The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- The Latest on Trudeau, Is He Going or Staying?

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Bruce and Chantal discuss what Justin Trudeau told the editorial board of one of the country's most influential newspapers. The key question is, is he staying in the job as Liberal leader and Prime Minister or is he going to step down? The role of an editorial board in how we get our news is the subtext of this discussion on Canada's number one political podcast.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto, Chantal Hébert is in Montreal, Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. It's good to have you with us for Good Talk for this day, and we got lots to talk about today, so let's let's get right at it i'm i'm just back off seven or eight days on the road so i'm a little wonky from that plane rides and car rides and you name it but one of the constants i gotta say in different parts of the country when i was doing the q and a's with audiences um when they weren't asking questions about the book they were asking questions about the media. And one of the issues was always kind of transparency.

Why don't you guys tell us more so we understand what it is you do and how you do it, you know, in the chasing of stories and trying to explain things in a better fashion. So the one question I've got to start things off, because I'm really interested in what we know, if anything, about the latest editorial meeting that the prime minister had with one of the major papers in the country, probably the leading paper or the most influential paper, let's put it that way, in Quebec, which is La Presse. Before we try to determine what actually happened in that meeting, Chantal, can you just tell us what happens in an editorial meeting? Like, how does that work? It's not very complicated, really. Whoever is the guest, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, make your choice, shows up. Usually, not always, but usually at the headquarters of a media organization. In the case of La Presse, the prime minister obviously was in Montreal for it. And it happened early yesterday morning, I think. And the people who are on the editorial board that is the people who in Quebec by the way as opposed

to everything you see outside Quebec editorials are signed you know who wrote the editorial but the editorial people are there to reflect the general positions of the of the newspaper and I will come back to that when we talk about the actual content of this one. Columnists who are available and who write about politics, usually some Parliament Hill people. I've gone to quite a few of those. They often or more often take place like the interviews you used to do, the long ones with the leaders during an election campaign. I've gone to a few of those in Toronto at the Star. Sometimes there could be as many as 15 news people of all types in the room. Usually the questions or the questioning is led by the leading editorialist in the paper.

But anyone can throw in questions. Actually, most are expected to throw in questions, except if they're like me, whose role has always been to watch body language and other people's questions, rather than worry about my questions and the answers I was getting. And then that person leaves. It takes place.

It's not a 15-minute thing. They talk in La Presse reporting about a lengthy editorial board meeting. So I suspect the prime minister was there for more than an hour. And so news reporters go on to write the news story that comes out of the meeting. So it's on the record. Everything's on the record? Everything is on. If you're going to put 15 journalists in a room with a politician, I'm not sure there is an option except to be on the record.

These are not secret meetings, usually or often you will publish a transcript of the interview or at least some lengthy Q&A as it took place. A news reporter will write whatever the news was and say the prime minister said, and then he added, and when he was asked, blah, blah, blah. A columnist will columnize in whatever their take is of what they saw there. And the editorial people will decide in an election campaign in the newspaper. Those meetings sometimes come just before an editorial endorsement from a newspaper. I'll give you one example because it's very striking.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in 2011 came to the editorial board of the Star. The Star usually backs the federal liberals in an election. That's where their endorsement goes. I think some of the people who were with, because some of the aides of the politician are on hand, probably felt something was a bit off. Not that most of the people around the table asking questions knew what the endorsement would be. But the next day, the star endorsed Jack Layton. Usually you wait until you've met during an election campaign, until you've met all the leaders who have agreed to come. Stephen Harper, as far as I remember, never agreed to come to a Star Editorial board meeting before you went doors. So there's kind of a timeline. This one was completely out of an election timeline.

And the news from it is that... Don't get into the news yet. Okay. Just a minute. Well, let me just give you a clue. There is no front-page story about Justin Trudeau taking a walk in the snow, except for one purpose, which I'll come back to.

