The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Should MP's Accept Free Trips To The War Zone?

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

At least four members of Parliament accepted free trips to Israel last week to hear about the Israel-Hamas war. Members of the Liberal and Conservative parties took the deal, and members of the NDP and the Bloc said no.  The full delegation included 53 people. Some of those numbers are misreported in this podcast and will be corrected in episode 905.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It is Wednesday, and Wednesday is Bruce Anderson, and Bruce Anderson is smoke, mirrors, and the truth coming right up. Well, I don't know what those little beeps were. Did you hear those beeps? I did. I think that's on your end. I'm not touching anything over here. It's definitely on my end.

But I don't know what it was. I think you put an elbow on a keyboard or something. It was something to do with the music. I got a whole new setup here what's that book behind you oh no never mind it's another book that you wrote that you want people to know about oh but i have another question i was wondering where i'd put that book i thought i'd misplaced it but there it is right in the shot for those watching on uh can people buy that or is it free or or no no people do it the books

are discounted like immediately like right out of the gate they're discounted right out of the gate it's very it's a great price for you anyway it's there my other question though peter is you've got a thing on it's like looks like a big hoodie and it's got a toronto maple leaf logo and an owl beside it. And I don't know what the significance of the owl is because I've never thought of it as a wise choice to to back the Leafs. But tell us about that. You don't know what the owl is. You don't know the significance of the owl.

Have you ever heard of Drake? You ever heard of Drake? Yeah, I have. Yeah. This is the biggest selling music artist of all time, or whatever it is, albums or something. I think you're probably, yeah, what? By miles, like by millions.

All right. He has a company called OVO, October's Very Own. I think that's what OVO stands for, but the symbol is the O. So this is an OVO hoodie. Oh, it's very cool. So good for you. And thanks for explaining it. The Leafs won last night, by the way, as I'm sure you care.

They won in a remarkable way. They lost the shootout, and then the judges said, oh, no, wait a minute, that last goal by the Florida Panthers didn't really count. So we've got to do that over again. Oh, I'm going to wake up again. In that time. Toronto won.

Anyway, here. Excellent news. I did not start this pathway. You did. Fair enough. So let me go on this. Let me start on this. Cause I found this fascinating. You know, when we started smoke mirrors and truth SMT, as it's known in the trade,

um, it was about three years ago and the pandemic was obviously the issue of the day story of the day. And among other things, people stopped flying, right? They just stopped flying. And the numbers plummeted. The airlines all went in the tank. Employees were laid off. Pilots, flight attendants, ticket agents, the whole bit. People got high, but they stopped flying. Yeah.

Exactly. And they're still recovering to some degree, especially on the pilot situation um so the we saw these drastic terrible numbers um that were faced by the airlines in terms of travel so i saw this just yesterday it might have even been this morning um if i can find it uh it was the number of flights that were taken yesterday. Now, this was all, you know, hooked into Thanksgiving. But not only was it the most number of flights and people going through the security systems in the United States, not only was it the biggest number of flights since the pandemic.

It's the biggest number of flights ever, ever in U.S. history. There were 51,332 flights. 2,884,783 people screened going through U.S. airports. This is what the skies look like. I'm holding this up for our YouTube viewers. Wow. I've always been amazed by these. Those little yellow dots, they're all planes.

A bit terrifying. It is terrifying. Now, they're... Incredible safety record, though. Let's be... Yeah, yeah i mean let's face it they're not all flying at the same altitude and on the same course um and that's why we have air traffic controllers one of whom is featured in how canada works by the way you want to see that you want to read that anyway i found it fascinating to to look i've always been fascinated by airplanes, as you know.

