The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Should Canada Reconsider Putting Boots On The Ground INSIDE Ukraine?

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

With Russian attacks on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant, indiscriminate bombings of civilians, and no end in sight, Bruce and Chantal weigh the very controversial question of just how far Canada should go to support Ukraine.  Plus, should Max Bernier run for the leadership of the Conservative Party? 

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal, Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. It's another Friday edition of Good Talk, and sometimes it's hard to use the word good next to talk when the subject is, in this case, Ukraine. But we're going to try and make at least some smart talk. Good may be a hard word to push on this because it's such a depressing situation. A week ago, when we discussed this, we asked the question, are we, meaning Canada, doing enough about the Ukraine situation? And I think at that time, we were pretty realistic, acknowledging Canada's role in pushing economic sanctions and i guess in many ways that was christia freeland's role as we tend to find

out more in the last week about what was going on behind the scenes that she had a pretty important role in that um but as chantelle made clear a week ago you know canada's not exactly at the lead of this western alliance um you know up against russia we have an important role but we're not the lead role. And so there are a limited number of things that we can do. But that was all a week ago. And the situation a week ago is much different than it is today. A week ago, it was like the Keystone Cops invading Ukraine. The Russians were making all kinds of kind of bizarre mistakes, still unexplained bizarre mistakes as they moved into ukraine

this week they're still making mistakes but they are on the move and there's no question about that they have gained ground and lots of ground uh in their in their move and the the end game seems inevitable unless something else happens um the other thing is we're a week later and we're we're witnessing by the hour bodies being pulled out of bombed out buildings and hospitals and schools and some of those bodies and cases some cases many of those bodies are of children. The Russians attacked a nuclear power plant last night. It's hard to keep making the argument that you're on Ukraine's side by being at its back and helping on economic sanctions and helping trying to move military equipment in there.

You're at its back, but you're not at its front with them on the front. So can Ottawa avoid a serious discussion, and here finally is the question, can Ottawa avoid a serious discussion about whether or not we would go to war for Ukraine fully understanding the possible consequences of a decision like that? Chantal. Yes, for now, because as was the case last week, the lead on this will not come from Canada, and nor should it, by the way. It's easy at some point to confuse the totally acceptable emotion of wanting to do more and reality and what reality entails. And no serious discussion on that issue can make abstraction of reality

in the name of good intentions. But in real politics, this is happening in Europe. It's a significant decision for European nations that sit right next to this battleground to engage in the way that you described and they would clearly it's not even the United States here they would clearly be the first to feel uh the brunt of that decision which is why NATO uh the UK go down the list and our own Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, have called in implementing a no-fly zone a red line for Canada, for all of those countries. Should that option become a viable option for European allies? Of course, we will need to have

that discussion. And when we do have that discussion, no one should presume on the basis of what is a massively favorable public opinion towards Ukraine and all of the goodwill that we see in just about every single poll, that that discussion will not shift or make public opinion a bit more skeptical of how far this is going to go. I was struck when I looked at some of the numbers that almost half of Canadians in some polls believe we have done enough. So it's for sure public opinions in Europe, here in the US, possibly to a lesser degree, have gone a long way to strengthen the spine of the various countries that are joining together to fight this battle. But public opinion in the sense of goodwill and emotions cannot dictate leadership in this instance. It has to come from the top down. And that conversation needs to be an adult conversation, not just a, this is what you want, and so we're doing this because that's who we are.

It goes beyond a values issue to a reality issue. Do we really want to plunge Europe and ourselves into a global war that could include nuclear missiles. I hear you exactly. What I have trouble with is how people are reacting to the images, which are only going to get worse now. And I have just one point on that. What's fascinating about this, and you're all old enough to remember the Vietnam War or the Afghan conflict. Whenever people have been subjected to actual pictures of war conflicts, it has made them want peace. But in this case, it is the reverse. But for how long? If your neighbor is suddenly the person that you're seeing who is getting killed on the border of Poland and Ukraine, are you still going to say,

let's go get these people, these Russians? Or are you going to say, wait a minute, there has to be a way to make this stop. We are now in where the Russians would normally have been expected to be. When your country launches a war, saying it's absolutely needed, there's usually a patriotic outpouring of support for that war. The reverse has been happening. The Russians are not terribly behind this offensive. And everyone else is saying we need to fight back. But there is a tipping point. I don't believe that public opinion on this is like cement that's so solidified that it couldn't switch. Okay, we'll get to Bruce on this now.

