The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- The Impact Of The Last Two Weeks

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

It's been a headline-making two weeks for Canada on the world stage. First the India story, and then the Speaker's story. Was it damaging and if so, how damaging? And, what's next?  Bruce and Chantal bring their analysis to the Good Talk table.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, welcome to Friday, welcome to Good Talk, welcome to Chantelle Hébert in Montreal, Bruce Anderson in Ottawa, I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario today. Lots to talk about, so let's get right at it. You know, we all know and talk about how we live in a 24-7 world where things move very quickly, and the journalism business stories move very quickly, and you go from one to another with rapid speed. You know, when we sat here last week and talked to each other, the number one issue was the whole controversy surrounding the Prime Minister's remarks about India and what India

had done inside Canada on Canadian soil against a Canadian citizen. And it seemed at times when we were discussing it that this may be a story around for some time. Well, literally within minutes of our discussion, this story moved on. And this week you don't even hear about, rarely hear about, the India story anymore. It's all been about the speaker and the Nazi in the gallery and all that stuff. So at the end of this two-week period, because who knows what next week will bring, will one of these stories come back and continue on, or will we be moving on to some other issue?

But these have been two pretty intense weeks that have had a huge impact on the scene inside Ottawa and the discussions on Parliament Hill and question period and the back and forth. And internationally, both stories have made the headlines around the world. So the question is, in spite of the 24-7 world we live in, the impact that this has had. In a way, you know,

there's probably some degree of linkage between these stories, and I don't mean that one is directly related to the other, but in terms of the impact they've had, there's some linkage. And I'm wondering at the end of the day, at the end of this two-week period, what the impact has been for Canada, for our system, for the major players in our country, and our kind of stance in the international scene.

What do you think? Chantal? Remember three weeks ago, the site was that this was going to be all about the cost of living. Here we are. And we had the government prepared enough and it preemptively defended itself with legislation and announcements going into the new session. I believe the India story will continue to come back. I note that the American Secretary, Mr. Blinken, is talking to India today, and the Prime Minister in a newsroom yesterday sounded very certain that the issue of India would come up. I've also noted that I think it was Babri, our ambassador to the UN, who said he was approached by a diplomat, a fellow diplomat from India,

that said we've got to keep talking. And I noted it was interesting, and I know I'm not answering your question. It was interesting, though, over that news conference of the prime minister yesterday, which came after the announcement of something completely unrelated in Quebec, that he was asked, well, I'm paraphrasing here, but shouldn't you be angry that the Americans are still meeting with India, which is kind of a weird take, I admit, but I was raised to think there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. And it gave the prime minister the opportunity to say, on the contrary, we ourselves plan to continue to engage with India. And he wasn't just talking about the murder inquiry, etc.

The stuff in the House of Commons, you're right, is unrelated to India. But sadly, it reflects on Canada and on the Prime Minister. And I am not one who believes that Justin Trudeau was responsible for this person or that he should have been the person who vetted the guests of the speaker. But it does reflect on him because he is Canada to the world. And it comes at a pretty poor time. You're hosting a visit with President Zelensky. It works really well, by and large.

And then this happens, and it kind of, again, sows doubts as to how serious Canada and the government of Canada is. That may be unfair, but we live in a time of propaganda. And over the past week, the Prime Minister and Canada have been the target of propaganda and fake news from three big sources, Russia, India, and China. That's a tall order. Imagine if tomorrow Donald Trump is president, where we will find ourselves in the conversation. So I think the episode in the House of Commons was unfortunate beyond the fact that it cost the speaker his career, beyond the fact that it embarrassed everyone who was involved with

it, because it did travel across the world. But I also do think that the resignation of the Speaker, which was also news, went some way to say we're taking this seriously. I'm not sure that the Prime Minister's excuses, which I found a bit weird, apologizing for parliamentarians rather than on behalf of Canada, have done the job, but not a great two weeks. Not a great two weeks, for sure. I want to get, obviously, Bruce's reaction on the question,

