The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk-October 22

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Lots for Chantal and Rob Russo (filling in this week for Bruce) to talk about as we preview the decisions around and the optics around the cabinet that Justin Trudeau will unveil next Tuesday.  Also, what does mandatory vaccination mean for MPs to enter the House of Commons and does it create yet another problem for Erin O'Toole?  And then, inflation, and the Alberta plebiscite.  As I said, lots to talk about!

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello again from Scotland. We're good talking it today. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce away this week. Rob Russo is joining us once again. Rob is in Ottawa. Rob, the former Bureau Chief at the CBC in Ottawa and also Canadian Press in Ottawa, former Washington correspondent for CP.

So he's been around the track a few times and we've got a number of things to talk about today. And let me start this way with the one Scottish connection I could come up with, seeing as I'm here, up in the Highlands, north of Inverness. Not far, actually, about 20 minutes away from the ancestral home of, wait for it, John A. MacDonald. Now, he was born in Glasgow, but his family had come down from up here in the Highlands. And without getting into the pros and cons of john a mcdonald uh we don't want to do that on this podcast broadcast today uh but i

found it interesting thinking back to what must have gone through his mind back in 1867 first prime minister of canada first government of Canada, an election that had been held in August. Parliament didn't convene that year until November. Now, he had lots of good reasons to have excuses as to why it took so long. I mean, he was building

the first government of Canada, and I'm sure there were a lot of decisions he had to juggle around. 19 members in that first cabinet, which is more, I had to look that up, and that's more than I thought there would be. I thought there would be, well, you know, maybe a dozen, but 19. That's a fairly large cabinet for the very first cabinet, probably half what will be announced on Tuesday for Justin Trudeau in his new cabinet.

And that's how we're going to start this off today, by talking about that. Parliament reconvenes not really until when? Late in November, but the cabinet will be announced next week. After a fairly lengthy period between the election, September 20th, and this cabinet. So what's been going on and what's likely to happen becomes the question. One assumes that these last, if it goes anything like past cabinet makings, there's everything, including sometimes a blackboard,

or I guess a whiteboard now they have them, where they put names up on the wall and say, would this person work with such and such a portfolio or if we move them here, who do we move there, et cetera, et cetera. And they got to weigh everything. A lot of things that John A. Macdonald never had to weigh, gender, parity within cabinet. I mean, women couldn't vote, couldn't run for office back in 1867,

but it's so much more than issues of gender there's um geographic there's race there's what have you there's all kinds of different things that are in the mix on decisions made like this so uh chantelle why don't you start us in terms of in general of what we're hearing keeping in mind that a lot of the names from the past cabinets and including up cabinets and including up to and including this next cabinet are people we may never hear of again. You know, they get in cabinet, they're in a minor portfolio, and you never hear of them until the next cabinet shuffle. Especially if there's a pandemic and everything is focused on just a handful of

ministers. So that makes it even harder to advance any agenda that anyone would actually notice. To go back to your feeling of history, it kind of dates you. I thought you were going to say I'm just a few kilometers away compared to us to Glasgow, where the big climate conference will be taking place, momentous event.

It's covered in garbage right now, right? Glasgow, they're having some kind of garbage strike and they're concerned about how this is going to look to the world. And it will look bad. To go back to Sir Johnny McDonald and the August to November, I read somewhere that the average time between an election and the convening of the House of Commons is 70 days, but that probably includes times like Sir Johnny's when you have to travel for three days to get to Parliament Hill. So, if you're going to convene a cabinet, you're going to have to give a week's notice. Another thing about form, it will be a bit different on Tuesday from everything I hear from what we are used to.

All the ministers show up. They usually bring some family. It's a big day for many of them, especially if it's the first time. But we are still in a pandemic, and there are scenarios that could see the swearing-in of ministers in batches. A certain number gets sworn in. They all go. Another number come in and gets sworn in.

So some networks are actually keeping three, four, five hours set aside for this, which usually takes, what, an hour and a half at most. Sounds scintillating. I'm really sorry. I'm going to miss it. Five hours of cabinets. Can you imagine? Yes. And can you imagine how much you would have to say about all those people you would need?

