The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts #5 -- The Year Ender

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore and former Trudeau principal secretary Gerald Butts pick up their conversation again, this time on a year-ender.  Dropping their natural partisanship for our benefit, James and Gerry look at the top stories of the year from the perspective only they can give.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday, the last week before the holiday break. A special show, we've got the Moore-Butts Conversation, number five. And hello there, welcome, this is The Bridge. For new listeners, and I know there are quite a few of those in the last little while, you're probably wondering, the Moore-Butts conversation number five? Moore-Butts? What the heck is that? Well, let me tell you what the heck it is. Because it's been a great conversation series that we've been having throughout this year. And it started back around the time of the convoy. And we've had it a number of times since obviously this is the fifth one for this year

now what are more butts well more butts are two different guys more is james moore the former conservative cabinet minister under the stephen harper prime ministership. And Butts is Jerry Butts, Gerald Butts, the former principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So combining these two guys who are friends, but I guess political opponents, but they agreed to start doing these programs, these conversations at different times this year, with the whole idea of trying to break down the partisan wall that exists between their two sides. And take us as much as they can behind the scenes so we better understand the political process. So we've talked about any number of different things this year in these conversations.

This one is a little different. It is year-end time, so lots of people are doing their kind of year-end thoughts. So the idea here was to get the two fellows together and talk about some of the big stories of the year and try and take us, once again, in a way behind the scenes, but primarily give us their take, their view, on what may have been really going on, to some extent, behind the scenes. The things that happened that we didn't notice, that weren't apparent to us. So that's the idea behind More Buts, number five. things that happened that we didn't notice, that weren't apparent to us. So that's the idea behind more buts number five, which we're about to air now.

So sit back, enjoy, listen, and, you know, we'll either learn or we'll disagree, but it's a good way to engage on some of these topics as we get ready to close out 2022 which has been a pretty a pretty remarkable year on more than a few fronts so let's get at it here it is more butts conversation number five okay let's get started then uh with a sense of some of the big stories of of the past year and getting you to kind of guide us into what you were seeing that we probably weren't seeing that's the trick on on these stories so let's start with uh i guess what was the biggest story of the year for for canada and that was the convoy and it's uh and it's fallout so james when you when you think back to that story what what were you seeing that we probably weren't seeing the convoy protest it was interesting it was actually some parallels to that with covid in the sense that you know when when covid first started it

was you know we didn't know what it was there was anxiety about it you didn't know what it was. There was anxiety about it. You didn't know where it was going. You didn't kind of know how it was going to end. But the convoy protest, when it began, I think for a lot of conservatives, particularly in Western Canada, it seemed exciting. People were rising up. It seemed very grassroots. It seemed very organic.

It's gaining momentum. There's a bunch of people going to Ottawa. We've seen this in the past. Farmers have gone to Ottawa. A bunch of movements have gone to Ottawa in order to register protests and all that. And you kind of want to be associated with it. You need to be sort of careful about it. But then, of course, as it went along and it's sort of like COVID, it sort of had its different elements and stories to it. People became anxious about it. We forget now because sort of the narrative is

sort of settled. We forget now that towards the end of that month-long protest in Ottawa, that, you know, Conservatives said, under Candace Bergen as leader, they said it was time for them to go home. They said they made the point, time to go home, and they supported the government, you know, and their message that the protest, they'd made their point, go home, stop hawking, leave the people of Ottawa alone. And it sort of morphed into something different. So I suppose the convoy protest was the story honking, leave the people of Ottawa alone. And it's sort of morphed into something different. So I suppose the convoy protest was the story of the year in the sense that that's what the media talked about the most. But I think like a lot of things in politics, you know, the lesson that I always have is be very careful. Be very careful about what you associate with because you don't know how it's going.

Jason Kenney's leadership, you know, in Alberta on COVID is an example parallel one to this, right, where, you know, there was a point about halfway through between sort of the second and third variant of COVID, where Doug Ford decided to sort of go back and not be the face of the government's actions on COVID and to put Dr. Kieran Moore in front and have Christine Elliott, his health minister in front, which is where John Horgan was from the beginning in British Columbia. But Jason Kenney kept being the face of COVID, the face of COVID, and he paid the political price because as the narrative and the substance of COVID changed over time, people started getting exhausted with the spokespeople, exhausted with the start and stops and push and pulls of policy of open and close. And then they just started blaming the spokesperson for it over time and mistakes that were made, of course, that all governments do. But if Bonnie Henry makes a mistake, well,

