The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Reporter's Notebook -- Is This The Week The NDP Begins a Comeback?

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

By the end of this week, the NDP will have a new leader but what will that signal? Are we missing something about Canada without the NDP's voice? That's one of the topics for Althia Raj and Rob Russo on this Tuesday's installment of Reporter's Notebook. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for Raj Russo and their reporter's notebook? It's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Ransbridge here, along with El Sia Raj and Rob Russo. It's our every second Tuesday conversation with these two. Kind of bring us up to date on everything that's going on in Ottawa and around Ottawa and national politics in the country. Their take on what they're hearing and what they're seeing. I want to start with the NDP. I mean, this is a big week for the NDP.

This is the week they get their new leader. They announced, I think, by Saturday or Sunday. They've been voting for a couple of weeks already. And it's a big opportunity for any party when they have a leadership race. And this one's been going on in effect since the election day last year because everybody knew that Chagmite Singh was going to be replaced, and this has been the process. Now, for most parties, leadership race is an opportunity to kind of, you know,

make some headlines, make a name for yourself, build on your membership and your popularity. None of that, correct me if I'm wrong, none of that seems to have happened in this case. Here we are days away from a leader being named, and the NDP is still well down in any rankings by polls, by public opinion pollsters. So what is your assessment of what's happened in this past year and especially the months where the leadership race has been going on? Al Thia, what don't you start? I think you're being a little harsh to the NGP, not in candy headlines.

That's what some writers have been sending me letters saying, why are you guys always so harsh on them? I think if you're paying attention, there was stuff to see and there are sparks, if you want to call them that, in this leadership race. But if you're just reading the headlines of the moment, I think in part because of Trump and all things Canada, US, like it has just, it's really hard to punch through in any way through the kind of the fog and the chaos. you have five candidates. Two are, well, one is like thanks for showing up, sorry to say. Tony McQuail seems like a really nice guy.

This is the Ontario farmer who brought everyone, I think it was jam at one of the debates. He's the guy in the hat. He's the guy wearing the hat, right? Tony's not going to win this. And it's probably going to be the first person, dropped off from the ballot. So they're not going to, well, it's not clear if they're going to announce the rounds by rounds on Sunday, but they have a preferential ballot. Probably coming in fourth is Taneal Johnston, who seems like a lovely person up-and-comer in the NDP, hopefully will run again,

and possibly one day join the NDP caucus in the House of Commons. And then you kind of have the top tier, Abby Lewis, Heather McPherson, and Rob Ashton, Rob Ashton is a union guy. Heather McPherson, for those who don't know her, has been representing and mentioned Strathcona in the House of Commons since 2019, I believe. That's right, yeah. But she inherited an NDP seat from Linda Duncan.

That used to be way back in the day, Reheme Jeffery's seat. And then Abby Lewis, who is obviously the son, grandson, Stephen Lewis, David Lewis, and it's a bit of a maverick, if you will, in the NDP circles. He's the guy responsible for the LEAP manifesto, which many blame for kind of sinking the NDP in Alberta and somewhat in Saskatchewan for definitely splitting Thomas Mulcares, not literal throat, but at the convention in Alberta.

He is someone who has tried to win a seat and has failed twice. The main contest is really between these two visions. One being perhaps in a way like the New York mayor, like let's inspire people with a deeply socialist message. We're going to run on like having federal national grocery stores to reduce the price of groceries. I'm not sure that would happen. But, you know, like a bold vision dream. Some people call it some new Democrats I've heard call it like a unicorn.

everyone gets a unicorn or Heather McPherson I think says I'm like everybody gets a pony and a more tangible uh I feel bad saying realistic version of like let's propose achievable gains and that perhaps will make people dream like dental care but we'll show them that it can happen and we will be kind of willing to put water in our wine so we can get compromised and we get the liberals to like adopt our policies and affect change and that vision uh of from Heather McPherson and Rob Ashton is also deeply focused on like, how do you grow the party by getting back the New Democrats, especially blue-collar workers, who went to the conservatives, how do you bring them back into the fold? And I would say most of caucus is kind of of that tent, except for Leah Gazan, who is the Winnipeg MP who has endorsed Abby Lewis. And just in the last two-ish weeks of the campaign, well, maybe you could argue since the last English debate or the only English debate, there are.

