The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Is Implying The PM Is A Traitor Over The Top?

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Pierre Poilievre has never been shy about levelling a charge but did he go too far by suggesting Justin Trudeau was guilty of treason?   Bruce and I weigh in on that one, plus more on whether Trudeau himself has botched the whole issue of election interference.  We don't call this segment Smoke, Mirrors and The Truth for nothing!    

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It being Wednesday, that means Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Bruce is in Ottawa. I'm in Toronto on this day. I guess it's been a couple of years now since we named the Wednesday segment Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. All of the years. All of the years since we started it. You're quite correct. I guess some Wednesdays we call it Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. We go on, we talk for 45 minutes, and at the end of it you say,

well, did we really have any smoke mirrors and the truth there? Well, it's a subtle question, and, you know, sometimes in our minds we do, in your minds perhaps not, and vice versa. But today, today I think we have a lot of smoke, mirrors, and the truth. You got them all. You got them all in this one. And it all surrounds the issue of, you know, election interference or alleged election interference.

Who knew? When they knew? What did they do, if anything, about it? That has been swirling around Parliament Hill for a couple of weeks now, ever since the Globe and Mail and global TV news broke elements of this story. And the government has looked like it's not quite sure how to deal with this, and the opposition has been making fairly serious claims about it. And mixed in there, there's some smoke mirrors and some truth.

So we're going to try and get at some of that today. We're going to start off, because last Wednesday and last Friday, we dealt first off with the Justin Trudeau side of it all. And we will do that again today. But we're going to start with Pierre Polyev because I found yesterday fascinating. I haven't seen a situation like this since, you know, I hate to say this, you know,

I keep dragging back the 70s and the 80s like nothing else matters. But in those days, there used to be this sort of undercurrent of whispered in the hallways talk about, you know, was Pierre Trudeau really faithful to his country, or was he some kind of, you know, like Soviet spy? That was never said publicly, at least not that I can recall. But it used to be whispered around. It was one of those things that they talked about

in the hallways of Parliament, different members of Parliament, mainly Conservatives, but never out front. Well, that's different this week. I'm going to play you, and Bruce, listen closely, because it's only going to be 20, 30 seconds here. I'm going to play you a little clip of Pierre Polyev yesterday, the opposition leader. Let's keep that in mind, right? The leader of the opposition. And I'm desperately trying to find it here. And it will pop up in a second if I can just find it. Here it is. Okay. So listen closely here. This

is Pierre Polyev yesterday in a formal news conference. Okay. Listen to this. It is actually incredible that we have this uprising at our intelligence body. This has never happened before. They must be very worried about how the prime minister is working against the interests of his own country and his own people. They've been warning him for years about this. And what has he done? He's covered it up, even encouraged it to continue. And so they are so concerned about how the prime minister is acting against Canada's interests and in favor of a foreign dictatorship's interests, that they are actually releasing this information publicly.

So that's Pierre Polyev yesterday, okay? And catch that main line, that Justin Trudeau is acting against Canada's interests and in favor of a foreign dictatorship's interests. Now, I don't know, when I hear that, it sounds to me like it's some kind of, you know, treason. That there's a traitor in our midst who's not working for us, but it's working for some foreign dictator. And that person is the Prime Minister of Canada. Now, I'm sure there are some people out there who say,

yeah, that's right, but really, is that what this has come to? Is that what we're saying? Well, it's clearly what he's saying. In a formal news conference in the halls of parliament. Bruce, you've been patient. What do you say to this? Shocking and not shocking. I think we live in the time that Trump, if he didn't create it,

he certainly gave it all of the oxygen and the energy that has allowed us to now see politics as as as as difficult a kind of thing as I've ever recalled it and I say that you know it's restrained to say that it's terrible what's happening in politics. And these instincts to take everything to the nth degree, to imagine that the best way, if you're Pierre Polyev, to prosecute your case, to win votes, to win election, is to find the next harshest, worst thing that you can say about your opponent. I think that these steps set a terrible precedent for our country. I think that I would say that if it was a liberal or a new Democrat doing this kind of thing, but it just so happens that a lot of this kind of thing is happening from far-right politicians. And there are days when I want to think that Pierre Polyev isn't a far-right politician. But then there are days like yesterday where I go, well, unfortunately, I think he is.

