The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk -- The Perils of Hinting At Blame

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Both some of the international media and some country's leaders found out this week what happens when you jump to conclusions on blame. Especially in the Middle East. Bruce is away this week but The Economist's Rob Russo sits in with Chantal Hebert for an important conversation on the latest from the Israel-Hamas war. Also, discussions on the House of Commons, the NDP and Pierre Poilievre's position on the Alberta Pension Plan idea.

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. It is the Friday episode of The Bridge. It's called Good Talk, of course. Bruce Anderson is off this week. Rob Russo is sitting in for him. Rob is now the Canada correspondent for The Economist. That sounds pretty good.

I got to admit, that sounds pretty good. And Chantelle Hebert is here, of course. Rob is in Ottawa. Chantelle is in Montreal. Okay, we'll start off on the continuing topic of the day these days, which is the situation in Israel and Gaza, the Middle East war, the conflict that is underway. The story is changing rapidly every hour or so. But here's the story that seems to dominate in our country, in Canada, while this is going on. It's actually trying to figure out what Canada's position is on the story of this week,

which was the bombing by someone of the hospital in Gaza. Canada came out relatively quickly, seemingly saying that it was an Israeli bombing. Now they've backed off, as evidence has come in, and some evidence is still waiting. And at this point, we don't really have a position, Canada that is, in terms of who caused the bombing, the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. What's happening here? Were we kind of embarrassed by the opening statements that Canada made

and therefore is being very, very careful now on saying anything as other countries seem to be leaping forward, especially the Americans? Chantal, why don't you start? Well, for one, and to spare you all those emails that will point out that the prime minister never said Israel in any of the statements he did not but the minister Trudeau talked about an attack and no one is going to believe that when you're saying attack on Gaza, you mean that Hamas would be attacking Gaza. And hence the inference that he pointed the finger at Israel. First lesson, it is not a good idea to rush to judgment in circumstances like those. Not only is the debate ongoing,

although to a lesser degree as to what actually happened, but there is now a debate over how many casualties. And we're not counting here one casualty, two casualties. The gap between the two numbers on offer are 10 to 50 or 100 to 300. So there's conflicting information. It is, and the prime minister's office and Justin Trudeau's advisors will tell you lesson learned. So we're trying, and the prime minister said that yesterday, we're trying to have more facts before we make a definitive call on this. It's true that the Americans are ahead on this. They have

clearly said through their president that their intelligence shows that it was not Israel who was at fault in this episode. Others have been more careful, and it's been a bit overshadowed by the large shadow of an American president. But I also think there are domestic circumstances in both cases. When Justin Trudeau said what he said immediately after the news broke, he was already under rather intense internal pressure within his caucus, where there are people who have perspectives on both sides of the issue. I think you saw some of them this week in news reporting. Emotions are running really high, and that's totally understandable.

The Canadians, be they Jewish or Palestinians, have not six degrees of separation from the people who are under attack in Israel or in the Gaza Strip. Some have family. And I think as many media organizations seem to have wanted to do, there was a temptation and a reaction to even out the score, to say we're giving to both sides. We're not just doing the pro-Israel thing. We will not turn a blind eye to whatever Israel does, even as we recognize its right to defend itself. I don't think it's wise to use news of this nature so quickly

to try to calm the waters internally or within Canada. That is what happened. I think that in future, the government is going to be more careful. But it is clear from everything you hear and see that the Prime Minister, in particular, more so, I believe, that the NDP or the Bloc Québécois is walking a tightrope, not only publicly vis-à-vis voters, but also vis-à-vis some members or the members of his own caucus. And that's basically where we're at, I think. I'm not inside. So from the outside, that's what I see. All right, Rob, how do you see it? Well, Chantal mentioned casualties, and the old saw about truth being the first casualty of war is very, very apparent at a time like this. You know, the Prime Minister and a lot of people around him and a lot of people who are covering politics now

are part of what I call the hot take generation, who take to Twitter very quickly with their read of what's going on. And in a war, and you don't even have to be that old, if you were around for the Iraq war, the second Gulf War, you know that sometimes even our allies can either misjudge or misappropriate intelligence. A lot of people admired Colin Powell and a lot of people saw Colin Powell come on television and use intelligence that was given to him by the CIA to suggest that there were weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And that put a lot of pressure on allies to join. And we were talking about Moulin, and I'm reminded of the wise old Al, who was Jean Chrétien, who was under tremendous pressure from Stephen Harper and others in the House of Commons at the time to join in the effort to oust Saddam Hussein in response to what was purported to be his involvement in the 9-11 attacks.