it must be rooted in science. If John Horgan makes a mistake, well, it must be because he's trying to play some political game and all that. And Jason got bit by that snake. Doug Ford seems to have avoided it. And John Horgan never was in danger of it. And with regard to the convoy protests, it seems like in the beginning, it seemed like a really good idea. But if you're if you're from rural and suburban Saskatchewan and you're a conservative MP, it always seemed like a good idea, because as long as they're in Ottawa and they're yelling F Trudeau, that's what my constituents think. And the beginning of it was clearly virtuous. So all of it is fine. But if you're in a more marginal riding or you have a little bit more nuance about not just the voters that you have, but the voters that you aspire to get, you might be a little bit more nervous about who you're associating yourself with. So I think one of the lessons about all this is that just because something looks good and feels good and sounds good and it looks like they're your people,

the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Jerry, what are you, what were you seeing there? Well, I think if, if I were in my, uh, former, I guess you're asking us to kind of think about this from the context of what we would have had access to in our former positions. I think you think of two things, Peter, one is where is this coming from a and B, where is it going? And that's a different way of saying what James said in a bit of a nutshell that you want to make sure before you either aggressively confront people or you aggressively hug them, then that you have the most robust possible sense of who they are and what they want and what are the likely outcomes going to be down the road. Because one thing you learn very quickly in politics is it's not so much how the story plays or feels on the day when it's transpiring that matters. It's how it endures and what it becomes. Right. So I very much agree with James's perspective on that. What I noticed, and this is coming from someone who was living in Ottawa through the thing. So I had a bit of a different, I think, visceral reaction to it than a lot of people did, because it's a national sport to hate the national capital and just about all nations.

And ours is no exception to that. So there were, I'm sure, a lot of people across the country saying, who cares if it's if Ottawa is getting disrupted? Ottawa needs to be disrupted. And while I appreciate that point of view, there was very real peril being put on vulnerable people here. And I think that's what I was worried about. I was worried about the fact that, you know, our kids couldn't go hang out with their friends at the mall. And that was because the people who work at very modestly compensated jobs and retail didn't have jobs for the time that was going on. And there were lots of reports of people being harassed and abused downtown.

And as you know, you both know from spending a good portion of your time in Ottawa, downtown Ottawa is not Rockcliffe, right? It's not the rich part of Ottawa. It's where there's a lot of fixed income seniors. There's a lot of low income housing. There's a lot of people who work driving buses and working in shopping malls and that sort of thing. So it was not, they weren't taken into the man. Let me put it that way by being in a lower town and being in center town and disrupting the lives of the people there. So the two observations I would make one was, it was pretty clear that the federal government wanted to stay as far away from this as possible, right? From the very beginning, they were,

the initial responses were were this is a problem for the Ottawa police to deal with and we have full confidence in the Ottawa police which I doubt anybody ever really had full confidence in the Ottawa police from the very beginning and as we've learned from the tome of emails and text messages that have been aired through the public inquiry process. It was pretty early when they were having their doubts about whether or not the Ottawa police had their handle on the situation. But you would be kind of conflicted by these two opposing tendencies. One is to wrap your arms around this thing and make it go away. And on the other hand, not be responsible for things

that you can't be responsible for. Because if you were plotting, again, you two both know Ottawa, if you were plotting to cause maximum jurisdictional chaos in this country, you would park in front of the prime minister's office on Wellington Street. Because as someone who worked in that building for the better part of four years, it's really unclear who has jurisdiction over it. It's allegedly the Ottawa police, but it's the road that divides the office of the first minister from the houses of parliament.

So what right thinking Canadian is going to think that's a problem for the Ottawa police and not the RCMP or some other federal force? So I think that they were what I what I what I'm sure they were thinking about behind the scenes was we don't have the tools at our disposal to deal with this. It's somebody else's problem, but ultimately we're going to get blamed for it. So what do we do about it? Well, and the other thing about that protest, you mentioned the prime minister's office there, right? Is that, you know, I'm not unlike the shooting of October 2014 when Parliament Hill was torn by one lone gunman. You know, these protests, if it was anything that was genuinely dangerous and genuinely deadly and anything like effectively planned, it could be a massacre. Like it could have been a massacre on, on absolutely in October of 2014,