but can I just say one thing? Because I do think at some point we're going to have to talk about this in a substantive way as we get closer to next year's U.S. election and the growing indications that not only will Trump win his party's nomination, but he will be up against Biden for the election next year and the impact that could have on relations between Canada and the United States because as closer as we get to an election, that relationship, and especially the possibility of a Trump regaining the White House, is going to be a topic of some concern on our national political level on how to deal with a Trump, a new Trump administration, if that's in fact what happens. So I do want to put that in the back of the mind, because I do think we're going to have to discuss that,

because I think it's going to be a growing issue for Canada and for Canadian politicians as to how they're going to react to that. But we'll leave that aside for now. Bruce, on the question at hand and the impact these last two weeks have had for Canada. As I was listening to Chantal's answer, I was wondering if there was anything that she was going to say that I disagreed with, and there was at least one thing. I was raised to think there are dumb questions. And that one sounded like a dumb question to me. So not a good idea to go there. I was also talked over my coverage of politics. So there are always ways to wiggle out of

doing what you just did. Well, there, I said it. Card played, whatever. Look, I think, Peter, these issues will dissipate, not because they didn't deserve the attention that they got, not because there weren't serious errors at the heart of things, but because everything dissipates now,

whether we like to accept that as a reality or not. I think what these issues to some degree signaled is the geopolitical instability that we're living with now, and that won't dissipate. That is the underlying factor that makes it harder to manage the variety of relationships that Canada has on the world stage. And it's the underlying factor that makes it harder to manage the variety of relationships that Canada has on the world stage. And it's not just Canada that experiences that. I think it's a lot of countries that do. And this uncertainty, whether it's related to will Trump win the U.S. election, what will happen in Germany, what will happen with NATO, what will China try to do, how will Russia proceed in its

war with Ukraine? All of those things make the world a less certain place and make our place in it less predictable and manageable, I would think, which isn't to excuse the government. But I also wouldn't overstate the impact of a few stories about an issue that happened in Canada in foreign markets on the overall reputation of Canada. I don't think it was good, and I don't mean to minimize the the insult that some people felt about the issues that we're talking about, and that it was real and it deserved to be apologized for. But I think that the overriding message for me in looking at polls of Canadians, for example, is that people may notice these things,

but then they're going to go back to thinking about the price of groceries or the price of fuel or the issues that are that are really very pertinent to their to their everyday lives. I do think there is one other area of impact, though, that is important. And Chantal alluded to it. It's been a little bit more on my mind, which is it coming out of the summer, both the Conservatives and the Liberals wanted to hit the fall with a sense of momentum, a sense that they were kind of unified and that they had good arguments to make and that they were ready to make them effectively. When these things happen to the government, to the incumbent party, it shakes them. It shakes the sense of confidence that they have in their message it makes them wonder if they are if they've lost the momentum that they hoped that they had or hoped that they

could find and you can see it sometimes in the chemistry in the house not that everybody watches the house or that it's the house performance is really that important in terms of influencing public opinion but it's a little bit like watching a competitive tennis match or a boxing match or something like that, where you sort of see that there is a greater degree of confidence that's building up on one side and less on the other side. And I think that's an issue that the Liberals need to deal with, because it's been a pretty rocky couple of weeks, as you said. That's a really good suggestion to watch that, the kind of body language in the House,

because it was very evident this week. We've got to be careful, as we always try to be, on how much to take from that. But the government side certainly did not look comfortable or in any degree of unison really where the other side did now you can argue about the positions either both sides were taking but in terms of the body language the appearance of a a party that was kind of with it and together on, on the issues,

there was a real difference between those two, what it, how, how that carries through, what it actually means in the longterm. I don't know, but I think it was interesting to look at. Beyond body language,

what we can see, there is no doubt. The house has now been back two weeks, and when the House comes back, as you know, suddenly there is this confluence, this critical mass of people to talk to that have been spread all over the place over the summer. There is no doubt I have come to find

