The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk on The Queen, The King, The Prime Minister and The Question Mark

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Chantal and Bruce on all things relevant on this day from the death of Elizabeth The Great, to the questions about King Charles, to the Prime Minister's decision to say through the next election and to the winner of tomorrow's Conservative leadership race.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Toronto on this day. Chantelle Ibera is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. Well, yesterday was a big day around the world, really. I mean, she became known as kind of the queen of the world at different times. And you can be sure that last night, if it wasn't the lead story, it was one of the top stories in probably every country in the world. But at 96 years old, Queen Elizabeth II had passed on.

So the issue today for us, for a little discussion point, is what's really different as of today. Obviously, we have a new head of state. It's a king, not a queen. And for the first time in most Canadians' lives, that will be the case. King Charles III is Canada's head of state. So you swallow that one and try to get used to that terminology, which we haven't had before. It's unlikely that most Canadians alive today will ever have a head of state who's a queen because all the lineup of guys to come are guys. They're all men.

So there are changes. But really, beyond that, what is the difference? Let me tell you, let me read you one line from something that Andrew Sullivan, the American writer, was writing last night. He was writing a column on the passing of the queen. And he stopped, and then he wrote this line line i fear that everything she exemplified restraint duty grace reticence persistence are disappearing from the world now that doesn't mean she was responsible for all those things but it does mean that especially in in the States, and perhaps elsewhere, including here, those kind of things that she exemplified are disappearing. So, Bruce, why don't you start us? What have we lost in the passing of the Queen?

Are we significantly any different today than we were yesterday? Well, first of all, let me just say it's great to see both again. I fear the things that Andrew Sullivan fears are being lost, although I don't think that I associate the loss of those things with the monarchy. I should start by saying I really respect all of the feelings that people have who admire, love the queen, respect her. I don't have exactly the same kind of amount of that sort of emotion that some people have about her passing. She lived a long life and she did work that she obviously liked doing. Although I have a certain sense of her last 25 years or so not being particularly enjoyable, especially for someone so much in the public eye, having to

watch the things that were happening within her family that were obviously traumatizing. And I remind myself every once in a while that people who inherit these roles as children, they didn't ask for them. And then there's a duty that's associated with these roles, which you never escape. And so I respect her work. I respect the diligence that she put into it. At the same time, there's often talk of the monarchy as the euphemism that's used is it's the firm. And if it really were just a firm, it would have to be another business would be, would Charles be the logical CEO to replace the one who's passed? And I think the answer would probably be no. Ultimately, the idea of monarchy has become, maybe it always, well, not always was, but maybe it has

been for quite a long while, a question of popularity. Do the people who hold these roles capture enough of the public's affection and imagination to overcome the fact that they don't really make sense in a pragmatic world that we live in today, that there are people who, by reason of hereditary rights, are situated kind of above everybody and live lives in palaces and that sort of thing. That doesn't make sense. And so, the only way that people sort of get around that, I think, is if the figures themselves have a degree of popularity. And I think it's possible that Prince William will have that should he become king at some point. But I don't think Charles has it now. And I think there's real questions about whether or not the monarchy will thrive as an idea in the post-Elizabethan era. You know, we can, you know, assume that Charles will be king for probably the next 15 to 20

years, at least. That family does seem to have something in its genes that allows it to live extremely long lives. But he's 73, about to turn 74 in another month or two. So he's at the, you know, he's in the sunset years as he becomes king. Chantal, what's your thought

on all this? Like Bruce, I don't think that all those virtues you listed are specifically attached to the monarchy. Maybe that feeling also harks back to some nostalgia about some golden age that possibly has not been real, but is also not on the radar.

Everybody likes a fairy tale. I believe there is a collective psychological hit from the disappearance of Queen Elizabeth II in the UK, where they are going through incredibly disturbing times on the economy, politically. And if you put all that together, you try to put yourselves in their place, and it feels like your last anchor is just gone. And it is a fair question to ask if this is the last moment for a long time when we see the UK so united on anything. It's been a long time since we've seen the UK so united on anything. And you kind of wonder when will that next time be?