if he had a more effective rifle knew the layout of the building and all that, you know, with regard to the national capital, it genuinely is problematic. You'd think, I mean, the Americans learned because they moved their embassy after the Oklahoma city bombing and other things that had happened in Ottawa to be more secure where they are in the national capital. But, but in Ottawa, it's very dangerous, but to your more macro point that Peter, the national capital. But in Ottawa, it's very dangerous. But to your more macro point, Peter, I've always had the view that, you know, in retrospect,

you know, the most effective governments are governments that have a relentless pursuit of empathy. It doesn't mean you're trying to please all people all the time, but a relentless pursuit of understanding people's perspectives and then navigating appropriately towards your design goals, towards what your ideological or policy view are, what your mandate is and all that. But you have to relentlessly pursue an empathetic mindset so you understand why are people reacting

the way they are and think what they are. And with regard to the truck of protests, you know, I've always had the view that there were actually three protests there. There was the stage one of the protest, which is sort of a rising up of exhausted Canadians, particularly from Western Canada, particularly those in the center right, who were just exhausted and frustrated with Justin Trudeau's approach to things. And all the mandates, even though they were 95 percent provincial, they decided to go after Justin Trudeau because the tipping point was this mandate, American imposed mandate on vaccines. Fine. But there's virtue in people being exercised to the point of wanting to express their point of view regardless. So that's stage one. Stage two was the siege of the national

capital, which was unconscionable, illegal, wrong, dangerous, sets a wrong precedent, sends a bad message to the world. And then stage three was the attempt to close the borders and all that. So people who are broadly empathetic of the government focus entirely on the border closures and the dangers of the national capital, which is fine because that's a reasonable perspective. And the people who don't like Justin Trudeau and are sympathetic to the stage one, which is the uprising of people who are frustrated with government in general and COVID in particular and Justin Trudeau and Brand, they focus on that because there's some virtue and some empathy with people who have that perspective. But if all you do is focus on stage one and have empathy for that

perspective, or if all you do is have empathy for people in downtown Ottawa who lost a month's worth of sleep and babies lost, you know, their ability to sleep, which is their ability, all that stuff. If you only focus on your perspective and you have no empathy for the other, then all we do is clash and all we do is yell at each other. And all we do is just double and triple down on our perspective and have no sense of respect for each other. And that's really dangerous. All right. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. Obviously. I think that like most protests, Peter,

it was susceptible to being taken over by people who weren't necessarily in line with the original intentions of the first people who protested. And let's not forget, we talk about where you would have had access to, through the Five Eyes network intelligence, that would have made you a lot more certain about what was going on in Russia than your average Joe or Jane was on the street. So you also have to factor that into your considerations about what's transpiring in front of you, because it wouldn't be the first time

that foreign actors took advantage of a domestic situation to create chaos and discord. Okay. You've given us a good segue, because that's the next story we're going to deal with. It's the Ukraine story. We spent a lot of time just now on the convoy, and I'm glad we did, because it was insightful and exactly what we're looking for you two guys. But we're going to have to condense things down for these two guys uh but we're gonna have to we have to condense things down for these uh other topics so we'll never get them all in um but let's talk about the ukraine situation in terms of you know canada's you know role in supporting ukraine i

mean i think we saw numbers just this week that show that Canada was number four in the world in terms of giving support to Ukraine, well ahead of some of our normal partners like France and Germany and others, but just behind the U.S., U.K., and I'm not sure who the third one was, Poland. But nevertheless, I want to talk about this one too because this has been a dominant story throughout the years. It started in February. Indications of it, as Jerry mentioned, before that.

But it really started in February. It's still going on now. What are you seeing in this story as it relates to Canada that we're not seeing james you start again here on the subsidy side i mean i mean look this is very very political i mean it's not as though the canadian subsidies in support of ukraine are going to tip the balance but the the solidarity that canada demonstrates with ukraine is absolute and it crosses all party lines and it's you know for the obvious demographic

reasons of our alignment with family our extended family for a large part of canadians so you know i don't think that's that big of a of. It's interesting to see, though, the caving of support for Ukraine with sort of the Russian-backed media interests in the United States and what that has done and whether or not that has a tail. But it doesn't seem to have a tail because you see in the UK, I mean, they've had multiple leadership races and multiple candidates and opportunities for disparate voices to emerge and sort of be a voice for a different path and nobody has nobody has sort of flexed that muscle and it doesn't exist in

Canada as well so you know I think Canada is clearly aligned with that and it speaks to I just think a sense of family solidarity as much as it is a geopolitical instinct I don't think you know you look at look at the consistency of speeches from Paul Martin to Harper to Justin Trudeau and all the opposition leaders. And nobody really talks about the importance of Europe or the importance of the region or the importance of even, you know, feeding the world and agricultural exports. You know, we talk about it on a very familial basis. And I think, you know, that's that's a bond that I don't think can ever be betrayed and expect to run for office again in this country. Sure. Yeah, I think that's a bond that I don't think can ever be betrayed and expect to run for office again in this country. Sure. Yeah, I think that's right.

