The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - Should Passports Reflect Canadian History?

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

It's a simple issue but one that gets people talking and today some "good talk" with Chantal and Rob Russo filling in for Bruce. Images of Canadian history or drawings of  Canadiana -- what do you think best reflects our passports?  Plus a new challenge for Conservatives, and a controversial return of Donald Trump.  All talkers.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Friday of another week. It's Good Talk time. Chantal Hébert is in Montreal. And Rob Russo is joining us from Ottawa. Rob's filling in for Bruce Anderson this week. And Rob, of course, former Bureau Chief of CBC in Ottawa, former Bureau Chief of CP from Ottawa. Rob's filling in for Bruce Anderson this week. And Rob, of course, former Bureau Chief of CBC in Ottawa, former Bureau Chief of CP in Ottawa, former Washington correspondent, former Quebec City correspondent. So he's been there, done that on a lot of different things. And we value his expertise and his thinking behind a lot of the stories we cover.

So in fact, we're going to start with you, Rob, because there is this theory that it's the simple things that get a lot of attention. On a wide selection of listeners and viewers, they grab onto the things that are often simple to understand, but you have a feeling about them. You sort of get either upset or you praise it uh and one of those has kind of stumbled into the uh into the news vein in the last couple of days and that's the the story of the passports now canadian passports every

10 years or so are supposedly changed because for security reasons uh to stop counterfeiting of passports. Well, this latest change has got some people a little upset. Certainly the opposition party is upset about this. The outgoing passports were started in, I think, 2012 by the Harper government, and they reflected on historic moments in, in Canadian life, you know, Vimy Ridge, Confederation, Terry Fox, and those kinds of images are on the back pages. Well, not the back pages, but they're sort of in the background of the various pages inside your passport. The new one is going to ditch all, all the history and basically have, well, as the opposition said, it looks like a coloring book of various images of Canada, drawings of Canada.

So how big a deal is this? I mean, quite frankly, how often do you look at your passport? How often do you carry your passport? But when you do, what do you want to be looking at inside there? Rob, is this a big deal yeah i i think it is and and uh you're right it is a simple thing but i do believe uh that it is one of those symbolic things it's and um symbols can be very powerful. And I'll give you an example of how it was used, a passport to powerful effect. All of us were around when the 1995 referendum was held,

and Jean Charest used the simple, humble passport, holding it up at a podium, to very, very powerful effect. When he was talking to Quebecers and bowing, no one would take this symbol of who he was away from him, which is what Jacques Parizeau and the Parti Québec was threatening to do during that referendum. And it had, I think, fair to say, an electric effect on audiences inside and outside of Quebec. So does it strike a chord in a way that's profound with Canadians? I think it does.

Now, does our history change? Yes. Our history changes as we change, as we mature as a nation. We evolve. And so the question that some people might ask is, as Canada becomes more and more a country where people are from other countries, you look at Toronto, which is well over 50% foreign born now in Vancouver. Does history have the same impact on people?

Some people might not think so, but I believe people come to Canada for a reason. And they come here to share in our history and to share in our identity and to contribute to that history and to that identity. So that when you look at images that are generic, images that can be found really anywhere, like birds and bears, can be found in dozens of countries. And that's what we've got now in the passport. And what's what we've got now in the passport. And what's been replaced, because I don't know that, I think erased might be too strong a word

when we think of Vimy and powerful symbols like that. I'm not sure that they strike the chord that people want us to strike when they think about Canada abroad. Could they have been replaced? Absolutely. History evolves. You've got to refresh it. Would I have liked to have seen Charles Lavoie and Gordon Lightfoot maybe on our passports or an Inukshuk on our passports? Yes, absolutely.

But I think the government probably got this one wrong and I think that they're underestimating the symbolic nature of what a passport is. Chantal? Okay, I'm going to go completely the other way. I know I'm not going to surprise either of you with the news that this is a total non-event in a province that values symbols. Nothing happened. No one has gotten up to say, well, you know, it would be nice if they put René Lévesque in there for his contribution to Quebec society or nationalizing IDRO. That's not happening. To Rob's point about Jean Chaguet using the passport, sure. But Jean Chaguet didn't open the inside pages, which back then did not

even have any history figures, by the way. And the passport we will be getting is just as good for showing. People are quarreling over the inside pages. You asked how often do you look at your passport? Well, I do. I do to look at the stamps I get on those inside pages. So here we are literally saying that our identity and our history, the one we convey to all these new Canadians, is meant to be put between the pages of a passport so that some foreign border person can put a huge stamp on it, on them. I, you know, I'll claim Tempest in a teapot here.

