The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "Its High Noon for Erin O'Toole". SMT with Bruce Anderson.

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

As the voting was taking place on Erin O'Toole's leadership Smoke Mirrors and The Truth had these thoughts on the dilemma facing the Conservatives and their leadership.  Also, how are the people of Ottawa holding up to the protests in their city?

It's Wednesday, and that means Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. And what a day for SMT as it's high noon for Aaron O'Toole. Stay with us. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Bruce Anderson is where he always is, in Honkin, Ottawa. And we'll get to the Honkin' in Ottawa a little later, but we've obviously got a story to focus on right now, and that's the situation for Aaron O'Toole. I call it High Noon for Aaron O'Toole, and I know that dates me. I know High Noon was 1952.

It was a black-and- white movie, but it won four Academy Awards. And it is as popular today as it ever was, right? It's a classic. It's a classic. It's a classic. Just like you. And it was High Noon for Gary Cooper for sure,

just as it is High Noon today for Aaron O'Toole. As we are talking right now, that Conservative caucus is meeting in Ottawa. Aaron O'Toole has apparently just been speaking or is in the midst of speaking to his caucus after listening to two or three hours of speeches, both on the attack on his leadership

and in defense of his leadership. And then once he finishes, they're going to vote on his leadership. And we know there are a significant number of conservative MPs who are going to vote against Aaron O'Toole's leadership. If it's more than 50%, then there's going to be a leadership review. So there'll be these arguments over what figure forces him to resign, what figure means a new leadership vote. So there'll be lots of talk about those numbers.

But we are told that one way or the other, there will be a decision today, and it could come in this next half hour or so while we are on the air. So what's your take as of this moment on where we are in this story, Mr. Bruce? Well, Peter,

I, I remember in one of the podcasts that we did right after the election, we were talking about Mr. O'Toole and his future. And I remember saying words to the effect of, I think his party is just going to want him to bleed out over the next four or five, six months,

and then they're going to replace him. And I think that that is what has been happening. I don't think that there's any scenario where he comes out of today in a strong situation. He might survive the vote if survival means less than 50% want a leadership convention. But honestly, I think for him to come out with a chance of holding on to his leadership, that number, 35, I think we're told, of caucus members who said they wanted him replaced, that number has to shrink quite a lot

because you can't have a caucus of that size anyway with 35 members of it on the record saying they do not want you as leader and expect that to be a stable, viable, competitive party. So I think he's, I don't know if he did a dry January, but it's February now and he may need a stiff drink tonight after the day that he's going through today. But I'd be very surprised if he doesn't need to start planning for what his what the next chapter in his professional life is maybe

in politics maybe not in politics but I don't like his chances of getting out of this as leader of the conservative party for the long term well the the caucus size is 119 and there are at least 35 who are against him as you say you know that say, that's almost one-third of the caucus. That's a really difficult position to be in, and that's of those who are willing to actually say they're voting against him. We've watched enough of these things over the years, both conservatives and liberals, and to some degree the NDP, that when you press them on which way they would vote before the vote,

you're never sure that you're getting the real story, especially if you're of particular interest in it. If Aaron O'Toole is going up to people and asking them, are you going to vote for me, he may be getting answers that aren't necessarily the ones that will take impact at the ballot box. We've seen that happen enough times. There are a couple of things that he's been promising in his speech.

We're discovering that he's promising that he will ask the party executive to move up the date of its scheduled review of leadership vote, which was for 2023. He's asking them to move that up to when, which was for 2023. He's asking them to move that up to when we don't know. He's also promising that obviously there are going to be changes needed at the top. I assume he means around him as opposed to him personally. But he's been making these kind of commitments in the speech he's giving, his last pitch to members.