I guess it's more commonly known now, given the events of the last year, but Canada has the biggest Ukrainian diaspora of any country other than Russia on the planet. And of course, we have a lot fewer people overall. I think it's something like 1.5 million. And I'm proud to call myself part of that diaspora. So my grandmother was Ukrainian. I think the point that James is making, which is really interesting, and you're not seeing very many signs of it mercifully here in Canada, is the extent to which it's become yet another issue that's fed into the American political polarization machine and how Fox News and the far-right commentators

are jumping on this bandwagon. And it's a material risk to the war effort how this plays out in the presidential election and in the primaries leading up to it for 2024, that if it becomes a political football and the ultimate winner of the Republican primary is a person who decides not to support the war effort, then we're going to have a big problem on our hands. Because while we're number four the united states is larger than every other country combined um someone told me the other day in the u.s administration that if

it were a country microsoft might be number three on that list by the way given all that they've contributed to the cyber defense of ukraine um so i worry about that i'm very glad it has not become a polarized political issue here in Canada. And I think the concentration of Ukrainian Canadians in Western Canada, although there's an enormous number on the East Coast and in Toronto, has played a role in that. There's just no political constituency for it. But there certainly is in the United States, and it's something we need to keep a close watch on. All right let's move to story number three and that was Pierre Poliev winning the Conservative Party leadership. Now the leader of his majesty's official opposition and for obvious reasons we'll start with with Jerry on this one. What have you seen through this story? What have you seen that would surprise us that we're not seeing? Well, this is part of the where is this story going that I talked about with the convoy, because the convoy came to Ottawa with the written express purpose

to replace the prime minister, and they ended up replacing the leader of the opposition and the premier of Alberta. So to me, I see that all of one piece it's part of a larger story of radicalization of the official conservative movement in canada and i don't think it's a good thing and i'm not expecting james to 100 agree with me given how many friends he still has in the camps there but um i think most canadians want to see a more thoughtful, conservative movement than one that's playing footsie with, you know, anti-vaxxers and the anti-vax movement and the people who believe that an economic conference in Switzerland is somehow

nefariously running the world. I don't think that's been a good development. And I think Polyev has taken great pains not to be offside with that wing of the conservative movement on pretty much every issue. And that's going to be his biggest challenge. This is something that many people who write for a living on Canadian politics have commented on more eloquently than I can but his ability to speak truth to power and power in the conservative movement is the far right right now and bring them to the center so he can present himself as an electable alternative

to the government is job number one that's going to be it's not going to be easy and of course you're not being partisan in those comments well i think i'm not saying anything that many many writers including some who you two have talked to weekly on your show have said right i'm not one of those people who thinks that pierre polyev can't be prime minister of canada let me put it that way i think he is a very skilled politician he's easily the most skilled politician that has led that party, no offense to Andrew Scheer or Aaron O'Toole, since Stephen Harper in the 2008 to 2011 period.

So I'm definitely not one of those people who think he's too extreme to be elected. I think that their campaign strategy, which is a very simple one and therefore can be very effective, is to take the liberal vote, which was 7 million in 2015, 6 million in 2019, five and a half, 5.6 in 2021, and drive it down to five while they keep their vote somewhere between 5.6 and six. That is not rocket science. And the playbook is out there for how to do it. And I think that's what they're trying to do. They could be successful. All right, James, your turn. I mean, I think one of the most interesting things about Pierre's rise to leadership,

like I think Pierre is, as Jerry said, you know, the most talented politician that has led the conservatives since Stephen Harper. I think he's got energy for days. I think he is very, very smart. But he's he's very smart. I think he is very, very smart. But he's very smart, but he understands that being very smart and communicating effectively are two different things. Governing effectively, understanding public policy, picking your spots, knowing the danger zones and all that, that's a very cerebral part of governing and part of politics. But the public-facing part of it and how you engage in what you say

and how you say it is an entirely different muscle, And that one is also very healthy and strong with Pierre. And you see it time and again. The two most impressive things about his leadership, I think, are objectively, I think, can be said are his capacity to mobilize and organize effectively to raise an army of over 300,000 Canadians to join the party, to put down their money and to join the party. It's not like, again, back in the day where you can do bulk signups. I mean, the way in which these things are policed internally, like you have to actually, an individual has to actually buy their membership with their own money, with a credit card.

