The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Smoke Mirrors and The Truth - The McKenna Story

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Bruce Anderson joins for Smoke Mirrors and the Truth and the agenda is full - radishes, books, borders, election timing AND the Catherine McKenna story, what happens with her departure?

And hello there, Wednesday. This is Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the Wednesday edition of The Bridge, the only one that exists during this hiatus period of the summer. The Wednesday edition, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, with Bruce Anderson. Acana Pet Food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the Acana 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. Yes, sirree, Peter Mansbridge here. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. I'm in Toronto today. It's hiatus time on the bridge, but not on Wednesdays. We're there for you. We're there with the light of smoke mirrors and the truth. So let's start off with the truth on the radishes because it has been a hot one this week and not just in BC where it's been unbelievably

hot, but it's been quite warm here in central Canada as well. well thunderstorms quite often in the evening how are those little radishes making out in this kind of weather i'm about 30 kilometers from those radishes and those other vegetables right now peter and i can feel them saying thank god this has been a great week this has been our best week this this week started with um bruce Bruce and Molly going up and planting some other vegetables around us. And so the whole area is really crowded now with different crops. And it was hot, but we poured water on it from the creek legally with the pump, and it worked like a charm. And then we had sun and heat and rain and more rain. I think it's going pretty well. I can feel it doing really well. And I can't wait to get up there later today and see how

things are. So all this heat isn't drying out the creek because of the evening rain showers. There's a bit of risk of that. The water level is pretty low, but the rain has been coming. It hasn't been torrential and I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit of torrential rain. It's pretty dry here this year, but it's been a better week. That's what I can say. And we planted some new stuff, so we're going to have more to report and maybe even some pictures next week when we get together.

That'll work really well on this radio broadcast. I know, but you know, here's the thing, Peter. I don't know if you know here's the thing peter i don't know if you know about this i remember you did a story i think it was like 70 years ago where you said there's this thing called the internet and here's how it works and i don't know if you stayed in touch with the internet but uh we can share the pictures on the internet that's good well i'm looking forward to seeing it and i'm you know i'm particularly i you know on this irrigation plan does it like do you have irrigation ditches or do you just leave the thing spraying out water all no i got one of these funky sprinklers that kind of like sprays the water around and it you

know it kind of feels like a miniature version of a real farm and that's pretty exciting to me does the sprinkler move up and down the uh the no it kind of goes in a big circle but it has that kind of pulsing effect that you like that sense of uh well somebody's really thought this through even though it's pretty much made up as we go but it's a great proving ground for next year and and i'm glad that everything's planted peter because and and you know now the sun and the water are going to do their work because i've been you know i've been just dying for a few moments to kind of research what's the next book i should read what book do i need to read have i got you? Well, I heard that there's a new Peter Mansbridge book coming, and I was disappointed that it's not going to be available until October.

Is that right? But, boy, I know that people are going to want to know about that. Well, there is a thing in the book cycling business, right, that's either spring or fall are kind of the main times. And so this book was picked for the fall, partly because it wouldn't have been ready for the spring. I started writing this actually last summer. And this is more in the,

as opposed to last year's book that I wrote with Mark Bulgich about extraordinary Canadians, about, you know, real, real people who have done amazing things in their lives. This one's actually about me. And I wrote it. This one is all me. It was announced on Monday. I didn't want to clutter up the special program I did on Monday, obviously,

about the residential schools question, which, by the way, has been extremely well received out there and it's been listened to both as a podcast and on Sirius XM channel 167 which is they're running it every day this week that's their commitment on on this issue it features two people Mark Miller the Indigenous Services Minister and Murray Sclair who was of course the chair of the truth and reconciliation commission anyway it's a very good broadcast if you have not heard it yet um please download it off the broadcaster if you're a serious xm subscriber look for the time that it's running on yeah i'm really happy that they did it and

that you did it and good for you to kind of spend the time and good for them to have the kind of the long form conversation. I think one of the great things about podcasting is you can have those longer conversations and people can really get a chance to hear these issues talked about in a more in-depth way. Let me very briefly say the book book will be out october 5th it's called off the record and it's a collection of uh of stories from my career over the last 50 years the kind of stories you know how when you go out for dinner with friends or you're having dinner with family and you end up telling stories about your work that you didn't really tell at work or on the air in my case as a broadcaster but they were in many ways the kind of stories that you remember those moments most for so that's what this book is full of and it's full of all kinds of stories from different

parts of as i said my career over 50 years but in different parts of the world different parts of the country um and you know i i hope uh people enjoy it i had a lot of fun it's gonna be it's gonna be big and and you know what people can't see us as you pointed out but i can see you and i know there's a copy of this book because you're holding it up and That's the one copy I have. One copy of this book. Here's the thing I want to know, Peter, is I know a lot of the stories that you have to tell, and you have some of the best stories. So I know this is going to be an entertaining book, an enlightening book.

