The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - NEW EPISODE: Election 2019 - On your marks, get set ...

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

September 10 - Election 2019: On your marks, get set ... | Thank for subscribing and for submitting a rating and review! * TWITTER @petermansbridge | INSTAGRAM @thepetermansbridge ** https://www.thepetermansbridge.com/ *** Producer: Manscorp Media Services

Well, hello there. I'm Peter Mansbridge and this is The Bridge, my election 2019 podcast. Hope you enjoy it and don't be shy. Rate it. Review it. Please. So here we go. The starter's pistol is about to go off in the race towards October 21st. Everyone expects the election to be called in the next few days, possibly as early as tomorrow morning, with Justin Trudeau visiting the Governor General. Whatever the case, everyone is as ready as they'll ever be, so let's get it on. What to expect first on day one? Well, the party leaders already know what they'll say in their opening speeches.

In fact, we've been hearing versions of those opening speeches for weeks now. They've been massaged and practiced over and over. Everyone agrees on one piece of strategy. They want a clean start. So how they position themselves against each other and on the issues is really important. On day one, control is the key. That means no mistakes. So they have to consider where they could lose control and not put themselves in that position. They want to take questions where the answers could become the story of the day and knock their team off its

agenda. In 2015, some of you will remember this, it was only four years ago, let's remember, Tom Mulcair had the NDP in the lead in most polls. They seemed on the verge of history, on the verge of actually winning an election. They'd never done it before. Someone in that campaign, maybe it was Smolker himself, made the decision not to take questions at all on day one. That was a problem. The media, well, you know how they get. They got pissed in the way the media gets pissed. And some of them made a big deal of it.

Gee, maybe even I made a big deal of it. I'll pretend I can't remember. In any event, it wasn't helpful to the NDP's day one strategy, which suddenly looked a touch arrogant. You know, we're too good to be questioned. Setting a tone they sure didn't want to set. Now here's the reverse of the known user situation. Some of you will remember the 1993 campaign, you got to be a bit older for that one, when the sitting Prime Minister

Kim Campbell stood outside Rideau Hall oozing confidence with the kind of coolness she had at the time, and she had it. She'd only been PM for a couple of months, but she was leading the polls and acting like she was leading the polls. Most of the questions were handled fine, but then she started to be pressed about what was the number one issue of that day, health care, everything from wait times to who should pay for what between the feds and the provinces. You could tell she was getting tired of the questions and the fact she didn't seem to have the answers,

well, to satisfy that pack of hungry reporters, said they would move on to other issues. So she suddenly blurted out this answer. This isn't verbatim, but it was the thrust of what she said. Maybe election campaigns aren't the right time to be debating major issues. Really? Isn't that what elections are supposed to be about? Oh, the media didn't like that.

They pounced. Here was the kind of raw meat they love on day one. And yes, I was part of that one too. Campbell took heat, and things didn't get any better through what was the most disastrous campaign on record. You gotta remember this. The Tories, seemingly in control on that day one, they wound up with only two seats. Count them. Two seats when the campaign was over. All these years later, I still wonder, you know,

about what Campbell said and whether she actually had a point about the kind of hothouse a campaign can be for discussing, in some meaningful way, major policy. Maybe at some point during this campaign, I'll bring in some campaign experts or historians or actual players and talk on this podcast, The Bridge, about that very point. We've got big issues this time. Climate change, pipelines, taxes, integrity in government,

Indigenous concerns, education costs, health care costs. The list is long. Well, moving on. What else will the parties be worrying about on day one? Once they get past the optics of the opening moments, the first decision is where to go to show they have an organized campaign. Well, don't go to where you can't get a crowd. Don't go to an area that's going to raise awkward questions about your position on an issue or on a person.

So don't expect Justin Trudeau to pop up in the BC riding where Jody Wilson-Raybould is running. That probably wouldn't end up with the coverage he'd be hoping for. Do go to a place you're convinced you're going to win and people love you because, of course, you want adoring supporters surrounding you. Or preferably, go to somewhere you think you can capture a seat some other party won last time. That's probably Andrew Scheer's plan. If his people can convince the reporters following him that this is a riding they're confident they can steal from the Liberals, then that's the narrative you're going to see, hear, or read in their coverage.