Like there's no cash exchange. You can't buy memberships in cash. So to actually raise that kind of a following and to mobilize it as effectively as he did that's genuinely very impressive and on the communication side as it's been you know largely talked about you know to win the leadership of a national political party to be at this point you know competitive to become the next prime minister of the country and to effectively do no media interviews at all and to not talk at all i mean they take great pride within the poly of campaign of the fact that he became leader of the party without doing any media interviews at all,

speaking directly to voters directly to their aspired constituency and to mobilize them without having to frankly put up with the Ottawa press gallery. That's a very new thing. You know, it has, it's dangerous, of course, with broadly with civics, but it's, but it's also, it tells about the weakness of media and its dangers, of course, broadly with civics, but it's also, it tells about the weakness of media and its importance to everyday Canadians, the way in which media has been fragmented, and the effectiveness that Pierre has used that in order to speak to his designed audience

is something that's new in politics that no other party has yet figured out federally or provincially. Steve Schmidt in the U.S., he says he was McCain's campaign manager in 2008. One of his sayings about politics, because of the way in which we now can analyze voters and run databases and target and micro-target, is he says it used to be in politics that voters choose their politicians, but now politicians, you get to choose your voters. And so you can decide who you want to speak to, what channels are most effective for that audience, how to mobilize them, how to energize them, and then how to follow up and make sure that they vote. And this sort of fragmenting of the country

into sort of silos of messages and regions and identities and brands, and be able to focus your politics that way is being done very effectively by Pierre Polyev. And we'll see if other parties learn that as well. Well, it may be being done effectively. It's debatable whether it's a good way to do politics. And, you know, and we'll save that for a subject of another more butts conversation. I want to go to one more story before we go on to take a quick break and then come back with a, you know, a kind of quickie round. This one has fascinated me. I mean, obviously the China story is big on a lot of different levels, but this part has fascinated me,

and I think you could both really help me try to understand it because you've seen it close up or you've been a participant in it. We saw that few seconds of the conversation between the Chinese leader uh xi and uh prime minister trudeau um and it was all done through a translator and there was clearly a difference of opinion on on a few things during that conversation but the the the addition of the translator and having to stand there waiting for things translated for the respective leaders. What is happening in those moments and how difficult is it to analyze and assess what happened in those moments?

Jerry, why don't you start this one again? Yeah, sure. It's very strange. It affects the way you talk. It affects how many words you say in any given intervention in a conversation because you don't want to go on for three minutes and then have this poor translator have to translate it all while you're waiting for them to finish. So from a pure logistics point of view, it's a very strange way to communicate. And it's an art form that has to be learned and the best leaders figure it out. I think the thing to notice about that particular interaction was that it was clearly staged by the Chinese. They're not in the business of going around lobbies of hotel rooms. Well, actually, let me put this a different way. They are in the business of going around the lobbies of hotels and filming things.

They're just normally not in the business of making those films public. And in this case, it was pretty clear that this was a setup and they were trying to make their guy look big and tough and send a message to middle-sized and smaller democracies all around the world that the Chinese had very little respect for them. And if they chose to, they'd push them around. Even little subtle things like the way in which the camera was sort of pitched up. Xi Jinping is not short, but he's not tall.

Justin Trudeau is 6'2". So even these little subtle things matter, right? And to Jerry's point that, you know, in diplomacy, the images that come out speak more often than the words because the words are kind of, you know, in diplomacy, the images that come out speak more often than the words, because the words are kind of, you know, what you'd expect. And it's very diplomatic and it's sort of couched in sort of a nomenclature that's diplomatic and all that. But the body posture, how you carry yourself, those awkward moments and how you stand and

your posture, the demeanor in your face, the look in your eyes, where you look, do you seem shifty and all that? You know, it's very different it's actually why even though it seems by traditional you know diplomatic norms you know donald trump going to some of these events is kind of you know bouldering in and being the big guy in the room and taking up a lot of space and elbows out and doing up his jacket and slapping people in the back and the long handshake and the in the sawing back and forward of the arm and that whole thing you know it was it's an American bravado of strength and toughness that

again, doesn't speak to everybody, but it speaks to his audience and all that. So it's done in different ways. And Xi Jinping, relative to his audience back home, I mean, you saw how they treated Hu Jintao in a very public display of disregard and disrespect for a previous generation that was seen as

