The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Pride and Politics

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

June is Pride month in Canada but is the story different this year.  Especially when it comes to the link between politics and Pride, the organization representing LGBTQ rights. The question is just how different are we compared to our US neighbours?  Plus a rundown of where the five political parties are on the national landscape as the summer of 23 begins.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantal Hébert and Bruce Anderson. It's Good Talk time. It's Friday. Looking forward to the weekend. It's summer. All those things. It's just wonderful. I was on my way to Pearson Airport the other night. And for those who are familiar with that drive, either in or out of Toronto, you'll know that one of the things you see just before you either get to Pearson Airport or just after you leave Pearson Airport is the Molson Breweries. And there's a huge flagpole out there and they, they put different flags up at different times of the year.

I mean, the constant is the Canadian flag, but sometimes they'll they'll put the leaf flag up there or sometimes they'll put the Habs flag up there in June every year though. And this we're talking a huge flag in June every year, they put a pride flag up because june is pride month in canada now this dates back quite a long way for molson to be tied with the pride organizations and it goes back to an old friend of both bruce's and mine and maybe chantal you met him at some point i'm not sure but he at the time he was the vice president of Molson's

in the late 80s, early 90s. His name was Charles Frames. And he thought it was important that that company, Molson's, get involved as an advocate, really, on the pride front. He had also been involved on the AIDS front. And it was one of the, not the first, I don't think, but it was one of the first major corporations, companies in Canada that associated itself with pride.

Others followed and have over the generations. But Charles was always very proud of that. And people who knew Charles, he passed away, unfortunately, about 10 years ago. People who knew him were proud of him for his involvement in that, and it's kind of moving forward in terms of that relationship between a company and an organization like Pride. I raise that only because we are in a, we're at a time,

the last year especially, where we've seen a number of people and companies and political parties step away from that association, as well as a number of other things in life these days. But the pride departure for a lot of companies, and actually when you look in the last year, it started with some sports organizations, and hockey especially, and the controversy that caused. But it's gone much deeper than that and much more involved,

especially so in the States. But you wonder sometimes about the movement within Canada as well. So I raise all this because I want our opening topic today to be kind of pride and politics. And is the situation changing? Is the landscape in that relationship changing? And if so, how and what does it mean as we move forward. Chantal, do you want to start us on this? Okay, and I'm starting you off on this from a province where, like abortion rights, LGBTQ rights are not negotiable

for any political party in the National Assembly. It's not, or for a mayor anywhere in the province. It is just given we've done this and let's move on. But I would say that you have to and you need to tie it to what has

been happening in the US with the abortion debate and the fact that Roe v. Wade was cast aside, which gave new momentum to the anti-abortion movement. And there have always been linkages between the anti-abortion movements and distrust or opposition to LGBTQ rights. And the link between the two usually is the religious right. So as much as it is emboldened forces in the U.S., I was watching pictures this morning of people who were actually coming to blows in the U.S. over this issue, parents presumably,

which I thought were quite extraordinary, some of that momentum inevitably leaps into Canada. That being said, in the same way that abortion rights are not in any way as divisive in the real world in Canada, there is not a government in this country that is looking to restrict abortion rights at this point, provincially. And none of the official oppositions in any provinces or federally are saying, let's just do this. Let's imitate some of the US states. Why is that not happening? In large part, because if it were happening, a majority of voters would likely say, wait a minute. Besides, many of the rights of the LGBTQ community, starting with same-sex marriage, are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedom.

And no one is saying we should use the notwithstanding clause. That used to be discussed back then, but no one is saying that or promoting that now. So yes, I believe that the movement that opposes things like Pride Month or Pride flags has become more vocal, but I do not for a second believe that they are a major force within the electorate, although I think they are a force within at least one major party, i.e. the Federal Conservative Party. Do you think the voice is growing? You might say it's not a factor right now, but is it?