But those numbers are quite something, and they probably indicate why airlines potentially are making record numbers. There's a lot of reorganization going on in the airline business. Governments are trying to stay ahead of it. Airlines think they're behind it, like that they're not up to speed on what's happening in the airline business. And it's still shaking down, all in the post-pandemic period. But what pandemic taught us, and what 9-11 taught us,

is things can change overnight in that business. And they can be put in a situation where they're in dire straits in terms of profit margins and everything else and employment records. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. And clearly, you have nothing to say about that. I wondered where we were going with that. But I just thought it was an interesting thing. Yeah. You know, I think it's got somewhere in there there's a potential for a subject. I don't know whether it fits in smoke mirrors and the truth,

but the fact is the airline business is back and roaring. And where it goes from here and where passengers and consumers can benefit or be taken advantage of in the airline business is still something everybody's trying to come to grips with i saw a story the other day about uh air travel that caught my interest but i don't know if we if we want to spend more time on air, but it was Rishi Sunak. He was talking about a Virgin Atlantic, uh, flew a plane across the Atlantic for the first time, all with, uh, biofuel and, uh, it was made from waste oils.

And that's the first time that they've ever taken a big plane across the, uh, the Atlantic. Now to be able to scale that up, that's a challenge, but it's encouraging to see that kind of innovation and experimentation. Waste oil. Waste oil is still oil, right? It is, but it's oil that's been used in other ways, and so it's kind of recovered as a product. And environmentally, it's considered well? Well, I think it's better from an environmental standpoint.

I don't know whether it's better than if it was oil made from organic products, like organic crops or something like that, but also can we just talk about politics now? Okay. I know we'll get letters on that and people say, ah, it's just oil. There's still greenhouse gas emissions. And there may well be. Well, it's good that the letters go to you.

They do come to me. All right. Let's move on to a topic that I know you're much more comfortable on, even though we disagree. And we disagreed when we first talked about this, I don't know, a year or two ago. And that's this question of ethics surrounding MPs who accept free trips from, it could be from a company, it could be from another country, and what the rules are and what the rules should be. And specifically, we raised this issue last year when it was clear that a lot of MPs were taking trips to the Middle East, sponsored by, in one way or another, by the State of Israel. Now, Israel's a war, and Canada is supporting Israel's right to defend itself,

but they're caught in the middle on this sort of issue of ceasefire, pauses, truces, what have you. So in the last week, a number of Canadian MPs, 60 of them I think, traveled to Israel. United Jewish Appeal, I think, picked up the tab. They arrived in Israel, had tours and briefings, etc., organized by Israel.

So, here's the question. Is that right? Do you think that's right? Do you have any problem with that? Well, I don't. Instead of putting it as a question, why don't you lay out your opinion, and then I'll tell you whether you're right or not.

Well, I think my opinion is no different than it was a year ago, which is I don't think it's right. I think there are issues around that that the ethics commissioner or somebody should have a look at. Maybe they already have and have decided against it or decided that there's no problem with it. I think especially now, more than at times of peace, if there ever is such a thing in the Middle East,

I think now especially it's the wrong signal to send for a nation that is trying to find the middle, I don't know, middle ground's probably not the right thing, but try to find a way towards peace in the Middle East. And here the MPs are accepting trips from one of the nations involved in the situation. So I have a problem with it. I don't think it's right. And clearly both the conservatives and the liberals had no problem with it.

They went ahead. They took the trip. The NDP and the Bloc said, no, we're not interested in this. The Green Party, in its two seats, said they were never invited and they wouldn't have taken it if they had. Yeah, look, I think I understand your point and I respect it. I don't share it. I think the overall trend in the last number of years has been, from my standpoint anyway, to try to overmanage the behavior, the intelligence gathering, the kind of stakeholder relationships that elected people have on the assumption that we should develop a set of rules that prescribes all of the things that could go wrong if they were willing to be unethical, and that society and our democracy will be healthier if we reduce the number of things that people could do, that would be unethical.

And I don't share that philosophy. I think that over time, as long as there's transparency, as long as you can find out who those MPs were and where they went and who paid for it, that at the end of the day, we need to let a little bit more oxygen into the room and the conversations that our politicians have. We shouldn't be spending that much time. I was at an event the other night where, you know, MPs were in attendance. It was a big event with hundreds of people. And the notion that was on the table is I think they could have one drink or something like that. And I know there are these rules that are made with really good intentions.