soft to the West versus his sort of strength and leadership. You know, these things, the symbolism and the physical display of strength and posture relative to your adversary and what those images look like, like that will be in B-roll forever. Communicators come and go and who cares? And speeches come and go and who cares? But the physical manifestation and presence of your message that lasts forever what do you know the interesting

the interesting point about both those images that james mentioned the kind of dismissal of hu jintao and the confrontation of justin trudeau have one thing in common and that is that they were intended for a global audience they didn't really exist in the domestic. They weren't broadcast to the domestic audience in China. So it wasn't as if Xi Jinping was trying to look tough for the home crowd. He was trying to send a message to everybody around the world of what kind of guy he was going to be now that he had complete control over the People's Republic of China. And Canadians shouldn't necessarily take this too personally.

Xi Jinping was sending a message to a Five Eyes partner, to a North American ally of the United States. It wasn't Canada. It was a Five Eyes partner who was the biggest trading partner of the United States. That's who their message was to. Canada's Canada. But that wasn't the target. So what do you tell your person, your leader?

What do you tell him or her about how to handle those kind of situations, what to expect in those kinds of situations? You have to expect them at any moment, recognize them as soon as you can and stand your ground. Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's, it sounds trite or sounds gimmicky or whatever, but, but I think effective leaders sort of sit in quiet in a good, there's a reason why you have green rooms before television and all that. Yes, it's to sort of consolidate your message in your head and how you're going to present yourself. But you should also actually do some visualization exercises.

Like if this, then that, where the camera is going to be, how do I position myself if I look like this? Where should my hands be? How long are hand, like you just sort of think about like if things go, and the thing is, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, Aaron O'Toole, Pierre Polyev, they're very well tested in school to this. I mean, they get it always right, but you know, town hall meetings where somebody stands up and throws a shoe at you or a, or a, or a one-on-one, you know,

rope line with a constituent and all of a sudden somebody, somebody starts yelling at you in front of a camera, all that stuff trains you and your muscle memory for the ability to sort of stay calm and cool you know reflect energy back in an effective way recognize that you know these things these moments pass but how you you know stay cool and calm the public wants to see their leaders at the best of times the worstest times stay at a relatively calm and effective level of energy that is not rattled, not overly excited when things are good, not overly rattled when things are tough, but you keep an even keel, you stay calm, and you don't buckle,

and you just recognize that demeanor. It's through years of exposure that that gets developed. It's often said of politicians, Peter, that they have a keen sixth sense for danger and how to turn those dangers into opportunities and that's absolutely the case in the top-notch politicians i've watched you know i was thinking you both had me thinking back to the the harper putin moment right at some conference i can't remember where it was one of those summits g20 g20 in australia um not that conservatives brag about that moment a lot but we do but i mean harper you know i'm assuming the one we're talking about if the audience is unfamiliar

was harper basically told putin get out of ukraine yeah and prime minister harper has talked about i mean i've talked to him a lot about that actually that event as putin has risen up to be the the guy that he is now that we now know he intended to be, you know, he, you know, they're, they're in there in the assembly room and all that. And, and he, and everybody was sort of shaking hands and milling about and Steven, you know, and they were sort of prompted to take. And Steven said, well, I'll, and this is exactly what he said. He said, he said, well, I'll shake your hand, I guess, because I have to. And then,

and then he locked hands and he looked him in the eye and he said, but you really need to get out of Ukraine. What do you have thought that one through? Like, I mean, was that a spur of the moment thing? Or do you think it was something that he woke up to? I know the prime minister, Harper, he decided very early on when it was still the G8 and Russia was at the table.

He decided very early on that Vladimir Putin was a bad actor with bad intentions, not interested in the global good, not interested in partnership, and that he was a danger to the world. He decided that very early on. And this is not, you know, building Stephen Harper up after the fact. I remember him coming back from those conferences

and frankly reporting to us in cabinet and in conversations and just saying, he is going to be a problem. He's going to be a problem for the long term this is when he was doing this switch with medvedev back and forth on the leadership side and he just said this guy's a bad actor and a real problem and the world needs to wake up and he was critical of of barack obama and his softness and hillary clinton in the reset and he he knew that that the america america and europe were mishandling the russian relationship and that was going to be a problem in the long term so

what he you know it's it's a pretty straightforward thing to say and what else are you going to do because of what we just discussed about the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. And so it was kind of an easy line for him to push. But Stephen doesn't, you know, he wasn't going to miss that moment to sort of say very bluntly and clearly to Putin what he thought. Too bad he didn't have a microphone in there. We sort of got it in the briefing afterwards.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, a quick one, and we'll be right back with some short snappers right after this. and welcome back you're listening to uh the bridge the more butts conversation number five as we get ready to close out another year james moore is in vancouver gerald butts is in ottawa i'm peter mansbridge in toronto on this day. All right. This is the lightning round. So it's like the old short snappers from Reach from the Top. Didn't you tell me, James, you were on Reach from the Top? Are you one of those Reach from the Top kids?