And like Bruce, I don't think that King Charles will find it easy to generate those kinds of feelings, and certainly not in the immediate when it is sorely needed. There is an image of stability when you watch Liz Truss and Boris Johnson with the Queen, which are the last pictures that most of us saw. The centre was still holding despite all the upheaval, and that kind of is gone really quickly. In this country, I think it's worth remembering that the queen, that queen, by virtue of her role and not by personality, was not always a unifying figure. She was a divisive figure. Feelings about the monarchy in this country vary from region to region. And the attachment to the monarchy is from weak to non-existent in the part of the country where I live, for instance,

but also in other parts of the country. I think I saw a poll last year that showed about half of Canadians feel enough attachment to the institution to want to keep it going. What the Queen, over all those decades, achieved here is a kind of a consensus that you can dislike the monarchy or be indifferent to it, but you can still like or respect the current occupant of the throne. That's gone. And I think we will quickly see political debates about the place of the monarchy resurface in the political arena.

As someone like you guys who have spent how many years covering the Constitution, I am not convinced that it will be a discussion that will lead to change in the sense that the people who are indifferent or don't like the monarchy in this country are dislike it less than the people who love it and at some point you start thinking what battles are worth fighting uh and what are kind of an expense an expense of energy uh for a very little purpose but I still think that discussion will come to the fore. I don't think I will ever cover the shift from Canada and a constitutional monarchy to a republic, but there will be more

talk about this as people who feel that we should dispose of the monarchy, will now not have this figure that is emblematic of it and that has more support outside the monarchist circles than others. And before people conclude that, you know, it's because I am a Francophone and people who want to get rid of the monarchy mostly have a French accent, let me remind you that former Deputy Prime Minister John Manley was a leading voice for the abolition. The whole question of the abolition does at times ignore some of the basic facts, which your suggestion, suggesting, Chantal, is you can't just do this overnight.

It's not an easy thing to do. My reading of the Constitution is you'd need all provinces and the federal government all to sign off on that. And we know how likely that is on anything, let alone the issue of the monarchy. So, you know, I wouldn't hold your breath and I wouldn't hold your breath for another reason too is that it's hardly top of the mind on on the agenda of things that Canadians want addressed and so these kind of things slip on but every time you hear King Charles you do go wait a minute is this is this really what we want you know it's uh you know as Bruce mentioned know, he's not exactly been a success in terms of trying to generate some enthusiasm around him. The last few times he's come to Canada, the crowds barely turned up. Obviously, when she turned up, they were huge, and they were always huge and adoring.

But it did, even 15 years ago, seem to be signaling the end of an era when when she did come here um anyway we'll see how it uh how it plays out i would be i would be shocked if this becomes the frontline center of debate i don't think there's any doubt that probably in the next days maybe even weeks there will be some discussion of this, but I can't see it going beyond that. Bruce, do you? I generally think that's right. Although, I, for all of the complexity of it, I don't know that, you know, we seem able to have discussions about things that need to be changed. And sometimes those discussions go nowhere because they're complex. And then sometimes they just go somewhere really fast.

And there's a certain part of me that would hedge my bet on this because even as I hear talk of King Charles, that his kind of fundamental position as king would be, we're going to lean down the royal family. The firm is going to live on less, fewer people are going to get public funds, that sort of thing. It almost made me wonder if that's really the whole proposition. They're never going to achieve a level of frugality that's going to make people who want frugality happy. He seems to have retreated from taking kind of controversial positions on agriculture and food and that sort of thing to taking no positions and kind of cheerily taking no positions in the hopes that it made people like him better. But I don't know that at the end of the day, back to my question about popularity, if he was a political candidate

and we were all campaign managers for hire, none of us would want to take him on. He doesn't have that element of charm where you could say, well, some people won't like him because of X or Y or Z, but there's something that I see in him that we can work with, that we can show people, and then they will like him. I haven't seen that in him. And his relationship with his family doesn't look like one that you would say, well, I want to emulate that um he's broken down with one son apparently um he's married to a woman he was having an affair with um well he was married to the most popular royal figure of our time other than queen elizabeth i see you laughing here and i'm not just you're obviously not running his campaign.

