The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- Ten Days To Go

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

This week's episode of Good Talk is a master class in understanding everything from debates, the vulnerabilities of the leaders, the impact of the People's Party, and the fallout from the Quebec leader's latest pronouncements. Things don't get better than Chantal and Bruce and this is another great example.

Are you ready for good talk? What a day for some good talk. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. I don't know what you were doing last night, but, you know, maybe you were watching those incredible bounces on the tennis courts in New York and a terrific display by the Canadian.

Or maybe you were watching the Blue Jays and their drubbing four games in a row of the New York Yankees in New York. Or maybe you were watching 44-year-old Tom Brady winning yet another game in his first game of this season. Because really, I'm not sure what else there could have been to do last night. Oh, you say, you watched the debate. I don't know how long you watched it for, but it was quite something. It was the final go-around and the only go-around in English for the political leaders who were seeking election on September 20th, which, as you can tell, is only 10 days away now. So lots at stake last night.

And kind of the normal game that plays out on a debate night, which is everybody pummels the person who's in the top position, the incumbent. They all go after him or her with the attempt to try and bring them down and look good at themselves at the same time and dodge as many questions about their policies as they can while hammering away at the policies of the person who's in the position. So that's the overview. Did anything change the dial?

Did something different happen last night that's going to make suddenly people who seem to be locked in a virtual tie break out one way or the other? Well, let's find out, because these two are the experts. Chantal, why don't you start us off? Okay, to the question, did it move the needle? Too early to tell. I'm not convinced. I'm curious as to how many people actually managed to stay till the end of the debate,

because it, frankly, was a bit of a mess to watch. And on substance, I don't think anyone learned very many things that they didn't know or couldn't have known before, or if they did, that they got enough explanation and context to decide whether that was good or bad. On dynamics, the format clearly did not work well for the incumbent, whose time was too limited to both explain his record and his policies and score points off, in particular, his main opponent, that would be Aaron O'Toole. So on balance, I think Mr. O'Toole, who walked away without getting too many punches, probably had a good night. And Justin Trudeau did not necessarily have the night he needed.

I say that reminding you, because you were there, that we watched together Paul Martin versus Stephen Harper in 2004. And Stephen Harper came on very strongly. And Mr. Martin, even more so than Justin Trudeau last night, looked very rattled and very agitated. And a number of analysts said that Stephen Harper had won the debate hands down and he could coast to victory on election day a week and a half later. That didn't happen. And in the end, it was demonstrated that if anyone had won the debate, it was Paul Martin because he had made real the possibility that Stephen Harper would become prime minister.

And a lot of voters stopped and thought, I don't think that's necessarily the way I want to go this year. So it's not a beauty contest for dogs where you think the one who looks like no one ruffled his skin or who barked nicely is the one who wins. You have to put yourself in the chair of the voter that is yet trying to figure out. And it was just being told over the past three weeks that this choice is between Aaron O'Toole and Justin Trudeau, something he or she may not have considered until just recently,

because that wasn't in the cards when you read the polls. So that's basically where I'm at. I think there were two big losers last night. One of them is the base commission that sets up those formats in such a way that it's almost impossible to get an intelligent answer from anyone. And voters who were maybe looking for a bit more substance. Okay. I'm going to get Bruce. I want to pick apart a couple of those things. Or not pick them apart, but expand on them. Feel free.

In a moment. Before I go to Bruce, that 04 example is such a good one because the biggest mistake that night was made, not necessarily by the analysts who are, you know, they're analysts, commentators, but perhaps by Harper who decided to listen to them and do those immediately around him who said, you know, you're going to win. Let's not take any chances here. And so for the

last week of the campaign, he cruised around Alberta on a bus and it just, you know, the lead slipped away. And as one conservative told me, they used that same old phrase that has been used in politics before, when you got your foot on the throat of your opponent, you don't let up, you know, you keep hammering away. So it'll be interesting to see what they all do this week in terms of, of how hard they campaign to the finish line. As you know, as Biden used to say, you gotta, you gotta run through the finish line. You know, you don't run up to the finish line, you know as biden used to say you got to you got to run through the finish line you know you don't run up to the finish line you run through it uh so we'll see what happens on that

front but first of all uh to bruce on the general observations about last night and then we'll go into a couple of particulars i was trying to remember the name of the song that bruce springsteen wrote in 1992 and it was 57 channels and nothing on. And when I was watching the debate last night, because there were vast stretches of it where I just wanted to watch something else, I would kind of flip one of the devices to the guide in the TV screen,

and I would notice, I think there's like 2000 channels now. And, and I felt obliged to stay locked on what was probably the worst programming of the 2000 channels that were there. Probably, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it was painful. And I can't help but believe, well, wait to see. I can't help but believe that nobody but kind of hardcore partisans really stayed for the full ride. It was not it was not something that they would find enjoyable to watch or interesting to watch or an educational kind of thing.

