The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - It's A Good Talk Friday -- Legault, O'Toole, Johnson

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

A leader must be a leader. That's often been a campaign slogan. So what of the leadership of Quebec's Francois Legault, the Conservative's Erin O'Toole, and Britain's Boris Johnson?  All three had big weeks -- but what did Chantal and Bruce think of it all?  

Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Chantal Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. Friday's, of course, one of our favorite days of the week for lots of different reasons, but mainly because it's a Good Talk day and we've got lots to talk about today. So why don't we get right at it? Well, before we get right at it,

Chantel was doing the child supervision role this week. And part of that role was monitoring the virtual classes that her grandkids or grandkid was in? One of them, grade four. And I'm sure many parents have had the experience. It was my second supervising virtual school for kids in elementary school over the past six months. And if you think that the kids can substitute in-person learning, especially at the elementary school level for what happens online, you've got news coming. And even if you do have parents who are really supportive and, you know, really around to look at kinks and encourage kids to continue.

I mean, grade four is grade four, and there is only so much that the teacher can explain to a class in grade four online without running into, you know, there was a long explanation, long 10 minutes about prime numbers. So, I brushed up on my my math and the voices you could hear online, including my granddaughter, was, Madame, we don't understand what you just said. And it's something you can do in a class. But same with doing exercises. The kids are supposed to talk to each other to correct each other on their math homework. Well, when that group thing was supposed to happen, no one in the group showed up. So that was the end of the school day.

So back to school on Monday, we'll see what happens. But on the learning side of it, there is no argument against or for continuing with online learning. Now, did you already have that feeling before you watched yesterday, or was this something you developed over watching it? And I taught the teachers who were doing a really great job of trying to keep the kids engaged. But when you measure that against where they are in learning to read, learning to multiply, there are cursive letters writing in longer form. There are things you just can't do with kids online. And it's a long day to be sitting in front of a screen, even if you do have a lot of breaks. And the younger they are, the more you need as a parent to actually know what the schedule is, print out all the stuff that they need.

I spent Sunday helping two others organize for Monday. And we spent two or three hours on that preparation, downloading the various programs. They're starting at the new school, printing out stuff. So that kind of gives you the kind of commitment that parents are being asked to make on top of everything else, including working from home. You got any feelings on this, Bruce? I mean, it's funny. The three of us are grandparents, so we're looking at it from a different perspective of the actual parents who are dealing with it every day but uh have you got any strong views on this i'm just really struck by the idea that trying to keep the attention of young children in an online environment all day long when they don't have access to that run around the schoolyard run

around the park burn off some energy i can't imagine how hard that is and i do worry about what the longer term impacts are on these kids so hopefully we're out of it soon yeah i guess we can you know we've been saying that for two years, but hopefully we are even. But gosh, there were even some talk yesterday, I think it was in Quebec, one of the officials doing the, you know, we see the light at the end of the tunnel. That would be the premier who seems to be going through many tunnels, and luckily for him, always finds a little space of light for a while. He's in that part of like it down south of south of france north of italy there's lots of tunnels you're in and out of light almost every 10 minutes

well i don't know which tunnel we're in right now and i you know i i change my view every day as to where we are on this i mean i i do you know i'm looking forward to the summer no matter what happens i think we're going to be in much better shape by the summer, whether we're out of it or not. I wouldn't want to venture a guess. But you talk about Francois Legault, and he clearly made a big move this week, or at least he suggested he was about to. We're still kind of waiting for real details.

But this whole idea of taxing the unvaccinated got a lot of headlines, obviously at home in Quebec, but across the country and outside of the country. I heard U.S. governors, some of them talking about it yesterday and some of them suggesting maybe that's not a bad idea. It's been three, almost four days since this happened, Chantal. Where is the state of play on this? Do we know any more about what this plan is, or is it still just basically that?

We're going to, you know, we're looking at taxing the unvaccinated. We do know from the Premier's own words in this latest news conference that the bill will be forthcoming next month when the National Assembly reconvenes. We also do know from the Premier again that it's not his plan to go after low-income people or people who have mental health issues or people who are homeless.