What are you suggesting? He should have called himself like King Drake or King Billy Eilish. Well, I thought he was going to choose another name because I thought this is a perfect opportunity to start the repositioning. It didn't really work for Prince, but you would want to start somewhere. Anyway, I see Chantal rubbing her face and you laughing, so I'm going to stop and maybe we'll move on. To go back just to Peter's point, I know everyone hates mechanics, but you would need every single province to sign on to this, and that's never going to happen.

Right, right. I can just imagine a premier of Prince Edward Island signing off on this. Yeah, no, I wasn't really disagreeing with will it happen. I was just saying, boy, if it ever could, we're heading into that moment where that's more possible. You have to trade the name, trade the name King Charles to king william and suddenly it's a whole different equation right it well be yep anyway okay enough already on the uh you know i listen i i over more than 50 years of covering her i became very attached to to watching her i know there were ups and downs

and there were there were serious difficulties within the family and i'll never forgive her personally for what happened on the week that diana died in the way she kind of kind of shut down the any kind of reaction to it but uh still she had there was a lot of watching her and her fulfilling the promise she made when she became a queen in 1952 that she would devote her life to public service, and in so many ways she did. Sure, there are arguments against the monarchy. I get it. I understand them all.

But this was somebody who promised something and delivered personally herself on that promise. Okay, we're going to move on. The Prime Minister made a big decision this week, apparently. He's told his cabinet and he's going to tell his caucus next week that he's staying. He's going to fight another election. What does all that mean? We'll talk about that when we're back with good talk chantelle's in montreal bruce is in ottawa i'm peter manson

which in toronto and you're listening on sirius xm channel 167 Canada Talks and on your favorite podcast platform. Good to have you with us. All right. I already fell on my sword a couple of times this week on other things. And I did on Tuesday on this issue about Justin Trudeau. I was convinced that he was going to pull a plug on his own political career this year before the end of October. Well, he decided, no, why would I do that when I can run the country as prime minister for another three years and then I can run another election?

And that is apparently what he has decided. What do we make of that? And what do you think the immediate fallout of that decision is going to be? Chantal, you start us on this round. It does mean that you guys lost the bet to me. Of course. Just for the record. So even if you did all the crow eating previously,

I can't resist that one. What do we make of this? Well, I don't think that this is something that you just sell your cabinet and caucus so that you put the issue to rest until you decide to go. I think we are in front of what looks like a real decision. Of course, things can happen. Someone can get ill or

circumstances can change. But he has convinced me that he plans, everything being equal, he plans to lead the party in another election. Then I started to think, why would we think that just because no one has managed to get a fourth consecutive mandate in a century, why would we think that Justin Trudeau would look at the odds and say, I'm not doing this? When his own father and Stephen Harper, knowing the odds, both decided that they were going to try for a fourth consecutive mandate and both failed. And I suspect Jean Chrétien, at the circumstances inside this party being different, might not have resisted the temptation of looking for a fourth mandate. So that's one. What does Pierre Trudeau have in common with Stephen Harper when they decide to go for a fourth mandate?

Well, both of them didn't have very compelling third mandates for different reasons, as you remember. But both of them didn't have very compelling third mandates for different reasons, as you remember. But both of them looked across the aisle and thought, I can beat whoever is sitting there. In this case, Joe Clark, first case, or in the case of Stephen Harper, well, Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau will split the vote. And in any event, I'm not going to lose to Justin Trudeau. And I think in both Pierre Trudeau and Stephen Harper's reasoning, the notion of leaving the country to Joe Clark or to Justin Trudeau was one that they didn't want. I think Justin Trudeau looks at Pierre Poirier, and they are thinking in terms of Poiliev winning the leadership and thinks

one I can beat this guy there are enough differences that will be a stark choice between the conservatives if they are led by Poiliev and if I'm leading the liberals and two I do not want to leave the country to Pierre Poiliev and I think

that all goes into the mix. What does it mean? Well it probably means that the strong ministers who have, and we can talk about that a bit later, who have other prospects for interesting roles outside of politics will now feel freer to explore those options rather than stick around to wait for an election to then at best pick up the crown in what, three years to five years, a crown that will be harder to sustain than it is today. I didn't name Chrystia Freeland, but I would think that there is not just a coincidence in the fact that rumors about her having some interest for an international role surface at the very same time as Justin Trudeau tells his cabinet and caucus guys and gals. I'm staying. Bruce. Yeah, I agree with Chantal that the point that the prime minister was making should be understood as a decision that he intends to stick with.