So I'd be surprised if it has a an effect. I tend to agree with Chantal that, I mean, I think it was unlucky for all of us and unlucky for Trudeau, the format and the moderation, and therefore it was lucky for the people who on the stage weren't Trudeau, some of whom I think had a chance and opportunity to present themselves to a bigger audience and did so pretty well. Anna Mee Paul, chief among them. But I tend to come back to this, Peter. Our polling has shown consistently through this campaign that 60 percent of voters would prefer the election results in a liberal government.

Forty percent would prefer a conservative government when we put those as the two choices to them. Did last night change that? I think if you were thinking that you weren't sure you wanted a conservative government, I'm not sure Aaron O'Toole had the opportunity or took it, if he did, to increase the number of people who said, no, I really want to get rid of the Liberals and replace them with the Conservatives. And I'm not sure that Justin Trudeau did himself any real damage in terms of people who thought they wanted a Liberal government deciding, no, actually, I'm persuaded by the moderators' questions

that were quite provocative towards him and towards the other leaders that I don't want Justin Trudeau anymore. So I'm kind of back to let's wait and see what the data tell us. I had thought going into the debates that it would be kind of 30% debate, 70% advertising between now and the end of the election that would make the difference. And now I think maybe it was 5% the debate and the rest will be up to the advertising. Okay, let me throw one little bit of caution at both of you, because the three of us have learned this from the past, that just because we don't like the debate or didn't like it

doesn't mean people weren't watching it. You know, last time around, it was pretty brutal, as we've all said, and we certainly said it that night and the next day, how bad we thought it was. And yet there were more people watching it than any debate in the past. Now, did that happen again last night? I don't know. I guess, you know, we'll find out soon enough, probably later today,

what the kind of numbers were like in terms of debate watchers but it is something to caution ourselves with because there's no doubt the head the major headline today seems to be format right in a lot of the columns that are written this never-ending search by the english networks primarily not not the French, the English language networks, this never-ending search for what's the format we want to use to not only entertain but inform, to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they, at least to us, keep firing blanks. And last night was another example.

But when you stand back and try to put the format aside and deal with the content, which is what's supposedly the most important thing on a night like that, did we actually learn anything new about these leaders? I mean, Trudeau was put on, you know, through an accountability session, as he should be as the prime minister and the leader of the government for the last six years. But the other half of the night is, you know, tell me what you're going to do.

And there were more than a few questions which were pointed, and I thought good, by some of the different journalists who were asking questions, that said, okay, tell me what you'll do. And there was one early on to all the leaders. And, you know, not one of them answered it. They all used the opportunity to attack Trudeau again. And to me, the major culprit in this is the guy who always seems to have a good campaign

and is well-liked by people, and he's a nice guy, is Jagmeet Singh. He rarely, if ever, told us what he'd do on any of the subjects in some form of detail. But he kind of sailed through it, kind of got away with it. Even his opponents didn't attack him for it. Shoot a little bit near the end, but for the most part, kind of got away with it.

So I don't know. What's the headline? Is it format or is it substance? Chantal? headline is it format or is it is it substance chantal well if no one uh is leading with substance it's probably because they're still looking for it it is very hard to report on the debate uh this late in the campaign and to find a lot of substance uh you would probably have found uh more substance in the one-on-one interviews that Azouk and Adeda did earlier on, or even on the TVA debate, because in passing, the French commissions debate, the one from Wednesday night, was also criticized for format.