No, I don't. No, I don't. And I could be wrong, but I've been wary for my entire career, and so far it has paid off to never confuse noise with change. It's not the same thing, possibly because I did cover the anti-abortion movement during the abortion debate. I watched them take over successfully hospital boards, school boards, nomination meetings. But once they got into the larger mix of an election campaign where everybody votes, they were always pushed to the margin. And that was way back when we're talking the 80s, where all these issues were a lot more controversial.

So I know I think we're in a place where it's been the choice, for instance, for Pierre Poiliev to participate or not in pride parades, a choice that Aaron O'Toole made, and he did participate. The cost for not participating, I believe, is still higher in the larger electorate than the payoff for staying away. We'll probably get to more on Pierre Poliev on this issue because it does, I mean, this is a guy who marched with the truckers, right? And he's going to say no to pride, but yes to truckers. I'm not sure how that's going to play out. Bruce, your thoughts on all this? Yeah, I think that there's a bit of a paradox in what we see today. On the one hand, you could make the case that over the long sweep of time, the rights of

LGBTQ communities are more entrenched and solidified now than they have ever been. At the same time, in the last year or two, or maybe three, the degree of backlash and the amount of friction is also notably on the rise. I think Chantel has touched on a lot of the reasons why. I think that they have to do principally with the way in which some aspects of the religious community, and I don't mean everybody who's a person of faith, I mean certain aspects of the religious community, especially in the United States, want to engage in the question of how LGBTQ communities communicate, comport themselves, live their lives, celebrate their celebrations as part of the culture war, as Chantal alluded to. The culture war was happening and was going to happen because it was the way in which the red and the blue were going to continue to try to collide. Less about size of government,

less about the nature of taxation, less about economic or foreign policy, more and more about culture war. And, you know, we've always seen, I think, that there's at least an 8 to 10 percent segment of the public that resists equal rights for LGBTQ communities. And on the one hand, we can say, well, that means 90 percent don't. And that's true. On the other hand, what we know in the age that we live in is that a noisy 10%, an organized 10%, a 10% with champions that have platforms and microphones and websites and money can really cause a lot of tension. When we see politicians, and we've seen more of it in the United States, playing footsie with this resistance, the don't say gay, banning books. I mean,

there was one example of, I think, one part of Utah, if I'm not mistaken, where the Bible was declared a book that young people shouldn't be exposed to, the Old Testament. And so there's a, you know, from my standpoint anyway, there's an illogic to some of that. There's excesses that are going on in the spirit of the culture war that really do make it seem quite strange, these phenomena where we can have really popular programs about drag races. Sports franchises and all kinds of entertainers proclaim very clearly their support for the LGBTQ community. And then we have this backlash where Anheuser-Busch was watching in, and I wouldn't excuse the company for the way that they handled it, there was a transgender person who showcased their product, I guess, somehow. And it caused people who are on the culture war, anti-LGBTQ side to say, we need to boycott, including some high profile people, we need to boycott Anheuser-Busch. All kinds of curiosities emerged in that debate, including the beer that they decided they should drink instead was also made by the same company. So watching those things happen makes me think of it less as a coordinated and thoughtful effort to push back on human rights

and more as a chaotic flailing about as part of this culture war phenomena that's dispiriting to watch. And I saw the same clip that Chantal mentioned where the violence that broke out was happening. And it pains me to think that we're going to have to have politicians champion these rights again as though they are really in jeopardy, which I don't think they are in the minds of the very large majority of people. And obviously, I don't think they should be. But, you know, you mentioned the Anheuser-Busch example, and there was another one as well in the States recently, where the backlash was

significant. It wasn't, you know, like the Canadian numbers were saying 8% to 10%. It was a significant backlash in the States, so much so that the company took a major hit in its stock price. Their shares dropped. Their sales dropped. A lot of stuff was happening. So I want to try to understand why we think it's different here, that it's not going to explode on the same level here.

But for the same reason that there are no provinces who are about to banish abortion rights or foreclose access to abortion or are promising to look into doing it. I understand Bruce being dispirited about the notion that we're going to have to restart having this debate, but we've come a long way from when Sven Robinson was standing alone in the House of Commons outing himself. Today, the deputy leader of Pierre Poiliev's caucus, Melissa Lanzmann, is gay.

