The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Reporter’s Notebook

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

What aren’t we seeing, what aren’t we hearing and what aren’t we discussing as we enter the third day of Canada’s election campaign.  That’s the focus on this first segment of the "Reporters Notebook". Veteran political journalists Rob Russo and Althia Raj give a sense of what they see ahead. And a rundown of how the papers played Sunday's election call -- an interesting look at the way the country reacted to the decision. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Today's topic, what aren't we talking about in this campaign so far that we should be talking about? A can of pet food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the A Can of Pet Food team is proud of their entire bag. That's because every recipe has been thoughtfully sourced and carefully crafted with the highest quality ingredients, starting with quality animal ingredients balanced with whole fruits and vegetables. Akana pet foods are rich in the protein and nutrients your dog or cat needs to feel and look their best. Available in grain-free, healthy grains, and singles for sensitive dogs. Akana, go beyond the first ingredient.

All right, so it's only day three of the election campaign for election 2021. You know, I love these. When you're working for the television networks, like I used to, you always have to come up with, what's the Catry phrase? How are we going to describe our coverage? What's the big night going to be called? Decision 21? Or Election 21?

Or Canada 21? You know, you see the different networks will come up with different titles for their campaign coverage and their election night. And election nights are important for all television networks. Those are the nights where networks are kind of made or broken. You make a reputation on election night for your coverage. How accurate it is. how believable it is, how accurate and with certain degree of speed, although accuracy is more important than speed,

but it's a close finish. Some people place enormous importance on how fast you came to a decision on declaring who the winner was. Anyway, it's fascinating to watch all this going on now from the outside as I'm kind of looking at things that I used to be so deeply involved with and so defensive about our coverage. And I still believe in it. And I still believe the television networks in this country do a heck of a job, especially on nights like election nights. Anyway, as I said, it's only day three,

but I've got something interesting I'm going to share with you a little later, and that is the kind of coverage on the print side that Sunday's election call got. How different papers in different parts of the country covered it on their front pages. I think it's quite interesting because it kind of tells you certain things about different parts of the country and different papers, and they're kind of slant

in terms of the story that was thrust upon the nation on Sunday. So this is the Monday papers and what they ended up saying and what was splashed across the front pages. So I'm going to share that with you. But first, we're going to hear another one of our special election segments. And this segment we're calling the Reporter's Notebook. And the idea behind the Reporter's Notebook is a way of looking at the campaign,

kind of asking questions about what we're covering, what aren't we covering, what we're seeing, what aren't we covering, what we're seeing, what aren't we seeing, and how the people feel about the kind of way the campaign is going in terms of what they're hearing the candidates talk about, what they're hearing the journalists ask questions about. So I wanted a couple of journalists who I have a lot of respect for, who have been covering stories in the political vein for years. So I asked my good friend Rob Russo,

who is the former Bureau Chief for Canadian Press in Ottawa and the former Bureau Chief for the CBC in Ottawa. If he would take part in this, he is kind of retired now, but I don't think he's going to be retired for too long. And when you hear him talk on this segment, you'll know this guy should not go sit in a rocking chair somewhere. He's still got lots to offer, and I'm sure he is going to find somewhere. He's not in a rush, but fortunately, that's good for us

because we get to use him during the campaign. So Rob, with literally decades of experience both in Washington, he was a Washington-based reporter for a while for CP, and in Canada, including obviously on Parliament Hill. And the second journalist I've asked is somebody I've known for about, I guess, 20 years, Althea Raj, who most recently was the bureau chief of the Huffington Post on Parliament Hill. But I've known Althea for, as I said, almost 20 years. I first met her when we were doing a town hall at McGill University in Montreal.

And she was a student there and she was a real inquisitive student. She challenged a lot of us to, you know, about various things. And she ended up being interested in journalism and also in politics. She was a parliamentary intern for a while on Parliament Hill, working with various MPs. And then she went into full-time journalism. She worked at both the CBC and at CTV, and most recently, as I said, at the Huffington Post. She's currently being wooed by a number of different news organizations as to events. I'm assuming she's going to decide soon which one she's going to join,

but in the meantime, she's with us. So it's Rob and Althea on the Reporter's Notebook, and our first segment comes your way in just a moment, right after this. You're listening to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. All righty. So let's get it. Both Althea and Rob are in Ottawa today, and they've been watching things. And I want to try something different with this segment each week,

and it's really not to get caught up in the day's news, but really to kind of discuss or talk about or suggest what we're not seeing or what we're not hearing or what we're not following uh and why we should be because it's important in terms of the way a campaign can unfold so with with those parameters uh rob why don't why don't you start us? What are you looking at that maybe the rest of us aren't seeing yet? Okay. There are two or three things.