been more like direct attacks between the camps, whereas, you know, you had Heather McPherson's emissaries digging up this old video of Abby Lewis and his wife, Naomi Klein, very famous writer, mocking the Alberta NDP for like, basically Shannon Phillips was the environment minister, like suggesting that she sacrificed too much. And so you have these two competing visions and it will be interesting to see I think not so much, well, yes, who the leader is, but how does the party bring those two sides together

come Monday and in the future because they seem quite far apart. Okay. That is, if the Abby Lewis camp wins. If Abby Lewis doesn't win, do his people the momentum that he has built over the last while and it has been quite an impressive. I mean, he's raised

$1.2 million. Yeah, which is more than any other NDP leadership candidate. has ever raised. I mean, when Justin Truder raised that amount of money and the leadership race in 2012, people were like, oh my goodness, that is so much money. So like that, that's that level. So it will be interesting to see what happens. It's not a boring story, guys. It's interesting. No, I want to get to the importance of the story in a second, but I'm still looking for the crushing argument to defeat my opening statement about the kind of situation that has

unfolded over the last year in terms of them growing themselves back into the race. But I hear what you're saying, Althea. Let me hear what Rob has to say on that. Well, I think the question you're asking is, like, why aren't people paying more attention? And even if you're an NDP supporter, it's difficult not to avert your gaze from what you're seeing sometimes. I mean, let's look at where they have been. And I'm talking about since the election to write.

now, they have lost supporters to both the conservatives and the liberals. In the last election campaign, they lost more seats. I believe it was 10 than they lost to the liberals, seven. But they're losing seats to both. That's a bad thing. They're losing MPs. We've had one MP across to the liberals. And we have another MP, a very popular MP in the province of Quebec from Montreal,

Alexandreux, who's probably going to leave, surely going to announce that he's going to leave, which will open up another riding, which will be very much in play. It was not an NDP riding, even though he hung on to it forever. It was an Alexandreux riding. He was personally identified with him,

but it's thought to be susceptible to a liberal pickup. So, you know, where are they right now? They're losing. They're losing MPs. They're losing. They're losing support to both the other parties. So what is the race setting up? It sets up, as it is, Avi Lewis,

who is trying to mobilize a whole section of younger voters to come into the NDP. And it looks like he's doing so successful. He's signed up a lot of new people, particularly in the province of Ontario. It would be interesting to see whether or not they come out, as well as raising money. but who are they?

They're urban. They're educated. So they're intellectual. They're environmentalists. And what is the soul of the New Democratic Party of Canada? Well, the cradle, of course, is Saskatchewan. So the soul is actually not urban. It has become an urban party in many ways.

But the soul of the party is in that part of the country. And if you look at where the NDP is doing very well, it's doing very well at the provincial level. Most popular premier in the country is Wab Canoe in Manitoba. They've got a government in BC. They're the official opposition in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario. I believe no, Scotia as well, if I'm not wrong. But we've got Avey Lewis setting up this urban, environmental sort of wing of the party

versus somebody like Rob Ashton who's saying, You guys are turning your back on who we are, and you're not paying attention to where we're losing. And where we're losing is with working people. And where are they going? A lot of them are going to the Conservative Party. Pierre Puelli of his success has been tapping into the frustrations, the fears, the cost of living anxiety of working Canadians.

I thought Rob Ashton did an effective job trying to highlight that and say what he might. might do as a former union leader to try to bring those people back. Heather McPherson's campaign is interesting because it's, in Quebec, they call it an an tapist campaign, I think. She is trying to step by step rebuild the party. But the first step being, let's get enough MPs in here to have official party status, get some money, get some research, get some staff.