What people don't really know is I've done some specials, not with you, where the host actually had a gallery of photos so that he or she would know who it was that was walking in to read the hall to be sworn in because it was just after an election, many new faces, and there was no way to know. And we really didn't want that host to look at us with the question, who was that? Because we were no better. The notion of batches probably speaks to the fact that it will be a large cabinet, not a smaller one, so closer to 40 than anything.

And also that from everything we hear that there will be a lot of changes. It's not just going to be the old cabinet, whoever survived. And then we're bringing a few more people on the raft to make up for those that we lost in the process. And I think it will say quite a bit about, I'm guessing, two things. The first is what missions Justin Trudeau really takes seriously is this could be his last term, and he will want to see real actions on legacy issues. And the other is people have been saying there's been, I call it now a Batman and Robin act of Justin Trudeau

showing up with Chrystia Freeland every few days as if suddenly they're the dynamic duo of the government. And there are those who say, well, that kind of shows that Justin Trudeau is putting her on the fast track for his succession. Others who are less kind about politics would say it also means she owns everything that Justin Trudeau will be doing for the next two years, including probably some baggage that a successor would not want. But it will be interesting to see how he positions others who may have leadership ambitions and who would want to make their mark over the last few years of the mandate. Remember Kim Campbell going to national defense from justice, kind of drew a lot of attention to her in the dying months of Brian Mulroney's tenure.

So there's who gets to do what, but there's also what the thinking of the prime minister or what it says about the thinking of the prime minister that is interesting in a shuffle. There's a lot of interesting possibilities there in terms of the factors at play when we witness who's in that lineup. Rob, what are you hearing? Well, he sits down with his top political advisors, in this case, Katie Telford, and also at some point, the clerk is brought in and they start to do… The clerk being the clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's top bureaucrat, right? Top civil servant, top public servant. And that person is there, in this instance, it's Jeannette,

who's filling in for Ian Shugart, who is expected to be back in a few months. But they do some political calculus. That's what they're doing right now. What are your priorities is what the clerk is going to ask. And how much time can you reasonably expect to have before you can achieve these priorities? And you've got to plan for a defeat uh and and because you don't control everything so they look at 18 months and so what do you want to do and the two or three things he he wants to do uh involved uh indigenous affairs reconciliation involve the environment

climate change and involve the economy as a political imperative. We were talking about inflation before, and I think that that is a political imperative during this mandate. So they look at the time they have and those priorities. And if you look at that, then I don't think we're going to see a lot of change in the portfolios that come to bear on those. So in other words, Jonathan Wilkinson will probably stay in environment, I would imagine Mark Miller is not going to move from Indigenous Affairs. And of course, he's already said Christopher Freeland is not moving. So then he's got to look around and say, what are the problems? What's going to cause me problems over the next little while? And he's already he's got a longstanding problem at national defense. So

nobody is going to be shocked. People will be shocked if Sajan stays in his job at national defense. He will be on the move. Who goes in there? Somebody who's done good work. And there are a couple of women who've done very, very good work. Anita Anand has done good work in procuring our vaccines. And Carla Qualtrough is thought to be a stellar performer as well as employment minister. I wouldn't be surprised if those people were considered for those kinds of jobs. So who gets a bump up in the troublesome portfolios? I think Chantal is absolutely right. A prime minister like this, the big difference between Justin Trudeau and Sir John A. Macdonald right now is one was on the way in in 1867 and one is on the way out.

And a prime minister like this, whose party's been in power for some time, has a responsibility to try and keep the brand burnished. So Christopher Freeland is seen by mr trudeau i'm told and by those around him as the incarnation of of the justin trudeau neoliberal big l neoliberal uh and they're doing everything they can to advance it but there are there are others who they they think are going to run and and they want to try and do something for them. People like François-Philippe Champagne, people like Melanie Joly as kind of a signal that she might be interested. So she was thought to have performed ably during the campaign. She might get a bump up as well. You know, you think of, I'm old, so I remember Kim Campbell. I was there for Kim Campbell. But I also remember a little bit of Lester Pearson.