Foreign policy really hasn't been at the center of a Canadian election since 1963 in the Beaumont missiles. Peter, you and I might remember that. I'm sure that Althea doesn't. Wasn't born yet. No, no. But this is, the world is a scary place right now. And we get a bit of a sense of that with the chaos in Afghanistan.

And we could come back to that in a second. But even our best friend, the anchor of our prosperity in the United States, is in disarray still, more polarized than ever. We've got a president in there who is supposed to be good friends with our prime minister who is not coming across. You talk to liberals now and they're very, very disappointed with Joe Biden on Buy American, on what they're doing for us in terms of leaning on the Chinese. China is ascendant, as are most other authoritarian regimes, sort of liberal democracies are on the wane. So we've got Canada depending on the United States for our prosperity and to sort of carry our water in a scary world, and they're not really doing that in a very good

way. So foreign policy is something that you don't hear a lot about in Canadian elections, and I think that we have to have a really honest conversation about what's happening in the world and what our role in the world is going to be. It's impossible for anybody under 35 to think about owning a house in much of urban Canada right now. And I'd like to hear more discussion about that. And I don't know that we're going to hear much about that.

Healthcare. We're in the middle of a pandemic. There was some nod yesterday from Erin O'Toole about increasing transfers to the provinces. But the truth is, since 1995, the federal share of healthcare costs have gone down by about 50%. It's now less than 25%. And at a time when ICUs are really under a great deal of strain, and over and over again, Canadians are asked what the number one issue is for them. And

often healthcare is right at the top of that. And if we want something even more immediate, nobody is telling us the truth about what we need to do once the taps are slowly turned off in terms of this gusher of money that's flowing out towards Canadians and businesses. I know they need it right now, but who's going to make the difficult decisions and tell us the hard truths about what's going to happen when those taps are turned off? Wow. Okay. You've covered an awful lot of ground, which, you know, and it's all good ground. And that last one may be the most important one in terms of, you know, where's all the money coming from to pay for all of this? And that's the alligator that's closest to us right now, I think.

Yeah. The foreign policy stuff, you know, listen, you know, who can forget the images we've witnessed just in the last three days, whether it was Haiti or whether it was Afghanistan and last night watching these people drop off the planes that they'd latched onto the side of as they were taking off. I mean, it's, you know, it's,'s you know it's devastating to watch this stuff but at the same time foreign policy i agree i mean sadly i'm old enough to remember the bomark missile like it was yesterday um but uh you know there hasn't been anything since and i'm wondering what it would take for a foreign policy issue to be the determining factor. It was a little bit last, you know, in 2015. Yeah, the Syrian stuff and that little kid who washed up on the shores.

Alan Kurdi. Yeah, and the impact that had, a devastating impact that had, and was the beginning at the end of the Conservatives. And Stephen Harper. They really took a hit on that one. However, it's rare. And I still, you know, I'm not convinced it can have an impact like these other issues that you mentioned. But Althea, did he leave anything for you or is he pretty well taken all the ground there? Actually, I have different issues, but on the foreign affairs one, I think that Afghanistan can could be Justin Trudeau's Syria, as that was to Stephen Harper, in the sense that one of it was the government's response to the images, the seemingly lack of compassion that I think made people feel like Stephen Harper was heartless and the Conservative Party was heartless. And that was a narrative that had has actually done on the world stage.

I think if the Liberals and the Prime Minister are seen to be shirking their responsibilities as the government, that the opposition can craft a narrative that, you know, the Liberal leader is unfeeling, makes lofty promises, you know, that fits in the narrative that they've already started to create, but doesn't actually deliver. And here is an example of how the government has not delivered for the people who put their lives on the line to help Canadian soldiers, the interpreters, the guards at the embassy. And we are leaving them in Afghanistan despite promising them that we would not leave them in this situation. So I think that that is a that's something that could be a factor. I think Michael Spavier and Michael Kovrig, who will reach a thousand days in jail in China in September, is something else that will bubble foreign affairs back up on the agenda.