And one of the reasons why it came in for such heavy criticism is that because in French, there was a point of comparison, and that was the TVA debate. Theory is simple. You've got a moderator and you've got leaders and they debate. And that actually turned out to be a lot more productive than having as many journalists asking questions as there are leaders standing on the podium. So I don't think the issue is just that the English networks are looking for a formula that they can't find. I think the entire commission's format is not panning out to be an improvement on the way it was done in the past when the networks got together and tried to figure out how they were going to handle debates. I want to take a few seconds to talk about

Jagmeet Singh on this podium and the dynamics last night. For one, it was the first time that Singh in English was side by side with the Green Party leader, an MEPAL, who was the great unknown going into this debate. And I happen to think it was by default, the best night of our campaign by default, because in French, she could not and did not do as well, but also because she's not been on the road. And so this was an opportunity for many Canadians who had only heard about the internal troubles of the Green Party to see why she became the leader of the Green Party. I don't think she hurt herself. Whether that gives her a seat in Toronto in 10 days is very much an open question. But you could tell that Mr. Singh, whose boost in the poll is in part built on the demise of the Green Party, was a lot more nervous about having her next to him than when she wasn't

around or in the French debate, for one. Second, yes, it is true that Mr. Singh has mostly focused his attention in both of this week's debates on trying to take down Justin Trudeau, on demonstrating that Justin Trudeau on climate. If you believe it's dangerous to vote for the NDP because you're going to get the Arnold tool and his climate policies are not up to the level of the Liberals. He has been spending a lot of time trying to keep his vote by demonstrating that in the end, it doesn't really matter who's the prime minister. And on that score, if that strategy fails, it will be because Singh brings no specifics, in part because the liberals took away a lot of his specifics, $10 a day, child care, some of the climate targets. But because he is bringing no specifics except for saying these people, indigenous reconciliation, you can say what you want about Justin Trudeau's indigenous reconciliation policy. And there's a lot to criticize, but it is really hard to make the case that the conservatives in power have demonstrated more willingness or more determination to address those issues. It should make some new Democrats uneasy that this is the way that their party is going about keeping their vote to the kind of expense of who will really

be in the driver's seat in the next parliament. But that was the strategy. And there was a big hole in it. And the format helped Mr. Singh not to be too much exposed for the hole in his own platform. Bruce? Yeah, yeah, I agree with Chantal on a lot of those points. And let me just elaborate on the first part, which is the format kind of being the story, getting in the way of the discussion of what we really should have come away from this debate talking about,

which is, is Aaron O'Toole and the Conservative Party ready to take government? There were a lot of voters, I think, who were kind of heading into this last couple of weeks wondering whether or not that's the case. And I think that's a very legitimate, obviously, part of this election campaign. And I just don't know that that got kind of prosecuted and explored enough last night. And mostly it was because whenever it looked like a debate could break out, the moderator stepped in and tried to keep it from happening. I sort of always associated the

idea of a debate, or at least in a formal sense, with here's a proposition, you all discuss it, as opposed to a question that is put in the context of why are you so awful, which if you were trying to help coach a leader to prepare for the debate, you might not have expected that the questions were going to come at you in a way that made you reflexively feel like you had to defend yourself against a particular attack. And then if you used a limited amount of your time, as one would, to defend yourself against the attack in the question, and then try to pivot to what you really wanted to say about that subject, you'd find yourself cut off by the

moderator who would say, no, we're out of time, or you're not answering the question. And the whole idea that the moderator would tell the debaters that they were offside by introducing other subjects, I don't get it. I don't get it. The best model for these things, even as sloppy as it can be is let them debate and then judge whether they're posturing, whether they're avoiding the question, that sort of thing. But anyway, I think a lot of people have, and people probably will for a while. And it doesn't really add much. But I do think that the question of Jagmeet Singh, for me, is the most interesting one in a way.

I kind of feel like if you had to sort of say, how is this election going to go in the end? Those B.C. seats are going to come into focus in an important way. Things could change between now and then, but whether the NDP vote slides a bit more to the liberals in BC or doesn't could determine whether we have a conservative government or a liberal government on, on election night. And like Chantal, I think that one of the most interesting questions is Jagmeet Singh continues

to try to talk this idea out that he can make Canada more progressive, even if there's a conservative government elected. And I think that's a hard sell, but I don't think he's being required to explain it very much. And he may not, because this was the only debate. I think Mr. Trudeau tried to on the climate plan. And every time Trudeau got to the point of saying, your plan has it, your climate plan has a terrible rating. He got cut off and, and maybe that's on him that he could have managed his time a little bit differently. But I think it was so chaotic in the moment that I feel for all of them trying to, to deal with it.

