The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Whose Budget Was It Anyways?

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Of course, it was Chrystia Freeland's budget but some could argue it was Jagmeet Singh's budget too.  Whatever the case the NDP was pretty happy and it sure seems the Liberal/NDP deal will stay intact meaning no election this year.  Lots to talk about and Bruce is up for some good back and forth.  Also the latest on the election interference story.

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. That means Bruce Anderson. And welcome to Wednesdays. Wednesdays, SMT, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce is with us in Ottawa. And, you know, it's one of those days after the day before in Ottawa. Budget day was yesterday. Budget day, always a day of big numbers. Bruce loves numbers.

He loves talking numbers because, well, among other things, he's a pollster. So he deals in numbers all the time. He's also a golfer, so he makes up golf scores. But I can tell you on that front, I beat him every time. My numbers are much higher than his numbers on the golf cart. You know, makes up golf scores. Very serious allegation. Makes up golf scores. Very serious allegation. Makes up golf scores.

It's cheating. That would be nice this morning. I was going to say, and Peter's in Scotland observing Canadian public affairs from a great distance. It is. And sometimes it's a good thing to have put great distance between you and Canadian political affairs. Sometimes. Not always, and sometimes it's a good thing to have put great distance between you and Canadian political affairs. Sometimes.

Not always, but sometimes it is. Fair enough. Okay, so yesterday was Budget Day, and I don't know, I've read a lot of stuff about it. I've read all the different columns, and you can pick out a columnist that might be leaning towards the direction you want to go in this there were some columns that suggested you know that this wasn't bad and went through the strategy behind it there were other columns that slashed and burned the budget and then there was there were actually a couple in the middle who saw some good and some bad in it so there's lots out there.

My determination after reading everything was, there's one thing for sure about this budget in terms of what it means in Canada's future. And what it means is there's not going to be an election this year. Now, usually big spending budgets, and this was a big spending budget, like a huge spending budget. Usually that means, man, election right around the corner. But in this case, the big spending, some of it, a good chunk of it was dictated by the deal that theals have with the NDP. In other words, it was something to satisfy the NDP and their leader, especially the dental care program,

which seems to have somehow miraculously doubled in cost in just a couple of months as to what it's going to cost over the next five years. So that's my take. No election this year, and we kind of move on. But what about you? You've studied the Finance Minister Jagmeet Singh's budget. What is your take on it? I agree with you that it's very clear that there won't be an election,

at least not predicated by the budget. As we know, there will always be things that happen in the life of politics in a government that nobody sees coming and that could result in elections. So again, here you are placing a large bet on a very firm statement about there being no election. So good for you. That's courageous. I'm proud of you. Your courage is always noted, and it's always fun when Chantal and I get to say, remember when you said categorically. Deny, deny, deny. But it was interesting to see, of course, the way that this government, this parliament,

let me put it that way, this parliament works is become kind of predictable for various players. The Conservatives announced before the budget was released that they would not vote for it, and the NDP announced within minutes of its tabling that they would vote for it, which took all of the drama that sometimes attends these events in the life of a minority government right out of the play. I happen to think that that was fairly productive. I don't know about the conservative idea of saying before they see the budget, we won't vote for it. And I guess to be fair, they said, unless it does these things that we know it won't do,

we won't vote for it. But it's probably useful that we don't spend too much time and mental energy trying to figure out if there's going to be an election when nobody really thinks that this is the moment when any of these parties are ready for an election. Maybe the conservatives are, but I kind of doubt it. I think that this was a budget entirely consistent with the DNA of the Trudeau government. In that it strained towards the idea of deficit reduction and fiscal restraint, but it fell a little short of really kind of arriving at that point. A little short of really kind of arriving at that point. A little short? Yeah.

I mean, the budgets are coming down, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is really relatively enviable among our competitor nations. But Canadians are relatively – we like progressive programs, and we like fiscal restraint. And so that's the context in which any government kind of operates. Some governments err towards less progressive spending and more restraint. This isn't one of them.

