The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - IS AN ELECTION NOW INEVITABLE?

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

With news that a fourth wave is now underway in Canada, can the Trudeau government risk an election campaign in the midst of it?  Along with Bruce Anderson we weigh the possibilities.  Also the impact of climate change, child care and China on how Canadians may cast their votes.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. It is time for a little smoke, mirrors, and the truth. That's right, Bruce Anderson's all set to go in Ottawa. I'm in Stratford. We'll be with you in just a moment. A can of pet food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the A Can of Pet Food team is proud of their entire bag. That's because every recipe has been thoughtfully sourced and carefully crafted with the highest quality ingredients, starting with quality animal ingredients, balanced with whole fruits and vegetables. Akana pet foods are rich in the protein and nutrients your dog or cat needs to feel and look their best. Available in grain-free, healthy grains, and singles for sensitive dogs. Akana, go beyond the first ingredient. And good morning all. Yes, this is The Bridge. Wednesday,

Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth Day. Bruce Anderson, as I said, is in Ottawa. I'm in Stratford, Ontario. And we've actually got quite a few things to talk about here. So first of all, hello to you. Good to see you. Hello, Peter. Before we talk politics, we have to talk about you and I got together last week. We ate some lobster. We hung out with our families.

It was great. And also, we played a little bit of golf, which we have not done in a long, long time. No, not a very long time. I got to see you hit that golf club that I used to own and that you coveted. And you had a putter that you didn't like. And you said, Bruce, I'm going to give you this amazing putter that I want somewhere in exchange for this four iron. And I'm still looking at that four iron when you hit it and wishing i had it in my bag but i'm not i'm going to leave that aside and we take that

up the next time we're together that's very kind of you um because with a very few exceptions my game was horrible it was my first game of the year you're out there every second day playing on the beautiful royal golf course and i wish yeah anyway any time on golf is good time except of course when it's like 35 degrees outside and you're walking and carrying let's just say i didn't make it all it must have been hard for you to hit the ball drag peter hit the ball drag peter around the course anyway it was a bit steamy there it was a bit steamy all right let's get cracking here because there there are more than a few things to talk about um we wake up with the news today the likelihood at least on the part

of the experts the head of the science table in ont, looking at the numbers across the country with a 60% increase in new COVID cases in the last week nationwide. Him suggesting that we are in a fourth wave. No doubt about it was his quote. We're in the fourth wave. Cases are up. Hospitalizations and deaths uh gladly are down uh they're not peaking like the cases are but nevertheless it is of concern and i'm asking you from what you're hearing on the uh the political side of things whether those who have have been around the Prime Minister saying, hey, let's go,

now's the time for an election, our poll numbers look good. There has been a certain nervousness on the part of some people, but I'm not sure on those who are closest to the Prime Minister whether they're nervous. Should they be nervous about calling an election now with numbers starting to move up, as they have been in many other parts of the world? Well, if you're asking should they be nervous from the standpoint of public opinion and the potential for a backlash about the fact that an election is called, I think so far the evidence to me in our polling data is no, that there's probably about 17 to 20, 21% of Canadians who say that they would be upset with the Liberals and it would affect their vote. But most of those people, in fact, I would say almost all of those people weren't going to vote for them anyway. Most other people are saying, look, it won't really affect how I vote. And there's a certain number that on the specific question of if there's a fourth wave that

materializes during an election, who are kind of saying that it will clarify things for them, that if it's a vote about what we should do to manage the next wave of this pandemic, they're generally voters who say that they have more confidence in the Liberals in terms of how they've done it. So I don't know that the wave itself will be an issue in the election. And I think the main reason I say that is that vaccination is more likely to be an issue in the election. What's different about the fourth wave, perhaps, is that previously we didn't have the tools to end the pandemic. People could say, well, there's going to be vaccines down the road and that will help us. So in the meantime, we have to mask, we have to socially distant. I never know whether I should say that as though it's a verb. and that will help us. So in the meantime, we have to mask, we have to socially distance.