But I do think that if you're Jagmeet Singh, the vulnerability you've got is Aaron O'Toole says he would reopen a northern gateway. His climate plan isn't a climate plan that New Democratic Party supporters could get behind. His child care plan doesn't do what NDP voters want. And at some point, Jagmeet Singh has to try to be able to convince voters that he alone, because of his fields as an interlocutor or as a negotiator in a minority parliament, can turn all of that around and make Canada a more effective, progressive place under an Aaron O'Toole government, I think that's a hard sell. I just don't know if it's going to be a hard sell because of where we are coming out of this debate. All right. We're going to take a quick break, but I want to say one thing about the role of the moderator,

and this isn't anything particular about anyone in particular, or even last night in particular. But one of the things that can happen to a moderator, I don't know that this happened last night, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did, is that they're trying to juggle a lot of things, right? They're trying to juggle movement in the debate. They're trying to juggle time. They're trying to juggle the various topics that everybody's agreed to discuss. So there's that happening, and you can make your decisions as an individual on that.

You have a plan going in, but then you also have these things in your ear, telex, where you've got somebody constantly telling you how much time you've got left in the show, how much time you've got left in the segment, and how you, you know, you're going to have to move along if you're going to make it. Um, and you have another person on the editorial side who may be saying to you, you got to shut them up. You got to move it on. You know, you, you got to stop him. You can't let her say, you know, inter, you know, interrupt here. You've got to, and there are all these things happening. And I, I, I will only say this when, you know, when you're in that role,

and I've been in it in various things, at a certain point, if that becomes overwhelming, take the telex out of your ear. You're not stupid. You have some understanding of what you're trying to achieve and what the public wants. And in those few moments, and there were a couple of them, and I think you both mentioned them,

where there was the danger of actual debate breaking out. Well, you say, okay, let it go. And, you know, let it go for five or 10 minutes. That'll be the most remembered thing of the debate. It will eliminate all the other stuff. So you have to, you know, if you're given that role and you have the ability, you can do that. And if you're going to be criticized,

be criticized for allowing them to debate too much rather than not enough. Anyway, Chantel raised the interesting point about Annamie Paul. I want to talk about the influence that somebody who wasn't in the debate last night may well be having on the way this campaign turns at the end. We'll do that right after this.

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And I think they're open all this weekend. So if you don't want to be in the crush, if there is going to be one on the actual Election Day, you can get out there now. Annemie Paul, as Chantel said, and I totally agree with her, I think she may well have been the surprise of the evening because she had a pretty good night for somebody who has been invisible through this campaign unless she happened to be in her riding of Toronto Centre because she hasn't been travelling anywhere,

campaigning on the scale like Elizabeth May used to across the country. And she got in a few good shots. She made a few good points. And she looked pretty impressive as a new face in terms of the dynamic of this campaign for most Canadians. Now, who wasn't there was Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada. And he wasn't there because he doesn't have many seats. And when the decisions were made about who got in and who got out, he wasn't polling that well.

He was still not polling that well in terms of the major parties. But most of the polls I've seen, not all of them, but most of them have him and his party ahead of the Green parties, but most of the polls I've seen, not all of them, but most of them have him and his party ahead of the Green Party, somewhere in the 4% and 5% range. That's not insignificant when you get around to a tight finish on Election Day, if that's what we end up having, because the Conservatives have got to look at that 4% or 5% and say, that was ours.

That was ours. And if it was theirs, added to the numbers they've got right now, this wouldn't be a close race. They would be on the verge of a majority. But they're not. At least they're not in the numbers I've seen. And Maxime Bernier and his party are hurting them on that front. So in some ways, I think he might have been better served by not being in that show last night

and being out doing whatever he's doing in different parts of the country. But is Maxime Bernier, and Bruce, you start us on this, could he become a hidden force in the way this is going to play out over the next 10 days? Yeah, possibly. But I think you put your finger on the right way to think about this if you're the conservatives, Peter. But which is if you had all of those votes, it would feel like your total is larger.