Okay. All right, we got us hooked on that. Bruce, before we get to the news, or the apparent news out of the editorial meeting at the La Presse yesterday, you've been involved in briefing leaders from a couple of parties over the years. You got any stories about the kind of thinking that a leader does, has, or his office has going into an editorial board meeting? Is there any different than, you know, as Chantal says, you know,

the big interview during an election campaign or anything like that? Is there something different about editorial board meetings? Well, it's always been a little bit of a, you know, a game of chicken heading into them, right? The politician wants to avoid being grilled and humiliated and embarrassed by the people that they're going to meet on the editorial board. And the editorial board wants to have a productive conversation, but also they want to, you know, demonstrate that they have some leverage, some power in the conversation. And I think that over time, the sense that I have is that both parties kind of approach these things with more apprehension and more sense of expectation.

And then at the end of the day, they're just people and they have a conversation and it's usually a good thing that they do. There haven't been as many disastrous outings for politicians at editorial boards as the politicians imagined that there might be. So most of them go in a little bit nervous about it. I think the politicians often come away with a feeling that, oh, the editorial board, it sounds in theory like something really powerful and thoughtful, but they come away thinking, that's just a bunch of people who are, you know, who have a kind of a fancy title for this thing that they do every once in a while. But I think the bigger thing in my mind is, and I don't want this to sound like it's kind of a criticism of individuals.

It's more like the politicians know that what columnists do and what editorial boards do doesn't matter as much to their political success as it used to, just because of the way people consume content now and the fact that Joe Rog know, Joe Rogan, you know, might be three times more influential than Chantal Hebert, when Chantal Hebert should be 20 times more influential than Joe Rogan, or 100 times, I shouldn't have said 20, I'm sorry. But you know what I mean? I'll just mention in passing that editorial endorsements were never terribly

influential, even in the past. And I should also add that columnists are usually more influential than editorials. I rest my case. I agree with that. I agree with that. I think that there's been a decline in the influential aspect of it because of the way that the media consumption has gone. And also because there are some politicians who just will not engage with media. influential aspect of it because of the way that the media consumption has gone. And also because there are some politicians who just will not engage with media and have found that that can be a successful strategy for them. And there are some media who, for whom, like the idea of Justin Trudeau meeting with the editorial board of the National Post, I don't see any purpose to that in some respects, because what would they ever consider to be interesting and of value to pass on to their

readers without some sort of overlay of, but please don't ever vote for this guy. That's their position. It's pretty clear through their reporting. It's not just an editorial position. It's a business position. And on the other side of the aisle, Pierre Polyev, will he meet with editorial boards? He'd probably meet with Post Media at some point, but I don't know that he would meet with others. And I don't think that he thinks that there's any cost or risk to him in not meeting with others, because that's kind of the way that he's approaching the job. And so times are changing the way that this works, not necessarily for the better. All right. Well, that's one thing about Bruce is he's consistent when he's not trashing the national post. He's painting, and one of his paintings is right there in the shot, if you're watching on YouTube, just off to the the right there and he's become quite the artist if you follow him on Instagram you'll see a lot of his

incredible artwork all right moving from art to politics again Chantal aside from the walk in the snow well you better you better explain that yes so the prime minister said, yes, I will be taking a walk in the snow. He was referring to cross-country skiing and spending time with his family over the winter. Such a funny guy. But otherwise, the lead story was, to no one's surprise, that Justin Trudeau totally plans to lead the party in the next election. to those who were watching the interview, I read the parts of the transcript of the interview. It's always interesting to watch what people say in their own words.

He talked about how he had, you know, when he thinks about continuing, one of the factors that he has had to weigh has been family, for obvious reasons, this year. So what he tried to tell La Presse was this wasn't an instant decision. I'm not just saying that until I say something else. There is always room, as we all know, for politicians to change their minds. What he also said, which I thought was interesting, was don't expect an election anytime soon. This deal I have with the NDP, I intend to keep it working until 2025,

the deadline for an election, if this were a majority term. So if you think that we're going to rush to the polls anytime soon or that the deal will fall apart. From his perspective, that's not going to be happening. Now, what was interesting in the comments and the columns, well, the editorial, the summing up of the editorial position coming out of this was if Justin Trudeau has eSounds, is planning to run on continuity, let's continue to do what we are doing, it will probably not work. It is one thing to want to stay, but it would help to give some substantial reasons for the country wanting you to stay

in government. What do you have to propose going forward? Not what you've done or not what you are protecting Canadians from by winning and not allowing Pierre Poilievre to become prime minister. So I don't think this interview changes much of anything, but you have to put some context around it. And some of the context is that Quebec is the last place in the country where the Liberals have not been slipping dramatically. On the contrary, Légipo this week showed them holding steady.