And what I think he's doing yesterday, and I think you're right to say that he as much as said that Trudeau was a traitor. And I think that that's, to say something like that as the opposition leader, as a putative prime minister, the burden of proof should be a lot higher than what it was that he used to make that case. He essentially said that Trudeau had been propped up by China for 10 years and that Trudeau was aware of it, and Trudeau wanted to keep on letting it happen. And I don't think that there's anywhere near evidence

that you could make that case stick. He's saying it because I think that a big portion of the votes that he's counting on in the next election are people whose main, perhaps only interest is the demonization of Justin Trudeau. They're not interested in very many other issues. They're not interested in what would be a better policy prescription in terms of how to deal with this threat of foreign interference. They're interested in throwing bombs rhetorically at Justin Trudeau, a figure that many of these people hate.

Now, it's not everybody who's going to vote conservative feels like that, but it's a pretty sizable proportion. And I think that what happens with Pierre Pauliev is that he realizes that for those voters, their hatred of Trudeau is almost an addiction. And that if you don't feed that addiction often enough, they get mad at you. And you start to feel it. And we saw another thing happen this week that made me feel like in the same way that Jason Kenney had problems within his UCP in Alberta, and the same way that Fox News is feeling the lash from some of their base viewers, that if you're a leader

who counts on those voters, if you don't do what they want you to do or say what they want you to say, you're going to pay a price. And we saw this thing happen last week where three of Pierre Polyev's MPs had a meal with a woman who represents a party that has minimized the Holocaust. Pierre Polyev, not directly, but through a journalist, had some sort of statement saying her views are vile and we shouldn't hang out with her. Well, two of his MPs refused to apologize for doing that. And when he was asked about it this week, the expectation would be he's still got to

say something about it. He's got to say they shouldn't have done it. He wouldn't say the words on camera that he had had written and sent to a journalist earlier last week. And the reason is he doesn't want those words to be recorded anywhere so that they can be used to weaken the attachment he has with his base, used as part of an effort to suggest that he's not in control of his party. But it looked like he lost a fight with those caucus members. And yesterday, when he dialed up that rhetoric about Trudeau, it looked to me like he was doing some sort of penance for having strayed from that we hate Trudeau orthodoxy. Now, I don't think it's very persuasive for voters. And I don't think he was expecting a lot of mainstream voters to hear what he said and come to the conclusion, oh, I guess Trudeau's really been conspiring with the Chinese.

I don't think it was about that. I think it was about tending to the people who are addicted to the Trudeau hatred. And it's a shame to see it be portrayed like that. You know, it was revealing that in the news conference he had yesterday, which ran, you know, 14 minutes or 15 minutes and i don't want to complain about the length because anything has been has been different than what we've seen for most of the last year where he doesn't do scrums at all but he did take some questions there yesterday but as soon as the questions revolved around those three mps he punted he wouldn't answer them he did exactly what he accused trudeau of doing not not answering the questions, right?

So there was a lot of smoke and mirrors in that. He immediately reverted in his answer to the questions. Blackface. Yeah. Trudeau being blackface in his younger days, although he implies that it was like yesterday. Nevertheless, this issue around pauliev and the way he's he's dealing with some of the issues because there's no doubt the guy

is skillful at a microphone but at i i've noticed there's clear there's there's one thing when he's talking to a crowd, and he's getting crowds, big crowds, it's one thing when he's talking to them. This is the guy who a month ago was saying the country was broken, and then this past weekend in a packed house he was talking about how the country works because of all these incredible people in it and the things they do and the dedication they have. I mean, he, he wasn't, he wasn't denying what he'd said earlier, but the two statements don't kind of fit together.