And I can do that because I have won successive elections in an Edmonton riding in the province of Alberta. I can do that. So the race is kind of shaping up as Abby Lewis, excellent communicator, fundraiser, saying, I will build a new table. And Heather McPherson saying, I need to build a bigger table. And Rob Ashton's saying, we need to rebuild the sturdy old table that the NDP gathered around before and had some success. There is a challenge, though. and the challenge is in effect Donald Trump. And as long as Donald Trump remains the president of the United States

and threatens the sovereignty, the prosperity of Canada, the integrity of Canada, it's going to be very, very difficult for new Democrats, particularly those who support Avi Lewis. And I'm thinking of them from going to the liberals. So liberals have always been very good at scaring new Democrats, to coming back to to to the liberals or into voting for the liberals. That's a particularly appealing siren song when you have Donald Trump around. And when you can say if you don't vote for us this time, you're going to vote for Pierre

Poilliev, even though he might be evolving. You're going to get a conservative. And you're going to get a conservative who might be to akin to Donald Trump for your liking. That's the one challenge they have. And the other challenge I would say, one of the reasons why some people might be averting their eyes, is none of them speak French. And, you know, it just, it boggles the mind that in this day and age, since Brian Mulroney came along and said, listen, guys, if you want to do something in terms of national leadership in Canada,

you have to have somebody who can speak French and attempt to understand Quebec. Stephen Harper worked hard at it. Joe Clark worked hard at it. and it doesn't seem like any of them have really made the effort. You know, it's, you know, Althea mentioned the one English language debate. In fact, there were two English language debates, really, because the French language debate was basically done in English. It was done in the two languages of English and translation.

Exactly. Let me, let me back up a bit. You've both had your kind of soliloquies on where we are in terms of the big picture. I'm not sure. Can I just say, I'm not sure that Abby Lewis doesn't. Like, his French has gotten remarkably better, but he's obviously not, like, perfectly fluent. I just don't think it's fair to leave it to suggest that nobody's speaking. And Heather can read a piece of paper. But could they sit down on, you know, on a major Quebec French language program and conducting an interview?

I think Abby Lewis could do to Mon Al Pal. I don't think Heather could do that yet. Okay. but let me let me withdraw to the question of where this party sits in terms of the national landscape and the importance it has shown

over the last what 50, 60, 70 years the impact it's had the policies that it had promoted which basically had been stolen from them by a success of governments mainly liberal

now we see the liberal stealing not from the NDP, although they did a little bit in terms of the dental plan, but mainly they're stealing from the conservatives, not from the NDP. So the question becomes sort of, what are we missing without that, you know, kind of progressive third party? Or are we missing anything at this time in the country's life,

given all the impacts that outside influences are having on our politics. What are we missing with an NDP, which is just not a player, when you look at in terms of the standings, the polls, all of that, what are we missing? Althea, why don't you start? Let's have a conversation on this little bit. A lot, I would say. Like if you're listening to question period, first of all, to your point,

They don't have official party status, so they don't have any resources. They're also, like, absolutely, totally broke. They don't sit on committees, which not only means that they can't make, or they have a very hard time, everybody else to allow them to make amendments to legislation, they can't call witnesses. So they can't help shape the discussion about, like, what are the problems with this piece of legislation, whose voices are being excluded, what considerations should we be giving to, what groups need to be heard. They can't ask questions in question period. And that is kind of what starts the media cycle,

not just for traditional media that watches question period every single day, but also even the influencers that take clips and the MPs that take clips from the House of Commons and run their whole commentary around it. And also the influencer ecosphere is heavily tilted to the right. So already they're at a disadvantage. But in terms of issues, like Alberta, not just Alberta, but very striking with Bill of Levin's, from Danielle Smith is a clear affront to the Canada Health Act by introducing privatization. The NDP are the only party talking about that in the House of Commons.

Neither the NDP nor the Green Party has talked about childcare agreements. They're ending next year in Ontario and Alberta. Nobody's talking about that. At a time when there's 100,000 people who've lost their job, who's talking about beefing up employment insurance? Like if you listen to question period, all you hear about is food costs are really hot, That's why we should get rid of the industrial carbon price, which has nothing to do with food prices, but that is the conservative line. We should be building more pipelines.