I'm not telling secrets here. There are MPs in every party that are not only gay, but it's known they campaign for office. And they tell voters, this is who I am. They're not hiding their identity. So to imagine that having come to this in all of our political families, including the conservatives, we would suddenly go to a U.S. style debate. I don't see that. In the same way that I have not seen, we were both around for the eternal debate about the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Can you imagine a situation like that in Canada?

Just because they couldn't agree that women and their politicians pray doesn't mean that we are taking the list of those who go to prayer breakfasts. We are a different country, including this province with its very, very, very strong Catholic background. Do you know of a state in the U.S. that has gone from the deep Catholic background of Quebec to where we are today, I don't. And that's a major difference. And I can say that because I was raised in the very, very deeply Catholic Quebec. I got 200 on 200 for my catechism exam at the end of primary school.

I spent three years learning all those questions. I can still answer them. So to say just because this is happening in the U.S. means it's coming here in the same shape. Well, in that case, why don't we just become a 51st state if that's how strongly we feel about our identity collectively? No, I don't think any of us are saying that. But what I'm trying to get to is, are LGBTQ rights in Canada in no way under any threat with this, what appears to be a rising tide of backlash on those rights in culture wars that exist, not just in the United States, but elsewhere as well. I don't see that.

I like your question, but I'm going to throw a question back at you. Where do you see any evidence of it? I'm not talking about the general mood, the school board meeting in Toronto. Who are the politicians leading this battle? Where are they? What are their names? Well, I haven't seen any, but I do see the waffling that's taking place on support for pride and whether or not there should be part of a parade.

I mean, that's a waffle. You said it yourself. Past leaders didn't waffle on that. No, no, that's not waffle you said it yourself you know past leaders didn't waffle on that uh no no that's not that's not what i said i said aaron o'toole participated in a pride parade okay a past mr sheer and his predecessor stephen harper never did so here's where i am on this and i i guess i think that i'm pretty close to where chantal, that I think we have a pretty strong barrier of values barrier between us and the U.S. on this question. At the same time. So I'm not suggesting that every bad thing that happens in part of the culture war in the U.S. will naturally transmit in similar proportions

in Canada. In fact, there's been lots and lots and lots of examples where that hasn't been the case. And it's because our institutions are pretty secure on these issues. Our people are pretty resolved on these issues that, you know, opinion is settled on them for the most part. And our politicians are mostly in the right place, some with more enthusiasm and deliberation than others. And I think it's fair to say that some politicians on the right have been the ones that have been the most willing to share thoughts and ideas with some fringe parts of the religious community and to also be a little bit softer in their expressions of support for these communities. But I don't think that we're in danger of having the same kind of thing blow up in Canada. I do think that if we assume that it's impossible to happen here, and I know that's not what Chantal, I'm not trying to put words in Chantal's mouth. do consume an awful lot of content about these issues, some of which they think of as being from somewhere else, some of which is just part of the milieu in which they consume information.

That's the way that people kind of live in these communities. And so I can imagine that if you're a person, an LGBTQ person, and you live in Canada, you might see these phenomena and say, I'm more apprehensive, not necessarily because I can identify Canadian politicians who aren't doing the right thing, but because I live in the world where these things are happening. I may want to travel to the United States. There might be somebody who lives down the street from me who shares those views and now feels a little bit more empowered to express them or act on them. So I think we have to be aware of the fact that, and the last point I would make, an example for me was the hockey team, I think it was the San Jose Sharks. Maybe that was the other one that you were thinking of, Peter. When this controversy developed around one player saying he wasn't going to wear the pride jersey in the practice, I watched the Canadian conversation, such as it is on social media,

