The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT -- From Dirty Tricks to Debate Tactics

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

The Liberals get caught playing dirty tricks, while both parties prepare for this week's debates. With little time left in the campaign, is the die cast, or is anything still possible?

Smoke, mirrors and the truth. Fred Delore, Bruce Anderson coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here along with Bruce Anderson and Fred Delore. This is your Tuesday Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. We got lots to talk about, so let's get at her. And we'll start with dirty tricks in politics. Now, I'm not sure that the Button scandal is, you know, is of the kind of Donald Zagretti level, and that's a name from way back from the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon. He was the head of dirty tricks campaign. Now, they did Dirty Tricks. I'm not sure the button scandal certainly isn't of that level. However,

it is the kind of thing that's not supposed to happen anymore. So this was a liberal gaffe. So how'd that happen, Bruce? How did something like that get out of hand? Gosh, I don't know. I don't think, I mean, obviously it wasn't something that was orchestrated by the campaign, and it was something that Mr. Carney quickly disavowed and said it wasn't something that he

could support. And I guess the individuals who were involved, I don't know who they were, are reassigned to different roles in the campaign. You know, I mean, I think the, I guess the best answer I would have to your question of how does it happen is that people are very enthusiastic in the middle of a campaign and they come up with all kinds of ideas all the time. And it's part of what people are meant to do in political campaigns is be thinking about ways in which they can, you know, find some sort of extra gain. And there are, there's no question that in any campaign, there are lots of bad ideas that get tossed out, there are lots of good ideas that move forward. And then there are just lots of other things that happen because people have their enthusiasms. I mean, every campaign I've noticed this election, like every other, is spending time on social media saying their signs are being taken

down. Well, how does that happen? It's not because there's ever been a, that I'm aware of, a decision by a campaign to say, let's go out and remove signs. It's usually just some worker who's got a high level of enthusiasm and decides to do something on their own that's ill-advised. I think that's all that was here. And I love name-checking Donald Sigredi, but I didn't remember him as the head of the Dirty Tricks operation. No, he was a university grad who set up a you know a special kind of unit um out of california and they were doing a lot of stuff he wasn't a part of the plumbers operation that broke

into the watergate hotel or any of that but he kind of a regional offshoot of the dirty tricks back then yeah but he kind of floated on a national level as well. And, you know, he ended up at the Watergate hearings. He had to testify about the dirty church campaigns. Well, obviously, I'm not trying to distract our conversation from. No, obviously you're not. You're doing a great job of that because I'm lost. You're talking about 60s politics right now. 70s.

70s, my bad. I'm not that old. All right, so why don't we let Brad work up the rage about the button and do whatever else we've got to talk about today. No, no, no. But, you know, the button is an interesting story. I mean, listen, there's a sign knocking down and all that. I mean, that's kind of your basic lowest level of dirty tricks,

and it happens. It happens in all kinds of campaigns. But this one was a kind of notch up. It did seem to get its genesis inside the war room of the Liberal Party, at least that's the way I'm reading it, which does make you wonder how it could have got as far as it did go. But Fred, what's your take on this? Well, look, I've worked on four national campaigns. I've been in the war room for the conservative side. And I can tell you something like this doesn't happen without the most senior people being aware of it. You don't send two. I'm not saying Mr. Carney had any knowledge,

and I doubt he would. But to say that, you know, it just doesn't, it just doesn't make sense to me that they weren't aware of this, that they were doing this. But I think one of the most concerning things is it's the message that they were pushing. They were really trying to tie Polyev and the Conservatives to Trump as much as they could in a very dirty way like one of the buttons um you know stop the steel which which is a direct play to the insurrection in january 6th i think it really goes against the liberal narrative of what they were trying to do about being this party of unity and uh and this divisiveness and they they've exposed themselves to be perhaps the dirtiest players in the games. Now, again, it's just buttons.

I'm not saying it's the end of the world here, but I think it does strike at the core of who they are or who they're pretending to be. And that could be problematic for them. You want to move on, Bruce, or do you want to respond to that? Yeah, no, I'm happy to move on, Bruce, or do you want to respond to that? Yeah, no, I'm happy to move on. I mean, I don't want to minimize the, I think this is the point that Mark Carney made yesterday, is that people in politics have, at times in the past, many times in the past, I guess, acted with less integrity than was ideal, and it contributed to cynicism about politics and so to

the extent that this is you know another thing that does that he was right to call it out um you know maybe i'm just you know inured a little bit because we see so many kind of horrible political tricks happen in the united States, that it kind of feels to me that Canada has a different standard for outrage. And that's a good thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm saying it's a good thing. But, you know, the notion that Fred's pointing out, which is that the liberal campaign is saying, well, there are similarities between Pierre Poliev and Donald Trump. That point is being made all kinds of ways every day for good and legitimate reasons. This button wasn't one of the better ways to do that.

It wasn't a legitimate way to do that. So, you know, I think there's a lesson learned there for the liberal campaign, and they seem to learn it pretty quickly and then want to move on, yeah. All right, well, let's move on, because this week is likely not going to be known for the buttons. It's going to be known for what happens over the next couple of nights, Wednesday night and Thursday night in particular, in the debates, Wednesday night being the French debates, Thursday being the English language debates.

What's the key here for the two candidates, the two main candidates here, Carney and Polyev? What's the key, Fred, for Polyev? What has to happen for him over these two nights, and I guess especially so in the, well, over the both nights. What's the key? Yeah, I think both nights will be combined in many ways. I think we'll see the clips coming out of it. It's almost the, you know, I don't think the language issue is an issue for Polyev. I think his command of French is solid,

so it's not like he has to prove himself there. I think what he needs to do is look likable. He needs to look like someone that you can trust and believe can have your back and will do good things for the country. That's one of the issues he struggles with, I think, is his negatives are high, particularly with women. And he needs to find some kind of balance there. He needs to be the guy that challenges Carney and the other leaders on the stage, but he can't do it too aggressively. And I think that's going to be a challenge because he is his whole career. He has been that pit bull attack dog,

and I don't think it'll work well in a debate. I think he may turn a lot of people off, but he's also an incredibly smart guy. And if he could just put that message together and deliver it, I think he could do very well. Bruce, what do you see that Carney has to achieve? Well, let me let me first comment on Paulie Evan and then go to Carney. I think Fred's really put his finger on a critical issue for the conservative leader. I think there is a question of likability that is at the heart of his challenge right now. I think we can come up with five reasons

why the liberals are doing better than people expected and the conservatives are behind and people expected them to win. But the biggest and most obvious reason to me is the 15 to 20 point gap between how people feel about Mark Carney and how they feel about Pierre Polyev. That's much wider than the gap between are you going to vote liberal or conservative? And it's telling us

something. And I remember the first time that we did one of these episodes and Fred was saying, yeah, Mark Carney's numbers are good, but people don't really know him. And that was certainly a lot more true four weeks ago, whenever it was that we had that episode. And now people do know him and they're starting to like him. I think the challenge for Pierre Pauliev is he had a couple of years in which likability, he decided wasn't going to be important for him. In fact, he was quite happy to pursue that idea that I'm the pit bull. I'm the guy who's going to punch somebody in the nose. I'm going to call out a reporter. I'm going to chomp on an apple and act kind of derisive towards somebody who's asking me questions. And he did it because he thought there was no risk

in doing it. And now the inflection point is such that he's got to go into these debates, either deciding to be more likable or double down on aggressive. And I could make the case that the only way for him to win is to double down on aggression. I could also make the case that if he does that, he risks losing even more badly than today's numbers suggest that he could. Because I don't know that being aggressive towards Mark Carney is going to make Mark Carney turn into a puddle of, you know, of sand on the stage. He's, you know, he's a fairly resilient individual. So I think Fred's put his finger on the exact nature of the choice for Pierre

Polyev and it's hard to know what he's going to do, because we've seen interviews in the last little while where likability has clearly been on his mind. And I think that sometimes gets mixed reviews. But obviously, I think it's worth the effort if you're him and you're struggling in the polls a little bit right now. For Mark Carney, I think the question is, the structure of the debate is such that if the main issue for Canadians is the Trump-U.S. relationship and the economic fallout from that, most of the other players on that stage are not going to want to spend a lot of time talking about that because they don't see it as being strategically in their interest to talk about Trump and tariffs and the economy. They'll want to talk about other things, which will then tend to, you know, bring more into focus. Pierre Poliev's favorite kind of lost 10 years. You know, what did Trudeau government get wrong? That kind of thing. I think voters want and Mark Carney wants to talk about the future. What comes next? What do we have to do to protect our economy,

to build our economy up? I think the other thing that he's got to do is sort of accept the fact that people are going to be critical of him. This is somebody who's fairly new to public life, at least this version of public life. And so it can be a little unsettling to have people kind of barking at you about integrity and did you pay your taxes and all of those kinds of issues.

And he's obviously somebody for talking about the things that are most important to his campaign, which are really his economic ideas and his ideas about how to manage our geopolitical situation. Okay, I want to get back to that in a minute. But, you know, you skated a long time on the ice there, and Fred was very patient. Now he gets his opportunity now he gets his opportunity to say how well you put your finger on the the issue for mark carney but uh fred do you want to respond to the bruce yeah yeah the thing i'm one of the most fascinated or interested in about carney is seeing how he actually performs like politics is a profession and he is brand new at this um going into a debate a leader's debate like this,

you know, Polyev has been training for 20 years for this moment. So it's going to be interesting to see how Carney actually matches up and how he deals with these zingers that are being thrown at him from not just Polyev, but Singh and Blochette and whoever the green representative is on the stage. You know, it's going to be interesting to see how he handles himself, how he presents his platform or his, his policy ideas in this format. You know, in this campaign, his, his positives, his likability has gone up, which is very, very rare to see, particularly when the conservatives are spending millions attacking them. His positives have gone up and I think expectations are high for him now.

I think people are going to be, you know, tuning in or at least watching the clips or reading the stories after to see how he did in these. So I think the pressure is definitely on him to perform well because there is an opportunity that the shine comes off. And if it does, if he does make some slips, you know, with 10 days to go after the debates, a snowball effect could start building up and be the, you know, the beginning of the end for him.

So it's high, high pressure. Is part of the reason that his likability numbers have gone up is because he's not the normal candidate we see in election campaigns. He doesn't come across like a politician as we've described him in the past. Is that part of the reason he's had a plus factor in this campaign? I think the Trump factor has been a big part of it, where he gets to play prime minister several times throughout the campaign, where he comes off the campaign trail. When he's on the campaign trail, he seems to make a gaffe a day um but when he comes off and does the prime ministerial thing um i think people are looking for comfort right

now so they may be just projecting onto him potentially or maybe they like him maybe it's there's a bit of smoke in there there's gaff a day it rolls off the tongue to say that but it a gaff a day may keep the liberal majority away. There you go. Look, I don't I don't buy the gaffe a day. That's a bit of a concession there, Fred. I actually think it's been quite an effective campaign. And I think that one of the reasons that it has been effective is what you're touching on, Peter, which is that people see this individual and the way that he's introducing himself to them makes them feel confident in him and a little bit more confident in the country. And I think that especially when there is something looming like this economic crisis that Trump could cause for Canada,

there's always a fine line between people being frightened and wanting to know that government could be there to help protect them against the worst effects of it. And then on the other hand, people wanting to feel confident that there's a plan for the future and that the future will get better. And because of the severity of this risk, it's caught Pierre Pogliev in an awkward situation where he wants to say, everything's bad, but people want to hear we can make everything better. And I think that's a really hard trick for Pierre-Paul Lievre because he tuned his message so well. It's like he's playing folk music and now he's got to play acid rock or something like that. It's a completely different way of communicating with people. And Mark Carney, on the other hand, he seems to people to be somebody that you can listen to and feel like you're not getting a

political performance. This is to your point, Peter. If he doesn't look like he's auditioning for the role of politician, he looks like he's auditioning for the job of prime minister. And so far, people have said, you know what, the more that we see of him, the more we feel inclined to think he's the right person for that job. And I think that's the biggest challenge for Pierre Paulieva. It's the biggest opportunity for Mark Carney. And it's why, even if in these interviews or in these debate situations, you know, some of the commentators say, well, the way he said that seemed like a gaffe. The public isn't reacting that way. They're not reacting to the millions of dollars of

advertising that's aimed at, you know, saying he's a shady character. None of that is mattering because I wrote a piece about this yesterday. People make an early decision about whether they can trust somebody, whether they like somebody. And so far, many people have made the decision that they like Mark Carney. And that tends to be self-reinforcing. It tends not to be the case that people develop that first impression and then go, oh, you know what? No, I've changed my mind. And I think that's a big advantage for Mark Carney right now. And it's a challenge for Pierre Poliev.

You know, traditionally, where the debates have been placed in Canadian elections, it's usually two or three weeks before the vote. This is a little closer to the vote. But still, for a lot of people, this is tune-in point to the election campaign. They've been kind of following it, but this is their opportunity really follow it uh for the final kind of 10 day stretch um i asked our listeners uh to write into me and they've kind of a lot of letters uh already this week about what they're going to be looking for uh from the uh from the debate night, not in terms necessarily of policies or issues. What they're looking for, a large number of them are looking for the candidate who will

actually answer the question that's asked of them. And this is a common concern on the part of the public. They get mad at interviewers like myself who ask a question and the answer never comes. They never get the answer because the politicians have learned to duck and weave and move around from questions that they don't want to answer. What happens in debate prep around that central issue? You're trying to find more ways of deflecting, moving away from the question, kind of ignoring the question and going where you want on the issue.

Because they must realize how frustrating that is for voters. The questions are asked and they're not getting answered on some key issues that they're concerned about in this election. So how do you get around that? Fred, first? Well, I think when it comes to debate prep, what you're trying to figure out is what is the message you want out. So when you get the question asked to you, you're trying to pivot to that.

What do you want and what do you think the most people want to hear about your platform or why you're running for leader or prime minister? But I get your point about the deflecting. If it's a very straight up answer, you should be able to answer it. Debates are tricky that way where you never know what kind of questions are coming in terms of how they're phrased. But at the end of the day, each party has their core values and principles on each of those, basically the topics that are being presented and debated.

And they're going to try their darndest to get to that message track that they want, that they think they can get the most bang for your buck for. Bruce? Yeah, I mean, look, there's something really logical about the situation as you described it, Peter, which is that each candidate gets the topic areas. And so how do you prepare for every possible version of every possible question that could be asked in a, you know, in a question about affordability? You can't. So what you do is you kind of prepare by saying, what are the most important things that we need

to get across to people? And in the different formats that we've seen in the past you can have a lot of different journalists some of whom you know are maybe trying to make a point that they can ask a tougher question that with a little bit more curve on it that sort of thing and so a viewer might see that question and a candidate might hear that question and go, well, I never thought about that, but I've been preparing to talk about my ideas on affordability, which is perfectly legitimate. It's the only thing that they can reasonably do. And so then it might look to a viewer as though, well, you're not answering that journalist's question. And I like that question because it had some spice on it because it was a little bit kind of hard hitting and it came at the person from an angle that maybe made them squirm a little bit.

I don't think the right answer is to have more questions come flying at these candidates with spin on them. I'm glad that there's only one moderator. I'm glad that it's Steve Paikin. There are others who could do that as well. But when we had that, I forget even what election it was, where there were so many different journalists who were asking different questions. I don't think that's right. I don't think it works for the viewer. I don't think it works for the politician. And I don't think it does much good for the journalists either.

So I think there's a little bit of dysfunction. It's kind of what your listener or our listener is raising. Makes sense that they'd be frustrated by it, but also makes sense to me that the format is sometimes the problem there, not the unwillingness to answer a question. And we seem to go through arguments on the formats, more so on the kind of English language debates than the French language debates. The French ones have been pretty good. The English ones have been back and forth, and there have been lots of debates about them. And just to clarify the point that you were making,

and I know what you want. I just want to make sure that the listeners know what you were saying. The candidates and the parties get the question areas. Areas. Yeah, that's right. They don't get the questions. So, I mean, an example, there will be a section on Trumps and tariffs. Well, that's pretty general, but it is, you know, we know now what that area is going to be, that 10 minutes or that 15 minutes,

whatever it happens to be. There are some twists and turns in the format this year, from what I understand. It could be interesting. I think they're good changes. So we'll see how that turns out. Okay, tell me how. Do you agree about the questions from the journalists and how that works?

Yeah, look, the last one, I think it was the last one you were referring to, was a total zoo. I think there were five or six different journalists, and they all got kind of a segment for them each, and it was just kind of all over the place. And when you have that, and they're all representing different networks, and their network wants to look the best, it just doesn't serve the purpose.

I mean, the purpose of television this is a segue into some other area that we'll deal with sometime but the purpose of the television should be to serve the public not serve the reporters or the networks it should be to serve the public in this case in a debate of real issues that are confronting the country and the potential prime ministers sometimes that gets out of hand um let me just as a for the last couple of minutes on this week's smoke mirrors and the truth and this really does get into smoke mirrors and the truth because each party once the debate is, will then immediately start cutting up the television coverage, cutting it like physically cutting it up to turn it into commercials. Talk to me about the process that happens in that case.

What do you actually do in the back rooms? Because this starts immediately. Stuff is usually on the next day. What are you looking for? What are you doing um bruce you start us this time well look i suspect that what the conservatives will be doing is looking for clips that um that put pierre pauliev in the best possible light and looking for small moments, phrases, turns of phrases that are unfavorable for Mark Carney. They'll probably try to fit those to an overall narrative.

Both sides will do the same thing, although I don't expect that, you know, right now, I think that the one thing for the liberals and Mark Carney is that people are kind of enjoying the idea of him as being a less political politician, somebody who's not kind of of politics and is capable of being political, but doesn't get up in the morning many efforts coming out of that debate to show the downsides of Pierre Palliet, but I guess we'll see because the content is going to have it, maybe a quarter to a third. And another third will pay attention through the clips the next day. And many of the people who are going to watch it live, their votes are already made up. Their minds are already made up about who they're going to vote for. It'll be that next third. They kind of see it, share it, talk about it with their friends on social platforms that will tell the tale about who won or who didn't win in that situation. Fred? Yeah, on the mechanics of it, I mean,

right now, all the candidates are in debate prep these few days leading into it. They already got their zingers kind of mapped out, I imagine, and they know what strong points they want to make. And they're going to be ready to clip those right away in the war room, each respective war room, and push those social media clips immediately after and maybe even during the debate. And they'll rush out to do it. I think it was an interesting point what Bruce made about Carney, about how they may put out his positives and not contrast Polyev so much. And I think that's probably the right approach. Carney, if his popularity is as strong as it is, the debates are an opportunity to knock him off of that. But if you can make him look good, and if he says good things, then that's probably what they should focus on. Well,

I think that the Conservatives will probably do the same thing in that they will focus on Carney and push out any slips or any mistakes he makes. So I think that's what we'll be seeing throughout the Easter weekend is Liberals pushing out positive Carney and Conservatives trying to push out any negative that they can find. If I can't social media stuff is Easter weekend, right? It's going to be people with friends and family. It's an interesting time to have an election that's this close to a big holiday. If the parties are as well-funded as they appear to be, especially the two leading ones, and especially so the Conservatives

who build up a huge war chest, is the majority of the money that's going to be spent on this campaign going to be spent in the final 10 days, and the sort of time from debate through to voting day i'm not so sure it feels like the conservatives are putting uh just to be clear in the war chest we're all we're all spending the same amount because the same amount yeah um but it feels like the conservatives have been spreading out their ad dollars throughout the whole campaign and i gotta i'm not seeing a lot of liberal. Maybe that's just my algorithms because I'm not a liberal

and I'm not seeing it. But I have a feeling the liberals are backloading into this last week, which could be a very effective way to do it. But I didn't get the sense the Conservatives are doing that. Bruce? Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the things that the parties have to do now is recognize that if they end the campaign not having spent all the money that they are entitled to spend, that's a mistake.

If they overspend, that's a mistake. So they need to figure out what's the right rhythm of ordinance to kind of drop into the campaign in the final 10 days. And I think Fred's point about he doesn't see the liberal ads because, you know, he might be a liberal someday, but he isn't now. And so it doesn't make sense to spend that money to try to reach him. I haven't seen a lot of Polyev ads, and I can't figure out why either. But one other thing, though, I wanted to mention, because, Peter, you'll remember this from debates in the past, is that one of the most important things in the hour immediately after a debate was all these swarms of kind of spinners talking to journalists saying this is what happened. And I'm sure there's going to be some of that this time.

But the relative importance of what those media organizations say about the debate compared to the social media shares, it's kind of like this. It's changed pretty fundamentally. So it's not to say that the commentators in the media won't have any impact, but it won't be what it used to be. It'll be those clips. It'll be the communities of interest that share the content and ideas and observations among themselves that will tell the tale of uh of who emerged better off and i always like to think about this as who emerged better off

or worse off rather than who won and who lost because i don't think debates they very rarely work on the somebody won and somebody lost basis you know i we should have this discussion someday about the relative importance and impact of commentators. Now, I realize you're both commentators here, but I think you've been giving us something beyond just, you know, the liberal take or the conservative take on things. You've been giving us a sense of what it's like inside these places during a campaign and before that during a leadership campaign. But I think there's no doubt that the – I agree with you, Bruce. I think the impact of commentators around moments like this is much less than it used to be. And I think you just have to go back to the U.S. elections to see that.

I mean, the way commentators were pronouncing on whether it was the debate between Harris and Trump or whether it was other significant events, they basically got it wrong in terms of what happened as the outcome of the campaign. So either people aren't listening or they're not believing, not trusting, or they're getting their assessments elsewhere, mainly social media, I guess. Right. We've gone from a couple of commentators on CBC and CTV and Global to millions of commentators on Twitter and Facebook. The game has changed. There's a lot more voices now. There certainly are. Okay, we'll leave it at that, and we'll pick it up a week from now,

which will probably be our last one before the actual voting day, and we'll see what the fallout's been like from this week's debates. And it's funny, positioned as they are right before the Easter break. So it'll be interesting to see what impact that has. Okay, thanks to Fred. Thanks to Bruce. interesting to see what impact that has. Okay. Thanks to Fred. Thanks to Bruce. Smoke mirrors the truth. Be back next week.

Thanks, guys. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here with the second segment of The Bridge for this day, the first segment is the one that you can see on our YouTube channel, and that is Smoke Mirrors the Truth with Bruce and Fred. Hope you enjoyed today's version.

It runs about 30 minutes each week. And then the second segment is just on our audio podcast, which is available and you're listening to right now on SiriusXM channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us. A couple of things. Some of you may have wondered, hey, what about the truth hurts?

How come you didn't talk about what Doug Ford said yesterday? Well, actually, we ran out of time, too, but we also had dealt with this last week as well on SMT, the whole Doug Ford, Corey Tanik issue, which surfaced again yesterday, doing no favors for Pierre Polyev. There's no doubt about that. And I imagine there are a lot of people in the federal blue section who are not happy with the way things have unfolded on that front. Nevertheless, it's an issue for Polyev about his relationship with Doug Ford,

and it didn't just suddenly start in the last little while. This has been going on for a couple of years. It's just sort of come into the open here right now. And you wonder whether that'll be coming up in the debates at all tomorrow and Thursday. Okay. I mentioned in there that I've asked you for your issue about the debates in terms of what it is you for your issue about the debates in terms of what

it is you'll be looking for. And I've got to tell you once again, this week, there has been a lot of entries in terms of, and you've been fantastic. You're all keeping it to 75 words or under. I think there were one or two exceptions, but nevertheless,

um, so keep the cards and letters coming in, but this is like a one-week only. You can't really run this one next week as well. So I'll be picking the best ones, and we usually get about, I don't know, 40 or 50 letters into the program, while we've already had way more than that.

So just the best ones will uh will stay standing through this uh the conditions as you know are the following one you've got to get your answer in by 6 p.m tomorrow night eastern time okay 6 p.m eastern time tomorrow write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Include your name, the location you're writing from, and keep your answer to under 75 words. And the question is very simple. What will you be looking for tomorrow night? I'm not looking for those who say, oh, you know, I really like Polyev or I really like Carney, and that's who I'm going to vote for.

Not interested in that. That's not what we're looking for. We're looking for no matter which party you're watching or which candidate you're watching, what is it you're going to be looking for in terms of their answers? It may be to a specific issue or it may be in the sense of how they actually deal with the questions that are asked them or the challenges that are made of them. Do you believe them? Do you see them as trustworthy?

Do they answer the question? It's all of those kind of things. And you've had some wonderful comments on this already. So once again, the cutoff time for that is tomorrow, 6 p.m. Eastern time. So look forward to reading your answers to that question. We got a couple of minutes left. So I did want to tell you this. I was away last week for a day and you heard my son Will doing your turn last Thursday and he did a fantastic job and so many of you have written wonderful and nice things

about how he did and he's read them and is extremely flattered by your nice comments. I was away, I was actually in the States. I had a speech in the States. People who were trying to understand what's going on between our two countries. So I was down there.

But here's the, you know me in airlines. It is amazing how quickly things are changing in airport terminals. In terms of what is expected of you in terms of the security checks. I found last week, you know, there's been a steady progression on this in the last couple of years as they are trying. There's still, in my view, way too many people in the security area, like those who are doing the checking. But aside from that, they are finding ways to move you through that much better.

In some places now, and in some security lines, you don't have to open your bag. You don't have to put out liquids. You don't have to take out your laptops or cell phones or any of that stuff. You can't walk through with them, but you put them in the tray. But you don't have to take them out of your bag or your check on luggage. And that just goes straight through. Um, don't have to take your shoes off. Some places you still have to take off your shoes. Um, in fact, when I was flying back from the States last week,

everything was top notch in the airport in terms of speed, except you still have to take off your shoes. So there are still differences in different places. But things are moving along quite quickly. Saw this in the Guardian the other day. You know, currently, and you'll know this if you fly at all, those flying must check in, which can be done online, or the airport counter upon arrival.

They are then issued with a boarding pass with a barcode on it, right? This is scanned by a passenger at various points throughout the airport, including at the gate before boarding. Once again, that could be a hard copy that you actually hold in your hand or it could be on your phone. It's the barcode they want. That's doing the scanning. Changes would make boarding passes

that are new changes coming and they won't be long before they're in effect. Those changes would make boarding passes and the need to check in for flights obsolete. Totally obsolete. Instead, flyers will download a journey pass to their phones. When they book a flight,

the pass will be automatically updated if any changes are made to the booking. Passengers will also be able to upload their passports to their phone and travel through airports using their face for verification. Now, that's already happening in some places, right? Right now, I'm in Scotland. I'm talking to you from Scotland. I came through Heathrow on Saturday night, Sunday morning. And there's so much that happens at Heathrow now that is, you know,

just by your face. You look at a camera when you arrive, and then you look at a camera when you're leaving. They got it all by face ID. Instead of manually checking in, which would be let the airlines know who is intending to board their flights, airlines will instead be alerted when passengers arrive at the airport and their face is scanned. So there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the way airlines are trying to make things easier for us. And yet at the same time, increases security. We'll see how far this goes.

But the experience, you know, the experience, you know, people don't want to check in bags anymore because so many get lost. So everybody wants to take a check, you know, a cabin baggage with them. Trouble with there now is there's nowhere to put it all. Everybody's got like two pieces and it can be a zoo. Coming out from London to Inverness on a British Airways flight the other day, they were begging people to check in their bags, their small carry-on bags,

because there wasn't enough room in those overhead racks. And so people start, you know, they look for any space they can. As they're walking on the plane, they shove it into maybe nowhere near their seat. And then, you know, if they need it during the flight, they shove it into maybe nowhere near their seat. And then, you know, if they need it during the flight, they got to come and you get the picture. It's crazy.

But things are happening. Changes are being made. And we'll keep our eye on this. Facial recognition is a big deal now. And it's going to be included in so much stuff. And part of it is the changes that are needed in infrastructure at airports to accommodate the facial recognition equipment and technology. All right, enough.

That's going to do it for today's program. Glad you could join us. Tomorrow is an encore edition, as you know, Thursday, debate night. And if you're listening on Sirius XM, uh, Arlene Bynum and I will be doing a special before the debate start on Sirius XM, channel 167. Um, so you might, uh, want to check in on that, um, as well. But that's it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening, as always. And we'll be back with our Encore edition in less than 24 hours.