I noticed that most of the anger revolves around conservative sympathizers, including the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons. But until Stephen Harper and his team put in those pictures, and I have nothing against the past pictures either. I'm indifferent to what pictures you put in between pictures, and I have nothing against the past pictures either. I'm indifferent to what pictures you put in between the pages of my passport. I'm not indifferent to how many stamps I can collect with any given passport because it gives me a report card on a good life. I've managed to travel, see other places. As for bears and birds that are generic and meaningless, yes and no. If we're going to go down the route of all these new Canadians who come to Toronto and elsewhere, one big thing about many new Canadians is that they experience a lot of Canada from the perspective of our larger cities. But most of them or many of them do not get to experience Canadian nature

in any way, shape or form, unless you count the pigeons that you're hearing as I'm speaking, because my window is open and they're having fun in the garden here. So I don't know. Whichever way you want to go on this, for me, it's more of a clickbaiting, interesting topic for discussion, but not a big deal. I think we all agree on that. It is a very, you know, it's a simple story,

but it is one of those simple stories that sometimes takes off on you and can have an impact with certain segments of the population. On the stamp in your passport, sometimes you actually got to really look for that these days because there's so many countries you go through that they don't do anything. You just hold up the passport and away you go. You can ask them though. I've discovered if you have kids who want to collect them, I don't collect them to that degree, but you can actually ask for that stamp.

Yeah, absolutely. And they sort of look at you like, you're bothering me, but here's your stamp. Here's my, you know, I have two passports. I have a British passport and a Canadian passport because I was born in Britain. Here's one of my former British passports. And you can tell it's a former because it's been, you know, clipped to show that it's not good anymore. But I looked through the British passport.

Now, you know, a country with some history, right? We'd have to agree. What are the pictures in the distance in a British passport, at least this version of one? They're all birds. They're all birds. There's no, like, you know, 1066. There're all birds. They're all birds. There's no like 1066, there's no Churchill, there's none of that. And what kind of shape is Britain in today? Oh, great. What a weak,

weak argument here. And by the way, did any border guard ever open your passport and say, gee, I need to look at it for longer because it's so interesting, all this history that it's bringing to me. I have done a fair amount of travel this year and I'm from an Italian family and I can tell you they do pick up our passport when they ask to see it and they do go through it. So there is a sense of who we are to other people. But they go through it to see it, and they do go through it. So there is a sense of who we are to other people. But they go through it to see where you have been.

They don't go through it to see the pictures, Rob, seriously. I'm afraid I've bored them with all kinds of stories about where I've been for a long, long time. We are a country with very few symbols, and we are a country currently led by somebody who has said that we're a post-national country as well. And so I think there are very few, or there seem to be fewer and fewer examples of who we are as a people. And yes, this is a symbol,

but as somebody who was born just a few months after my parents came, I'd love to learn about Vimy Ridge. I'd love to be reminded about Vimy Ridge. I took my kids to Vimy Ridge. And those sorts of things instilled in me a sense of identity. And I don't know that that's a bad thing. Yeah, but I don't know that you should be relying on the inside pages of a passport for your kids to be learning about this stuff instead of the school. And I say that as someone who, in this latest career as a homework helper is learning a lot of history that wasn't taught when I went to school.

But I figure if my grandkids are going to learn Canadian history, they should be learning it in books, not in a passport. And if that's what we depend on for people to have a common history, good luck to us. Because those pages are meant for stamping. Well, but also a reminder of what is important in our history and who we are as a people. And it doesn't have to be, as I said, I would love to see, you know, or like that, or, or, or, um, no, well, I don't know about sitting. It might be,

that might be a bridge to, it might be a bridge too far. Uh, but Charlotte one light foot come to mind and rock and Richard who told us who told the story of us, but Gordon Lightfoot and Charlotte what tell the story of us but gordon lightfoot and charlotte tell the story of who we are as a people and i think that those are those those are things that are worth reminding us ourselves about and gordon and the list goes on there there are lots of things look i don't want to i don't want to go on too long on this but and i probably come down firmly in the middle of you too which is always a safe spot to be.