That turned out to be completely specious. And so I think Canada and the prime minister have arrived at the right position a few days too late and that it has cost him further standing. What he's saying now makes perfect sense. Let's wait. It's what Rishi Sunak is saying in the UK, for instance. He's not rushing to judgment. But it also reminds us that in our current Canada, where the Prime Minister is fond of saying that diversity is our strength, it's also our politics. Diversity is our politics. And there is a cost intention to be paid for that. And he is feeling that tension within his own caucus, where people are calling for, for instance, a ceasefire, where there were divisions in caucus, where there were discussions and a special meeting on Monday night on the Hill, where this was discussed. He has a tight rope to walk. He almost fell off. He certainly was clinging by his fingernails after he did, in effect, suggest that what happened at the hospital in Gaza came from across the Gaza border.

That language is like Palestinians would not attack themselves. So he hasn't walked that back. I think it would behoove him to say he might have rushed the judgment. You could tell during Melanie Jolie's press conference yesterday that they're very, very prickly about this. She refused to walk that back in any way and became testy with those who asked or pointed questions about it. This notion of diaspora politics isn't just restricted to the Middle East. We saw it with India yesterday when 41 of our diplomats were expelled. That has huge implications for a lot of people in Canada, a lot of people who do business in India, people

who are going to try and normalize the relationship over the next little while. But once again, the reality of diaspora politics and the tension that that can inject into our daily lives is coming to the fore. I don't know whether you've read the New York times, uh, this morning or not, but they have a column in there. It's interesting because they talk about this dilemma on this hospital bombing and the fact that really there aren't enough facts there to make a firm decision on who caused it. And we may never know. But so the column is headlined.

That's a bit, sorry, that's a bit easy on the part of the New York Times. Oh, no, I understand. Given that they are one of, but they rushed to judgment. Absolutely, absolutely. 60 miles an hour. Yeah, exactly. But this was one of their columnists. And what he determined, or what he called it, was he called it,

and this is the reason I'm bringing it up, the Trudeau problem. And they used the example of the India situation, where they argued that that first statement that Trudeau made in the House of Commons was a firm statement that India had murdered a Canadian inside Canada. Well, that's not exactly the way the statement read, but it did come off that way,

just like his statement this week came off in a certain way. And they call it the Trudeau problem in the sense that we don't have the facts. And until we actually have the facts, you can't make a statement in any way that implies that you believe a certain thing happened. So what I found interesting about that is that they're hanging this issue around Trudeau by calling it the Trudeau problem that governments and leaders, some of, have had this week. Chantal, you wanted to make a point on that. Can we just revisit the India statement just for a second, not for the convenience of some columnist in the U.S.?

The reason the prime minister stood up in the House of Commons, the main reason was that the story was about to break in the Globe and Mail. So it wasn't necessarily a strategic choice. It was a choice of necessity. You either took the initiative on Monday or you would be stuck answering questions in the House of Commons and outside for the remainder of the week as of the next day. So it also matters to remember context even as quickly as information flows. I also want to don the cynical journalist half for a second and note that when it comes to Hamas and Israel, both sides scored propaganda hits at a lot of countries' expense, including the prime minister. Hamas, because it got a real boost within its allies and sympathizers' ranks by

coming quickly out of the gate to say, look at what Israel has just done to a hospital and look at all these casualties. It's amazing how quickly you can count casualties. Within seconds of the hit, already the 500 number was out. But Israel also got something out of it. And it was a major distraction from the humanitarian toll that its blockade of Gaza and the Gaza Strip is taking. And to go to Rob's point, more the reason to not pretend that countries like Canada