But I just feel like on balance, we've kind of gone overboard in that direction. And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who say, no, no, MPs go overboard. There's way too much pushing of the envelope in terms of how they approach their, but that hasn't been my experience. My feeling has been since I worked on the Hill

and 40 years ago, that it's good for MPs to get out of Ottawa, not just to their constituencies, but to other places on fact-finding tours. And if the question is, should the government of Canada or the taxpayer of Canada pay for all of those? I'm not that fussed by it as long as we know who's paying for it. And those MPs feel an obligation to be accountable for the choices

that they make at election time or with their constituents if the questions come up. And to me, we have to sort of treat them as grownups who can make decisions about those things and own those decisions. So I'm not suggesting that there can't be some biases that are introduced by trips or other forms of contact. I'm just saying, I think the answer is not to prohibit so much as to be transparent about what happens and to have people have the ability to know who's doing what and on who's done and then make their judgments at election time. Well, here's where we agree.

We agree that they should get out of Ottawa as often as possible to see the real issues that they're discussing and whether that's a battleground where Canadians are spending money, taxpayers' money, on supporting one side or the other or engaging with aid groups or what have you. I think that's good. They absolutely should do that, just as they should travel to uh you know situations where there are you know forest fires or flooding or you know when the uh oil fields of alberta are up for discussion in ottawa they should have a more general knowledge based on first-hand

experience than than sitting in the parliamentary library reading history books um so i you know not that there's anything wrong with sitting in the parliamentary library reading history books. So, you know, not that there's anything wrong with sitting in the parliamentary library reading history books. Where we disagree is on the transparency question. Absolutely, it should be more transparent. But why did it take a CBC reporter to find out they were on the public dime? It's not like they announced that they were going on this fact-finding mission, and by the way, the State of Israel or the United Jewish Appeal is paying for all our expenses or our trip. That's not entirely transparent. I don't know what the mechanism is, but I know that I saw on social media several of those MPs posting that they were in Israel

and that they were part of a fact-finding tour. And I think that... Yeah, but if that's all you heard, wouldn't you assume that if they were there as a fact-finding tour, that they were paid by the people of Canada? I mean, they are MPs working for the people. Well, I would, except I guess I think that I don't think there's a journalist covering Ottawa who doesn't know that these trips have been part of,

and they're not just Israel trips for years. No, I agree. So, you know, when MPs say they're going on fact-finding missions, there is a process by which those are evaluated and reported on. So I don't find this one surprising, and I don't find that there's a lack of transparency because I don't feel like anybody made any effort to conceal what they were doing or who they were going on behalf of who was paying for the trip and those those missions to Israel have been you know a very very well-known feature

of Canadian politics across party lines as you say for a very long time. Where do you draw the line, or do you? Do you think it's all good? No, I don't think it's all good. And I don't know exactly what the criteria are right now, by which some presumably are not approved. I think the caucuses have to have some say. Presumably they do. I think the ethics counselors have to have some say. Presumably they do. But I think what I'm saying is I don't think there's a hard everything's good or everything's bad line.

I think that what we've done is we've set up a series of rules and regulations that imagine that you can prescribe ethical behavior as opposed to some parameters in which people are encouraged to make smart and ethical choices. But you have to trust on some level that people are going to make ethical choices. And if they don't, you need to be able to know about it. You need to be able to sanction them after the fact, I guess. So my preference would be not to have done so much that we've done starting with the Accountability Act under Harper government. And I think you probably had the same experience. You can talk to conservatives who were in the Harper government during that period of time and who look back on those rules that they put in place and say they were too much. and the private sector, because in some cases that could be bad. But the net effect ultimately is there's just not much transfer of knowledge or culture or understanding between business and government anymore. And I think that's a loss for the system. So I think we should have parameters and we should have mechanisms to administer sanctions when things go wrong,

but we shouldn't set the rules so tight that we're trying to prescribe everything that everybody does on the assumption that that's the best way to get better government and ethical government. Okay, I think we're getting closer to agreeing on this. Sounds like I'm convincing you. Well, now that you've you know really moderated your position so all right um okay topic uh two or three if you count the airlines as one which you don't so there's topic two two yeah let's go two. The history of our country has been one where there's been a constant battle between two levels of government for sure, provincially and federally,

over who has the power to do what. Now, the Constitution kind of lays it out pretty clear, who has responsibility in certain areas and who doesn't. Yet, constantly, the two levels are fighting about one thing or another. And probably for the last, well, the last 50 years, the two constants have been Ottawa and Quebec City over constitutional matters, and Ottawa and Edmonton, over energy matters that are related in many ways to the Constitution.