Let me just make the one point about it, because I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and and witnessing it on television and you know that and you're absolutely right it pushed towards the movement of peace the difference at the time was you know the early days of television the pictures we saw on television were often two three days old they were all at the front. The kind of things we're witnessing now, as long as the media stays focused on this story, and that can always be a challenge. But there are so many Western media inside Ukraine right now reporting live to the moment in real time. And it's not just battle footage.

It's not just bodies. It's the whole refugee situation. You know, it's overwhelming. If you're locked into watching this stuff, it really is quite something. Anyway, Bruce, you're the expert on public opinion and how it's shaped and how it can impact a story like this. What's your take? Well, I think Chantal is exactly right in saying that we shouldn't hope that our leaders take their cues from polls now. I think that that's not meant to be an indictment or a criticism of the average citizen, but simply a recognition that armchair quarterbacking, something where so many lives and so much is at stake, is just a terrible idea, even if it's a natural kind of human condition now,

especially one in which we are exposed, as you've just been saying, Peter, to all of the images coming out from the um the scenes in in ukraine which are devastating and so this this situation to me is unusual in several respects um and different from the vietnam one which i do remember i mean i think with respect to the vietnam war i do remember it being a pretty active discussion within the United States and other democracies as to whether this was a war that was in part manufactured by U.S. deciding that its interests lay in determining what kind of governments there were going to be in Southeast Asia. And I don't think this one has any of that kind of feel to it i think it has very much to feel that it's about what vladimir putin is trying to do and it's a real test of of whether or not

america and the rest of the world are going to look at what's happening somewhere other than where they live and decide that the strategic interests or the humanitarian requirement that they feel is strong enough to do more right now i think the canadian public opinion and i am going to be measuring it more over the weekend i think is is as chantal described it which is that there's just an overwhelming emotional sense of this is wrong, and we should do what we can to help. I don't think that that means that people are ready to really evaluate in what conditions it would make sense to put our troops in harm's way. But it wouldn't shock me if there was a situation, a scenario, as Chantal again said, where people were willing to go along with that. But it certainly wouldn't be Canada in the lead in that.

It would be in the context of an allied effort. I think that's absolutely for sure the case. But the last point I would make is that I think the question of whether or not we should be doing more, and typically I think that question starts to be asked in the context of troops on the ground rather than more financial support or more sanctions, isn't just a question of whether our emotions are aligned in the right way or our values are there or whether we have the courage. I think there's a legitimate question for leaders to evaluate always about effectiveness. Will it, will it produce a good outcome or will it potentially produce a worse outcome? And I want them to make the calculation that way. I don't want them to say, are people mad as hell?

And they want some troops in there, you know, with our flags on their fatigues shooting at Russians? I want them to make the decision based on what they think will save the most lives from Putin's aggression, will restore peace and the world order as quickly as possible. And I believe that's what they're doing. I hope that's what they continue to do. Just a couple more points since I brought the Vietnam example in. Listening to Bruce's description, it strikes me that in the case of Vietnam, the United States was Russia. It's defending its own interests, deciding what kind of government it wanted and how long did the US pursue that policy before it finally died on them, kind of tells you how little success wars like that have had even for very powerful countries.

And if I can just inject, sorry, Chantal, we all remember the demonstrations of young people in the United States, which is really about why are we in this war? Why is this our war? Why should we go and fight somebody else's war? And it feels to me like that's one of the weak points for Putin is he doesn't seem to be winning the propaganda battle in his own country. And sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought, but I think that that is a really interesting analogy.