and I was a little bit surprised at how many people were exhibiting that kind of backlash sentiment, saying, you know, you shouldn't be forced to wear it, that sort of thing. And of course, that isn't really what happens. These are entertainment companies that make decisions about who they're going to reach. And that's where Anheuser-Busch finds itself, right? Dylan Mulvaney, 11 million followers on Instagram, all over the world, presumably. And you're right, Peter, those sales have been falling week after week after week. And I was reading an interview with one executive, former executive of the company was saying, well, the company is going to see these shares go down, the sales go down, unless and until they make a clear statement about who they're willing to serve with this

product. Because right now, there's a question mark around it. So there is a challenge for corporations that maybe wasn't as evident in the past. And hopefully all the Canadian corporations that we can admire will kind of hold a firm line on this. All right. Let me just ask it one more time, but in a different way. First of all, on the hockey stuff, it ended up being a lot more than one player on one team. You know, it moved around a bit. And, you know, the excuse initially was,

my Russian religious background doesn't allow me. That went well past that with other players who boycotted. Not a lot, not a majority, but they were supported by the players' union. Anyway, getting back to the point about politics. So let me ask the question this way. What we've all agreed to over the past few weeks is that, you know, if the Conservatives are going to win, they've got to build that win, at least in part, on Ontario.

And so they have to look good in Ontario with their supporters, with their base, et cetera, et cetera. Now, you look at somebody like Doug Ford provincially, he was never shy about being a man of the, well, in this last election, he was not shy about being a man of the people on the pride front, and he was in the parade, right? And he received credit for that or what have you. We're seeing, you know, we don't know what Pierre Palliev will end up doing.

He may well be in a parade somewhere. But at the moment, he's kind of waffling on it. So when you weigh these two things politically, has he got more to win by not being in the parade or more to win by being in the parade? In, say, the Ontario example? Chantal? They have a weak flank on abortion.

It has cost them in the past. People will link the not wanting to support pride to abortion rights and to the high number of religious rights MPs who supported Mr. Poirier in the leadership campaign. In the past, that has hurt. It hurt Stockwell Day. It hurt Andrew Scheer. And I do think it probably would hurt Poirier more than help him

because it would go to a branding that, as in the past, kept voters away from the federal conservatives. Bruce? I think the math is, I think it's a question of leadership. And the math usually works best if you take a leadership position that you believe in. And in this case, I'd be shocked if Pierre Poliev doesn't believe in equal rights. And I'd be surprised if he didn't go and express that and go to a parade. I think that it would be easy, and lots of political leaders in the past have followed this path of identifying risks and avoiding them. But if that's all you do, people never really warm to you all that much. They don't really know why they should get behind you. They only know that they can't identify a thing that you did that really annoyed them. And I think for him, he's got enough command of his own communication skills. And he's expressed his opinion on LGBTQ rights up till now, that it wouldn't be hard for

him to explain why it's important for the Conservative Party under his leadership to make it very clear that all voters are welcome to support the Conservative Party. The risk is definitely that he has been using this language of no more woke nonsense a lot. And that is, for some people, code for a variety of issues. Some have to do with climate change. Some have to do with how businesses choose to invest and organize themselves from an environmental and social and governance standpoint. But it's definitely also code for the expansion of rights for minorities, for diversity and inclusion policies, those kinds of things. So it will, you know, if he does do what I think he will do. And Fred Delory's piece, I think you may have alluded to it, but former director of the Conservative Party wrote an interesting column about this the other day. And his view was the same as mine, I think,

which is that the leader of that party will probably do the right thing and make that calculation that it's more in his interest to express his point of view in support of LGBTQ communities than not. But a lot of people will be watching for it, that's for sure. Okay. Good conversation, I think. It was a good conversation, and we'll leave it at that. We'll see how things develop over the next little while on this angle. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, we're going to try and assess the position of the five national parties as they are now, going into the downside of any way you look at it of this parliamentary term with an election at some point in the next couple of years. So we'll assess each party right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk, the Friday episode of The Bridge. Chantel and Bruce are with us.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks. We're on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Okay. Can you turn the music off, please. Thank you. I control all those things, but I sometimes have to remind myself what I'm supposed to be doing. Okay.