that the debate over whether Justin Trudeau should lead his party in the next election is very much a live debate in the liberal back rooms on Parliament Hill. Not always in an organized way. I'm not saying that ministers are openly or covertly organizing, but it comes across with a lot of backbiting about other ministers. This week, when the government decided that it was going to publicly let the speaker fail, that he should resign, Karina Gould had been carrying those messages in the House

because she is the House leader. But when journalists were waiting for cabinet to start and everyone had gotten a heads up that there would be this statement by Karina Gould, guess who showed up and upstaged Karina Gould? Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And guess what happened after that? A lot of voices in the back rooms started backbiting each other. Why would she do that? Why would she do this?

This is ongoing. It's not a good sign. It's a sign that the party is unsettled, but it's also a sign that a lot of people, by comparison to last spring, are keeping their options open as to the possibility of a leadership campaign and starting to look at who they would not want, maybe want, how this will play out. It's not great for a prime minister and a team to try to harness the energy to get momentum to have this happening. But it is happening. The other person who doesn't have the benefit of sitting in the House, simply because he hasn't bothered to run yet in any of the by-elections. Maybe he will.

There are by-elections coming up. But that was Mark Carney, who suddenly, well, not suddenly, but he's been giving speeches that have been well attended, Montreal and this week in Ottawa, and he's getting good press, which is interesting to go along with this theme of people are sort of looking around what the options may or may not be. Before we move on, do you want to say anything about all this, Bruce? Yeah, I think Chantel's right that this

is an active conversation. She used the phrase, it's not a good sign, and I understand what she meant by that. I want to sort of say it's not a good sign if you're Justin Trudeau, necessarily, but it is part of the chemistry of politics that if you're seeing polls that have you 7, 10, 12, 15 points behind or maybe more, the worst thing that can happen for a party is that nobody thinks about, well, what else could we do that's different from what we're doing right now, whether that's defining a new set of four or five objectives that the country can rally around,

which I don't think is really evident for the government right now, whether it's strengthening the team around the prime minister and giving him a way to, you know, more decisively shift from fighting the virtue or culture war into the economic battle, which I don't think is comprehensively done right now. I think it's something that the liberals have been talking about for a while and thinking they should do. But I still find that they end up relapsing a bit too much into, I don't want to just call it culture war, because I think culture war is really the conservative version of it, but the virtue and the value signaling is really what sits on the other side of that. And I think that what's happened for the liberals is that they

found themselves some 25 points behind or more on the who's best to run the economy side. And they're finding now that it's hard to win the culture war. Maybe the best day that you have feels like a draw because there's so many voices animated on the other side and there's a lot of misinformation and there's a lot of abhorrent misogyny and racism that you can see, which makes people who are on that side of this equation feel horrified and like they need to take up the argument. But if the liberals don't find a way to spend more time making a stronger economic case, they're going to lose the election. So if there's chemistry that's running a little bit raw right now in the liberal party,

I would sort of look at that as being potentially risky, but also potentially the thing that needs to happen in order for the liberals to kind of regroup and position themselves more effectively heading into the next election, either with Trudeau as leader or with somebody else. Last point, Chantal. Brian Maroney at 17, 20 percent did not have this kind of backbiting happening in any way, shape, or form and managed to accomplish quite a few things. I don't see how this can continue and expand and at the same time allow Justin Trudeau

to lead a unified party that is ready for war in the next election. Maybe a new leader does that, but to have this happening for what are we talking about here, 18 months to two years, the amount of jostling that I saw this week, and some of it I'm not mentioning, but it was real. You cannot run a government that is in that kind of mood if you're the leader and believe that you're going to be election ready. You're going to crawl to that election battle almost waving a white flag. I think it's a good point. And I agree with Chantal that for me, Brian Mulroney is the reference point in question. And I'd be curious to know if you see this the same way, Chantal and Peter. One of the most remarkable things for me about Brian Mulrooney