But I'm assuming this is one of those, not a one-day wonder, but it's one of those things that they make their mark, those who are opposed to this move, they make their mark with it, they stamp the ground, and when it comes time for whatever it may be, an election campaign or something similar to that, it becomes the three-second moment within the ground. And when it comes time for whatever it may be, an election campaign or something similar to that, it becomes, you know, the three-second moment within the ad about reminding everybody what these guys did, you know? And, you know, and that's it. So they're just, like, covering the turf.

I'm sure by next week this is not an issue. It becomes this, you know, a line that is thrown out every once in a while as a sort of reminder. But, you know, listen line that is thrown out every once in a while as a sort of reminder. But I, you know, I listen and for me, any, any moment where you're encouraging Canadians to understand their history, I agree with Chantel. I mean, you're not going to learn your history by reading, looking at your passport, but you, you know, by flipping through your passport at those rare times when you actually use your passport it doesn't hurt you know to be able to see those things and uh you know that's my feeling about it i wouldn't

go to the wall on it as a as an issue but nevertheless moving on having settled the passport story fred delorey is a name that the three of us know well and most reporters know well because he ran the Conservative campaign last time around. And he's definitely a figure in the Conservative Party of Canada, or has been. He started a Substack column just this week, and he's hit two home runs right out of the gate with two big stories that are being followed closely and being talked about. One was that Max Bernier from the People's Party of Canada, former Conservative cabinet minister,

and in the early Harper days, is apparently today, later today, going to announce his candidacy in the Portage-Lisker riding in Manitoba. Now, that's caused some consternation within the Conservative Party, but then he follows that up with a second column two days later, saying, guess what, centre-right Canadians, which is a group of Canadians who have said, you know,

there's got to be room for another party somewhere in the middle of the Conservatives and the liberals. And he said, Fred Deloria is suggesting they just might formally get into an election campaign. So both these stories certainly are of interest to conservatives and probably liberals, too, because they see this as a wedge against the conservatives. What do we make of this? Chantal, why don't you start? Well, a word on Fred Delory. I don't know Fred Delory personally,

but I do know, and I've asked around to make sure that my sense of who he was was accurate. So I've asked conservatives. He worked for Stephen Harper and Stephen Harper's inner guard before he led the last conservative election campaign. He is not someone who is settling scores, everyone tells me. He's also not a red Tory. He is a conservative of the Harper variety, not someone about whom you'll say, well, you know, was he even ever a conservative

in some other life? Maybe someone else. My sense of reading what he's writing, and I was struck when it started because it started with a tweet that said, I have too much to say, and I was struck when it started, because it started with a tweet that said, I have too much to say, so I'm going to be writing these substack columns. Just a few weeks ago, before this tweet, Fred Delory went to one of the committees that is asking about Chinese interference in the last election. He had come to my attention because he basically told the committee, this is a serious issue, and I wish you guys would manage to have an adult conversation about it, which was not at all what you normally expect from a conservative election director

showing up to say, well, the election was not stolen from us, but almost nobody gave us a heads up. He insisted on the fact that he felt they were not having an adult enough conversation. And his comments, I took them to be directed at conservatives as much, if not more, as at the liberals. And then he writes these substack columns. This is someone who normally should be able to tell Pierre Poiliev or a conservative leader's entourage, share his experience and say,

guys, you know, you are not doing enough efforts on the left to keep progressives in your embrace. And now a number of them are thinking maybe we really need a center-right party, and Pierre Poiliev's party is not that. And at the same time, you're facing a challenge on the right that you will need to address in a way that does not antagonize the very people you need to win over in the next election. I figure if he's going to substack to do it,

and a lot of conservatives have to be angry at him this way, it's because he's not getting through to Poiliev and his team. And he's not getting through to caucus. Too many people have either, they've been drinking the Kool-Aid or they are faking that they drank the Kool-Aid or they are faking that they drank the Kool-Aid to make sure that they have a position in an eventual conservative government. So I find the fact of the columns