And the question will be whether either one of those or anything else he may have said is enough to change the minds of those who are clearly adamantly against him. In every prior version of something that looks like this, where a leader has a bad event, an election that didn't turn out the way that they hoped, and you know that human nature in political parties and ambition of other people being what it is, that you could be faced with a leadership challenge. The kind of rule of thumb, the operating principle is you start battling to hold on to your leadership the very first day, not the very last day. And so I'm kind of struck by the fact that in the months since the election campaign,

it feels like Aaron O'Toole didn't do very much to secure the vocal support of, you know, what you might call a palace guard, leading voices in the caucus, in the party who say not only, yeah, we're willing to kind of stick with him, but something a lot more positive than that. And we have not seen anything of that sort. So I see no palace guard. I saw a story this morning, or at least a tweet that suggested that he was calling his MPs and leaving voicemails, telling them that he was asking for the leadership convention or the leadership review date to be moved up. And I have to say, and I don't mean this disrespectfully to Aaron O'Toole, but that sounds pathetic. Calling and leaving voicemails. You're the leader of this caucus. Why aren't these people at your house on the weekend having meals with you, talking it through, working the, you know, you've got to be not calling

and leaving emails. The other thing is he's saying, you know, in one tweet, he's saying, I'm a forceful leader for the right approach for the party. And then the next day, it looks like that's not going that well. And so he's like, if you don't like my policies, I can change them. And that to me is kind of on brand for him. That's the thing that has caused him, you know, maybe not the biggest problem that he has, but a very big problem for him, which is that people don't know whether they can trust a position that he takes one day to be the position that he'll hold in the future. So I think he's he has not done himself any favors, and that's putting it mildly.

Meanwhile, I think that his party really has a big fundamental existential problem, which is that all of the energy in that party seems to be pulling towards a version of conservative that is probably not electable in bc ontario quebec and possibly in atlantic canada you know um caucus meetings are supposed to be held in secret right they're they're private this one's kind of weird for starters because it's a virtual caucus meeting um nobody's they're not all in the same room they're all over the place they're either in their offices in Ottawa or they're in their writings different parts of the country but conservatives are meeting virtually it's still supposed to be secret uh but as often happens in party politics especially when there's tension within that party

it leaks like a sieve and that's what's been happening uh throughout the last couple of hours three hours of speeches in defense and uh on the attack on aaron o'toole and now his his speech that is supposed to wrap things up before the actual vote um apparently he pleaded with them um to to support him one more time, that he was sorry if he's offended different people. And in this, according to our friend Bob Fyfe from the Globe and Mail, who just tweeted this, Aaron O'Toole wrapped up his speech this way.

I'm asking for your support, colleagues. I'm asking to have the courage, you to have the courage to give a chance to our teams. You have been heard. My goal will be to bring us together. Now, that sounds like the speech that he probably should have given after the election, you know, six months ago or whenever it was. But here he is giving it today, clearly, fully aware that his political survival is on the line right now. What's missing from Bob's, you know, what's been missing from Bob's, I want to say live tweeting. I know he's not in the caucus, but it sounds like he's got sources anyway. Bob's always had sources. Right.

So what's missing is that Aaron O'Toole hushed the room, gave a stirring, powerful defense of his leadership and an invocation to join with him and running into the next election and defeating the liberals. And people stood up and applauded. That's what you need to hear in a situation like this if the leader is going to survive. What you don't want to hear if you're working with that leader or supporter of that leader is he concluded by saying, I'm sorry, I'm going to try to do better. Please stick with me. That is that's kind of an epitaph sort of finish to his speech. And you're right, Peter. I mean, the time for him, if he felt like he had something to apologize for, the time to say it wasn't between last Friday and today. It was to kind of work through those caucus relationships. And you and I know,