An analogy for analogy, listening to Peter describe what's happening, the refugee crisis that people were seeing get killed to our civilians. I'm guessing if I were a Syrian, I would say, what took you so long? I'm not saying there's a double standard at play, but from a distance, it looks very much like that, in part because Syria is where it is, and this is unfolding in Europe, right next door to a number of countries that are saying, wait a minute, this is coming at us. But still, you are describing the situation that has been ongoing in Syria for how many years with the help of Russia and the same circumstances, And we've all been a lot higher about taking on whoever was doing all this. The so-called international duty to protect seems to be very movable one,

depending on the conflict and the geopolitics of it. In 2015, remember, we had a very bruising political debate in the election campaign about whether we could withstand the impact of 25,000 Syrian refugees, even as we watched babies' bodies wash up on shores. We're not having that kind of conversation here. Two more points. One on the media, because I want to steal it from Bruce. I am somewhat troubled by the notion that people who improvised themselves for the past two years as public health experts have managed to turn themselves overnight into foreign policy and military experts and strategists. And I don't think that is terribly

helpful. I think there is a moment where the answer to the question, so what do we do now, should be, I don't know, because it's not my field of expertise. And I don't think I'm hearing enough of those answers. The should do and should not do sitting in a living room possibly is acceptable if the pandemic is hitting at home and you're talking about your domestic policies. But at this point, it's a big reach to fill the air with this should be done or that should be done when actually two weeks ago, you didn't even know where Belarus was on a map. And final point to take us into domestic policies. I do believe we've not seen this emerge as a wedge issue in Canada in any way, shape or form.

But I do believe it could become a wedge issue on the front of do we put boots on the ground in a fighting role? But also it could become a wedge issue on what is going to be our take going forward on energy exports and the need for more pipelines to get gas and oil to tidewater. Does it shift the debate? It sounds opportunistic at this point on the part of fossil fuel champions like Jason Kenney to be constantly harping on this, but it is totally possible that this is a discussion that will need to take place within that new context. Okay.

You've both dropped a number of things that I'll just make a couple of points on. These are all good. It's a fascinating conversation. And I think you're absolutely right. We could be heading in this direction for this conversation on a number of different levels in terms of the country itself and how it plays out in you know potential political differences uh first of all on the uh the overnight military experts on on uh television and in the media hey you're right um that happens um the you what you have to weigh is what what do you want do you want the generals

who pop up all over television networks um who are, you know, experts in certain areas, obviously, of military stories. Some of them, you've got to question, you've got to be really careful because since they left the military, they're working for big arms manufacturers or airplane makers or what have you, and you've got to wonder exactly where they're coming from on some of this stuff. But, you know, listen, in terms of journalism, we become a determinants and experts because we're not, and we never will be, but we do, you know, we're placed in the position where we have to know something about the story we're covering.

And as long as you don't try to pretend to know more than you actually know uh you should be fine but and mainly you're asking the questions that people are asking at home and hopefully you're getting the answers from people who are knowledgeable on the double standards thing you're you're bang on about that and it's you know it's not just the syrians and the palestinians are asking hey what about us you know um afghanis the iraqis you know you talk about why the americans went into vietnam there's some parallels as to why they went into iraq phonied up excuse for going in at the start. Anyway, it is a fascinating discussion one can have. On the question about boots on the ground, and I think in a way, Bruce, you hinted at it,

a lot of this boots on the ground question, if it's not immediate, which it appears it's not going to be, it may well follow whatever this however this concludes because the threat of russia trying to recreate itself as the soviet union and the threat on western europe will once again bring up the question of boots on the ground in western europe i mean until 30 years ago until after the Berlin Wall fell, we had more than a thousand troops stationed in West Germany, at Lahr and Baden. They were part of the big NATO defense force to buttress against any possible Soviet, at that time, invasion. Will that come up again?

And if it does come up again are we even prepared to you know prepared in the sense of equipment wise able to do it could we could we be there again with a significant force i know we're in there we're in latvia right now and training missions and and and stuff like that but the german thing was a permanent installation. We had two bases there. And they were pretty important in terms of the defense of Western Europe. Anyway, all those discussions, I assume, are going to be on the table no matter how this plays out. I think that's right.