But the math doesn't necessarily work that way. If you had all of those votes, you would have a lot of people whose version of conservatism is toxic to mainstream Canadians. And so this has been a challenge for the Conservative Party for a long time. And arguably, the size of the People's Party cohort is small enough that it's an effective strategic trade for Aaron O'Toole to say, I don't want those people. I don't want to have to explain them. I don't want to have to carry their policy ideas around on my back or tucked away in some corner of my platform. I want to be able to appeal to mainstream Canadians in part by saying, I do not endorse the kinds of things that Max Bernier says on the campaign trail. You know, one example, but it's only one example, is on vaccination. Max Bernier says he's not going to be vaccinated because he runs and he's healthy.

You know, if you're Aaron O'Toole and you have to appeal to people who like that in order to make your numbers, you're trading those people. You're getting those people maybe, but you're losing more at the center. So I think it's a it's kind of a dream that you could just kind of put those numbers together. But it's a dream that can turn into a nightmare. And conservative leaders have found themselves in that nightmare before. And I think Aaron O'Toole has done a pretty good job of saying, I'm not them. They're not me. And I don't want to have anything to do with them. Will in when the dust settles on this election and if Aaron O'Toole doesn't form a government, will people in his party criticize him for being too indifferent to the religious conservatives, too mixed on the gun conservative side of things, too squishy on vaccine mandates?

Possibly. But it's still, from my standpoint, the right choice if you want to build a competitive conservative party that can win elections in every part of the country. Chantal? I think it's not even a choice. It's the only choice that Aramoto could have made. the notion that the Conservatives have the most to lose from Maxime Bernier bringing people to the ballot box on the 20th. But in fact, every poll has shown that the minority of Canadians who resist the idea of vaccines and lockdowns are overwhelmingly identified on the right of the spectrum with the Conservative Party. So it's hard to argue that there's a large pool of green, liberal, and New Democrat voters. There are some, but that there's a large number of them that are attracted to Maxime Bernier's

party, and that only a small minority of conservatives are. I think up to a point there is in the current numbers, and I'm not talking about Mr. Bernier, whose voters are motivated. And I think that would be the main concern for every party, including the conservatives, that this is an election where there has not been what the French called un coup de coeur, someone who has captured your heart and made you want to go vote for him. The typical example would be Jack Leighton in the Orange Wave. That was a coup de coeur. You really wanted to actually do this. Or someone who's found momentum.

So far, that's not happened either, to either vote who or who not in the way that they need. So you're left with a group of voters that is the Bernie voters who have found a clear motivation to go vote.

They're not going to go vote by a sense of duty because you have to go vote even if you don't like the election. They're going to go vote because they want to have their message heard. But set that aside, if you look at Aaron O'Toole's numbers and his sometimes lead, but actually his much improved position in the polls, and Bernice's higher numbers, the conclusion is that Mr. O'Toole has managed to replace votes that he would rather not have in a faction he would rather not accommodate with mainstream middle of the road voters that can lead him to victory, which is why every time someone suggests that we are back to 2019, look at the numbers.

It is true mathematically the national numbers do show something that looks like 2019, but the quality that is behind that quantity is a lot more effective, Conservative to think that you're a guy or this guy will become Prime Minister. It is a kind of insurance policy for the Conservative Party and for Erin O'Toole in the sense that there are conservatives out there who probably would like to vote for Mr. Bernier and send that message to our thinking. But if I vote for Erin O'Toole, I can get rid of Justin Trudeau. And that is also a profound motivation that keeps you under the tent. If O'Toole's numbers had not moved like this, I'm not sure how much damage Bernier could have done. But I watch groups that are associated with the conservative movement, Canada Proud this week, to name one, sending out

messages to its members and the people who sympathize with it, and they are far right, that there is only one vote that should be acceptable to a conservative on the 20th, and it's for Aaron O'Toole, because then you can beat Justin Trudeau. And that is probably good enough to protect Mr. O'Toole from losing the election. It's a toss up. If he accommodated them, these mainstream voters who are keeping his party competitive in the polls would not have come anywhere near his party okay i want to spend a couple of minutes thank you for that um because i think you put it all in uh you know in perspective and in context and all that kind of stuff which is what we depend on you uh to try and help us with um each week now help me with the um premier legault story out of quebec because this was like a like a mini bombshell dropped you know a couple hours before the debate um

there's no doubt that the bloc has had a difficult campaign and their leader has been you know kind of beaten up more than a few times not just on stage but in the press and it's been but in the press. And it's been reflected in the numbers. They're not doing as well in Quebec as they certainly did the last time around. This is incredibly important because there are 78 seats at stake in Quebec. And, you know, if the Liberals are going to lose seats in some parts of the country, they got to gain them in others, and Quebec is one of those areas where they were hoping to do that. So they were doing quite well in the polls, and then now all of a sudden, Premier Legault,

who it seemed was being quite nice to Justin Trudeau in the last couple of months, comes out with this kind of rocket-like, we'd be better off with the Conservatives if they were in power. And I think it surprised everybody, including the bloc, that they suddenly had the premier back on side. So is this the last-minute shift, which Quebec has sometimes been known for in the past, that could happen here and pull the block out of some problems.