is how he was with his caucus. The effort that he put into having those relationships so that if he got into a situation where his popularity looked like he was dragging down the party or that the party's fortunes seemed really dark, the last thing that they would consider doing was trying to take him out as leader. I'm not sure that this prime minister has put that kind of effort into that relationship. And I'm probably putting that more gently than I, than I feel. But if we're thinking about this two year run up to when he's in another

election, he's got to spend some serious time and some of his personal capital trying to do that. If he wants this to stop the thing that Chantal is describing, do you agree that contrast with Mulroney is there? Brian Mulroney would meet his caucus on Wednesdays when things were going down the toilet, obviously. And Lucien Bouchard had taken over part of his Quebec caucus and was going to be a serious challenger in the election.

And those MPs, because it's Parliament Hill, if you go to the parliamentary restaurant on a Wednesday, you're going to share the elevator with MPs who have just been to caucus. They would leave there willing to believe that Brian walked on water. It was almost scary to be in the same elevator with people who were so hyped after a caucus meeting, so convinced that they were right and that they would prevail. But that happened because the thing is,

when you become prime minister, as Brian Mulroney did, and bring a big victory to your party after decades, you don't really need to work hard on your relationships with caucus because you're the king. You've done this. But if you do not, earlier on, as your fortunes decline, and they always do, you start to pay a price for not having done so. And Brian Mulroney did that from day one. Justin Trudeau has avoided doing that until today. All right.

I think we can all agree that Mulroney was a one-off in terms of the relationship that a leader has with his or her caucus. I mean, he, and it wasn't just Wednesdays, right? I mean, he'd spend evenings, he'd take caucus members to dinner, he'd have them over to 24 Sussex, he'd do all that. He maintained that relationship with his caucus really well. I mean, let's not forget, he did leave in the spring of 93, and later that year, the party went on to win two seats

from a majority position. You know, different leader, different situation. But that was still part of the Mulroney legacy that had led to that defeat in the elections of 93. All right, we're going to move on. I want to bring up something very different than what we've discussed so far. But I wonder at times whether it may be the underground issue of this day, but we'll get to that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Friday episode of The Bridge. It is good talk. Chantelle

and Bruce are both here. You're listening on Sirius xm channel 167 canada talks are on your favorite podcast platform or you're watching on our youtube channel whichever platform you are hooked to today we're glad you're with us um okay we we've all covered elections at different times, whether it be federal or provincial, where there's been sort of a, I don't know, underground issue, maybe the wrong term, but an issue that doesn't get quite the play in the media that it's getting at the doorstep. And I wonder whether we're seeing one of those times now. And it's the pronoun issue and the impact it's having in schools. Now, I know education is a provincial matter,

and we're seeing provincial governments, some of them, act on this, but it seems to be an issue that is growing in strength and discussion among those who are going to vote in all levels of elections and who see different linkages to different things that are themed in our society these days. And now we've just witnessed yesterday the Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, deciding that he's going to use the access to the Canadian Constitution to assure that the pronoun issue is still the way that he wants it to be as opposed to perhaps the way the courts want it to be. So, is this more of an issue than we're tending to give it on the national stage, or is it just simply not an issue for national politicians to be concerned about?

Bruce, why don't you start us on this? Oh, this is one where I was truly hoping that Chantal would start us off on this, but I will take a shot. I do think that the issue that's being discussed in Saskatchewan is part of a deeper and more culturally divisive conversation that is happening, not necessarily with a great deal of prominence in Canada, certainly not as much as the prominence that it has in the United States sometimes. But I think it speaks to a few things. I do think that there are some people in some communities who are perplexed and worried about the conversation as they understand it. And they legitimately want to get to a place where they feel like the policies that exist are set in the right place to protect children,

to help parents feel informed and aware of how to protect their children. And there's a quality to the conversation. Sometimes it makes people who sit in that, that kind of middle position of not sure how to completely understand the conversation that we're having and wishing that they could understand it and and find some policy positions that they feel are balanced and for those people i think there are days when it feels frustrating because it seems as though the argument is at a very fever pitch from people on both sides. Now, I happen to believe I come down on one side of this, which is that I think that the risks to children are as described by the judge who ruled in that Saskatchewan injunction.