I think they should. And I think that they should be done on the basis of what the NATO alliance emerges as coming out of this experience. And is it stronger? Is it more fragile? Because the economic kind of self-harm, the blowback pain that people are feeling, the energy issues that Germany might feel, all of those could weaken the resolve that we're currently seeing. Similarly, a different president in the United States could, again, start to undermine the NATO alliance. I hope that none of those things happen. I think it's pretty clear that Russia under Putin is a malevolent force and has reminded any of us who might have lost sight of

the value of those alliances, of the absolute importance of them in the real world where bad people run countries in ways that are aggressive and murderous. At the same time, the question of what exact sort of help that we need isn't for amateurs like me or any of us. It's really a complex question. I mean, I was listening to some experts talk today about Putin's back to the wall. Now, does that make him go cyber? And I know enough about what that means to know that it sounds bad. I don't know whether or not we can match the Russians in a cyber war.

I don't know whether that's the thing that we should be investing more in. I went to that LAR base, as you did, Peter. I remember what it looked like to have Canadian troops there, but I don't know if that's the right solution going forward. And I do find myself quite skeptical when I see journalists, some journalists interviewing some retired generals. And my skepticism is I want to hear them if they're talking about their expertise in the things that are happening on the ground. I really worry when I hear them talk about the

military equipment that we haven't purchased yet. And I want to see the vetting that's been done to make sure that they're not there, in part selling the equipment that they're paid to advocate for. I don't want to be too hostile in that statement, but I haven't seen a lot of evidence that that kind of vetting is going on. And I know that a lot of people who exit those roles in the military end up in roles where they're legitimately trying to make sure that we buy ships and planes and guns and what have you. And the last point for me on journalism, I'm glad Chantal took it up first and that you followed. I think that a lot of it has been extraordinarily helpful because without it, I don't think the world would have been as galvanized as it is.

So it's unmistakably vital to our collective interests as people on the planet. At the same time, I share the concern that if I see a journalist, an anchor interviewing an expert and saying, tell us your expertise. I like that. I enjoy that. I get something out of it. It's helpful to me. If I hear a journalist trying to compete with the expert, which often happens in these scenarios, right? They seem to feel like their job is to show that they're as smart as the expert

or the expert gives an answer and they want to challenge it as though they have that we would presume that they would have the expertise to do that those are the two big categories and if i see that second one i just generally turn it off and say i'm not interested in it and and it's an affectation that kind of journalism has these days and it isn't only on this issue. It's on a lot of other issues. But there are lots of good ones out there doing it and doing it in a different way. And I find myself gravitating more towards the Christiane Amanpour scenario where some of the people that she has on, the David Isaacsons interviewing Bill Browders. Those are really great interviews for me.

And that journalism is extremely helpful right now. Okay, we're going to move on. And Lachante, you want to add a last point to this? Just to go back to your boots on the ground in Europe. Right. I think those military bases probably were more relevant before Germany reunited. The front line was clearly at that division.

But I also think we need to worry more about our own backyard. With the difference that climate change is making to the Arctic, we are now neighbours of Russia, and Russia does have strategic interests in the region. So before we look to whether we should be manning the Poland-Ukraine border going forward, I think the real discussion should be about how we handle our own territory to the north of us, because it will become more and more of an issue between Russia and Canada and the other countries that share that region going forward. And this event has made that discussion even more urgent. Absolutely agree on that.

In fact, there are seven countries that are arguing about territory in the high Arctic, and we're just one of them, Russia being obviously another, but there are a total of seven. And it gives me the opportunity to say that April 18th at 8 p.m., there's a documentary on CBC called Arctic Blue, which goes, and it's the one I did last fall, or I was traveling on in the Arctic last fall, which goes exactly to the points that Chantel is raising.

So I hope you watch that. And you'll see just how, where we are in terms of Arctic defenses at a time when everything's changing in the Arctic. Okay, we're going to move on. I'll just drop one last fact about Canada's role in Europe in the past.