And let's take away health care for what the conservators call bogus immigration refugees, asylum seekers who've had their claims denied. The government is actually introducing a copay system on the federal health system for asylum seekers that kicks in in May. Who's talking about how that's going to feel? people or what the cost savings are or why we're doing that or on Bill C-12. We're closing what the government would say a loophole on the third country agreement, but we're sending people back to the United States where we know they will be put in detention centers and possibly sent back to home countries like Haiti, for example, where we don't send people to, but we're closing the looble hole and we're closing

our eyes and pretending that we don't see human rights abuses. We're introducing legislation that experts tell us breach the Vienna Convention, breach our own obligations when it comes to what international agreements that we have signed on the refugee front. Nobody is really talking about that. We are clearly going to miss our climate targets. The minister insists that we are not,

but we are on a downward trend. There's actually, it's law, so maybe that's why she has to say that we're going to meet them. But who's asking those questions? You know, it is very striking the lack of progressive voices in the House of Commons. And it means that the national dialogue is also not talking about those issues. Like that caring society that the NEP talks about or that Justin Trudeau talked about when we had COVID and long-term care homes and how do we take care of people.

The conversation now in Ottawa in political circles is about systems. Let's build up the defense industry. And then you have this tiny NDP voicing, well, hold on a second. Let's not send arms to countries that might commit genocide. Like, let's make sure that we're not like helping genocide in Sudan. And then it's like a one-day story and it's gone. So I do think it's noticeable. And I do think there is value.

And I think that actually it's an opportunity for the NDP come the next election because Pierre Poliyev is not likely. going to become prime minister for the left to say, wait a second, yes, Donald Trump is a threat, but let's not forget who we are. And let's try to bring the liberals a little bit back more towards the left. All right. I want to hear, I want to hear Rob's view on that. And I, you know, I'm really, I'm really interested to know which voice Rob will use to make his case. But I guess I thought Althea really did the little voice in the background really well, even though there's some pretty strong tough voices on that on the background too but rob go ahead yeah i'll use

i'll use my own voice my mother likes to remind me and my sister that when we were born and she needed anesthetic that she had to pay uh the money had to come out of her pocket we were both born before 1965 what happened in 1965 in canada we got medicare where did medicare come from it came from the NDP. It came from Saskatchewan. It came from Tommy Douglas, who compelled Lester Pearson's government to do that, pushed them, nudged him. It's, so we got Medicare from them. CPP was something else that came from the new Democrats. So what you, what you're missing in effect when you don't have a new Democratic party in Canada is you're missing a party that, whose first cause, who, whose first care is to look after those who have been left behind through no fault of their own.

And that voice, that voice is missing. And it is in part because of our time, because of fear and in some ways because of necessity, that we must leave some things off the table. but we should not be forgotten that people are hurting as a result of that and people are being left behind and people are in many ways suffering. And New Democrats used to be very, very good at reminding us and they don't have the platform. And I would say that they're not as a dwat as they used to be in pushing that, even with a reduced caucus, which I think brings us to one of the...

the other problems New Democrats have had. Successful new Democratic governments have been government for a reason. They tried to be government and they were serious about it. And one of the reasons they manifested their seriousness was that they were fiscally responsible. Alan Blakeney ran balanced budgets in Saskatchewan. Roy Romano did the same thing. And so what seems to have gone missing in the modern, New Democratic Party is a sense of fiscal probity.

That doesn't mean that you're going to run surpluses all the time. It's very difficult to do that right now. It's very difficult even for NDP governments to deliver health care. I look at what's going on in the health care system in British Columbia. I think it's one of the provinces that's really struggling under a new Democratic government. It's sending more of its people across the border for cancer treatments in the United States, I think, than any other province. So they have an opportunity.

I think that opportunity is going to elude them while Donald Trump is around, but that left flank of the Liberal Party is wide open, because whereas the liberals used to steal from the New Democratic Party, now they're stealing from the Conservative Party, and there is an opportunity for an agile, a nimble, and a disciplined NDP leader to take advantage of that. You know, you mentioned Tommy Douglas's name and the changes that he affected in our country

as a result of programs that he initially did in Saskatchewan as Premier. And then he became NDP leader. I remember, you know, in the 1980s, long after Tommy Douglas had kind of retired from the scene and he died in 86. But it was somewhere in the early 80s that there was an NDP convention in Regina. And they were celebrating his life. And at the end of the evening, and I was there, he got up, he stood on a table.