are kind of line referees who are sitting back and calling the shots and the points for either side. It is not a good position to be in, and it does not advance the conversation. I have no disagreement on any of that. The bottom line at the end of the day, though, is what do we learn from this whole experience of these last couple of days? It seems like pretty much everybody, well, not everybody,

but a major segment of the media jumped too quickly. A number of political leaders in different countries jumped too quickly. Some are still over the fence in terms of having jumped and having gone backwards. We've learned all that. You know, Rob mentioned the Jean Chrétien saying no to George W. Bush on Iraq in spite of the pressure he was getting from Stephen Harper. And Stephen Harper told me about whatever it was, five or six years later, that when

he looks back at regrets in terms of his political career at that time, what was his major regret? And his major regret, he said, was believing intelligence without challenging it. And intelligence officials will tell you that it was while as prime minister, they were challenged by Stephen Harper more than they could remember from other prime ministers about intelligence on whatever the issue happened to be. He took a lesson from that. So what's the lesson of this week, you know, for whether it's the media,

whether it's politicians, whether it's observers, whether it's whoever it may be? What's the media, whether it's politicians, whether it's observers, whether it's whoever it may be? What's the lesson, Rob? You know, I'm a wire service guy. That's my background. And we were always told, you know, you get the last word first. OK, but I really liked the notion that you get the last word first, not the first word first. I thought that that indoctrination was wise.

So it was try to be quick, but don't come up with partial half-baked assessments that are final. What is intelligence? I mean, even intelligence people will tell you that it is bits of information that are often collated into a possible conclusion. But it's not always entirely actionable. Very, very rarely do you have like clear audio, clear video of miscreants that leads you to a conclusion. But we are in the hot take era. You know, one of the reasons I'm not on Twitter is because I don't often trust myself with my first take. And I think that the notion of a cool dish to pour hot soup into is a good idea.

And that politicians, as well as those of us who scribble and babble for a living, could sometimes take that hot soup and put it in a cool dish. I am on Twitter. I have found that the sane thing to do and also the right thing to do is never, ever to share your first take. Because I worked in radio, so I understand how quickly you have to get to something. But I also wrote columns. And I realized as I was writing those columns that sometimes I'd start writing, thinking I was going someplace. And then when I added up everything that I was putting in the column, landing in a completely different place. And what that tells you is there is no price to pay. I always wanted when I was at the start, and Jim Travers, my late colleague, used to find that very funny. I would always say, well, you know, I'm happy enough not to be the person writing the election day story or the convention day story because I'm

a second day person. And I'm always happier having had time to give myself time to look at what has happened before I write. Because when you write columns, as you know, your face and your name is on whatever you put on there. So you want to be sure that you are on as solid ground as possible. But I think that also works for governments. There is no payoff in having Justin Trudeau, because he is asked by a journalist or by Jagmeet Singh in the House of Commons, who also rushed to judgment, by the way. There is no pain in saying we are waiting

for more information. But obviously, any civilian casualty is horrible. How difficult is that? I know it's not sexy, but it will get you to more information rather than commit you to a take that turns out to be the wrong take. What's that saying they have about Columbus, about it coming down from the hills after the battle's over? Shooting the wounded. Yes, but the wounded tend to still be there on the second day after the battle. Right. Still have a story to tell.

The really wounded ones are actually still waiting for you. Okay. All right. Enough on that. We're going to move on. But first, we're going to take our first break. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Good Talk for this Friday. On the bridge, you're listening on SiriusXM, 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. Okay. This is kind of a parliamentary procedure story, or at least it started that way, and then it sort of became, well, it certainly became interesting. I don't know whether it's bigger than that. I don't know whether it means anything to anybody out there,

outside of the parliament, you know, community. But let's talk about it for a sec. And the speaker, the new speaker um mr speaker fergus got up the other day and in one of his first kind of speeches to the house of commons he wanted to talk about decorum in the house and what he thought needed to change on the part of um some members if not all members in in the house of comm Commons to make it a more constructive place. Well, he chose to do this about quarter after two, one of the afternoons this week.