But I think one of the things that I think we are bound to talk about, not that I feel like Rob's list is more of the things he would like us to be talking about. My list is more of the things that I expect we'll talk about that we haven't gotten to yet, probably because we're on day three of the election campaign. I was in Quebec the first and second days of the campaign, and black Quebecois is running and like their, their, their signs have basically one word on them, Quebecer. They have the candidate's name and it says Quebecois or Quebecois. And the question of identity and values is a question that is definitely going

to pop up. The black leader has made no qualms about it. He plans to, you know, just attack the Liberals as saying that their values are out of line with the rest of Quebecers, whether that's Bill 21, which is a bill that a lot of Liberals in caucus think that that is the reason why they're in minority status, because the Prime Minister at the time did not respond well, that Premier Legault came out and attacked Justin Trudeau's policy on Bill 21 and that the liberals were never able to recover. And now we have the language bill, Bill 96 in Quebec, that's going to be also debated

in the fall. So I think that that is an interesting angle. We've seen vaccination emerge as the wedge issue. I was talking to a conservative yesterday who was like, well, in his view, the vaccination issue is the abortion issue that was to Andrew Scheer, that Aaron O'Toole has boxed himself in a corner by saying that his candidates

don't have to all be vaccinated and that possibly the election has been lost. That's one conservative's point of view. But I think the wedge issues that we typically see the liberals roll out in their playbook, we will see, as well as vaccinations, abortion, guns is something else that is bound to come up. So it's almost, I don't want to say that it's like I'm expecting deja vu, but I'm kind of am expecting deja vu. You know, I think what Althea is getting to, if I was going to put it under a larger umbrella, is what kind of Canada do we want?

Those last two issues, the Bill 21 and official bilingualism. standing still for what is in effect a reduction of services for people who want government services in English from Quebec. And at the same time, conversely, putting in peril the services of those who are Francophones outside of Quebec in peril as well. You have to think that Pierre Trudeau would be spinning in his grave. Bill 21, which is a circumscription of rights of some Canadians in favour of a larger collectivist. So it's a circumscription of individual rights. Again, Pierre Trudeau, who brought in the Charter, guaranteeing some individual rights within limits, of course. Can you imagine him sitting still for this? And why is this being done?

Well, it's being done because his son, Justin Trudeau, has decided that in order for him to win in Quebec and to gain the quiescence that he's gained so far from Francois Legault, he needs to effectively maintain a discreet silence on things like Bill 21 and in effect support the government of Quebec's initiatives on Francisization of the province of Quebec. But these are the kinds of things that are painting a fundamentally different portrait of Canada than the Canada that Pierre Trudeau tried to paint. Let me pick up on, not only on your points, Rob, but also the image that I had of Althea, looking at signs, lawn signs, that are going up in, I guess, in parts of Quebec, and how the bloc is campaigning.

What it touches on to me is, I don't want to go any deeper into the Quebec political story, but I do want to try and get a sense of things we're missing. And to me, we do tend to miss things as simple as what's happening on the ground, what's happening in that lawn sign fight? Because often we get caught up talking about, you know, the big stuff that plays out in front of the microphones of the leaders on a daily basis. And we miss what's actually happening on the ground, what people are really talking about and how they're impacted by things as simple as a lawn sign. Because they can still, even in today's high-tech world, those things, I'm assuming, can still have quite an impact.

So talk to me about that element of the journalist's job in trying to weigh the various issues that come up during a campaign and our focus, which is always so heavily on the leaders. So I'm glad to hear, you know, in Althea's case, you know, she wasn't following a leader this week as much as she was following some sense of what was happening on the ground. Do we do enough of that? Al'll see everyone and you start us do we do enough of going on the ground i think we're realizing frankly i think the donald trump election made people realize that a lot of stuff is happening that if we're not listening to what's happening on the ground and in different writings that we don't necessarily go to especially

areas outside of the urban centers where most of the newsrooms are located for the country's national newspapers and broadcasters, that we're missing the story. But did we learn from that? Have we learned from that? I think so. I mean, when I was still with HuffPost, we spent a lot of time going to places after that election that we would not necessarily normally go. We did the last wing with the leaders, but we spent most of our resources going to local writings, hearing from people. I know other newsrooms have decided to do that as well,

that they've spent significant resources. I mean, and it is significant resources because we are a very large country and it is actually really expensive to travel across this country. And door knocking with candidates doesn't really give you an image of an accurate image, I would, I would say of what's actually being heard at the doorstep, because the candidates usually bring you to the most favorable polls that they can bring you to.