I guess we should start with Chantal. Let's just spend a couple of minutes on this one. Okay. So to try to make it simple, because the rest will not be. The timing is interesting. This happens on the morning after the French debate, where Justin Trudeau did have a good night. Just about every media pundit in Quebec came to the conclusion that Justin Trudeau had had a good night and that Erin O'Toole had kind

of missed his last best opportunity to connect with Quebecers. I have some numbers from the Nanos rolling polls, the Quebec numbers from this morning. So they would reflect the debate and the mood when Premier Legault decides to do this. And in these numbers, they have the Liberals in Quebec only at 41%, with the Bloc at 27%, and then the Conservatives at 18%. With numbers like that, Mr. Trudeau does make a bit of a killing in Quebec. The premier comes out, and it is not true that Quebec premiers in the past

have not shown preferences quite clearly. Yes, René Lévesque at the time of Brian Malaroney and the Bourgesque, but over those years, Robert Bourassa after Meech, remember, winked in the direction of the newly founded Bloc Québécois and almost sad vote for the Bloc Québécois and Lucien Bouchard in the 1993 federal election. But this from François Legault was really clear. He called the NDP and the liberals dangerous.

And he said he would be happy with a conservative minority government. My impression from the outside, looking at the debate and the timing, is that Premier Legault looked at the debate and decided as a politician that there was a risk of a liberal majority and that the last thing he wants is a majority government. So, decided to throw a bone at Erin O'Toole. What does that do? This idea that because he's popular, suddenly François Legault's intervention is going to turn the campaign around is actually not borne by Quebec history in federal and provincial elections. Because if that were the case, Pierre Trudeau would not have been winning Quebec when René Lévesque was premier and really popular in Quebec and winning majority governments.

But there are two things here. The first is the impact in Quebec. Most of the switchers who would listen to this, because this was an appeal to Quebec nationalist voters, have tended to be Bloc Québécois supporters. These arguments about intervention by the federal government mostly target them. When the Conservatives become stronger at the expense of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, it happens only in Francophone territory. And they split the non-liberal vote. And when they do that, they allow more liberals to be elected. That has been the pattern in 2015 and less so in 2019 because the bloc went up. And coming out of the French debate, one of Justin Trudeau's

potential problem was that Aaron O'Toole had done so-so that there was a chance that the vote against Justin Trudeau would coalesce more against the Bloc, and that's always bad news. So, the jury is out as to whether this will actually help the Conservatives significantly and give them more seats or actually make it easier for the Liberals to win. Then second point, I did not hear Mr. O'Toole spend a lot of time last night in English boasting about having had the blessing of the Quebec Premier. I'm not sure that Ontario voters are terribly excited about the notion that their next Prime Minister would be in the back pocket of a Quebec premier or this Quebec premier. We are not in the days when sovereignty is playing out versus

federalism at this point. I think that's a two-edged sword. And finally, on Mr. Legault himself, because he spent political capital to do this, if you believe that François Legault had converted to being concerned by climate change, he ran on a platform that had no climate change chapter when he was first elected. Well, you can stop believing that because it appeared nowhere in his calculation, the notion that you have one government federally that is committed to more ambitious targets than the other, that was completely off his radar. And he also disposed really quickly of the illusion that many Quebec parents have that the money for child care that he has wrestled from Justin Trudeau was actually going to go to child care. He went out of his way to say, there are no springs attached.

I can do what I want with it. I don't need to spend it on childcare. I have to say, Peter, that that probably became his news in the wrong sense of the word to many parents of young families in Quebec yesterday. Well, there you go. A real masterclass in trying to understand Quebec politics, both the impact internally and externally,

and the way the parties jockey for position when they say certain things and when they don't say certain things. So, Chantal, I appreciate that. And it's incredible because there was not a single space left for Bruce to say anything on that topic. I mean, it was totally, everything was covered there. Well, wait, I see a space. You're sure he does.