And quarter after two is when, supposedly, question period is supposed to start. And it's, you know, for the MPs to go at each other, for the opposition to challenge the government, for the government to explain its decisions to the opposition, etc., etc. Anyway, it always, you know, it usually starts off with the leader of the opposition, which in this case would be Mr. Poliev. So, 215 rolls around, the speaker gets up, is about to make his speech,

and the conservatives go, no, no, no, no, this is our time. You can't do this. And it developed into quite the little back and forth about parliamentary procedure and who was right and who was correct, and former speakers like Andrew Scheer got up and said, I don't know, Mr. Polyev's right, the speaker's wrong. It was like, I guess what I want to know is, should I care about this? This is why the top politicians and representatives of the people spent a good deal of time arguing, and quite pacificously,

on this point the other day. So, Rob, you start us on this. Does it matter? Should we care? Yeah, I do think we should care, but not necessarily for the reasons that people would think. I have been knocking around question period now for a long, long time. And I don't remember the days of decorum. I do remember question period actually being a little bit more serious, less scripted. There was more wit, less volume, but decorum was always missing. Speaker Fergus, wanted to try and use an occasion to restore that. And I think that that's a vain pursuit.

It's a sterile goal. There is one way to inject decorum back into the House of Commons. And all you've got to do is turn the television cameras on the people who are yelling, screaming, heckling and carrying on. You do that and that will disappear. I think all of us might have been around in the days when MPs behind the leader used to thump their desk. Remember that? Instead of clapping, they would thump their desk. As soon as they saw themselves on television looking like barking seals, thumping the desk with desiccated flippers, that stopped. It went away.

So if you want that to go away, I would say to Speaker Fergus, if you want the bad behavior to go away, turn the cameras on the people who are behaving badly. I guarantee you it will go away because some of cameras on the people who are behaving badly, I guarantee you it will go away because some of the things that people aren't seeing at home, it does make them look like crazed five-year-olds a lot of the time. In terms of this particular case, I think the Conservatives know that there are very few people who actually watch what goes on in the House of Commons, even reporters. Quite frankly, I didn't like the fact that a lot of the

reporters that worked with me when I was a CP in the CBC wouldn't go to the Hillbury regularly for question period. I tried to go regularly, just first of all, to show my face and to see what was going on when the camera wasn't pointed on the person speaking. But the Conservatives do know that at 2.15 every day, there is a small and hardy band of people across the country who turn and watch what's going on. And that audience wasn't going to stay for a sonorous debate. Why is that that it might have been or profound that it might have been about decorum in the House of Commons. They were going to lose the audience and they didn't want to lose the audience on this particular day. And so they use a whole bunch of procedure to try and stop the speaker from from delivering a speech,

including including some less than decorous behavior while the speaker was trying to talk about decorum. But I think it's a pursuit in vain. The way to cure the problem is to turn the cameras on people, get rid of the bad behavior. But I don't know that I want necessarily for them to behave gentlemanly or politely towards the cut and thrust of politics is a good thing. A clash of ideas is a good thing. The puerile behavior we can do without. So the party leaders will never agree to have the cameras free to focus on someone other than they be at the government side or the opposition side.

Imagine that you're Yves-François Blanchet and you're about to ask a question and the camera is turned to some conservatives wreaking havoc in the House of Commons, do you want that? To have your sound because you would still get the sound over pictures that have nothing to do with your message. So I don't believe that will actually ever happen. I would also pity the people behind the cameras because they would forever be blamed for having taken that shot rather than that shot. Why didn't you focus on these guys? Why did you stay with the leader? You wouldn't want that job, is what I'm trying to say,

but it's not going to happen. So no need to worry and polish off your CV if you're working with the video team of the House of Commons. That's not going to happen. I agree with Rob that going in person, and whenever I was in Ottawa, as I've been commuting for years, I would always carve out time to go sit in the press gallery in the House of Commons for QP for two reasons. One, to show that I wasn't a total ghost, always useful, but also because you can actually have conversations with MPs and ministers in the

house via your little gadgets, phones and all, and their staff is not around to tell them not to respond, which is totally great. And you see things. There were times when there was debate when the government, Stephen Harper's government, for instance, was in trouble. And he would answer questions and look very much in control. But if you looked at his feet under his desk, he was literally ripping off the floor with them. That's where all that frustration and anger was directed. Remember, this is a prime minister who once kicked a chair at a convention because he was unhappy about the conversation he'd had with Peter McKee.