And, you know, like in a conference room table, he got up on the table, everybody standing around him. And he gave this unbelievable speech, you know, off. the top of his head, and in many ways I imagine a speech he'd given many times before in his life. But it was basically about who initially the CCF were, who the NDP became, what they stood for, and what they would try to accomplish, and in many cases did accomplish, given their, even their situation in terms of being a third party and sometimes a third party and, you know, without a lot of seats. but it was an unbelievable speech and there were tears in the room,

people were crying, it was just an amazing thing. I'm just wondering, is anybody speaking like that anymore from that party? Do you hear that kind of feeling expressed by those who want to lead

the progressive party in our country? Well, certainly, I think Abby Lewis has the DNA, and I, and perhaps even, I think, the capacity to deliver that kind of oratory. But I'm going to, I'm going to date myself and say to you that I speak to speechwriters, a lot of speech writers. It's one of the things I'd like to do because I'm fond of the written word. And because I lament the, what is, I think, a lost age of oratory across the entire political spectrum.

that the written word and spoken word after it's been written down has kind of lost its power to the TikTok world. And when I ask speechwriters about that, they would invariably say, and this is up until recently, this may be changing, this may be changing, but they would say that Canadians and voters in general had grown suspicious of anybody who used oratory that way,

who moved people that way. It's one of the reasons why they say Trump is successful. And I think Mark Carney's election may be a manifestation of a backlash against that. We'll see. We'll see. But there has been, I think, a suspicion. If you just think of, you know, in our life, Lifetimes. We've all, and we, and the clips of John F. Kennedy's oratory, it's, it's, it's, it's poetry in many ways, right?

I don't know how that would go over now, but it would sound all like, almost like, um, uh, Shakespearean English to some people now. Um, so maybe, maybe we're out of that, that, that, that era of suspicion of, of higher oratory. Um, we'll see. But I, look, you know, Brian Moroni used to do it. I saw Lucien Bouchard do move people during a referendum, turn around a campaign like that based on, in some ways, demagoguery. But, you know, emotion, raw emotion, getting a crowd to swell up. You don't see that very often at all anymore. You know, you mentioned Kennedy.

I mean, Kennedy had speechwriters, really good ones. You know, Sorensen, White, others. Tommy Douglas had one speechwriter. Tommy Douglas. That's right. And to some degree, Lucien Bouchard and Brian Maroney were that way too. I mean, they knew how to roll with a crowd and have the words to match it. We've gone way too long on this, but I'll give you the last word, Althea, on this point.

If does anybody talk like that anymore? I actually think speeches are back. You know, like we spent so much time talking about Mark Carney's Davos' speech. We've been talking a lot about Pierre Puehliev's speeches. I think we had a bit of like FOMO with Barack Obama, like where was our oratory master. And, you know, Mark Kearney isn't giving speeches the way that you're talking about Tommy Douglas, for example.

Can he get there? I don't know. But Pierre Paulyev did a lot of that in his lead up to his leadership bid. You know, moving people to tears, people were not conservative, bringing in the Nifold, speaking. about issues that mattered to him, to Rob's point, speaking a little bit about demoggery, but he did move people to tears. Like, I think he has the capacity to do that.

I think it's not totally lost. It's just not happening, perhaps, on the floor of the House of Commons, or on a table on the floor of the NPP convention. But I don't know. Maybe you will be surprised, Peter, on Sunday. Okay, a last point on this. Since we're talking about writing, and we all love to write. Both, I spoke to the prime minister's speechwriter.

I don't know if I should say his name. I might be embarrassing him. He loves the written word, but he says that Carney is a guy who also loves a written word. And I know for a fact that Mr. Puelliev writes the bulk of his own material as well. So he is also a guy who does believe in conveying these kinds of complex ideas, distilling them to their essence and trying to connect with people through written language as well. So Althea is probably right. There are current crop of leaders trying to bring it back.

Okay. We're going to take our break. We did a half an hour on this. I hadn't been planning on that. So we've got to, I want two more subjects. So we're going to have to be fairly brief on those, including my questions. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to Reporter's Notebook. with Toronto Stars Aal Thea Raj and the economist Rob Russo right here on the Bridge podcast for this Tuesday. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, are on your favorite podcast platform. I'm Peter Mansbridge, glad to have you with us. Okay, topic number two, and as I said, we're going to have to be somewhat brief on this.

