The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - SO JUST HOW MUCH SMOKE IS THERE IN GLASGOW?

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

What to believe and who to believe?  That becomes the question when listening to all the promising talk coming out of COP26 in Glasgow.  Bruce Anderson puts on his SMT filter to do just that. Plus, airlines in Canada start laying off people who haven't been vaccinated as the corporate world plays hardball on the pandemic.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. You know what that means. It means smoke, mirrors, and the truth. With Bruce Anderson. Our podcast is brought to you by Questrade, Canada's fastest-growing and award-winning online broker. Tired of getting dinged with fees every time you buy or sell U.S. stocks? Well, good news. With Questrade, you don't have to. You can hold U.S. dollars in your trading account and avoid expensive, forced conversion fees every time you trade U.S. stocks. Switch today and get up to $50 worth of free trades. Visit Questrade.com

to open an account and use promo code QUEST. Conditions apply. Ah, yes. Hello, Peter Mansbridge in Dornick, Scotland, just north of Glasgow, where COP26 is underway. Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa. Can you feel all the smoke and mirrors and some of the truth sifting across the Atlantic from COP26? This is called COP26, Peter, because as you know, this is the 26th version of this meeting. And I think there's lots of good truth coming out of this meeting and especially coming. You know, I think there's a lot of good truth to see in how the world is reacting to the climate change issue. There's a lot to be disappointed about. But I've really been looking forward to this conversation because I think we've got to clear away some of the smoke that comes out of these meetings, too, in terms of the way that some people characterize the conversation, express their disappointment, do their lobbying, all of that kind of thing. So I think there's lots to dig into.

Okay, well, let's start on that point because you're right. There's a lot of cynicism around what we've witnessed in the first two days of COP26 on Monday and Tuesday. And that cynicism is partly based, I guess, at least on the fact that a lot of people feel that these conferences, you know, the 25 before it, have been failures in spite of all the brave talk that was said at them. And so the concern is, is this just going to be another one? Is this going to be just like all the rest?

So how do you do it? There are not many people I know who follow this story closer than you do. So you tell me why we should be, or if we should be, more optimistic based on what we've witnessed in the first couple of days of this than we have been in the past. Well, I would say a couple of things. I think that the first thing I would say is that having watched these meetings from the very beginning of them, the world has changed a lot. Now, I think it's fair to say that if you're a young person, you can also look at the amount of change and the amount of risk that you face in your lifetime and say, it's not changing fast enough. It hasn't changed enough. How can I feel confident that older generations are willing to go along and make enough change happen so that my life will be a safe one? I think those are all fair comments. And those are the right questions for younger people in particular to be pressing the world on. However, some of what I've been noticing in the first patch of coverage and commentary coming out of this is that it also can sound a little bit like a cynicism factory.

Everybody from around the world who has a point of view, an axe to grind, a case to make, some levers to apply, wants to go to these meetings and they want to grab a share of voice and they want to express their disappointment or their frustration with something. Now, I'm not suggesting that the things that they're frustrated with are unworthy. But I do think that it's a little bit reflexively easy to say, well, all of these politicians get together, and they all promise to do things, and then it seems like nothing happens. And it's unfair, I think, for a couple of reasons. First of all, because things are happening in the world. It's not perfect. The progress isn't linear. They're not happening in every part of the world. But change has happened because international meetings like this have happened. Second thing is, there's no other way to accomplish global change. I mean, we can say, well, wouldn't it be great if they were all a different bunch of leaders, but this is how the world works. And so we can either say,

it's so frustrating, because the progress isn't enough, that we shouldn't have those meetings. Or we should say, well, we got to try to make these meetings better, but there's no substitute for them. And I have a lot of respect for Greta Thunberg. But I saw her clip yesterday saying, change isn't going to happen in there. It's going to happen out here. They're not going to make any change in there. And I thought, well, it's going to happen outside that room for sure. But those meetings are important, even if the leaders are imperfect and the progress is imperfect. So I don't necessarily consider myself an optimist yet, but I'm definitely seeing more signs of progress in the way that energy is being produced and used around the world. And even here at home, and this is the last point I'll make, Peter, we've had divisive elections around carbon pricing and energy policy and climate. And we don't really see that anymore. We saw yesterday, Jason Kenney, who in my view, or the day before yesterday, I guess, Jason Kenney, who in my view, should have been at that meeting.