And Chantal's quite right. This is, you know, when there was a West Germany and an East Germany. But in 1969, I think it was 69, 69, we were part of the nuclear strike force. We like to pride ourselves as a non-nuclear nation, which we are. But our aircraft at Baden, CF-104s, I think, were part of the nuclear strike force of NATO against the Soviet Union.

Interesting thing to recall. All right, we're going to move to domestic politics and that fun game of who wants to be prime minister. We'll talk about that when we come back. And we're back.

Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Chantelle Eber is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. You're listening to Good Talk on this Friday edition of The Bridge. You're listening

on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, segment two is about Canadian politics, and I deliberately use that phrase, who wants to be prime minister, because it leads me to this question about Pierre Palliev, so far the only declared candidate for the Conservative Party, I believe he's still the only declared candidate, leadership, although he never talks about, it's like he doesn't want to associate the name Conservative with his campaign, because all his signage and his introductions is, I want to be Prime minister, the next prime minister. Now, at first, when he first was doing this, I think we all got a chuckle out of it,

but it's pretty clear it is a definite part of his strategic positioning for his campaign. Now, can somebody explain to me why he thinks that's a successful positioning to take? Bruce? I assume that he thinks that the most important thing for him to do is confirm the sense of inevitability of his victory. He's got, I think, 30 MPs who are backing him. That's a pretty substantial number at this early stage in the race. And typically what happens in that kind of situation is the first 30 make it more tempting and safe for the next 30 to kind of head in the same direction.

I think that what he wants to do is to overcome as well the idea that maybe his biggest kind of flaw in the minds of observers from a distance is that maybe he's not kind of mature or serious enough an individual in politics to be a good prime minister i don't know if this approach is going to do that. I think that's a pretty open question. But I think he's probably figured out that, well, I think that the timing of the selection, which is now set for September the 10th, I think that it is, is later than he would have wanted it to be, which invites more competition or allows competition to develop more opportunities and maybe creates more space for him to make the odd mistake. I think he still starts with a huge advantage. It's hard for me to see anybody beating him in this leadership race. And I say that as somebody who would rather see somebody beat him.

I feel like the Conservative Party is at an inflection point where it's either going to decide to become a party of 25% of Canadians or try to become a party of at least 50% of Canadians. And I wrote a piece based on our data that was published in the National Observer this week, which talked about what those choices are. And I don't know that the party is going to choose the 50% plus path. It feels more like the energy is around the 25%. You know, let's make sure we pull back a lot of votes from the People's Party, and that we feel really comfortable in our faith-based conservatism, that we feel like we're really on one side of the climate and fossil fuel debate, not on both sides of it. And I think Pierre-Paul Yves has decided that that's who he wants to be as a leader. And he's attacking his potential or putative main challenger, Jean Charest, by saying he's the guy who wants to create something that looks more like the Liberal Party, in my view, the 50% plus party. I would rather see a Conservative Party that competed for that larger audience. And I don't think that's what we're

going to end up with, but I'm still hopeful because there's months to go okay well i think um you know uh you've you've sent us in a number of directions and one is the september 10th uh direction and what difference that makes but i first i do want to try to understand and maybe chantal can help me on this is why he doesn't even mention his own party's name in his signage or his introductions or the whole way he positions himself in this campaign. You know, it's not even conservative colors in his signage. It's nothing except prime minister.

Me, myself, and I. He does mention conservatives when he's making speeches to say who is a real conservative and who is not, as he did this week to describe Jean Chagas as a liberal and not a conservative. At that point, the point he was making was that he was the only real thing on the ballot. I agree with Bruce's analysis

that Poitier wants to create the impression of inevitability. I'm going to be leaving this party. And I do believe that within a caucus room, he has been a dominating presence, not just for content or not mostly for content, I believe, but for style, as in I'm going to go after Justin Trudeau. I've done it in the question period.