Go for it. I didn't grow up in the province, and so I feel like I, you know, I'll say one or two things anyway. I do agree that the architecture of the Legault intervention felt hurried, unplanned, and a product of what was happening in terms of the Quebec voting intention numbers. I don't think there's any, it doesn't make sense otherwise, except as a reaction to things that Premier Legault felt were going in a way that he didn't want. So then the question is, will it work? Will it have the impact? And I think that Chantal's raised a number of important questions that correctly challenge the going in assumption that because Legault is popular, whatever he says is going to move numbers in the way that he wants them to go. I think there's a couple of things that get in the way of that. You know, for me, this election in all of Canada is partly about our conservatives scary

and partly about our liberals the most competent? And, you know, it's, we're watching it kind of the punditariat, which we're part of comment on this election as though there are, you know, huge dramatic movements that are happening all the time. But for me, it's a little bit like watching a turtle race. There's a lot of commentary about it, but the turtles don't move very fast, very far. And they kind of meander around a little bit. And it's really hard to make, you know, much of a conclusion at this point. But there's another part in Quebec, a different question, which is, is Canada a problem for

Quebec? And I watched last night as Yves-Francois Blanchet really tried hard to put air into that tire. And I don't know whether he was effective at it, but he basically spent his entire scrum being irate at the suggestion that he felt was manifest in that debate that Quebec is racist and that Quebec was insulted by the moderator and by some of the other leaders. And it felt to me like there was an effort by Legault and Blanchet, maybe Cordon, maybe not, maybe with different outcomes in mind, but to try to create a sense of friction between Quebec and the federal government that wasn't really that evident to most Quebec voters up until the last several hours, basically. I don't know if it'll work.

I don't know if it's credible. And one of the reasons I don't think it's as credible as it might, as they might want it to be, has to do with Justin Trudeau, who for me with Quebecers has always been a kind of a mixed bag. You know, there was a time early in his career as leader where Quebecers didn't really warm to him, didn't know if they wanted a Trudeau son in that kind of a role. And then they came to see him as a, you know, a successful Quebecer at the federal level, influential in world affairs.

And so there was more embrace of him. And I don't know exactly if I could characterize where they're at right now, but I don't think that he's widely seen, maybe Chantal will correct me, as somebody who is anathema to Quebec's interests or uncertain about whether being Quebecois is a good and legitimate thing. And I thought his comments the other night were actually really interesting and they traveled fairly wide. His rebuttal of Yves-Francois Blanchet's comment at him. And so I think that's one of the more interesting subtexts of the campaign right now.

And I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I do think it's fascinating to watch. Of course, if Quebecers took the cue from popular premiers and premiers of substance, I wouldn't be on this panel. I would be sitting in a country that is not Canada talking to you about how we're watching the Canadian election. because if you want to talk about the popular premier with a lot of following, you would think of Lucien Bouchard. And Lucien Bouchard in 2000 put a lot on the line against the Federal Clarity Act that was supposed to put rules around the future referendum. And Jean Chrétien had to run on it

because that was the major piece of legislation this government had passed. It was opposed by the Quebec provincial political class, including Jean Chaguet, then the liberal leader. What happened in that 2000 election? Jean Chrétien won the popular vote. And what happened a few months later is Lucien Bouch, shall resign quoting the result of that election. So there is not a big history of Quebec premiers, even the popular ones, being able to command the province in an election. I think if that were the case, possibly the orange wave would not have happened, by the way, because I can't think of a Quebec political leader who would have gone around saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, vote for Jack Layton.