So we have another one playing out now, where Alberta's introducing its Sovereignty Act within a united Canada, or a happy Canada, or whatever. I forget the phrase. But it, you know, I look at it and I've read all this stuff. I know you know this topic much better than I do. I look at it and I go, you know what? This is like heading nowhere.

This is going to be just an argument that will play out. It's kind of performative on some levels. At some point it will end up in front of the courts, maybe. But it's not like it's going to be settled next week or next month or even next year. This could play out for quite some time. And I'm not sure what exactly is playing out. I've watched Premier Smith outline her explanation for doing what she's doing,

and I've watched the Energy Minister and the Environmental Minister talk about their position on all this. I don't know. It just seems to me that this is yet another one of those federal-provincial battles that in many ways will kind of slide over the heads of many of us because there won't be a resolution, certainly anytime soon. Yeah.

What do you make of it? I think four things. One is that the long-running battle between Alberta Conservatives and federal liberals is always going to feature something like the Sovereignty Act. There's always going to be a search on the part of those Alberta Conservatives for something that they can use to show that they are fighting for Albertans against the hegemonic kind of federal government. And they did that not only against liberals, they did that a little bit against Brian Mulroney. As you remember, it led to the formation of the Reform Party.

So that instinct is always there, and there will always be a search for the device, whatever that political device is. Right now it's the Sovereignty Act. The second thing is, this fight, if the Liberals continue to lose as badly as they are in the polls, won't matter in two years, because there will be a conservative government, and they will be able to work out an arrangement with Alberta on the electricity issue, which is at the heart of this current conflict.

That may not be good for the planet, but will work for the province of Alberta. No question whatsoever. So we're really talking about something that has political repercussions and implications in this supposedly two-year period before the next election. And I think we need to kind of understand how the federal players are going to deal with it in the context of they see that election coming. And they know that one party is ahead by 15 odd points right now, which won't do the thing that Daniel Smith wants to use the Sobdy Act to prevent. The third thing is that we need to decarbonize, which is what the, I believe that some people don't, but, you know, if we're going to fight the warming of the planet, then switching our energy systems, our electricity systems important to that. of targets and approaches to try to accomplish that within a timetable that scientists have said

is necessary in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change to happen. So the underlying idea that the federal government is trying to put in place is one that if you believe that climate is changing and we need to do things to stop that from happening is a good idea. And the last point is what Smith says is her essential objection to the federal policy has more to do with timing and the ability of Alberta to control the choices that it makes within the targets and the timelines. And as I was reading about it, I have to say, I felt like, you know, there are some important issues on the Alberta side here of how they can realistically transition their electricity system as their population continues to grow because they use so much power in the energy marketplace that they have.

Whether they'll be able to get access to small modular nuclear reactors in a timely enough way to meet those timelines. So she's saying we can get some of the way to where the feds want us to get to within the timeline that they've laid out. We want to move in this direction, but we don't want to be held to targets and timetables that we don't think we can meet. Now, there will be people who will wonder whether she's sincere about that and whether her commitment to that movement is very profound or whether it's a posture. And she's certainly capable of posturing. But I do think that there's a substantive issue or two in there that, as I was reading about this, made me think,

okay, it's not all just the politics of this. There are some substantive issues associated with Alberta meeting those targets in those timetables, and those need to be discussed? So hopefully the politics of this doesn't prevent people from kind of wrestling those issues to ground and it, which is I think both sides are being sincere with the discussion, at least in public, on their differences. I thought the federal ministers, especially the energy minister, he went out of his way to say,

look, you know, we've had a number of conversations. I hear where she's coming from. We don't agree, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I watched Danielle Smith, who's at times during her, since she's assumed the premiership, has had a pretty rough go of it in news conferences and interviews. I watched her this week. One thing I'll give her is she's always up for an interview.