I think that's the more serious issue. But I also respect the fact that people who are worried about trans rights and how they're codified aren't all homophobic or transphobic. Some of them just want to understand the issue and what the policy mix should be without it being a question of whether they are virtuous human beings for having those questions. But I don't think that Ron DeSantis, for example, is trying to find a middle ground of sensible public policy. I don't perceive that that's what Scott Moe is trying to do either. I think that the tweet that Pierre Polyev put out at the end of last week,

after the news bureaus were closed, was not intended to calm and inform the debate. I think it falls into this dimension that I described as being the kind of the virtue on one side and the culture war argument on the other side. So I think it's a very important issue, both from a substantive standpoint that we get it right. And from a political chemistry standpoint, so that we don't, we don't only let it divide people. But also, we're going to need to get to some policy that we can live with in this country. And I don't think that the policy that Scott Moe wants is the policy that most Canadians want. Although I do think that sometimes when those arguments are made, they're framed in a way that, that draws some people in who otherwise would be

more inclined to say, we need to protect, um, we need to protect children and we need to, uh, respect equal rights. And, um, so that's where I am on it. Do you think it's more of an issue at the door, at ground level in the country than we tend to realize? I think it is at the provincial level. I don't believe Scott Moe and Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick did this without thinking that it was going to be something that helped them. And on the surface, the polls show that if you frame this as a parental authority to ensure their kids are protected versus teachers who are keeping information from parents, you may have a winner. But it's a bit, there are people who seriously are engaged in this debate on the basis of good faith, but it doesn't mean people should close their eyes to the fact that this is a very organized lobby that's got its roots in the religious right and that takes its inspiration

from the likes of Ron DeSantis that is using this issue and those demonstrations that took place on the issue across the country. In theory, the issue is that if your child, who is not yet 16, wants his or her teachers to call him her or to call Paul Paula, parents do not have to be informed that this is happening. How most parents would not find out is really hard. Once your friends start calling you Paula, that's a different practical question. But in practice, when you looked at those demonstrations, and I looked closely at the reporting on many of them, see how all the things you can do without the television. Demonstrators for parental responsibility, etc. That looked more like me, a grandparent, than the people who were demonstrating against who looked more like parents.

Fact one. I also noticed that you did not have to scratch very hard to find homophobic elements in that crowd. Homophobic elements that were in the forefront of those demonstrations. So at some point, a Trojan horse is a Trojan horse, even if some of the people inside that Trojan horse went into it on false impressions or in good faith. There is a larger question in play here, and it is, is Canada's public school system expected to preserve parental values no matter what? or the equality of the LGBTQ community in our schools, because some parents object. And in the name of parental authority, we will not be doing this,

even if LGBTQ equality rights or excision as something that you reject. Those are Canadian values. They're not negotiable. We're not going to be going back to a time when it was politically okay, great, to treat people as second- or third-class citizens or to have women and young women be treated any way that their fathers saw fit.

We're not doing that. Yeah, no, this is a really great point. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I couldn't agree more that underneath it all is that there's a version of conservative advocacy which is not libertarian. It is a social engineering instinct that wants to describe for its adherence a version of society that feels like the 1950s or further back. And the fact that it's found purchased politically in the United States and to some degree in markets in Canada, I think is kind of fertilizing and energizing that argument. But I do think that's what it is.