And when you see him in a news conference, he doesn't look as comfortable. He snaps, he gets mad, he gets mad at questioners, you know, let me answer my question. That kind of thing. Yeah. So, you know, that kind of thing will, he needs practice at that before he gets into an election campaign. Or he's going to find himself, you know, every day trying to respond to questions that he either fumbled or misstated the day before. Yeah, I think that's right. Look, I think you can win an election sometimes,

even if you're not very good at charming voters, but if your opponent is even worse or is in a worse state of popularity. But all other things being equal, in my experience, Canadians like to look at leaders and say, are they a good person? And do they have a level of humility? It's a curious thing about Canadians is that we want leaders with humility. And I think the thing that Polyev seems to be struggling with is both of those things right now. There are days when his manufactured communication makes it sound

like he's a relatable person. I don't know if I would say good person. I think that's in the eye of the beholder. But I think it's plausible that for some people, they say he's a good person. He talks about things that I care about. He talks about them in a way that I can relate to. I don't see the humility part. And I think that one of the things that may be happening is that now that he's in that position, it comes with trappings. It comes with that kind of daily, hourly, every moment reminder that you get to tell people what to do and they're supposed to do what you want them to do. And we already have been able to see over the years that he's somebody who puts his ideas out there very bluntly.

You could tell he expects people to follow what he says. So I feel like what happens when he gets questioned about something like those MPs refusing to, like he wouldn't sanction them, he wouldn't say anything about them, he wouldn't answer questions about why they are kind of defying his point of view on this, is that he knows that it makes him look weak. He knows that it makes him look like somebody who isn't in command and control of his caucus. And I think he hates that. And I think that that, I don't know whether that's something

that he's going to adapt over time, but I think he's starting to fail that humility test. It may be not just starting to. And I think it becomes scar tissue that you wear into an election. And again, the more of that is an opposition leader that you accumulate without really needing to, the less likely you are to be able to beat your opponent if your opponent still has a measure of popularity. So I think it's been a bad week for Pierre Polyev. But I think that probably a lot of his core supporters will think what a great day he had yesterday, because he said that Trudeau was

essentially betraying the country. And I watched, I'd like to know what you think about the media coverage that you consumed, because I saw a number of journalists being a bit horrified at the extent to which Polyev said things that we're not accustomed to hearing said. Some, on the other hand, say, well, you know, maybe it's good that we have a politician who calls it as he sees it and uses blunt terms to describe what he thinks is an important problem. I don't share that view. I think there needs to be some limits on what people do. And I also feel like some of the things that Pierre Polyev said yesterday, if he ever did become prime minister, he would regret having put on the record. A good example of that was he was championing the idea that the spy service should

leak if it has a problem with the incumbent prime minister. Well, you know, that bill comes due if you're the prime minister someday. I'm absolutely certain that if he were the prime minister this time next year or the year after that, that he would not be in favor of the spy service deciding that it should go to Bob Fife or some other journalist and tell stories about things that it doesn't feel are being done the way that it wants. They don't have to put evidence out there. They don't attach their names to it. I'm sure the globe would disagree with this, but there's no evidence of stress testing. The ideas that were given sure the globe would disagree with this, but there's no evidence of stress testing the ideas that were given to the globe. And we had this conversation with Susan Delacorte about the difference between what an intelligence agency can pick up as a rumor and then what gets reported as a fact. And the fact that's reported is that the intelligence organization thought it.

Well, that doesn't make it an actual fact. It makes it a story, I suppose. And the fact that's reported is that the intelligence organization thought it. Well, that doesn't make it an actual fact. It makes it a story, I suppose. But there's a risk in all of that, that if we unwind the credibility in our institutions, including our spy services and the idea of some sort of command and control within government. Just because we don't like answering the questions about our MPs who met with this German MP, these are reckless choices. They're reckless choices, and he shouldn't make them. He's this close to an election. He's tied or ahead in the polls. He's got an opportunity to lead his party back into government. And I think he should be doing something differently than saying the prime minister is being propped up knowingly by China and he wants to conceal China's involvement in his

political success. I don't disagree with you, although I do think this charge yesterday, although I know what he's going to say if pressed on. Why did you call Trudeau a traitor? He'll say, well, I didn't really call. I wasn't calling him. I was suggesting that the security services who were leaking were leaking because they felt he was. But I don't know.