She doesn't say no to interviews. She does interviews, as opposed to, say, her fellow Conservative Premier in Ontario. I can't remember the last time he did an interview. Does, you know, the odd scrum. But a sit-down interview on a particular topic, I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that happen.

I could be wrong, but she does it all the time. And she goes into what some Conservatives consider the lion's den. I mean, I've seen her on the CBC more than a few times. And she makes her case. On this one, she's making it clearly. And as you said, there are some areas in this discussion where Alberta has a legitimate push on grievances

about the way the current setup is. So I'm not sure how this is going to play out. I do think that it's, it's just going to be sort of there over the next couple of years. And, you know, will a change of government resolve it? Maybe,

maybe not. Well, it'll resolve the electricity act, the clean electricity regs tension one way or like if the conservatives win, they'll find an accommodation let me put it that way i think that's that's pretty clear um but uh will that be good for the planet i don't i don't think we know the answer to that we need to see more evidence of what it is that pierre polyev is going to commit to if anything on climate change because so far he really hasn't.

And so there's reason to wonder whether or not the outcome of a federal election would be a bad one from the standpoint of the decarbonization agenda that the Liberals have put in place. Okay, we're going to take our first break. When we come back, we're going to try to sort out once again what to believe in this onslaught of polls that has come over the last, I guess, two months now. And all the polls pretty much seem to be in agreement,

but it's raising some other interesting questions that pollsters like Bruce are asking. We'll get to that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge right here on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. You're also watching us, because it's Wednesday, on our YouTube channel. We're glad to have you with us, no matter where you're watching or listening. All right, polling. The topic that we often come back to, in spite of the fact I've always said, you know, enough about polls.

I can't wait to get to the next discussion on them. Are the polling companies piling on, or are they just reflecting what they see as the way Canadians would vote if the election was held today, which is always the caveat you've got to, or at least not today, but on the day the polling was done. There is this kind of sense that every day there's a new poll, a new company behind it.

Well, not a new company, but another company behind it. And the numbers are huge. What do you do as an ordinary citizen? Not as just a, I know it's hard to separate your job as a pollster and your ordinary citizenship, but do you tire of these? Do you find that it's just like it's enough's enough? I don't know. I don't know. I don't really. I mean, I think that if we were in the middle of a four-year majority government situation, I wouldn't be definitely struggling, to put it nicely,

15 points behind, suggests that things could happen. You know, the latest polls that point to, I think it was an Ipsos one this morning that said 72%, I think, want Justin Trudeau to leave. That's a big number. And they reported on their tracking study as being up substantially just in the last few months. So I think it's an important dynamic right now. I think that they showed and another poll showed a bump for the NDP. Another poll didn't show that. So I tend to look at them all and sort of say, what are the areas of consistency? And one of those areas of consistency is a pretty substantial number, including a reasonably

substantial number, somewhere between a quarter and a third of liberal supporters want a new leader. That's an important thing. And so I tend to want to consume a fair bit of that just to see what's happening, see if somebody's figured out another angle to measure it, another way to explain it, because I'm curious about it. But for people who aren't as curious about it as I am, do they need to know more about it or do they just need one of these every week or two? I don't know. I don't think it hurts anything. I think people can consume what they want and disregard the rest. But I don't think that companies are piling on. I think they're

measuring things that are interesting in what's going on in the political landscape right now. Historically, it's always been assumed that the most important number to look at is not the party standings, but the sort of this right track, wrong track thing that's done about government. Are they on the right track or are they on the wrong track? Is that the one you look at? It used to be a more important surrogate. It still is important, but in a different way. Right now, a few years ago, we started measuring not just how do you think things are going in Canada, right track, wrong track, but what about in the United States and what about in the world? What we saw is that the numbers in Canada, right track, wrong track, but what about in the United States and what about in the world? And what we saw is that the numbers in Canada were trending downward because there's