This government errs more in the direction of, well, if we can imagine a better fiscal outcome, let's imagine that. And then on the basis of imagining that better fiscal outcome, let's spend the money that that would earn us as government. So. Well, just on that point, let me just ask you this, because it was only a couple of months ago that Christopher Freeland talked about how the budget would be guided by the, you know, by fiscal restraint. So here she is a couple of months later and with projections of a huge deficit, right, out of the gate and big new spending.

Some, you know, claims of cost cutting. We can talk about those later. I'm not sure what that will exactly produce. But so what was that last fall? Was that smoke? Was that mirrors? Was that the truth? I mean, what was it?

I mean, not a lot has changed in the months since the economic statement and the budget in terms of different issues, right, that confront the economy. Yeah. Well, look, I think it was a combination of the economic circumstances became more difficult. Interest rates have gone up. Revenues for government probably weren't as strong as they had anticipated last fall because of the softening of the economy. And, you know, probably based on the circumstances that we saw last fall, there was more room for optimism on the fiscal side for the government than there is right now. So sometimes that happens.

But the other side of the ledger, the spending side, there definitely were some things that the government decided between the fall and now that it wanted to do. And some that were announced in the budget that add to the tab. Now, the people can debate the value of them. Some of the spending is oriented towards a cleaner electricity grid, towards an economic and energy transition. So there are a good number of business voices who are looking at those initiatives and not saying it's too bad that that money was spent because it increases the deficit. Instead, they're saying, this is the stuff that will help us reach a new level of competitiveness in sectors like mining for the future because

critical minerals and decarbonization and being part of a global supply chains that are looking for responsible, critical minerals that don't necessarily come from China, is a very big storyline for Canada. So some of the spending is very much oriented around the future of the economy. And that's why we see a number of business voices stopping short of criticizing the budget for its fiscal plan and embracing the budget and praising it even for the fact that it's doing some things that are quite productive economically. At the same time, the conversation between the government and the NDP about the things that they require or request or demand, depending on whose version of events you accept,

those things cost some money too. And the expansion of the dental care program to more people who are uninsured. So the line that the government is driving around dental care is, if you have dental insurance through a workplace program, for example, they're not going to pay for your dental care. If you have income above a certain level, you're not included in this program. So it's meant to identify some gaps in terms of where people have cost of living challenges with an essential health service like dental and put money into it. And the NDP have definitely been pushing the government in that direction. And I think the

government has been saying, we're not going to do all of the things that you think we should do, but this is one thing that we can agree on. And I saw Jagmeet Singh on the TV, and he seemed pretty satisfied with taking the credit for that. Do you think he should? I mean, he's pushed it, right? I mean, he was pushing it. The government had talked about dental care, has talked about it many times over a number of years. I had an individual, I'm trying to remember his name, launch a task force looking at what were some of the issues around

pharmacare that government could maybe get more involved in. So they had an independent of the pressure from the NDP. Let me put it that way. I think the liberals had a plan to do some things in this area where they observed that people were, that there were some health services that people had trouble affording and that weren't covered under our, you know, our provincial health care plan. So yes, the NDP had something to do with it. And the liberals also had an idea of what they wanted to try to do to fill gaps there. I guess what I'm asking is, if it had been a majority Liberal government, and we were faced with these same economic conditions, the odds on a dental program right now might not have been as great as they are,

given the fact they're in a minority position and need the NDP to prop them up. You know, is the reason that you made a living asking questions, because you ask good questions. That is a very good question. And I think it's a fair question. I think what would the the liberals have done in this budget differently if they had been in a majority situation? I probably I think they would have done all of the stuff I think they would have done. They might have done the dental plan.

They might or might not have done the the grocery rebate. They probably would have been trying to get to a lower fiscal number. And all of that is not to say that that makes this a bad budget. It makes it a budget that is a product of the political context that Canadians created with their ballots in the last election. And every once in a while when I kind of hear people rue the dynamics of a minority government here, I'm reminded that there are places in the world where there are coalition governments as a normal matter of fact. those coalition scenarios, the negotiation of policy choices is not considered to be kind of unhelpful compromise or wish we could have something that was more pure. It's just the way that it is. And, you know, who knows with our political dynamic, we may be in minority government situation for a long time into the future. Not this one, obviously, but a series of them.