And so unless you are doing that door knocking on your own, or organizing your own town halls, or just standing outside of the grocery store and asking people for their thoughts you don't actually get a sense uh of what people are really saying behind closed doors but that's that too is journalism doing exactly those things that you just made yeah absolutely you know friend Chantel has done that for decades, right? She doesn't get trapped into the leaders thing. And instead, she talks to people on the street, you know, coming out of the grocery store, whatever. And it can often give you that different perspective that, you know,

that you quite rightly, in my view, are saying that we should be looking for. Rob, on this point? Yeah, look, the mistake that we make as national media, and the parties don't make this mistake, is that we spend tens of thousands of dollars sitting in a steel tube, hurtling across the country, going over the heads, literally over the heads of voters to try and portray a national campaign. And political parties have long past put behind the notion of a national campaign. In Canada, the campaign is really decided in about 50 to 80 ridings. And if you can get coverage from those ridings away from the steel tube, whether it's a bus or a plane with the

national media, you will find out what the real story of the election campaign is, where the real change is happening, if there is change, where the real trends are. Unfortunately, in Canada, a lot of national media has been, or local media has been hollowed out. They don't have the resources to dedicate to these issues. And that's where we need the most if we're really going to find out. I made this plea in my last iteration when I ran the CBC Bureau in Ottawa, just pleading for local sort of resources. And it's really, really difficult to do.

They're strapped too. But if I had my druthers, I might have a camera and a sort of one person on a plane with the leader, because the leaders in the parties aren't covering it that way. They're actually every night calling 80 or 100 ridings every night to find out what's happening there, while we're paying attention to national polls, which don't tell us the story, and national campaigns, which don't tell us the story either. You know, I remember, let me just make this point out to you. I remember also before you were born in 72, when the Liberals were, you know, Pierre Trudeau was trying to get his second majority in a row, and the Liberals were feeling pretty good that they were heading in that direction,

and then they got surprised the heck out of them when they almost lost. In fact, it went on all night, the counting, and they finally ended up winning by a couple of seats. And what people found out or discovered, what they hadn't been listening to in terms of what was going on on the ground, was that the biggest issue out there for most people was bilingualism and biculturalism. You know, French on the cereal boxes,

which was a sort of easy way to describe it at that time. And that it really alienated a lot of people who had voted Liberal, especially in parts of rural Ontario and Western Canada in 68, said, see you later in 72, and it came as a bit of a shock, not just to the Liberals, but to the national media who kind of missed the story that was happening. You know, they kind of talked about BNB a little bit, but they hadn't realized that it was a significant factor

in what was going on with the electorate. Go ahead, Al. Isn't there a parallel between 72 and now and a little bit? And also, Trudeau the elder did not put forth a compelling reason to go to the people. His campaign slogan was, the land is strong. That's right. Which was completely banal and not like Trudeau at all,

who was very clear in what he was thinking. And, well, it's yet to be determined whether or not Trudeau the younger has put forth a compelling narrative, a reason why we need to have a decision right now. Right. 72 was four years, actually. It was a minority that they were looking. 72 years, actually, you know, it was a minority that they were looking for an election. But I get your point. Go ahead, Altyn. I was just there's no compelling reason that they've put forward because there is no compelling

reason to go to the polls at the moment. And they're aware of this as much as we all are. The one thing I just wanted to add to Rob's point about the kind of flying with the campaigns and but the one thing the national campaign does indicate to reporters on the campaign is actually where the party thinks not not in the early days of the campaign but towards the mid and especially at the end where the party thinks it can pick up seats because the parties believe that bringing their leader if they have a popular leader so I'm going to the liberals believe that where Justin Trudeau goes they get a boost and so there you can see I mean usually by the end of the last week you pretty much know which how things are going to shape up on the ballot box.