And he seemed to hint that he would like the bill that emerges from those travails to be a consensus piece of legislation. Good luck with that. That is as much as we know and no more. But what does it hint at? Well, unless the Quebec government is about to let loose the police forces in the province on the province's health records to find the people who are not vaccinated, it suggests that they will be proceeding through some section in the

income tax report. Some line would be added, except that this year's income tax season is going to be well underway long before this bill is passed. So that would suggest we're talking about next year's income tax bill. Now, by the spring of 2023, we may or may not still be in the pandemic. But if the argument is that we are trying to give an incentive to people who are unvaccinated to get vaccinated because they're going to face a hit in the pocketbook, it sounds a bit distant to start collecting that money in June of 2023. So you file your income tax report to Quebec. By the time they collect this, you know, it's summer. Plus, there is no way that everyone who is not vaccinated falls in an income group that actually will be hit by that measure.

There's an expression in French that the mountain gives birth to a mouse, and at best, it really sounds like there is a mouse on the way from this mountain of commentary. But I have something to say about the climate in which Premier Legault announced this. I would say that he had his best week on this issue this week. Why? Because on the day he announced, he was holding a news conference where he would have had to explain at length why the province's chief medical officer has resigned, and his resignation was accepted in the middle of a fifth wave in a health crisis. So changing the channel, that worked perfectly. Second, he did throw a bone initially,

at least to a lot of people who are vaccinated and who are terribly frustrated over the notion that most or at least half of the people who are using up hospital beds are not vaccinated. And third, he probably gave some incentive to some unvaccinated Quebecers to go and get their first dose rather than face even more hassle on the vaccination front. So there's so much for the best week. Why the best week? Because otherwise he has found on this one no support from any other party in the National Assembly.

If I had to describe the editorial reaction to this measure, it would range from tepid to negative. And some of the government's usually friendly commentators are among those who said this is a bridge too far. It's unpractical. It's not something we should be doing. And why would we even be spending a lot of time on this? So if Francois Legault's line on this is he wants a consensus, i.e. the support from another party, I'm not sure that's going to happen. And it may be that in the end, it's going to be yet again one of those measures that in the end, the government says, well, we're not going to pursue this any further because we cannot get the opposition parties on board i saw something really interesting this week and bruce will be interested in this

and it's subject to confirmation from others but there was one poll this week from main street that showed for the first time since the start of the pandemic, support for the Legault's party eroding. The tax on the unvaccinated is not really factored into those numbers. It's too early for that. But the curfew, which has now been abandoned, certainly was. And that went down like a lead balloon. But in those numbers, what was interesting is that the CAQ is still well positioned to win the next election, but it's losing support on the left to Quebec Solidaire. That's no surprise.

It's losing support on the right to the Quebec Conservative Party, which is a new presence on the provincial scene here, has never elected anyone. But don't let the name of the party mislead you. This is not a version of Erin O'Toole's Conservative Party. It's much closer to Maxim Belny's People's Party. And if the CAQ is leaking support to the Conservatives provincially, it would be because of the restrictions related to the pandemic. In clear, Premier Legault, with this tax on the unvaccinated, is in contrast with Bill 21 on secularism or the new language law, is targeting some of his own voters at cost to his party.

And that is really interesting because for the first time on a controversial piece of CAQ legislation, it's not the opposition parties that are under pressure to come under the tent with François Legault. It's François Legault's tent that is maybe not bursting at the seams, but showing some rips on the side, the right side, where they don't want that to happen, because these would be francophone voters outside of Montreal, right in CAQ territory. Not going to stop them from winning, but it's something government's looking for re-election in the fall would want to look at. So will I be surprised if we don't have much of a law that imposes a tax on the unvaccinated? I won't be. All right, Bruce.

Bruce and I actually talked about this a couple of days ago. And we pretty well covered all the ground you just did chantelle i don't think there's anything new in there i'm glad you guys have learned over the years you've taught us a lot about quebec over the years so we've absorbed it now here's what i think peter i don't think this ever will come to pass. I think Chantal is kind of, I interpret her saying more or less that without saying that. And I think that's fair for her role. I will say I don't think it will ever come to pass. And I don't think it should. I think it introduces a bad idea with respect to universality in our healthcare system. Having said that, I do think that it was effective at creating a different kind of conversation about the costs to all of us if people remain unvaccinated at a really important time when we're looking at huge strains on our hospital and healthcare system. And the realization that if vaccine resistance or refusal starts to become more endemic in our population, it could bankrupt our health care system as we know it.

