The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Do We Now Know What The Tipping Point Was For Ottawa On The Convoy?

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino tells the convoy inquiry about the moment that was key for him as the Emergencies Act was about to be introduced to end the protest. Also, has Pierre Poilievre's statements on safe injection sites caused him new problems?  Bruce Anderson and SMT has some answers.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It's Bruce Anderson. It's smoke, mirrors, and the truth. Yeah, we call Wednesdays SMT because we're into that, you know, that headspace where you can just use the initials. Because, of course, everybody knows what you're talking about when you just say SMT. I get confused by these little acronyms or whatever they're called. I see them in text messages from my daughters and all over the internet, and I feel so old sometimes because I don't know what they all mean, but I do remember what SMT means, so carry on. Yes, it means smoke, mirrors, and the truth, where we try to determine what's real and

what isn't real, what's a little bit of cover with smoke? A little cover with mirrors? Or is it really the truth? The problem with politics, when you cover it, so much of it is S&M. Often so little of it is tea. Spoken like a lifelong journalist. That's right. Not too cynical. Maybe. That's right Not too cynical Maybe Let's give it a go You're well? Is there snow on the ground in Ottawa yet?

Yeah there is There's not a ton of it It's not like a foot deep or anything Like it's going to be in a few weeks But it's white So we're into it Winter is upon us Well the other thing we're into And. We're into it. Winter is upon us. Well, the other thing we're into, and in a big way this week,

is the final days of the actual testimony before the Convoy Commission. And this week's interesting because it's cabinet ministers, and it will eventually be the prime minister by the end of the week. Yesterday, we finally got to what has been one of the, I don't know, unanswered questions about it all. What was it that finally tipped the scales for the government to go into calling for the Emergencies Act? And that's what this commission is all about. If you recall back in the early days of this year, the public safety minister, Marco Mendicino,

said a couple of times and then never expanded on it or gave full details on it, was that there was something that indicated to them advice they were getting of a very dangerous nature within the protest movement. And now, he never declared yesterday when he was on the witness stand that this was the moment. It was clearly a moment of sorts for him. But whether this was the moment that tipped the scales or not,

I don't think he gave a definitive answer. But what he did say was that the RCMP commissioner had taken him aside at the last moment before the decision was made on the Emergencies Act and talked about the cache of weapons that existed at Cootes, Alberta, not in Ottawa, but in the Cootes protest movement, where they were all in some way connected, but that it was a significant cache of weapons. It was big time.

And they feared that the people who had them were prepared to use them and to use them with the full potential consequences that they might have. And he said more than a couple of times yesterday that this was, for him, a major moment. So do you think that we have now heard that key moment, does it answer that question that was raised when he, when he signaled earlier this year, that there was something that happened that information he was given during that time period that, that really made the government very concerned about the way,

the direction this whole thing could take. Yes, I think that that is the case. I also think, though, that over the course of the last few weeks, we've heard a number of things that I think answer the question, what made the government decide to do this? And I know that the critics of the choice that the government made really like to hang their criticism to some degree on this notion that Marco Mancino at one point said, doesn't look like it completely or exactly squares with the process of the advice, the information, the encouragement that he was given. from yesterday and in the preceding weeks, I think it does sort of add up to a situation where he was getting information from a variety of sources that would lead one to believe that

the police did not have the tools that they needed or did not have a plan to deal with the situation and that some provinces were definitely feeling very, very stressed by the blockades and the and the sense of insurrection that was going on. And that what he this minister said yesterday was there was a moment where, in his view, the information that he was getting from the RCMP police commissioner, who it sounds like had embedded sources with the protesters in Coutts, to the effect that these protesters were well armed and were willing to go down with the fight. The implication being that they were there prepared to do violence. And so I think the key question for people shouldn't be so much. I mean, people are going to do whatever they want to do with

this, but it feels to me that the question isn't so much the hair splitting about the wording or the phrasing of the information and the advice and the encouragement that came to Minister Mendocino in support or in advance of his decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, but rather if you were him in that moment and the information that you were getting, sitting on top of the information that you had already received and the observation that you had about what was happening with the blockades and in downtown Ottawa, could you reasonably have said this one tool that we haven't used yet, I'm not going to do it? Or would you more likely have said I'm going to use this tool and the way that we're going to use it is in a time-constrained, geographically limited way to end what's going on.