But it's not completely useless to follow the leader. There are indications of where their strategy is. It's really useful. It's useful to have the kind of behind the scenes story of the campaign. But they do put on a show basically for journalists that misses what real people are talking about. I think that's basically real people are talking about. I think that's basically what you're getting to. I think we all agree on that point.

And yet we probably agreed on that point more or less for years now. And yet we don't seem to learn the lesson. Let me try one other thing here, because it really fascinated me on day one back on Sunday on the news conferences, there was this habit that leaders often have and politicians often have. It's not particularly tied to any one party, but they don't answer questions, direct questions. And it seems that people are getting increasingly frustrated by this. I tweeted something on Sunday afternoon about why don't they ever answer direct questions anymore. And it got a fairly huge response in terms of people sending in comments,

hundreds of them. And they were, well, they were pissed, right? They were upset about the way it unfolded to them. It didn't matter whether it was, you know, whether it was Trudeau or O'Toole or even Singh to some degree. Here's the question. You know, I asked the insiders yesterday about this, but I was asking it from the perspective, are the questions silly, some of them, that prompt these attempt by the leaders not to answer them. But I don't want to go that way with you guys. I want you to tell me what's the approach you use to actually get an answer. I mean, we've all been in this position.

We know what they're doing. They're spinning to get out of it. They're trying to change the subject or bridging, as they call it, moving from one topic to another. How do you deal with this? What is the approach that journalists, if they're going to be put in this position, because they kind of look weak after a certain point in these scrums because they're not getting an answer. What's the approach they should consider? Or is there an approach that can work? Rob? Well, I'm afraid that we may have given up the ghost. It began with Stephen Harper and Mr. Trudeau,

who promised a more open and accessible government, has continued the approach. It begins with the fact that we line up politely. We ask one question after we've been selected by somebody from the prime minister's office we might be given a follow-up if we're lucky and if we're not and even if we get a follow-up we then politely uh make our way uh away from the microphone and give it to somebody else um it it's it's become one of those things when I began in the business there were messy scrums people spoke over each other we were persistent not always particularly dignified

sometimes not even polite but we gave that up and we have surrendered a measure of control as journalists to the message manipulators, the spin meisters, those who would massage things rather than allow us to get to the truth. I'm afraid, and I bear some responsibility. I fought like hell against it when Harper brought it in, but it was a lonely battle, I'll tell you. You know, I talk about the way scrums used to be.

I hate sounding like this old fogey all the time, but it is worth remembering that there was a moment in the Trudeau, the elder days, when in a scrum, Trudeau and Jim Munson, who was a great little reporter for CP at one point and then CTV, eventually became a senator, a liberal senator of all things, got in a punch up with Pierre Trudeau in the middle of a scrum. That's how tense things got in those days. You don't see that happening anymore. Althea, it's all history to you, of course, but what does it mean? Well, I glad that uh you know justin trudeau and i are not

physically punching each other because i'm pretty sure i would lose that battle having seen him box um i yeah i i think you know to rob's point a few things to rob's point we actually have given up a lot during covid um the prime minister's office no longer selects reporters who get to pick a question. We would line up and they go in the order of the line. But during COVID, the press conferences have been monitored by government staff, essentially staffers. And I don't know if we'll go back to the way things were or if these Zoom press conferences where we have relinquished control to the political staffers are here to stay. of the message when their candidates are on message track and only repeat what they have been told to say, no matter what the question is. I know the NDP has worked very hard with Jagmeet Singh to stay on message discipline. I mean, if you hear him on the campaign trail,

it's the same message he's been giving since last fall. And they've done this purposefully. If you think back to 2011 with Michael Ignatieff, who had two press conferences, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, I was on the campaign trail, mostly covering the liberals during that campaign. There was no message discipline. You could ask him any question and he would have a long, whining answer on every single topic. And the news coverage was all over the map.