The Bloc ahead at 31%, the Liberals just behind at 28%. And yes, the Conservatives up at 25%, but for the Liberals, that's kind of interesting. Because as the pollster pointed out, the Bloc and the Conservatives are going to be fighting each other for where the election will be played out in Francophone territory. And when the Bloc and the Conservatives fight, often the Liberals, if they can hold the numbers they have now, can slip in between. And so there is nothing terribly bad so far in a Conservative vote in Quebec that is a bit higher. But to give you a sense of where things are at, Quebec is the province by almost 2 to 1 where the Liberals are doing better if you compare their score to their Ontario score. So that kind of tells you how different the campaign will be here and how different the tone and the narrative has been so far.

All right. I'm going to get Bruce's reaction to it. I mean, I assume for starters, starters you know there are only three possible answers to the question are you going to run again one is i'm going to run again and one assumes that's what no matter what you're thinking is that's the answer you're going to give or you're a lame duck if you answer otherwise or you could say i'm thinking about it there are things i have to consider or you can say i'm not going to run again which would basically make you pointless for the next two years um so that's one way of looking at it the other one is trying to find the inspiration for why he wants to run again sure he has a program he thinks it's worth defending etc etc but how much of it has to do with what you hear sometimes from those who

claim to be close to Trudeau, that he's in it because he wants to go head to head against Polyev. And it's nothing more than that. Bruce, what is your take on what? Yeah, you listed the three possible answers, Peter. I think there is maybe a fourth. And the fourth is I really, really, really, really am determined to run again. And I think that's the answer that he gave. And you give that answer when you know that people are really, really, really wondering if

that's a good idea. And I think that's the context for him having this conversation and knowing that he needs to add more substance and meat to it. So talking about having gone through a process of evaluating his situation, thinking about the situation of his family, all of that is part of making a more determined effort to land this idea that he's going to lead the party into the next election with authority and with conviction and in a convincing way. And so it sounds like he did that. The challenge that he's got is that we tend to assume that this is a decision that is only ever made by one person, the incumbent. And that's mostly true, but it's not completely or always true. There are a lot of other people who have a stake in this. There are a

lot of people in his caucus who look at his numbers and who hear what people say about him on the doorstep, who don't want him to stay. They don't want to insult him or embarrass him. They don't want chaos in the party. They don't want to look like they're starting a fight or being disloyal to their party. But they don't see themselves coming back to Parliament after the next election if he's the leader. That's an entirely legitimate perspective for them to have. We tend to overweight the idea that anybody who questions that is somehow disloyal and therefore not doing politics the right way. I don't see it that way. I think this is a natural process within a party to have people kind of wondering if the party's kind of lost its sense of agenda, lost its sense of energy, lost its ability to present what Chantal was describing as something different,

which brings me to two other quick points. One is David Coletto, my friend David Coletto, wrote a little piece on Substack I was looking at this morning where he asked people, would you be more likely or less likely to vote liberal if Justin Trudeau left? And just the top line numbers alone, I think it was like 30% more likely, 12% less likely. Now, somebody from Mars could look at that and say, well, that's not a very big impact. Most people said it wouldn't affect their likelihood. But if you're one of those caucus members, you're looking at that 30 to 12, and you're going, that's a potential 18 point lift for the party. That's a little bit too superficial a way of looking at the numbers,

as David then goes into some detail about. But if you compare the potential lift of a change in leadership with a change of a policy or something like that, you have to look at it if you're an MP or a candidate and think, well, this is a material thing. We should be able to have a conversation or at least think about it. And it shouldn't just be a decision by a person, by a single person. Last point is what the data are telling us is, yeah, some people are tired of hearing Justin Trudeau, even though they support most of his agenda. But they're saying they want change. And so, you know, as Chantal was indicating,

either the government and the prime minister are going to give people some change or people are going to look for change elsewhere. I don't think there's any other alternative than that. And it doesn't mean that he can't do it, but it does mean that just being incremental on what he has done probably isn't going to lead that party to success in the next election. You get the last word, Chantal. On the Polyev factor, is that a – Oh, I'm sure.