And the reality, I think, is that there probably were at least a couple of nascent leadership campaigns that had been started, and those will be shut down now. I don't think there's any chance whatsoever that there will be internal tension within the caucus or the cabinet about this. There might be the there's always the odd MP who feels like they need to see more change and they might say something once in a while. But this is this is going to be a caucus in a cabinet that's pretty united behind the prime minister. I think the the second thing that occurs to me is that I think the decision was made not from the standpoint of everything's going great. We just need to kind of keep on doing what we're doing and we'll win election against this guy. I think there was a pretty clear understanding that change needs to happen in terms of how the government, where the government puts its focus and how it communicates.

And we can talk about that a little bit more. But you and I, Peter, talk about that a little bit more, but you and I, Peter, talked about that a little bit. I wrote about it in the piece that I had published earlier this week. People want a government that is more practical, more determined to help people gut it out, more about an economy that helps everybody thrive. And communication is a giant part of that. And the government's been

communicating pretty um well maybe mediocre would be the kindest word uh used to describe it um for the last several months on on important issues like the economy we've heard that we've heard this movie before though they're gonna change and like how do you deliver on change yeah i think that's a big question is whether they will be able to execute without change in the uh in the front bench without change in the prime minister's office i think that just fresh legs fresh minds fresh energy is so important and and parties do sometimes recognize the need to change and then just aren't able to execute on it and i don't know how this is going to turn out but i don't think that execute on it. And I don't know how this is going to turn out.

But I don't think that where I was going was that I don't think they're counting on it just being a kind of a slam dunk to beat Pierre Polyev. I think they see him as somebody who is eminently beatable, but also somebody who is a more serious threat to replace them than they've seen in either Andrew Scheer or Aaron O'Toole, and somebody who has sources of kind of political energy that Stephen Harper didn't have. Now, as they evaluate him, they will be aware that over the five or six months of this leadership race, that Pierre Polyev's positives among Canadians have not increased at all. His negatives have. But he's still, you know, 50% of the population don't really have a view about him. So he's still a blank page. And when he takes the leadership, assuming he does, I think no one will be watching that more closely than the liberals to see

what story he starts to write. If he continues down the road of wanting to be a culture warrior, and I saw a video that he posted yesterday where basically his whole pitch was, if you hate woke, I'm your guy. I think that he runs a significant risk of rallying progressive and centrist voters to his principal alternative. But we'll see if that's what he continues to do after he wins. He also risks pushing some in his party away. And so the question about whether he'll unify that party, whether he'll have a team that's beyond kind of the one person who's his kind of alter ego voice in the public space. I think those are all interesting questions and be watching for them. And we're going to talk about Polyev in a minute, but I want to finish this discussion around the Liberals and the impact of that decision. Chantal, you floated this, you know, one of the rumors that it's been tossed around a little bit

and recently it was around, I don't know, about six months ago as well for a little while, but it's come back. And that's this possibility that Chrystia Freeland may be interested in and others may be interested in her as the Secretary General of NATO. I think that's the latest one that's been floated around. I don't know how serious that is. I do know that over time that Canadians often get mentioned for some of these big international appointments and we all run around the flurry in Canada thinking, oh, man, wouldn't this be something?

And then it doesn't happen. And they weren't considered as serious a candidate as perhaps we tended to think they were. But do we know anything about this particular one, whether there's any validity to this rumor or why, well, I guess what I was going to ask is why would she be interested, especially at a time when she's been considered, you know, the successor for so long? I understand what Trudeau's done, but, you know, three years is three years, depending on what happens in that next election.