And he had three prime ministers that he groomed. And he was quite proud of that later on. One of them as a kind of parliamentary assistant, Jean Chrétien was his parliamentary assistant, but John Turner and Pierre Trudeau were groomed in those Pearson cabinets. So you've got to think that Justin Trudeau is doing the same thing. And there have to be, I think, one or two newcomers in this cabinet. And when you think about the people who might go in, there's a woman named Pascale Saint-Ange, who's a union leader,

just elected in Rome, Mrs. Squaw, who I think they're taking a long, hard look at as somebody who could come in the cabinet as well. One of the reasons the cabinet comes so late may well be that there was a recount in that writing and that only got settled last week. So until you know what you have, you do have, if I can just pick up on the Lester Pearson thing. He was the last prime minister to succeed in grooming a successful successor. If you look at all of the others, Pierre Trudeau, we know what happened to the liberals once his reign was over. Brian Mulroney, let's not go there. Jean Chrétien, 10 years in opposition and with three leaders, Stephen Harper today. So not all of them felt it was a big responsibility.

I would be hard-pressed to find any evidence that Stephen Harper really paid a lot of attention to what would happen to the brand once he was gone. But successful handing over of the torch, maybe, but really hard. And if you look at this track record, the next liberal leader is headed for the opposition benches. Yeah. Let me back you both up a bit. I know we've all been assuming this,

and I've been at the lead of assuming this, that Justin Trudeau, if he wound up with a minority, for sure would be gone. Even if he had a majority, he might have been gone at the end of it as well. But is there any doubt about that at this point? I mean, we're all operating under this assumption that he's gone in the next year or two. Even Bruce has been feeling that way. Could we be jumping to conclusions that, I mean,

what actual evidence of that decision is kind of out there? Going to Tofino and not telling the truth about what you were doing that day is pretty good evidence, I would say. Look, the option always remains there. There are no facts in the future. If he should come in and be incredibly popular, he would have that option. You know, he did have that option. There are a lot of people around him who said, you know what, Prime Minister,

the Conservatives are probably going to be tearing themselves apart for a year and a half or two years over leadership. If things go really well for us, there is no reason why you couldn't exercise that option again in a couple of years. But boy, there are very, very few people around him who seem to believe that's what he wants to do. But the option always remains. Nobody seems to be operating on that belief in this town. You know, I love that line. I love that line that Rob had. There are no facts in the future, right? Good line.

Chantal, go ahead. There are, history does not always repeat itself, but there are no examples of a prime minister successfully winning a fourth consecutive term. It doesn't happen. Those who tried failed, Stephen Harper. Those who did not, Jean Chrétien, managed to leave, and Paul Martin won a fourth consecutive mandate. Pierre Trudeau had four mandates, but he had a defeat

in between. I'm thinking that if Justin Trudeau has control over his destiny, probably he will decide to go. But prime ministers who have minority governments are not always in control of their destiny. So, what I would put an asterisk on is what if his government gets defeated at a time when no one expects it to get defeated? Well, of course, I don't expect Justin Trudeau to quit and say, let's have a leadership campaign when he's facing an election. So under that scenario, I can see him lead the party in a fourth campaign. But if the opposition parties were so determined that they defeated the liberals in government early or in a way we don't expect, it would probably be because they believe the liberals are going to get killed in the election. Opposition bungling. You're exactly right, Chantal. Opposition bungling is the only thing

that could keep Trudeau there probably. And it worked for his dad, right? His dad was on his way out the door. He was out. He was like, he said he was gone, right? Still out of seat, but he said he was gone. This is in December of 79. Yeah. And, you know, that wasn't opposition bungling. That was government bungling, right? Yes. You know, the government introduced in a minority government a budget with what seemed, you know, outrageous at the time, an 18-cent-a-gallon gas tax.

And they got hammered. You know, they went from minority to a majority liberal government under Pierre Trudeau, who decided he should, you know, he was convinced he should run again. And rather than put the party through, you know, a leadership convention, this was all, I think, manipulated by the great Alan McKechnie, who was the backroom master of things. But Trudeau the elder had sat through all of these accolades. He said goodbye.

They'd made all the kind remarks about them. And then they all had to eat their words within a couple of weeks. But he also had to get defeated in an election before all of that happened. It's not quite. So it is not a fourth consecutive mandate. He did fail to win that fourth term until he got the second chance. So they were not consecutive. The other question is, and it does set in every party,

that expectation that we talked about that it was going to be his last term is within his own caucus and party. And there comes a point where if it seems that that's not going to happen and your popularity at the same time is not necessarily way up in the sky, when people start to organize on you, and that is a peril of, you know, you're the prime minister, You can't send a clear signal that you're going to leave in two years. But if you start sending signals that you want to stay on forever, then you're also taking a hit when it comes to your moral authority on caucus. That may be one of the reasons why he's keeping Christopher Freeland so close, Sean. Yes, keep your enemies close.