And we'll take the consequences of that decision, including the fact that there's a hearing that will result from it. I think most reasonable people, Peter, I'd like to know what you think about this, but I think most reasonable people would say it was never going to be an easy choice to use that piece of legislation, but they probably would have done it in the same circumstances, given the same information. Well, you've added a piece of information that we had suspected all along, but nobody had ever declared outright until yesterday when the minister made it clear that the RCMP commissioner had told him that the RCMP had undercover agents within the operation of the protesters in coutts.

And that's how they got the information about the cache of guns. And clearly that information was correct, because they proceeded to do a raid, and they found the guns. They put them on display. You can see them all in the pictures that have been out since last February. And charges have been laid. And charges have been laid. Now, that raid on the Coots operation took place before the Emergencies Act, like hours or a couple of days before.

But it did underline the serious nature of what was going on in Coutts, and the assumption had to be made. I'm assuming, although they've never said this, I'm assuming that if they had undercover agents at the border crossing at Coutts, they had undercover agents perhaps at Windsor, but certainly in Ottawa, they must have had them. They must have been getting information that way as well. In other words, Mounties or people working for the Mounties

disguised as protesters. And that's how they were funneling information back. So, you know, things have been coming out in, you know, through these hearings that paint a, you know, a much clearer picture of what was going on. And we've seen some bizarre moments. We saw this whole episode yesterday of the lawyer for the protesters, or one of the lawyers for the protesters, basically getting thrown out because of accusations he was making about who had or had not been carrying the Nazi flag at one of those early days of the protests, and the reaction of the person who this lawyer had named and his company, they turned out to be, you know,

very much aligned with the Conservative Party. So it didn't quite seem to make sense, that whole, you know, that whole disclosure or an attempt at a disclosure. So we saw that bizarre nature. But we also saw, and I think this is really relevant, and it points to something you mentioned earlier, just how tense the situation had got and how tense it had got between governments. Now, you know, Dominic Leblanc, the Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, testified yesterday as well, and he talked about an exchange of conversations and notes that he'd had with the Alberta Premier at the time, Jason Kenney. Now, these two guys know each other, have known each other for a long time,

and I think they're sort of kind of friends in the way that, you know, across-the-floor friendships take place over time. But that was a tense relationship during this whole protest that was taking place at the Cooutts border. Alberta wanted help from the Army to get trucks to pull, you know, tow trucks, something that could be used as a tow truck, and the feds weren't prepared to do that, to offer them up that kind of help. But Kenny took a shot at Trudeau in his discussions with LeBlanc.

We saw the same kind of thing happening between, was it Mendocino and the Ontario Attorney General? Sylvia Jones, I think, that's right. He got into the F-bombs in the exchange of notes between them. So this was a tense time. Anybody who thinks it wasn't should read some of these transcripts because they're quite revealing. Yeah, absolutely. And let's bear in mind that Jason Kenny, as this story has it, I mean, Jason

Kenny was saying, send in the army. Or at least send in the army's equipment you know and uh he also has said i think that he wouldn't really quibble with the federal government's decision to implement the emergency emergencies act if they felt like they had information that that required them to do that, which I think was as much as you would ever imagine hearing Jason Kenney say that's supportive of what the Trudeau government did in this space. And it would have been hard for him to decide to say it, but he probably only said it because he knew that the record that was going to be revealed through these hearings

was entirely consistent with, well, how could you really criticize the decision if you were also asking to have the Army come in and help you at Coutts, right? Either you have an emergency that policing can't solve, and so you need some sort of measure of extra federal involvement, or you don't. And I contrast that with the belligerence of the Ontario minister in the exchange that was reported with Minister Mendocino, where I think most observers watching Doug Ford said he was kind of AWOL during this. He didn't really want to get involved.