So what do we know with any certainty? Anything? We know that NATO is probably not going to pick a new secretary general until next year, because they extended the current term for a year because of what has been happening in Ukraine and with Russia. We also know that traditionally a European has always been in that position and that European countries have not in the past looked kindly on the notion of having someone from North America lead NATO. And it could be that being a European is important in this particular juncture, because it's easier for the US and Canada to stand firm on Russia than it is to keep European unity in place on the issue, for obvious reasons of pressures, energy issues, et cetera, and differences between governments.

From the outside, and I am no expert, it does look like a long shot, but I think it is useful. It was a useful piece of information to kind of change the frame that people are thinking in, i.e., maybe not everyone wants to suddenly inherit a tired party that's been in power for three terms to be possibly the leader of the opposition when one can have a really interesting international role, maybe not NATO, on a geopolitical stage that is clearly in flux. So it is a great time to be in a role like that. Now, it's just me from the outside, but others have picked up on the same perception that Chrystia Freeland has seemed a lot more engaged in the international developments that are ongoing than in a role as Minister of Finance. So I found it was Paul Wells who brought this information

to the fore this week in his newsletter. And I thought it was a really interesting thing to do, not because of the NATO thing, but because of the, yeah, in any event, why would you wake up at night just waiting for Justin Trudeau another three years for for what and i was also reminded looking at uh the the recent past that um government uh leadership changes do not work miracles for parties that have been in power for a while they a transition from one prime minister to a new leader who holds office the last really really successful one, goes back to Pearson and Pierre Trudeau.

Jean-Claude Sein handed it over to Paul Martin. Government approval was actually higher when Jean-Claude Sein left than when Paul Martin went into his first election campaign. Let's not go into the miracle that Kim Campbell was supposed to work for the conservatives after Brian Mulroney or John Turner after Keir Trudeau. So it's a combination of there is not a lot. Bruce is right. There's not a lot of appetite for a leadership change within that caucus. And even when there is, it's not necessarily as focused on Chrystia Freeland as the so-called line of succession that's been established in public would suggest. I'm just trying to say she doesn't have the kind of fan club that John Turner or Jean

Chrétien or Brian Mulroney or name them, Paul Martin, ever had within the existing caucus. Want to pick up on that, Bruce? Yeah, a couple of things that I wanted to pick up on. I agree with what Chantal has been saying on this. I think the reason that parties who've been in office for a good length of time need change in their lineup and their energy isn't because the people are necessarily bad or incompetent or haven't been doing a good job.

It's because people who've been in those jobs for a length of time can't help but be pretty focused on representing what they've done up to then, rather than what voters are really interested in, which is what's going to come next. What's the next agenda? And I think that's natural. I think it's human nature. I think it's something that every government that I've ever seen has struggled with. Because if you brought in the Canada Child Benefit, for example, you feel like you want to talk about it over and over and over again, in part because it's a material change that happened on your watch, that happened because of the political energy that you put into it. And you want to make sure that everybody knows about it.

Unfortunately, politics doesn't really reward that kind of approach by incumbents. And I used the phrase the other day that incumbency starts to look and sound like entitlement unless incumbent governments really work hard to challenge themselves to say, it's about what comes next. It's about what people are feeling now and what they need for the next five years, not what they felt five years ago and what we did for them in the last five years. So, I think that fighting that human nature is the bigger problem rather than they need more competent people. I think there's lots and lots of really competent people. And on the Chrystia Freeland question, if Chrystia Freeland said to me,

what's the best way for me to someday become prime minister? I might well say the best choice for you is to leave for a few years. Because the prospect of being in that role as heir apparent for another three years, it's hard for me to see how that would build up more equity for her, create that sense of inevitability. It's easier for me to imagine that it would erode that sense of inevitability just because, again, human nature is people get fatigued seeing the same people in these most central roles, and they start to measure them against the, what have you done for me lately? Are you surpassing my expectations? Is there anything surprising or interesting about you that I didn't know about? And everybody, no matter how

good they are, will fail those expectations once they start to accumulate that way. So that's what I would give her as advice is maybe it's not a bad time to think about NATO or something else, if that's what she ultimately wants to do is be prime minister. Okay. And what are you charging for that advice? What do you charge for this podcast? I guess that's really the price set, and it sounds like it's free, so there you go.