Those soft liberals will be mincemeat with me as leader. There is a risk to the strategy of making the frame who can best lead the conservatives to government, who best fits in the frame of prime minister versus who can best unify and make the conservative party a winning team. And it is that if you're going to use the prime ministerial frame seriously, Jean Charest, of all of those who are expected to be running, is the one that fits best in the prime ministerial frame. Why? Not because he's the greatest politician on offer, but in this lineup, he is the one that brings the actual running a government and running a variety of portfolio to the fore.

Pierre Poilievre has been a politician forever, but he has only briefly been a cabinet minister. He's never been in a leadership position. And frankly, he has tended to shine more in opposition than in government. So if I were to go back to what opposition politicians have been like, I would think that Pierre Poilievre is the reincarnation of those who made up the Rat Pack when the Liberals were in opposition to Brian Mulroney. And all of them, Sheila Copps, Don Budhia, Brian Tobin, made for very aggressive,

David Dingwall, very aggressive opposition politicians, but they weren't all that successful in leadership positions or in ministerial positions. Sorry, Mr. Tobin. So I kind of question why or how he is appealing to the opposition instincts of the wing of the Conservative Party that sees itself as a permanent opposition movement at the same time as he wants those who actually want, like Bruce, a party that can win because it appeals to more Canadians, tend to be turned off by the take-no-prisoner style of Pierre Poilievre. As opposed to Bruce, I believe this will be a hard fought and not necessarily to take for granted kind of exercise.

Why? Because it's hard for a frontrunner that is not necessarily a huge frontrunner to hang on to that lead over time. And two, because I'm not so sure that he has a lot of room to grow. So unless he builds a formidable force between now and June 3rd, it's going to be hard to see who else is going to come to shore up as numbers if he's not going to get the first ballot win, which sounds like a hard thing to do on timing, by the way. People have tended to say this is a victory for the others, including Jean Chagas, September 10th. But I do note that you only have until June 3rd to sign up new members. And that's the time between how many members you sign up

and the time when they vote is longer than the two previous races so i think it probably is a compromise uh that did give the poitier camp some of what they wanted by making the time frame to sign up members shorter uh than it could have been you know can i just pick up on that peter no No. Okay. No, go ahead. Sorry. You know, I think that the, I want to be up new members is a really important one from my standpoint, because another piece of data that was in the essay that I put out or the release that we put out this week is that in our last two surveys, the total number of people who said that they were willing to consider voting conservative was down to 39 and 41 percent. And the reason for that is that the brand has been repelling

a lot of Canadians on the centre for a long time now. And to change that requires time and strenuous effort and loud voices making sounds that point in that direction. I haven't seen convincing enough evidence that this race is going to draw that many people into it. I don't know if Tasha Carradine is going to get into it. I still think there's a question about whether or not Jean Charest is going to get into it. And more importantly, maybe from my vantage point on this question, Jean Charest made a point of saying in a Globe and Mail interview this week that he was not running as a red Tory and that he was looking to people who aren't social conservatives don't know if they can trust it as a party not to constantly kind of bring that social conservative agenda to the fore.

And so the question of whether they'll buy a membership between now and June something is harder. If all of the candidates are saying we want a party that makes the the people's party voter feel comfortable if everybody is saying that then that bigger tent scenario is going to be very hard to achieve in the in the eight weeks or whatever it is that we've got until the cutoff date um and and i do think that's a victory for um in a way, for Pierre Polyev, because if you're that kind of a conservative and you're comparing him and Charest, you don't even really need to know about the governance experience. You're going to look at Polyev and say he's more that kind of conservative. He's willing to kind of fight for every last People's Party vote, and he doesn't want Liberal voters who are disaffected with Mr. Trudeau. Well, that's the interesting position that this party finds itself in,

because as you said, it's been repelling votes from the centre, but it's clearly been repelling votes, perhaps in an even greater degree, from the extreme right. They're losing them from both sides. And, you know, that's put them in a really difficult situation and anybody who wants to be leader in a difficult situation how do you appeal to both those edges and can you um can you appeal to them with some kind of credibility uh in doing that so we'll see how that plays out uh chantelle i want to get you to explain one one thing you said because if there's a if there's a term that a politician especially a leader uh or a potential