I don't think that describing parental rights is somehow this kind of Canadian value that we forgot about that should be at the absolute preeminent position of all of the Canadian values. That's not where most people are. And if I were on the other side of this, from a politics standpoint, at some point, even though I made the point that the Liberals, I think, need to talk a lot about the economy and those kind of issues,

they do need to fight this issue and they probably need to fight it that way too. Sorry, Chantal, I didn't mean to... But at the end of the day, it is a provincial issue and you will hear it at the doorstep. In this province, the premier wisely, I think, looked at the counter demonstrations and the demonstrations and said, wait a minute, we're not having this conversation. The street and the noise on the street will not dictate policy. We will ask people who actually know about these issues

to give us their advice. And when they have done that, we can have a conversation. But it's not going to be people screaming at each other in the streets of Montreal. I think that was the wise thing to do, rather than the labeling one side or labeling the other. Where it becomes more of a federal issue. I think Pierre Poilievre really doesn't want to get deep into this issue.

And I think that he will eventually find it wise to say, we are the party that says we don't interfere in provincial jurisdictions. But the use of the notwithstanding clause, as Saskatchewan announced yesterday, which basically means you're using this clause to suspend the Charter of Rights of Children, will increasingly put more pressure, there's already a lot of it, on the federal government to seek more clarity on the use of the clause. It's been used in Quebec on language legislation. It's been used in Quebec on the secular legislation. It's now being used to suspend the rights of children.

Premier Ford, if memory serves, wanted to use it to suspend labor rights and then backed off. At some point, the federal government will come under intense pressure to seek clarity on the use of the clause. And from all conversations I've had, there is no guarantee that those who would like the clause restricted will get the answer they want from the Supreme Court. But that pressure will be not only on Justin Trudeau, but eventually on Pierre Poilier, who's already committed this party

to intervene in challenges to Quebec's Bill 21, which involves the notwithstanding clause. So within the next five years, the Supreme Court, and I know they're not keen on having the issue dropped on their lap, the Supreme Court will have to answer questions about how you use this clause. Because if you carry the reasoning to its limit, we basically have a charter that has

very little meaning. Basically, bailout of anybody's rights, women, LGBTQ, labor rights. And what does that leave the charter with if that's the pattern we're going into? And if we think bad things can't happen like that to a democracy, we just need to look for 10 minutes south of the border as to all of the conventions that we thought were kind of rock solid that are not rock solid anymore. And I agree. I think that this notwithstanding clause is turning out to be this incredibly difficult legacy of Justin Trudeau's father. And the and it's it's under such pressure and more commonly from one side of the aisle in Canada. And in the risk in not fighting that, not litigating that. And I don't mean litigating in the courts. That has to happen. is that we have generations of people who don't really probably know very much about our Charter of Rights

and the fact that this notwithstanding clause exists as a fundamental risk or a counterpoint to it that can be used to deny the rights that people think that we have. You know, for those who were around when the notwithstanding Clause became part of law, this was the great concern on the part of a lot of legal experts and some politicians that were leading down a path that was going to cause chaos within the country. That may be coming true here. Let me also just say this before we depart

because it kind of circles back to the original question. Listening to Chantal talk about what it's like as a grandparent on this issue, I look at our screen, if you're watching on YouTube, and here we are, three grandparents, right, who are discussing this issue. And I have found in my discussions with parents and with teachers, not a lot, but some, that this issue is a parent-to-parent issue at the school bus stop, you know, on the street, outside in the schoolyard,

by parents a lot more than we may consider. And that it crosses federal-provincial lines in the sense that it's an issue. It's what's being talked about by people who will eventually be voting, whether it's in a provincial election or a federal election. And I always tend to sort of think it back to, are we talking about the issues that people are really talking about?

We've had this discussion around inflation and housing costs and grocery costs, et cetera, et cetera. But I just wonder whether this one, even though it's a provincial jurisdiction, is one that federal politicians better get their act on because they're going to face it at the door. And they're going to face it as an election issue, quite possibly. So that's why I brought it up here. And I'm glad we've had this discussion.