Andrew Fury, the Premier of Newfoundland, is at that meeting. And his province depends a lot on oil and gas. And he said he was going there looking to understand best practices, how Newfoundland's oil and gas sector can evolve to survive and thrive in a world where decarbonization is table stakes. Jason Kenney from Alberta, you know, put out announcements about the things that Alberta was doing to reduce emissions, which is better than we would have seen maybe before, but still not as good as a kind of a full-throated participation in the effort. So we see a change in the politics in Canada. It's not fast enough for a lot of people. I get that. But it's wrong to say that there isn't change. And it's also correct to say that a lot of the

change is now going to happen in the capital markets and in the business community and the way that products are moved and shared around the world. I want to talk about that in a minute, especially about how it impacts Canada or might impact Canada. But first time, I want to read you something out of the telegraph tonight and in tonight, meaning I'm so zapped up by time zones, but Tuesday night, last night,

so it's being reflected this morning in this morning's papers. By one of their columnists, a woman by the name of Suzanne Moore. Now, there's a couple of paragraphs here, but I want you to listen to it and tell me what you think. I'm not sure she's cynical. I think she's puzzled. Let me read it here. The climate emergency is happening in front of our eyes

with floods and fires all over the world. Extreme weather events are common. The earth is heating up. This always affects the poorest people and time is running out. But we've also been told this for 20 years and some. I've attended lectures, sat through Al Gore films, tried to understand the damage fossil fuels cause alongside the huge investment in them. I've seen the rise of products that promise biodegradability. I laugh at things like sustainable fashion because

it just feels like another high-end market. I've cried at the polar bear floating off to starve on an ice floe. I believe David Attenborough to be our actual monarch. I have valiantly tried to adhere to my council's ever more impossible recycling scheme. Indeed, I live with someone who is a member of Extinction Rebellion, but never turns the lights off at home. I admire the fervor and the face paint, so why do I not feel more passionate about all this? Worse, I feel an utter disconnect from what's happening in Glasgow. Is it mere cynicism?

Is it because I personally don't want to change my lifestyle too dramatically? Possibly. Or is it because somehow this summit is reinforcing my sense of powerlessness if these people arrive on private jets can't agree and china's leader is not there what do we do and it goes on and on like that and i i find it interesting because i've heard you talk at times about the data you do and the research that you do in terms of ordinary Canadians, how they feel about the issues surrounding climate change. But when it gets around to what are they actually willing to do, it gets a lot harder.

And I guess that's what she's saying. She wants to do something. She's not sure when she looks around her whether others who say they want to do something are willing to do anything. So how much of an issue is that? Well, it is an important issue and it's different from country to country. And people are right to be worried about the fact that China and India and Russia largest pools of capital in the world are increasingly saying, we will only invest in places that take this issue seriously. And we will only buy products that are made to higher and higher environmental standards. I think that's the most important thing

that can happen. I think it will affect the economy and the way in which China approaches the world. I think it will affect Russia. And I think it will probably be harder to affect India because there are so many people living without basics like electricity. But eventually, we need the world economy to evolve. And we need politicians to put in place policies that trigger that evolution. It won't happen just because the politician says, I want you all to change the cars that you drive, but it will happen if there are incentives for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, for the purchases of electric vehicles, for the distribution systems of electricity to support those vehicles. And

those are all policies that are happening in a lot more jurisdictions than two years ago, than five years ago, than 10 years ago. So if we, and I'm not making the case that we shouldn't be worried about the climate risks that we already see the cost, the deaths and that sort of thing. But there is a limit to what politicians can do. They're not at the limit of the things that they can do, but they're moving in a direction that is usually conditioned by the politics of their country. We saw, it wasn't that long ago, Peter, you remember this cover of McLean's magazine, and it featured a picture of five, four premiers, I guess, conservative premiers and the leader of the

federal Conservative Party. And the headline was the resistance. And it was really that these people were all determined that Canada should not have a carbon price. Well, there was Justin Trudeau today, a couple of election wins later, standing on a stage in Glasgow saying, we think the world should have a carbon price. We want 60% of the world to have a carbon price because we believe that carbon pricing is the single best way to cause the change to happen, to enable people to make those choices like the woman that you were quoting that allow decarbonization to occur. So those policy changes are being put in place. And again, if we are frustrated by the timing, there still is no better way than to try to get those

leaders together around that table. And I saw a little bit about Joe Biden was talking about this week there and reflecting on the fact that, you know, he seems to have a pretty good mandate to act in this area, even though there's so much division in his country, that it's hard to imagine that he can make as much change happen as he might want to. But America has some opportunities and has reduced emissions there. But I'm bearing in mind that in America, 750,000 people have died of COVID. And it's a divided country on vaccinations, especially in certain states. I mean, 750,000, 291,000 died in World War Two. That's how many Americans were lost in World War Two. 750,000 people are struggling with this decision about vaccinations. So, you know, democracies are messy things. But we can't let our frustration with the pace and the consistency of how democracies work,