We're going to try to assess the position of the five national parties as we head into, you know, up to another two years before the next election campaign. Let's start off briefly with the Green Party. So when I say briefly, I mean it's not only sort of where they are, but the impact they have on others in the race. Chantal, why don't you start us on this, and then I'll get you to start us on the block as well. But let's start with the Greens. Green Party, an unsuccessful passing of the torch

from Elizabeth May to a successor. Now Elizabeth May back in command, which is good and bad in the sense that it is mostly Elizabeth May's party in people's minds. If she goes, it happens. in particular in Quebec, who has thrown his hat as a candidate for the party in a by-election that is coming up in Westmount, Westmount NDG, on June 19th. His chances of winning that by-election are nil, but he did secure an endorsement from former Conservative MP Alain Rayas, who used to be the Quebec lieutenant for a variety of conservative leaders. But there is a sense of party going nowhere fast. It's like someone missed an appointment with his

electoral history. And since then, the party has kind of been dead in the water. I don't think it's just personalities. Me, I think that the party did best when Stephen Harper was prime minister and didn't look like he cared much about climate change. But the fact that Justin Trudeau came with more of an agenda, recruited Stephen Guilbeault as environment minister, has kind of taken a lot out of the Green Party's sail. And I'm not sure that it's easy to recreate. Perhaps a conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre might do that. But at this point, I don't see it. Bruce? I started serving Canadians on environmental issues around the time of Lucien Bouchard

as the environment minister, and Jean Charest was as well. And, you know, I remember I was also doing a fair bit of work in the mining and the chemistry or chemicals and oil and gas and pipeline sector back then. And when I think about what the state of that discussion was in Canada then compared to now, it really does suggest that if you knew that that was what was going to happen, is what has happened, you would imagine that there would be a period of ascendancy for the Green Party as an idea, followed by a period of struggling to be noticed or to find particular relevance. Because what's happened is that the public has become more aware

and enlightened and informed and activist in general about environmental issues, in particular climate change, but not only climate change. But so too has the business community, for the most part. I don't want to give them all a kind of a greenwash here, but the track record of companies embracing sustainability goals, embracing decarbonization goals, limiting their exposure to lawsuits and other things that are associated with pollution, the world is so different. So I look at that as a broad contextual challenge for the Green Party. If everybody is doing a version of what you wanted them to do, or almost everybody social justice, and whatnot. But I don't know that they've ever had enough share of voice to really gain traction. The last thing I'll say is that Elizabeth May has been a unique character in Canadian politics. Her voice is clear. She comes across as thoughtful and sensible

and passionate all at the same time, which is not everybody can do that. And so it's not a surprise to me that her choosing to step away from that position didn't really take. She's easily the most effective environmental communicator that we've seen in the country at a political level. Okay.

I'm watching the clock here, so I know if we're going to get through everybody, we've got to move it. So the Bloc Québécois, Chantal. No one is writing the obituary of the Bloc Québécois anymore, and with good reason. I think the Bloc at this point is anymore, and with good reason. I think that Bloc at this point is in a pretty good place for two reasons. The first is there are more sovereigntists now who believe that the sovereignty could resuscitate than there were five years ago,

or even over the past three years. Why is that? Because the Parti Québécois provincially elected only three MNAs, but still its leader has gained a high profile and has done his style, has gone down well with Quebecers. And that has brought the Bloc to come closer to the PQ and say, you know, you have a, the Bloc never insists usually when sovereignty is down on its Sovereignist voice, but now telling Sovereignists to want to believe again, well, we are here to look at us. But I think the other reason why the Bloc is doing okay is related to the weakness of the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre in Quebec, which leaves the Bloc basically alone to capture the Francophone opposition vote to the Liberals.