Before we move on, anybody want to last word, Chantel? I have had these conversations with children at their initiative, and it would probably be interesting for all those adults to have them with children and see how they talk about it amongst themselves, because they are really not in the we want protection business. And it comes a lot more naturally to them that if you're called Paul and you feel that you would like to be called Paula

because that's how you feel, to each his own is basically the answer I was getting. And I was, like all of you, I was not raised in an environment where it even crossed anybody's mind that you could change your gender identity. But to hear kids who are 10 years old casually discuss issues like that, and it's not because teachers have been spending hours telling them,

do you really want to be a boy or do you really want to be a girl, probably means that it would be great if adults listen to those conversations among children, not talk to them, listen to how they talk about it amongst themselves. It's not at all the conversation that adults are having. Yeah, you know, I mentioned that I've talked to teachers, and I have not many, and they are all in major cities. They're the ones I have talked to. But they all said these discussions have taken place in their classroom with students leading the conversation,

young students leading the conversation. And if that's happening in the classroom, I'm not sure if it's happening enough at home. Perhaps it isn't, but I don't know. I just think there's more to this issue than many of us are understanding the impact that it may have out there. Well, I think it does cut right to a sense of, for some people, how do you protect your children from the influences in society in general that are making it a more stressful and difficult life for them? I think the worst slur I've heard in all of this is this notion that teachers are actively, in quotes, uh young people i think that's um that's an allegation born out of

homophobia and the politicization of homophobia um and so while i do think that some parents are legitimately anxious about the way the the world is changing um they're not usually coming at it from the standpoint of i want the 1950s they're coming at it from the standpoint of I want the 1950s. They're coming at it from the standpoint of should I know more about what's going on in my kid's mind that I might hear? And are we setting up some sort of rules where I'm not going to know that, in which case I might be a bad parent because I don't have the ability to kind of understand what's going on in their mind and help protect them. So I feel like there can be people for whom there's no hint of homophobia or transphobia or social engineering from a far right perspective who just don't know what the

right answer is. But I don't think that's what's weaponizing this debate. And I think that's the distinction that stands out for me. Okay. We've got to move on because we're running out of time. There's one other issue I want to get to. Before I do that, I'll take our final break. And welcome back into the final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantel and Bruce are here. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Okay, final topic for this week,

and we've got about five or six minutes to do it, which isn't a lot of time. Not the way you guys talk. What's that supposed to mean? No, that is a compliment because you talk in such a way that we're all better informed and better educated, have a greater knowledge of the issues at hand after listening to your answers. I see.

I'm actually serious about that. I probably, the tone on that phrase was probably not appropriate. Here's the, anyway, you don't have much time now that I've eaten it all up. Here's the preamble. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has offered a proposal for a separate provincial pension plan in which her province would drop out of the Canada pension plan, take 53% of the plan's assets with it.

This is not exactly receiving a lot of serious discussion out there. Is that because serious discussion isn't warranted or because people just don't want to deal with it? Okay, Bruce doesn't want to start. Oh, he does. He moved forward to the microphone. Ready to go. I read Andrew Coyne's piece on this yesterday,

which I commend to people. And I thought it was, you know, he made a number of really important points about the Alberta proposal and how, well, it was legitimate for Alberta to want to remove itself from the CPP. And it can do that, that the other aspects of what Alberta was expecting were kind of out of left field and likely to not come to fruition but i i was amused by andrew's piece because he found uh a part of the of the pension plan debate that he hates more than he hates the cpp and the way that it's run but he included in his column a lot of criticism about the cpp and the way that it's run i'm not an expert in that area so i don't know how right or not he is about that.

But I do think that it speaks to a ongoing interest on the part of the Alberta premier to to look like she's picking fights on behalf of Albertans with the federal government and to make a claim that Alberta has done more for everybody else in Canada than people want to acknowledge. And I think it's probably good for the UCP, but I don't think it's good for the country. And I don't think she's going to get what she wants in this. And I do think serious people are looking at it and saying it's another somewhat harebrained policy. Chantal?