And for some reason, some of us saw that scene. There is no, the House of Commons has a clock, owns its clock. There is no rule that says the 215 is is actually a 2.15 for you and me. If question period doesn't start at 2.15 and starts at 3.15, it is 2.15 in the House of Commons and the time is intact. But Rob is right. Gérard Poilier likes to be the star of the show at 2.15. And this week, the way that he made himself the star of the show at the appointed hour was by taking on the speaker for what I think was not a reason worthy of a leader picking up a fight with the speaker. But I also think that the speaker should have known what he was getting into. The day of the week he picked was not an accident.

Wednesday is caucus day. That's the day when MPs show up in the House of Commons, cranked up more so than any other day. It's usually the day when Justin Trudeau takes all the questions, except he was away at a summit that day. So maybe lesson for the speaker here. He does not at this point have accumulated the moral authority to do what he did on Wednesday. He's going to have to work on that because trust for a speaker is earned. It's not given to you at the same time as the keys to that nice residence and to the limousine. There's no doubt that a lot of things in the House of Commons, in terms of the process and the decorum, if you want to call it that,

and other things, changed as a result of television in the House. It's kind of an understatement, but, you know, as the one who's old enough to remember what it was like before television, it was a very different situation. Not just for those on the floor of the House, the MPs, but for the media. I mean, in those days, you were in the gallery every day. Everybody was in the gallery. It was hard to find a seat.

Now, that only happens on days where there's, you know, some huge event is likely to happen and there'll be a lot of people there. But 99% of the time, there's one or two people in there. And they miss a lot, as Chantel says and Rob says. You miss a lot by not being there. You miss what, A, how many MPs you can actually see in there, but what they're doing. And sometimes there are conversations that go back and forth, you know, legitimate, well-meaning conversations

between members of different parties going back and forth to talk to each other. You don't get that sense when you just watch the television of them screaming at each other. And there's also, you know, people sitting there on their, you know, phones and, you know, people sitting there on their, you know, phones and, you know, reading newspapers. Christmas card signing.

Christmas card signing. Big activity in December. I remember Pierre Trudeau used to say he never read the papers. Well, if you sat in the House of Commons on Question Bear, you'd actually watch him reading a newspaper that had, you know, clippings that had been given to him by his staff. Anyway, it did change everything. And it changed the way they dressed.

I mean, they all suddenly got sharp clothes after TV popped up in the house. And they might be seen on it occasionally. Anyway, enough on that. Also, showed up sober. Yeah, I was going to say that. But I came to the Hill the first day the television arrived. And so I heard a lot about what had been happening until that day from the moment I first came.

Well, that too wasn't just the MPs. There were a few reporters who used to have a bottle of scotch in their desk drawer as well. That was a different time. There's no doubt about that. Okay, we're going to switch topics. We won't take a break here. Let's just swing right into it.

Last weekend was the NDP had their convention. And, you know, there was a lot of observation on what was going to happen there. The caucus had different feelings, obviously, on the issue of the day, on Israel and Hamas. But there was also this issue of whether or not the leader, Jagmeet Singh, was going to, how he was going to do on the vote around his leadership. Now, he still did, in the 80s, percentage drop, you know, from the last time. But, you know, he was still moving on as leader. However, this issue of whether or not they should be supporting

propping up the government is back again, and it's certainly back again around the pharmacary issue. So you start to hear rumblings of, you know, anything could happen here. Well, no guarantee that they're going to support them. We've heard this before. We're hearing it again now. How seriously should we take that talk, Chantal?

Well, if you listen to the talk on both sides fairly seriously, I mean, coming out of the convention, Mr. Singh and his health critic basically committed themselves in public to exacting a single payer of pharmacare program from the government between now and the end of the year. Today is, what, October 28th. There aren't that many weeks left of sitting. What they mean by – because we've now started to talk the lingo of, you know, singlepayer pharmacare.