It's probably going to make you look good. I don't think there's going to be a lot. You'll be surprised. You'll be surprised. But here's the thing. I'm pretty honest in this book. When i hear you talk about your life story usually like 25 of it is about that one two iron that you hit on the 14th hole at crude bay and all of your friends are like will this be a whole chapter in the book or or will he even mention the book because he's, you know, he doesn't want to draw attention to all of the other golf shots.

Like is the golf in the book? Actually, it was the 13th hole. It was the par five. It was a two iron to the pin and, uh, you know, about an 18 foot putt, uh, for birdie. Now I don't remember that well, other than it was one hell of a two iron. You talk about it a lot. Yeah, it really was good. All right.

Anyway. On to business. Let me just leave this on the book. The copy I have that I'm holding up that you can see on our little internal feed is the one copy I have. It's what's called a reader's copy. It went out to certain reviewers and people who will offer, if they're so inclined, what we call a blurb for the back of the book. I think I earned that book today, by the way.

But the actual hardcover edition of the book doesn't come out until October 5th. But you can pre-order right now at indigo.ca. And this week and this week only, there's a special on in terms of pre-orders. So that's all I'm going to say. It's also on my website at thepetermansbridge.com, thepetermansbridge.com. You can see something on it there. Off the record is the book called. All right.

Time for actual smoke mirrors and the truth. Smoke mirrors and the truth. Of course, that was all the truth, just like the book. Yeah. Everything in this book is true, according to me. Now, I want to talk about borders and where we are because I'm confused. I think I'm like a lot of Canadians. I can't quite figure out what's going on.

We're doing extremely well on the vaccine front. You know, an increasing number every day. It goes up by one or two percentage points the number of those who are totally vaccinated we're around you know around 80 percent in the 12 and over category for one vaccination and we're over 30 percent in the um fully vaccinated area so these are good numbers they're marching towards a you know even better numbers But can we go anywhere? Like even internally in the country, but more importantly for a lot of Canadians, can we go to the States? Can the Americans come here?

Can we go to Europe? All these things can happen, but there's so much protocol and regulations attached to it. Is there any sense that any of that's changing? I think that the, I think there is a sense that things are changing, Peter. My feeling is, and the conversations that I've had tend to confirm this, that officials on both sides of the Canada-US border and our kind of friends and ally countries that we do a lot of travel back and forth with are also working diligently on what

does this need to look like and i think that you know the instinct that a lot of people have myself included is a kind of an impatience now that we've you know we seem to have kind of hit a level of vaccination and a reduction in the number of cases that we should be able to kind of get back to whatever normal is as quickly as possible. And so impatience is part of this. But I think that we need to reflect on the fact that complexity is also going to be part of it. And how do we deal with certain things? So thing one, is it let's imagine that at some point in the not too distant future, we all can put an app on our phone that shows that we've had two doses, that we're fully vaccinated. And America says, okay, you can come, but at the border, is the American infrastructure in place for everybody to check and verify those apps? I don't know that it is. And I think that's

a very complicated thing, especially when we've seen over the years that the United States has really built up its kind of homeland security apparatus. And sometimes I don't know about you, but as a traveler, I can go into the United States through the border and feel like they've got an awful lot of protocols and measures and security that didn't used to exist and probably make life pretty complicated and add cost and time and that sort of thing. On our side of the border, I think obviously what we need to be aware of is the fact that the vaccination rate in the United States has slowed a lot. And people coming from some states, in Alabama, for example, very low vaccination rates. So to protect ourselves, our own society, we're going to need to check

on the vaccination status. At least this is my understanding of what we're going to be obliged to do when we open up that border fully. That's going to take time. How do you do that without creating these huge lineups, which cause people to then pull their hair out and say, why weren't we prepared for

this? Why is this kind of seem like it's not working that well? And I think where I'm at is that this is going to take a little bit more time to sort out, but we are going to start to see some movement in terms of opening up these borders. And we're probably going to experience that sense of both frustration and maybe a little bit of understanding that we're trying to do something that we've never done before. And that's just with the United States. And there'll be other complexities. You and I have been talking about going to Scotland. And even as a month ago, we might have been able to look at August and said, well, you know, maybe that's going to work out OK, August in Scotland. And now we're seeing cases climb there and protocols are tight there. And will that change, you know, in the next four weeks?