I'd be interested to know if you rank ordered the leaders of parties, and let's not do all of them, because you and I have too many leaders in our memory bank really shows not be long enough but we know what it looks like when when leaders tend to those relationships and for my money brian mulroney was has always been the gold standard but i gotta say that for all that aaron o'toole is a garrulous friendly outgoing guy it's remarkable that it seems as though this effort to mend fences with his caucus is happening not at the 11th hour but the 11th hour and the 58th minute it's really late to be trying to do this and it isn't going to work i don't think well. Well, I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell, as they say,

of him changing those 35 who've committed their names to paper and wrote the letter that forced this meeting today. It's a question of whether... This is good. I feel like you're going to bet on him surviving. I feel like this is where you're going with this, and I want to hear you say that. No, I'm not there yet. Oh, okay. Not from what i've read so far and i you know we weren't in the room and fife may be saving his best stuff for for his

his piece of the world you hear folks peter thinks he's got a chance that's not what i said but here here here is what i am saying, traditionally, or not traditionally, but technically, the leader can survive with 50% plus one. And I remember the story of a premier who was running in a situation like this and who told his, the counters, that when you get to 50% plus one, stop the counting and throw everything out. I've passed. I don't want to hear what the final number is. That's not what Joe Clark did. Joe Clark wanted to get over 70%, or it was determined by the people around Joe Clark in 1981

that he needed more than 70% of his party to support him. He came in at 67-point-something, and after an hour or so of deliberation he decided to pull the pin. He stepped down, called for a leadership convention at which he ran and finished second to Brian Mulroney. What is Aaron O'Toole going to do when he sees the number? Well let's see what the number is and what the constitutional requirements are. I think it's a – well, I don't know for certainty, and I'm not sure who does know with certainty what the requirement is of the leader

depending on what the number is on the vote count. I can tell you that they're voting right now um so how long does this take to count 100 or so votes i think that the the other way to look at this is to kind of go back over the last few leadership races of the conservative party and to say what were the surprises for kind of outside the party observers. And to me, it was the strength of Max Bernier. It was the performance of Lesley Lewis and Derek Sloan in terms of the number of votes that they got. And it was the election of Andrew Scheer because of the support that he got from faith-based conservatives. Social conservatives carried him over top of Max Bernier on the 13th ballot. And so, when I say that, I'm kind of like, what is that telling me? It's telling me that Peter McKay didn't really have much of a chance.

Michael Chong didn't have much of a chance. Lisa Raitt didn't have much of a chance. They didn't even want to hear talk of Jean Charest. There has been so little interest in a centrist conservative and so much energy behind the more faith-based conservatives or further right conservatives that it would be shocking to me if the only way I think that Aaron O'Toole could survive is if he somehow convinced those MPs whom he said he was going to be true blue, meaning that was code for I'm going to support all of the things that you believe in and that you're tired of seeing treated as inappropriate positions. I'm going to be that guy for you. And they looked at him and they said, you know what? You don't look like you're coming from that place. You're from Ontario, and that's not normally where we find that kind of attitude. But you're telling us that this is who you're going to be.

And so we're going to take that leap of faith. And then they feel like he betrayed that undertaking. Now, I happen to think that he did the right thing in terms of the ultimate positions that he ran on. I don't think it was a safe choice for him to promise one thing and then to go in the exact opposite direction on things like climate change and so on. But all of it tells me that if he's trying to convince them that his about face from true blue to purple is something he's prepared to reverse again and go back to true blue, why would they believe him? How could they believe him? Is it because, you know, sometimes MPs will go, I want to believe him because I think he's popular and I think he can win, except there's no evidence of that. His negatives are higher than any other leader on the federal stage.

His positives are lower. He has no cards. Well, he certainly has no cards if his caucus votes against him. And, you know, as we said, there are 119 caucus members. If 60 of them vote against him, in other words, 50% plus one, or anything above that, what happens is there then is a vote almost immediately, probably later today, on who an interim leader should be.

He will have to step down. And there will be an interim leader who will kind of handle the leadership issues until such time as the party elects a new leader. Went through this after Stephen Harper. They had a fantastic interim leader in Ronna Ambrose. But the rules, and I don't know whether they've adapted the rules since, the rules said if you're interim leader in Ronna Ambrose. But the rules, and I don't know whether they've adapted the rules since, the rules said if you're interim leader, you can't run for leader.