He sounds more interested in giving Christia Freeland advice than giving King Charles advice, which probably means that Christia Freeland is in a better place. He's got some options. He doesn't have any options. Okay. Tomorrow, the Conservatives make their decision. Is it going to be the one that everybody has assumed was going to be the decision for months now? We're about to find out. We're also about to find out what Bruce and Chantel have to say about all this when we come back.

And we're back with our final block right here on Good Talk. Chantal's in Montreal, Bruce's in Ottawa. All right. It's been, I've forgotten how long a campaign it's been. It seems to be going on forever. But the Conservatives will make their decision tomorrow when the ballots are all counted, and we find out who, in fact, has won. Now, if you go by the prognosis for months now, it's been that Pierre Polyev has this wrapped up.

We've been continually warned and cautioned by, among others, Chantel, that the system, the point system that takes place in the way the Conservatives do their vote could lead to some surprises. And of late, and this usually happens in a leadership convention, of late, people are saying, you know, it may be closer than you think. And the closeness would be whatever is the gap between Polyev and Jean Charest. Whatever the case is, somebody is going to go up to the microphone tomorrow and make their first speech as the new leader of the Conservative Party

and the fourth leader to try and take on Justin Trudeau, the other three having been unsuccessful, starting with Stephen Harper. So what do we expect from Polyev when he speaks tomorrow? Because I think it was Bruce who said a couple of days ago that this is the opportunity that Polyev may not have for a couple of years to speak to the nation in a way that people may be watching and listening. He's been speaking to the party for the last few months. Now he has a much broader audience and he has the audience that will either elect him the next prime minister of Canada or not, assuming it is Koliyev who wins tomorrow. Now, if he does win tomorrow and he does have that opportunity to speak, what should he be saying? I mean, we've constantly been talking about this. Is this the

beginning of a pivot? I mean, he has appealed to a certain audience in his leadership run. It's a different audience he has to appeal to now. So does he begin a pivot towards that audience and what it wants or needs? So that's the question for starters for tomorrow and for Pierre Polyev. Once again, with the caution that is always made on these things, we don't know who the winner is yet. We're assuming. And that may be a dangerous assumption, but that's what we're assuming. Bruce, what is he after?

What should he say? Seeing as you're handing out free advice to everybody but King Charles, what's your advice to Pierre Polyev for tomorrow? Yeah, I think, look, one of the early things that he should say, and I don't think that he will, but he should, and maybe he will, is to thank his competitors in this race, and in particular to say that he could use and welcome the advice and support and the wisdom and the experience of

Jean Charest, assuming that the order of finish is Pauliev first, Charest second. Why should he do that? Because I think that he has run such a kind of a personal personality focused contest that he's kind of allowed the party to feel as though if he wins and you didn't support him, he doesn't really welcome your support. He doesn't have in mind the idea of a government that is made up of a team of people who all have skills and talents, and that the role of a prime minister is to kind of marshal a team and their talents in a positive direction for the country. He's done this really in a singularly personalized way, Pierre for PM. I think he needs to shed that to build unity in his party and to signal to the rest of

the country that the persona that he represented inside the leadership contest, yes, might have been designed to win all of the people's party votes that could be conscripted to sign a membership card for the Conservative Party, but that is not how he looks at the math of winning an election for the Conservative Party. I think that's what he should do. I think it would be good for the country. I think the big question hanging over Conservatives is, are we headed for a Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump version of the Federal Conservative Party? And if we are, is there anything that we can do to stop that from happening? Because I don't think that the base of support for that version of conservatism in Canada is very strong. It's nowhere near the same size as it is in the United States. And also because nothing will rally progressive voters in Canada more than feeling that the

conservative option is more like the People's Party, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump. I can't think of anything that would do more to improve liberal fortunes, frankly, than a Conservative Party that looks like it's about one person who is the Canadian equivalent of those kinds of figures. So he's got a page that he can write on and he can change the way that people see him and see his party pretty quickly, especially since a lot of people are open to an alternative to the government right now. But I have no idea what he's going to do. Chantal? If Jean Chaguet loses, it's going to be the second time that I'm on the floor of a vote result announcement where Jean Chaguet loses and comes