And the liberals were unable to get any message through because we were 50 reporters writing 50 different stories on any sideline question that we wanted. And that showed them that actually this was a terrible strategy and that we should probably have fewer press conferences and he should probably repeat the answer that he wants to repeat. And the prime minister, well, the liberal leader, as we normally call him during election campaign, but as prime minister, he's decided he used to actually answer most questions, but that if he doesn't like the question you're asking him, he's just going to say what he wants to say. Sometimes it's not even related to the question that you're asking him. He's just going

to say the exact same thing. And I think you hear, I would say probably more the Quebec reporters or the Francophone reporters writing for Quebec newspapers are a little bit more vocal in their anger and disappointment, frustration with Justin Trudeau when he does that. You know, they remind him, you know, we've asked you this three times already. And they're also much better, I would say, than the Anglophone reporter is about piggybacking on each other's questions to try to get an answer. Anglophone reporters don't tend to do that as much. I'm not really sure why. But I think the way we get around it, I found, is actually making him feel guilty. You know, like this, this answer matters to real people, and you are basically

disrespecting them by not answering the question. I mean, it almost kind of sounds like I'm scolding him. It's harder to do when the press conferences are broadcast, because you also have to be aware that the public is judging you for the way you are speaking to the prime minister or to this party leader. I think that it's not writing in your story that they have not answered, I think, is especially if it's an answer. That's a question that you've been trying to get an answer for for days. I think that's completely fair. And sometimes that actually forces at least the staffers to call you back and give you an answer to your question. You know, I like some of your suggestions there. But I, you know, listen, it's never about us or the reporter. It's about the

answers that are being given by somebody who wants to lead the country. And, you know, I think it's entirely appropriate at a certain point to say, you know, I think it's entirely appropriate at a certain point to say, you know, listen, there are people who actually really want to know what you think on this question, this specific question, why can't you answer it, you know, directly. There were a number of people who wrote, and I think this is an interesting point that you've raised about the differences, the apparent differences between some of the uh um the francophone reporters and the anglophone reporters is that there's a bit of a tag team thing going on with some of the french reporters that if they see something happening

they may be in competition on the journalistic front but they want the answer and so they kind of gang up together in a way and a number of the people who wrote on my comment about Twitter the other day were suggesting the same thing. Why don't reporters, when there's something like that happen, why don't they help each other out? Why don't they, one after the other, ask the same question and say, you're not answering it. We need an answer. And perhaps that is a route to go rob i'll give you the last quick word on this as somebody who's worked in both areas both in you know in quebec and in in english canada as well as in washington so you've seen this from a number of different venues but um i'll give you a quick last word on this before we well the one thing that one area where they are cooperating where i think it's to our disadvantage and to the advantage of the politicians

we now routinely ask them to repeat their answers in english if we pose a question in french or in french if we pose a question in english politicians are happy to do that why because it sucks up the time uh and and it's it's a it's a reality that right now there are fewer bilingual reporters on the Hill than there were 25 years ago when the national question, the question of the future of the country was primordial and you needed more bilingual reporters on the Hill. As a result, you've got people basically ragging the puck for the Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition, and they're happy to have that puck ragged. If they've only got 20 minutes

for questions, and they're answering the same difficult question only one or two times, that works to their advantage, and we need to rethink that. That's good. Listen, this has been a good conversation. I've really enjoyed this, and I think we've shed a little light on some of the challenges we have as journalists,

but also some of the challenges that the public is witnessing us. Because to Althea's point, they are watching the journalists as well. I don't think it's about us. It's about those answers that those running for the highest office in the land are giving. But the public is watching at all. And so this is one way of kind of sharing part of the challenge that we're all facing, part of the dilemma that we're facing. Part of it is our own fault, as Rob has pointed out.

But I think it's an interesting part of what we're going to be witnessing for the next five weeks. So I'm looking forward to having these discussions with the two of you as we as we move on. So for this first one, this first segment of the reporter's notebook, I thank you both very much. Thank you, Peter and Rob. Well, there you go. First first episode. Of the reporter's Notebook. And, you know, I enjoyed it because I think it's every once in a while, it's not bad peeling back the onion, having a look at what we do, how we do it, and explain that to you as well about some of the challenges that we've been facing

and trying to do our job and how we've responded to those challenges and as you heard some blunt talk there we haven't always responded very well. I promised earlier that we would take a look at the papers to try and get a sense of how they've been playing the election. Was it the biggest story for the papers when they came out the day after the election call on sunday so in other words monday's papers um was there a bias in the way they played their headline or their story now we kind of scan 24 newspapers i'm going to try and do this quickly from east to west. You make your judgments on what you think. The Telegram and St. John's, the banner headline,