leader really never wants to hear is that i don't see any growth in this person like in terms of support growth and support there's no area for them to grow. And we've seen that happen on a number of times before on the political stage in Canada. Why are you saying it about Paulièvre? For one, he is running where he is running, which is, to me, the populist, but also extreme right of the party. That's one. Normally, a candidate that wants to have room to grow would say, this is just some liberal journalist describing me and trying to frame me in that box. But that is a box that he showcases every step of the way. The message he is sending to people like Bruce, who I suspect has voted conservative in the past, and others,

that is that they are not good enough for the Conservative Party, that he does not want them. That's right. And that basically sends the message to people who will be supporting other candidates, Jean Chaguet, but some of the other names, Patrick Brown. These are not legitimate conservatives. We do not want them. That's not who we want in our coalition. While on the other hand, he has been sending the message through the convoy in Ottawa and with other statements about the great reset to the global conspiracy that apparently Justin Trudeau is in on and members of his own party,

by the way, to put Canada's national government and the global hegemony of some world government. He has been telling people who vote for Maxime Bernier, we do want you. And that adds up to no growth. Now on the larger issue of the, you know, people keep talking about the base of the Conservative Party

and of social conservatives as if these are people who all only want to have someone bang on the desk and bring their government without any concessions to others to power. There have been over the years that within the conservative movement, in that section of the conservative movement, the more right-wing section, there have been occasions twice where the so-called base, even more restricted as it was in those days, has opted to go for someone that looked like it would bring them to power rather than someone that it really liked. Now, I'll take the case of Preston Manning versus Stockwell Day, party founder with a lot of assets going for him, having built the Reform

Party, brought it to Parliament Hill. I covered the Preston Manning versus Stockwell Day campaign. I went door to door with him on those lawns in southeastern Ontario, where people who really liked him, hosted him for coffee parties, would come to my car and ask, how is his French? Because he had convinced them that they should shift from protest movement to winning government. And they would not be backing him because they didn't think he could get them there. When Stephen Harper ran against Stockwell, how much pundit opinion went away that Stockwell, they couldn't lose because the social conservatives would stick with him, even if he was an embarrassment, this leader who had made the caucus implode. And in the end, Stephen Harper didn't win on that first ballot because he signed

up so many new members that he overwhelmed the social conservative wing of the then-Canadian Alliance. He won because he looked like the person who had the best chance of bringing the party to power. So I believe once in a decade, parties start to, the conservatives or the liberals, start to look at their options and think, how many more years do we want to sit in opposition? And who is the more likely, even at cost to some of my causes, to at least bring a government that is going to be fisc know, fiscally responsible, and making the brand more appealing? Those questions, I believe, will be on the minds of many social conservative members of the party.

And I don't see, or I don't equate social conservatives necessarily with Pierre Poitier's polarizing approach to politics. Okay, we'll take a quick last break, and then we'll come back and finish off, I think, still on this topic at a little different angle, but still this topic. Back in a moment. And we're back for the final segment of Good Talk for this week on The Bridge.

Chantelle's in Montreal, Bruce in Ottawa. I'm in Stratford, Ontario. So let me ask this because I know it'll get the blood boiling. Why doesn't Max Bernier throw the cat among the pigeons and run? Well, I think he should. Why should he? Well, I think that the conservatives should have it out and uh and and that everybody should kind of see what what degree of opportunity exists in a party where you allow the full-throated populist nonsense that max bernier represents to be kind of welcome in your party, but you don't want

the Jean Charest of the world. And that's really what Chantal was describing is exactly, I think, the way that I see it, which is that a lot of people who would normally consider voting conservative are not only not seeing enough sense of promise, maybe right now they're actually hearing messages that say, do not approach. And, uh, and the reason for that is Max Bernier and what he's done on the far right and what Donald Trump has done. And I'm so hopeful in Chantal's,