I, like you, probably tend to think it's a little bit better to have majority governments. But I'm not even sure that that bias is correct. I'm not even sure I'm right about that. There are excesses that happen with majority governments, blue or red, that are less likely to happen when there's minority governments. And then there are situations where you end up not really satisfying people on the right or people on the left and wishing that you didn't have to always have a kind of a look at one side or the other. You know, I think you, you know, there's a reason you make a lot of money giving analysis

because that's a good analysis. And it does make me think about my own changing views because you're quite right. I used to believe quite strongly that majority governments were the best way to move a country forward, right or left. And not an issue. But I'm wondering now, I mean, obviously in our lifetimes,

we've seen the ratio of the number of parties, the way parliament has been formed has changed quite a few times. And I'm wondering whether now, you know this is is right for now although those who worry about the you know the public purse must be going crazy looking at these numbers because they are astronomical and if you can point the finger at the political situation as being one of the reasons we're going so deep into deficit you know I mean they do make these forecasts that we're going so deep into deficit, you know, I mean, they do make these forecasts that we're kind of, you know, we'll be back to close to zero on the deficit scale within whatever it was, five years or something. But, you know, we've seen these before from both parties,

and it's always a struggle to meet those guesses about the future. Yeah, okay, but I think that – so we went through this pandemic where the economy in large measure shut down and government had to kind of anesthetize the situation and provide support for a lot of people and businesses. And the numbers skyrocketed, not just here, but everywhere where governments were able to do that kind of intervention. In last year's budget, the projections for the deficits, well, if we look at last year's

budget a year ago, the numbers that we're looking at in this year's budget are better than they were expected that. Now, to your point about the fall, in the fall, the government had an even more optimistic scenario. And so they failed to meet their fall optimism, but they did surpass their last budget optimism. And so if people are trying to kind of avoid the sugar high of the optimism that comes from time to time and sort of get a sense of what the glide path is, the glide path isn't everything that real hard fiscal conservatives would want or maybe even moderate fiscal conservatives. But it is a glide path towards a balanced budget. And within that context, I think the government would make the case that they're putting in place spending that helps solve cost of living issues that can be easily solved or can be addressed and helps position the economy for the future. And the distinction I'm

making about the cost of living problems that can be addressed is that housing, as we know, is the number one cost of living problem for a lot of people. But it's really hard to figure out exactly what to do about it. It's hard to make a difference on it. But for people who are struggling and don't have dental insurance, you can help with that. Just as you could for people who were feeling that child care was a big cost of living problem the government did something about that so the government's trying to pick off some of these fairly tangible significant sticker items that affect cost of living work around what it can do on the on issue, and put money into things that will do the sort of things that we've seen announced recently. Volkswagen's big EV battery plant announcement and others that are part of a future industrial plan for Canada.

So I think that glide path on the fiscal is important for people to kind of be aware is intact. And then of course, there is always this question of, well, how much debt is too much? And I think that you and I, maybe I shouldn't say this about you, maybe you're different about it, but there is a certain eye-popping quality to some of these numbers now, but it's a little bit like I remember a bag of chips cost five cents, and now if I buy a bag of chips, I know it's not five cents. It's a lot more than five cents. So sometimes I remember that a budget with a $13 billion deficit was a really horrifying thought. But the economy's grown and times are changed and

these numbers don't actually sit meeting the same kind of thing now. And so I do think this debt to GDP ratio and how we compare to other countries is an important thing to, it's an important thing to bear in mind, even as people who are a little bit more fiscally conservative, like yourself, probably, you know, you're sitting in Scotland. I get it.

I'm going there. I have a little bit of that. You're going to join those two people who wrote to me complaining about the fuel I used getting here. And I understand that. I admitted that last week. You know, that is an issue. Now it's a separate discussion, and I'm sure we'll get into it

on our various climate change discussions that we'll have in the future. But I want to, you know, I understand the chip analogy, you know, the potato chip analogy. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when you could buy a small bottle of Coke for five cents. Five cents. Small bottle. That's probably what it costs to make it.