When you go through that very carefully, that clip that I ran earlier, he's making the same charge. And I couldn't help, and this is why I mentioned, you know, the 1970s and the hallway chatter. The reason I mention it is I cannot imagine back in those days Robert Stanfield standing in front of a microphone saying a similar kind of thing about Pierre Trudeau, that Pierre Polyev said yesterday about Justin Trudeau.

In fact, I could name you all the different opposition leaders, both conservative and liberal, over the years. And, you know, you have people in your caucus to run around saying stuff like that. You don't subscribe to it. Now, maybe what you were saying earlier is the point here, that he's trying to, I hate this term now, it's so overused, but, you know, solidify his base. Solidify that core support that he's got by saying stuff like this, because for them, it's what they want to hear. But he is the leader of the opposition.

He could be the prime minister. He could be in charge of security services, whether they be CSIS or thecmp or what have you um and as you say does he really want them going around saying you know paulie i've screwed this up look at this look at that um because as you say these things come home to roose all right have we finished on pierre pauliev on the smoke mirrors and the truth of yesterday? Because, man, there's lots to get to on the other side. Yeah, I think so. I mean, the chaos that this kind of politics creates,

you and I have an ongoing interest in what happens in politics in the United States. And there's been some really shocking revelations coming out of this lawsuit against Fox News. And maybe we'll get a chance to talk about that next week. But there are parallels north and south of the border. And they really go to this whole question of whether or not leaders of these parties and organizations that serve that part of the electorate that call it 10 to 20 percent, whose real interest is not necessarily a change in policy, although they would say that it is, but they have a hatred

for the other side politically or an individual or a love of Trump in the case of the Trump phenomena. And the notion that leaders become successful by telling the mob what it wants to hear. And the news organization decides that its business model is telling the mob what it wants to hear rather than what's true. These are really hazardous, hazardous things to see. And they're happening at scale. And when it's the leader of the opposition in Canada, it's a significant issue, I think. The ugliness out there does cross party lines, right? I mean, and we witnessed that in the last week.

If you go into social media, and I try not to, but when you do, you sort of duck in and you see what people are saying about stuff. There's some pretty ugly stuff from the other side too. It just is a, it's a kind of a mutually assured destruction scenario where at some point you can't stop it from continuing and escalating unless there are leaders who try, unless there are news organizations who try. And the examples that we've seen recently of journalists who cover some of these stories that sit squarely in the middle of this shooting war, this foul shooting war between the extremes on both sides of the spectrum, shows that there's no instinct for, forget about kindness. There's no instinct for kind of open mindedness or anything that looks a little bit polite even. And, you know, we lose that at our peril as a democracy. It's a thing that we have to be worried about, not just this foreign interference. We need to be worried about these corrosive effects. All right. We're going to take a quick break, come back and talk about

the way Justin Trudeau is handling the story. Back in a moment. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or, because it's Wednesday, watching us on our YouTube channel. Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Toronto.

And we are talking about the story that has been kind of occupying the minds of anybody who follows national politics in this country over the last week or ten days, and that is the charges of election interference by the Chinese in the last couple of elections. It's clear that something happened there, how serious it was, who knew about it, and when they knew about it, and what they did about it, are still questions that haven't been firmly answered. Now, we talked about Polyev and the way he's handling it. Let's talk about Trudeau and the way he's handling it, as we talked about him a couple of times last week on this story. It would seem to me, on Friday of last week, the Prime Minister told reporters and an audience that there was no way there was going to be

a public inquiry into this. It wasn't needed. The facts were clear. Time to move on. That was Friday afternoon, and that's the way the weekend sat. By the time Monday rolled around, clearly something would be going on in the Prime Minister's office, because suddenly there was a whole new

plan, and it looked in some ways that had been kind of thrown together over the weekend. Was there going to be a public inquiry? Well, you know, maybe, but it's not for us to decide. We're only the government. We'll get a special rapporteur to investigate this whole thing and tell us whether or not there should be a public inquiry and various other things in relation to this story. So, you know, we weren't there, but I can only imagine that the weekend must have been more than a little bit interesting on that very tight circle of advisors or advisor around the prime minister to come up with this, you know, change of heart in 48 hours as to how they were going to deal with this. They obviously knew they were taking a beating on it. What's your take? Yeah, I don't know what conversations were had, obviously,

or who was involved in them. But I have a thought, I guess, about how the issue evolved. And when we talked about it last week, and this is not to sort of say I've told anybody so, but I week, and this is not to sort of say I've told anybody so, but I mean, it was pretty clear to me that at some point the prime minister was not going to be able to hold to this line of we should all be concerned about interference, but nothing happened. And there's no inquiry. And I'll let you know at some point in the future if there does need to be more. But that just seemed like an untenable proposition, especially once the adjacent facts of the Trudeau Foundation donation, that sort of thing sort of came into focus.

It became rather obvious, I think, that the prime minister was not going to be able to hold to that line, that he was going to be forced into the idea of a public inquiry. And so I think he created more problems for himself over the course of the week. And so then to the question of what did he announce and whether or not it will be enough to attenuate this issue, whether it's the right thing to do, I'm open to the idea that it's the right thing to do. I think that the notion, I like the idea of a parliamentary committee, cross partisan, looking at the details behind this stuff. I think it's a shame that Pierre Polyev refuses the idea that he should be part of it because he thinks that it's a trap. better for us all if we say we're concerned about this, not to be so cynical about it, to say that we don't want to participate in it because we think it's a political trap. But he made that call. And so if it was just the parliamentary committee with the conservatives

taking that position, it wouldn't be enough. So I think this idea of somebody who sits alongside that or over it, looks at what's going on, and then comes to some recommendations, which the government said it would follow. It's quite unusual in a way to say, well, we're going to appoint somebody and whatever they recommend, we're going to follow. That led naturally to skeptics, I think, on the conservative side saying, well, you're going to appoint somebody whose recommendations you know you're going to like. And I think that's a reasonable question to ask, given that the government said whatever is recommended, we're going to follow. But I'm withholding any skepticism about this. I think the government is in a place where it

needs to appoint somebody who's credible, needs to appoint somebody who looks like they would be above reproach as a partisan. And so I think that's what they'll do. I think they'll find somebody. I worry that we live in a time when the notion of an eminent person seems archaic. Is there any eminent person anymore? Or is everybody who's accomplished anything just fair game for slagging on social media? That's a separate issue, but it's not impossible to imagine that the search for an eminent enough person will end up getting mired in a bit of a partisan dogfight, be that as it may.

I do think that the government did the right thing to say, all right, we're going to put more light on this. And we're going to have a process that is short of a public inquiry, but could at some point include a public inquiry. Fair enough. But we're going to put more light on it. As that last thing I'll say is that as the report of the Rosenberg group said, there are problems with the mechanism that the government had put in place. And maybe they weren't so obvious at the point in time when it was put in place. But you can't just measure foreign interference during the writ period and say that's enough. We don't need to look at what happened before the writ or in between elections. And you can't only report to the public if you think that the election has been effectively broken or compromised, because you can only report that after the fact.

And then what are you going to do? Right. You need to alert people on an ongoing basis about the kind of things that are going on and to be aware of. It's a little bit like how we're all aware of the fact now that there are lots of online scams and we tell each other about it and governments warn people about it. I think this is the mode that we need to be headed towards when it comes to interference in our elections. And that requires a different approach than what was available to that committee of former senior officials or senior officials a little while ago. What do you think about what the government did um you know i gotta be honest i i felt it was kind of

an abdication of responsibility out of the gate when they said they went from there won't be one to okay we're going to appoint somebody who's not one of us to decide whether there should be one well you know like what are governments for, right? Governments make decisions. They back themselves into a corner by saying what they said last week to the point where they couldn't appoint their own, make their own announcement, which governments make, right? The other part of it was the use, the constant use of the word eminent. We don't hear that often when you're talking about these things.

I mean, that's what you're always looking for in whatever the appointment is, but you don't actually hear it used that much. I remember the first time I heard it used was late 80s, early 90s, when the Commonwealth appointed an eminent persons group to look into the case of Nelson Mandela, who was still in jail, and whether he should be released, and what the recommendation of the Commonwealth should be on that front. And included in that small group was a Canadian, Archbishop Ted Scott,

the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, who was untouchable, right? He was the classic eminent persons group. Who was going to criticize the head of the Anglican Church to look into that situation? And I can remember they toured all over the place, including in South Africa at Robbins Island, meeting with Mandela in jail.

And I remember meeting privately, secretly if you wish, with Ted Scott in London to talk about the pressures on that group, which were immense in terms of what they were going to say. And he told me at that time, he said, you know, we had this incredible meeting with Mandela, and he's everything you've heard about. He's an incredible figure and so well-spoken and patient and understanding of the situation, blah, blah, blah.

And I said, well, are there transcripts? He says there's recordings. I said, you're kidding, because nobody had heard of Mandela's voice in 30 years or whatever it had been since he'd been put in prison. I said, how do I get those? How do I get those recordings? He says, oh, I can't do those. I can't get those for you.

But someday they'll be released. And I've noticed just in the last year or so, some of those tapes have been released. Anyway, I'm kind of off track here, but that was a classic eminent person. And so were the others who were members of that panel. And you wonder, though, on this one, because of the whole way it's been handled in these last couple of weeks, why would anybody take the responsibility? I mean, listen, obviously you get a phone call from the Prime Minister of Canada,

whoever he or she is, whichever party they represent, saying your country needs you and this is what they need you for. It's hard to say, well, no. But this is going to be, it's almost a no-win. I mean, they've got to find that kind of like Ted Scott type person, right? Well, I think the truth is they've got to find somebody now who the conservatives will say that they accept. And in a way, Pierre Poliev has created a scenario where he has an effective veto, where he's made it so clear that he doesn't trust the liberals to pick somebody who won't put a finger on the scale in favor of them, that any person who would consider that role would want to know that they aren't going to be undermined and

criticized personally for their ethics or their trust by the conservatives from the get-go. Otherwise, why would anybody do it? So I think that's a pretty stern test because I think that the conservatives aren't necessarily looking for all of the facts in this situation. They're looking for all of the politics in this situation. And so there's a lot of difficult choices yet to be made, including finding somebody who might satisfy the conservatives and finding somebody who'd be qualified to do it and then still avoiding the temptation to make it a partisan football on the opposition side. I don't think the NDP are being anywhere near as difficult about it. No big surprise there.

I don't think they want to cause an election on this issue, but I think the conservatives might. I think the conservatives feel as though they've got the government on the run on this, maybe that the government's kind of lost a step in terms of its ability to handle these issues, and that there are more challenging facts, especially if they feel that leaks, more leaks could happen from the spy agency, which don't again get stress tested for, are they factual or are they just pieces of information that are being leaked for whatever combination of purposes. And I don't mean to be overly skeptical about that, but I think we, we owe it all to ourselves to be aware that there's some

risk that what gets reported isn't right. But it gets reported because it's a leak. And, you know, as they've said themselves, wasn't it the head of CSIS who said the other day, like, some of these things start as rumor and have to be chased down, as they've said themselves, wasn't it the head of CSIS who said the other day,

some of these things start as rumor and have to be chased down, but they never get beyond being a rumor. But they're there and they're talked about internally. Well, you know and I know, because we've been around Ottawa for a long time, there's never been a time when there wasn't rumor and suspicion. And whether it was the RCM police or its successors, I think it's fair to say that there's always been a reasonable skepticism among some politicians about whether or not those services could always be trusted to traffic in rumors that had a substantial likelihood of being true or whether

they sometimes just trafficked in rumors because they were kind of in the business of gathering rumor and surfacing it so that somebody could decide whether or not it was meaningful. And maybe that's the way that it needs to be. And maybe that's the way that it needs to be. But if that's the way that it needs to be, it's definitely better that it doesn't all get disgorged in the pages of the Globe and Mail. You know, I kind of hinted at this last week, but one of the ways these stories come out is they,

and I don't know on this, I have no knowledge whatsoever of how the globe or global or anybody else has got their stories on these things. But I do know from the past that one of the ways intelligence services used to push stories out leaks, it was, they wouldn't go to ride. There wasn't a straight line between them and a journalist. They didn't want to take that chance. The straight line was first to an opposition party.

Then it got to. Yeah. And again, I have no reason to believe that's what happened here, but I just want to say that it's not always a direct thing or, you know, a brown envelope dropped at the mailbox of a news organization. It's not always that way. No, no, I think that's right. But let's go back to that specific allegation that CSIS told the prime minister's office to rescind the nomination of an individual. Now, the people that I talk to in politics say that would never happen.

That is not what CSIS has the power to do or the authority to do. It's not a conversation that they would get into. And so who is telling that story that ends up in the Globe and Mail? Is it somebody who heard about a conversation wherein they thought something like that might have happened? Is it a politician who got some information from somebody in CSIS and who then said, I'm going to add a little layer to it and say they told the prime minister not to go ahead with this nomination? We don't know. And last week when we talked about this, I said, and I see your face sometimes when I say things like this, and I think, oh, you know, there's Bruce.

He's going after the media again. But I I feel like the there does need to be a little bit of a counter narrative in the media about this, because the fear is everybody is like five year olds on a hockey rink. Everybody chases the puck rather than going, wait, what if that's not the right thing? Why do we assume that that that has been written is exactly what happened, especially if we know that it probably didn't happen exactly like that? And then when the prime minister says that specific thing didn't happen, that should be a cue for some organization to say, let's unpack this and look at the other side of the thing. I don't know what happened. I'm just saying I think that more caution is required rather than more five-year-old hockey players chasing the puck, regardless of where it goes, and everybody being in the same position at the end of the play.

You're good at that hockey stuff. Well, we have a great team. It's an aspiring team here in Ottawa, and it's going to eclipse the Leafs before too long, as you know. Well. Especially with new ownership coming in, it's going to be a brand new day here. As we said at the beginning of this, there's a reason we call this smoke mirrors and the truth. There was a lot of all of it today.

Fair enough. And I hope people enjoyed the discussion around it because there are no angels in this story. At least we haven't seen one yet. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. And on that point, you know, in a word or two, you know, Ottawa is known for stories that come in with a thunderbolt and then disappear almost overnight. Is this one of them or is this going to linger?

Oh, I think this is going to linger. I think it's going to linger in part because the question of China's role in the world is a huge question. I saw a poll in the United States this morning, I was looking at it, and it showed that, let's see if I call it up in just one quick minute, but it showed the trajectory of how Americans felt about China over a period of years. And it's shocking the degree to which, so in 1979, over 60% of Americans had a favorable view of China. Today, that number is 15%. 15%.

It's dropped from 50% to 15% in seven years. And so the China question, and China's belligerent about these accusations of interference. And the more belligerent they are, I don't think Canadians react to that by saying, oh, well, we must be mistaken. You're probably not doing anything. They just think, well, China is a more aggressive opponent, if you like, than we even thought, even as we're trying to figure out how to manage an economic relationship with this economic giant. So I don't think that issue goes away. I don't think the issue goes away because the conservatives know that there have been efforts

made to target ridings that they hold or want to hold. And so they're going to be vigilant for it. And the liberals should be vigilant for it. And so should the new Democrats. And so we shouldn't want it to go away. And I don't think it will go away. All right. We're going to leave it at that for this week.

Bruce will be back on Friday, of course, for a good talk with Chantal. And who's been in Iceland. I've been corrected by a number of people because I keep saying she's hiking mountains when she's in fact cross country skiing, but hiking mountains sounds much better. Iceland. I mean, this is smoke mirrors on the truth. So fair enough.

But we will be Chantal be back and be back and it will be great to hear from her. On this story as well, you know, I'm sure she's, knowing Chantel as we do, she's been spending a lot of time connected in some fashion. So she'll have some thoughts on all this. Tomorrow it is your turn and the random ranter. We'll see what he has to say and what you have to say. Get your cards and letters in now. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Thank you, sir. We'll talk to all of you. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to all of you again in 24 hours.