It could create some much greater tensions, greater fiscal issues. And so I think it was useful to have the conversation changed from that standpoint i think also there has been a tendency for the pro-vax advocacy by politicians to be cast as some sort of mild version of fascism in the last little while i don't accept that argument at all but i do think that uh just the way that that conversation has been covered has put some politicians on the back foot a little bit. And by introducing this notion of if you're going to cost the health care system more money than everybody else because of a choice that you're making that we think is a dumb choice, maybe it should cost you more.

I thought that was an interesting intervention i think it probably was in part to sidestep some of the uh the political challenges that the premier was facing but last thing i'll say is that i've learned through last year not to do the math of which politician is going to face what political consequence from their handling of the pandemic until the pandemic is fully and finally over. Because I think there's just more evidence that people remember some things, they let some things go, and we don't really know how that's all going to add up. And I did see that poll, and I did kind of note that there appeared to be a decline,

but also a pretty healthy lead still. So that's where I am, Peter. I'll tell you, I got a number of letters from listeners this week on this subject, not surprisingly. And a couple of people suggested an interesting take on this, because they did not like the sense that we were going after punishing, in this particular way, the unvaccinated and the possibility of the inequities of that, depending on who they are, what they earn, where they live, etc. But they had a suggestion. They said, okay, don't tax the unvaccinated. Tax everyone. don't don't tax the unvaccinated tax everyone come up with a you know a simple formula that

adds whatever it is a percentage or a fraction of a percentage of tax to everybody and allow those who are vaccinated to prove that they have been and they can get you know a deduction on their taxes so i could just see the politicians lining up to do this uh in an election year and not only that it still gets you going up it still gets you to the same place if you are uh which is opening the door to if you're engaging in this behavior, you get punished financially. You can disguise it as much as you want. But that is still what it is. What about this notion that let's go into political science fiction.

If you've got five kids, you're probably going to cost more to the health care system than if you have no kids. If you're older, you're going to cost more than someone who is 30. Where do we stop this credit versus X? Second point, it is not as if Quebecers or Canadians in general do not pay a fair amount of taxes to finance the health care system. And if they are not getting what they should for that buck, it is on the governments who organize the health care system and the federal government that contributes to its finances. But to suddenly tell people who've been lining up for a decade or more in emergency rooms or having struggled for three years to find a family doctor, let's be real here. These problems caused by the pandemic are not singular to Canada, but the notion that Canada's healthcare system was this

great thing that worked really well before the pandemic is also a notion that most Canadians who would say if they're old enough, they may remember a time when that was the case, but it has not been the experience of people for the past 20 years. So if we're going to have a conversation over health care, let's not go for easy fixes like we're going to give you a tax and then a credit. We have had health taxes on the income tax, extra taxes in many provinces. There was one in place in Ontario under Dalton McGinty. Jean Chaguet put one in place. Then they've disappeared.

There is no evidence that any of those taxes uh have done anything to change the fundamental systemic issues that play canada's health care system okay well if that um uh we'll draw that suggestion from from the uh from the the list of things that uh can be considered and instead what do we need another you know romano commission on on the state of health care in canada and what should be done to improve it is that is that the the position we're in or the pandemic has exposed uh as well as the annual arguments over the funding of health care are we at that point where we need another, you know, national commission on health care? People don't see us when we do this, but I see you,

and you've got shelves behind you with books. And I could fill one of those shelves. They're not small shelves. I could fill one of those shelves with all the reports that were written on health care from the Romano Commission, from the Senate, from every province. Most of what was suggested in there would be gathering dust on yourself. So I would suggest the last thing we need is another Romano Commission and another act of faith in how great Medicare is

and how we will all live happily ever after. For sure, all provinces need to look at how they organize their system. The population is aging. That's going to be the case after the pandemic. And for sure, the federal government will need to look at whether its contribution is at the level that the provinces need, considering that they need to pay for health care when needs are going to be rising. And there is a limit to how much you can tax a population provincially, especially in some provinces that are poorer than others. But to have yet another commission or commissions,

I think that's just an easy way for governments who are in place in Ottawa and in the provinces to punt the issue forward until they're not in office anymore. That certainly is the history of commissions. Bruce? I just wanted to say I'm not exactly in the same place as Chantal on the quality of the healthcare system over the last 20 years.