get in the way of the realization that we don't have a better solution than to try to bring those world leaders together, and to get them to catalyze action that happens in the private sector. I want to talk for a moment about, about Justin Trudeau, you mentioned, together and to get them to catalyze action that happens in the private sector. I want to talk for a moment about Justin Trudeau. You mentioned what he said yesterday, what he did over the last couple of days. A couple of weeks ago, he seemed disconnected on the Indigenous file after Tofino. It was not a good time. He has seen, you can agree with him or disagree with him, but he has seen, from what I've watched from here,

he's seen to be very connected on this file. Whether it's a passion or a belief or whatever it is, he's into it on a number of fronts. I mean, we saw what he did on Monday in terms of, you know, making a commitment about oil and its future in Canada. Yesterday he was talking about tying or trying to tie trade to products that are, you know, are produced environmentally well and soundly and with concerns on the climate issue.

He's really pushing Canada on that front and trying to suggest that this is the way other countries should look at Canada and its products. So, like, am I reading this wrong? Is he really into this subject in a way that, you know, he's being criticized for not being on other subjects? No, I think that's right, Peter. I actually watched a bunch of that press conference that he gave in Glasgow. And I was struck by the fact that his command of the issues was very strong.

His ability to explain what his thinking is around the policy choices that the government of Canada is making was very good. And I thought he made an unusual case for Canada and the right case. And what I heard him say was this. We are driving towards an economy that changes the way that it works so that we decarbonize, we play our role in decarbonization, but also that for businesses and countries around the world that are looking to source critical minerals or other resource products like forest products, that they should look to Canada as a place that can supply those products to higher sustainability standards. And to support those products, he was saying,

even if they cost a little bit more, because that's the right thing to do for the planet. In effect, he was making a sales pitch. And I remember in my mind, I was thinking back to when his father had that kind of moment of frustration with Western wheat farmers who were upset about the Canadian Wheat Board way back when. And he said, why should I sell your wheat? And I watched Justin Trudeau on the stage in Scotland saying, I'm here to tell you our products should be supported by buyers around the world because we are making them to hire. He talked about aluminum in particular and how we make the cleanest aluminum in the world. And I think that's an important evolution. I think we need to and needed to get past this idea of we're going to have a climate

fighting strategy in Canada, even if it causes economic strains on our extractive sector industries, to this place where I know companies in that space are saying, we can figure out how to reduce a lot of the emissions over time with technology. Sometimes we'll need policy help to support that. But it felt to me like we now have the prospect of government at the federal level and industries really seeing a common picture for the future of how a country that's so resource intense like Canada can not only survive, but thrive as the world decarbonizes. I'm personally really, really happy to see it. I think it's the right direction to be going in. I think we've got people across the federal government in the right roles who see it that

way and are determined to try to make it work. We also saw this week that the biggest oil companies in the oil stance have been putting out advertising for the very first time saying, we are committing to a pathway to zero. And they've kind of broken away from that part of the oil patch that was unwilling to make those kind of commitments, and it was more interested in fighting climate policy so i'm encouraged by what the prime minister is talking about and i'm encouraged by the signals that i see coming out of the resource sector too last week we talked on good talk with chantal about this this issue of ottawa basically saying you know we love alberta but we clearly do not agree with Jason Kenney or the Alberta government, and we're not going to spend more time fighting with them on it.

We're just going to go our own way. Was this further evidence this week, especially Monday's announcement on Canada and its future with oil? The distinction, yeah, I think it's part of the same evolution. Maybe the distinction I would make, Peter, is that Jason Kenney isn't Alberta. You know, Jason Kenney has never been comfortable with this agenda. He started to look like he was a little bit more comfortable yesterday or enthusiastic and was complaining that he didn't really know what the feds were going to talk about it at this meeting but even though they had said what they were going

to say in the course of the election campaign so it wasn't a great mystery to him but he was he was criticizing the prime minister for not doing enough to tout Alberta's efforts to date to reduce emissions, which, okay, there have been some efforts, but for Jason Kenney, who has not really been a cheerleader for those efforts, to put it mildly, to be criticizing the Prime Minister for not showing up in Scotland and saying, look at all the things that Alberta has done under the leadership of Jason Kenney to reduce emissions, I think that's a stretch. I think Jason Kenney should have gone to that meeting. The Premier of Newfoundland in Labrador is at the meeting in Scotland and he's there saying, we need to be in this business for the foreseeable future while the world continues to use fossil fuels.