We can all want these things to change more quickly. But we may end up regretting if our decision makers ended up moving too quickly on some of these things. You talked about the app. The app that they seem to be talking about is this Arrive Can. Arrive Can, yeah. Arrive Canada, but Arrive Can is what the app's called. So I went on it last week, I guess one of many people who went on it, and I signed up for it. But right now it's basically

you know it's basically a blank slate it's not delivering anything yet there's no point to enter your vaccination history or any of that stuff but is it's probably wise to at least get that app on your phone because when it happens it's going to happen all of a sudden, and you don't want to be starting at stage one, which is getting the app itself. The system will probably crash when everybody tries to get it, but then filling it out. But that is the one, right? That's what I understand, and I understand that it was the second most

downloaded app in Canada last week or something like that. So I think that that word is starting to spread. And, you know, I do think that people who travel will quickly figure out that they need it and they'll get it. And I think that the knitting is going on on the Canadian side of the border between the federal government and the provinces. The provinces obviously have the data about who's been vaccinated. So they have to agree on how they're going to share that data in what format and with what kind of privacy protocols so that there can be a national system

that allows people in Germany, for example, who might not care whether you live in Nova Scotia or Manitoba. They only really want to know if you're coming from Canada, do you have a proof of immunity? So I think that work is going on on the Canadian side of the border among the governments that need to agree to it. I think work is obviously in place on the Arrive Can app. And I think that there's also work going on with other countries to establish protocols that uh that are in line with um uh with theirs and with our understanding of the science and how to be sure that what we're taking is a safe step because i you know as much as as we all want to get on with it whatever it is for us personally we also don't want to fall back. And I think that's key in the minds of a lot of the political decision makers right now

is that what would it feel like if we took one step too quickly and found ourselves back in some sort of horrible situation going into the fall? So a better safe than sorry, I guess, is the ethic. You know, when we talked to Anita Anand, the Minister of Procurement, and part of that central cabinet committee on the whole COVID story, she talked about how they were in cabinet dealing with this issue around, I mean, some call them vaccine passports others vaccine certificates or some form of proof that you've had two vaccines and as you mentioned a moment ago part of the debate around that is is the debate over privacy and some people feel very strongly about the position of not enforcing people to have these vaccine passports.

But do you know where that is? I mean, some of you call it whatever you want to call it. But one assumes that at some point you're going to have to have something other than, I mean, I plasticize my two vaccine things and have them available, although nobody has ever asked for them anywhere yet. Like, you know, travel on the airplanes. I love that you plasticized them. I did. Because that'll make them work wherever.

You just go, look, it's in plastic. So you have to accept it. Yeah. But it's an 8x10. I couldn't get them to, you know, like condense. It's not like you can put it in your pocket or it. Yeah. But it's an eight by 10. I couldn't get them to, you know, like condense. It's not like you can put it in your pocket or anything. Yeah. I think that is coming along, Peter.

In fact, someone told me just yesterday that there is a place in Ontario, like a website for Ontario, where you can go in and access that. Now, I don't know if it's fully loaded and ready to go yet, but I think those are being developed. I think there's no question that governments know that they're going to need to have this, that people are going to want it, and that it needs to be digital. And people like you and me probably

will still carry the plasticized version. I'm going to get mine plasticized today. I thought that was very like appropriate of me that i was like doing a good thing and was going to be able to you know when the somebody at the the gate at air canada or whatever said have you been yeah vaccinated twice i was like yes look at this and i would haul this out of my briefcase and that they would be very impressed. But nobody's asked for it yet. It's very OG, as the kids would say.

Okay, I don't know that one. That's okay, we'll come back to it. Is OG something I don't want to learn what the letter stands for? No, it's old school. It basically means old school. OG is old school. Never mind, let's old school. It basically means old school. OG is old school. Never mind. Let's carry on.

Oh, boy. You know, you're really making me feel old. It's my birthday next week, too. Just on the last point on these, you seem to be saying likely the American situation cleared up first, then moving on to Europe or the UK or traditional allies areas. Is that the thinking? I don't know that I would say that America is further ahead on this. I actually would doubt that.