I have been convinced since the day Mr. Polyev became leader that had Jean Chalet won or Aaron O'Toole stayed, Justin Trudeau would have retired before the next election. That the transition, yes, there would have been things that he would not have liked to leave behind to an opposite party. But overall, he would have been resigned to the notion that change is good and that to replenish the capital of energy in government is also a major argument for moving on. Now, on this leadership issue, I'm sure most of Brian Mulroney's MPs were relieved when he announced he was going to resign because they felt that they would do a lot better than all of them, except two who got to ponder about the merits of a new fresh face in retirement just a few months later.

I'm always worried about polls where you ask people, what would you do if someone else or would you be more likely to vote for the party if Trudeau wasn't around? Because you're basically telling them yes or no in the unknown of who would be. So they're all imagining Mother Teresa running the Liberal Party and not some actual person that they get to dislike or don't think is so good. So final point, early on in the battle to replace Paul Martin, there was a poll and the names were known. There was a poll that was published, not Abacus.

Bruce was very far away from that. But it asked, out of all the people running, who do you think would make the best leader? And guess who won that poll? Ken Dryden. Why? Because he was the most, the best, well, name on that list. Of course, Mr. Dryden did not do well in the leadership campaign, didn't come anywhere close to winning. But I'm guessing if you ask now and put the list of people who are going to run to normal people, not us, probably Mark Carney would do okay because he's one of the better known names.

But beyond that, I'm not so sure that any one of them would strike many normal voters as the solution to all that ails Canada. All right. We're going to leave it at that. Tempted to do this in honor of Ken Dryden. We can all do this. You've got to be watching on YouTube to see that. But he is that.

He did the old stick thing where hands are on top of the stick, standing in front of the goal. He was a great goalie. Thanks for telling me all this. He was a great goalie in your town. No, no. I knew about Hockey when Ken Dryden was a goalie. I tried to know less. If you looked at last night's score, 4-0 in favor of that team.

We're going to be paying to eat in Quebec City next year at an exhibition game. You can see I'm keeping up with hockey. Look, Ken Dryden is a very good guy. City next year at an exhibition game. You can see I'm keeping up with hockey. I'm very impressed. Look, Ken Dryden's a very good guy. But I think that the things that Mark Carney and Ken Dryden have in common, both goaltenders, that's a thing. But I'm not sure otherwise that they're the same people. However, you said that was going to be the last point,

so I didn't want to get the extra last point in. Okay, we're going to take a break. Come back. We're going to move. We're going to shift totally here. But it still impacts the government of Canada and the opposition of Canada because somebody has to have a position on these things. And we're going to deal with that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge,

the Friday episode, a good talk with Chantel and Bruce. 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. Glad to have you with us. All right. The war between Israel and Hamas continues. The Middle East is in turmoil. The reaction is around the world, and it's very divided. As it is, we're told, inside the Liberal caucus.

The Liberals are getting battered around. The government of Justin Trudeau is getting battered around by the Israelis are unhappy about Trudeau's calls for pauses, constant calls for pauses, bordering on ceasefires. The Canadian Muslim community is upset that there's too much support for Israel, not enough understanding of the Palestinian cause. They're demanding a ceasefire. And for Trudeau to step forward and formally try to get a ceasefire.