second. And I am sure you guys remember how Kim Campbell talked about Jean Chaguet after he lost and she won and exclaimed because he kept using the metaphor of he was the turtle versus the hare in this race. And she went, what a turtle. And that did not start off well. A lot of Chaguet people who had just lost and had their hearts in this campaign felt slighted. They felt it was kind of a demeaning comment on the part of the new victor. So I don't expect Capoilier, frankly, to go out of his way to insult Jean Charest. You never know.

Things have happened over the course of this campaign. But there were people, and I bring you to Jean Charest if he is going to lose, because there were people this week who were asking me, what do you think Jean Charest is going to do if he loses? What's he going to say? I don for a second expect jean charie to poison the well of his supporters who are going to be sticking around in caucus and in the party uh by saying or looking like he's gonna bolt uh and say this is a terrible outcome I expect him to be really professional in this reaction.

But I don't know, but like Bruce, I think that he has an interest in speaking to a larger issue. I, of course, don't expect him to say, we're now going to war with the World Economic Forum and we're going to fight with Bitcoins. That's not going to happen. But if I were him in the speech to the audience, to the party, I think he should try to tone down the abrasive side that he has shown over the course of this campaign. About 60 some percent of

conservative members will have voted in this. That's the turnout, which is very average. Usually the people who don't show up are the newer recruits who don't follow up with their vote. So he is speaking to a lot, I think, of longstanding Conservative members that he will need to win an election. And many of them will have had different choices or questions about him. To Canadians, because he will also be speaking to Canadians, I think he should probably talk about what has worked for him and what has not been as obvious in the media, but that he has done a lot of, and that is talk about bread and butter issues and the economy. Because this is the ground upon which this battle is going to be

fought as the Trudeau Liberals know fully well. And this is where the audience will be at its most receptive outside of partisan ranks. Bruce, you know Charest and you've worked with Charest over the years. Can you see, in spite of what maybe everybody's feeling that it'd be nice if these two guys could get together in some fashion after the vote is announced tomorrow, for the sake of party unity, etc., etc., but can you see any way that he, fact could work inside a Polyev-led party? No, not really. I was listening to Chantal about being on the floor at that convention and I was sitting beside Jean at that convention and we

sort of knew that if there had been another two weeks or so in that leadership, then it probably would have ended differently with Sheree on top. But I sort of remember the remark about what a tortoise. I hadn't thought about it in a long time. But I also know that one of the things that Kim Campbell did is ask Jody White, who was Jean Sheree's campaign director, to be her chief of staff. And that's a pretty serious olive branch effort. And I don't think she did it just because of the gaffe. I think she did it because she knew that party unity in the Conservative Party, especially,

is never something you can take for granted. It's been challenged in the Liberal Party from time to time, too. I don't think it really is right now. But in the Conservative Party, there's never been a bigger potential schism than the one that I see right now that is kind of brought to the fore by the presence of the populism behind the People's Party, by the visibility of the version of republicanism that we see so prominently in the United States. And so the so-called red Tories that I know, like Charest,

are more worried about that phenomena than they are about four more years of so-called woke government. So there's not a lot binding them together. There's a lot more anxiety. And I run into conservatives in this town every week, lifelong conservatives who say, if this goes on Saturday, the way that it looks like it's going to go, that will be my last day as a member of this party. So I think that there's a different, and it's not so much about PolyEV, it's really about feeling that once and for all, the party that they tried to stay loyal to doesn't have the same values that they bought into. And on that point, the last point I'll make is, as I was preparing for our conversation

this morning, I was reading a piece in the National Post, I think it was, about this Conservative MP who's arguing about woke capital and how Canada needs to reject ESG-influenced investors and investment, and that we should push all of that stuff away, that corporations have no business taking positions on public issues. And I just think that if Pierre-Paul Liev adopts that position as the ultimate person who's against gatekeeping, but now he's going to say that we only want investment. This is a position that Ron DeSantis has taken in Florida that doesn't come with expectations on decarbonization or diversity or inclusivity.