And in my work polling Canadians, they don't pound the table and say it's fantastic, but neither do they indicate that they're deeply disappointed in it. I don't, you know, I do think that it was probably better 25 years ago than it is now. But I also think the world is a little bit more complex and there's maybe some reasonable reasons why there's change. I think there's a lot of change to come in the healthcare system with the use of virtual health solutions, which I think had been kind of delayed in their adoption. The idea that you should be able to go online and talk to a doctor or consult with a healthcare professional rather than, you know, flu season, everybody goes to their doctor to sit around the waiting room with other

people who have the flu. You know, there's some improvements underway that technology will afford. But what I do think is of value in the conversation that we're having about the Lego option is this, that it is essentially an insurance concept that we're working with. And in a lot of other markets for insurance, the basic product does have some parameters where if you behave in a certain way, you pay higher premiums. That's certainly the case in terms of driving, and it's the case in terms of property and casualty insurance. It's the case in terms of life insurance. It isn't the case in our health insurance system as it relates to the public system. But it doesn't mean that the basic math of how you live should have nothing to do with

how you can access health services. I don't like opening the door to that conversation. But I also think if we had six million people, six million parents who had infants next year who said, I'm not going to get my child vaccinated for measles and mumps and rubella. I don't actually know what the consequences of that might be to the healthcare system down the road. And I think it's reasonable to have that conversation without going to the solution of you pay higher premiums if you make these choices, but understanding that it is an insurance system and it requires people to abide by a certain social contract. And it's never really come into focus like it has now

because of the urgency and the severity of this health problem that we're facing right now. So, you know, it's a useful conversation for us to have, I think, to reflect on. Yeah, but if you don't have an incentive, that is how insurance companies make it work, or how your driver's license is regulated, that you get to pay more if you do X and Y. So you're saying we should have the conversation, but not make people pay more is kind of saying we should talk because we, it's going to make us intellectually stimulated, but we will.

And then if you go down the road of it's an insurance system, where do you draw the line? How do you deal with people who are less fortunate and who have more health issues? Because that is the conditions. How do you deal with inequality in a system that starts to distinguish between good and bad behavior and treats health as an insured service that should cost you more if your behavior is putting the system that is supposed to at risk. No, that is not the solution that I'm advocating. And I do think that there's value in having a conversation about the social contract. In fact, I think around so many issues these days, the challenge that we have in our democracies is we can't seem to muster the

will to have that conversation that says you do have an obligation to other people and how you live because that's kind of how our society works. And so I worry that we're not having enough of that conversation. I take your point that just having a conversation without an edict or a law or penalty or a sanction might not work, but not having the conversation for sure to me is causing us more problems because I think a lot of people just don't understand that there is an implicit, if you behave exactly the way you want, that could have some repercussions for me. And I think the pandemic is really driving that point home to a lot of

people. Can I just say one thing about on, on the insurance policies, whether whatever that insurance is for Chantel is quite right. Insurance premiums go up. If you don't do certain things, they also go down. If you do certain things, you go down if you do certain things you know at a you

know whatever a special kind of um you know watch on your house in terms of uh security cameras and everything your premiums go down same thing with uh your your home in terms of smoke systems and smoke alarms and fire alarms and what have you. So, you know, it does cut both ways. But listen, let me just say that this, you know, it's time for us to move on to another subject. And clearly, we've resolved this. We now know exactly what the road ahead should look like we've planned it we know it's very very clear we see the light at the end of that tunnel of a discussion absolutely yeah okay we're going to move on i'm going to take a quick break but when we come back

the latest misstep if you want to call it that at least that's certainly the way some conservatives see it, by their leader, Aaron O'Toole, when we come back. It is minus 23 in Ottawa today. Well, there he was, Aaron O'Toole, doing the weather report on his special channel. And that's just a tease out of, I ain't going to play it here, it's only 40 seconds long, but it is Aaron O'Toole trying to make a point this week and raise the subject and score some political points.