Man, I bet they wish they didn't have that rule. As Ronna Ambrose, one assumes, would have done better than Andrew Scheer and probably wouldn't have been in the jackpot that Aaron O'Toole finds himself in today, assuming he doesn't get out of it. Now, are you sure, Peter? I don't know. And you said it like you were sure. So you're probably sure because usually only say that that way when you are sure but um if i'm aaron o'toole uh maybe my pitch is i'm not going to run for the leadership i will stay on until the leadership convention if people want rather than do this

interim leadership thing um if he wants to do that do you know if the rules would allow that to be the case or is it absolutely required that there be an interim leader? My understanding is there has to be an interim leader, but I could be wrong and he may make that pitch anyway, but I think if they end up turfing him today, I'm not so sure they're, they're anxious to have him still be the leader, even if it's an interim leader. It could be a while before there's a leadership convention. It could be six months. It could be a year.

These things take time, right? And they take money. So I'm not sure. The rules governing some of this have been, for me, have been difficult to be sure of um but one thing seems clear is if there are 60 or more votes against him today he's toast so look i think that the more likely scenario i'd be surprised if there if a majority surprised but not shocked if a majority vote to turf i think the number will be higher than 35 but i think at 35 it's still a terrible number

it's a fatal number it's just a slow fatal number so if i'm him and i have the majority but i don't have you know a bigger number than it appears to have now, then maybe that's the cue I take to say, look, I'm not going to, I think we should move up the leadership convention, but I'm not going to compete in that race. I will be the leader until that race is concluded. And that way he gets to do a little bit more of kind of defining himself in a way that's maybe useful for the party, maybe useful for him. I don't know. But if I'm him, the last thing I want to do is have another leadership race. Try to convince people in that scenario that I'm the right choice against Doug Ford or

Pierre Polyev or whoever else might enter the race. Because my starting point is really not very good. I just haven't seen the manifestation of support for him in the hours leading up to today's vote that suggests that he would have a kind of a core of support where other leaders that we've seen in the past who've gone through this, they always had a cadre of high profile supporters, vocal supporters. And, you know, you could sort of see pockets of where they were going to get support when a vote actually happens. And I'm really struggling to see that for aaron right now all right well the um the the voting is going on and the counting is going on in a virtual way i don't know who does the counting i don't know how that's supervised

there's often been in past conventions issues surrounding who's doing the counting and whether it was an accounting firm separate from a party official or not. I don't know. I don't know how that's working out. They tell us that the vote could be announced very soon. So if it's within the body of our program today, we'll certainly give you that vote. We're on top of it. We're watching it. But there is another story in Ottawa to talk about, and we want to talk about it briefly, which we'll do right after this.

And hello once again. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. You're listening to Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. There's always lots of smoke and mirrors and the truth on days like this in politics in Ottawa. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, as I said, we're watching this and we will tell you immediately if something happens in the body of Smoke Maris and the Truth today. But Bruce, you're in Ottawa.

I can almost hear the honking. That's still going on there, day five. And the patience of the people of Ottawa seems to be running very, very thin. And the questions that are being raised about the police in Ottawa, the Ottawa police, and what they're doing, I mean, there are pictures online of them, you know, thumbs up with the truckers, whether they're just trying to keep the peace

or whether they're part of the protest to some people as being as being a legitimate question to ask because people are saying enough already let's end this now ending it could be very difficult and it could turn violent or it could turn you know to be something that was very easy they just needed a push who knows but whatever you're there i'm not give me a sense of the atmosphere in the uh in the capital oh i think people are very stressed uh very, depending on how close you are to the discomfort and the sense of insecurity and the sense of rage and the noise and the traffic problems. You're on some sort of spectrum between frustrated to fearful um and i i think that you know a lot of people were willing to go along with the notion of this protest deserves to have its voice heard um i think that got shaken once