why an election now, Mr. Trudeau? The Guardian and Charlottetown, the newspaper that says it covers Prince Edward Island like the dew. Banner, in need of water. That was their lead story about a PEI group trying to help pay for a water well in Ethiopia. Election story is below the fold. In other words, you know, when the paper's folded,

you see the top half, and then below the fold, you see the secondary stories, and that's where the election was in The Guardian. The Cape Breton Post, the banner headline, young woman recovering in hospital from a shark attack, it seems. Trudeau calls election is below the fold. The Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Trudeau calls election for September 20th.

That's the top story. The Gazette in Montreal, banner headline, a controversial call. That's the Trudeau campaign. La Presse, Montreal. It's no longer a print edition. It doesn't have a print edition. It's on the iPad only.

And the translation of their lead headline, an unprecedented campaign. The Ottawa Citizen. Ottawa Centre is one to watch. of their lead headline, an unprecedented campaign. The Ottawa Citizen. Ottawa Centre is one to watch, so they picked their local writing, or one of their local writings, as the banner headline. Under that, Taliban take Kabul. The Ottawa Sun. Look out for number one, the big picture of Trudeau.

The Peterborough Examiner. Campaign kicks off in a small top left-hand corner of the paper. The banner headline is, Warsaw Road Swing Bridge Reopens After Delays. So they went local. Toronto Star. The banner quotes Trudeau. Canadians deserve their say. The Toronto Sun. The banner quotes Trudeau. Canadians deserve their say. The Toronto Sun.

The PM pulls the plug. Globe and Mail. The banner headline. Kabul falls to the Taliban. The bottom third is Trudeau triggers snap summer election. Canadians go to polls on September 20th. The National Post. This is a bizarre one.

It truly is. The National Post. This is a bizarre one. It truly is. The Banner Post lead story, Serbia approves COVID boosters. I don't know. Also Haiti in a Trudeau photo above the fold. Below the fold, election called as crises mount. The Hamilton Spectator. City's first pandemic election is underway.

The Waterloo Regional Record. The Waterloo Region Record. Local duo raise the woof in Paw Patrol, the movie. That's their banner headline. St. Catherine's Standard. Big picture of rowers from Saturday in some competition. Heading to the polls is a very small headline. Winnipeg Free Press, selfish election call blasted.

The word selfish was not in any quote from anyone on page one, so I don't know where it came from. Yeah, I know where it came from. It came from the editor's head. Regina Leader Post and Saskatoon Star Phoenix are identical. The banner, a controversial call. The Edmonton Journal banner headline, Taliban take Kabul. The Calgary Sun, off and running.

The province in Vancouver, race is on. the Calgary Sun, off and running, the province in Vancouver, race is on, the Vancouver Sun, many British Columbians question timing of Trudeau's election call. There's only one person quoted, but apparently that's good enough to say many British Columbians question the timing of Trudeau's election call. I don't know. What do you give the winner to? I like Serbia approves COVID boosters.

So we'll give our award of headline of the week to the National Post. All right, that wraps her up. Tomorrow's a big day in our election coverage because tomorrow we're going to have the first edition during the election of Good Talk. So Bruce Anderson will be joining us, of course.

And so will Chantelle Hebert. This is the first time Good Talk will be in front of the paywall. In other words, you don't have to do anything special to get good talk. And so we'll have two of your favorite and my favorite political analysts, journalists, strategists, call them whatever you want. They're two of the best.

And we'll have their sense of the first few days of the campaign. And then I'm off to the Arctic, so it'll be non-election stuff for a few days. I'm really looking forward to the Arctic trip. I hope you are too. We'll be looking on going on board the Navy's new Arctic patrol vessel, going through the Northwest Passage a little bit. We'll be talking at going on board the Navy's new Arctic patrol vessel, going through the Northwest Passage a little bit. We'll be talking about Arctic sovereignty.

We'll be talking about climate change. We'll be talking about things that should matter to you, and I hope we can try and do it in a fashion that you will find interesting. And it's going to be interesting. Podcasting. Broadcasting. From Canada's Arctic. That wraps it up for this day on The Bridge.

The Reporter's Notebook was the highlight of the day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.