He didn't want to get dragged into it. He wanted to keep his distance. He kind of sensed that if he said anything that sounded even marginally supportive of the convoy protesters, that he would anger the majority of people in the province, because certainly that's what public opinion research was telling us at the time.

And that if he said things that were too critical of the protesters, some of his base would be annoyed with him. So Doug Ford hid out. But it was reasonable, I think, for the federal public safety minister to have a kind of conversation with the Ontario Solicitor General and say, what are you guys going to do? And this has gone on for too long. And for the Ontario minister to be kind of belligerent and say, I don't take orders from you, I don't think that was the point. I think the point was policing was local and then provincial were the first two stops that should have been looked at as a way to stop or defuse this situation. And in the case of the Ottawa protests, for sure, they didn't work. And in part, they didn't work, I think, because the Ontario provincial government didn't look like it really wanted to be responsible for resolving that situation through policing methods.

Give me a sense of where you think things will be by Friday, because there are more cabinet ministers to come, two or three more today, some tomorrow, including Chrystia Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister. But on Friday, it's the Prime Minister's turn at the table, keeping in mind that everybody gets a go with them, the lawyers for all the different groups that are there. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, I honestly think what I've thought about this all along,

which is that this is not a bad process for the government politically, that most people feel that the government didn't really have a better choice than to use this legislation, and that most of the evidence that I see coming up is always why I'm so surprised when I read our friend John Iveson, who is seeing the same evidence and coming to exactly the opposite conclusion as I am. I'm looking at it going, well, if a reasonable person was presented with this information, this evidence, had these exchanges, had this advice, they would have said, well, let's use this act and let's constrain it.

So I'm mindful of what Chantal said, is that everybody's going to kind of come at this with their own lens. But the majority of people have thought for some time that this was the best, if not a perfect, but the best of a bad set of choices available. And I think the testimony will reassert that. And I think that the prime minister will have an opportunity to put in his own words what the choices were that that he made. And people who are people who like him will like what he says. People who are who hate him will hate what he says. And the people in the middle will probably say, that's more or less what i thought and i'm okay with it and can we get back to issues today not issues from last february so you don't think whatever he says can have an impact on kind of either side in the and not trying to suggest the two sides are

equal and in weight because they're not they They clearly aren't. There's much more support for the actions that were taken than there is a lack of support, or at least there was the last time I looked at any polling data. But given all that, is the prime minister's appearance kind of a wash? Well, look, I think that the deafening silence of the Conservative Party federally on this during this whole process is the biggest unreported story about it. Right there, they were delivering coffee and donuts to the convoy protesters, including the leader of the Conservative Party. And so now here's this hearing. Does this look like Gomery to you? This is not an explosive political opportunity for the Conservatives,

at least as far as they're concerned, because they're quiet about it. They're quiet about it because they're reading Jason Kenney said, bring in the army, and they're knowing that Doug Ford was like, I got to go to the cottage. And so if they're not talking about it, what are the chances that they're going to jump on Friday and say, all of a sudden, we want to talk about it again, because the prime minister took the stand and said some things that were, you know, really appalling to us. It's possible. But if they do it, it probably won't be a long term thing. It'll be like we'll feel obliged to have a share of voice in this conversation right now. But as of Monday,

all the trappings of the hearing go away and a report gets written. And I don't think the Conservative Party really wants to relitigate the role that it had in the convoy. And so if they don't want to do that, they're probably not going to try to have a bigger conversation about the use of the Emergencies Act. All I'd say about Doug Ford, because you brought him up a couple of times, and I've mentioned this before, but when push got to shove for Doug Ford, which was when the truckers were going to encircle Queen's Park, the Ontario legislature, he didn't waver. He didn't go to the cottage.

He didn't disappear. He made sure that they didn't get that opportunity. And that protest was over in less than a couple of hours um so you know he showed his he definitely showed his colors uh on i've spoken like a guy who lives in toronto some of the time now i live in ottawa and it's the second biggest city in the province i'm not denying come here and meet with the command center and sort of go i I brought my shovel, how can I help? He didn't do anything here in support of the Ottawa people who were harmed by this.