It is also a problem for Conservative leader Pierre Poitier, because at some point he's going to be asked, so are you in on this? If I wanted to be Prime Minister, which I never would, a Conservative Prime Minister, I would not be going around the country telling Ontarians and Atlantic Canadians and others that, yeah, if I become prime minister, I'm going to look into giving more than half of the assets of the Canada pension plan to one province, i.e.

Alberta, because I suspect that the premier of Ontario and premiers in Atlantic Canada would have some thoughts about that. You were looking for an issue with the doorstep. It's hard to think of an issue that could be more on the doorstep than the notion that the future prime minister would be agreeable to giving a 50% share of the CPP to one province that happens to be his base. Can you imagine what people would be saying and asking at the doorstep from that person? So at some point, he's going to have to fish or cut bait. And he's from Alberta, and I think it has a special... Yes.

Because of that. So he agrees or he would defend the CPP and try to show Albertans the advantages of staying inside it. But at some point he's going to have to say that 53% is a non-starter. Yeah, you're right. He's from Alberta in the sense he was born in Alberta, raised in Alberta, but his seat, which he's held for, what, 20 years, something like that, is in Ottawa. Anyway, we'll see where that goes, this issue,

because I'm not sure it has legs. Are you just trying to use up the clock now? Is that why you're whipping out that Wikipedia, his seats in Ottawa? No, I just thought of it. Did we not use the full five minutes for you? And that's why we're finishing. You're helping now. I know. I'm trying. Okay. it's for you and uh and that's why we're you're you're helping now you're helping now i know i'm

trying okay but there is there are room there is room which is very rare on this program there is room for a final thought on any subject you wish because we still do have a couple of minutes left and we started i i thought there'd be more to say on the... Well, I think a quick thing is that there was a second Republican debate. Yeah. Wasn't it exciting? It reminded me of the Canadian debates of the last couple of months. They're all yelling and talking over each other and ignoring the moderators and everything else.

Well, and the frontrunner wasn't there again. Chantal? Okay, maybe it reminded you of Canadian debates, but did you hear when they were screaming at each other? We've never had a debate where people said as many crazy things over the course of a debate, and we've heard crazy things at debate, but this was insanity, political insanity on display. My favorite line was Nikki Haley to Ramaswami, where she said, every time I listen to you, I get dumber.

It was just a... Ripped right out of a movie, an old movie. As for the front runner not being there, I don't think that's happening in this country. Because if you're the front runnerner and you're not there, it means you're skipping both debates, French and English. I don't think the current frontrunner can afford not to be showing up at a Quebec or a French language debate.

It's only one time it's happened before, right? Where the, well, the debates didn't happen because the frontrunner wouldn't go to them. Yeah. And that was 1980. Pierre Trudeau. I'm too young. Okay.

Yeah, I'm too old. I was there. Yeah. Yeah. No, they didn't have them. But this one was remarkable. I still think. My money is on the Trump will not be in the election next year.

And I'm increasingly thinking neither will Biden. All right. That's coming. So I may be all alone among the three of us on that. But I think that's what will happen. Although I thought Biden was pretty good yesterday in the speech of us on that, but I think that's what will happen. Although I thought Biden was pretty good yesterday in speech he gave on basically his theme that he's had for a while, democracy versus autocracy, and finally using Trump's name in it. He's ignored saying Trump's name for the last three years,

but he didn't ignore it yesterday. He trumped all the way through his speech. Okay. Then we're done. We're cooked. Stick a fork in us. We've had it for today. Good discussion, though.

Lots of things to consider, and I think important things to consider as well. So listen, both of you have a great weekend and we will see you next weekend, our pre-Thanksgiving, speaking of sticking a fork in it, our pre-Thanksgiving show at the end of next week. Looking forward to it as I'm sure both of you are as well. Absolutely. Of well. Absolutely. Of course. Okay.

Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week. You too. Take care, you guys. Cheers. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.