Well, probably, yeah. So I get things go up, but, you know, Christopher Freeland forecasted deficit for this year or for the next fiscal year of $30 billion just last fall. Now she's saying it's going to be $40 billion. So that's, you know, that's like a 33% increase. Like that doesn't fall into the chip analogy discussion. It's eye-popping.

And I agree with that. And I feel that one of the things that happened that changed the way that people in Canada react to deficit spending is that the conversation around deficits in the United States changed fundamentally some years ago. It used to be the case that the Republicans were for balanced budgets and the Democrats were not balanced budgets. And at some point, Republicans stopped fighting that fight. When they got into office, they started spending not on the same things as Democrats, but the combination of their spending and their tax cuts created these huge ballooning and growing deficits. And now we have the Republicans saying they want to put the Democrats to the wall in terms of raising the debt ceiling. The ceiling is massive in the United States. It's incredible how much the fiscal situation has gotten so far from anything that we ever imagined the Americans would do.

And, you know, it wasn't that long ago. I think it was Bill Clinton was producing significant surplus budgets. That's right. Right. Maybe I shouldn't that long ago. I think it was Bill Clinton was producing significant surplus budgets. That's right. Right? Maybe. I shouldn't say maybe Obama. I'm not sure exactly. But it wasn't that long since there were surplus budgets.

It was Bush Jr. that drove the numbers up. And that was all as a result of, well, initially Afghanistan, but mainly Iraq. That's what drove the numbers up. And then when Trump came in, the numbers were still up. Tax cuts and yeah. The tax cut thing was the real killer. I have noticed as well that some of the provincial governments in Canada are starting to show better fiscal results. And I think that part of what the federal government did is to sort of recognize that the worst thing that could happen maybe to the fiscal situation is if you ended up

having a hard landing economy without a plan for a cleaner economy and a transition marketplace already invested in, because then your revenues would be falling. You'd need to spend this money to stimulate that kind of transition in the business marketplace anyway, but your fiscal situation would be weaker. So I think there's some political risks in this budget for the government, but judging from the way that the commentariat have reacted to it so far, I don't know if this is your sense. I mean, we both had a number of hours to kind of consume what different perspectives on the budget are. This does not seem to be one of the more contested and controversial budgets that I've seen. My first reaction to it was kind of similar to yours. I was a little surprised at the fiscal path.

I thought it was going to be more encouraging in terms of the size of the deficits. But the combination of spending on things like dental care and grocery price remediation and on clean electricity and transition seem to have been received relatively positively by people on the left or organizations that represent a left perspective and those on the right too, for the most part. Now, I take your point. There are some columnists who are giving it a rip, Andrew Coyne among them. Well, he's focused on the economic growth issue, and he makes his argument, and Andrew's pretty good at making his arguments. But, I mean, there are different views, as you say,

across the spectrum in the columnists that are out there today. One thing I've learned about budgets, and you've learned as well, and you've pushed me on over the years, is don't get caught up in the first 24 hours. There's a lot in a budget. I mean, it's 250 pages long, which is actually kind of not short, but it's not a long budget. But there's a lot of stuff in there,

and it's going to take a while to grind through it. And you see some of the economists who were in the lockup yesterday uh getting briefed and and their assessments and they vary you know and uh and we'll see how it you know it plays out and there's more to come what is the thing that follows the budget budget the not the estimates but the actual numbers at some point in another month or so where the money's going, which also allows people to jump in on the story. Andrew's piece is interesting to me because it's another reminder for me that to some degree, and this is going to sound like a criticism of journalism, so alert for all of those. How surprising coming from you. Don't love to hear that, but that budget has a lot of complexity to it. Like you, I went to the website, the finance department website. I started going through all the measures. There's a lot of work that goes into those measures, right? It's not just everybody come

to Ottawa, tell us what you need. We'll put it all in one piece of paper and we'll publish it. There's a lot of analysis that goes into choices that the government's making. A lot of here that goes into designing them so that they have the intended effect and not some unintended side effects. There's a lot of work that goes into making sure that the parameters are set right. Now, government doesn't always get that right, but there's a lot of work in it. Also, to Andrew's point, and so the tendency sometimes for people who are on a deadline to write 600 words about, is this a, you know, a grand success in an act of genius, or is it the worst thing ever created by human beings? Because writing something in between maybe doesn't get as many clicks or as much attention.