So, take a good look at where the party leaders go on the first day. They launch, usually in Ottawa, or their hometown, and then they head out on the road. Mark those day one spots down somewhere. It's always interesting on election night to see what happened to them. But most of all, it's what the leaders say say and what you can take from what they're saying. Trudeau and Scheer are likely to be somewhat predictable. Trudeau will try to focus on what he thinks is good about the liberal record. Scheer, well, he'll attack where he thinks they didn't deliver the liberals, on the promises they made four years ago. Trudeau will try to raise fears about what he believes is conservative

intolerance on key issues. Scheer will argue the Liberals are scandal-plagued and Canadians are suffering their consequences. You can almost hear their shtick already. Actually, the leader I might be watching closely is Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader. He has not had a good run since being elected leader and his party has been faltering, to say the least, in the polls. So if he's going to break out, he may need to take a few risks. Already he's showing signs of that strategy. Instead of keeping his options open, he said clearly and definitively that under no circumstances would the NDP support a conservative minority government. So while he will no doubt attack the Liberals, he's very clear that the NDP's main political foes are those in blue. That might engage some hardcore NDP support who

really don't like the conservative option but have been hesitant to rally behind Singh. But it's a risky strategy because if those voters sense the Conservatives could win, they could just as easily completely abandon Singh and head to the Liberals to try for the block. Oh, the possibilities, they go on and on. The Greens, how will Elizabeth May stake out her ground? Her party's support is clearly running at historic levels, but is it real? And does it mean significant seat gains or just a handful of seats in pocketed areas like Vancouver Island.

Well, through all this, remember the real lesson of day one is that in spite of all the preparation that goes into it, parties rarely win new votes on day one. But they can set a course to losing some. They've got to be organized. Things have to work. Don't give the media, conventional or social, something to talk about that doesn't work in your favor. Your bus better start, your plane better have Wi-Fi, and the list goes on and on.

This is all small stuff in the grand scheme of things, but you'd be surprised how it's stuff like this that gets things off on the wrong foot. But most of the parties have campaign pros worrying about these things and making sure it all works. Write down the color of the leader's suit. Bet on Elizabeth May wearing green, at least some green. The style of tie. Will Trudeau wear red, sheer, blue, sing, orange? These are safe bets too, but really, you know, who cares? All news organizations have learned from watching what's been going on down south, especially the fact-checkers, who are adding up the Trump lies,

or untruths, if you'd prefer, expect the same to be done here, starting right away tomorrow. There's a lot of torque or spin, or whatever you want to call it, in almost everything you hear in a campaign. But how much of it is true? Reporters will be trying to assess that, but so will the parties, as their war rooms watch each other and pump out the press releases challenging each other's facts.

There will be lots to assess on that front tomorrow. Well, there are a few wild cards about this campaign that might surprise many Canadians if they're just tuning in to what's about to happen. There are at least six so-called major parties in the running, plus countless others who play the small game. There are the conventional three frontrunners, you know them, the Liberals, the others who play the small game. There are the conventional three front runners, you know them, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP, but the Greens are for real, now generating, as I mentioned, not bad poll numbers, and the bloc is continuing force in Quebec.

Then there's Maxime Bernier with the People's Party of Canada. This has fringe with a capital F written all over it, but keep this in mind. Bernier led the Conservative leadership on the first 12, that's right, 12 ballots of their convention. He lost to Andrew Scheer on the 13th and last ballot. He still has supporters, not many, but any he has, most likely come from support Scheer and the Conservatives would have had. Bernier has nothing to lose. He will be trying to make noise and some of it could

get ugly. He's not going to win. He may not even get a single seat, but he will be a factor in how others do. So his launch is something you might not want to miss. One thing I should mention now, I've referred to polls a number of times already. If you know anything about me from my past, I'm not a big fan of polls for a number of reasons. Some are poorly done. Others raise more questions about the questions they ask than the answers they reveal. Having said that, I don't ignore polls either, because I believe they do have an impact in the end on the way people vote or decide even if they will vote. So unless polls or the reporting of polls is banned,

and that's not going to happen, expect mention of them on this podcast. One last point I'll make here. I've watched elections in this country since I was a child, so a long time. Not sure I've ever seen a campaign like what we're about to witness in the sense that none of the parties seem totally united. The Liberals still show cracks from the Wilson-Raybould-Philpott mess. The Conservatives have alienated some of what's left of their progressive wing by the questions raised around the abortion issue. And the NDP have a lot of mumbling in some corners about their leaders'

abilities. Even the Greens have taken a few hits lately that have hurt internally. It's a strange way for a campaign to start. A few reminders now about this podcast, The Bridge. I'm looking forward to this, and I'll be trying to do a new episode every weekday night of the campaign. I'll try to share my thoughts on not just what's happening, but why it's happening, and whether it's working. I'll base that on my 50 years or so covering elections and on my conversations with people I know inside the various parties.

I'm doing this on my own because I wanted to do it on my own. I resisted any broadcast network connections, even when offered. I've also resisted sponsorship when offered, which would have in return placed some form of ad in the podcast. I'm not trying to sound pure here. I just didn't want to feel obligated to anyone for anything I said on this podcast. So, no commercials. Just these awesome music bridges we've been running.

If you have questions for me again, don't be shy. I'll pick some to answer during the podcast. Send them to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. That's themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. So let's have fun over the next few weeks. But also let's try to understand what's happening. This is democracy in action. We're lucky to have it, and to ensure we keep it, we all have to participate. I hope you'll stick with the bridge. I'll be trying to

give you things to think about and to watch out for. So, thanks for watching.