I'm assuming with that happening outside of the Liberal caucus, it is still also happening inside the Liberal caucus. How divided is the government on this issue? And is it heading towards any clearer resolution of where Canada stands on this? Chantal? I think it's very much a high wire act for the prime minister. And I do believe that the section of the liberal caucus

that is sympathetic to Israel or more sympathetic to Israel than Palestine, especially members of the Jewish States and most of its allies and becoming, taking on the NDP position of a ceasefire. I think that would probably prompt some reactions that would go beyond anger expressed at caucus or a healthy debate behind closed doors. I know that, well, and then there are political considerations for the liberals, and I think they're losing on both sides. And I'm not saying that there is a position that is a winning one. They are the government. But I noticed that despite this call to have parliament

sit 24 hours a day, conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was in Montreal last night. I thought, that's very odd. Why in Montreal, the city that usually does not give the conservatives a seat, or has not since Stephen Harper tried to get seats. but he was at the Montreal synagogue for the first night of Hanukkah. And there is at least one writing that the conservatives always have high hopes for in Montreal, where there is a very high percentage of where there's a very large Jewish community. So I'm, and clearly the conservatives have aligned themselves totally on the pro-Israel side of the debate, and they're going to bank on it to make gains in the election. Seats in Toronto inside the city, for instance, could tilt their way. But at the same time, the NDP's call for a ceasefire speaks loudly from what we see in demonstrations to younger people, younger voters that the liberals need

to prevail in an election. And the NDP clearly is hoping to collect votes from that. I think the NDP is making more of a play for younger votes than it is making a play for Muslim votes. And that leaves the Liberals trying to keep that boat afloat. They can only hope, and the Prime Minister can only hope for some resolution one way or another, but it's a no-win issue for this government, and it's not going to become a win issue anytime soon. Bruce? Yeah, I agree with Chantal about that. I think the challenge for government is that it might feel as though the right thing to do is to kind of offer your recommendation or your ideas for

how this should be solved, even though you don't have the ability, really. I know Canada has some ability to influence things, but I don't want to. I think the problem is that, you know, these kind of profound public statements about who's in the right on a given day or who's doing the wrong thing on a given day, they can make it sound as though the government of Canada has the ability to change the course of what's going on. And I think that politically is risky, but also is probably a waste of breath. I think that the reason it's so hard politically, a high wire act, I like the way that Chantal described it, is that culturally, the population is divided on this and divided for reasons that have to do with what people know about what came before and who is responsible for what is going on in what part of the Middle East right now.

And from what I can tell, people in the Jewish community are extraordinarily anxious about rising anti-Semitism and fearful of another Holocaust. It's entirely legitimate for them to have those fears. And they want to hear politicians talk about this with a great deal of alarm and concern and express a lot of support. A lot of young people don't have the same sense of what happened before to the Jewish population around the world. And so their preoccupation is with what they've seen in terms of the actions of the Israeli government towards people that they deem to be, that they see as being, struggling to have a state of their own, the Palestinian people.

And it's legitimate for them to have that anxiety and that feeling that justice isn't being done to those civilians as well. to people, to offer an interpretation of what's going on, and to empathize about the loss of life for civilians, the mistreatment of civilians. That's way too mild a word to describe what Hamas did to those Israeli citizens. It won't solve for there being political risks, but it won't make the political risks greater, which is, I think, a little bit what happens now when politicians feel as though they have to opine in a way that, you know, moralizes or comes close to moralizing about this. And I find that they get in more trouble rather than help themselves in that respect. Is Canada impacted, the Canadian government impacted at all by what appears to be, on the part of our friends to the south, not a backing off of support for Israel by the Biden administration, but a much more aggressive tone from the Biden administration

that Israel is either going too far or is on the verge of going too far in its fight against Hamas inside Gaza and the impact it's having on citizens. The message from Biden to Netanyahu, first time they've spoken in a couple of weeks, was yesterday or the day before, and we're told it was much more aggressive. If that's the case, you know, is the Canadian government showing the same kind of attitude or are they still not in the middle, but they're not being aggressive in their,

at least we're not aware of them being aggressive in their condemnation, really, of what's been going on to some degree in Gaza. Chantal? This goes to Bruce's point. There is no comparison between the role that the President of the United States plays in this conversation, and that of the Prime Minister of Canada. So basically, a more aggressive tone in public would be applying domestic politics with foreign policy, and not expecting to be a voice of reason in the Middle East. Those are two different roles, and it is totally appropriate for Joe Biden to do what he is doing. The U.S. is heavily invested in this issue. But I don't think we should be standing in the sidelines like cheerleaders saying,