We're headed for a giant fight, and not just between progressives and conservatives, but between conservatives who say, in the modern world, if you're telling investment capital that comes with a sense of social purpose, that it shouldn't come here to Canada, there's going to be a lot of conservatives, like a Jean Charest type conservative who are going to say that has nothing to do with the conservative idea that I have in mind about free enterprise and how we build our economy.

You know, go ahead, Chantal. But I think at first I expect them to sit back. I agree with Bruce. I can't see a scenario where Jean Chalet is an active member of some conservative brain trust under Pierre Poilier, and I certainly don't expect him to run. And he has made it clear to people who know him that if someone wants to start a breakaway party, he's not going to be signing up for spending another four or five years on the road with a suitcase, meeting 20 people in some church basement. He gave to that.

That's like living your life on a loop. And it led to being premier of Quebec. That's a happy development. But otherwise, it's kind of called going around in circles. I think those conservatives, and there are some who feel orphaned already and say, we're going to start a centrist party. We're not even going to call it conservative. I don't think we are there yet. They are trying to find a home for themselves that is not the federal liberal party. And one can totally understand that. And that cannot be their party.

But I don't believe that they have it in them to have that fight within the conservative party over the next two, three years. They're going to let Poiliev do whatever he does, because they will have felt that they've lost that battle once with Erin O'Toole and his attempts at bringing the party back on issues like climate change. And they've lost it again with the party making a choice, if that's the choice between Pierre Poiliev and Jean Charest.

So I think they're going to go to the sidelines and watch what happens. But I don't think they will think that there is a hill to fight on anymore where they don't die within the conservative movement. We've only got a couple of minutes left, so I want to stick to the end on on the on these two topics that we've just dealt with polyev and and trudeau because no matter which way you you paint this picture uh we seem to be shaping up for a hell of a fall in terms of um you know the a confrontation between these two very different ideas and ideals of uh of how the country needs to move forward.

Am I wrong in that? I mean, we haven't really seen that kind of, you know, hard debate between these two sides, you know, for some time. But these two personalities, if Trudeau really is re-engaged for the battle and if Polyev is going to take the positions that he's so far indicated he's taking. This could be quite a fall and winter for Canada watching their potential leaders debate the future of the country,

the immediate future of the country. I've got time for maybe 30, 40 seconds from each of you on that. Bruce? Yeah, I think that we are potentially headed for that. I think that, you know, I work with a lot of different groups and business in particular. And one of the things that I'm sort of talking with them about now is the fact that in the past, if they anticipated a conservative victory in an election, let's say a Stephen Harper victory, they knew that they could count on certain things and that they could approach conservatives and say, here's what we know about how our part

of the economy works. What are you thinking about in terms of policies about that? I think with Pierre Pauliev, there are big question marks right now for all of those industries and sectors that can look to a Pierre Pauliev, anti-vax, pro-trucker, conservative like their big institutions. They don't know what kind of conservative party he would lead. And I think that that's a separate question from can he rally the public? Can he bring institutions in the country to feel like this is not a bad change? A minute for you, Chantal. So this battle you described would presumably come to a head around the next spring's budget.

And that will be a test for the government, for its agreement with the NDP, but also for the Conservatives. That being said, there will be a temptation to engage in a highly partisan battle, and nothing could be more disconnected from the public mood at this point and the disquiet within the public. I think both Justin Trudeau and the next conservative leader are going to have to be really careful about not looking like they're fiddling while Ron burns, because then the result will be such low public morale that they will all suffer from it. The entire political class will be tainted by the notion that they're so busy settling scores on a very partisan basis rather than taking care of business and trying to improve the lot of voters at the time

when they're mostly feeling insecure economically. All right. Great episode. Chantal and Bruce, back at it again for another year of good talk right here on Sirius XM channel 167 and on your favorite podcast platform. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Toronto on this day. Look forward to talking to you next week. I'm all over the Maritimes next week.

Well, not all over, but a little bit. Halifax and Charlottetown. Looking forward to doing the shows from there. That's it for this day. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again on Monday.