That tendency isn't always, it can be entertaining. Let me put it that way. But it isn't always as informative as it is entertaining because people are under some serious time pressures and some obligation to attract an audience. But Andrew's point about, I think the line that he used was that if you wanted a budget to strangle economic growth, this is that budget. Well, I guess we're going to see. You know, he's laid a marker down. Now, we don't see in the same sense of if a politician says something and it turns out not to be even close to true. There are other politicians around and media who say, remember when you said that and then it turned out not to be even close to true. There are other politicians around and media who say, remember when you said that, and then it turned out not to be even close to true. I'll wager that if the economy isn't

strangled at this time next year, it might only be you and I who go, remember when Andrew Coyne said that this budget was going to strangle the economy. So these things sort of dissipate. Now, he may be right. And a year from now, you'll be saying, remember that column by Andrew Coyne? He was really right. He was right. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to say that. Against the possibility that he's right, this is the point I'm trying to make, is that it's not like all of the stupid people got together and thought about what could we do to help strengthen the economy and put all the stupidest ideas together and completely

miss the possibility that they might strangle the economy with those measures. And there's this one fellow out here on the other side who says nope this is the thing that will strangle the economy so look in a democracy with all the free speech and the kind of the entertainment value of journalism and politics generally i'm happy that we get to talk about this and i'm i love andrew's writing and and i listened to him give a speech as i mentioned a little while ago when we we were doing one of these podcasts. And I thought his arguments on a lot of points are really, really very precise. They're very consistent.

In some cases, I think they're right and thoughtful. But I don't think this is going to strangle the economy. I tend to think, based on what I hear from the businesses that I deal with, that they have a good sense of what it will take for them to become more competitive. They know what those nudges are in policy terms that will help them invest in the things that will transform their businesses. And so we'll see. We'll okay um let me just say two things on that um on andrew there have been many times i've disagreed with him on his take on stuff but i've never felt for i've never felt ever that he's in it for clicks. I don't think Andrew's that type. I mean, he writes what he firmly believes, right?

He may be wrong and he may be right, but he doesn't do it because, gee, I wonder how many clicks I'll get if I say this. And there are lots of journalists who do it for clicks. Don't get me wrong. I just don't need one of them. I really don't know that I want to debate that point with you, but I do have to say that it can be both, right? If you're in that business, you know that there is a certain,

and I agree with you, that the opinions that he expresses are his opinions. I just think sometimes that in the world where you're trying to compete in journalism, you want to draw attention. So you use language and you sometimes tweet. Andrew does tweet sometimes. Yes, he does. So if he does tweet, presumably it's because he wants to draw attention to the work that he's doing and the opinions that he has. And I don't see any problem with that. I do that. You do that. You do. I don't. I've really backed off from tweeting. I know.

I just go and it's not worth it, especially with all the bots out there. There's a lot of that. So my point isn't that it's inherently bad to be trying to draw attention to your arguments, but sometimes when you characterize something so dramatically, you know, it does gather. Here's where I'll agree with you. And I'll bring back a name from our past.

Somebody who we both worked with over the years who would once a year, write a column on all the things he got wrong about the year before Jeff Simpson, Jeff Simpson, Globe and Mail. And, you know, he would do that every, you know, religiously every year. He'd say, okay, here's where I was wrong. You should do that. Well, I've always wanted to do that. But I, you know, having never been wrong, I could never, you know, come up with a column.

Like even every three years then. Just, you know, just gather everything up. But no, it's a good point, right? There's a need for humility and analysis of politics, whether it's by journalism or people in my business or people in politics. And too often the conversation seems like it only wants people to say, you know, it wasn't Kretz's line, but never apologize, just keep on going forward. And it is possible to get it wrong. You know whose line that was? That was Trump's lawyer back, you know, 30, 40 years ago. What's his name? Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn. Never apologize. I'm going to find out if that was the origin because I didn't really want to.