we're going this way because that's where the U.S. is going, or we're holding back because they're holding back. At some point, I think that was Bruce's point, we have to understand our place. There are issues where we can play a leading role. But to think that if only Justin Trudeau were more aggressive, it would make a difference except from inside his caucus or for the Jewish community in this country, which has been suffering its fair share of incidents that have made that community insecure. The last thing you need is for the prime minister

to suddenly become aggressive. He's going to have zero impact, but it's going to have impact on the Jewish community. As for offering an interpretation, you know from your years at the CBC that there is no consensual interpretation of what goes on between Israel and Palestine. There has never been, for as long as I've been doing journalism, news reporting, and I'm talking news reporting from that region, has always triggered backlashes from one or the other community, always. And that's when things are not at their worst, which they are now. So I don't see how a politician could come up and offer a consensual interpretation that would actually enlighten rather than exacerbate the ongoing tensions. I totally agree that Canada should not be blindly pro-Israel or blindly pro-Palestine,

and certainly should not be in the business of justifying anything Hamas has been doing. And that is not the position of any party in the House of Commons, by the way. But beyond that, let's not suddenly pretend that Lester B. Pearson is being reincarnated next week and we are going to resolve and achieve peace in our time because of Canada. That's not on. I think the biggest discomfort for the politicians in the U.S. or elsewhere who have supported Israel's effort to eliminate Hamas is that they feel tethered to Benjamin Netanyahu, and they understand that that is a risky and dangerous place for them to be politically, but also that it may not solve the tension. It may make it worse. And I think that what I observed in the Biden administration's approach is that for a

number of days, they've been turning up the dial towards criticism of Netanyahu and his government's efforts in Gaza. And I think they've been doing it deliberately. They've been kind of signaling that this is where they're going. And I presume, as Chantal does, that it will have some effect, because I do think the U.S. matters in terms of how this plays out. And yes, Chantal captured exactly what I was saying and not very articulately, which is I don't think that what we say about it matters particularly. And when we sound like we think that it does, or politicians sound like they think that it does, there's an artifice to it, which I think leaves people not just their normal level of division and frustration,

but a heightened level of division and frustration because they see politicians sounding like they think they can do something, but maybe they can't anyway. The only thing I would say that's a little bit different, I think, is the – I agree that – and I've seen it for journalists over the years that any time there's any commentary about this conflict in the Middle East, there's a blowback and powerful and painful for people who are in the line of fire and journalism. If there's anything different now, I think that it is when we look at the attitudes of people by generation, we look at where younger people in the United States and Canada and other countries are coming from on this, I think we've kind of had a number of years of the development of opinion among younger people, where the consumption of news about the Middle East has been about a more aggressive Israeli state, so government of Israel, rather than Jewish people. And that has conditioned the way that young people feel about this.

And we see it playing out at universities. And I don't know if you guys looked at this, but the testimony of those three presidents of major U.S. universities, Penn, I think, Harvard, I forget which one was the third, who were being questioned in Congress in a committee and asked about, you know, if someone on a campus called for the genocide of Jews, would that violate their harassment policy? And these leaders of these major universities couldn't say yes. And that has been kind of in my mind thinking about, well, how far have we come that the leaders of some of the leading universities can't answer that question in

the affirmative? So I think the generational question is an important one and one that doesn't really get addressed very often. Okay. I'll just add one last point in terms of the impact things that Canadians say and Canadian leaders say on the big picture, at least in the Middle East. Because I don't disagree with what either of you were saying about, you know, we can't get ahead of ourselves thinking that we're a big player. But when the Canadian government was shown in apparent criticism of Israel, the president of Israel went on the record to criticize Trudeau. Which is interesting. I'm not sure how much he's gone on the record to criticize Biden in these last few days.