as interesting as what is being said in them. That being said, about consternation, if I were the conservatives and Pierre Poiliev, I would be dancing with joy at the prospect of having Maxim Bilny running in a by-election in Manitoba probably between now and June 24th. Why is that? Because if they do things right,

they hold, the Poiliev people hold the Trump card. And the Trump card, I'm not trying to make a pun about the US president here, is that they are asking people who dislike vaccine mandates, and who may be attracted still to Maxim Bilny for that, do they dislike vaccine mandates in the past more than they dislike Justin Trudeau in the present. And if they dislike Justin Trudeau more in the present, then why would they want to waste their time on someone who at best will have one seat at the back of the House of Commons? And in the process of beating, and I mean beating,

Bernier soundly, they can put to rest the notion that the biggest threat to them is at the extreme right. Rob? Yeah, let me go through some of Chantal's points because they're very, very good ones. On Fred Delory, he's a guy who has evolved as a conservative, as the party itself has evolved since the beginning of this century, since Stephen Harper came on onto the scene as a Nova Scotia Tory, not not of the Calgary, Alberta kind of Harper's conservatism. And what he's trying to do is tell us that this by-election in particular and the Sender Ice Conservatives are going to help sketch a portrait of Canadian conservatism as it continues to evolve

in the first quarter of the 21st century. He's uniquely positioned to do this. As for the by-election, we've got a popular MP leaving in Candace Bergen. I'm sure that's probably why Maxime Bernier thought that this was an opportunity for him because in the last election in 2021, the PPC candidate, Bernier's candidate, got 22% of the vote compared to Candace Bergen's 50 plus percent of the vote. But that PPC candidate was a Mennonite

in a riding with a lot of Mennonites. Mr. Bernier, the last time I checked, is not a Mennonite. There are probably still some francophones in that riding, not very many of them. And the Conservatives have nominated a candidate who is opposed to vaccine mandates as well. Not only that, if Mr. Poiliev wants to flex his muscles vis-à-vis the PPC, he's already done that. If you look at fundraising, the Conservatives raised a record $8 million plus in the first quarter of this year. The PPC raised less than $300,000. This is the time to take on the PPC threat. This is the time to do it.

If you're Pierre Poiliev, you stare them down right here where they think that they have strength, and you extinguish the threat. This is the time to do it. If you're Pierre Poiliev, you stare them down right here where they think that they have strength and you extinguish the threat. Now, that being said, Poiliev has been making open appeals to them. His laments for freedom, his complaints about gatekeepers, that's not a very subtle appeal to PPC supporters. That's what he's doing. But he's trying to add without subtracting, is what he's trying to do. He's trying to bring those people back without alienating those who might be kicking the tires

of Poiliev's Conservative Party in the suburbs around Toronto and Vancouver. In particular, it's not an easy thing to do, but this is the chance to try to extinguish or at least blunt the threat of the PPC. Okay. You know what? I want to talk a little more about this, but we're going to take our first break. We'll be right back after this and welcome back you're listening to the bridge it's the friday episode

good talk chantilly bears in montreal rob russo filling in for bruce anderson is in ottawa you're listening on sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching us on our YouTube channel. Whichever platform you're using, we're happy to have you with us. Okay, back to this issue of Fred Delory's comments, and I want to focus. We pretty well dealt with the Max bernier thing i i would

only caution as i've done before and i know you guys do too by elections can be really unpredictable you never know what's going to happen turnouts are often low it's the most committed goal out and vote and funny things can happen they have happened in the past not always but there have been some uh surprises on the by-election front. Let's just say that. But on the other angle, it sounds to me like the two of you are suggesting that the bigger threat here, if there is a threat at all to Polyev's Conservatives, is the centre-right's possibility. So talk to me about that. Chantal? The concept of centralized more so possibly than the execution if there ever is. Okay what is centralized Canadians for those who aren't familiar? It's a group of conservatives

Rick Peterson who was a repeat leadership candidate for the national leadership of the Conservative Party, kind of leads it. But there is also Tesha Carradine, who is a well-known conservative commentator, who mused about running the last time the leadership opened up, eventually joined Jean Chagay. Dominic Cardi, who used to be the Minister of Education in Blainig's government. So people that you would identify more as progressive conservatives in another era, probably, than you would as former Reform Party members or fans. And they have been saying the Conservative Party is steered away from what conservatism should be, that it is going to extremes. It's courting fringe groups, including the anti-vax movement, as a substitute for having a solid, rigorous consent to right ideology.