I never know whether I should say that as though it's a verb, but anyway, we need to have social distance, and sometimes we need to lock down certain activities. Well, if we go into another wave right now, I think a lot of voters, like there's a lot who are already double-vaxxed, and they're going to say, well, we know what the answer is. It's vaccination. And if we're having a pandemic wave that is a wave caused by the unvaccinated or the choice to be unvaccinated by some people, they're going to be angry at that. And I think it's going to drive calls for tougher measures to incentivize people to get the shot. So that's how I think it will play if it plays at all.

But I also think that if hospitalizations and serious illness isn't really going up that much, people will look at it and say vaccines have worked and we need to continue with pretty rigorous policy, but we'll get through it. If there's one thing this virus has proven to us is that it's unpredictable or it's predictable in the sense that it's going to do what it wants. It's going to go where it wants and have the impact it wants no matter what's done. Obviously, vaccinations aside, that has had an impact, but nevertheless, it keeps surprising us. You know, a month ago, there were very few people who were saying fourth wave is likely. Not only is it likely, it's likely in this summer.

But here we are. Is it, you know, if, and we keep putting the if, I mean, the sense is that it could be just days away, an election call. But if, in fact, it does happen and there is an election call, is the pandemic the early leader in the ballot question, the handling of the pandemic and the impact of the pandemic? I mean, there are a lot of issues out there that are potential on the table. But is it the out-of-the-gate, the pandemic? I mean, there are a lot of issues out there that are potential on the table. But is it out of the gate, the question? No, I don't think so.

I mean, that could change. And I take your point that the pandemic has been the most unpredictable thing in Canadian politics in, well, I don't know. I can't remember there being a more protracted and unpredictable thing affecting Canadian politics in, well, I don't know, I can't remember there being a more protracted and unpredictable thing affecting Canadian politics. And as we've talked about before, Peter, it's the, and I wrote in a piece that I think Maclean's is going to publish today, that in my 40 years of polling, I've never seen anything that people were more transfixed by and focused on. So it's got a huge potential to be the driving force. But at least up until right now, in the last several weeks, public opinion has looked largely like the pandemic management has been a good thing for the liberals in terms of their support.

It sits kind of in the background rather than people saying, I can't wait to go to the ballot booth and mark an X for the liberals to thank them for helping steer us through this. I don't think it works like that at all. But I do think when people think about what the alternatives are and they look at the liberals in the context of the pandemic they say they made some right calls and and maybe the way that other parties talked about this specifically the conservative party would mean that they would be a worse choice than I had thought that they would be and therefore we're actually seeing more opportunity for the NDP than we are for the conservatives right now.

I think principally because the conservatives just didn't have anything that most voters thought was useful to say about the pandemic. But I guess the reason I don't think that the pandemic will be the dominant issue right out of the gate is I don't think that the, the liberals will want to campaign campaign on record in the sense of vote for us because of what we've done in the last couple of years, but rather vote for us because here are the things that we would like to continue to execute on going forward.

Things like childcare, things like climate change plans, that sort of thing. And I think there are a lot of voters who would rather say, I'd be more interested in a vote about the future than a vote about the past. I want to get to a couple of those points, child care and climate change, but I want you to stay focused on the pandemic story, first of all, before we get there. and one of the things that has been and you kind of hinted at it about tougher measures possible in terms of trying to curb things

one of those areas is a pandemic or a vaccination passport of some kind we see it already in manitoba it's happening now in quebec other places are talking about it the feds for whatever impact they could have on a passport situation kind of hint at it every once in a while um but other provinces are adamant about not doing it and again yesterday the ontario said they weren't doing it. How do you see that playing out? I mean, because there's no doubt, as you've predicted a number of times in the last month, that private companies, businesses, are moving towards different forms of a passport to allow entry by those who are vaccinated into their establishments and not allowing entry to those who are not vaccinated.