But Macron, but the French president has come in for social media reprimands for the same reasons from the political leadership in Israel. I don't think they're going to do Joe Biden. No. No, that's true. There's too much at stake for them to do Joe Biden. There's billions of dollars at stake and weaponry and everything else. And their role in the negotiation process,

which is still continuing on in the background. Anyway, fascinating discussion. We're going to move on, take our final break, come back and talk about, I don't know what to call it. Is it strategy in the house of commons? Is it craziness? Are they all out of their minds? We'll deal, deal with that. Right after this. All right. Peter Ransford here with Chantal Lebert and Bruce Anderson.

They're in Montreal and Ottawa, respectively. We are in the final segment of Good Talk for this week. The House sat all night. It's part of a strategy by the Conservatives. I guess it's still part of the old axe the tax strategy and concerns about the Liberal government's view on energy and the latest stuff on doing the cap on oil and gas emissions. So it was one of those bizarre nights. The Prime Minister was in there for, you know, six, seven hours.

The opposition leader, who'd been, as Chantal said, in Montreal earlier in the evening, came by for a good chunk of the nighttime. They were doing votes, various things in the middle of the night, well into the early morning hours. Should we care about this? Like, wait, I have, you know, the gymnastics that are done in the House of Commons, whether it's question period or like this process, I used to be consumed by it.

I think, you know, to a degree you were as well, Chantal, and Bruce is working on the Hill. And these days, as an outsider from Ottawa, I look at it and I just say, this is exactly why people are down on politicians. And they are, and the process. Should we care about any of this? Is it just performative stuff that is as much for their, perhaps their own good as anybody else's?

Bruce, why don't you lead us on this? Well, no, probably we shouldn't care very much about it. I mean, if the question is asked in the context of, will most people notice it? The answer is no. If they did notice it, would they think that it was kind of silly and performative? For sure they would. It does, as a way of understanding the dynamic between the parties and the way that the issues are being argued, given that we spend

some of our time each week talking about that, then we have to pay attention to it. But, you know, it's also good to have other hobbies, as you point out, and other things to think about. I don't think there's any question that the Conservatives feel that they've been winning on this issue of carbon tax, and that they want to maximize the value that they get out of the success that they feel they have, saying ax the tax, reduce the prices of everything. And I saw yesterday a little bit of the Liberals finding their feet a little bit, not necessarily having a better defense on this, but being more aggressive in their counter to the Conservatives. And the Conservatives had a made a mistake, which, you know, had people in

the town laughing. Again, this is not something that people will notice outside the bubble. But they said, we've, you know, we've tabled 20,000 amendments to try to mess up the government's legislative agenda. And I think it was Andrew Scheer who's responsible for that because he's the conservative house leader. But I guess that what they did is they thought, well, the 20,000 amendments are going to keep the house sitting all through Christmas and keep everybody tied up in knots. But the way that they dropped the 20,000 amendments, they chose the wrong technique to do it so that the government was able to dispose of all 20,000 amendments

in like five minutes. So there's that kind of pushing and shoving and everything else. It's probably of interest within the bubble, but not beyond. Chantal? I'm not even sure that they chose the wrong procedure, as I don't for a second believe that Pierre Poilier really is about to ask his MPs to sit through Christmas Eve and New Year's Day in the House of Commons voting on whatever. And as he well knows, Justin Trudeau is not going to be getting rid of the carbon tax, no matter how many nights the opposition wants to

spend on it. I think it's a waste of Parliament's time and of parliamentary procedures in the sense that this is the kind of tactics you should use in a dramatic moment when something unexpected that the government is doing is so offensive to the terms of the mandate received from voters that the only choice that the opposition has is to stand up and use whatever tools at its disposal to kind of highlight this. In the case of the carbon tax, we fought two federal elections on it, 2019, 2021, and supporters of a carbon tax won a massive majority. And by that, I didn't say the liberals, I said supporters. That would be the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, and the liberals combined.