I'm not arguing that point. All I'm saying is that if you look for what did he feel about this movement you look to that what happened oh yeah queen's yeah yeah no i agree with you he he didn't as you say go to ottawa he didn't go to windsor he could have you know perhaps said definitely said more about that in those occasions but when he had to say something it wasn't in any way reflective of support for the protest movement it was no absolutely against it i agree um anyway friday should be interesting whether and then they kind of go into hiding for a couple of months until the commissioner comes up with a report and i confidently predict though if you say you know your question is like what effect will it have an effect on anybody i

am absolutely certain that the people who are enraged by trudeau every day for whatever he says or does they're going to be enraged on friday by whatever he says and how he says it but i do think that for him it's an opportunity to put a button if you like on the conversation about what his perspective and and what led to his decision making about it put a button, if you like, on the conversation about what his perspective and what led to his decision-making about it. Put a button on that, and people will judge him on that record to some degree. The one thing I will say, and it'll be interesting to hear him being asked, as I'm sure he will, which is, why didn't you sit down?

They wanted to talk with you directly. Why didn't you sit down? They wanted to talk with you directly. Why didn't you sit down with them? And I have a lot of trouble. No matter how you might feel about Trudeau, and I know the feelings run deep both ways on the prime minister, but no matter how you feel about it, I find it awfully hard to imagine why he would have even for a moment considered sitting down with some of these people when you looked out at that crowd.

Now, you know, the Nazi flag, there may have just been one or two. One is bad enough. But in terms of signs that reflected feelings about Trudeau, the F. Trudeau stuff, that Trudeau should be hung, Trudeau should resign F. Trudeau stuff, that Trudeau should be hung, Trudeau should resign, all that other stuff. Why would you, for a minute, consider sitting down with people from that crowd? I mean, I don't get it. I don't get it either. I think that it's a very weak argument. You know, some of the people were coming to town to say,

we have a new government in mind and we need to dissolve this one. So why would you sit down with those people to talk about that? Some were coming to say the requirement that truckers are vaccinated in order to cross the U.S. border is the reason we're here. Well, that was a U.S. requirement. So why would you meet with them to talk about that? And you've said that many times and it's available on the public. Everybody could see that that was what the problem was for these truckers is not Canadian regulation, but American regulation. So the only other thing that they might want to talk about is how much they hate liberals or hate Trudeau or hate the idea of vaccination or are frustrated with COVID.

I suppose there's a reason why you would talk with people who are frustrated about COVID and empathize with them. But probably if you're the prime minister, you'd be reasonable to to think I've been doing nothing but empathizing with people about covet and trying to encourage them to get vaccinated for months every day for hours every day um are these people really open to that conversation or are they really looking for an opportunity to hurl um epithets at me. And I think the answer to that is pretty clear. Okay. Well, enough on that. And besides that,

I can already feel the incoming on, on some of the things we we've suggested. So don't be shy. The Mansbridge podcast, gmail.com. You can, you can write your, your concerns or your feelings one way or the other on that.

You better get them in early because tomorrow's your turn and the ranter and everything else that happens on Thursday. Okay, we're going to move topics. We're going to cross the floor and talk a little bit about Pierre Poliev because as much incoming as the Prime Minister has been taking on various things in the last little while. The first kind of serious cross-the-spectrum incoming has been leveled at Pierre Poliev since he became the new leader of the Conservative Party.

We're going to talk about that right after this. and welcome back you're uh listening to smoke mirrors and the truth on the bridge on sirius xm channel 167 canada talks or on your favorite podcast platform or because this is Wednesday and like Friday we also have a video version of the podcast available and you can find it on my YouTube channel and once again if you're not sure how to get that you you can subscribe and it's free there's no charge just go to the link that's on either my Twitter bio or on my Instagram bio and just click on that. It'll take you there and away you go. And we're having fun doing it.