it became clear that there were significant um involvement of very far rightright Nazi-type protesters in and amongst others. I think that it's sort of the desecration of the war memorial and various other things that went on here made a lot of people who are following this very closely, and I don't think people across the country are following it quite as closely, but maybe people here take a look at this and say you came you're going to say your piece but then you're going to have to leave because not just is it inconvenient but uh the nature of the behavior of a significant number and i know that the protest organizers really want to challenge what's a significant number is not

the majority of us all that kind of thing there's a lot of really appalling challenge what's a significant number is not the majority of us all that kind of thing there's a lot of really appalling behavior that's going on that forced the closure of lots of businesses of a of a the major kind of a shopping center in downtown ottawa and people are fed up and people are fed up with the pandemic, but they're fed up with this protest. And now they are turning their attention to the police and saying, look, we get that you didn't want to provoke these protesters when they first got here and were full of piss and vinegar and you didn't want to cause violence. But now you're not doing anything. And that's it's gone on long enough. Start writing tickets.

Start charging people for misbehavior. Start telling people they got to go. Last night, I think it was that there was a, some people were bringing jerry cans of diesel fuel for trucks that otherwise were going to run out of fuel that were parked in front of the parliament buildings and what did the police do they you know made sure that they were safely escorted to go and fill up those trucks again now you could look at that and say well they were just trying to keep everything safe or you could go you know what maybe saying

you can't get more fuel uh is a way that you mount pressure on these trucks to get the hell out of Dodge. They've got to go and they're going to go. And they believe they put out this statement today saying, you know, all we want is a respectful dialogue with the government so that the government takes down all of the vaccine mandates. That is goddamn crazy. That's crazy. We are not going to let 250 people in our country say, we don't like this thing and we're going to stop the government in its tracks and it's going to bend to our will. will like even if they were arguing a more sensible thing than they are arguing which is completely nonsensical because even if trudeau dropped this vaccine mandate for truckers at the border the truckers still couldn't cross the border because joe biden has the same mandate in place

so this is ludicrous and i think that a good number and here we carefully when i say this a good number of the non-monolithic media have done a pretty good job of identifying uh some of the horrible behaviors i think now they need to put a lot more of their weight behind this needs to end the point's been made uh disruptions uh intense and the idea that that waiting for the government to change its policy because of these protesters that's just that's just crazy that's not ever going to happen and it never should happen so back what do you think peter no back up first all. What do you mean by the non-monolithic media? I mean, all the media are not the same, as you and I and Chantal regularly feel inclined to say. Well, Chantal and I do feel inclined to say.

You're not quite there. When I'm in your company, I certainly always now say that. I'm not sure if I stick to that line everywhere I go. But honestly, I have seen some very good journalism about this. And I've seen also journalists who are properly outraged at the racism, at the intolerant views that are being expressed, at the fact that somebody is selling yellow star buttons. These things are, there's a danger that if we don't draw attention to these things, that we kind of shrug it off and say a few bad apples. What was the line that I think Preston Manning used and maybe Pierre

Polyev used something like this, which is that any bright light is going to attract a few bugs. You know what? Don't go up there with double doubles. Don't go up there with Timbits. You know those people are going to be there. You can say that you're against the vaccine mandates without conveying a sense of legitimacy

to a group that includes that many people who are desecrating our monuments and who are at this point breaking the law. Now, I did see that Pierre Polyev seemed to feel obliged today to say that he was uncomfortable with how much a lawbreaking was going on. But was he just doing that because his leadership hopes are on the line and he now kind of understands that the first question after Aaron O'Toole gets deposed is going to be, what kind of a prime minister would you make? Maybe. But I think people really need to look at the full extent of Pierre-Paul Lievre's kind of conduct and the things that he's said and how cheerfully he's kind of backed the trucker convoy before they come to a view about him. And some people will like him and some people will think he stands for the right things. And

a lot of people, I think, will have a different view. Okay, before we go, I want you to, do you know the answer to this question? I mean, one has to assume that the various security forces that are monitoring the situation in Ottawa, they have a plan B. There has to be a plan B of how they clear this out and how they move on these demonstrators, if that's what's called for. Well, if it's called for, the call has to come from someone. And it's unclear to me, because of the strange nature of Ottawa, part of this is happening on land that the federal government is responsible for through the National Capital Commission.