a lot of things that were going badly in people's minds. But they were even worse when we asked them about the United States and we're still when we ask them about the world. And so I think what we know from the way that that question works now is it isn't really just a surrogate for how do you feel about the federal government. But there is a relationship between how do you feel about the state of the world that you live in and whether you're happy with the federal government. It's just not the same relationship that it used to be. People don't follow the steps and the policy measures that the government take so closely so that you can say, well, the reason wrong track is going up is because people didn't like the budget or the fall economic statement or the new defense policy or anything like that. It's more the mood of people is down because of climate

change, because of wars, because of a sense that the world is a little bit rudderless in terms of world order, because of inflation and food costs and a sense that you can't buy a house anymore. All of those things feed a mood, which is really, really hard for incumbents right now. And it's hard for incumbents, especially those who people might say didn't cause the problem. This is, I think, Justin Trudeau's particular problem, as I don't think people believe that he caused all the problems that they feel exist in Canada. But I don't think they're convinced that he has the answers to them. And I think that that's the challenge when a leader becomes a little bit kind of long in office so that people are, they don't sense the freshness.

They don't sense the new agenda. They don't believe that somebody who's been there for eight years can come up with a completely fresh approach. And they sort of feel like there's a lot of problems that are closing in on them and they want a fresh approach. So people say we want change and either the government is going to the liberals are going to give them change or they're going to look for it elsewhere. And I think that's the dynamic for Trudeau. Now, I don't think that people think that he's done a terrible job on everything that he's done. Quite the contrary. I think people like a lot of the policies that he put in place. But you're a serious radio guy. I'm a Spotify guy. But every once in a while, there's probably a, you probably have that station that

you listen to on Sirius and you go, I don't want to listen to that one anymore. I want to listen to number 292. And I have Spotify playlists and I have probably 50 or 60 of them. And I listened to one a lot. And then after a while I go, I need to listen to something else. I'm not saying it's as simplistic as that, but people are accustomed to feeling that they should get more stimulation in a political conversation about who to vote for. And I don't think they're getting as much of the kind that they like from liberals right now. And they are getting more of what they like from Pierre Polyiet. Tell me how one of the interesting things in your latest data, which is different than the other ones here, you're all searching for some new angle to the story

and the Canadians' attitudes towards it. The new angle that you looked at was how Canadians, where they place Justin Trudeau on a comparison scale with other recent prime ministers going back 50 years. He doesn't do well in this. Tell us about it. No, and you know, it's funny. This world that we live in is social media. You put some data out there and there's some people who obviously look at it and go, that's interesting. I'm glad that we sort of looked at it that way. Then there's always

people who feel like it's their job to write and explain why the question was wrong or how they would have done the question differently or what have you. And maybe I've just been an addict for too long, but I've got 40 years of experience. I think I know what I'm doing on this stuff. Anyway, there is – so people read these numbers, and some people said, well, you know, it's unfair to ask this question where you compare Justin Trudeau to Brian Mulroney and say who is a better prime minister because one person said, well, how would you ask a 20-year-old that question? How would they know?

And I'm thinking, well, we ask 20-year-olds all the questions that we ask everybody else, and people are able to come to an opinion based on whatever combination of inputs they have. But I have opinions about politicians who existed before I was alive, and I'm entitled to offer those opinions, I think. So that was one thing that came back. And another was like, well, isn't it unfair? Because there's always going to be a recency bias. In other words, that you're going to evaluate the current

or the most recent in a more negative light than the earlier. And I don't think that's always true at all. I think it is somewhat true in Justin Trudeau's circumstance right now, because he's going through a pretty rough time in terms of people saying, the economy isn't working for me. I'm worried about too many things. I don't think the government has answers. But I don't think it's always like that. And I don't think it's the same bipartisanship. So when we look at how liberal voters compare Justin Trudeau to Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper, the numbers kind of move back and forth a little bit. On the whole, obviously, it's not a bad picture for Justin Trudeau, but it doesn't look like just partisanship there.