Well, he certainly had that line. He certainly used that line and impressed it upon. Fair enough. Certain people. Okay. We're going to move on. You know, the only other thing I would have mentioned is that she used the R word. You know, she talked about, you know, it could be like a mild recession heading our way.

So she put a little marker on the ground on that one. I guess technically we've been through a recession, two quarters negative growth can mean that. But she did warn of difficult times ahead. Yes. So we'll see how that plays out. Well, one of the things that the government's trying to do, and it's not just this government,

is slow the economy without stopping the economy, right? And part of what is required there is for the psychology of people and businesses to be affected a little bit, to make them think that maybe they shouldn't buy that next thing that they're thinking about that will extend their debt and to be a little bit more restrained in their spending generally. So I wasn't surprised. I think that obviously what she was doing was sort of speaking the truth as they see it in terms of the economy. But I think there was also this purpose of we don't want people to think that a kind of a, let's say, they won't talk and let's just,

you know, watch that inflation, which has been coming down, start going back up again. OK, we're going to take a quick break. We're almost out of. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. We're almost out of time, but we're going to take a quick break now and come back with some thoughts on where we are on the election interference story. I thought we were going to talk about the Gwyneth Paltrow lawsuit on the skiing. No, we're not going to do that. Okay. We're going to talk about election interference. That's on our next program.

After the break. We'll wait for Chantel to help us out on that one on Friday. All right. But we to talk about election interference. That's on our next program. After the break. We'll wait for Chantel to help us out on that one on Friday. All right. But we'll talk about election interference when we come back. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday edition, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Bruce is in Ottawa.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or on the highly successful YouTube channel where we have… Numbers are climbing. Numbers are climbing. Getting the clicks. Getting the clicks,

getting the clicks. So give click worthy stuff here. Okay. Um, what about you? You know, I don't give out my opinions. I don't,

you, you do that, but I don't really do that. I'm kind of above that. I'm like Mr. Canada. I don't have to have opinions. Okay. I have no opinions.

Actually, I do have opinions. I express them have no opinions. Actually, I do have opinions. I express them carefully every once in a while, unlike what I used to do for 50 years, where I never had an opinion on anything. People tried to judge my thinking they knew my opinion because I can remember this one guy writing, and I think it was during Meech Lake or something,

saying, I know Mansbridge thinks this way about Meech Lake because I saw his eyebrows moving when he was talking about a certain thing. So that was as close as it got, you know. But now this is a podcast and it's just like, it's not a newscast, it's a podcast. So we, you know, sometimes you let- I do love it when people like throw uh, throw comments at you like,

well, you're biased as though everybody doesn't have a bias. Everybody, everybody has a bias. Sure. And, and, uh,

the notion that you're going to do a podcast and talk, we're going to talk about opinions and that nobody's going to perceive a bias. It doesn't really work. That's what it is. That's right. What's our last subject for today? It wouldn't be the number one podcast in Apple's politics chart in Canada

if it didn't have some... Some opinions, some bias. Some energy. Sure enough. Anyway, okay. We've only got a couple of minutes left for this one, the election interference story in China, which was the rage for the last couple of minutes left for this one, the election interference story, which, you know, in China, which, you know, was the rage for the last couple of weeks.

It's gone silent for the last couple of days, more or less silent. Now that may be because of the budget. It also may be because some people are getting a little edgy about some of the things that have been said and written and want to see further evidence. It was interesting to note that Han Dong, the former Liberal MP who is now sitting as an independent, who was suggested by basically alleged by Global News that they had information to suggest that he had been talking with the Chinese during the

Two Michaels episode and at one point suggested to them that they don't release the Two Michaels because that might hurt the Liberals and help the Conservatives, which was a strange theory for most people to try and come around to understanding, but nevertheless, that was the allegation. Now, Pandong has announced

that he's meeting with a lawyer. i said last week i'd like to actually see the lawsuit happen papers filed um before i spend too much time believing that it is going to happen because you get a lot of these threats when you're in the journalism business that so-and-so is going to sue you or they they say they're going to sue you, and then it never happens. Or they do the initial paperwork, and then the thing just disappears. And there have been lots of those examples over my career where that happened. However, the story's died down, or at least it appears to have died down. It may come back once the budget attention is gone. Where's your head on this right now in the few moments we have?