Auditor General's report comes out yesterday, and the headlines are certainly one of the headlines, was that over a two-year investigation, they looked at, or they flagged about 150,000 foreign students in Canada, suggesting there were issues here in terms of their fulfilling their obligations as foreign students in the country. Only of that 150,000, only 4,000 were actually looked at, investigated. Which seems like, you know, the AG certainly saw that as a fault. It looks actually stunning, really, that that happened,

especially at a time when this issue is forefront on a lot of Canadians' minds, the immigration issue. Thoughts on this, Rob, you were looking at this and keeping in mind our time restrictions here. Yeah, it's just an example of why, first of what's incompetence. It's rank and competence. I think Mark Miller, when he inherited the department, called it a mess, and he paid us the compliment of being blunt.

And the current minister, Ms. Diab, is not paying us that compliment. She has accepted the attorney general's recommendations, but she's not telling us exactly what's going to be done. Clearly, this needs to be tackled. I think the larger issue that we need to be worried about is that, for a century and a quarter, immigration was a good in Canada and seen as a good. And we needed immigrants. And as an immigrant, I think all three of us are immigrants on this podcast.

We needed to come to Canada. And it worked. It worked magnificently. Canada changed us. We changed Canada. We forged this unique country where there was this consent. on the benefits of immigration. That's not unraveled. That's gone.

And that is a real danger, I think, for the idea of Canada and the kind of Canada that we all grew up on. And it could play a role, I think, going forward in attracting the kind of immigrants that we're trying to attract right now, the ones that are being turned away or are turned off by the going to the United States the best and the brightest. So it has a real cost in terms of our society, our social cost, and a future cost as well, and they got to get it right. I'll see you.

I don't know if I would say it's gone. I think it's being challenged every day through social media. I think politicians have thought that there is an advantage to be had. to blame people's frustrations with the health care sector, with unaffordable rent, with a lack of housing on the sheer number of new agreements who are showing up. But when you really look at who's causing what, they have been scapegoated.

So I don't think everybody is of the opinion that there are too many agreements. We see that in the data, but it is heavily challenged. It's especially heavily challenged in some vote-rich writings near Toronto. I think the main problem that seems to not have reached the immigration minister yesterday when the AG table of the report is that for people to have trust in the system, you have to believe that the system works. And instead of properly funding the Immigration Refugee Board that hears hearings, We are saying we're going to close a potential loopholes or send people back or not give them health care to find ways to like cut costs. But why don't you just increase the number of people at the Immigration Refugee Board to deal with the backlog?

CIC clearly needs more capacity than dealing with 2,000 cases annually of fraud, especially if you're asking post-secondary educations to tell you about potential cases of fraud, if you're discovering potential cases of fraud and you're choosing not to follow through on the investigation, it's like imagine if CRA somehow came up and told us that actually, you know, 93% of Canadians are not paying their taxes, but we're not going to do anything about it. And the rest of you, you still need to give us your taxes, but we're not going to prosecute anybody who's not paying their taxes. The system would fall apart. And so obviously, like this is about having trust in the system. government needs to show us that it's doing the work that it says it's doing.

I think that, like these types of stories further harm the consensus on immigration. You know, I still have trouble understanding how so quickly we seem to have lost that thread that was part of our national fabric. You know, as Rob said, going back more than a century. and, you know, the three of us either directly immigrants or from families of immigrants. I don't know. I don't quite understand how quick, because it was only a couple of years ago.

We had these, we boosted levels, right, for immigration. What was it, like 500,000 a year? Right. And that was within the last decade, right? Yeah, but we didn't prepare. We were unfair to those people coming. We didn't prepare schools. We didn't prepare doctors.