And we need a party that can do that. They're basically targeting what they feel is, rightly, I think, an orphan community of voters, that is, blue liberals, liberals who would be of John Manley or Paul Martin's persuasion, and red Tories who have increasingly felt rejected by the Conservative Party, especially in the wake of the last leadership campaign. And they're saying Canada needs a new centre-right party, and we're going to think about it, and we're going to decide by September 20th whether we put something on the ballot. Now, launching a new federal party in a crowded field like this one

is kind of a good way to show your own weakness in the sense that it's very, very hard to imagine that such an event could do anything but take away a small percentage of votes, not off the liberals really, but off the conservatives. And in narrowly fought ridings, that could make a difference. It could make a difference in Atlantic Canada, where there's been more affection for the old progressive conservative brand. It's not going to hurt Justin Trudeau. It is seen as a judgment on Pierre Poiliev's leadership and the ideology he pursues. And here is the danger. It's not so much whether you suck votes.

It's that you are telling the voters that Pierre Poiliev does need to attract, who will tend to be center-right voters, small-c conservatives, who have voted for the NDP or the Liberals or even the Bloc. This group is telling them you're not going to find a home with Pierre Poiliev. This is not a place where you want to go. And in the process, those voters will not necessarily go vote for this new thing. They will stick with the party that they voted for in the last election, i.e. in most cases, the Liberals or the Bloc. And the ants make it even harder for Poiliev to finish as a winner on election night.

Rob. I asked somebody in Mr. Poiliev's entourage what he thinks about this, and they're, I think, a little too sanguine about it. The reaction was essentially, we've tried a progressive conservative the last time, and it didn't work. We're putting up a real conservative this time, and we've attracted 300,000 new people to the party. Again, I think that they're missing the opportunity to add

rather than subtract. And look, we've all been around. We all saw what happened when the Conservative Party was divided. There is a lot of people argue about stephen harper's legacy but the one thing that he did do was that by bringing together the disparate elements of the conservative party and there were two or three elements of them at the time there was a quebec element that had gone off to form the bloc and there was a western element that that was the reform party and there was joe clark's element By bringing those together, he made

the Conservative Party a viable option again, a viable alternative to the Liberal government. And that is endangered by something like a centreised Conservative. And not just endangered, but it gives people, as Chantal said, a real home. And this is not just conservatives. I was struck when I was at the Liberal Party convention a week or so ago. I spoke to a couple of cabinet ministers and MPs before Justin Trudeau spoke and then after he spoke just to find out what they wanted to hear from him and whether or not they heard it. And there are a lot of them that are worried about the vast swath of voters that the Liberals used to be very adept at targeting. The great swath of the middle of

Canadian voters that Jean Quetzal was quite nimbly able to get to vote for him. And a lot of them came out of that speech saying, I didn't hear enough on the economy. I didn't hear enough on the future of the country. I'm not sure I can take this. There are a lot of people who are going to be looking at the other guys as a result of this. So liberals are concerned about a great opening in the center as well. There is no end of oxygen in the centre of Canadian politics. It's been ever thus.

I think we're not a people of extremes. I remember when Stephen Harper used to speak to reporters, he would say, we're at a disadvantage because at least 60% of Canadians every day get up in the middle and say, how are we going to vote for the Liberal or a Liberal option? And that hasn't changed, I don't think. So if something like this could actually be viable, could get some money and could generate a little excitement with candidates, they represent a threat.

And I think a far more moral threat than Maxime Bernier. And, you know, if Max Bernier tells you something, it's you don't need to win seats to represent a threat. I mean, the last time around in that last election, the People's Party got about 5%, I think, just under 5%. And that was 800,000 or 900,000 votes, enough to knock the Conservatives out of the race in some seats. Yes, but a small number of seats,

because the PPC tended to do best in ridings where the Conservatives were too strong to be defeated, rather than in ridings where the Liberals held the seat by half an inch. Like the one Rob mentioned in Portage, Lusker, last time around. But there were some seats in Ontario. I mean, you know, you can look at different analysis of anywhere between a half a dozen and a couple of dozen seats that might have swung against the Conservatives because of the PPC vote.