And that could translate into seats. The Bloc has one thing that is always distinguished, that its MPs work hard. And I watched the hearings this week with David Johnston over Chinese interventions in Canadian politics and its MPs were well prepared and asking substantial questions. And that means that when election time comes, you can't say these are people who are just wasting your money waving a Quebec flag in the House of Commons. That's not true. I think François Blanchet has been pretty good at maintaining that tradition of the Bloc doing its homework. You know, when the Bloc first started, it was, what, 30 years ago, more than 30 years ago now,

in terms of being a participant on election nights, we kind of looked at it, or at least some of us did, thinking, well, this is going to be a one-off or maybe a two-off, and then they'll sort of disappear. They've never disappeared. I mean, they've had bad election nights, but they've never disappeared. And here you're painting a picture of, you know, the impact they could have yet again. Bruce, do you want to make a short comment on the block? Yeah, very short from my standpoint is that once there was a point in time where you could choose to vote nationalist instead of federalist in Quebec without worrying that you were going to create a crisis, that all you were really doing was expressing which order of values was most important to you. And at that point, more people, I think, felt completely comfortable voting their nationalist

sentiment with the BQ. But it still looked a little bit like a protest movement without a sense of purpose or professionalism. And I really like Chantal's point that I think it does now look like a group of people who go to Ottawa to do work on behalf of their constituents rather than to create a crisis in confederation or have some sort of hidden agenda. They don't pull their hair out at every opportunity. They choose their battles and they communicate well. The NDP are actually the number four party in Canada in terms of the parliament, the blocker number three. But we've moved them up to number three because they are basically a part

of the government that exists right now with their agreement with the liberals to keep the liberals in power for another couple of years if certain things are are followed through on um so where is that put the ndp uh bruce you can start us on on the uh on the ndp in terms of the where they stand today in the uh in the landscape as such what uh what are we saying yeah the big question for me is the difference in the way in which the three main party, I say main party leaders, I'm leaving out the block, I take your point about third party in the house, but Singh, Trudeau, and Polyev, to me, the NDP has a leader who was the most popular, might still be by a narrow margin if we just look at the positives and the negatives, but he's not as popular as he was only a few years ago. I think

people have lost a little bit of interest in what he has to say or how he says it or what his party stands for and how he represents that. But his best prospects are aversion to Pierre Polyev and aversion to Justin Trudeau. And so if the more scary Pierre Polyev is to progressive voters, that could, in theory, help Jagmeet Singh, but it could also help Justin Trudeau. The more fatigue there is with Justin Trudeau, that could really help Jagmeet Singh. But he's not so much in control of that, especially since Jagmeet Singh doesn't want to spend every day throwing haymakers at the person that he's done a deal with. So he's in a bit of a situation where his success is going to be a function more of, I think, the fortunes of those other two leaders a little bit.

He's along for the ride, and I don't think there's any way to tell whether that ride is going to turn out to be an enjoyable one or not. Sean, tell them. It's an extraordinary story, though, that Chuck Mead Singh, for the most part, seems to keep the NDP, the New Democrats, satisfied with his fourth place and his support role in the government. When if you look at what happened on his watch, he lost Quebec, lost Atlantic Canada for the most part,

is nowhere on the Toronto landscape, has not delivered any suburban writings where he used to get elected when he was part an MPP at Queen's Park. If you look at the entire picture and if you only looked at electoral results, you'd say this guy has been a big loser for the MPP. But that is not how MPP members feel about Jagmeet Singh. They're comfortable. It was interesting over the past two weeks that when he was being pushed by the conservatives to take his claims or his calls for a public inquiry into the Chinese file, to make that a confidence issue and bring down the government, and he resisted. There was very little pushback from new Democrats saying, what is the NDP doing? It's selling out its soul

to Justin Trudeau by not pushing the government to the wall. But I think no one is under any impression that Jagmeet Singh will be Pierre Poiliev for prime minister. And I think that's the biggest risk to Jagmeet Singh and the NDP looking at the next election, this notion that if you really, really do not want Pierre Poitier because you're progressive, you need someone who is going to beat Pierre Poitier, not someone who is going to sit back in fourth place and say, this is bad. And I've seen zero evidence of momentum behind the NDP to take it beyond that fourth place anytime soon. Certainly not coming back in Quebec on the current watch. So it's kind of a bit of this and the other. What I found astounding over the past week was the NDP, and it's rarely done that, has been running social

media ads, attack ads, which they rarely do, and they are all targeted at the conservatives. Now, it's rare that an opposition party attacks another opposition party. It's rare for the NDP to do it. It's rare for the NDP to do it about a conservative leader because it makes that conservative leader more of a threat to people who could go from the NDP to the liberals. But I thought that was really interesting, and I'm curious to see what happens depending on the results to the NDP-liberal cooperation. I think it could survive the next election depending on the numbers.