I think the complexity of their political situation and the scale of the requirement for them means they're probably struggling first with vaccination rate as an issue. And of course, their economy isn't as familiar with the importance of international travel, inbound and outbound, as perhaps other countries are. In Canada, we know that we need inbound tourism. We know that we do a lot of trade with the rest of the world. We know that those international connection points are incredibly important to the functioning of our lives and of our economy. And in America,

there isn't as much political energy around that idea. There's more of a sense that the economy and the political system can function as an island unto itself. I don't think that's an accurate view, but I think that is a trait almost of how America kind of works. So I'd be surprised if they're ahead of us in this. I kind of feel like our systems are built more to solve for these problems because we're aware of them and we're not dealing with 350, 60 million people. We're dealing with something smaller and maybe a little bit more manageable from that standpoint too. All right. We've got to move on.

There's an interesting development on the political front this week, and I'm going to try and get a sense from you as to what it has all meant. We'll do that right after this. peter mansbridge back with smoke mirrors and the truth i'm in toronto bruce anderson's in ottawa today okay then the main topic number two uh is about katherine mckenna now that is a name that uh canadians who follow politics at all in this country will be aware of because for the last six years, she's been in the Justin Trudeau cabinet. She's probably best known for her time, well, for two things.

For her time in the environment portfolio, where she's championed the cause of uh climate change and all things green uh and uh still uh does today after she left that portfolio and many people think if she's going to step out of politics which she's announced this week she's doing um that uh she will be heading in some manner into the environment field on the private sector side, but we'll see. We don't know what's going to happen there. The second thing she's been best known for is kind of a sad and cruel part of our society today, in the sense that she is being trolled mercilessly on the internet and in social

media, basically for being a woman in politics. And it's been, you know, really vicious. And, you know, I don't think I need to say anything more than that about that. But her departure has led to a lot of discussion about the state of various things on the political arena in Canada right now and the impact it could have on the election if, in fact, that election is called in August for sometime in September. I want to get your take on the McKenna decision because it has been one that has prompted a lot of discussion and a lot of possibilities in the last few days. Yeah, let me start with, I didn't know Catherine McKenna until just a little while before she decided to run in 2015. And I got to know her in part because we live near each other. And I guess we knew people in common.

And she wanted to ask me a question about whether or not if she decided to run, did I think based on my understanding of the riding and political dynamics, would she have a chance of winning? And that's a normal conversation that a lot of people have as they're thinking about running for office because it's a big step to take. You put a lot on the line. And so I started a conversation with her then and kind of looked at the results in the riding and kind of basically said to her, as I remember, you know, this is not an unwinnable riding for you. You would probably need two things in order to succeed.

One is you need to work incredibly hard. And second is you need to experience a bit of a wave of support for your party. And she decided to get in and she did get both a wave of support for Justin Trudeau in that 2015 election. And she worked incredibly hard. And I think incredibly hard for me is the jumping off point to describe her work ethic in politics. And I just want to make it clear that I think her leaving politics is a rational decision for somebody who has three school-aged children, has experienced both a lot of success in getting the things that she wanted done, but also some frustration with the impact on her life and a desire to do other things with her life that are consistent with her values as well.

So, you know, I do think that against not all odds, I wouldn't say that. This is somebody who's very smart, who's incredibly hardworking, and who is persevering and energetic to a level that most of us can only look on in awe of. And you need that in politics, because she was trying to roll that carbon price rock up a hill. And I don't know if you remember that picture called the resistance that McLean's ran of all these conservative premiers and the federal conservative leader. And in that run up to the 2019 election, they were all saying, we're going to take this policy down. We're going to crush this carbon price. And Andrew Scheer ran on the basis of bill number one when I'm prime minister is to repeal the carbon tax. And, you know, you and I are old enough to remember you bring in a new tax, even if it's a good policy.

The GST being a good example, a lot of people get upset. A lot of people find reasons to take issue with it. If you're a member of a government led by somebody called Trudeau, and you're trying to introduce a tax on fossil fuels, and you've got conservative premiers in Alberta and Saskatchewan and a conservative leader from Saskatchewan, or not really from Saskatchewan or not really from Saskatchewan but you know what I mean, you're going to get a lot of ferocity coming back at you. So it took an incredible amount of energy and when I unpacked the and she got it done and in the election 2019, the majority of Canadians voted for a party that supported a carbon price. And the Liberals won despite that. And the Conservatives are not running this election against a carbon price.

