dominant on the forefront but for for some people this defense spending issue is pretty you know is pretty important not just in relation to ukraine but in in relation to how canada looks at its armed force and where it places it and what equipment it has etc etc which lends some to say god forbid we need a white paper on defense you know another study they could take a year or two years I can't remember the last one whether it was Perrin Beattie

30 years ago it was minister of defense had one maybe somebody else has had one since but I just the question is around is there an urgency for this? I mean, it's even talk about Canadian troops being stationed once again in Western Europe, even when this is all over. I mean, this is all money. This is big money, big decisions. What do you sense is the urgency around this? I have a minister who's very committed.

She's making a lot of promises about how she feels the forces need to be beefed up on money and their positioning. What do you sense? Who wants to give me an answer on this? I'll jump in. Look, I think that I interpreted the defense minister's comments differently. I interpreted them as saying that she was going to go to cabinet with a range of choices for cabinet to discuss, which I think is a perfectly logical position. I think it was encouraging for those who've been worried about the state of our preparedness to know that one

of the options would be above the threshold that we had been talking about historically, and another would be on it. So I think she was pretty clearly indicating that her goal was to make a case for an increase over the status quo. On the question of urgency, though, Peter, I really think that there's probably, you know, stuff that we should be procuring, because no matter what sort of conflict we might need to be prepared for, it for me, the bigger issue. It isn't really, I can't say from where I sit, whether or not fighter jets is the right play. I can't say from where I sit without knowing more about where America is going to be or how ambitious China is going to be in the north,

what we should be doing with respect to equipping ourselves to defend in the north. So for should be doing with respect to equipping ourselves to defend in the North. So for me, that big question is about our alliances and what are we, what will we imagine that they will do with us and that we should commit to doing with them? And a big question for that is the United States. And to me, it's the biggest political risk that we have on a lot of decisions that we make, including and not excluding others, the question of what our defense preparedness should be.

Do you want to add anything on that, Chantal, before we move on? Well, I totally agree that four lines or four paragraphs in the next budget are not going to resolve the real discussion that we should be having, which is what do we need and what do we need it for? But I would suggest that if we are going to have an exercise to identify our needs and our goals in the shape of a white paper, call it what you want. It would be really important to come up with ideas that straddle the political divide, because this exercise will likely outlive the current government. And to go around in circles to have one government say, let's do this, and the official opposition of the day say, no, no, no, you're wrong. And if we come

to power, we're going to cancel this and that that you did, which is what we've been doing a lot. It's totally counterproductive. It did get us in large part where we are today. So to find a way to channel the best energies of the main parties on the issue of our defense would probably be a lot more constructive for both parties if they come to government or for the NDP if it's part of that discussion than having the usual, well, this is what they picked, so we're going to say this is wrong. And when we come to power,

we'll pick someone else, something else and go back to square one. Well, hey, I think we've resolved that whole question yeah sure anybody can just listen to the last 25 minutes and say hey there's the answer they know what they're talking about time to move on to a different subject um both chantelle and and bruce hinted at uh jason kenney and jason kennedy kenny is our next topic coming up right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk.

Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening to us on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, either of which we are glad to have you with us. Okay, topic two on today's good talk. Jason Kenney. We have probably talked about Jason Kenney more than any other provincial premier in these last couple of years.

Because of COVID, because of his positioning at the beginning, during, and now on COVID and the management of his province through the pandemic and a variety of other issues. Obviously, the oil issue is a big one facing the Alberta government. By-election was just held this week, and his party won. So, hey, happy days are here again. Bring out the party hats. Problem was, the guy who won the by-election was Jason Kenney, enemy number one. A guy who wants the leadership of the Kenney party and wants Kenney gone and is fighting hard against him in a leadership review that will come up in a couple of weeks in Alberta.