I don't think so. Well, you get a chance to beat one now. So lightning round. What was the political headline of this year that the media missed? Who's first? You are. Oh, political headline. The end of cheap money.

I mean, you know, we talk about is there a recession? What are interest rates doing which are headline conversations but the down downstream impact of the end of the cheap cost of borrowing i think is a tectonic shift a generational shift in how people are planning to live their lives you have a lot of people in their 40s and 50s who are looking to their parents now and wondering do we have to consolidate them back home you have a younger generation of canadians wondering if they're ever going to be able to buy a home it used to be you wait until your mid-20s then then it was mid-30s, now it's mid-40s. And, you know, the social impact, the societal impact of the end of the cheap cost of borrowing money and all of its spillover effects has been grossly underanalyzed and underappreciated.

Good one. Jerry? Climate change is still here and its effects are accelerating and you think the media is not telling that story well enough i think the media has got a very small pipe to shove a lot of things through right now and inflation ukraine russia uh the ongoing political um problems in the United States, all of those things probably drive more clicks. We're talking about the Canadian media in particular. Yeah, exactly.

Okay. Now you both, even though you're from a distance now, you still watch what goes on in the house of commons, you know, each week the house of Commons, you know, each week. The House of Commons, just like the NHL, has an MVP somewhere in that midst of 330-odd members of Parliament. Who was the Commons MVP this year and why? Jerry, you start. You know, Peter, I have to confess I don't really watch the House of Commons

that closely, so I'm not sure. But if you're asking which Canadian politician is in a better position in the most positive position in December 2022 than they were in 2021, I think you've got to say Pierre Poliev. I think that's probably the right answer. I would give as well a mention of Raquel Danko, who's a friend of mine from Kildona and St. Paul, Winnipeg, who's a rising star in the conservative movement. I think she has a very effective demeanor, you know, just the right level of outrage and substance without being over the top and all that.

But it is interesting to Jerry's point, though, that I remember when I was in federal politics, and I was there from 2000 to 2015, that federal parliament in question period and the CBC, the national going to question period and what's in the news today and all that, that seems to be completely gone. And COVID put a big dent in it because everybody was sort of remote and it doesn't make for good TV and all that. But provincial legislatures, you know, question periods have long since passed being relevant. And it seems to me the federal parliament has long lost its luster in terms of being

a real chamber of conflict and debate. And it's only really super high level moments that punch through into earned media. And it's, you know, it's sort of just become another set for people to posture, sort of like the U.S. Congress. And I don't think that's an altogether healthy thing it may not necessarily be a bad thing because it could push the conversation beyond just that building but it's uh it's definitely a change that parliament and question period is not what it once was uh that's that's for sure i mean when i when i started

covering a question period it was the mid 70s before television um and everything changed with television and it became that that that great kind of tv event but that's you know that's long gone but it's also the subject perhaps of another conversation in the in the new year because it's not like what happens in Ottawa isn't important so how do you make it more absolutely yeah how do you make it more interesting and and more enticing for Canadians to either watch or listen to or read about? I can't wait to see this, Peter, noting a bit of Cape Breton history here that it was Alan McEachen, of course, who brought the TVs into the House of Commons when he was House Leader. And overnight, MPs' clothing changed. I can imagine.

I tell you. Not to mention relative sobriety in some cases, I can imagine. I tell you. Not to mention relative sobriety in some cases, I'm sure. That's true. But those were the years of the plaid jackets and suits looked like they came off the backseat of a 55 Chevy or something. They changed very quickly. You may have answered this already. Which leader won the year? Is that too obvious?