So it's a curious question as for the notion that it's kind of good or bad. If Justin Trudeau had wanted to have a fight that he would have lost, he would have stood up against François Legault's plan to unilaterally put in the constitution that Quebec is a nation. That would have been that, and it would have cost Justin Trudeau seats in Francophone Quebec. The battle horse that François Legault is riding is transfer payments for health and conditions or not conditions from the federal government. It moves a lot of ink virtually or otherwise in the Quebec chattering class. I'm not sure that I've met very many people at the market over the past two months saying, oh, those conditions on healthcare. Those debates over

the shape of federalism have been part of the picture in Quebec for decades. They will remain there. It's a legitimate debate, but I am not sure that it is a forefront in the minds of people who go vote in elections. All right, time to wrap it up. We'll be back in just a moment to do just that. Starting September 13th, Tim Hortons Smile Cookie Week is back. From September 13th to 19th at Tim Hortons,

100% of the proceeds from all Smile Cookies purchased will be donated to local charities and community groups across Canada. In the last 25 years, you have helped us raise over $60 million. And in 2020 alone, Smile Cookie Week brought in $10.6 million while helping over 500 community organizations. You can participate by grabbing your own Smile Cookie at Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada from September 13th to 19th. You're listening to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge.

All right, good talk on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, and wherever you get your podcasts. We do only have a few moments left, so I'm going to ask you to just kind of wrap it up in 30 or 45 seconds in terms from each of you of what you expect this next week to be like. So I don't want the rundown of all the parties. I just want, in a general sense, what you think we should be looking for in the next 10 days.

Bruce first. Well, I really think it's up to the Liberals to decide whether and how they're going to get the two, three, maybe just three points that they need to be sure that they're going to get back. I don't think there's a scenario that's obvious to me that they can get to a majority, but I also think that there's so much volatility potentially, even though there hasn't been so far, that I don't feel like I want to make that a hard and fast kind of observation.

And I think the way that they get them is to let more people know what the conservative platform is and how it compares to theirs and let more progressive voters know what a conservative government would mean and why maybe an NDP vote is a risky vote. All right, Chantal. I expect to see a possible reversal of the roles in the last week of the campaigns from what we saw in 2015-2019 with the Liberals stressing the positive and what they had to offer and the Conservatives going fairly negative on the Liberals. I think we're going to see the opposite, that the Liberals are going to spend a lot of time showcasing Erin O'Toole's policies as bad versus their own. I suspect the Conservatives will stick to the high road, more positive tone that has worked for them since the beginning of the campaign.

If anything died this week in the debates and François Legault's intervention, it possibly is the prospect of a majority government. From any side. Yeah. Okay. Let's leave it at that. I want to advise viewers and listeners of the week ahead, because it will be a critical week, obviously,

for decision-making. And those of you who have already made your decisions, you can already go ahead and vote with advance voting polls open. But Monday, the Insiders will be back. On Tuesday, it's the Reporters. Wednesday, Bruce is back with Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. I think if it's okay with you two, I'd like to keep Thursday for kind of your turn so I give you two on Good Talk the final spot of the week on next Friday

because that then will play all through that weekend. It's a great vehicle, and today was a classic example of that. And I wasn't kidding when I used the term masterclass because I think it was and is a masterclass for a lot of people in trying to understand the dynamics of what we're witnessing in this election campaign. And you're clearly two of the best at that. It's what people come to this program for, and they certainly got it today in any number of fronts. So that's a look ahead to the bridge for next week. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that tonight is a big night for me in terms of one of my documentaries.

I do two one-hour documentaries a year for the CBC, and tonight is one of those nights. It's the night before the 20th anniversary of 9-11, a day which all of us who are alive at that point will never forget. In many ways, it changed our lives, some in small ways and others in very big ways. But the documentary that I'm doing, which will air tonight, is called Unfinished Business.

And it really is not a look at what happened on that day, but what led to that day. And whether enough questions have been asked about the role of, in particular, the Saudi royal family and the Saudi government. They're not answering questions. And the American government, as I hold some some of the answers are not offering them up. President Biden has said, after repeated attempts by previous administrations along the same line, Biden is saying he will release documents that involve knowledge of the Saudi role, but he hasn't yet, and we'll see whether he does.

This documentary will explain why that's so important, not just in the general theme of things, but for the families of those who lost their friends, relatives, fathers, sons, daughters, mothers on that day, and some of those were Canadian as well, as we know. So that's tonight, 8 o'clock on CBC Television, CBC Jam, and it's repeated over the weekend on CBC News Network. So that's my plug for that. Thank you to Chantel and Bruce.

Thank you to all of you for listening. As I said, we will be back in, well, not too long, on Monday, with the final week, the final push to get you to the polls, if you don't go on these advance polls this weekend. All right, Peter Mansbridge here. This has been The Bridge. Good talk. We'll talk to you again on Monday.