Basically, the NDP is saying we don't like hybrid systems, that is, systems where you cover with pharmacare people who do not have insurance, private insurance at work. That proportion of people and the system in Quebec, for instance, is hybrid. I'm covered because no one is giving me insurance. But when I worked for the Star full time, I was not covered by the Quebec program, etc. The NDP wants a program that is along the lines of Medicare. You cannot buy private medical insurance and have it pay for medically reimbursed services by the government.

The parliamentary budget officer just recently released his latest assessment of how much that would cost. And the number was $11 billion for the first year from governments. So not just the federal government, but also provincial governments, and eventually $13 billion in five years. The government on the other side is increasingly coming up for criticism over the size of the deficit and its fiscal management of the economy. The parliamentary budget officer, again, recently, found that the deficit for this year is going to come in with some 17% over what was estimated last spring. So Jagmeet Singh can maybe wiggle out of what he said on this commitment,

but I believe the real red line that Justin Trudeau is looking at is, does he buy time by saying yes to his NDP ally at the cost of losing every last shred of fiscal credibility his government might still have? And the rationale for that would be not that the liberals believe we need this full-fledged Medicare pharmacare program, but that Justin Trudeau is so desperate not to face an election that he's willing to throw billions of dollars into that pot, even if provincial buy-in for this idea is minimal. I'm being polite here. There may be one, maybe two provinces. I'm saying there are two NDP provinces. But Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, there is very little provincial appetite for this initiative a case-by-case basis, which is how minority rule works. But also the Bloc Québécois, the NDP is not the only party that has the balance of power in the House of Commons.

The Bloc Québécois also has it. The Bloc Québécois would support the government on a number of issues. Why? Because at this point, Yves-François Blanchet is frankly more comfortable with a liberal government than he might be with a conservative government across from him. And the Bloc has no cause to be in a hurry to go in an election. So the balance of power would shift. I think the NDP is frankly suffering from a big case of amnesia. In 2005, they pulled the plug on Paul Martin's government because they couldn't get something they wanted that was health financing related. Same scenario. The reward they got for that was 10 years of zero influence in the House of Commons, even when they were the official opposition to a majority Conservative government. Anyone looking at the polls now can only see that

the NDP would be hard-pressed to have as much influence in the next Parliament as it actually enjoys. So this is basically where things stand. It's going to be interesting to watch, but neither Trudeau nor Singh is in a better place because of the convention. Rob? Well, some New Democrats are looking at numbers. Let's talk about some of the numbers they might be looking at. They're looking at a Liberal Party that is down around 25 percent in some polls. The difference between 25 percent where the liberals are and 20 percent where the NDP is begins to look appealing to some new Democrats. And they do begin to see a two or three election strategy where they could supplant the liberalsals as they did. Yes, they lost influence, but their long-term goal is to supplant the Liberals and one day be considered as a possible alternative for government.

That's a lot of what's behind the thinking of their agreement with the Liberals, to look responsible the way Bob Ray did with Peterson in the 80s in Ontario, and someday be considered seriously to actually lead a government. The other number that's important is Jagmeet Singh's leadership scores. His leadership review, his first one was in the 90s. His second one was 87%. The one last week was 81%. It's going in the wrong direction. It's going in the wrong direction because there are lots of new Democrats who believe that the deal with the Liberals hasn't really paid off. If you look at where the NDP has been, it's really a flat line on a graph. They haven't gained anything very much politically out of this, and nor have the Liberals for that matter. But the Liberals get the security of what is a de facto majority government,

you know, months after the electorate refused to give them that. So they're not getting enough out of it. Red line? Yes. They're now way, way out on a limb. Does that mean that the Liberals are going to saw off that limb? I don't think so. I think as an initial step, I think it would allow both of them a chance to come off that ledge if the Liberals came up with a system that didn't cover those who are currently being covered by PharmaCare, by health plans, and then said at a future date, we will work on