So, you know, because this can be such a divisive issue and spark such tension on the part of those who are affected. I see its potential as a campaign issue and the leaders being challenged directly on the campaign trail, you know, almost daily about their position on passports. Can it have that kind of impact? Yeah, absolutely it can. Look, I think that either the pandemic is going away or we're going to have vaccine passports.

How they're used, what form they're in, that's up for debate and a lot of pushing and shoving politically. But since I don't think the pandemic is completely going away, I do think it's certain that we're going to have a version of those. And I noticed that what seems to be happening, Peter, is there's about 85% of Canadians who say some way of showing that you are vaccinated that would have an effect on what you can do in proximity to other people is a good idea. That's not the same as saying everybody should be forced to be vaccinated. And it's not the same as saying, if you're unvaccinated, you shouldn't be able to do anything. It is the same, though, as saying, if you ask me a specific situation, I'm going to tell you that I would rather only do it with other people who are vaccinated. If you ask me whether my child should go to a school where other people are unvaccinated, I'm going to say I don't like that idea. So that's 85%. That's a giant number

politically. And what's really quite intriguing about it, and we saw this with the Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath last week, is that she took a position on, I think it was the Wednesday, saying that she didn't think that the Ontario government should require teachers to be vaccinated. And by Thursday, she had apologized for that position and walked it completely back. Said really the priority is safety of our children. And so within the NDP, you do have some stakeholder groups, probably some unions who look at vaccine mandates from the standpoint of human rights, and they're uneasy with them. And that's causing some tension within the NDP.

On the conservative side, you have a similar but different problem. You have people who are saying it's a question of freedom, which, you know, someone could say, well, it's the same as rights, but it's really more articulated as the freedom to not have government involved in my life at all. And so that's causing some tension on the conservative side. And we see

Max Bernier last week putting out a video, you know, specifically, I think, designed to reach Conservative Party voters and say, if you don't like these vaccines, vote for me, because I don't like these vaccines either. For the Liberals, it's actually pretty clear and pretty simple, if they only look at the political math, which is there's a large number of people saying, let's just get on with this. And then businesses or provincial governments or municipal governments can figure out what they want to do once somebody has a QR code or smart card or whatever the device is. But I saw the last thing I'll say is I saw Ontario's health minister, Christine Elliott yesterday saying she didn't think that they would create a smart card version of the vaccine confirmation because the two little slips of paper that you can print off the computer are good enough.

And the smart card could be open to fraud. That was one of the dumbest things I've heard a public official say since the pandemic started. And that's a tough competition because we've heard a lot of dumb things. Yeah. I mean, if anything's open to fraud, everything's open to fraud to some degree. I mean, I've got my little vaccine passport. You've got yours laminated, though.

That makes it completely impervious to fraud. It does. It's like the Don Fraud version of the – but I've also had it reduced in size now, so it fits in my wallet. Mind you, it's so small that with my wallet mind you it's so it's so small that i can't with my eyes i can't read it anymore but well you tweet it out after this uh podcast is recorded so we'll say maybe this is the answer this i i would leave it open to fraud people would be copying it well listen you you've explained that all very well except i still still don't know what Justin Trudeau's position is on vaccine passports. Like, yes or no, clear cut, don't dance me around, what's the position?

Yeah, so I thought he actually has been kind of putting the crumbs down on the path pretty clearly. He stood beside Premier Legault when Premier Legault announced his vaccine passport that would come into effect, I think, September 1st and said he was fully supportive of that. And he said, above all else, we need to protect our children. And I thought, OK, this is probably how he's going to make the case for whatever version of this he's going to support. Really just honing in on the adults can decide for themselves what they want to do, but we have to, as public policymakers, collectively make decisions that protect those who can't decide for themselves, including children. And then I think the other thing that he indicated is that he had asked the clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, to look into what can be done by the federal government as it relates to federal employees, which is a very large number of people.

But, you know, when I hear something like that, Peter, I, I, I don't hear it as the prime minister saying, can we do this? And if you come back and say, there's no way to do it, we'll just drop the idea. I interpret it as being, I want answers for how we can do this. Unless there's an absolutely clear cut reason and nobody that I've heard of has raised one. So I think he's going to do something. I think he's going to do it probably before the election campaign. And I think that it's probably not going to be the the marketplace, businesses, governments, to say, all right, this is how we want to apply this idea in our workplace or in our municipality or in our province. And I think that's a good thing. I think we should just get on with it.

You know, I mentioned Manitoba and Quebec. I didn't mention Nunavut, and I should, because I'm going there next week, and I know you're just salivating at the opportunity I'm getting to go again through the Northwest Passage this time. You're so lucky. I don't know how you get that luck, but anyway. I'm going up there with the Navy, and I'm going to attempt as best I can to be doing the podcast for a couple of mornings from on board the Harry DeWolf, which is the new Arctic patrol vessel on the part of the Navy.

But my point is to even get into Nunavut to board that ship, you've got to fly to Iqaluit and then you fly from Iqaluit to, in this case, Pond Inlet, where I'll be getting on board. But to get into Nunavut, you've got to go through a process, which is actually, sounds very much like a vaccine passport. You have to apply for entry into Nunavut. And to do that, you know, you fill out the normal forms, you show your double vaccination record, and you give the mother kind of background to your medical situation. And they then yes or no you, and you get an approval to board a flight to go into Nunavut. So, you know, that is, I don't think any of the other provinces

or territories are doing it that clear, but that's the situation in Nunavut, and the process worked out very quickly, a matter of days, and the approval came in. So obviously very much looking forward to getting there and seeing the Arctic patrol vessel and visiting a number of communities, Greece Fjord, Arctic Bay, going through Lancaster Sound, and, you know, it's all very exciting.

I've seen some of this before over many times in the Arctic, but it never bores me. It is quite exciting, and it's a whole other part of Canada. I hope you take a little bit of video this time uh i really enjoy seeing the images that you bring back and i love the stories that you have to tell and and well the main you've done documentary work from up there but yeah um the main reason the main reason i'm going uh is a documentary i'm shooting uh with an independent production company

that has been picked up by the CBC. They'll be running it later this year, and it's on climate change and the changing nature of the Arctic and the changing nature of the Arctic Ocean. It's an incredible story. I've been watching it for 20 years, done many things on it. This is the latest kind of version of the various stories and documentaries that I've done over the time. So I'm looking forward to that. I want to talk about climate change with you for a moment.

But first of all, we're going to take a quick break. You're listening to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. All right, back with Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge. I am in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening either on Sirius XM, Channel 167 Canada Talks,

or wherever you download your podcasts. And keep in mind that if the election is called in the next few days, we'll be back at daily programming as of next Monday. And we've got quite an alignment of different shows for you through the election as well as my week or so in the Arctic. Okay, we mentioned climate change, Bruce, and this was a big week on the climate change front. Another devastating report coming out on the impact of climate change. We've been hearing these, well, for at least the last 20 years,

certainly with regularity in the last 15 years. This one is the most toughly worded one so far, and it drops right at the time it appears that Canadians are going to be going to the polls, and the various parties have their various positions on climate change. You think, I think your data shows, that in fact this may be one of if not the most important issue that canadians have on their minds uh if we're going into an election campaign yeah i i think that's true i i started

surveying about this issue back around the time of the kyoto accord so it goes back a couple of decades in terms of me watching how Canadians have become increasingly concerned about this. And it's definitely gone from being an issue that people were kind of aware of, but in the way that they're aware of 10 things that they want to be worried about, but it never quite makes it to the, I'm so worried about it, we have to do something now. I think what's different, Peter, in the last five or six years is two things, principally. One is the accumulated visual evidence, real-life evidence of how climate change is encroaching upon us. The wildfires this summer, the hurricanes and storms that are increasingly severe,

the flooding. We don't find that people are inclined now to say, well, maybe it's connected to climate change, maybe not. They say there's a phenomena and it's causing disruptions in our lives and it's causing towns to burn down and it's causing the air to be filled with smoke and we've got to do more about it um the second thing that's going on is we've got more younger people voting and younger people look at this not like um older people in the sense that older people look at it and say,

it's a problem and we've got to do something about it. Younger people look at it and say, it's going to destroy our economy. It's going to put us in danger. It's going to imperil the planet during our lifetimes. And so for them, there's a whole other level of urgency to it. And they also see technology and behavior change as being much more promising in the sense of they know that when we put our minds to it, solar energy, the prices started to come down. They know that when we put our minds to wind energy, the prices started to come down. They know that when we put our minds to wind energy,

the prices started to come down and we started to use more solar and wind. And we're looking at all kinds of other technologies now. And they kind of know that when we decide that we want to make change, we can introduce things that cause changes like carbon pricing, but other measures as well. And so they're impatient. They're impatient, not because they're just young people and young people are impatient about things. They're impatient because they see it as being something that if it were just up to people my age, we might not do enough quickly

enough to protect them and those who follow them. So I think it's definitely looking like it could be an important issue. It's the first one where the conservatives, I think felt like they were obliged to try to come up with a credible climate plan and people will have different points of view about whether their plan is a good plan or not. To my eyes, it doesn't look competitive with the approach that the liberals have put on the table. But I'd be very surprised if it isn't a factor.

And I was watching, the last thing I'll say is I was watching the reaction of Jason Kenney and some of the others. I think in Alberta, there's a whole lot of people who say, we just need to get on with understanding the reaction of Jason Kenney and some of the others. I think in Alberta, there's a whole lot of people who say, we just need to get on with understanding that the world of energy is going to change. And what's our place in it? How do we build that next generation of our economy?

But you still have people like Jason Kenney saying, well, look, if we go too fast, we're going to destroy jobs. And I know from our research that there are a lot of people who are saying, if we don't go fast enough, we're going to lose jobs to everybody else who's going fast. And also, we're putting ourselves at more risk. So the notion that there's only risk in going quickly to fight climate change, which sometimes seems like the argument that Jason Kenney is putting out, really doesn't wash with very many people. Well, the bottom line for what you're saying is that this is a big issue.

It is ranking up there at the top or near the top for most Canadians. And the good part of it is that all the parties have positions now on climate change. And they have options on what they would do, what they think is the right approach to do on this. So if Canadians really are that concerned about this, as they should be in our view, obviously, they've got the material to make their judgment on. They can look through the various platforms of the different parties.

It's not that complicated, but there are differences. And, you know, you have the opportunity to take a position in which one interests you. Moving on to another subject that you raised as well, and the impact it could have, is child care. I mean, child care we've talked about for decades in this country. country we seem to be um certainly much closer to something um taking impact having a real impact in terms of the care of our children um and there was a noticeable development last week you mentioned earlier about trudeau standing next to uh lego in quebec the premier of quebec and the main reason they were standing next to each other was the feds infusing, what was it, $6 billion

into Quebec's child care program. And Premier Legault, you know, former Pékin cabinet minister, standing next to the federalist prime minister, and basically the two of them praising each other for this initiative and the impact that could have in quebec which is key to any hope the liberals have if there is an election um of regaining a majority they've got to do they've got to at least hold on to their seats in quebec and uh preferably, pick up some seats. The Bloc Québécois holds some, the most, next to the Liberals.

Then the Conservatives have, I think, 10 or 11 seats. The NDP is down to only one. But some of those seats are going to be up for play. And is this the kind of announcement and the optics of it with Legault next to Trudeau and shaking his hand and thanking him and basically praising the federal government? Is this the kind of thing that could have an impact on votes? Yeah, I think it definitely can. And I've been really interested to watch how, you know, in polling, I think in the past, you know, companies have maybe asked how big an issue is child care. And you get a certain number and it looks like relative to some other issues, like it's not that big a number.

But if you ask how big an issue is the cost of living, it routinely comes up as the number one issue. And in our latest polling, cost of living is the number one issue that people say they would like politicians to do something about. Pardon me. And if you're if you're a young family in one of our large urban centers, which is where most of our young families live, and you're thinking about cost of living, what are you thinking about? You're thinking about the cost of housing. Maybe you still have some student debt that you're trying to pay off. You're hoping that you can have some money for a vacation. But the biggest chunk of your expenses might well be childcare. If you have a kid or two kids that need to be in childcare, that's a major, major economic cost in your household budget. And any relief on that is going to be and feel material to those people. Maybe you can't solve the cost of housing problem for them, but if you can save them several hundred dollars a month on child care,

that's going to be really important to them. They're going to notice it. And so what I think the prime minister has done is, you know, in the budget earlier this year, I guess they made a big deal of saying this is we're going to do it. We're actually finally really going to do it this time, even though we've said it before. And a lot of people are kind of skeptical about it. But now they've kind of quietly gone around signing deals with seven governments, seven provincial governments. And I think that, you know, this goal of $10 a day healthcare will feature in the election campaign. I think the Prime Minister, you mentioned that the announcement he had with Premier Legault, he had one a few weeks earlier

with Premier Horgan, which was equally effusive in terms of how the premier of BC, another critical province in the political math for the liberals, how the province of BC was talking about this initiative by Ottawa. And so I think that's been a,

I'm not sure why it's not getting more coverage in the news media, the mainstream news media. It kind of feels like it deserves a little bit more attention than it's been getting, but I think it's going to get some during the election campaign. And I think the challenge to the conservatives, especially, I think the NDP will say, well, we're for it. But I think the challenge for the Conservatives will be, would you, if you were elected, honour these deals? And in fact, if I were a working journalist right now, I'd be asking that question of Aaron O'Toole right away. I think it's important to see what he has to say about that.

Well, I think children are going to play a big role in this campaign, whether it's on the childcare issue or whether it's on the vaccination programs for kids under 12 who are part of the huge chunk, the millions who are still unvaccinated in Canada. And parties are going to have to have their positions ready on that front as well. But the child care issue, as you point out, not just in Quebec but in BC, could have an enormous impact. Final segment for today is on China. It's been another bad week in terms of the situation for three Canadians in particular who are sitting in Chinese jails.

One's been sentenced to death. The other's been sentenced to 11 years for espionage. And the third situation is still pending. Meanwhile, in Canada, we have the situation of the woman from Huawei who is being held in kind of home detention in Vancouver, waiting for a decision about whether or not she's going to be extradited to the United States. Now, this story has been, you know, part of our lives for three, at least the last three years. And for many Canadians are outraged about it. Aaron O'Toole makes China a definite part. I mean, in our interview a couple of weeks ago remember he's the one who gave the passing grade to trudeau in the pandemic it was almost like i don't want to talk about the pandemic

they passed which sounds counter to a lot of the things he said over time uh about trudeau and the pandemic but nevertheless that's what he said in that interview but he did drop the China name frequently throughout that 40 minutes. And he's done it again yesterday, outraged at the Chinese court decisions and warning Canadians, all Canadians, you better not travel to China. You don't know what could happen if you go. So he's staked out that ground on China very clearly. To the point where for him yesterday, with a fourth pandemic underway,

all these other issues at play, that was his main message. So does it, can China play a role in this campaign? I think that it plays a role, but probably not in the way that Mr. O'Toole hopes that it will. I mean, I think your point just there about this was his message yesterday. He didn't talk about climate change. He didn't talk about child care. He didn't talk about the fourth wave. He didn't talk about vaccine passports. He talked about China and how we should be more belligerent towards China. And I think most Canadians agree that we should be more,

or that we should express our outrage as the Canadian ambassador to China did yesterday. I watched Dominic Barton's clip. And so, first of all, I think that there are a lot of Canadians who say we feel outraged towards China, but who also say, but we don't know what, if anything, can be done about it. So just being belligerent about it doesn't really make us feel as though we're accomplishing anything. And I think it's incumbent at some point upon Mr. O'Toole to say, well, here's what my government taking a more aggressive stance against China would actually accomplish in terms

of changing the behavior of China. So I think there's a question really that he raised earlier on in his conversation with Canadians about China, which is implying that Canada has screwed up our relationship with China. So there's two theories. Either Canada has screwed up its relationship with China or China is a bad actor internationally. And I think most Canadians have kind of said, well, I don't know, maybe we did screw something up here. But I do feel pretty confident that China has become a more obnoxious actor on the global stage, in which case you can look at China and say, if we put out an even stronger statement, will that change anything? And I saw that Mr. O'Toole said yesterday something about we should consider boycotting the Olympics, I think it was. When are they?

Next year? Yeah, next year. Well, no, no, no. It's like six months from now. And so I read that and I kind of thought, well, why is he saying we should consider that? If he really wants to draw hard lines, why isn't he saying we would not go? But to say we should consider boycotting the Olympic Games as part of an

overall strategy of, hey, everybody, let's pay attention to China and not talk about climate change or child care or fourth wave or vaccine passports. That doesn't really make sense to me, except in this way, which is the conservatives do have a cluster of voters in their base who love to hear the word communist and bashing of the idea of communism. You'll recall, I'm sure, all the times where they go communist China, communist China, and they, you know, they put up a monument to honor the victims of communism under the Harper government. And I think it's a little bit more of that, to be honest, because I haven't seen anything that looks like a list of sanctions that an O'Toole government would bring in that would change the direction of China in its relationship with Canada.

Your point about the communist China bashing is true, and it in fact is important to a significant portion of the Conservative Party base, and including at times people outside of that base, and in other parties who don't mind to hear the Chinese bash that way. I'll tell you what, and I'll just make this as a quick last point, what I still find confusing on this story, and as much time as I've tried to spend on it in the last few years, I still don't fully understand what it was the Canadians were doing there, the two Michaels, as they're called. And I even remember Colin Robertson, who, you know, former top Canadian diplomat, who's very involved still in talking diplomatic issues,

expressing the same kind of feeling that there is a bit of a mystery surrounding some of what was going on there. And that's always made me feel, you know, a little uncomfortable. I wish I knew more. I wish the Chinese were more explicit in what they say was going on. I wish the Canadians were more explicit in explaining what they know about what was going on. And if there was something untowards about what they were doing in China, that we should know about it. And if there wasn't, we should plainly know that there wasn't. And I'm still kind of a, there's a lot of smoke mirrors in the truth around that story.

And I don't know, I don't know which of the three elements is we're getting the goods on. All right. Let's leave it at that for this week. And with a reminder to everyone that if, in fact, we are going into a campaign within the next few days, that probably starting Monday, we will be back with a daily version of The Bridge. And it's going to be packed full of lots of good election stuff on a daily basis. And Bruce and Chantel will be joining us at different times during the week and together during the week. And Bruce is going to try and work out some stuff with Abacus data that will occasionally have some elements

of their polling data on the bridge as well. So we're looking forward to that very much. Start Monday if the election's called over the next few days on a daily basis. I'll take a break for four or five days when I go to the Arctic and we'll do Arctic broadcasts from there as well. That would be in the early part of the campaign. I think it would be obviously a nice break for me, but it will be an interesting one for you.

I'm really looking forward to doing that it may be a little choppy at times in terms of the broadcast ability it's not easy broadcasting from on board a ship going through the northwest passage but we'll give it a go and see what happens all right bruce we'll talk to you again uh within the next few days i'm sure and uh thank you for this. Peter, great to talk to you. All right. We'll see you all again very soon. This is Peter Mansbridge.

You've been listening to The Bridge. We'll talk to you again within the next few days.