He's standing in the cold weather outside of the parliament buildings out down by the centennial flame he's standing there and this is what he has to say and we're going to talk about it and we're raising this because he's not only being challenged by journalists reporters and other members of other political parties but he's being challenged by members of his own party not necessarily mps but some pretty important people who stand in the in the background of the conservative party here's what aaron o'toole had to say it is minus 23 in ottawa today minus 37 in yellowknife canada is a cold country. We need fossil fuels, natural gas to heat our homes. We need gas to drive our cars. Even our flame is powered by our proud resource heritage. But

Stephen Gobbo, he wants to end fossil fuel usage in 18 months. He just said that in an interview. Someone so disconnected from reality that he's making policy that will hurt our country. Division and absolute disconnect from reality. We need to use our fossil fuel industry. We need to be proud of our energy workers and what we do here in Canada. Only Canada's Conservatives get it. We're going to keep you warm and we're going to fight for your jobs. Okay, only the Conservatives get it, according to Aaron O'Toole. And that's his pitch. It was on social media this week.

And it's quite a sight because he's kind of jumping around in the shot, if you look at it. You can find it on Twitter or wherever. And his target, of course, is the Minister of the Environment, Stephen Guilbeault. But was it a legitimate challenge to the minister, whose picture he pops up in the middle of the thing? He looks like he just, you know, he's in custody in Guantanamo or something. He's in some kind of orange jumpsuit.

This is the minister, not the leader of the opposition. Where is this? What happened here? What was this all about? And the backlash, I'm sure he didn't predict when he was standing there out in the cold doing his thing, but there has been a backlash from members of his own uh party especially in the back rooms bruce start us on this uh well i think the first thing that occurred to me is that the audience for this video seems to be his caucus um because there's no other logic to it in terms of the

voters that he was trying to reach in the last election campaign when he was talking about a new climate change policy in terms of the voters that he talks to about inflation this isn't an argument that would make any sense to try to pitch to mainstream canadians so i don't think that it was i think he's in a situation now where he's fighting for his life behind the scenes politically, and that he knows that he has a large caucus that wants to hear him saying friction-making things about issues that they care deeply about. But I think it's a miscalculation for him. As I've said on this show before, I think it would be better for the Conservative Party if they kept him as a leader. But I said that on the basis of seeing him as somebody who was trying to make a case for a modern, more forward-looking Conservative Party, and this ad was not that. The second thing is that it doesn't really hold up in a lot of different ways. I looked at the index for Canadian energy stocks since the time that

Stephen Guilbeault has been environment minister. And I think it's almost a straight line upwards. They've increased in value 25%. So it isn't particularly a bad time to be an investor in the energy sector. And of course, those investors presumably have taken the measure of whether Stephen Guilbeault and Justin Trudeau are trying to end energy use, which I always hate the fact that they equate energy with oil and gas. And I think a lot of reasonable voters see that as being an artifice that doesn't make sense. And the last thing for me is that on these social

platforms, we do have a real challenge where if he did that as an ad placed on a mainstream media platform, a newspaper platform or a broadcast platform, there are processes that people can follow that resulted in an investigation that have sanctions at the end of them but those don't exist in the social media world and we're really at the mercy of what the social platforms decide to do and they do have guidelines that they publish but last fall i guess it was the twitter took down a christia freeland uh tweet that they deemed was inaccurate because it had clipped a piece of video in a certain way. It's hard, you know, and I don't quarrel with their decision on that. I don't really remember the details of it, but I kind of feel like if you're going to do that, you have to look at this one and say, should this be on our platform? Does it or does it not violate our standards? It all looks like it does.

The word that Bruce has been too polite to use is it is entirely based on a lie. Stephen Gilboa is not shutting down the oil and gas industry within two years. He never said that. He talked about legislation pertaining to subsidies to the industry. He is not about to cut off your heating in January and February. And that is clearly what the man who would be the alternative prime minister, according to the polls, is telling Canadians. I agree with Bruce. He's not talking or he doesn't want to be talking to voters at large. He's talking to his base and to his caucus because he wants to hang on to his job. But at what point do you hang on to your job by making yourself unelectable as prime minister is the question I would be asking myself. Now, Aaron O'Toole is an adult, a well-educated adult with political experience.