But the point I'm trying to make is for center-right Canadians, if they actually get in the race, they don't need to win seats to make an impact. And when you're getting squeezed from both sides, albeit it appears at the moment that the PPC threat is less than it was last time around, but nevertheless, squeezing from both sides could have an impact and not a good one for the Conservatives.

But Chantal, you wanted to make the last point on this. And my point will bring you back to the threat from the right, and the fact that in the last election, Maxime Bernier probably had his best ride because of the anti-vax movement. That movement has lost a lot of steam. How do we know this? Well, we know it in particular from a recent experience in Quebec, the Quebec City area, which is the conservative area in this province.

As you know, the Conservative Party in Quebec showed up as a kind of people's party in the last Quebec election, i.e. liable to suck away enough votes to make the Coalition Avenir Québec vulnerable, and no more so than in the Quebec City area. But just a few weeks ago, Premier Legault reneged on a major transit promise for that area, and it was a big deal, as big or bigger a deal than Jean Chrétien not getting rid of the GST. I love saying that because it makes Mr. Chrétien very unhappy. He claims he never promised to get rid of the GST. But the first poll that was done, so everyone

said this is a major opening for Éric Duhem and the Quebec Conservatives because they are the only party that is still promising and that has always promised to do this major tunnel for cars between the South Shore and downtown. Well, the very first poll did not show that. It did show a bit of an increase for Éric Duhem's party, but it mostly showed a revival of the Parti Québécois in the area. In Clare, people are now moving from, we don't like vaccinations and pandemic-related measures, and we're going to vote for whoever hates them,

to we're going to vote for whoever can, in the long run, get us rid of the premier or the prime minister that we dislike. And that's why I think that if Pierre Poilievre drops the ball in Portage-Lisgur, he will have had to try really, really hard to do so. Okay. One last point, Peter, and to come back to what you were saying. In 2011, when the Conservatives won their majority, they did so because the NDP vote was very strong. And they did so. They won a lot

of ridings with 33, 32, 34 percent. So very, very close. And if that if a few percentage points are taken away from them in a lot of these ridings, they're not going to get a majority. And their chance of winning government is slackened as well, is attenuated by any kind of sapping of their vote, even by a few percentage points. Okay. Do you have space for one more point? I just want to complicate the math of the next election.

Go ahead. You will read and you will continue to read that the biggest problem for the conservatives in winning government is going to be Quebec. But attention, if the conservatives become too weak or as weak as they are now, this helps the Bloc Québécois. And what does the Bloc Québécois do when it's a bit stronger? It knocks out liberals for the conservatives. So nothing is going to be simple come the math of the next election. And those battles are going to be,

the dynamics of those battles are going to be complicated, absent a leader who walks on water over all these waves. And I don't see either Poiliev or Trudeau being that leader. I got to love it. Bring it on whenever it is. A couple of years from now, next year, this fall. Bring it on. It's going to be fun.

Okay. I want to move to the Michael Chong story for a moment. I know we've done this, you know, over the last few weeks, but I got a letter this week from a very bright viewer who writes every once in a while, who says this. The first explanation the prime minister gave for not knowing about Michael Chong threats was that CSIS didn't think it important enough to elevate.

Well, did Michael Chong come under pressure? Apparently not, because he didn't know anything about it. Did his family come under pressure? Apparently not, because he didn't know anything about it. Did his family come under pressure in China? Again, it seems not, because Chong hasn't reported it. So maybe it wasn't much after all. Rob, what do you make of that? I disagree. I just find that having representatives of authoritarian regimes on our soil, even musing about the possibility of muscling our members of parliament into intimidation and doing so so that they're recorded represents an unacceptable threat.