We didn't prepare. We talked about catching people when they fall through no fault of their own. We didn't prepare that net. And, you know, the federal government gets the wrap for this. I also blame a lot of the provincial premiers. Of course. Okay. Many of them who are still there now were screaming, screaming, yelling at the top of their lungs,

asking for more immigrants. And they were asking for a particular kind of immigrant. They're asking for cheap labor, is what they were asking for. and their provinces, their provincial structures, their healthcare systems, their public schools were the ones that were going to bear the burden of this, but they weren't thinking about that. And so they bear their share of responsibility as well. I mean, there used to be a guy who did research for Stephen Harper who said to me, if you want to find out who was a racist in Canada, all you have to do is ask one question on a poll.

Do you want to stop all immigration? And there would probably be a response of around 15%. He said that's usually how you identify racist. They want no immigration at all. Well, if you look at polls now, the number of people who want no more immigration at all has come up substantially. I don't think it's because there are more racist. They're always going to be racist in Canada. I don't think it's because there are more of them.

I think it's because government has really filed this up. and as a result has introduced attention in our social fabric that wasn't there before. Okay. Last quick word, I'll see you on that subject before we move on. I agree, but it wasn't immediate. Like I think the provinces are to blame, for example, on, especially on the foreign students as a way of helping subsidize their lack of funding in post-secondary education. But it's like many-decade problem.

Like we stop building affordable housing. We stopped in building new schools. We did like there was no, the province was asking the federal government to allow all these new people in and the federal government was not sitting down in the provinces and saying, well, where do you plan on putting them and where will there

children go to school? And how are you building that capacity? Those conversations did not happen at all. And so it's not like suddenly one day all these people showed up at the door. It's like there was no planning. Hopefully we've learned our lesson. Okay, last topic, and we've got a few minutes to deal with it.

Althea will probably jump on me for this, but one of the phrases in Canadian politics that draws an immediate glaze over the eyes for a lot of people is notwithstanding clause. But there it is again, as yesterday the Supreme Court begins as deliberations. on the notwithstanding clause in effect in terms of the Quebec issue about face coverings or head covering. What are we learning about through day one of the Supreme Court session?

What did we learn about the notwithstanding clause that would be of interest to our listeners here that we should flag them on what's being said? Who wants to start that one? I'll start. You know, it's not just about the Nobber Standing Closet. And that word, that word, I think, it's important if we tell people what it is. A lot of people are wondering whether or not it's constitutional or unconstitutional.

It's in the constitution that legislatures, including the federal government, have the right to supersede judicial, judgments on on on laws so for me it's really this whole this this this hearing is nominally about section or about Bill 21 in Quebec the ban on religious symbols and and gar in the province of Quebec but it's really about what kind of a country what kind of a democracy we want to be because they are going to look at the use of the notwithstanding clause And the notwithstanding clause essentially says that legislatures are supreme over judges.

And that's what's being argued. And I think that that's a hugely important thing. You know, we have a legislative branch, we have a judicial branch, and we have an executive branch. But Pierre Trudeau put, and the premiers pushed them into this, insisted that legislatures be supreme when it comes. comes to laws and not judges. And this could get decided by this court. They're going to hear arguments. The decision will probably come down before November.

And at a time when our national unity is in peril, their decision will have an impact on national unity. Okay. I'll see you. So yesterday was the first day of four days of hearing on Bill. 21. And there's basically two questions. The question of the notwithstanding clause, the preemptive use of the notwithstanding clause, and the actual content of bill 21. Yesterday, basically, the complainants got to make their cases on bill 21. What struck me to answer your question is the pushback. There's always like the Supreme Court, there's always a dialogue between the justices and the lawyers. But some of their questions, were like whether Quebec's, you know, history with secularism should count for something. And so that, like, it's, you know, you don't know if they're playing devil's advocate

or if they're like, that's actual the thinking that that's happening in their head. But it was, that was interesting to me. On the question of the preemptive use of the notwithstanding clause, a lot of people believe, including, I mean, I was not around during the constitutional talks, but from I have read and from the people who were there, talk about what was supposed to happen was a dialogue with the court. So the legislature has passed laws, people appeal in the court. The court says, no, this breaches people's right.

And then the legislators decide, well, maybe we want to respect the judges and tweak the law, or maybe we say, no, thanks, judges. And we invoke the notwithstanding clause, and we pay a cost at the ballot box at the next election. Yeah, it's important to tell people that it has to be renewed every five years. Yeah, there's a five-year sunset clause. Which, you know, in Quebec, use a notwithstanding clause, it just kept using it over and over and over again.