So what is the state, I mean, most anything you pick up saying that's talking about Alberta politics, whether it's written from inside or outside, most of which, not all of which, but most of which is he's done like dinner, stick a fork in, he's finished. Is Jason Kenney finished uh bruce i think the chances are very good that he's finished i think this is the worst most severe uh political risk that he's ever faced in his career i can't think of another one where he was faced with more risk of an end to his political career and that's coming up in three weeks the registrations for that convention where people get to vote i think are upwards of for almost around 5 000 people in red deer and that's um those are the people that are going to

decide whether or not they want to keep him. Now, it would be normal to expect an incumbent to have the organizational heft and discipline and resources to make sure that that room is stacked for him or pretty well stacked for him, but that isn't always the case. And we remember seeing one in Edmonton, I guess it was with Thomas Mulcair, a different party, but an outcome where the incumbent was unceremoniously booted. I think there's a couple of other things that are really interesting to me. I was just looking at the price of Alberta oil and remembering where things were when Jason Kenney took over the job of premier versus now i mean the the price of oil right now for alberta is as good as it's been since he took office better than most of the time that he was in office his fiscal situation has improved hugely as a consequence of that he's got things going in his direction tailwinds that should be helpful to him and yet

he's deep deep deep um kind of underwater in terms of the public opinion and the bottom line is people on the left really don't like him and people on the right there's two versions of not liking him one is really really don't like him. And the other is don't hate him, but don't think he can win. And I think that's the X factor that will determine the outcome in Red Deer is those people who don't love Jason Kenney, but might be prepared to support him as the incumbent heading into an election where the NDP is ahead in the

polls. But they might hesitate because they might think, you know what, he's so disliked by so many people in the province, he's a liability and we should get rid of him. So that's why I think he's in real trouble. For those who don't do what we do, which is follow politics like junkies, I can't remember a time when someone ran for a governing party that is embattled in the polls and won a big victory. And that's what happened in that by-election in Alberta and ran on a ticket to unseat the premier and the leader. And the next day he said, on to the next job, which is

getting rid of the guy who runs the party that I just sought to be elected under. We have a by-election coming on the south shore of Montreal in a few weeks. And he was trying to game the idea that the CAQ candidate would win and turn around and say, now let's move on to decapitate François Legault as premier. And it just boggles the mind to see this happen. I don't know if Jason Kenney is toast, but I'm guessing if I were a conservative supporter in Alberta and I saw some of the polls that show that the NDP would be coming back to power at the time when, as Bruce points out are faring in their own provinces, their approval ratings, and that the top line is that Kenny's approval rating has improved. Oh, yes, it has. It's at 30 percent. And 30 percent makes him second to last for his approval rating across the country. Doug Ford, for those who care, because an election is coming,

is at 43%. 43% has more than enough people to re-elect you as premier to a majority government. And that last person is the new premier, untested premier of Manitoba, also a conservative. So I don't know how those members are voting, but I do know that Jason Kenney, who knows more about politics than most people, has set 50% plus one as the line he needs to cross to remain this leader. But I don't think that's viable. I think if half your party votes against you and you win with half plus one, you have lost any moral authority to lead your party in the election. Joe Clark decided 66% wasn't good enough. Others have

come to conclusions that were similar with higher scores. So it's not just this fight with Jason Kenney might say, 50% plus one is not a victory. It's a moral defeat. It's a mathematical victory, but an empty shell of one. It's kind of a live to die another day, really. You're not going anywhere if you get 50% plus one. You're just constantly facing that kind of pressure. There was another thing in a poll, Peter, that I saw that was really quite shocking, which is that 40% of the people who intend to vote UCP in Alberta in

the next provincial election would rather have a different leader. That's unheard of. 60% of those who voted UCP in the last election would rather have a different leader. Those numbers are normally 75% to 80% of your last time voters want you to stay on. Even if you've got scar tissue, it's just a natural reflex to be looking at those kind of numbers. I've got to think, Jason kenney's a savvy person i don't know if he goes into that convention and lets them take him down i don't know if he doesn't do the math before it comes to that and says uh it's time for me to move on if i were him rather than be completely crushed by a result, including a 50% plus one or a 55% or 60%, those are terrible numbers for a conservative leader in that province with a healthy economy. And so I don't know that he actually ends up taking this vote unless he's really sure that he can do well in it.