I mean, this is not a high-level video production. It's like basically the webcams of Bruce's and mine on this day and Chantel added on Friday. And so you get to see what our little studies or homes or hotel rooms or wherever we happen to be look like. Now, is that exciting or what? What could be better than that? That's some quality content there.

Quality content, and it probably explains the amount of the subscription fee that's involved in getting this. Anyway, we have fun. There have been a lot of requests to do this, so there you go. It's there. All right, Pierre Poliev. Now, when he initially said these things, basically about safe injection sites, drug policy, when he said these things initially about a week or 10 days ago,

there was very little coverage given. Paul Wells ended up doing a piece on his podcast and his column, which really took Polyev to town. And since then, there's been a fair amount of reaction and it has crossed the political spectrum. Polyev has been hit from the left, from the right, from the middle. And I haven't seen any overwhelming evidence of support for him from anywhere. But he wants to turn back the clock on the way things operate on safe injection sites in different parts of the country, and especially in BC, and I think he made these remarks,

either in BC or related to the BC situation. But it's not been a good look for him in terms of some of his traditional support, at least within the media. So what is your take on this? Well, as you know, Peter, in the last couple of times we've talked about Pierre Poliev, I've said that I thought that he was making some smart choices. First of all, just by lowering his profile a little bit from the level that it was at during his leadership campaign, by looking like he was intent on kind of organizing his party and his caucus and his shadow cabinet in a professional way. And so this is a bit of a break from that. I think that I know you don't like this metaphor when I talk about your golf swing. So everybody's golf swing, who's like us, has a certain flaw in it. And that flaw keeps on coming back, even if we try to

take it out of our game. And when I think about what Pierre Polyev has said about safe drug use, safe provision, it reminds me of what he said about cryptocurrency, that he describes a problem in a way that is appealing to people it sounds at the front end of this video that he posted like he's he's concerned and empathetic with people who are experiencing this and he wants to say I know it could be your brother or your sister your mother and so on and I know how devastating the impact of drugs is on lives. All of that's well and good and reminiscent of how he described the problem of inflation and how it was affecting people's lives and the strain and the stress that they were feeling about it. But then comes the problem, which is his prescription. His

prescription of cryptocurrency is now a bit of a laughingstock as a way to avoid inflation because the prescription basically turned out to be a lot worse if you untrue that, as you say, people who would normally be pretty inclined to support his message and his philosophical approach are looking with some horror at the way in which he's describing the outcome of these safe sites and the provision of safe drugs and instead suggesting that he would replace it with measures that will not work. And the last thing I will say that's kind of part of who he is and how he likes to play in politics, what he thinks works for him in politics, and we'll see over time how much it works, is he says with such assurance things that he must know aren't true. He says that everywhere that it has been tried to give addicts uncontaminated drugs so that they don't end up with contaminated drugs, that it has been a total failure. Well, if the measure of failure or success about this is how many people die from drug use, the evidence is not even close to equivocating. It's absolutely clear that a huge problem, a huge number of deaths are associated with people desperately getting

supplies of drugs on the street that are contaminated, and that's why they die. And the provision of prescription-grade drugs through a pharmacy, through a program, saves lives. So you have to conclude that what he's doing is not talking about how to save more lives of people who are addicted to these drugs, but it's some sort of a quasi law and order, a message. It's some sort of, it's less about empathy and solutions for that problem experienced by the addicts and more about the idea that there are forces in society that are making our society worse, including the pushers of these drugs, the criminals. And, you know, there's nothing really wrong with him saying, I want to stop the pushers and I want to stop the

import and I want to stop the criminal activity that surrounds drugs. That makes perfect sense to a lot of people. But to say that we should do that and not this is, I think, what is really properly horrifying people who, like Paul Wells and others and Chris Selle, who've looked at the evidence and said, no, no, that's not right. That will result in more deaths. If the numbers are so easily attainable and accessible to show that what he's saying doesn't make sense or isn't true, I wonder where the people are on this. You've given us a sense of why he might have said it. But what's the appeal out there on this? I understand the law and order stuff,

but on the straight issue of safe injection sites. I think it's a miscalculation. Have you done data on this? Yeah. I mean, look, I think it's a miscalculation on his part, but I think the calculation is he just saw a municipal election in Vancouver where the issue of homelessness and drug use was very prominent. So he's out there and he's delivering a message to maybe swing voters who are open to the idea of voting conservatives in the lower mainland saying, I get what bothers you.