Okay. We're going to take a final break, and when we come back, we have 10 minutes to do both the conservatives and the liberals right after this welcome back we're into the last segment of good talk for this week chantelle and bruce are with us uh we are going to now place on the uh the map, the Liberals and the Conservatives. First up, well, no, let's try something different. Let's go with, well, no, I guess that doesn't even work anymore. Make up your mind.

Come on. We'll stick to the regular order. The Conservatives. Pick a lane here. Pick a lane. I'm picking the lane that has the Conservatives and Pierre Polyev in it first. Bruce. Well, I think that there's lots of opportunity for the Conservatives to win this next election campaign.

I don't think there's any doubt about it. I think there are a lot of voters who feel that the fiscal situation of the country could use a government that's more preoccupied with that. There's a lot of voters who are feeling as though they've been kind of left a little bit, left out a little bit of the conversation that the government has been having about the various social agenda items that are on its to-do list. Not necessarily against those items, but just really feeling a little bit distant from the Liberals. So that's created a pool of opportunity for the Conservatives that is easily large enough for them to win a resounding victory at the next election. And I'm not saying that she's changed her position on this, where she identified the reasons why Pierre Palliev was perhaps squandering some of that opportunity or was in the process of doing that. I think that he has a fascination with the gimmick and with the rhetoric. And sometimes you can see politicians who have no gift of the gimmick or the rhetoric, and you wish that they had some. But he has too much fascination with it. And Canadians,

for the most part, the kind of Canadians that we're talking about who could move to his column, they're probably going to overlook some parts of his personality that they might not particularly like. But if it's only a steady diet of the rhetoric and the gimmick, I don't think that he's going to have as much success as he could have. And I think it's probably something that conservatives have a little bit of anxiety about because they haven't seen the upward momentum in the polling numbers that perhaps they expected to see, given the state of the economy and the fatigue with the liberals. Chantal? Yeah, sometimes it pays off to be part of the

solution and not just the person who points at the problem. If you could become prime minister by being a good opposition leader, Jean Chrétien and Justin Trudeau would not have been prime ministers because they were not very great in the House of Commons question period where Justin Trudeau, third party, was asking questions, was a good time to go to the fridge and get something, a snack,

to take you to the end of question period. That's how lame it was. Thomas Mulcair should be prime minister on that basis. And I've been, yes, watching Pierre Poilievre. In the cycle, this should be the conservatives' election to lose. There has never been an incumbent who has won a fourth consecutive term in our lifetimes or even in our recent memory. So it's there for the conservatives to take, and yet it's not happening. And you have to think that they are putting too much emphasis on performative skills as opposition in the House of Commons, and that is what they run

in their ads all the time. It seems Mr. Poiliev is forever auditioning for his next clip rather than trying to expand the interest of voters onto policies that voters could find attractive. That's not something that can't be repaired. But I think they would have the election in the bag with a leader who is less polarizing and a bit more of a unifying figure, frankly. Okay. The other thing you can say about them as they go into this period before the next election is they got bags of money, bags of money,

and money can help make a campaign go around. There's no question about that. Okay, the Liberals, Justin Trudeau. Chantal, you start us, and we have exactly five minutes total. It's probably the best case scenario for the Liberals to have Justin Trudeau lead them in the election, and as opposed to, I think, Bruce, I'm 99% convinced that, and short of something unforeseen, he will be leading them. But there is kind of a lack of energy in the caucus and in the government, a lethargy that seems to come from the top in the sense that nothing ever changes and people are