He's not just reading a script without using his head to know I am saying something that is untrue. He knows it's not true. Exactly. Even a child that is well-informed would know that this is not true. And still he is willing to put his face on an ad that says things that are patently untrue. I would argue that in the process, he is insulting the intelligence of conservative supporters. And that is pretty bad. Because if you want to cast yourself as their best choice to become a government, you start by respecting their intelligence and telling them things that are true, not standing in front of parliament doing an ad that talks about liberals being disconnected from reality. This ad, you would believe it's in a year-end review of the best moments, crazy moments, an imitation of reality, a parody,

rather than the leader of the official opposition addressing people. Now, I looked, and I may have failed to find something that does exist, but I did try hard to find the French version of that little piece of political life in Canada, and I did not. Possibly, I missed it, but I would note that in Quebec, Stephen Guilbeault was very, very popular. And I put the English version on the social media yesterday, along with the French language press release that talks about the liberals shutting down oil and gas in two years. I can safely report that the reaction was, you know, people saying, this man needs help, basically sums up the reaction to it. I have not heard, and I do talk to some Conservative MPs in the Quebec caucus, I've not noticed them jumping on the opportunity to defend their leader on this one. And God knows the Quebec caucus tends to be loyal to Erin O'Toole.

But on this, this will come back. It will be seen again. It's being kept by the Bloc Québécois and the NDP and the Liberals. And we will see it again. Just one note about Stephen Guilbeault looking like he's coming out of Guantanamo. That's from his days as an environmental activist when I think he climbed the CN Tower or something and got arrested.

So that is from that era, which by now I think is a long gone era because it bears repeating before Before we entered politics federally, Stephen Guilbeault in Quebec was known as a moderate environmentalist. There was no accident they picked that picture to put on there. Obviously, you know, they did that. What surprises me, I guess, is there are times when leaders can get trapped by, you know, over-energetic staffers suggesting, you know, let's do this or let's do that, and it's on a busy day where they end up just doing it

and realize later their mistake. When you watch this video, if you watch it, it's not like it's a hostage video. He's there, he's at it 110%. He's energetic and animated, and man, he thinks he's hit the home run with this message. And, you know, maybe Bruce is right. Maybe part of his caucus, to them, it is a home run.

But it certainly seems to have backfired. And it continues to raise the question of where is Aaron O'Toole in the state of the leadership of his party uh because it seems like every week and that may be that may be an exaggeration but it seems like every week there's something that backfires on him either by his own uh mishandling of a situation or because he's getting bad direction or bad suggestions uh from around him this does not look like somebody who's cruising to a an easy endorsement uh from his party at at any future review um what are we fighting a different fight he you know and i think one of the things this is not an excuse And even if it is the reason for him pushing these kind of messages out, it's a shame. I mean, one of the things that we see happening over and over and over again in the United States,

we talk about it a lot, is that politicians push out complete fabrications. Lies. Pardon? L pardon lies don't be gentle it's lies and they the lies kind of accumulate in segments of public opinion and create outcomes that are different from the outcomes that people just trafficked in the truth or arguments about, you know, about the facts. So it's hard not to look at that and say, you know, to your point and Chantal's point, this is the, the most shocking thing about this was that it was deliberate, that it was very carefully calculated. And I don't know that the, I mean, the tweet is still up. I don't know that

sitting around the table in his office, people are saying that was a mistake. I think they might be looking at it saying we got a lot of attention for that. And one of the reasons why I say that, which gets me to the what's the shame of it point is that in a poll that we published this morning i think we have the people's party of canada polling at seven percent in ontario and i think that aaron o'toole is really worried about the fact that he got the leadership of the conservative party because leslie lewis and derek sloan who tend to be on that far right side of the Conservative Party, they and their supporters are looking at him and saying, this is not our guy. This is a guy who promised to advocate for the things that we advocated for. And then he switched. And so I think he's fighting to try to convince his party that he can pull back