a universal system. That might be a way for everybody to come back in off the ledge. But in the meantime, none of those parties want a general election. There's only one party in Parliament that wants an election right now. And that's the Conservative Party. Conservatives, I spoke to somebody who looks at their polling regularly last week, who said they're looking at 190 seats right now if there's an election. They would love to have an election right now. They got no end of money in the bank. That's not the case for the Liberals and the NDP. So this thing could end. It will end when it's in the interest of either the Liberals or the NDP. So this thing could end. It will end when it's in the interest of either the Liberals or the NDP to end it. We are approaching, it seems, a time when it might be in the interest of the NDP to put an end to the agreement. But as Chantal said, the Liberals have a robust enough minority

in the House of Commons that they could turn to each of the other parties for support on individual bills, including at times the Conservatives. It's not unheard of for the Conservatives to sometimes throw in their lot on certain issues with the Liberals. Again, I'm reminded of Stephen Harper agreeing to Paul Martin's health care fix in 2003. And everybody was surprised by that. But tactically, it was the right thing to do. So you can govern and you can govern for some time by taking each of these parties and knocking them off, dividing them and govern for a little while. I think also there are NDP strategists who are rightly worried about Pierre Poilier's appeal to part of the NDP support base.

And the part that they are worried or the flank that they are worried about involves a lot of blue collar unionized Canadians. So from the NDP standpoint, pharma care may sound great. The demand for it is not as high within the electorate as they like to believe when they have a convention. But there is anti-scab legislation coming as a result of that agreement. I believe that for Jagmeet Singh, who has not been a leader whose connection to the unions has been as easy as, for instance, someone like Ed Broadbent or even Jack Layton, I think that matters. This anti-scab legislation matters more than going into an election and saying, we're going to win because we're going to campaign on pharmacare. I don't think that in the current climate there is a lot of appetite for the NDP saying the liberals are not spending enough,

we will spend more. I don't see that. Also, if you're going to dream while looking at poll numbers, as some new Democrats are saying, then you can share the Bloc's dream looking at those numbers. A really weak Liberal Party could bring the Bloc back to official opposition in the face of a massive conservative majority. So if you want to play that game, welcome to what should be a nightmare for the new Democrats and the Liberals.

Chantal makes a very important point about the working population. You know, I know a lot of, there are a lot of CEOs who come through this town and a lot of them are trying to get a meeting with Pierre Poiliev. They look at the polls as well. They figure he could be the next prime minister. Poiliev is not meeting with CEOs. He says to those who knock on his door and ring his phone,

I want to meet with the people who work for you. And then I'll meet with you maybe later. But for now, those are the people I want to meet with, the people on your shop floor. Send those people towards me. Maybe we'll talk after that. So he is gunning for the NDP vote. And polls suggest he's finding some targets.

He's hitting his targets. You know, I've spoken, as you both do, at various conventions and association meetings this year, and two of them have been ones where Pierre Polyev was also on the speaker list. One was a few months ago, the Construction Trades Unions Group, where he, as Chantal said, was venturing to start a connection with the blue-collar workers. And he was given a very nice reception there. And the other was just this past week, where I think both of you were also speaking at different times, which was the realtors, Canadian Realty Association.

And he spoke on, I think it was the Sunday night. And he stayed for an hour or between an hour and an hour and a half afterwards, just shaking hands, working the room. And these, as you say, weren't CEOs, but they were people who meet people, who talk to people, who see people every day, right? And so it's interesting because he's a good public speaker. There's no question about it. He's interesting and people listen to what he has to say.

But that he spent this extra time as well underlines that point that, well, in a way, both of you were making about how he's, you know, reaching out. And not to the conventional people that leaders reach out to, like CEOs. Okay, final break, and then we have one other quick topic to deal with. But first, this. And welcome back. We have a few minutes left in our final segment

of Good Talk for this week. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Rob Russo filling in for Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. So one thing filling in for Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. So one thing we've mentioned a couple of times on this program, but we haven't really spent a lot of time on it, but Alberta, through Danielle Smith, the Premier,

is trying to set up their own, wants to set up their own pension plan, and to do it they want to take a big whack of cash out of the Canada pension plan, and to do it, they want to take a big whack of cash out of the Canada pension plan. It has, you know, obviously some support in Alberta, not too much support outside of Alberta, and everybody's been kind of waiting to see what would Pierre Polyev say about this, because he could be the government of the day that would have to negotiate some kind of arrangement. So now he's spoken. Chantal, tell us what you have to say. And the timing is interesting. So you need to rewind by a couple of days before you get to