on automatic pilot when they should be fighting for their jobs. And again, I'll refer to what I saw this week, the committee where Mr. Johnston was trying to defend his recommendations on China. And I looked at the liberals who sat there and spent the entire time never addressing any substance, always trying to get Mr. Johnson to say that the conservatives were bad people doing bad things. I thought, is this what the gene pool is like after three terms? That's the best you can do to shore up a recommendation and a report. So I don't know. I mean, I'm waiting to see if new blood is brought in as part of the election slate. And I'm mostly looking at who will decide not to run again,

because there are some strong ministers who could well decide that this is it, they're moving on. And that would weaken the liberal brand considerably in its current anemic state. Bruce? Well, to look at the assets, first of all, I think for the liberals, Justin Trudeau is a phenomenal asset. I think he has been, he's got many critics, of course, but he has been a transformative leader. He's made significant changes to the country. And many of the changes that he has made would be even more popular if more people knew about them. He has done things that are by and large in line with what the public would want him to do across a range of issues.

There are some obviously where he hasn't met everyone's expectations or met that widest section of the population's expectations. But on the whole, he has engineered public policy that most people, if they looked at it carefully, would say, I'm glad he did that, that those were good changes for the country. Second thing is, he's very knowledgeable about the issues. I think he is the most knowledgeable about the issues of the leaders that he competes with. And it's not just this field that I would say that about.

He's a deeply knowledgeable person when it comes to these public policies. I think the two negatives, one is kind of an eye of the beholder thing, is how he communicates. Some people like it, but more people used to like it than like it now. Some people find it a bit grating and find it. There's a sense of repetition and a kind of a performative aspect to it that that over time creates some resistance to what he has to say because people don't like hearing the way that he has to say it. That, you know, might also be said for Pierre Polyev, so I don't really know where that nets out.

But I think the bigger challenge for him right now, and Chantal put her finger on it as well, I think is governance. He's got a great cabinet by historical standards. There's a lot of talent in there. But I don't feel that the government is well organized right now. I don't feel that it's well organized politically. I don't feel like it's well organized from the standpoint of what the agenda is and how it's going to get accomplished. It feels too diffuse. It feels undermanaged. And it feels as though the management of it is not terribly interested in correcting that problem. How big a factor that will be, again, it will always come down to Mulroney's adage of you don't have to be perfect. You only have to be better than the alternatives on offer.

I've got time to squeeze one more thing. And usually at this time each year in the parliamentary calendars, they're all getting ready for summer and a break, not only getting ready, but they're desperate for it. And sometimes that can be part of what we're witnessing in terms of the lethargy at their own Parliament Hill. But usually at this time of year, the rumors start flying. Well, you know what?

He's going to prorogue the House, which means basically that you stop everything. You don't end up passing some of the bills that you've been trying to pass. And in this case, it could include the budget. And you start afresh in the fall. You literally start a whole new session. Speech from the throne the whole bit. That plus cabinet shuffle.

Bring in some fresh blood. Or change the old blood around. So those rumors are flying around a little bit. Anybody here, any chance of either of those happening, or is that just a normal spin? So as far as I understand, the budget will be voted and sent to the Senate possibly by the end of the week, through closure and other means that the government

has at its disposal. I am not hearing rumors of prorogation or cabinet shuffle, although I believe one or the other could happen. But I tend to look more towards the end of the year, unless someone leaves. Suppose, I don't want to name a minister because it always starts rumors, but suppose Mr. X suddenly leaves for some reason. Then you'd have a cabinet shuffle.

But the calendar would suggest prorogation would be more appropriate next January, early in the new year, than in the fall, and would have more impact. Mr. X or Mrs. X? Yeah, well, I'm trying to steer clear of, you know what. You picked a gender, so she eliminated half the cabinet right there. Look, I think that you would prorogue if you had a plan B or a new plan A. I don't know that I see that. So I would be surprised if they did.

All right, we're going to wrap it up there. It's been an interesting discussion on a lot of different topics. And I thank you for it, and so does our audience. Chantelle, Bruce, I'm Peter. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you again on Monday. You too. Take care.