This is what bothers you. And the video in question has a lot of scenes that will be familiar and disturbing to people who live there. And as I say, the first part of that video makes perfect sense from a political standpoint. The second part is all smoke and mirrors. It's not truthful. And why is he doing that? I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's because he has access. Well, it isn't because he has access to data that tells him that these policies are a total failure. It's because sometimes when people see a problem and they kind of think, oh, it's complicated, a politician comes along and says, I'm going to give you a simple sounding solution. And I'm going to say a simple sounding thing, which is that if you give addicts more drugs, that's not going to make addiction go away. But of course, that's not the point of those policies. The point of those policies is to keep people from getting contaminated drugs and dying from those drugs. So he's substituting at the back half a solution for a problem. Well, he's basically characterizing this policy idea

as the thing that is making addiction happen, which isn't the case. It's not designed to deal fundamentally with that problem. It's designed to keep people from dying from overdosing with contaminated drugs. So a lot of smoke and mirrors in the second part, this idea of if I tell people simple sounding things like why would you give people drugs if they're addicted? That's got to be a failed idea. People sometimes are very susceptible to the idea, to the expression of something that sounds so simple, kind of sounds logical, unless you take a closer look at what's the purpose of the policy and actually how has it worked. It doesn't solve the problem of people who are homeless, who've experienced mental illness or trauma and who are addicted to drugs.

That's still a problem. And I think politicians across the spectrum will say it's a problem and we don't have all of the solutions in place. And it's probably a problem that's going to continue to get worse. But dealing with this one issue of people dying from contaminated drugs, this policy that he's very critical of is a good way to do that. It saves lives. Okay, I didn't frame my question very well there. But simply, it's like, where are Canadian people on safe injection sites?

Have you asked that directly? And if you have, what kind of response do you get? Yeah, I mean, people, if they, it's a little bit complicated in the sense that if people live in proximity to people who are suffering from addictions, they're anxious. There's a sense of fear. There's a sense of frustration at the society's inability to kind of grapple successfully with this problem. And there is a degree to which if you present people with the idea that government will provide safe drugs for people who are addicted, some people intuitively say, well, that's not going to solve the addiction problem, right?

But if you test with them the idea that the deaths associated with contaminated drugs are the biggest problem or one of the biggest problems, and the use of this policy tool is a way that has Pierre-Paul Lieb is saying here, which is that there's this big problem. And the only thing that governments are doing is giving safe drugs to people who are addicted. And that's not a fair way to characterize the problem. It's not true that there isn't an effort to control and limit the amount of drugs that are coming into the country. It's not true that there isn't a range of other supports that governments are straining to provide to people who fall victim to these addictions. And I guess the other thing that occurs to me, Peter, with this is that, and it's a little bit associated with your public opinion question,

is that a lot of people know somebody who has suffered with an addiction. A lot of people know somebody who has been victim of an overdose. This is a really, really common story in our cities now. And a lot of young people have lost friends or acquaintances to fentanyl overdoses. I think the miscalculation politically associated with that makes it a different issue. Um, and, uh, a human empathy question, not just a law and order question. All right. Um, we're almost out of time. A quick last question on this. Do the liberals have to be careful on how they respond to this? I mean, they're, they, they mean, they're still going to town, and I assume will go to town until the day of the election, whenever that is, on the cryptocurrency stuff,

because they're milking that for all it's worth. And it's an embarrassment for the Conservatives and for Polyev in particular. But on this one, you've talked about how complicated this issue can be and how careful one has to be in what they say and how they handle it and what they feel about it. As a result of all that, do the liberals have to be very careful about what, if anything, they say on this? Yeah, no, they have to be careful all the time with Pierre Polyev.