And we need to find the best practices so that we can participate in that market as it looks for cleaner barrels of oil. That's the right proposition for Alberta as well. And the distinction I'm making between Alberta and Jason Kenney is most Albertans see it that way, too. The majority of Albertans and an outlined for some Albertans, a significant number of Albertans, is the face across Canada. I mean, this circles back to the way we started this conversation and wondering how onside are Canadians with the position that Canada has taken in Glasgow this week?

And I don't mean just from a, you know, I mean, in a substantive way, how on side are Canadians on this issue? Well, I think they're really on side. I mean, I see in our research, huge numbers of people saying the next car or the one after that, that I buy, I want it to be an electric car. And they know that the prices are a little bit higher and they want incentives if they can, but they're looking for those choices. They're looking for those choices and they're making those choices with the cars that are already available to some degree. Also, it was only two years ago that we had an election where the opposition leader ran on the basis that the first bill,

if he was elected, would be to kill carbon pricing. It didn't come up in 2019 because the Conservatives were offering their own version of a carbon price. And the reason it didn't come up, in part, is because the Conservatives looked at the landscape and said there's no support for opposing these measures. People have experienced carbon pricing and they believe in it and they don't think that it's going to bring the sky down upon them, but they also think that it's an important way to try to shape the market going forward. So I think Canadian support is really strong. I think support across industries is strong. I see in the financial sector that most companies are saying, look, we need options for things that we can invest in that will help in this process. And there are huge pools of capital that are waiting to do more, more quickly to help the world decarbonize. And that's the reason to be optimistic. And I somehow wish that some of the environmental critics

of what's going on at that meeting wouldn't confuse the issues. You know, I've noticed that some of them are talking about, well, yeah, but you've got a pipeline that you're building in, or you're going to put an emissions cap on the amount of emissions from Canada's oil and gas sector, but that isn't going to necessarily reduce how much oil and gas they produce. From my standpoint, our goal should be to reduce emissions, and we should put in place policies that allow us to do that. But we shouldn't say that if somebody can find a way to make a clean net zero barrel of oil, that they shouldn't do it because we hate oil. I don't think Canadians are on board for that kind of idea.

They're on board for what is a practical way to reduce emissions. And let's let innovation be our friend and make sure that our policies support that. Okay. On that note, we're going to switch topics. We're going to talk about what's happened in the airline business just this week in Canada when we come back. Our Black Product Sponsor is The Economist. If you don't already know, its expertise lies in making sense of the world's most

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Peter Mansbridge. Okay, Peter Mansbridge back in Dornick, Scotland. Bruce Anderson in Ottawa. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday edition. That's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. And you're listening either on Sirius XM Canada, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Wherever you're listening, we're glad you are.

Hope you're enjoying this discussion. We're moving it now to a COVID-related topic, and that is what's happened in the airline business. You've seen the airlines who were under strict instructions about public transportation in Canada that those who were using it would need to offer proof of double vaccination, the vaccine passports. And the airlines also said that they were going to ensure that their staff was double vaccinated to handle any kind of, what's the word I'm looking for,

their relationship with customers. And so this week, as that deadline was reached, both Air Canada, WestJet, Transat, they've all laid off people, hundreds of people, more than a thousand, who had not followed the vaccine criteria that they had put in place. So that's a significant move. It's been made in other industries and smaller numbers in different parts of the country. What's the signal for you, Bruce, on that and what differences it's going to make? Well, it's going to make a big difference. It's the right signal to take. And there's plenty of evidence that drawing a hard line isn't just the right thing to do, that it actually works.

I was just looking at some statistics from New York and Mayor de Blasio, who said that on Saturday, they had, I guess in the New York municipal government, there were some 9,000 employees of a total labor force of 378,000. There were 9,000 who were on unpaid leave because of their vaccination status. But in one day alone on Saturday, 2,300 of the 9,000 got vaccinated. In the fire department, the level of vaccination went from 64% on Thursday to 77% on Friday. So these, these choices are having an effect. People are looking at their jobs at their livelihoods and saying, All right, I kind of made my point, or I've said my piece, but I'm going to get get on with it. And I think it's the right thing to do. Not everybody will in the end,

but I noticed that the Canadian airlines were running at around 93, 94, 95% vaccinated. And, you know, that's pretty good relative to the broader population. But, you know, I think obviously what the government is doing is saying, if you're going to be in contact with people on a mass basis, this is a public health issue and it's a public health requirement.