Pierre Poilier and go back to what I found was an extraordinary open letter from the prime minister to the premier of Alberta. Why do I say extraordinary? Because prime ministers and premiers disagree on a variety of issues on a routine basis. But I can't remember the last time a prime minister wrote a letter to a premier to say, we're going to do all in our power to convince you that you are totally misguided and wanting to, one, leave the CPP, and two, leave with enough money to cripple the retirement plans of all other Canadians, save for Quebecers who never joined the CPP

when it was created and have had a parallel plan. I do think it's the job of the prime minister to say I will defend the CPP as a social program. Alberta, the Alberta government at this juncture is basing its idea for a separate CPP on the notion documented by a report that the government sponsored that claims that Alberta could leave with 53% of the money in the CPP fund. I'm sure Premier Ford in Ontario would have some thoughts about that, although he's been silent.

But think of it. I'm not only am I leaving, but I'm taking half of the cash that is on hand. But I do believe that the reason why this letter exists was also to smoke out Pierre Poilievre, to force him to answer an inevitable question that was going to come his way, which is, if you were prime minister, would you say yes to Alberta and on what terms? National Post, it has reported that the leader of the official opposition sent a written statement on the issue only to post media to say he wants Alberta to stay within the Canada pension plan. And that is where things stand. But it would, of course, for Mr. Trude, to send a letter like that means he has very little votes to lose in Alberta and very, very few seats. The play clearly was to put Pierre Poiliev at odds with Daniel Smith's government. statement is the impression it gives that he too, with his antennas in Alberta, is far from convinced that the majority of Albertans really want to leave the CPP, notwithstanding what Daniel Smith's government is doing. And the calculation is, A, there is no way that he can do anything

other than say, I will preserve the CPP and I believe it should be preserved as is. But also that he thinks that the bill for saying that is not going to be as high as some people from outside Alberta would assume that all of Alberta is not going to rise and say, Pierre Poilievre has betrayed our trust and he is a terrible person. And in any event, if they did say that, who would they vote for? The Conservative Party has so many votes in Alberta that it could afford to lose a chunk of them and still come out with almost all the seats in that province. So if Justin Trudeau wrote that letter to Daniel Smith and made it public to flush out Pierre Palliev, then it would seem to indicate that Justin Trudeau still has game for the fight ahead. Only got a minute or so left. Rob, your thoughts on this? Yeah, look, a fight between Alberta and a Trudeau is more than half a century old. As a result, the Trudeau part of that voice is barely heard. You might as well be cheering for the Maple Leafs in Alberta, Peter.

Or anywhere else. Yeah. So like the Trudeau-Alberta battle, very, very old. It's five decades old. And even former or other premiers would have less influence. There might be one or two might have influence on public opinion in Alberta. Very, very few. MP, an Alberta MP who is respected for his economic acumen, an Alberta MP who is fighting for the province's resource industry, coming out and saying it would be best if Albertan stayed inside of one of the most successful government pension programs in the industrialized world.

I think then all of a sudden you have influence. And so Trudeau, knowing that a Trudeau would have very little influence, wisely leveraged the influence where he could find it across the aisle in his opponent. And as such, I think if we are going to go to a referendum, I can hardly wait for the day when the two of them are campaigning side by side for the Canada pension program. Yeah, that would be the day. Okay, we're done for this. Good conversation.

Good of you to join us, Rob, filling in for Bruce. And good luck with The Economist. Do you get a new suit for that? I mean, The Economist, that's like pretty spiffy sounds pretty good i i get i get it i get a tweed jacket with with uh suede elbows he also gets to uh not have the former this now so under his name when he gives panels and conferences can you tell we just participated in the same panel at that real estate meeting? That's right. My future remains firmly behind me,

though. Don't worry. All right, you too. It's great to talk to you. Thanks so much. And thank you for listening. We'll be back on Monday.