Well, I thought that the question period yesterday and Monday, I guess, was interesting because the Conservatives, you and I both know how, for opposition parties, what you do with question period is kind of like finding your opening sequence in a football game. Everybody kind of has a game plan and they know what they're trying to do. And it's very carefully considered which themes are working for us and which ones won't. So on Monday, the Conservatives didn't talk about Joe Biden's visit. They didn't talk about Han Dong. They talked about the budget. And so moving's no benefit for us in talking up the Biden visit because we're reminding people of something that seemed to go pretty well for the government. And maybe there's reason for us to be more careful about the hand on question.

Now, I, like you, looked at how global has responded to this. And what I haven't seen, unless I missed it, is that we stand by our story, every bit of it was right, and bring on the lawsuit, right? That kind of aggressive counter proposition. There are, therefore, in my view, only arguably two people who know exactly what that conversation contained maybe there's more because there was a transcript but the two people who for sure know were han dong and the chinese consul i have to judge a little bit from what global hasn't said and what hasn't been part of their story, that they might not have that transcript. They might only have kind of a word-of-mouth version of what that transcript is.

Because if they had the transcript, and if – this is the part that I was kind of curious about last week. So it wasn't just a one sentence conversation where somebody might have misinterpreted the word, release them immediately. And instead what he was alleged to have said was don't release them immediately. Remember last week, people were talking about the word in Mandarin is almost the same, but that doesn't account for the fact that there were other things that he said in that conversation and what the consul said in that conversation, right? And so there were other things in the conversation that could have been used to say, well, did he really mean release them immediately? Or did he mean don't release them immediately? And that's, if I think that the PMO saw a transcript, they saw a transcript that included more than that one

word. It included an entire conversation, right? And the entire conversation might not have made them feel like he was doing the thing that he's alleged to do. So the Chinese are silent on it. The PMO says we looked at it and didn't see anything that required or demanded action. And Handong says this absolutely didn't true. And not only am I in the first instance going to say I'm going to sue,, a few days later, you say, I've retained a lawyer and I'm going to sue. Now, you and I both know that people can be in that situation where they think, I'm going to say I'm going to sue, but am I really going to take that next step? And the reason you might not is you might think, well, a full forensic evaluation of the facts won't necessarily

back me up. So why should I spend all of the money I'm going to have to spend on this only to get to the point where I'm not vindicated? But if you take that step and you know what that conversation was and you say, no, I'm going ahead and getting the lawyers, and on the other side, you don't have a counterparty saying, no, no, no, no, no, we know this story is solid. It does sort of change the way that this issue feels. And I think that has to be one of the reasons why the conservatives have not been talking about it this week.

And I don't think Global talked about it on their Sunday morning political show either, which is another signal that if they felt they were on the right side of this story, wouldn't they? And I'm asking you this. Wouldn't they be all over it still? Wouldn't the conservatives still be all over this story? Well, you know, I've been in that situation in my career a couple of times, and I've also been, you know, working with others

who were caught in the same kind of situation where their story was doubted, their investigative journalism piece was doubted, or basically people raising questions about whether it was true or not. And the first thing you do, if you have any doubt about what you've done, if new information comes to light that shows that you're wrong, if your source says, hey, you taught that, that's not what I told you, or that's not what I showed you, the first thing you do is withdraw it and explain why you were drawing it. If none of that's the situation, the first thing you do is you say,

we stand by our story. And, you know, I've been in that situation, and sometimes it's really difficult to do that because you know you're going to be in for sometimes days, weeks, months of pain before it eventually comes out that, hey, guess what? You were right to say what you said. And so you eventually get a vindication for it. So I was surprised that Global did not say, we stand by our story. They did put out a statement, and it talked about what they basically argued

was the rigorous process that they have on doing investigative pieces. Their holistic values, right? Yeah, and their values. That's what they said. That's all they said. At least that's all I've seen them say so far. You know, I've talked to a number of people who are close to the scene of that story who are

being very careful about the way they describe it or what's been happening on it. But nobody has withdrawn the story. He may have talked to a lawyer, but he hasn't sued yet. We'll see whether he does. That may change things, may not. You go into a discovery on a lawsuit like that, and you can demand all kinds of things in terms of information and people.