I wouldn't if I were him. You know, all the polls that we've seen, almost all the polls that we've seen would indicate he's in serious trouble, whether it's in his own party or stacked up against the other parties in a provincial election. There is a poll out this week. It's a little hard to figure out where it's coming from it's a little unclear who commissioned it um but uh with that suggests otherwise this suggests that kenny's in in good shape but it it uh i don't know whether it's a road poll but it's alone out there on that side of the equation we'll have to watch in these next couple of weeks before

the uh review vote actually happens is to see whether there are any others but he has a short window and he's just come off this this news of you know brian keith winning that by-election under this shandell's is bizarre like it's unheard of as certainly for us to have ever seen a situation like this where you you win a by-election for seen a situation like this where you you want to buy election for the governing party on the platform that you want to bring down the leader it's quite something it what's interesting about what we're witnessing right now is if aaron o'toole had somehow managed to hang on to the conservative leadership he would have been his position may have been greatly influenced

by what happens with Jason Kenney in terms of an internal party vote, which he was going to have to face at some point as well. And I just add, as a vignette, that over the past week, I've been watching not only what's been happening in Alberta, Brian Jean's victory,

and noticed by junkies like us, the fact that Peter McKay, of all people, came out of semi-retirement to praise Brian Jean and say, yay, and yay to his intention to take down Jason Kenney. Of course, that goes back to the previous leadership campaign you were alluding to, and the that Jason Kenny actually put Erin O'Toole on the leadership map by coming out early and swinging in his favor against Peter McKay. But at the same time, what we've watched this week is Pierre Poilievre and that other leadership campaign throwing bricks at Patrick Brown, Mayor of Brampton, who is also running, calling Patrick Brown a liar, an habitual liar, going after others, Jean Chagall, obviously. But I was looking at Brian,

Gene, Peter McKay, Patrick Brown, Jason Kenney, Pierre Poilievre. What do all these people have in common beyond the fact that they're all conservatives and they're all quarreling? They all served in the same caucus. I have to say my admiration for Stephen Harper has gone way up to have managed these people and managed that they did not come out of caucus meetings with blood in their face or black eyes, because you have to think, boy, that Christmas party that the caucus had must have been really something for those people in the same party to treat each other so shabbily in public.

It's not a small thing to call someone an habitual liar, even if it's a rival across the aisle. But to do so to a leadership contender who you served with in caucus, that's really astounding. And I suspect it's going to be a challenge for whoever becomes leader, Poirier or Brown or Chagé or whatever to actually manage to have these people sit around the same table without frisking them at the door to make sure they're not carrying anything that they could throw with each other. Well, that's one thing Harper had. He had an iron fist in caucus and was able to sway

not just individuals on various actions, but the party on policy. Thank you for correcting the name. I don't know what I was thinking. I think i was thinking of some hockey player there or a poet i'm trying to be cultural yes it was a poet it was definitely a poet um all right we're gonna move on unless somebody can tell me you know that kind of suggests some of the things that the influence of this Alberta story can have on the national leadership vote. Bruce, do you want to add anything to that? Watching what is happening there can have on the big picture for the Conservative Party?

Yeah, I think that there is a kind of a divide that's opening up between the candidates who stress unity and the candidates who the are not shall we say that interested in unity they're more interested in whatever it takes to win the leadership and um that's a surrogate obviously for a larger conversation that the conservative party will hopefully have which is that they want to kind of unify more voters under the Conservative tent. But it's also kind of playing out at the speed and with the poison that we're accustomed to seeing in social media these days. This is maybe going to be the most vituperative, rambunctious conversation that's held before the millions of Canadians. And it's not everybody, let's be clear, who use Twitter to kind of gather

news, but it's a good chunk of the population, good chunk of the political junkies for sure. And what we kind of know about how it works is that people will say things that are a lot sharper and edgier and more combustible on some of these social platforms than they would if they were kind of in a room or in a big debating theater. And they were kind of like, I honestly don't think Pierre Poliev would stand on a stage beside Patrick Brown and say, you're a habitual liar. He might, but it would be, you know, to Chantal's point, these people might end up in a cabinet together, one being the leader and the other being kind of a key member of the cabinet. So normally, you don't do that kind of thing, either because you're worried about the longer term effects or because it just doesn't look very leaderly. And I think that we may be in a little bit of a different zone now because we've got that kind of that social platform dynamic entering into how people talk at each other using that platform as a way to raise money, raise membership, kind of drive wedges and create momentum.