He does seem to have a firm grip on the party, a firm grip on his potential rivals. There doesn't seem to be the kind of things at all that we saw with Paul Martin. But there is quite evidently an heir apparent, I would say. And he's doing everything he can to help her. And that might be the reason why there is no disquiet in caucus right now. But there is disquiet in caucus and in cabinet. And you do hear it about the identity of the heir apparent. More so than we are led to believe by what we see in public.

Yes. And if Chrystia Freeland were not a woman, you would see more of it. But this is the Liberal Party who now have a senior minister who is female who stands to buy for the leadership, the only federal party that has never had a female leader for all their talk about parity, et cetera, et cetera. And that's a factor, but that does not mean it goes down easily with everyone inside that caucus.

And outside. And outside the caucus, too, yeah, because, I mean, there is an heir apparent on the inside, and there's a wannabe heir apparent on the outside. Yes, are we going to do the Carney thing again? No, we're not going to do the Carney thing again. In fact, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about MPs and what they'll have to produce

to be allowed inside the House of Commons right after this. Our podcast is brought to you by Questrade, Canada's fastest-growing and award-winning online broker. comments right after this. forced conversion fees every time you trade U.S. stocks. Switch today and get up to $50 worth of free trades. Visit Questrade.com to open an account and use promo code QUEST. Conditions apply. Okay, Peter Mansbridge back in the highlands of Scotland. Rob Russo is in Ottawa. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. The government has decided that they will only allow MPs inside the House of Commons who have been vaccinated, double-vaxxed.

And sounds like everybody's on board for this, including Aaron O'Toole. So is this a non-issue or is it a little more complicated than that, Chantal? Sounds more complicated than that because Aaron O'Toole and his, there is light between Aaron O'Toole and his own caucus whip, or his current caucus whip, who is the person in charge as whip of herding the MPs into compliance and into the House of Commons for votes. There is also light between Mr. O'Toole and some of his MPs, Mark Strahl in BC, to name one, but there are others. There are MPs, from everything we can gather, an unknown number of MPs in the Conservative caucus who are not

vaccinated. Now, I think Canadian press last checked and found about 40, almost 40, would not reveal their vaccination status. That is not to say they're all unvaccinated, but they won't reveal. That's a high number of people. And the fact that they won't say kind of speaks to the fact that they're not really into this. You can't get into the parliamentary precinct unless you show proof of vaccination. Others want to launch a battle on how the decision was made. The rationale is that because the decision was made by the Board of Internal Economy, where every party is represented, including the Conservatives, and the speaker speaks for eventually, that this was a secret

meeting and that this should have been debated on the floor of the House of Commons. Here is the problem. If you really are a Conservative MP and you want to die because you will on the hill of the vaccination rules to be in the House of Commons, you will. Because if it comes to a vote, the only question will be whether any CPC MP votes with the NDP, the Green Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Liberals to enforce the vaccination rule in the House of Commons. So, for Aaron O'Toole, it's just a poison cup. And every time he gets close to it, he's taking a sip.

And the only conclusion from these, this week's statements is that there is no unity in caucus and possibly not anyone to kind of say recess is over and let's move on here. Rob. Well, you know, six weeks ago we had an election and the Conservatives were doing pretty well in that election when they ran into a brick wall over vaccinations. And now it looks

like they're getting back into the sort of banged up buggy, firing it up, backing it up and hurtling towards the brick wall one more time. And it does beggar questions. Look, some are calling for an open vote. They said that the process was secretive. That may be true. But do you really want to reveal the bitter divisions in your own party openly like that in front of everybody. If you think that Aaron O'Toole's leadership might be shaky now, that would put, you'd hear the ice cracking under Aaron O'Toole's leadership at that point. They have a few roads to success. One of them is the longevity of this government. The longer it stays in office,