But the point is now the use of the notwithstanding clause has become so routine that is there really a cost? And like that was an argument that was put to the justices on Monday. And the question of the preemptive use of the clause means that you're not having that dialogue with the court. So is that, like, that's not the way the framers intended. Is that a legit use of the notwithstanding clause? And when you look at how provincial governments have used or threatened to use,

like we will remember in Ontario, for example, deck forward, trying to use the notwithstanding clause preemptively to prevent, like, janitors from striking in schools. And there was a huge uproar and the labor movement in Ontario is like, wait a second, if you do this, we're doing it. a province-wide strike and Duckford changed his mind. But in other provinces, you have not seen that. Like, you've not seen that in Alberta, for example. And so it does mean, you know, at the end of the day, however, the justices aside, the question is, do those rights that we believe we have in the

charter, are they worth anything? Or are they kind of just like mere suggestion for legislators? Please don't trample on this, but actually you do have an option if you do want to trample on them for five years until you renew it, if you choose to renew it. So it is a really important hearing and it will be a really important decision. You know, I, as one who actually was there when all this happened back in, you know, 1981, the end of the year and then dragged into 82 when Patriation took place in April or whatever it was of 82. You know, I've been lucky, like we all have, of covering major moments in the country's life. That was one of them.

And it had every ingredient. It was a long session of meetings between the premiers, some out in the open in the good old days, where you used to watch that kind of argument between the premiers, the first minister's taking place, and some of it behind closed doors. And you had to work to find out what it actually happened. But it had everything. It had skalduggery. It had drunken nights by some of these, you know, players.

It had big dinners. It had backroom deals, backroom stabbing. We all know that that session ended up with Quebec not joining the group. And notwithstanding clause being the thing that got the compromise. The compromise going. in the middle of the night. You know, it was quite something in the famous or infamous kitchen cabinet meeting

between a number of the provincial officials and federal officials, Jean-Cretchen, Roy McMurtry, Roy Romano. They were all there. So it was quite a moment. It was quite something. And at the time, it was regarded as, wow, they managed to make a deal.

Sure, Quebec's offside, but they still, they managed to make a deal. We're heading this way. We're getting our, you know, our constitution back. It's out of Westminster. It'll be in Canada. There were a few people saying, this notwithstanding clause is a problem.

It's going to haunt this place. Now, it didn't for a long time, but it has much more so in the last, in the recent years, where it's used a lot more. So it's interesting to watch history unfold. and look back. But didn't they all agree, Peter, that in the end,

the people must reign supreme. And that was why the notwithstanding clause went in there, because it gives the people the final say, through an election, if this thing is used, and it has to be reused. I think that's the question. That was the reasoning they used, but a lot of, you know, legal experts were saying,

this is a problem. You're going to regret ever putting this in there. There's another problem looming. The liberals, it seems, are going to debate at their convention in a couple of weeks, whether or not they should use what's called the disallowance power to strike that down. Has been used for over 80 years. We talk about threats to national unity. I think that would constitute a threat to national unity as well.

Okay, well, it's not to. strike down the notwithstanding clause. It's the island's power allows the federal, it's still on. Yes. Allows the private, the federal government to say, this provincial bill, we're disallowing it. And it has not been used in forever. And like our friends thought that about argues that you can no longer use it.

And even if the liberals agree, like the liberal delegates agree to pass this, I don't think there's a way in hell. Mark Kearney would use the disallow power against any provincial bill. Well, I remember that day 80 years ago when they did. use the district. Let me tell you what it was like. He's kidding. He's kidding. I am kidding.

As much as it looks like I probably was there. Anyway, listen, thank you both. It's a fascinating conversation. I've enjoyed it a lot. And we'll do it again in two weeks time. Healthy Arrige, Rob Russo. Thanks for this. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, thanks, Rob.

Look forward to it. And thank you as well for watching and listening to reporter's notebook for this week. I'm Peter Mansbridge. We'll see you again tomorrow. Bye for now.