I think it's reasonable. The last thing I'll say is I noticed Dr. Henry in B.C. yesterday making some point about the workers in the B.C. health care system who had not been vaccinated and were facing similar sanctions. And she put it really succinctly. She said, well, I don't know if it's the right profession for you, healthcare, if you don't believe in the efficacy of vaccinations. And I thought, yeah, that's right. And that's how most Canadians who are really a deeply pragmatic people look at this. They understand that there's something awkward or maybe unpleasant, or perhaps we would prefer not to have to really apply that pressure. You know, there's so much politeness in our society, thank heaven, that we don't love the idea of really ratcheting up the pressure. But this has been such a painful thing.

I think people are saying this is pragmatism. These things work. They're not dangerous. Let's get on with it. I got to tell you, I still find it mind-boggling that there are people in the health care system, and they do clearly exist in BC, but it's not just BC. It's in many of the provinces in Canada where there are a significant number

of people in the healthcare system who've chosen not to get vaccinated. And I just don't get it. I agree with Dr. Bonnie Henry. Like, really? Is this really the profession you want to be in if you don't believe in this? There's another point, listening to you talk about Bill de Blasio in New York City and those numbers in his city, it reminds me of a fact, you know, there's always this discussion about the difference, what's the difference between Canada and the United States.

How different are we really blah, blah, blah. And sometimes we're shy about talking about how we in fact are different on a number of levels. And when you look at the COVID numbers, what was the number you were mentioning to me earlier today, which was like 750,000 now are dead. Dead in the United States. Dead in the United States.

The term we usually use when you sort of compare something about U.S. to Canada is their population is 10 times more than ours. So if that was the case and we were the same, we'd be at 75,000 dead in Canada. We're nowhere near that. We're not even at 30,000. 29,000. 29,000.

That's right. Which is still a huge number. And one we, you know, it's painful to report on. But look at that difference, 29,000 versus 750,000 for a country that's 10 times bigger than us in terms of population. But, you know, maybe 10 times more divided or 100 times more divided. And those divisions have caught the… Well, you know, there's a… I forget which state it is peter i think it's

is it new hampshire you might you might know this live free or die live free or die right and and you kind of look at covet for some people and it's turned into live free and die it's not sensible that people are able to also just to look at all of the things that happen to life and the economy and all of the other things that we accept as encroachments on our freedom, wearing seatbelts, for example, not smoking in public places i remember when when you know you and i used to be able to fly on planes be able to used to have to fly on planes and people were smoking in it in every seat and then eventually it was like there's a smoking section and it didn't seem like there was really much point in the smoking section because the air just kind of gets circulated around the plane and over time we've come to understand the realities of the health risks that we put ourselves into, whether it's the way our cars are built, and the use of seatbelts and smoking, secondhand smoke and that kind of thing. And so it's shocking that we

can be this many years smarter than we were back in those bad old days when the number of health risks that people were routinely putting themselves in front of seemed almost unlimited, unregulated. And so we can be this many years smarter in theory and watch as maybe the most sophisticated country in the world is struggling with this. So I'm 100% behind those public policyholders who are saying, I'm going to take whatever political risks come, and I'm going to say what needs to be said. And there was another one who spoke up last week, Brian Mulroney, who gave an interview on the weekend, where he couldn't have been more blunt about his advice to the Conservative Party leader,

Aaron O'Toole, saying, no, no, you have to tell your caucus members that this is not a debatable thing, that this is the right thing to do. And if some of them want to leave, they should leave. I think that's advice well given. All right. I'm going to leave you there for this week. Both these topics are topics of our times and ones that we've been living with the climate change story for 25, 30 years now. Have we reached a point at which there's going to be a significant movement?

I agree with you there has been movement. I guess it's just not as much as clearly a lot of people had wanted. But this week perhaps makes a difference in the rush towards net zero by 2050, significant change by 2030, which is not that far away. And the COVID story and the nature of the changes that are being implemented by companies, not just governments, but by companies

on both these stories, right? Business taking a lead on climate, business taking a lead on COVID and the pandemic. It's an interesting week. Might be one we, you know, at some point turn back and look at and say, you know, this week was a difference maker. All right. Thank you for this. We'll be talking to you again in a couple of days with Chantel on Good Talk on Friday.

Thank you, Peter. And by the way, has the shipment of books arrived in Scotland? Because I know the demand is there and people want to know. Apparently, a lot of the delegates to COP 29 or 26 have been hitting the Glasgow bookstore saying, where is Off the Record? How can I get that book? Because I've just heard so much talk about it. They'll still be looking for it come COP 29. It's that hot.

That's right. All right, Peter, good to talk to you. Take it easy. easy yeah you too we'll uh talk to bruce and we'll talk to you once again in 24 hours