the closer it gets to leaving that time. If they had any kind of sense, they would put the pandemic behind them. And the best way to put the pandemic behind them is to make sure as many people as possible are getting vaccinated. Everybody agrees vaccines work and getting people to work. And then they can pivot to issues where they could actually make up some ground, like the economy, like inflation, which is biting people. But this is a loser for them. I don't know how they can win. Maxime Bernier, who went from nothing to a few more votes in the last campaign, wins in this scenario, and so does Justin Trudeau. And the sooner they realize that, the sooner they might be able to put this issue behind them and actually begin to look like a party

that might be suitable for consideration for actually holding power. I see that Maxime Bernier is on Aaron O'Toole's mind more than a little bit. In the recent interviews he's given, he's talked about that. Does Max Bernier survive as a figure? I mean, he has no seats, but does he survive as a figure on the Canadian political landscape without COVID? Like when COVID does pass, when the vaccine issue is behind us,

is there still a place for Maxime Bernier on the landscape? I just said that there were no facts in the future, and yet you're getting into my cracked and cloudy crystal ball. Look, there are always going to be 10% of Canadians who are, you know, rapidly anti-immigrant, rapidly opposed to any kind of government intervention in their lives, rapidly opposed to the notion that they should have limits placed on them by governments. I think that somebody like Maxime Bernier will always be able to count on some support. Whether that support could actually be mobilized and turned into votes is another matter.

But he was given oxygen by the pandemic and by the vaccine issue. I'm not sure that brand of oxygen will be on order for him if this issue is put behind him and the Conservatives are keeping that oxygen flowing right now. Well, he's going to try to stick around for as long as possible because in the process, he has made himself one of the most toxic political figures in the country. No one in government anywhere in Canada is about to offer Maxime Bernier a job, including in his home province of Quebec where, even in his own riding, he is now being totally and firmly rejected despite… This used to be a Bernier-owned riding boat. Now, it's two elections where Maxime Bernier has been shown more decisively the second

time than the first, that this is where the door is. When he finished second in the leadership campaign against Andrew Scheer, you could presumably have imagined that this is someone that François Legault could have wanted to recruit as a candidate. That's all gone. So, Maxime Bernier has no other purpose in life than to be who he is. Whether he does better, I think, depends on the Conservative Party itself, i.e. if the Conservative Party got its act together and looked like it was

really going to replace the Liberals with or without Justin Trudeau in government, a portion, not all of them, but a portion of the people who vote for Maxime Bernier would coalesce behind that Conservative Party because the people that we're talking about also have a rabid dislike of liberals in government. And that's a mission for them to have. I suspect that in the second half of the campaign, it wasn't just vaccines that helped Maximilien. It was the perception, the growing

perception that the Conservatives were not going to win, making it easier to say, well, then I'm not going to hold my nose and vote for Erin O'Toole, who's taking the party in directions I don't like. I'm going to vote for my man, Maxime Bernier. So if the Conservatives, as they seem to really want to do, are a mess, then Maxime Bernier probably has a longer lease on life than the alternative. Rob, you mentioned inflation a moment ago, and I want to touch on that because, you know, we were living in this, you know, wonderland of 1% and 2% inflation for a long time, for years. And those of us who are old enough to remember the bad inflation days of the 70s and early 80s and what that did to everything, including interest rates, mortgages, we'll never forget it. But here we've seen inflation in the last year sort of edge its

way up, and now we're double the number that we were for such a long time. We're over 4% now on inflation. And no suggestion that that's going to end anytime soon, that it could keep going up. So what's the impact on those inflation numbers, which are still awfully low compared with what we saw in the 70s, but still, as I said, double what they were not that long ago. What's the impact of those and how worried are bureaucrats and the government about the impact that can have on governing? Well, they seem not to be worried, but I can tell you they are concerned. Look, you said that it might not be having a huge impact, but there are areas where it's really hurting. You want to bring home the bacon, it's 20% more now for a package of bacon. A lot of us eat chicken. Chicken is 10% higher. So these are staples. Let's not even talk about fuel. If you want to fuel up your car with gasoline, it's 32% higher.