So I would disagree with that. The other thing I would note about this week and this week's developments are that there have been two more stories now that are substantial on this. There's another one from the Globe and Mail that said that this particular diplomat who was doing the intimidating had been, in effect, followed and listened to by CSIS since 2020. So he's been doing this for

some time now, and that CSIS had a file on him and had passed this file on to Global Affairs Canada. So two things. Again, the prime minister is going to be asked whether or not this was passed on to him in his office. There's going to be a whole familiar trail of questions as a result of this. But I think the more important angle for the Liberals is going to be, you can call an inquiry into this, but there continues to be at least one person and

maybe more people inside of our security apparatus who don't want this story to go away, who don't believe that you're doing enough on this. And you won't be able to hide behind, there's an inquiry, so we can't say anything about this. This is going to be an issue that is going to bedevil the government daily for some time now. And this is going to be an issue that the government is going to have to deal with, that there are still people inside the security apparatus who don't like what they've heard from the government and continue to make public things that others at the senior levels

of the security apparatus are very, very nervous about. Chantal. Oh, if I were a member of the Canadian diaspora and I had family abroad, the notion that some authoritarian regime could do things to them because of something I write in columns or something I say on this program, I would find profoundly disturbing. And I understand Mr. Chong has been keeping a distance

from his extended family in Hong Kong for that reason. I wouldn't be sending them emails in a country where people are monitored to find out if anything is happening. And if I were stupid enough to do that, I'm guessing they would be smart enough not to respond and to ignore all of this. But I do have increasingly questions about about CSIS itself. One question, for instance, about today's story in the Global Mail that they've known about this Chinese diplomat and his actions for years. What if they wanted to keep him in the country? What if they were happy to know who he was and to monitor him rather than wait for the inevitable person who will be tasked with the same mission? And that is what is going to happen, but that it will take them a while to find and monitor as effectively.

First question. Second question goes to those leaks. Maybe Rob is right. Maybe those leaks are based on the notion that people at CSIS who are so concerned about our national security are leaking and breaking the law by doing so because they don't believe the liberals are doing enough. But what if it's just because they don't like the government? At that point, when we start asking ourselves why ceases actively leaking about national security issues and destabilizing a government at the very least and depriving or sucking away confidence in that government is just as much a threat to democracy as the notion of Chinese interference in elections.

Now, what I'm hearing, and what I'm hearing is that Canada's allies are asking questions, but they're not asking just questions about what we are doing about Chinese interference. They're all dealing with this in all kinds of ways. Have you watched President Macron's visit to China? Did it look like the kind of visit Justin Trudeau could make without being unseated by his own caucus the next morning? But they're asking, what's wrong or what's happening with your security service?

We are sharing information with a leaky security service. We don't want to share information, national security information, with a sieve, and it seems to just keep on coming. So at this point, responsible adults, not just liberals who want to put an end to this, responsible adults have to start asking how much damage is being done by what is happening at CSIS versus just how long was it that the government did or did not know about this diplomat. And if CISIS, and I totally believe

that they were aware of his existence and his activities for years, if CISIS wanted him out and everyone turned a deaf ear, that's one thing. But we don't know that. And we have seen no evidence because all the evidence we see is selected on the basis of maximum damage to a government that cannot discuss national security in public. So I'm getting a bit troubled by this acceptance that there's a hero at CISA somewhere who is saving our country from China, possibly. But there is another take on this. Yeah, there is. Just a second, Rob.

Rob, I've only got a minute left on this particular topic. So you tell me, is there any evidence that CSIS leadership is doing anything to determine where the leaks are coming from? No, but you've got to know that in this town, there is a furious search on now for the leak. And we keep saying CSIS or the whistleblower. It doesn't have to be within CSIS. This information was shared among Privy Council Office,

Global Affairs Canada, but there is a furious hunt on for this. One last point. You know, this would not be the first time in recent history that our security officials have played a pivotal role in the election. In 2006, the election that elected Stephen Harper for the first time, the RCMP revealed in the middle of the campaign that they were investigating the finance minister, Ralph Goodale, and that turned the election around. Paul Martin went from leading that election to losing it. So these things can have a huge impact. And I think Chantal is right to

raise questions as to whether or not Canadians should be comfortable with security agencies having that kind of an influence on our democratic process. All right, final break time, and here it is. And welcome back. We've got a couple of minutes left for our final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantel and Rob are with us. There was quite the spectacle on Thursday night in the United States, and I'm sure some Canadians watched it, if not a lot of Canadians watched it, and that was Donald Trump. Of course, they were competing against the Leaf game. The Leafs made an incredible comeback in their series, for one game anyway.