Okay. We're going to take our last break. When we come back, we're going to talk about another premier and the impact that he's could have nationally. When we come back. and welcome back from our final break on this episode of good talk chantelle's in ottawa bruce i don't know why i keep trying to put you in you keep trying to put me in a city. Can you put me somewhere warm? I'll trade houses for a week with Bruce if that's what it takes.

But otherwise, I am in Montreal where it is bright and sunny. You're definitely in Montreal. And Bruce is in Ottawa. And I'm in the best choice of all. Little Stratford, Ontario. Where things can be so quiet, you could fire a cannon down the main street. Wouldn't hit anything. However, that's not what we do here in Stratford. We sing and we dance and we're very cultural most of the time

when the truck convoys aren't passing through town, which they tend to do at times in this part of the country. All right. Doug Ford. One thing I meant to mention last week when we were talking about Jean Charest is it'll be interesting to watch. This is what I was going to say last week. It'll be interesting to watch Doug Ford on this question of the national leadership

if somebody starts asking him who he's supporting because the Ford family, both Doug and his late brother Rob, are good friends. We're great friends of Jean Charest, and they did all kinds of different things together in the earlier years on the political front. So I would assume that he would be very careful about how he chose his words around Jean Charest. However, he said this week that his members, and I want to assume he includes himself in

this, should remain neutral and not actively campaign on the CPC leadership. What do we take from that? Chantal? The Ontario election is on the same week as the cutoff to sell memberships. So I'll start with the practical. If I were Doug Ford and I was about to run an Ontario campaign, which may or may not be competitive, but certainly Ontario campaigns have a way of taking turns that no one can see three or four months down the road. I would make sure that none of my candidates is busy selling membership cards on the behalf of anyone. And I would make sure that none of them is actively making some voters angry because they are campaigning for a federal leader that may not be their first choice. And there are splits,

as you know, within the federal Conservative Party that Doug Ford has no interest in kindling or rekindling. There was a poll this week that showed that almost half of conservative supporters in this country, a good chunk of them in Ontario, presumably would vote for Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. And it's 80 some percent in the case of people back Maximilien. Those are all part of the pool of voters that formed a conservative base provincially in Ontario. But even more importantly, Doug Ford wins majority governments with some of the vote that Justin Trudeau wins to secure national governments. So you don't want to make those people angry either. You don't want them to think that you're going for this version of the conservative party, the Trumpism

version. Do I believe that Mr. Ford or his MPs after the election will remain neutral? I'm not so sure. I believe that possibly come August, some of them will be more active. I don't even rule out that at some point, maybe Doug Ford is going to have a preference. It's possible. But I certainly don't expect to see any hints of that. I think that was the logical move between now and voting day. That's not going to happen. Moreover, you can see when a premier is campaigning so close to an election, what he believes is to his advantage. And to his advantage this week, in the case of Mr. Ford, was having a news conference about auto investment with Justin Trudeau. And soon, if we are to believe both the premier and the prime minister, it will be to have a sign-in ceremony to sign a child care deal with Justin Trudeau's government.

So on that basis uh i don't see how he could be playing in the leadership campaign i don't ever remember bill davis or mike harris taking a stance in the federal leadership campaign by the way no uh he didn't. But that didn't stop his caucus from taking one, which they did in 1979. I guess it was 81 by the time the review vote for Joe Clark came down and the conservative provincial caucus was very involved. But you're right. Unlike other provinces where premiers leap in all the time in international stuff, Ontario... That's what I do comes to mind. With great success, as you can see. So Peter, let's imagine that Doug Ford had three choices. He could have said to his caucus, I want you all to support the person that I support. He could have said, I want you to all do whatever you want to do and it's fine by by the kind of aggression that pierre paliev's