So you eat, it's going to cost you more. You sleep, it's costing you more for your house. You move, it's costing you more to fuel up your car. These are areas of our lives every day that are being severely impacted by this. Now, everybody says it's transitory. And that's probably true. Most economists in government believe that it is transitory. But they're surprised at how persistent it is, the inflation. And they're concerned that as those of us go to renegotiate our contracts who are in the workforce, you're going to be taking that into account and you're going to be asking for higher cost of living allowances in order to take that inflation into account. And all of a sudden we get into an inflation spiral and we get into what's called

structural inflation where it's there and it's really really hard to eliminate at that point so it's it's a concern for the government uh their options are very very few yes it's a global phenomenon but they do have one or two options and neither one of them are are really good for for this government in particular. When people are suffering, you can reduce taxes. One of the taxes that they have that brings in a lot of money is a gasoline tax. I can't see this government reducing the gasoline tax because of the environmental agenda that it has. But there will be a clamor for the government to do so. You can bet that the Conservatives are going to ask them to reduce the gasoline tax. That's coming.

The other instrument that governments have is monetary policy. If inflation becomes persistent, you know, they can, in their annual conference between the finance minister and the governor of the Bank of Canada, they can suggest that inflation needs to be brought down, and that would lead perhaps to a rise in interest rates. The bank has signaled that that's coming, but not until next year. If they advance that, just imagine all of those people who've been lining up to bid on prices, on houses over the asking price, what's going to happen to those people who are leveraged out there with huge mortgages when their mortgages go from two or 3% to five or 6%. Again, some of us have paid a lot more than that.

I paid 21% on a mortgage in Montreal. Okay. So in the early 1980s, so 6% would have sounded very good, but I didn't borrow four or $500,000 on that place. I borrowed a fraction of that. And so when you're going from 3% to 5%, that's going to make a big difference. And then we're going to see not just pinching, but pulverizing in the economy if that happens. You know, when I got my mortgage in 81, it was 12%. And I thought, I got a deal. Yeah. Because there are guys like Russo in Montreal who are going to be paying a hell of a lot more

when he buys in another year. Anyway, Chantal on inflation. Well, now you know why Justin Trudeau called an election in August and why ideally he would have liked to secure a majority. This has been somewhere on the radar of governments for a while. And there was no better time to have an election from his perspective than September 20th. When you look at this and you look at the calendar. I think for the reasons that Rob explained, that they're going to keep – it's going to be a watch for item, but not an act on item for a number of months. The picture will be clearer once they have to present a spring budget. I don't expect much or any action on the government front, in part because the consensus amongst economists is that this is driven in part by supply chain issues that eventually they believe will resolve themselves. And there is a long list of reasons why this could be just something that over time attenuates.

But to go back to the wage pressures, there are pressures on wages at the negotiating table that are driven not just by inflation but by the pandemic and not just in Canada. People who work in the healthcare system, people who work in childcare. They're all, at this point, saying, we need a better deal. We're not interested in continuing to do what we do in those circumstances. What is really interesting is that, in many sectors, the jobs that have traditionally been held by women and that have been paid less than they are now being offered, the message is we're not interested in our jobs being kind of the side job, the extra income. We want to be paid for what we do and what we are worth. And it's really interesting

to watch in Quebec in particular, where there are labor shortages. The government is going out of its way to try to throw money at child care and nurses to get more of them to sign up to work. But this will undoubtedly contribute to inflation over time to go back to chantal's batman and robin and all analogy i think it's really important that christopher freeland is a frank as a finance minister now uh you know neither dustin trudeau nor his father pierre were very interested in in economics. We saw that during the last campaign where the prime minister was asked about monetary policy, and he kind of sloughed it off by saying, you'll excuse me if I have more important things to talk about. We're dealing with families here. I don't have time to talk about monetary policy today.

Whereas monetary policy has a direct impact on what's happening with those families. But Christian Freeland, former financial journalist, author of the book Plutocrats, knows the financial system, knows the financial players very, very well. But as Chantal said earlier, could end up wearing what might be a messy inflationary period where people suffer for the next year and a half or so until this all gets settled, if it gets settled in the next year and a half. And we were talking at the beginning of this conversation about a government mandate that might not last more than a year and a half or so. So there are risks in that. But I'm sure I know that the liberals feel quite comfortable that

they have somebody who knows the financial system, international markets in the finance portfolio right now. And one of the assets that the Liberals have politically is that the Conservatives do not seem to be able to impose a figure that would be their financial anchor in caucus, their finance anchor. Seriously, you look at what has been happening this week, and it was overshadowed by the vaccine debate. But when the Conservative Party comes out on the social media under the name of its leader to say inflation is caused by Justin Trudeau's pandemic relief programs, which, frankly, you have to know nothing.