He's quite an effective politician. And so if I'm being critical of what he's saying about this, it's within the context of thinking that he's clever and he understands how he communicates. It doesn't mean that there aren't errors in there. Obviously, I think there are, but I think that liberals can't look at him and say, this is an amateur hour. I think where the vulnerabilities are that liberals will probably want to exploit are in two areas. First of all, the tweet that he used to push out this video had two lines in it. Everything feels broken, but we can fix it. Now, there aren't that many people who believe that everything feels broken. And the more that Poliev inhabits the everything feels broken space, it sounds a little bit like Trump.

The whole, you know, everything about America is awful. Canadians don't feel that way about their country. And I don't think Americans mostly feel that way. I mean, obviously, in their blue or red system, you know, there's a lot of partisans who say, yes, if Democrats are in charge, everything is bad. That's not the situation that we have in Canada. People in Canada will say this is the best country in the world in which to live. Some things aren't working very well. That's our natural setting.

It's been our natural setting for the 40 years that I've been doing public opinion polling. So you shouldn't overstep that line and say everything feels broken unless you're absolutely sure that the public is with you, not just on that everything is broken, but on the how we would fix it, which brings me to the second point. But we can fix it. True. But if you then propose cryptocurrency or a mistaken idea for a health care policy to save lives, you're going to run into a problem that's going to accumulate over time, where your critics are going to be able to say every time you say everything is broken, that's first of all, that's wrong. But some things are broken. And the things that you propose to fix them are proven bad solutions.

And that's, I think, the vulnerability that he needs to kind of be careful about if he wants to be politically successful, because his instinct might be to characterize these simple law and order sounding solutions as being, you don't have to worry about this if you elect me. I'm going to take care of one of the many, many, many problems that Canada has. And I'll do it just like that, because I'm not Justin Trudeau, and he has all the bad ideas. It will work with some voters, but over time, I don't think it will. And Danielle Smith in Alberta is a kind of an object case for him of somebody who has up until yesterday, I guess she was sort of saying, look, I'm not a talk show host anymore. And I don't really want to be held

responsible for some of the things that I've sort of advocated before, because people change and you change your mind and everything else. Good for her for doing that. But this idea of I'm going to reach for the bad policy idea that kind of sounds good in my ear as I as I kind of say it to myself, that's a bad instinct. That's why governments have experts and knowledge and accumulate information. And and we can look around the world at policy ideas that work or that don't. Okay. That's going to wrap it up for this day. My only last point is, yes, I have a basic flaw in my golf swing. Just one.

I've had just one. It's only one. It tends to ruin my whole game, but nevertheless, there is only one. But I admit it. I concede that is correct. That's true. I've had it all my life. But it's in my golf swing.

I can recover as I move down the fairway. You, on the other hand, have a great golf swing, terrific golf swing. You're good off the tee. You're good off the fairway. But then you get down to where the real money's made the crunch area and that's on the green and putting and especially you know everybody can miss a putt from 20 30 feet that's kind of expected but when you're like inside the leather almost like you're in the last couple of feet

from the hole those should be almost automatic they should be and you know when i golf with other people they are it's called a gimme they say take that putt you don't need to prove that you can make it but with you it's a little bit more of a struggle it is anyway and i you know i watch you quivering your knees shaking and the whole bit. And it's sad. It really is. It's sad, but. Breaks you up.

Nevertheless, it's a great game and we love it. All right, my friend. Good to talk to you as always. And Bruce will be back on Friday, of course, with Chantel for Good Talk. Tomorrow, it's your turn, your opportunity to weigh in on any number of the subjects we've had this week. But please get your letters in right away. TheMansbridgePodcast at gmail.com. TheMansbridgePodcast at gmail.com.

And Thursdays also means the random ranter. He's warming up in the bullpen, as we say. And I'm sure he's got something to say tomorrow. But that's it for this day. For Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.