And if we look at conservative voters, they don't like Justin Trudeau against anybody. And so I think partisanship does play a role in how conservatives answer that question, because I believe that today's conservative voter has become somewhat more partisanized, if that's a word, than today's liberal voter. I don't want to overstate that, but I kind of feel like if I'm lifting up the hood and looking at those numbers, and the conservatives are like 90% for everybody other than Justin Trudeau, which is, I think, what we saw, it tells me that that's not a careful evaluation of whether Justin Trudeau was a better prime minister than the others. It tells me it's a hard party line. And if I look at the liberals and I see more variability on those numbers, it tells me it's a hard party line. And if I look at the liberals, and I see more variability on those numbers, it tells me that people are answering the question

a little bit more on the basis of, well, what about the substance of what Harper did, or Mulroney did, that sort of thing. So I do think it was a signal that there's some fatigue with Justin Trudeau. But those numbers that show the fatigue as a majority across the country are heavily skewed by those conservative voters who just don't like him at all and think that everybody who preceded him was pretty much better. And compare briefly, because we're almost out of time, but compare briefly how conservatives feel about Justin Trudeau today. And, you know, I've heard what you said. Compare that to the way liberals felt about Stephen Harper in the last year of his governing. Yeah, I think it's about 10 points different.

So I don't want to say that liberals didn't have a real, I don't know, rage is too strong a word, but they were pretty unhappy with Stephen Harper. But I remember it being about a 75% negativity. It's normal, normal, I guess, for partisans to have kind of an 80% approval of their incumbent leader and a 70% to 80% disapproval of their main opponent. So when I see 90, which is what I see for the conservatives now against Trudeau, that feels elevated to me.

And I think it's elevated in part because the way the political conversation works now is it's less about what the columns, the columnists are writing. It's more about what you're hearing from your friends or the people that you follow on social media. It's much more that. It's like 3X that. It's what you get from Facebook rather than what our friend Andrew Coyne writes. Now, I happen to, you know, I agree with some of what Andrew writes and I disagree with some of what he writes, but it's always a kind of a thoughtful kind of he digs into the issues.

And I'm not sure that the Facebook commentary that people are exposed to in such volume today is of the same caliber of thoughtfulness. So I think that's where we're at right now. I think that the liberal are showing less enthusiasm for their leader than is normal. And that usually happens when people are worried about the next election or they're restless for a sense of change and a dynamic. And they're not as unhappy with Pierre Polyev as you would normally expect to see at this point in time. And whether or not that changes, sometimes you would expect that it would heading up to the next election. But I think the challenge for the liberals is if the election is about Justin Trudeau, I think they're going to lose. If the election is about Pierre Polyev, they might have a chance of winning.

So how do they make the election be about him when people are continuing to focus a little bit on whether or not it's time for a change? I guess that's why they've shuffled the deck on their communications wing inside the prime minister's office trying to find that formula. We'll see how that works out. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week. Good conversation. A couple of things to remind our audience of.

Bruce will be back, of course, on Friday with Chantal Hébert for Good Talk. I'll be around all week, but I'm off on my book tour, hint, hint here, starting tomorrow, and I'll traveling um in different parts of the country not all parts who's paying for that the uh my publisher oh your publisher is paying for that i'm i'm not paying for it or at least i don't think i'm paying for it but it's um it's not one of the combatant nations in the war in the Middle East that's paying for it. Okay.

All right. Very good. Well, have a great trip and sell lots of books. Looking forward to it. And listen. We'll be in the next one. Comments on anything this week. Great conversation yesterday on disinformation with Lee McIntyre from

Boston University. And Janice Stein, of course, was here on Monday and extremely popular. And then Bruce today on his issues. You have any thoughts on any of this, give us a call. Send us an email at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Look forward to doing it. If you want the book, it's available in bookstores

across the country or online. You can find it there, How Canada Works. It's a very interesting book with some dynamic Canadians who you've never heard of before, who to me are the real people who make the country work. Anyway, we're off and running for this day. Thanks for listening. Thank you again, Bruce.

And we'll talk to you all in 24 hours you bet