Even I, who is not an economist, see this. And my reaction as a voter, looking at the rhetoric coming out of the conservatives on the economy, is these people think that we're idiots and they're not being serious about the economy. That is supposed to be their main forte. But to this day, I can't tell if Pierre Poilievre was taken away as finance critic to be the finance critic of the finance critic of the Conservative Party, or what the point was. And that is a big political advantage to Justin Trudeau and Christia Freeland, but it does a disservice to Canadians

that the Conservatives are not engaging on the economic issues on a serious basis, that they're doing it for fundraising purposes instead, because it brings the discussion to the lowest possible partisan common denominator, and no one is served by that, including the Conservatives. Well, they might want to change direction on that because, as you both have explained, being aware of the economic situation and the direction that is happening within the country on a number of key points on the economy is something that is striking at home on a very street-level basis level basis for most canadians for

a lot of canadians and they want to hear real talk not just good talk on this subject okay we're gonna take our final break when we come back we're going to talk about alberta this is the bridge with peter mansbridge about Alberta. This is The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. Okay, back with Good Talk. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're glad to have you with us. Peter Mansbridge in Scotland this week. Chantelle Iberi is in Montreal. Rob Russo is in Ottawa.

Rob's filling in for Bruce, who's away this week. Alberta had its referendum, plebiscite, call it as you will, just a few days ago, and it covered a whole wide range of different issues. But the one that was receiving most attention was Albertans' vote on equalization, a mainstay of how Canada operates. The final result on that vote isn't known yet. There's still serious sections of the province, mainly around Edmonton,

that have not, we haven't seen their vote numbers yet. But it would take an overwhelming vote against the yes side, which is that equalization needs to be, as far as Alberta is concerned, taken out of the Constitution. It would take an overwhelming vote in that area for that not to happen, for that yes side not to win. It's possible, but it seems unlikely at this point. So what does it all mean?

Does it mean anything? Like does something happen when the final result is known and it's a yes vote by Alberta? Do we suddenly say, okay, that's it for that part of the Constitution? Or is it just a moment in time where, you know, a feeling was expressed by the people of Alberta on this topic? What difference does it make? Does it make a difference? Chantal?

A feeling was expressed by the people of Alberta, well, it's going to be interesting to see what the turnout was for this municipal election and how many who did participate in the election actually cast a ballot on equalization. But typically, the numbers on turnout in municipal elections are low. And it does look like the yes will win with less than 60% and maybe less than 55% of the vote. So when you take the two of them together, it is not the strong statement that you could have hoped for if you were going to use that vote as leverage to at least have a talk about equalization that goes your way or the way of Alberta. For the sake of comparison, I think it was 94% of Quebecers who participated in the referendum in 1995. That's just about everybody that could walk to a polling station, cast a

ballot. That does put a lot of weight on the result. I think you got a sense of what the answer is from the federal government this week. Justin Trudeau, over the course of the news conference, said, well, great for Jason Kenney. Now he needs to bring this to his fellow premiers because if you're going to make changes along those lines in the Constitution, you need the support of seven, six premiers, or seven with Alberta, adding up to 50% of the population, meaning you need to get Ontario on side, and then five other premiers. Nothing, and what Justin Trudeau did not say is even if you did get that, you then have to get the House of Commons and the Senate to support that amendment. In clear, I think Justin Trudeau's government is predisposed to say we've taken note of this and we're always willing to talk about the equalization formula.

But that is true, as he pointed out. It is reviewed every 10 years. It is not the subject of a federal-provincial negotiation every 10 years. The federal government basically consults and decides. And the last time the current formula, the one that Jason Kenney dislikes so much, was reviewed, Jason Kenney was sitting at Stephen Harper's cabinet table. Rob?

Yeah, you know, I did not see any images of Jasper Avenue jammed with people excited about this issue. There's just, it's not what's stoking the province's politics right now. No prime minister can afford to ignore what is a genuine sense of grievance and isolation in Alberta, without a doubt. But if Jason Kenney thought that this would be the vehicle that he could use to drive to Ottawa and to deliver a demonstration of how dangerous that grievance is to Confederation, I don't think this is going to be the vehicle. You know, if you ask Albertans about what their priorities are right now, it's the pandemic. It's pandemic management. It's coming out of the pandemic.