Part of it's on the city streets of Ottawa, and therefore municipal and part of it is on the under the one assumes the leadership of the province of Ontario. So if something's going to happen who has to make that call? Do you know? I don't. I mean I do think that you're right to say there's a blend of jurisdictions and in a situation like this it's probably not all that unheard of or unimaginable that that no level of government wants to dictate the solution to the others um i've felt like um premier ford has been pretty standoffish about this whole

situation this is the second biggest city in the province that he governs and he's had remarkably little to say i don't know if that's partly a function of embarrassment that his daughter is a prominent and vocal uh anti-vaxxer um or or what exactly maybe he's just trying to keep his powder dry and stay out of the fray so that his name gets floated positively in the context of leadership, either because that helps him win reelection in Ontario or maybe because he wants to be the leader of the federal conservative party. But either way, I don't think that he's been as strong a voice or as strong a hand on this as he could be. And right now, I do think that all three levels of government need to either work together to say we're bringing this to an end and this is how or one of them needs to take the lead and get on with it.

Well, something has to move on that front. Tickets every hour for all of these trucks. That's what I would do. There's an $800,000 police bill every day that this goes on. And we know that these protesters have raised millions of dollars. So I think it's starting to ratchet up some economic pressure. And for sure, no more fuel to the convoy trucks that are parked in downtown Ottawa. It did seem bizarre.

I've seen those pictures of them saying, oh, yeah, sure, this way with the fuel. This is the police, the security. Yeah, sure, just move the fuel in there. Now, you can make the argument, these guys, you know, it's cold, you need heat in the truck, whatever. But, you know, it would seem that that would be a fairly easy way to put some pressure on to move the truck out. However, I'm not a security expert on how these things are done,

but day five, this has gone on far longer than I ever thought it would, and I don't think they've accomplished anything by the length of it. They made their point last weekend. It cost them because of some of the stuff that happened, but they made their point for whatever it was worth, and that was that. All right, back to the main story that we came on. We can tell you that the latest from Ottawa at this hour, anyway, as we're recording this, is that the vote has been taking place

by the members of the Conservative caucus. They now have to count the votes and go through the process of decision-making. I assume the leader will be given, afforded a few moments with the count number to make up his own mind how he wants to portray that. But the word we're starting to get out of that area that's supposedly sealed tight from any sourcing, the word we're getting is that it could be at least another hour or more or later this afternoon before we get results. That could change. We do know that in past leadership votes, man, we've sat around long enough in a number of different arenas and conventions

to know that the counting process can take a lot longer than you think even when there's only 120 or whatever it is uh votes to be counted anyway so sure it's not it's not a counting problem though let's be yeah let's be sure of that right this is about what are we going to say when the number has to come out who's going to take what position how are we going to say when the number has to come out? Who's going to take what position? How are we going to deal with this? That's right. Who's going to be the spokesperson? Give the leader whatever time he needs to make a decision on what he wants to say.

Which of those two speeches he's got in his pocket he wants to read into the microphone. So all that's happening as we speak and will become clearer, I assume, as the day goes on. All right, that's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth for this Wednesday. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Bruce Anderson has been with us from Ottawa. We'll be back, both Bruce and I, with Chantelle

Hebert on Friday. There'll be lots to talk about on Good Talk. And tomorrow it's your turn. It's your chance to weigh in on any of these issues. So don't be shy. And so far this week, many of you have not been shy. So we look forward to hearing what you have to say. That'll be on tomorrow's episode of The Bridge.

So thanks for listening on this day. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours