The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - From The Monarchy to The Ontario Election to Donald Trump

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

Not exactly a potpourri edition of SMT but close as Bruce Anderson joins in on the conversation you love to hear.  The image of Prince Charles reading the Speech from the Throne in Westminster yesterday gives us all reason to pause.  Plus a new poll on Ontario, a court decision in Alberta, and Elon Musk on Trump and Twitter.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday, Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, with Bruce Anderson is next. And hello from Toronto on this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Bruce Anderson is in Scotland. And I actually want to start off with a UK, United Kingdom story because the images I find really quite powerful. The images from yesterday in London at the Parliament. It was their throne speech day, the opening of a new session of Parliament. And throughout her term, with two exceptions during pregnancies

in the late 50s, early 60s, Queen Elizabeth has always been in the throne seat, in Parliament, for the speech from the throne. She's read it. Now, yesterday, she was not there. Prince Charles was there in his Admiral of the Fleet uniform with all his medals, and he looked very regal as first in line to the throne. He wasn't there because the queen has mobility issues, according to Buckingham Palace.

Not surprising, she's 96. It's been a difficult past 12 months. But the image is quite something. Remember, this is the same queen who has kind of had, as the Daily Telegraph suggests, as a mantra over these years, these almost 70 years since she became queen after the coronation. Her mantra has always been, I've got to be seen to be believed. Well, yesterday she wasn't seen. And how people take that in terms of the belief in what the new parliamentary agenda is, is one thing. But the very fact she wasn't there is a real signal to all of us that the time is approaching where she's not going to not just be in the throne seat at Parliament.

She's just not going to be there. And for people who, throughout their life, I mean, I'm 73, about to be 74, and while I spent a couple of years as an infant during her father's reign as king, my life has been dominated by Queen Elizabeth, whether that's been on stamps or currency or on pictures in hockey rinks or wherever. It's been Queen Elizabeth.

She's been the monarch. Well, the page is about to be turned. And perhaps there was no better evidence that that's about to happen than yesterday, seeing the future king sitting in the seat in Parliament with his son, the second in line to the throne, William, just a few feet away. So I found it a powerful image, and I found it a reminder to all of us, and while we're not going to dwell on this, I thought it was worth mentioning as a start. You're over there. You got any thoughts on this? Yeah, well, Peter, it's really interesting to hear you say your life has been dominated by her in that role.

And I think that I understand the context. I know that you don't mean that every day you wake up wondering what she wants you to do or what she needs you to do in service of the monarchy, but rather that you've been in the news business and at the heart of the news business covering the largest stories affecting the world and Canada's role in the world. And so you've had a great deal of exposure to her in that capacity. My life has not been so dominated by her. I think that if I lived here and had a vote, I would not be an abolitionist necessarily, because who knows what follows the abolition and whether it would actually function better. But I wouldn't probably be a monarchist. And you and I both have the opportunity to spend time in this little community in the highlands of Dornock, where not very far off in the distance, we can see this statue erected to honor the Duke of Sutherland. And for a lot of people, the Duke of Sutherland is, for some people, the Duke of Sutherland is a story of,

you know, a great individual who did good things for people in the area, depending on which of the Dukes we're talking about. And for others, it's the one who sent a lot of people packing, because he thought the land was more valuable for sheep grazing than for for people to farm and make a living and support their families my point really is that the monarchy is an uh kind of in in the most cynical way i guess just an affectation you can look at and say does it really matter i'm looking at some of the quotes saying the Queen is still in charge. And I found that quote, reflective of the interests of the royal family, but not an accurate way of describing how the UK works. The Queen, from the standpoint of how the country works day in day out is not really in charge.

But I can understand well. And this is the last point i wanted to make on this which is that the queen has conducted herself in a way that befits the office throughout her life much of her family on the other hand has been a bit of a train wreck and the questions of whether or not the institution should survive her don't only have to do with how the world is changing and should there be something like a monarchy. They have to do with who are these individuals who follow her and why would we want to believe that they will carry that office in the way that she has. So I think we're headed for a discussion or reflection on that going forward i think that's a healthy thing and i don't disagree with you at all even though you're you know giving your republican stripes out quite clearly on the on this issue but let me let me just

say that a monarchist today because of eliz, is not necessarily a monarchist tomorrow when she's gone. Yep. And so that's why I totally agree with you that we're in for a discussion. You're an incipient Republican, is what you're saying. You're on the verge. Your foot is half over the line. I'm certainly on the verge your foot is half over the line i i'm probably i'm certainly on the line you know um the only other thing i'd say is on the duke of sutherland

you said that statue which is so dominant on the skyline of uh of that area of scotland and the highlands was erected in his honor you're you're. It was erected in his honor by him. By him. Would that you could erect a statue in your honor. Maybe we'll work on that the next time you're back. Okay. Let's move on to some of the issues of this day. Not there, but here.

And one of them is the uh the the new survey out uh today that you know there are a number of big provincial elections coming up that have national implications and the first one on the list is in ontario on june 2nd and abacus data which is bruce's um the polling firm that he works for his chairman of uh is out out today with its first look at the state of play in Ontario and what it means not only for Ontario, but the implications it could have on a national basis. So give us the rundown. Well, the very top line is a nine-point lead for the Conservatives. So if the votes were counted today and they look like that, that would be a majority victory for Doug Ford.

There's a you know, there's always going to be a question. And you and I have heard so many times people say, well, campaigns matter. And the truth is, sometimes they really do. And sometimes they only matter a little bit. I think sometimes with provincial elections, they could matter more because the policy issues that provincial governments deal with matter more directly in the lives of people every day, health and education, those kinds of things. On the other hand, sometimes provincial politics doesn't get enough coverage that gets through to a large number of people. And so turnout levels can be a little low, interest levels can be a little bit soft. And that tends to favor incumbents in a situation where the level of desire for change is not very high. One of the things that we measure and report on in the poll, which is available on our website, is the desire for change.

And we always, as you probably remember, Peter, we measure it both in terms of the amount of desire for change and the intensity of that desire. And when we compare the amount and intensity of desire for change in Ontario to the last provincial election, the last federal election, there's less of it and it's less intense, not by a lot, but by a little bit, the kind of thing that would be reassuring to Ford and to his campaign, knowing that they're going into an election where maybe two or three years ago, people would have been more upset with Ford and what they saw in his leadership. And that's probably where I want to stop is to say that I think that the success that he's had in attenuating the high negatives that we saw early in his term in office has really been a function of a strategy to dial down his populist rhetoric

to replace the idea of somebody who is really there to shake up and break the system with somebody who was a manager, a careful custodian of the fortunes of the province. And it probably didn't please all of the populists who wanted the kind of angry, let's shake it up, Doug Ford. But it did create a more open-minded view among centrist voters in Ontario to consider whether or not giving him a second term makes sense. And so as of right now, I think it's his campaign to lose. Del Duca for the Liberals is better positioned than the NDP. And obviously that wasn't the case after the last election.

He's got some policy ideas that I think are interesting that he's been talking about lately. But we'll see whether this campaign matters a lot or only a little. And if it's only a little, then Doug Ford is probably cruising to victory. It's a remarkable turnaround, really. You said, you know, like two to three years ago, even a year ago, he appeared to be in real trouble, Doug Ford, we're talking about. But he has changed that image that he's got. It's more like changing away from the populist. You know, he was compared to Donald Trump a lot when he first came on to the provincial scene. Today, it's more like he's kind of a Bill Davis figure and a big blue machine figure with that party.

And, you know, we just lost Bill Davis in the last year or so. But this was a guy who was quite revered in his term as Premier, for always finding that kind of middle road of having a good relationship, even with a liberal government in Ottawa, and finding that balance that would attract support across the province of Ontario. And somehow, Ford has made that transition. I mean, I'm not saying he's the reincarnation of Bill Davis, but he's closer to Bill Davis, certainly, than that person who he was emulating when he first came into power.

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that, you know, your, your comparison to Bill Davis is interesting and apt in another way, which is that most of the progress that Ford has made, he's made with older voters. were a little bit anxious about the amount of disruption that he sounded like he was going to bring that he was this. He as he was carrying the progressive conservative brand, but he didn't sound like Bill Davis. He didn't sound like that kind of force for continuity and stability and predictability that those voters might have wanted. But if Ford has a real vulnerability now, it's with young people. He's well behind the other two parties among voters under 30. He's only at 20%. The Liberals are at 34, and so too are the NDP. Whereas among voters who are 60 and older, he's got a 14-point advantage, Ford does, over the Liberals and the NDP are further back. Another interesting breakdown that we put in our poll is that if you're a car owner in Ontario, well, 42% of car

owners are going to vote Conservative as of now, well ahead of the Liberals at 28 and the NDP at 20. But if you're somebody who doesn't have a car, which includes a lot of young people, especially those who live in the biggest city in Toronto, Ford only gets 21% of the votes. He's third among people with no car, well behind the liberals at 33 and the NDP at 31. And so when we hear this story about this refrain that we've heard a number of times around his development agenda, his fondness for building highways, that is a point of discrimination, if you like, between younger voters and older voters. And it's one of the reasons why I think that Ford trails in only one region of the province, which is in Toronto.

In other regions of the province, he's pretty, he's pretty good. He's also in trouble with relatively speaking with people who rent as opposed to people who are homeowners. So if there are issues where there's some vulnerability for him, I would say, with young people around housing affordability, around transit costs versus highways. And so when I saw Stephen Del Duca, the liberal leader, talk about a buck a ride as a signature policy, I thought, well, that's an interesting read of where the opportunity for him lies and the kind of solutions that might affect the cost of living for people who are in that cohort it's interesting the uh the transit impact on this election because if you if you own a car in ontario you've got a check in the last little while from the provincial government yeah from from doug ford apparently it no longer costs the provincial government money to renew our licenses or something like that i don't know why you wonder how long that's going to last um but nevertheless you got that check um if you're

a transit driver or rider you you got a promise from theals that they're going to cut way back on what it costs to take public transit. Those two issues obviously have an impact on the way those different voters vote or plan to vote in this campaign. A reminder on any polls, they're a reflection of what was happening actually on the in the moment the poll was taken and that poll was very recent just in the last few days um we're going to move on to another part of the province where there's no election right now but there's going to be one and there are some important decisions being made by the party in power about its leadership and a alberta court decision that came down yesterday that could influence the direction on the minds of both members of the governing party and the

truth the wednesday edition with bruce anderson joins us from scotland this week um you're listening on the sirius xm Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. We welcome you from wherever you happen to be listening. All right, big decision comes down yesterday from Alberta's top court. And it's ruling that Ottawa's environmental assessment law is unconstitutional. Now, this is a big deal in legal circles, and it can have a significant impact depending on whether Ottawa appeals

this decision by Alberta's top court, and they have indicated so far they are going to appeal. It wasn't close. It was a 4-1 opinion against the Impact Assessment Act, which Jason Kenney, the Premier of Alberta, has derided. The No More Pipelines Law, is what he calls it, is part of a constitutional reference case and has no immediate effect on the law. The federal government indicated it would appeal, as I said, to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I'm reading their little report from the Globe and Mail on this. To give you a quick background, formerly known as Bill C-69, the law is one of several federal policies that Kenney has criticized as an attack on Alberta and its oil sector, and he promised a legal challenge during the 2019 election campaign. He also used a constitutional reference to challenge the federal carbon tax, along with similar cases in Saskatchewan, Ontario, but the Supreme Court of

Canada ultimately sided with Ottawa. So at a time when Jason Kenney needs some good news, he would consider this good news, this decision by the Alberta court. So what should we make of this? What impact can this have? Not just in Alberta, but, but outside of Alberta as well.

Well, it's a really interesting issue, even though I know that it might sound, if people aren't really kind of digging into this issue regularly, it might sound a little bit complicated. The short version, as I see it, is this. The federal government remodeled its Environmental Assessment Act and brought in this new bill called C-69. And one of the things that they wanted to do was to make it more ready to help the country deal with climate change

as a existential issue facing the planet and facing Canada. Because in the past, if you were doing environmental impact assessments, you were measuring the potential impact of a project, a mine or a pipeline or something like that. But it was usually going to be the impact within a certain geographic area that could be protected by different measures, that kind of thing. Maybe it would cut across a couple of provinces. But the nature of climate change, as we know, is that it's everywhere, that it's an existential threat to the planet. And so what the government wanted to do was to be able to use climate change analysis as a way of evaluating whether a project was in the interests of Canada or not. And so they introduced in their bill the idea that this existential threat risk to Canada should be the pretext for evaluating projects a little bit

differently going forward. And they incorporated some elements of that evaluation that made the province of Alberta uncomfortable. But the principal argument that the province of Alberta made was that this idea of an existential threat to Canada shouldn't be used to override what are normally provincial powers, provincial areas of jurisdiction. And I guess the dissenting judge in this ruling said, yeah, I do think that that existential threat to Canada is important enough that it should be to look at federal regulation and law and say, yes, it does overstep traditional lines between federal and provincial responsibility. But that's OK, because it's important enough to do this. Obviously, Premier Kennedy and Premier Mo of Saskatchewan

do not see climate change as that kind of risk. But I think to your question about what does it mean for the rest of the country? Where will it go politically? I think there probably are more people. Well, I know there are more people in public opinion terms, who think that climate change is that level of risk, that we need to be willing to require that things be done that weren't done in the past even if that means looking at our balance of powers a little bit differently and more flexibly you know tonight the conservatives have their first official leadership debate in Edmonton. It's the federal Conservatives.

And last week was kind of an unofficial one in Ottawa. It was a real shootout at the O.K. Corral. Tonight in Edmonton, all the candidates will be there. We'll see how it plays out. if a question comes up about this decision and whether or not federally, assuming the law goes ahead based on an Ottawa appeal of the decision in Edmonton, it will be, one assumes, one of the questions will be, would you repeal this law if it was in effect? Or would you drop the federal appeal of the alberta decision the same thing right yeah the same impact and you'll clearly see i mean the assumption would be i suppose that paliev would say yeah i'd drop it um and sheree

maybe not so much. I think that fight that's going on there is really one where Charest needs to decide, is this the moment where he becomes the candidate who's a little less strident on some of those issues than Polyev, or where he's the one who says, I need to really, I need to do something to damage this guy's support. I need to go after him directly. I need to say he doesn't understand or accept the science of climate change enough to recognize that we need to do some things. Obviously, you can tell that I think that's the right strategy for him to take if he's going to have a chance to win. But it'll be very interesting to see Jean Charest, who has a pretty strong background as an environmentally thoughtful politician,

was environment minister in the federal government, whether or not he I think I've got that right. Yeah, he was. He was. OK um and so it'll be interesting to see whether polyev tries to take the issue to charrette or charrette tries to take the issue to polyev but it should be a thing that conservatives debate they should decide where they want to come down on this because i do think that kenny is happy because this helps him in his fight to keep his job. But I also think that Albertans generally don't like, a lot of Albertans don't like how aggressive he has been on the other side of environmental issues and climate change in particular. They would rather have the province be more interested in fighting climate change,

less pugnacious about laws and measures that are designed to attenuate it, even if some people might not like carbon pricing or some of the other rules. So a very interesting debate coming within the conservative movement, and let's say Polyev becomes the conservative leader, it might set up another election campaign where the conservatives are kind of on one side of uh the climate change policy question and all the other parties except i guess the people's party are on the other side it's too early to say whether that's going to happen but certainly this decision from the court in alberta sets up that scenario quite easily. I just checked to make sure you were right and me backing you up was correct.

Yes, he was the Minister of Environment, Jean Charest, from 91 to 93. So it was 30 years ago. So we have reason to wonder whether or not our memories are that solid yeah that's right but those were the days of a you know another issue that was much debated in terms of whether or not it was a a threat uh to the country that was acid rain throughout the the 80s um i'll never forget that you know demonstration on parliament hill when ronald reagan was visiting against acid rain and there were all these signs about acid rain there this would have been the early part of the 80s and american reporters coming up to us saying what the hell's acid rain

they had no idea right yeah but then you know the americans championed that cause uh eventually you know yeah well you know now some of them would say where can i get it and can i take it to fight covet just kidding that's a good line you'll be trashed for it but uh what i know i know um okay final topic another one of the things you people you respect so much elon musk comes down as we all know he's buying twitter hopes to buy twitter and he's kind of mortgaging his his most successful company tesla to make it happen and at a time when tech stocks are getting hammered in different uh different areas uh nevertheless yesterday he says donald trump should be back on twitter it's wrong that he was taken off twitter and he's been supported by the former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who was there when they took Trump off Twitter for remarks around January 6th

and the threat that Twitter felt he posed to the country, the United States. And he's been supported in this latest decision or venting of opinion uh by the civil liberties union so he has some support on this idea but there was quite a torrent of of comment yesterday across the american spectrum about what this would do and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. And whether Trump still has that kind of an audience. What it'll mean to Twitter. Will it bring bad people to Twitter? Apparently a lot of right-wingers left Twitter because of this.

I'm not sure I didn't actually see the evidence of that. Or what leaving Twitter actually means. Does it just mean you don't use it or does it mean you actually take yourself off that social media channel? Did this move you one way or another or do you care? Well, I care about how the social platforms are self-regulating or how they're regulated in the future. I think it's unfortunate when it devolves into a question that's a binary question, ban or no ban, as opposed to everybody should have access to the platform, but you can't use it to do certain things, which seems to me a more sensible approach than to say, I've decided that you, Peter, have such obnoxious ideas that I'm going to ban you from the platform, as opposed to saying you, Peter, should use the platform. But if you're going to use it to threaten people, or cause

lawbreaking, or encourage people to do things that are harmful to their health or hazardous to life, you shouldn't use it, and you shouldn't be allowed to use it for that. And so it seems to me that, as a lot of things do in the political world, it's easier for people to shorthand it to a yes or no, in or out, on or off the platform and i don't think that's the most sensible thing to do i do think it's consistent with my view of elon musk that he hasn't said much about how he would change twitter to protect people from the kind of misinformation that caused the insurrection to happen that caused people to take horse medicine to cure a pandemic, that caused people to imagine that there were good people on both sides of, you know, a parade that included a lot of Nazi symbols and themes. He hasn't said anything

really about that. But we do know now that he thinks that what that trump should be back on twitter and so if i'm just trying to raise away the level of concern that he has for the people who often find themselves as victims of what can happen on social platforms as opposed to kind of loud, obnoxious people who attract large numbers of followers to the platform. Let me put it that way. It feels like he's a little bit more oriented towards the latter, especially when there are people who say things that he personally tends to agree with. So I don't love the way that this is the debut of Musk's thinking about what priorities he would put in place. And I really don't like the binary on off as opposed to you can't use this platform to do things that are destructive to society approach.

And I understand when I say that, that not everybody's going to agree on what's destructive to society. But to say that nothing is, which is this kind of extension of the libertarian thing, that as long as it's free speech, it's fine. That's just nuts. That's foolish. That's ruinous. And we can see all kinds of evidence of that. People will disagree with me about that but so be it um that's certainly where i come down on it you know i'm have become of the opinion

of the in the last just in the last month or so that trump always wins that he never loses you know and i you know i'm not talking about you know the number of votes or the presidency or whatever right but whenever it gets to a crunch on an issue whenever it gets into a courtroom whenever it gets into an inquiry whenever it gets into anything like that where on the face of it a lot of people seem to think this guy's guilty as hell on whatever the issue may be. But he doesn't turn out to be guilty, or at least the courts decide he's not guilty, or at least the courts decide it's not even worth pursuing. Or in the case of Robert Mueller, he produced the evidence, but nobody was willing to pick

up on it. And so he wins and you know i i watch like you do a lot of the different programs on american cable channels and you know on the on the on the ones that lean against trump it's like a daily barrage breaking news the latest on the january 6th and it's devastating it's this it's that and whatever and in 24 hours it's history it's gone whatever that was um and i'm just starting to you know next month could be interesting there's supposedly going to be you know uh open hearings public hearings or the evidence about january 6 you're going to be, you know, open hearings, public hearings,

where the evidence about January 6th is going to be produced. And, of course, we're hearing the rumblings that it's devastating. It's going to change everything. But I've become, gradually, and maybe it's taken me longer than it should have, to start thinking, they're never going to get this guy never they don't have it they don't have the smoking gun it's always sort of covered by a certain amount of gauze that well look i mean i get ridiculed by my family because they know that I said he could never win the U.S. presidential election. And I said that on the basis of, well, if America spends $8 billion on a vetting system to choose the best person to run the country, there's no chance it can be that bad a vetting system to pick Donald Trump.

He's far from the best person to run the United States of America. And, of course, you could say that about a lot of elections. Well, that's true. But he is singularly the worst person I've ever seen to hold that office and not by a little bit, by a lot. In fact, I'm here in this little town of Dornick and you wouldn't pick him to run a town of 1500 people anywhere and assume that things would go well. So he's singularly poorly equipped to do anything that looks like it's important.

And also he's been a failure at so many things in his business life. It's hard to imagine that people in America who believe in the virtues of free enterprise would say, well, let's pick this guy, because nobody understands free enterprise and how to make it work like Donald Trump. So it's a long winded way of getting to that. I worry the same while you didn't say you worry, you're just starting to think that maybe they're never going to get up, maybe they're never going to find the smoking gun, there's never going to be that comeuppance, there'll be no orange jumpsuit, there'll be no cellmate, there'll be none of the things that I secretly would like to see, to be honest, I guess it's not secret, because I just said it. And it's probably not the first time. But

I do wonder sometimes, because it seems to me that he's done enough things that somebody somewhere should have been able to lay a charge and cause an action to be taken against him. And it still doesn't happen. And nobody ever really explains why. And that just makes no sense to me. There's two possible scenarios. One is he's never, well, no, there's three. One is he's never done anything wrong. I don't buy it.

Two is he's so clever to have done what he did wrong in a way that conceals all of the evidence i don't buy that the third is they're too scared of him and the backlash of taking him on and i think that's the most likely scenario and i hope they get over their fear i vote for door number two i think he's smarter than than we've given credit for. And he's always found a way, like the top mafia bosses always find a way, or usually always find a way, to have somebody else take the rap for it. And when the crunch comes, there is no evidence against them directly. You know, when I started to get worried was about a month ago when the um district

attorney i think it was in in new york city a democrat decided there's not enough here to charge him on the business stuff that was against all the recommendations of his staff who had worked on this for months, if not years. And he'd just come into the appointment. He took one look at it and said, it's not enough here. We're shutting it down. Yeah. And I thought, my God, this was supposed to be the clincher, the ironclad. You can't lose on this one.

Yeah. So I don't know it's but on the basis of the evidence that you read about the way that he dealt with certain you know people in his companies and that sort of thing if you accepted that evidence was right and if it had been you that had done it don't you think you'd be charged uh maybe right yeah we we should be you know i mean we don't know if he did anything illegal but there's been a lot of questions there's a lot of smoke there's a lot of smoke and apparently there's a lot of mirrors and between the two of them we still don't know what the truth is. We don't know.

And whether we ever will or not, I don't know. Anyway, good conversation. And you'll be back on Friday with Chantel for a good talk. You will. Good. Indeed, I will. And I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about, starting with whatever happens at tonight's debate.

And one day I'll be back in Canada as well. But that's not for a little bit another week or two and i should say i was at the leafs game last night and it was absolutely amazing i you know i was ready to walk out after four minutes and they were down to nothing i was so upset but they somehow turned it around came back it's not over yet that's why they call it a best of seven not a best of five wish they call it the best of five anyway thanks bruce talk to you on friday talk peter that's it for smoke mirrors the truth on this day i'm peter mansbridge thanks so much for listening we'll talk to you again tomorrow