some of the points that they're losing to the People's Party of Canada. I don't think it'll work. I don't think he'll ever be radical enough and anti-establishment enough and anti-conventional enough. But I think that's the fight that he's in. And it's dispiriting to watch. But it's become a character issue. It was already a character issue because he campaigned one way for the leadership and then another way in an election campaign. But now it's a character issue in the sense of political judgment. If you're willing to lie to my face in such a public way, with a straight face, say things that you have to know are patently false, then how could I take your word on anything is basically the question you're left with. I suspect a lot of people who have been arguing, I certainly have up to a point that Erin O'Toole was probably a better choice given the chance to do what Bruce talked about

earlier than going to another divisive leadership campaign that may or may not yield anything except a victory for one faction over the other. I think a lot of people like me have been reviewing and rethinking that reasoning. It's not for us to decide for the Conservatives what they do with their leader, but it is certainly really hard or harder after the past few weeks to make the case that this is a trustworthy alternative to Justin Trudeau. I agree with that. Yeah, I agree on that front too i i there was something

else i wanted to mention on on this situation because it's you know every week we end up talking about o2l i i go you know like are we piling on but every week he sort of adds the wood to the fire of it, and it's such an open discussion and division within his own people that fuels the conversation outside of the Conservative Party as well. 7% figure on the People's Party in Ontario that your new data with Abacus comes up with today. I want to try to understand how significant that is. Because on the one hand, that doesn't mean seats. It could mean difficulties for the traditional Conservative Party if they lose that kind of number. That's one thing and and on the other hand seven percent just happens to be similar to the number in Ontario of the unvaccinated seven to ten percent yeah so what do you take away from the seven percent figure whether what does that actually mean why should i care about it well i do think that the um the process of watching donald trump in the united states

and the fracturing that's gone on in the republican party there's a smaller less visible but still a little bit worrisome version of that that's happening in Canada. All 7% of those voters either wouldn't have voted or would have voted conservative before there was a people's party. I think that's a reasonable thing to say. So if you're the, if you're the conservative party and you're running for seats in Ontario, which is really where they live or die politically for the most part, make a case that BC matters that way to some degree and Quebec, some areas, but really

Ontario, if you're not competitive, you're not winning. If you no longer have access to 7% who would have been your voters before, the math tells me that you have to find that 7% or a big chunk of it somewhere else from the liberals in particular. That's what a roadmap to sustained victory and competitiveness would look like in a rational world for the Conservative Party. But in a Conservative Party that is constantly roiled by its internal tensions and divisions, as it has been in the last couple of leadership campaigns, that's not really the conversation that is front and center. It's the there is a you know, I mean, it's no secret that there's no surprise to me that there is a similarity in the numbers around unvaxxed or vax refusers, I should say, because I always like to make the distinction between people who say you're never going to put that vaccine in me and other people who say, I don't know, I'm a little bit worried about it. I'd still rather not that kind of thing. But the vax refuser is, you know, more likely to be an angry person who wants somebody to be angry on their behalf in political life.

And I think that what we saw when Aaron O'Toole came face to face with the fact that some of his caucus would not get vaccinated and would not say whether they were vaccinated or not, is that he had two choices. He could have said said that doesn't work for me you're not in my caucus or uh i'm going to start talking about how we shouldn't push the unvaccinated too hard and he chose that second lane and did he choose it because he really believes it i'm kind of where chantal is this is a well-educated individual who who probably hated the day that he had to accept that some of his caucus will not get vaccinated even if they understand the political risk that they put him in and the party and and that he can't do anything about it i think he could have done something about it he chose not to so i think this this dynamic of do we need to beat the people's party uh by criticizing it or trying to emulate it

is a conversation that should have been settled by now in the conservative party and it's not and i think that's what's playing out and that's why i think the math of aaron o'toole as the right leader for the for the conservative party is making some of its adherents people like uh well you you've seen the names on Twitter, people who would normally be pretty loyal conservatives, raising serious questions about why this party is representing these kinds of lies. Okay. Do you have a brief comment on that, Chantal? We're almost out of time. It's kind of a brief comment that brings us back to the beginning.