So, you know, well. But if you're him and you know there's a transcript. Which him are we talking about? Sorry, Handong. If you're Handong, you know what the conversation was. You know there's a transcript of it. So you know it's not just going to be a take my word for it. It was recorded and there's going to be a transcript. Right. And so if you're him in that situation, what's the logic of saying I'm going to sue

and then saying it again and saying I retained a lawyer? If you know the transcript is going to make you look bad, you don't do it. If you know the transcript is going to make you look bad, you don't do it. If you know the transcript is going to make you look vindicated, then you put the pedal to the floor. You don't spend days looking at different lawyers and thinking about it. You do it. So you can take that argument either side of this, the position he's in. If he's 100% confident in what he said and knows there's a transcript, then I assume he should be.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume he would rush to the barricades as quickly as he could and get that lawsuit and force the issue. And maybe he will. Maybe he's doing that right now as we speak. We'll see. The other thing I should mention is there, you know, a good friend of mine reached out over the weekend and he would listen to our show on Friday with Chantel.

I liked it a lot, as clearly a lot of people have also done. But I wanted to point out one thing, that we keep talking, everybody keeps talking as if it was a CSIS leak. Now, CSIS was, I guess, responsible for monitoring the conversations, but once a transcript was made, that would go out to a lot of different places who are in the kind of security and intelligence area, not just CSIS, everything from the PCO to the RCMP to the Canadian security establishment, a lot of different places. It could have been out there, and one assumes it could also have been leaked

from there. And so it was kind of a cautionary note to say, be careful on what you're assuming. Because, you know, it may well have been CSIS. Or it could have been one of these other agencies. Or it could have been nobody that has real knowledge of the situation. So it's, um, well, except if there is a recording, right. You'll, you agree. If there's a transcript, it's the transcript and yeah, somebody has it. Um, the PMO seemed to be confirming that they had seen a transcript. Um,

and so that for me just changes the math for everybody involved in this story. If the journalist who wrote the story, I'm looking at the headline again, Liberal MP Han Dong secretly advised Chinese diplomat in 2021 to delay freeing the two Michaels, colon, sources. So presumably didn't see the transcript. Sources informed them what they thought was in the transcript. I mean, we don't know the full extent of exactly how

the global journalism group went about this story, but I know that if it had been me or if I was responsible for one of our reporters doing that story, I would want to know that we'd seen or possessed the document. It seems to be the standard that the Globe and Mail was applying. That's right. Is that your interpretation?

Yes, that seems to be what the Globe is saying as the reason they didn't do it. Okay, I'm out of time. Great conversation, as always. Well, we didn't get to the Gwyneth Paltrow trial. No, that's right. Well, I think that could be going on for a while, so I'm sure we'll find a way to talk about it somehow. Okay, listen, you'll be back on Friday with Chantel.

I don't know whether, you know, it'll be very telling if we're still talking about the budget on Friday or if we've moved on to something else. Well, that's usually up to you. So I feel like you're going to move us on to something else. It is, but it's funny how budgets especially can disappear within hours of a discussion point. Not that they're not important, because they are incredibly important. Even if it's already strangling the economy, we can lose sight of that.

So I'll look forward to Friday. You'll still be in Scotland, and I'll be a little closer to going there myself. I'm working here. I'm writing my latest book. And the final stage is the editorial. Rock it to the top of the charts with that one. That's right. Just like all of the others.

That's great. Can you hear him? Does he sound sincere, folks? I'm envious that, you know, you write about all kinds of things and that we've known each other for, I don't know, like 150 years. Your picture was in the last book. Your picture was in the last book. Yeah, it was like the day that I... Did I tell everything I could tell about you?

No, I didn't. And for that, you should forever be thankful. All right, I'll... Out thankful all right out of time out of time good to talk to you bye pete all right thanks bruce talk to you again on friday your turn random ranter tomorrow the man's bridge podcast at gmail.com if you want to write you got to write like right now um thanks for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.