I think it's a toss-up. I really do. I think one of the most remarkable things about the public opinion and environment in Canada is it is within a margin of error of where it was in the 2019 election. That not much has changed at all. We've had three years of the conservative party we've had the ups and downs of the government and they're still pretty much tied at third depending on which poll you look at in the low 30s each yeah i'll answer the question a little differently i think federally pierre paulieff won the year um you know justin chateau came in with

a ton of dangers he survived he's at the end of the year there's no threat to his leadership he endures. So there's that rising negatives, lots of challenges on the horizon. But Pierre Polyev winning the leadership massively, overwhelmingly against a relatively crowded field of impressive people and then consolidating the party after the fact and continuing to move forward is impressive. But I would also, that's 1A.

1B would be John Horgan um a good man in tough circumstance fighting cancer similar cancer to one that took his brother's life going through covid got into politics you know people were very in bc were very unsure of john horgan and who he was um you know he it was said that he had a great bit of a temper and that might be his downfall turned out that to be the last thing that was of a concern with john he he ended up having very good relationship with jason kenney on bc alberta issues good relationship with justin trudeau got through covid in in a very um effective way of deference to authority deference to medical science putting bonnie henry and adrian dicks out front letting them be the spokespeople for government policy not clamoring for the limelight and the praise

of the good things of COVID and avoiding the dangers and just very effectively managing it. And then at the end of it, recognizing that it's time to go home, that he'd done his part for the province as he sees it and listening to his body, listening to his health, listening to his family, and then moving on into the next chapter of his life. I think, you know, there are a lot of ways to do politics, no comment on ideology or substance, but John horgan did it right yeah i couldn't agree with that more i just want to say john horgan one of the most rock solid human beings i've met from any party in my time in politics and i know james does too

i certainly wish him well and his family well um last question when should we expect a federal election and james you can go first probably not until the very end which is uh you know um to bring in 2015 you know spring 2015 i suppose i think a lot frankly depends on whether or not christia freeland stays or goes i think a lot depends on the nature of the recession should it come how big how, what the consequences of that will be on jobs? Should the NDP decide to break up the coalition and sort of lever that into, you know, the liberals aren't doing enough and we're the only people who can do the right thing. And the narratives that come out of that. So if, if minister Freeland leaves and if the recession is bad what that means and you know, the, the, the, the hangover effect of Donald Trump coming

back and whether or not that sort of infects the brand of conservatism. I think those are the three biggest ingredients that would have an impact on that. But my best guess is probably not until spring of 25. And I think the odds are even whether or not Prime Minister Trudeau will be around to contest it. 2025, says James. What do you say, Jerry? Yeah, I think that's got to be your base case but it's 2025 all of the dynamics that james described i agree with i think the ndp

doesn't want an election and if the ndp doesn't want an election then there's probably not going to be one all right we're going to leave it at that wish you uh both the best for the uh holiday season and the best obviously going into the new year. And look forward to our next conversation. James of Vancouver and Jerry in Ottawa. Thanks again, both of you. You're most welcome. James Moore, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister under Stephen Harper, and Gerald Butts, the former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

I could listen to those two guys for hours talking about some of these issues. I think it's informative for us. I think it's great to hear two people from opposing sides of the political spectrum be able to talk informatively and in a fashion that doesn't bring out the brickbats. They're basically talking about our system, how it works, and some of the things that they were able to see from their vantage point that perhaps we haven't been able to see. So great to have them with us.

As I said, love listening to them. And you know what? Get to listen to them again over the next couple of weeks because the two weeks that follow this one, we're going to be in the mode of repeating some of the best shows of the past year, and I'm sure that's going to be one of them. A quick note about what's ahead for the bridge this week. Tomorrow, Brian Stewart will join us with his latest update

and commentary on the situation in Ukraine. Brian has been a main staple for us throughout this year, as you well know. A number of questions again this week for Brian, and we'll try and ask some of them when he joins us tomorrow. Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. We'll begin Bruce's kind of take on the year gone by. Thursday is your turn. So if you have, you know, let me implore you a couple of things.

Name where you're writing from and make your case short. Some of you have been writing books lately and sending them in. Try to get it in a paragraph or at the most two short paragraphs and we'll see what we can get on the air. But why don't you give me your take on what you thought was the big moment of the year. Might have been a big story. Might have been a big quote.

Might have been, well, who knows? You tell me, and we'll go through that this year, or this Thursday. On your turn, the ranter will be by, and maybe the ranter will take up that challenge from last week from one of you saying, say something nice for a change. Tell us what's good. Be happy. Talk about puppies.

We'll see what the render might say. And then Friday, our classic year-ender with Chantelle Iberra and Bruce Anderson on Good Talk. So that's it for this day, this Monday, the launch of the final week before the holiday break. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Talk to you again in 24 hours.