You know, when François Legault made this announcement this week about attacks on the unvaccinated, it was pretty much radio silence on Parliament Hill, including within the Conservative Party. Erin O'Toole was nowhere to be seen on the issue. And then Pierre Poilievre was on the social media denouncing Legault's move and blaming Justin Trudeau for it. But that's another story.

And a few hours later, Aaron O'Toole took a stand on Legault's initiative to say that he was totally against it, which goes against the grain of the I respect provincial autonomy. And this is something for Quebecers to decide. And I think that's another illustration of the caucus pressures that are on Mr. O'Toole. Okay, we're going to take our last break and come back. You two are going to tell me whether Boris Johnson survives another week. We're back for our final couple of minutes. Chantelle Hebert is in Montreal. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa.

And I'm in Stratford, Ontario. This is Good Talk. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Let me just say, I love nothing more on this podcast than when you ask Chantal to predict the future. You guys did not notice last week. Especially about England.

And I'm going to bring in the royal family too. You never noticed last week that I predicted nothing in the sense that I said Trudeau would still be prime minister this time next year even if he quits he will still be prime minister because likely they won't have had a leadership convention but you guys didn't notice so I'm trying to find out whether Mr. Johnson resigned while we were doing this he hasn't but I don't think that he can survive you don't think he can and not with the latest blunder i mean it's like you can't believe this stuff you couldn't write this in a you know a very british scandal

uh movie it turns out he had number 10 downing street you know the 24 sussex drive of of britain had or what used to be 24 sussex drive. We've got to talk about that someday. But it turns out that 10 Downing Street had two parties the night before the Duke of Edinburgh was buried, had the funeral service, and the Queen sat alone because of social distancing in the Windsor Castle Cathedral. I mean, it's unbelievable. He's got members of his own party are after him,

but he still sits there in the Prime Minister's chair, and Chantel is now on the record. He can't survive. Is he, like, gone in the next week? Ask Bruce. does he is he like gone in the next week ask bruce well he's not i don't think he's going to survive either and i do think that the only question of when is is do the people who want to replace him want to do it now or want to wait and

do it later but i think he's uh he's mortally wounded i'm kind of amazed at how much these these uh british conservatives like to party it just seems like they're uh they're bringing their party on party on guys downing every day and it's a bring your own bottle and sometimes we'll do it outside and and uh I just had never had any idea that they were so into partying. What would they be like outside of the pandemic? It must be like tiki torches and kind of hanging lanterns every night at Tim Downing. It's amazing. And we don't live like that here.

At least our conservatives don't. That's for sure. It's probably a good thing. Or maybe they do and we just don't know about it. I don't live like that here. At least our conservatives don't. That's for sure. It's probably a good thing. Or maybe they do and we just don't know about it. I don't think so. It doesn't sound like they're in much of a party mood. They've got storn away. They actually have an official residence as opposed to the prime minister who doesn't.

I wondered if you were going to ask us if Djokovic was going to be sent home and uh if we could ask chantal to predict that hoping that she didn't notice that it looked like he actually is going to be sent home uh it looked like this morning they took his his visa away yes but he's still there he's still there and how many times is this going to happen this story never ends either oh that's for trudeau kind of lane well you know he you know he he might be there for one round or something like that, but I don't think he's going to get on a cart there. Do you? About your Trudeau prediction,

apparently one of the first things he told this cabinet when he put it together was that he hoped to lead it in another election. Well, he has to say that though. How long would it take if he'd said anything different? That's a warning. Don't organize right under my nose, basically, is what it means. Okay, well, I've got all your predictions written down now. What about you, Peter?

Is he gone or is he out? Bojo doesn't go. I'm still on my same Trudeau line that he'll be gone before the end of this year. But he won't, but that's okay. We'll give you a pass on that. And as for Djokovic, I don't see him playing,

but who knows? I'm not a big tennis guy. Bojo stays, Djoko goes, Trudeau goes. Trudeau goes. All right. You're on.

Everybody's on. Thank you, Chantel and Montreal, Bruce and Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. You're on. Everybody's on. Thank you, Chantelle and Montreal, Bruce and Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again next week.