campaign has shown towards uh candidates charrette and brown and the reason i say that is similar to what chantal was was saying which is she alluded to the trudeau votes that ford needs i think that there are charrette and brown votes in in Ontario that as conservatives who support those candidates watch this race unfold, they will be unhappy with Ford. If he looks like he's against those candidates or aligned with Polyev, with that kind of caustic, habitual liar, not one of us, those kinds of criticisms. Because they're so trenchant and because they're you know they're aimed at people who are more centrist tories i won't call them red tories they don't want to be called red tories that's fine but um they're not the bluest of tories let me put it that way and the last thing is that chatelle also made this Of course, she always makes all the good points first, but is that there's no there's no Bernier threat for Ford right now.

And by that, I mean, he doesn't need to prove that he's a hard edged right wing populist in the way that maybe a federal conservative could argue that they need to. I don't think that they do necessarily need to federally, but that's a separate point. There might be some formation that runs candidates in Ontario, but it doesn't look at this point like it's going to have anywhere near the risk factor for Ford that a federal leader of the Conservative Party faces from the Reform Party, from the reform from the reform party from the people's party so if you're a ford and you don't have a risk on the right and you do need

some of those votes on the center and you do see charrette and brown being popular ish with those kinds of voters and you see pauliev being a real attack dog on them or at least his his proxies are taking that kind of position it's so easy to, hey, we're going to stay out of it. And voters generally will appreciate that anyway, because it sort of coincides with the message of, we're just trying to do the work for you and kind of stay out of partisanship because you don't pay us for that. Last question.

Does the stay out of it end after the provincial election? I think it depends on what's Ford's agenda and how his election goes. But in other words, is that decision flexible? I mean, what is there, two months or a month and a half between? Almost three months. July, August, September 10. So I think if it's obvious that someone is going to win, there's no need for, I mean, Ford will not be collecting IOUs by throwing his way in there.

If the person who looks like he or she is going to win is someone that Ford would like to avoid, and it is still possible to stop that victory, possibly a case could be made to the premier that it's worth throwing his way in there. But it really depends, one, does he secure a majority government at Twin Spark? Because that's job one by far. If it's a minority government, he's got enough on his hands to not be distracted or be accused of being distracted by this. And third, what will that campaign federally look like? Will it be a done deal by the time all the memberships are sold or will the results still be in the balance?

Those are all unknowns to Mr. Ford, but also to us. One very quick point, I'd pick up on Chantal's comments about the child care programs earlier. Probably before the provincial election, Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau are going to sign a major child care deal. And so the question then becomes, let's say Pierre Polyev gets elected leader of the Conservative Party, and he said he will not go forward with those deals. I think that's an interesting dilemma, because if you're Ford, having signed that deal, you're going to be really hard pressed to get behind a conservative federal candidate who says that they would kill it. I just don't see that being very likely. So I think if Poliev is the leader after that, Ford tries to stay on the sidelines and protect the gains that he's made.

And that's maybe even more true if it's Chrystia Freeland or somebody else who's a liberal leader, but not Justin Trudeau. All right. Great conversation on three topics today. Enjoyed them all. And I think hopefully the audience did as well. They almost always do. They love good talk. And we love giving it to you. Okay. Thank you, Chantel.

Thank you, Bruce. I want to give two quick reminders of shows that are coming up. Later today, in fact, I'm going to be interviewing Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia, who's an expert on China, speaks Mandarin, and is watching very closely the situation on Ukraine as it relates to China and its relationship with Russia. So that will be interesting. I'll be doing that for the University of Toronto.

But I will have some excerpts of that for Monday's episode of The Bridge. Tuesday is really special too. Margaret Macmillan, I've been trying to get her for the last little while, one of the world's great historians, great authors, great writers, a Canadian, of course. She's over in the UK, but we're going to talk

and we're going to talk and try and understand where this fits in the lens of history, what we're witnessing unfold in Europe right now and in Ukraine. So look forward to both those programs. That's it for this day for Good Talk. Thanks so much for listening.

I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. For Chantelle and for Bruce, have a great weekend.