But nevertheless, Donald Trump got basically free time on CNN for an hour and a half. And right out of the gate, he kept true to form. He lied. He lied one time after another. Lie after lie after lie for an hour and a half. It was an incredible platform that was given to him by CNN. What did we learn that night that we didn't already know? I mean, we know something about Trump and we know about how he lies.

But we learned something about, I don't know whether it was just CNN, but the media in general. It's not like everybody else didn't talk about it and report on it and spend time on it. What was the learn on that night, and what impact does that have? Rob, former Washington correspondent, you go first. I know I've only got a couple of minutes. Yeah, I would say what we learned.

There were lots of problems with what they did editorially, and that's a separate matter. But what we learned was that donald trump is serious he is the front runner for the republican nomination he does have a large amount of people who believe everything he says that are prepared to cheer when he uh denigrates a woman that he's been found liable of sexually assaulting. So he's back, he's real, he's organized, and he is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Everybody around the world and people in the United States needs to take him seriously again.

And for Canada, I think that that has a potential huge, huge impact, not only on the trade front and our place in the world, but for the conservatives. I think another problem for Pierre Poilier is going to be the resurrection of Donald Trump. If he does come back, should he get elected in 2024? Will there be a revulsion against that kind of conservatism? And will that have an impact here? So those are the two things I pulled away politically from that, is that this guy's back, he's real, he's organized, and people are prepared to believe and cheer his lies over and over and over again.

And there is a potential spillover impact for conservatives here in Canada. Chantal. Well, on CNN and the format, I'll just say that it was a terrible night for journalism and anyone who believes in rigorous journalism, this was the opposite of what it should be. I agree with Rob that the signal was also that no matter your disbelief at watching the performance, there are enough people in the U.S. willing to believe that to make Trump a force to contend with. And if I were watching that from Ukraine with time on my hands, which I suspect people there don't have,

I would really worry about what happens to Ukraine if Donald Trump comes back to government, because clearly he is willing to let the Russians have them kind of cohort. As for the impact on this country, yes, I don't believe it's good for Pierre Poiliev to have to run in an election campaign against the backdrop of a return of Donald Trump. But I also think that we should be careful about comparisons between conservative leaders in this country, and they come too easily. And what we witnessed in the U.S., I don't think any leader in this country could get down to the level that we watched and get away with it in this country. And that's encouraging. But I'll bring you back to your history and passport from the beginning. It does show a need, though, to push civics education notions about the rule of law, et cetera, outside of passport pages if we are going to keep a strong electorate and an informed one

that doesn't fall prey to these kinds of snake oil politicians. I got a minute or so left. What advice would you give if they asked our American colleagues in the media? I mean, you know, I jumped on CNN myself the other night, you know, watching it and being kind of appalled about what I saw. But then I kept saying to myself, well, how do you cover this guy? Like, what do you do when you have a guy who's consistently lying? It's not like they didn't push back. Caitlin Collins pushed back on lie after lie. But at the end of the day, he got his lies across. So like, how do you cover that?

You don't give him a live platform, essentially. You have to report on him. And CNN started this in 2015 by giving him and his rallies a live platform. He lies so much, so constantly, that it's impossible to fact check him in real time. So when you confront him on one lie, he answers with three or four others. So you can't ignore him if he's going to be the republican nominee but do you give him an antenna where he's able to transmit these lies without being without any of his lies being verified i think that's where cnn went wrong and i also think that they were wrong to stick with a format that allows those lies including the vile things that he said about the woman that he attacked in New York,

where those are allowed to be cheered by his supporters. So you cannot allow lies to spew and calumnies to be piled up in a live setting. It goes beyond broadcasting those rallies. You're literally inviting the person in your studio and you're making sure that the audience is the friendly audience. I have as many quarrels with the audience notion that you make sure it's a friendly audience. Well, you might as well let him organize the entire evening, which is basically what happened. But beyond that, I agree with you that trying to find a way to cover this is a daily problem for whoever covers

national politics in the U.S. All right. We're going to leave it at that. The politics of the lie is the subject of our latest More Butts conversation, which will be on Monday, spurred on by what we witnessed just the other night. Thanks to you, Rob,

for filling in for Bruce. Once again, thanks to Chantel. Both of you have a great, both of you have a great weekend. We'll be back on Monday with the bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening.