The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - So, How Different Are We?

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

The uproar surrounding the decision by the US Supreme Court over the future of abortion in that country has brought new focus to the question of how different are we in Canada on the way we make these decisions.  Bruce Anderson is by with his SMT focus on that, and similar questions about another very different issue.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. It's Wednesday. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Wednesday means Bruce Anderson and smoke, mirrors, and the truth. You know, every once in a while it's a good thing to sit back and pause and consider this question about on the way we live, the decisions we make, how we see life, how we see politics. How different are we, really? Well, this week on SMT, we've got two examples to talk about. They're not necessarily ending up with the same discussion about how different we are. But it's not a bad point to start off on.

And the first one is the one that's attracting all the attention, and not just in the United States, but literally around the world. The decision, the draft opinion written by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade. And overturning means making abortion illegal in the United States. This would be the first time in the States where you actually lose a right, the right to have an abortion. That's the situation Americans are in and American women are in as a result of this draft opinion, which if followed through on, there's every reason to believe it would be

followed through on, in the next month month or so would place abortion in the books as something that cannot happen. It becomes a state decision and at least half the states right out of the gate have indicated that they would go along with this decision from the supreme court so the question becomes hey is that something that could happen in canada is our system that different in terms of the way the courts operate that would suggest it can't happen so bruce let's talk about that um including any opening thoughts you might have on the decision. I think it's a really interesting topic. And I know that both of us kind of have a certain hesitancy about opining too much about something that, you know, in a personal sense for, for men in our situation,

we can't experience this issue the way that women can. And I spent a little bit of time in the last 24 hours or so talking with women who I know who, who have thought about this. And I just feel the anger that they feel. And I understand it on a level of if, if you and I had experienced ever at any point in our lives the idea that there would be legislation or actions taken that would influence our ability to control our bodies um it's it's literally hard to imagine how that

would make us feel because we've not had to feel it but i i definitely sense in the women that i know who are pro-choice that this is a shocking and disturbing uh set of developments and it's not just this the shock is not really just about the single act of this draft ruling, although that's really what is triggering decades ago, is now part of a new set of issues where essentially right of center groups, especially in the United States, but some in Canada as well, religious oriented groups are pushing a message that would roll back many of the gains made for women and for other groups in society. So we'd say there's a real sense of foreboding about what this means that will happen in the United States, how many states will adopt legislation that on abortion or on other issues, potentially, down the road, same-sex marriage, there's a lot of people talking about what

this portends for the rights that have been secured in thatsex marriage there's a lot of people talking about what this portends for the rights that have been secured in that area there's a real sense of foreboding and i understand it and i i do think that there are some reasons to feel like canada can't follow exactly the same path in the sense that our supreme court is different but we do know that in the conservative caucus at the last opportunity where there was a vote to express an opinion about this, there were some 88 or 89 of the 112 odd, 118 odd Conservative MPs that, you know, I think it's fair to say if it was up to them, they would take away that choice. So what do you think? You've been covering this issue for a long time, Peter, in journalism, and I know you've thought a lot about it too.

But what does it sound like to you? Well, first of all, I feel the same as you do about, you know, the two of us having this discussion. And I've talked to a lot of my female friends in the last 24 hours as well about this. I mean, my frustration starts with the process, and that's why, you know, I'm interested to try and understand where you're coming from on the differences. You just indicated that there are differences. And I want to explore that because the things that bother me most are in the U.S., the appointment of a Supreme Court justice is a huge deal. It dominates the news for the weeks around the nomination by the president of

the United States and then the hearings that take place in the U the u.s senate and the questions that are asked of these nominees um it's awkward because you know judges can't give all their opinions uh in in these hearings but on some things they're pretty straight questions and and roe v wade always has come up with these over the last 50 years at these nomination hearings. And the question is, you know, what do you consider Roe v. Wade? Would you entertain a review of it? Would you overturn Roe v. Wade? And I point to Brett Kavanaugh, who's one of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, and we all remember that extremely volatile and controversial process that he went through in the U.S. Senate,

where Roe v., you know, most of the questions were about questions of his past and his university past and whether or not he had committed an assault, an attempted rape of one of his fellow students at university, which he denied. Yet there was substantial evidence, including from the woman involved, that in fact something like that had happened. But he denied it, vociferously, like that had happened. But he denied it,

vociferously, said it never happened, and he swore that it never happened. Now he also swore that, in his testimony, that if Roe v. Wade came up in front of him, he would consider it settled law. It was done.

The Americans had lived with it for half a century almost and that's the way it would remain it was settled law to him well he was lying if this draft opinion which includes his vote to overturn roe v wade he's not considering it settled law in that. So you've got to wonder, if he lied about that, did he lie about the other things as well, including that question of that woman back in the university days? So I look at that as part of this issue of process in terms of the appointment of somebody and the questions surrounding it. Yeah, well, I think that it is to our credit in Canada that our Supreme Court isn't the subject of such partisanship in terms of the selection process and the kind of partisan vetting that vetting is a generous term to describe what goes on there is it not is it that different is it is it truly different i mean there's their appointment of you know liberal minded judges and and conservative minded judges in our country you know as well as in the United States.

And I don't think you're disagreeing with that. You're talking about the process of vetting of those judges. Yeah, I think the process of vetting of those judges is more serious, less theatrical, more legal-oriented and less politically-oriented. It doesn't mean it's immune to those kind of influences. But I also think that our, our charter and the way that we've approached these issues in the past means it would be very unusual to imagine a situation where our court would, you know, at this point in the United States, it's kind of six conservatives to three liberals, I guess. And that's not really a reflection of where public opinion is at or even where the majority of the legislatures across the country are at. However, there doesn't seem to be much question that if this opinion comes out the way that the draft is reported,

that it won't be that these six judges were smarter than the judges who opined before. It'll be because they had an ideological predisposition to rework the way that abortion works in America and potentially some other issues. I don't think we have, I'm not saying that we don't have the risk of that happening in Canada. I think obviously our democracy isn't, isn't so protected that none of these bad things can happen here, but we also don't have the same public opinion.

I think that, you know, we put out a piece of abacus data yesterday from a survey that we'd done a couple of years ago where we mirrored some questions that Pew had asked in the United States about was abortion and other things. We tested really the moral acceptability of different things. And we found a 25 point difference between American opinion and Canadian opinion on this. And I was also looking at some polling that talked about, you know, what Canadians wanted in the next conservative leader. And only 12% of Canadians want a conservative leader who's pro-life. Only 19% of conservative voters want a new conservative leader who's pro-life. Now, that doesn't always matter. We know that upwards of 80% of the conservative caucus would probably rather have a leader who's pro-life. And yesterday, we know that

the interim leader of the conservative party said, we haven't taken a pro-life position under Stephen Harper. She didn't talk about the future. It's not really her role to talk about the future. She's not going to be the leader come October. But you can feel that already two things are happening that I'm interested in watching. One is that this is going to be a real life, real time test of what kind of a conservative party we're really going to have. In the past, whenever the liberals or the New Democrats have brought up the issue of abortion rights or choice, the conservatives here have tended to respond by saying, this is not an issue. The only reason it's coming up is because our political opponents like to use it to demonize us. And maybe there was some truth to that. But right now, it's a live issue. And what's happening in the United States is going to create some logical questions for the leadership candidates and for conservatives generally, to decide to kind of provoke some embarrassment on the other side.

It's a question that's material to the choices that voters are going to make after the leadership selection of the Conservative Party. And so I think that's happening. And and it'll be interesting to see how the different candidates come out. I saw Jean Charest and Patrick Brown both issued very strong statements about their personal position yesterday. I didn't see whether Pierre Poilievre had done that. And then on the other side, the question on my mind is whether this is the kind of issue when you look at it, not just from the standpoint of what does it mean for abortion, but what does it mean for kind of a more rural faith-based conservative voices creating policy that affects other people who don't agree with those ideas? Is that going to create a dynamic where progressive voters really decide that they're going to come together and resist that? I don't know how big

an issue that will be in Canada, but I do think that Democrats are asking themselves some hard questions about whether the splintering that's occurred within the Democratic coalition is a luxury that they can't afford and that they need to come together. And I was watching some comments from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic senator yesterday, and some of the other Democrats, basically saying we've all got to come together on this. And we've got to be fierce about it, because what's happening and what's going to happen is, is and should be worrying for all progressives. So I'm interested in the, in the challenge that it will bring to the conservative movement in Canada, and also

whether it will affect the way that progressives decide to fight these issues together or separately. You know, it'll be interesting to watch if the Conservatives take this on directly as opposed to, you know, kind of leaving it aside as the way they seem to be wanting to do with this right now. I mean, you mentioned Stephen Harper. He was very clear on this. This is not an issue.

We're not going to discuss it. It doesn't come up. I don't want to hear about it in caucus. Leave it away. Because he recognized the potential damage, obviously, at the polls that it could have, and only underlined by the numbers that yours and other research agencies have put out in

terms of Canadian opinion. But Canadian conservatives, if they get into it, are going to have to deal with the question head on, which boils down to what control women have over their own bodies. In the States, conservatives, the Republicans, have already tried to deflect what the issue is here. They don't want to talk about a woman's choice. They want to talk about the leak. How did this leak happen? You know, you watched Ted Cruz yesterday, the Republican senator.

That's all it's about. We want a full-scale investigation, 100%. We've got to find out who it is they got to go to jail for a long long time that's the issue to to him now it may not be the issue to him but that's the one he's going to pursue because he can get support on that um and it totally covers the you know covers up the the issue of a woman's choice. Canadian conservatives, as I said, don't have that luxury. They have to answer the question one way or another,

and it will be an obligation, as far as I'm concerned, of the Canadian media, in any conversation with a politician in Canadaada i don't care what stripe they are to answer the question about where they stand on this and not to let them go with you know i'm not going to talk about this it's not an issue in canada it's an issue right it's absolutely answer the question i think the hardest uh the person who's in the most awkward place right now is probably Pierre Paulief in the sense that Scott Aitchison put out a statement yesterday, as well as did, as I mentioned, Jean Charest. Pardon me. Aitchison being one of the lesser known candidates. Yes, that's right and he said i will always defend a woman's right to choose any efforts to restrict access to abortion would have terrible consequences for the health of women

families in our country he did go on to say that he would always support people in his caucus being able to bring forward and vote um on private members bills that were a matter of conscience so a little bit trying to have it both ways, but expressing his personal kind of point of view about what the policy of the country should be. But if you're Pierre Polyev, and you see your opponents lining up on this side of it, and you probably know that Leslyn Lewis, one of the other candidates is going to be pro-life, you've got a real hard choice. I mean, the first thing is that Pierre Poliev's whole campaign is about being the freest country on earth. He says the word freedom probably more than he says good morning. And it's going to be interesting to see, knowing the base of the party

that he has been cultivating support from and probably how they feel about this issue what he's going to do on this issue how he's going to try to nuance it because i like you don't think that it's going to be good enough to just say well we've not even talked about legislating on this if um you know the what is happening in the united states has awakened a degree of concern among Canadians who have been growing in which some of the advocacy, the pro-life advocacy has worked, is to not challenge the law, but to challenge the access. And I think that Pierre Poliev in particular, as the presumed front runner of that race,

is going to face a lot of pressure to be really clear about what he would would or wouldn't do if he were prime minister of the country and that in turn will create a reaction from those voters who might be considering the conservative party it'll be interesting to see what he and others of a similar mind who stood with some of the protesters earlier this year in Ottawa, many of whom held signs that said, my body, my choice on vaccines. Whether they'll stand with people who've long used that slogan,

long before there were protesters on vaccines, who are standing today with the same wording, you know, my body, my choice. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how they handle that issue. There are other conservative voices that are going to be interesting too, Peter. I saw Michelle Rempel-Garner put out a pretty strong statement about this, and she's an influential voice, think in the in the conservative party and as a you know for people who observe conservatism she's really thrown down the

gauntlet a bit and said this is a moment where we're going to be properly tested and scrutinized and we need to be clear where we stand on this and i think good for her for doing that and i have no doubt that other senior officials from the past of the conservative party um you know will probably find occasion to speak about this too so um in a way it's dispiriting for those who who feel that the law should have been settled and that these encroachments on it shouldn't be happening um It's a disappointment to see where we're at. On the other hand, it will renew the effort to find a Conservative Party for those voters that doesn't really want to kind of fudge the edges of this, doesn't really want to restrict access, doesn't really want to change the law. And we know that the Conservative Party has been going through a little bit of a existential crisis in terms of what kind of

party it's going to be and so maybe this is a productive thing and in some senses even if it's unpleasant to see all right we're going to switch topics now i'm still under this umbrella of whether or not you know how different are we really on some of the things that we do, the they being, or the we being us versus the Americans. And we'll do that right after this. And we're back with Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth right here on The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Bruce Anderson is in Dornick, Scotland today. And you're listening on Sirius XM channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, issue number two under the same umbrella as we said about trying to

determine whether or not well at least how different we operate in terms of our various things along with our american friends and this issue is very different than the first one we talked about this one is last saturday night you probably saw some of the jokes from that night. It was the White House Correspondents Dinner. Which is similar in a way to what happens in Ottawa and has happened for decades called the Press Gallery Annual Dinner. And it's gone through a number of variations, just as the American one has. Originally, it was a closed night. Off the record.

Couldn't talk about it. Press club members, correspondents, invite political figures. They could be active senators, MPs, or they could be those in the bureaucracy. There could be any number of people who are invited as guests. They come together and

they sit through a parade of speeches from kind of both sides. And they're all supposed to be funny speeches and cutting. And over the years, there have been some fantastic speeches i know because i've been to those dinners and and so has bruce i haven't been for a few years to the one in ottawa instead of having the opportunity to do that as a former member of the gallery um but i haven't been because they've changed the rules it's now not off the record. It's very much on the record. It's televised. And the speeches are much more carefully crafted now as a result of that.

But there's also this whole underlying question about is the relationship just a little too cozy between journalists and the people they cover on that one night a year and some people feel very strongly about it that it shouldn't happen that it colors the relationship and therefore colors the kind of journalism that happens. So I've gone back and forth on that issue over time. I've had friends on the political side of all stripes. Of all stripes.

Good friends in the NDP caucus, in the Liberal caucus, in the Conservative caucus over the years. And I've never felt that that got in the way of my journalism. Although others feel it must have, you know. Same issue comes up in the States. So I, you know, quite frankly, I got to tell you, after all these years, I'm not sure where I come down. I think it becomes an individual decision and how one feels personally about these things

and how one feels about whether or not it's impacting their job and the way they do their job. Where's your head on this? Well, good news, Peter. I'm going to help you decide where to come down on this after the years of back and forth and everything else no to be serious i um i probably like you at one point thought the the canadian version of this dinner was a really good thing that it was really important that politicians and the news media that

covered them had one night a year at least where they could not be um kind of cast as opponents of each other but basically just get to know each other a little bit to be able to relax to be able to hear the same jokes um in the same room at the same moment and all laugh at them and i i think that i did go through a period of time thinking, well, right, well, maybe that was too cozy a version of the relationship between the media and the politicians. And, you know, you and I go back some 40 years, I guess, in watching this. But where I think things are at now is that there is too great a distance between media and politicians. I think a lot of politicians in Ottawa feel as though the media look upon them with a great suspicion rather than interest, and with a degree of harshness that they don't think is warranted, because most of the people

who I know who are in politics think they're trying to do something that's serving the public. And they kind of hear journalists say things that sound like, well, no, journalists are serving the public because you're all bad people. And if we're not holding you to account, who's going to hold you to account? So that's become a much more caustic relationship. There are some exceptions to it. But over the years that I've watched, there are fewer and fewer exceptions and there is more and more distance. Now, some people might say, well, I like that adversarial relationship because I think it produces the level of accountability that I want. I tend to look at it and say, it's too adversarial and too much of the

journalism seems to be, how can we find fault rather than how can we inform? And finding that balance, I think, is difficult, especially in a day and age where news organizations want the clicks. And the clicks come from things that sound a little bit spectacular. There's some blood on the floor. There's some worried faces in parliament, that kind of thing. But it doesn't necessarily make for better journalism. And it doesn't necessarily make for better politics. So you have on the other side of the conversation, you have politicians who are much more guarded in what they say and how they say it, because they feel as though if they say things in a way that could be misconstrued, it might be misconstrued.

So you end up, and I've heard you say, you have this frustration with politicians who rely on talking points. Well, the reason they rely on talking points is because if they have a more free-flowing conversation, the risks of somebody looking for a way to turn it are greater than they used to be. I'm not saying all journalists are like that, or all situations are like that. But this division, this distance has become more problematic. And it would be better if it wasn't. I don't know that the answer is, let's have more of those dinners. I think those dinners are, you know, maybe an anachronism, I was happy to see the Washington one happen. I think it's good for that to happen. I think it's sort of an entertainment product now on its own. And of course, I hope I don't offend anybody who's written these jokes in the past, but the jokes in the US one are better than most of the ones that you and I heard at the Canadian dinners over time, quite a bit better. And there were some great lines coming out of this last week. But I can look at it as an entertainment thing rather than as a, is this how journalism should work?

Because I don't think it has that same kind of question around it that the Canadian dinners have had in the past. So have I convinced you? What should we be thinking about this? I'm not sure you've even convinced yourself yet. But, yeah, you know, I watched last Saturday's. It's been pretty uneven in the States, the quality of that night. But this last one was pretty good.

And mainly based on, you know, Biden had no attempt, no, he didn't attempt to hold anything back. He was very self-deprecating, which always works, right, for anybody, especially if the jokes are funny and you're self-deprecating at the same time. It works pretty well. But the star of the show was Trevor Noah, the American comedian who was brilliant and i've seen some big bombs there in terms of you know heralded comedians who've come onto the stage at the american the white house correspondence dinner i've been to half a dozen of them i you know i was there in the clinton years he was he was very funny obama so so uh bushso. But here, let me retreat to your point about the kind of, the politicians' unease about journalists.

And I'll put it in a 50-year perspective. I arrived on Parliament Hill in the 70s as a reporter, as a correspondent. And it was kind of a hinge point in time in terms of the relationship. You know, the early 70s were dominated by the Watergate scandal in the United States. And as a result, a lot of young journalists, new journalists who came into the profession as a result of Watergate and, you know,

specifically Woodward and Bernstein and the book and the movie and all of that. A lot of young journalists came in and they saw Richard Nixon behind every politician who was walking. You know, this guy, guy's got to be a crook. This woman's got to be a crook. There's something bad about the way they operate. And, you know, that kind of started in the early part in the 70s, kind of took off in the 80s. And at the same time, the media world was expanding

on considerable lengths. I mean, it was a pretty clubby atmosphere when I arrived in Ottawa in the 70s in terms of the size of the gallery. But that exploded with the explosion of different news organizations and different platforms to the point now where it's reduced a bit because of the economic problems that journalism has had. But it's still huge. And nothing goes over better than a story that has a whiff of scandal in it

so all these things have worked towards making that relationship at times difficult i mean you want an adversarial relationship of some kind in there because it makes you know for better uh better journalism um but you know it's it's tough i it'll be interesting to see and i'm i know i'll get you know i'll get mail on this from some of our listeners who who will have strong feelings on this just as clearly there will be strong feelings on the first segment we talked about today uh but i'll be interested to see what they think in terms of, you know, if they just look at these nights,

these annual dinners as an entertainment factor, which they've become, I agree with you on that, then it's easy to market. But in terms of trying to determine how they feel about it as a relationship between these two sides that have important extremely important roles to play in a functioning democracy uh whether it's too cozy or whether one night a year is really is that such a big deal well there's definitely uh sorry peter i i should have not said that the jokes are always funnier in the United States.

And I was looking and I just sent you the script from Bob Hope's jokes at the 1944. And maybe we should find a way to post them after this because they're horrible jokes. And he was one of the most famous comedians of his time. So, yes, it's been it's been a bit iffy and maybe i was a little bit um reacting to the fact that i thought trevor noah really was funny and i think he's generally funny and i thought he was really funny and on point and uh passionate and thoughtful and good entertainment on the coziness issue i think that the question in the united states has entered a new phase with the role of the of the fox news is in the oans and also the cable news channels on the other side of the

spectrum like the msnbc's um it's not it's not possible to look at how msnbc covers progressive or democrat politicians without saying that's not adversarial it's not adversarial most of the time right they're mostly saying we're going to give you a platform to listen to us say things that you agree with is essentially what i just turned me off that show or that series of shows on msnbc because i was watching journalists opine to politicians about things that the politicians had opined about publicly, but they were basically saying the same thing. So there's a coziness on the right and a coziness on the left. But it is there as part of a new kind of industrial age of journalism, as far as I can tell in the United States. And there are a lot fewer

players in that political coverage context that don't come with some version of it. There's still some, but there aren't as many as there used to be. And I think that there's a version of that, to be honest, in Canada. But I think that the industry of journalism in canada is so small and quite fragile right now that it's um it's hard to really discern the degree to which that trend is going to happen or is already happening a little bit here okay i'm going to close out with a with one thought on your your issue about who's funnier um when i when i think of some of the leaders I've watched, in the States, I would give it to Clinton. He was very good as a joke teller

and self-deprecating when needed to be, but he was very funny. On the Canadian side, it was Mulroney. Mulroney at the gallery dinner was like he is at any kind of dinner. When he's using the time to be funny, he's funny. And his timing is unbelievable, like really good. The one that I guess I probably remember most, though, was Pierre Trudeau. Because it was like he arrived at those dinners kicking and screaming.

He had no desire to be there. His communications people said, I don't know, you got to do this. It's just one night. We'll write some funny jokes for you. He would arrive, and the jokes were funny the problem was trudeau always looked like when he was reading them it was the first time he'd ever read them he didn't he didn't understand them he didn't know who he was talking about he couldn't care less who the reporters were he had a little time for for most journalists um but it But it was funny in its own right because it was so bad.

Like, the jokes were funny, but the delivery was terrible. But, you know, listen, hey, there were nights, but those were mostly kind of the old days where it was, you know, it was something that wasn't being reported on, and therefore there were certain liberties given. And you can argue whether that was good or bad, that that just made the cozy relationship even cozier. I used to think that off the record was made for better humor, but worse democracy in a way. So I kind of ended up thinking,

yeah, you probably have to let everybody see these things. So they can form their own judgments about the nature of the relationships, not just the funniness of the jokes. On the other hand, that when that happened, the funniness of the jokes did decline. I think there's not much doubt about that. Okay.

We're going to wrap it up for this week's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce enjoying the great lands of Scotland. I'm jealous. It's a fantastic spring here right now. You didn't need to tell us that either. You didn't need to tell us that either because it's been, certainly in parts of Canada, it's been a difficult spring. It's flooding on the prairies.

It's cold and still snowing in parts of Ontario. It's crazy. Anyway, you take care of yourself. Stay safe. We'll talk again soon. You too, Pete. And this has been The Bridge, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. Thanks for listening.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.