Well, they're running for a different kind of carbon price. But that debate she helped resolve in the direction of the kind of climate change policy that she felt was right for the country, and which I happen to agree with, and I think you do as well. So I think she's had a track record of success. And I do think that the point that you make about the sad realization of what social media sometimes shows us about who we are as a society or what is there in society, in addition to all the goodwill and the good faith that there is out there, that's something that maybe we wouldn't have seen as sharply or as in stark contrast if we

didn't have someone like her with her energy on the issues that she was pushing because she definitely got more of that pushback, vitriol, hatred, misogyny than anybody else in Canadian politics has. Is the writing, would you still describe the writing the same way you did to her in 2015 in terms of its kind of position on the scale of winnability or whether it favors one particular party over the other going in i think when she asked the question she was asking it from the standpoint of can a liberal take this riding away from a new democrat because ed broadbent had that riding and paul had that riding and both of those people were very popular in ottawa and um and they were you know they were people who could rally progressive voters um but before the uh broad band doer years um it had been a liberal writing um and john and so i

was looking at it from the standpoint of could a liberal take it back from a new democrat and giving her my thoughts based on what i saw about the evolution of the numbers over time now i would say uh it will take a very strong new democratic candidate uh to beat whoever the liberals put up uh as a candidate um you know it took ed broadbent to beat whoever the liberals put up as a candidate. You know, it took Ed Broadbent to beat Richard Mahoney, somebody that we both know is a very qualified individual who ran for the liberals in that riding before. So I think this riding in this current context leans liberal. But there's a lot of progressive voters in that riding.

It's a hard riding for the conservatives, and it won't be made easier by the fact that, you know, some of the decisions that the Conservatives have made recently on this Bill C-6 about conversion therapy, that sort of thing. Those aren't the signals that a riding like Ottawa Centre is looking for to think about uh voting conservative again when you talk about the history i mean it's really it's modern day history as you say as a liberal uh riding john turner was that not john turner's writing originally when when no no no john turner was further south in the city i think this it was actually called ottawa south i think that's David McGinty's riding. Okay.

Well, I was, you know, trying to remember, but there was a long time ago. You were close. You were within a couple of kilometers. He had a number of ridings because, of course, he also came back. He was in Vancouver. Okay. So, I mean, that's a sense of... There's a fair bit of speculation about whether mark carney is going to run somewhere this election um and uh i don't think that speculation is is resolved i suspect

that given the pace of the um the apparent run-up to the election that the decision's got to be made by him sometime soon. I think that her decision not to run puts a question on the table for him. And, you know, I tend to think if he was considering running for any party, I'd like to see him run. I think he's a qualified individual. I think he's got interesting things to say we've talked about him before and some of the themes in his book about markets and people and and how we need to think about that so um you know if the liberals are his party i hope he runs uh for the liberals um and uh you know tests his ideas out and and his approach out with with voters the idea the center would be an appealing writing i I would think, if you were him. The thing about Mark Carney is what he has to decide is what does he want to be, right?

I mean, it's always been assumed that what he really wants to be is prime minister. And, you know, what is the proper or the appropriate or the right strategy for a pathway to that position? Is it running, you know, basically as an ordinary MP who would almost certainly go into a cabinet in some position, if in fact the Liberals won the election? If the Liberals won a majority government in an election that makes his thinking about the prime minister's office that much further down the road one assumes um minority government that's a whole different question but you know what what does he want to be and where would he could he see himself after an election if he won in his riding?

And if it was the McKenna riding or some other riding in Ottawa, where would he want to end up? That seems to me to be the bigger question for him as opposed to which riding he's going to run in. Maybe. I mean, look, I think politics is a little bit like that. It's a crackerjack box. open it up you don't know what prize is going to be in it uh and and anybody that has ever tended to think okay there's a linear

route from where i am now to what i want to be um there's a lot of people who thought that and it didn't work out that way and i don't know that I think that that's how he thinks. I haven't had that conversation with him, but I do think it's instructive that he wrote a book that was about what he wants to do or what he believes needs to be done. It wasn't really a book about who does he want to be? And I think that one of the challenges in politics has been the need to recruit more people who know what they want to do or contribute to, rather than who have an idea of what they want to be in terms of a position. So good for him that he's written in a lot of detail about the kinds of ideas that he'd like to put in place. And I happen to believe that somebody with his stature um could make a useful contribution um without needing to be prime minister and so um you know i'd rather hope that he doesn't make the calculation based on that and i you know my sense is that um you're skating that he's