this is just a, maybe a cycle and every decade like the cicadas i know that they're more than a decade but whatever like the cicada the party will come back to its census and and start or parties will do that over these long cycles i don't think this is a cycle for conservative i think the left is is quite capable of nonsense and obnoxiousness. But I think that what's happening in the right in different parts of the world, the populist right, is a much more destructive and worrying thing. And I don't see that as a partisan issue. I see it as an issue that citizenry everywhere needs to be concerned about. So I don't, you know, I want to flush out the conversation about disinformation, about the lack of facts,

about the idea that you can campaign and be successful by saying things that aren't true. And I think the other animating energy for the conservatives under a Polyev campaign is really an anti-Trudeau thing. So it's not so it's a kind of a, the populist thing, it's a climate change, we don't care. And it's we hate Trudeau. And I hope it doesn't become, you know, and I'll finish on this point. I remember the Manning times and I remember the ad that he ran that said we don't effectively want any more leaders from Quebec. Because I feel like if the going got tougher, Mr. Polyev, one of the subtexts of his campaign against Jean Charest, which is pretty aggressive right now, given the fact that he's not in the race. And basically, if you want to be prime minister and you want to lead a party,

presumably you do want to be able to heal these divisions down the road. You know, it does look like there's a Quebec candidate or potential Quebec candidate, and there's a candidate not from Quebec. That's not a good, that's not a healthy scenario. Up to a point, Maxime Bernien still won as the Quebec candidate, 12 of 13 ballots and, uh, that leadership campaign. Uh, and the reason he lost ironically is because the Quebec caucus so did not want him that they organized dairy farmers, uh,

for Andrew Scheer. And that's how Andrew Scheer wouldn't have won if without the Quebec dairy farmers. Without the Quebec dairy farmers so but there were plenty of members who were willing to vote for Maxime Bernier. Many of them I think in hindsight feel that they dodged the bullet that afternoon. And all the Quebec dairy farmers may be a bit of a gift for having done that. I mean, Jean Charest's issues, and he does bring his load of issues to the fore. One of those is that people take for granted that Jean Charest in Quebec would suddenly sweep the fore. One of those is that people take for granted that Jean Chagrin in Quebec would suddenly sweep the province. We're not there at this point. That is not to say it couldn't happen. Justin Trudeau did not look like someone who could do really well in Quebec when he became

Liberal leader. On the contrary, his name was considered baggage in a real way because of his father's politics and the patriation of the Constitution, but evenaguet, against someone other than Justin Trudeau, and who would not be from Quebec, but probably do better than polls suggest at this point. But it's going to be really interesting to see how, and I'm kind of moving this to somewhere else, how do you recruit members in Ontario in the middle of an Ontario election? June 3rd. That's right when the Ontario election is, that first week of June. So you are going to be talking to people who have their minds on keeping their party in power at Queen's Park, trying to sign them up and make sure that they are on your list on time for June 3rd. And in the case of Quebec, there are many Quebec liberals who would, at this point, rather work for Jean Chaguet towards

the federal conservative leadership than to go in the next provincial election in Quebec, which is in October, with a losing proposition, because every poll shows that the Quebec Liberals will not do well in Quebec. So, the alliances that will be possible and the mechanics of this campaign are going to be really different, including the fact that those orphan writings in Quebec that would never give a conservative the time of day probably have the most loyal Chagé followers in the province. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week. A fascinating discussion all around. I still don't really know why Bernier wouldn't do it

if for no other reason than to throw the cat among the pigeons. You know, for him, if he wins, great. If he loses, not going to hurt if he loses not going to hurt him probably not going to hurt him there are possibilities there anyway but it'll be interesting see he's made some strange statements again this week strange being the perhaps the best way to uh you could possibly describe them um the kindest way uh the politest way uh anyway listen thank you both um as always your your thoughts on on both these topics have been greatly appreciated and i'm sure not just by me uh chantelle's in montreal bruce is in ottawa i've been in stratford ontario all this week and it's been gorgeous but cold here. Hope you have a great weekend.

Next week we'll have a full array of fascinating discussions as well. So we'll talk to you then. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again on Monday.