If you ask them what's next, a lot of them are saying oil and gas is having a moment right now. What are we going to do this time? So that to echo the famous bumper sticker, we don't piss it all away this time. So, you know, what can Alberta do to convince the federal government that this sense of grievance might be used to genuinely have a serious discussion about helping Alberta transition to that moment that we all know is inevitable when the world will need less oil and gas. It's going to happen. It might not happen for 30 years, as a lot of people say. But, you know, I would be trying to use that sense of grievance that way. You know, all of us on this discussion have constitutional experience. We all, you know, my hair was dark and I didn't have these bags under my eyes before I started covering constitutional discussions that meant that we were up all night talking about the modified Mendez formula.

That was fun. Do you want to spend five minutes on that now? Please. There are more pressing priorities right now for the province of Alberta, and I'm not sure that this is one. It's not just the people of Alberta. There is one province where it's possible to get passions up the Liberals or the NDP because they posed an existential threat to Quebec's autonomy, really. And then people who vote for François Legault provincially and think he's doing a good job went and voted for Justin Trudeau. So, I have found living in this province, and when I covered the Constitution, I actually lived on the other side of the bridge in Ontario. But once I came

here, I found that there is traction for issues that pertain to the Constitution when it comes to identity or culture cuts in the case of Stephen Harper, for instance. But when you start talking to people, even in Quebec, about the exclusive jurisdiction of the province on manpower training, their eyes glaze over, as they should, I believe. And so, if you cannot get that, a rise out of Quebecers over jurisdictional issues. Good luck with doing it about equalization. We were all trained back in the day to try to avoid in our stories or put closer to the bottom of the story so as not to turn readers off. You're probably wondering why I left equalization to the bottom of this hour.

Oh, it's a funny country, isn't it? That we have this kind of revolving nature of discussions and debates on some of the key issues that kind of represent the country in many different ways. And I don't know how often you two ever play the if game but i i do every once in a while i've tried to play the if game lately on a number of scenarios that unfold in in canada and wondered how past leaders whether provincial or federal would have handled certain situations and you know i watched the alberta story and i watch it especially on the covet front because my dad was chief deputy minister of health there for a while for Peter Lougheed. And I wonder what would those two have

done on COVID that Jason Kenney hasn't done with his top people. But it's the same on the equalization debate. It's the same with the issues that have unfolded in Quebec, as Chantal just mentioned, and you wonder, you know, how Charest would have handled it, how Levesque might have handled it. You know, it's always an interesting claim, a game to play the Yifts, even though it doesn't really mean anything in the end

because we're not in that situation. But nevertheless, there we go. Let me wrap things up here. situation. But nevertheless, there we go. Let me wrap things up here. If you're looking for one surprise on Tuesday when that new cabinet is announced, just one, what would it be? Rob, do you want to take a shot at that? Well, it wouldn't be a surprise, but I think it's past time that a woman is in charge

of the Department of National Defense. I think this is the time. And a lot of people would never have seen that coming. And I think that that's not just a powerful symbol. It's an absolute necessity, given what's going on in the Department of National Defense. Chantal? It's hard to talk about surprises when one is talking about a package

that one can't even begin to unwrap to see what is inside. But I'm guessing it will be or it would be a surprise if Justin Trudeau sets aside a number of ministers who ran and were reelected. And I'm thinking maybe of the older ministers, a colleague pointed out on another panel that this is a government that doesn't have a lot of time for baby boomers. So, Mark Garneau, Carolyn Bennett, they did not treat previous baby boomers always very kindly, shipped Stéphane Zion off, John McCallum, go down the list. Although Ralph Goodale had a really good run and would still have, I would argue. And, of course, the biggest surprise of all, which I don't expect this time, although Ralph Goodale had a really good run and would still have, I would argue. So, and of course, the biggest surprise of all,

which I don't expect this time, is the day when there are more women than men in the cabinet. Well, we're only days away from finding out. Thanks, Rob, for filling in this week. It's been great to have you with us. And as always, Chantel, thank you. I'm Peter Mansbridge in darnick scotland we'll be back next week for sure with some really interesting programming starting on monday thanks for listening today talk to you again on monday Thank you.