approaching at the right place to hurt you're starting to skate now you're like you're doing a few laps around the rink when you know that the best way to achieve the goals you want to achieve on the big scale whether it's you know are you saying i'm blowing smoke is that what you're saying you're doing a little smoke i'm giving you the truth here the truth the truth is obviously if you want to achieve these big goals and that's what his book is full of big goals and big ideas you got to be in the big job or you got to have unbelievable influence on whoever is in the big job yeah you know you and i uh or you anyway you've been around long enough to to go back to a time when there were senior ministers in a government that accomplished a lot and were known for accomplishing a lot and i kind of feel

like that's a better model than the idea that only one person gets to decide everything and and i'm not saying that's exactly the way that it is but i I think I kind of liked in the Brian Mulroney government that I could identify people like Michael Wilson and Lowell Murray and others who carried big files who had a lot of heft in any conversation on any subject at the cabinet table. And I think that's been true with other ministers since then. But I guess because you and I have been around for a while, we're kind of more familiar with a time when that was more the norm. So I don't know, I'd challenge that a little bit. And, and I'm not just challenging it, because I'd like to see him get in without it being conditional on his belief that he could get to uh uh to that uh uh

to the prime minister's office uh before before too much time passed yeah i i i would i would agree with those points and there's certainly whether it was the the mulroney years or the um you know the pierre trudeau years most canadians could rattle off the names of you know four or five cabinet ministers without any trouble because they were dominant in the news they were dominant in the discussion of big issues and they had their impact you know you mentioned them already you know mazinkowski was huge in terms of um you know uh influence over events and issues that uh that occurred but uh anyway um that that just doesn't feel that way these days didn't feel that way during the harper years um and even to the crate gen years really

it was all very much sort of the sense that there was kind of one person who was making all the uh making all the calls but i'm not going to go up against you on a on another thing in this broadcast after being hammered down on on og and hammered down on on turner's writing in ottawa it was gentle who's gentle yeah i don't want to run the risk of going zero for three that would be bad we'll get a lot of bad letters then I'll get bad letters You never get bad letters The little letters that come in about you Oh he's so adorable In his little radish farm

Oh boy Alright We're going to wrap it up for today Unless you've got an election date You can give us now and not waver on it Well you know when you added The not waver on it? Well, you know, when you added the not waver on it part, wavering is an essential part of the prognostication business in politics. That's true.

No, I think it's going to be in September. I still think it's going to be in September. And I think a lot of people will, you know, may say right now that they don't want an election, but I think that, you know, typically, you know, I do think after something like what the country will have been through, that people might just decide, okay, let's go to the polls and send a signal to late August for end of September, the first day or two or maybe even three is going to be dominated by, why did we need an election? Why did you call an election? You didn't need to call an election.

It's so predictable, right? It kind of happens every time, especially coming out of a minority government. Fixed-date elections. Technically, a fixed- date election is a fixed date election that shouldn't be one until 2021 or sorry 2023 yeah um and you know i guess there'll be you know a little bit of that argument as well um but but when it you know nobody's going to vote at the end of the day at least i don't think at the end of the day on whether or not it should have been this year. I don't think so either.

I'm with you on that. And I'm very aware of the David Peterson example that people use to say, well, he got really hammered and Bob Ray won that election because people thought Peterson precipitated an election that wasn't necessary. And I think that that analysis is true about that particular situation. However, I think that this last couple of years has felt like seven years or 10 years or something really long. And I think that you've got a government that has spent 300 plus billion dollars doing things that had not been planned. And so we've got a road ahead that requires some policy choices. That's just related to the economy and the fiscal situation. And there are lots of other things too. So I'd be really surprised if a lot of people approach the election,

if it happens as we're talking about now in September, with a view to there's nothing to resolve here. There's no agenda to set. This is a waste of time and money. I think instead I'm with you that people are going to go, yeah, okay, let's make a choice. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this Smoke Mirrors and the Truth for this day.

Tomorrow is Canada Day. And we encourage you to think through the country in terms of that day tomorrow. It is different, and we all know why, than it has been in the past. So you choose your path for how you want to deal with canada day tomorrow and part of it uh certainly in my case i think in bruce's will be to acknowledge some of the things about our past that we're not particularly proud of um and what we're going to do about trying to make amends for that. All right.

As I said, that's it for this day. This has been Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. The Radish Farmers in Ottawa. I'm here in Toronto today, and we will be back in seven days. Thank you.