The power of the federal government to impose carbon pricing was validated by the Supreme Court. So basically what Pierre Poilievre is trying to do is go in the House of Commons and say, I do not care about democracy or the mandate of this government. I want to get my way, and I'm going to use tools that will not work, by the way, and he knows that very well, to show that I don't really care about a majority of Canadians voting one way because I've decided I'm going the other way. I think it matters for a number of reasons. One of those is, if I'd been an advisor to Mr. Poitier, I would have said, take a win. You've just had a fairly good sitting of parliament. You look like a prime minister in waiting. The last thing you need is to go down in the trenches

of the House of Commons to show that you're the great leader of the official opposition. You don't need to polish those opposition credentials. On the contrary, they tend to be a problem for you. It's like, you know, someone winning a game, since we talked about hockey, and asking if the game can go in overtime. There is no purpose to it. It will not change anything. But it also, it kind of starts showing Pierre Poiliev as a bit of a, you know, one trick pony.

Last spring, Mr. Poiliev told the country that his MPs were all in to work all summer to stop some government legislation. And if you didn't remember how that ended, I had to look it up because I couldn't either, and I needed it for a column. So I came across the first title when I asked was House Adjourns Early with All-Party Agreement. That was a week and a half after telling the country that the conservatives should keep the House working all summer. So I'm thinking probably that most MPs families, as they should, are still planning that Christmas Eve and Christmas night dinner and expect everyone to be home. And by the way, you can now vote remotely. So it's not like the old days. If you are close to a computer and you don't want to be in the house,

you can still get your votes in and move on and try to get some sleep in between. Good alarm clock should be required, though, because. I'm working on the chat GPT so that it perfects the Chantal metaphor thing that I raised last week. I want to be able to ask it for that because I love this hockey metaphor. And the only thing I would say is that why would he, having won the game, ask for overtime? Only one reason that I can think of, money. This is a huge money raiser for that party.

And overtime is just more opportunity to raise more money. And they a huge money raiser for that party. And over time, it's just more opportunity to raise more money. And they're already well ahead. But I don't think that parties work on the basis of, okay, we've got enough money. They go, well, this thing, whenever we tap it, money comes out the pipe. That's what they're doing. That's a good answer. We should turn this into a sports show because clearly, you know, now Chantal is the leading sports host. You never knew, eh, that I keep up on hockey except for your favorite team, the one that never wins.

Yeah, okay. Thank you. Okay, let's not go there. I got two minutes left. Will Greg Fergus still be the Speaker of the House of Commons when we exit next Friday? And should he be, and should I care? I don't think he should.

I think this is not a good time in this Parliament, at this juncture, for a wobbly Speaker on training wheels. And I do think that judgment is the first quality required of a Speaker, and he has not shown good enough judgment in the toxic atmosphere that the House is in at this point for him to continue and be productive as speaker. Supposed to be non-partisan, the speaker, when they're in that role, but he appeared in the speaker's robes in a tribute video

to an outgoing Liberal leader in the province of Ontario, and people have taken offense to that. Certainly opposition parties have taken offense to it and demanding that he step down, that he resign. Bruce? Well, I think it was an error, but I don't think that it's an error that rises to the, you must resign. He may end up feeling like he has to.

Take Chantal's point about it's not a time for somebody to have training wheels on but that's my take on it is that you know it was not the most egregious error I've ever seen and he's a good human being who I think wants to do a good job and wants to be a fair speaker. Well, we'll see how that plays out. It is, you know, after years of watching speakers where people kind of admired their nonpartisan nature when they were in the role, over years, speakers from all, you know, different parties,

you know, it's not a demanding role, but it's an important role, and it has certain degrees of tradition. I still think they might want to consider having somebody outside of politics be the speaker, but whatever. That doesn't appear to be anybody else's interest. But twice in a couple of months to have one speaker resign and then his replacement being hounded for a resignation as well. It's quite something to watch unfold.

Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week. Bruce Anderson, Chantelle Hebert. As we get closer to the holidays, we will have our, I guess next week will be our year-end show of some sort. I'll have to think about what we're going to deal with on that because there's never a shortness of topics to have here on Good Talk. So thank you both. We'll talk to you again soon, and we'll talk to you on Monday.