The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Bridge Encore Presentation - Moore Butts #5 - The Year Ender

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Today an encore presentation of an episode that originally aired on October 12th. Former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore and former Trudeau principal secretary Gerald Butts pick up their conversation again, this time on a year-ender.  Dropping their natural partisanship for our benefit, James and Gerry look at the top stories of the year from the perspective only they can give.

The following is an encore presentation of The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge, originally broadcast on December 12th. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, the last week before the holiday break. A special show. We've got the Moore-Butts conversation, number five. And hello there.

Welcome. This is the bridge for new listeners. And I know there are quite a few of those in the last little while. You're probably wondering the Moore Butts conversation number five. Moore Butts? What the heck is that? Well, let me tell you what the heck it is. Because it's been a great conversation series that we've been having throughout this year. And it started back around the time of the convoy, and we've had it a number of times since. Obviously, this is the fifth one for this year. Now, what are Moore Butts?

Well, Moore Butts are two different guys. Moore is James Moore, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister under the Stephen Harper prime ministership. And Butts is Jerry Butts, Gerald Butts, the former principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So combining these two guys who are friends, but I guess political opponents, but they agreed to start doing these programs, these conversations at different times this year, with the whole idea of trying to break down the partisan wall that exists between their two sides, and take us as much as they

can behind the scenes so we better understand the political process. So we've talked about any number of different things this year in these conversations. This one is a little different. It is year-end time, so lots of people are doing their kind of year-end thoughts. So the idea here was to get the two fellows together and talk about some of the big stories of the year and try and take us once again in a way behind the scenes but primarily give us their take their view on what may have been really going on to some extent behind the scenes. The things that happened that we didn't notice, that weren't apparent to us. So that's the idea behind More Buts No. 5, which we're about to air now.

So sit back, enjoy, listen, and you know, we'll either learn or we'll disagree, but it's a good, it's a good way to engage on some of these topics as we get ready to close out 2022, which has been a pretty, a pretty remarkable year on more than a few fronts. So let's get at it. Here it is. More Butts. Conversation number five. Okay, let's get started then with a sense of some of the big stories of the past year and getting you to kind of guide us into what you were seeing that we probably weren't seeing. That's the trick on these stories.

So let's start with, I guess, what was the biggest story of the year for Canada, and that was the convoy and its fallout. So, James, when you think back to that story, what were you seeing that we probably weren't seeing? The convoy protest, it was interesting. There was actually some parallels to that with COVID in the sense that, you know, when COVID first started, it was, you know, we didn't know what it was. There was anxiety about it.

You didn't know where it was going. You didn't kind of know how it was going to end. But the convoy protest, when it began, I think for a lot of conservatives, particularly in Western Canada, it seemed exciting. People were rising up. It seemed very grassroots. It seemed very organic. It's gaining momentum. There's a bunch of people going to Ottawa. We've seen this in the past. Farmers have gone to Ottawa, you know, a bunch of movements have gone to Ottawa in order to register protests and all that. And you kind of want to be associated with it. You need to be

sort of careful about it. But then, of course, as it went along and it's sort of like COVID, it sort of had its different elements and stories to it people became anxious about it we forget now because sort of the narrative is sort of settled we forget now that towards the end of that month-long protest in ottawa um that you know conservatives said they they under candace bergen as leader they said it was time for them to go home they said they made their point time to go home and they supported the government you know um you know and their message that the the protest they've made their point go home stop hawking leave the people of ottawa alone and it's sort of morphed into something different so i suppose the convoy protest was the story of the year in the sense of that that's what the media talked

about the most um but but i think like a lot of things in politics you know the lesson that i always have is be very careful be very careful about what you associate with because you don't know how it's going jason kenney's leadership you know in alberta on covid is an example parallel one to this right where you know there was a point about halfway through between sort of the second and third variant of covid where doug ford decided to sort of go back and not be the face of the government's actions on covid and to put Dr. Kieran Moore in front and have Christine Elliott, his health minister in front, which is where John Horgan was from the beginning in British Columbia. But Jason Kenney kept being the face of COVID, the face of COVID, and he paid the political price because as the narrative and the substance of COVID changed over

time, people started getting exhausted with the spokespeople, exhausted with the start and stops and push and pulls of policy of open and close. And then they just started blaming the spokesperson for it over time and mistakes that were made, of course, that all governments do. But if Bonnie Henry makes a mistake, well, it must be rooted in science. If John Horgan makes a mistake, well, it must be because he's trying to play some political game and all that. And Jason got bit by that snake. Doug Ford seems to have avoided it. And John Horgan never was in danger of it. And with regard to the convoy protests, it seems like in the beginning, it seemed like a really good idea.

But if you're if you're from rural and suburban Saskatchewan and you're a conservative MP, it always seemed like a good idea. Because as long as they're in Ottawa and they're yelling F Trudeau, that's what my constituents think. And the beginning of it was clearly virtuous. So all of it is fine. But if you're in a more marginal riding or you have a little bit more nuance about not just the voters that you have, but the voters that you aspire to get, you might be a little bit more nervous about who you're associating yourself with. So I think one of the lessons about all this is that just because something looks good and feels good and sounds good and it looks like they're your people, the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend jerry what are you what were you seeing there well i i think if if i were in my uh former i guess you're asking us to kind of think about this from the

context of what we would have had sure access to in our former positions i think you think of two things peter one is where is this coming from? A and B, where is it going? And that's a different way of saying what James said in a bit of a nutshell, that you want to make sure before you either aggressively confront people or you aggressively hug them, then that you have the most robust possible sense of who they are and what they want and what are the likely outcomes going to be down the road. Because one thing you learn very quickly in politics is it's not so much how the story plays or feels on the day when it's transpiring that matters. It's how it endures and what it becomes, right? So I very much agree with

James's perspective on that. What I noticed, and this is coming from someone who was living in Ottawa through the thing. So I had a bit of a different, I think, visceral reaction to it than a lot of people did because it's a national sport to hate the national capital and just about all nations. And ours is no exception to that. So there were, I'm sure a lot of people across the country saying,

who cares if Ottawa's getting disrupted? Ottawa needs to be disrupted. And while I appreciate that point of view, there was very real peril being put on vulnerable people here. And I think that's what I was worried about. I was worried about the fact that, you know, our kids couldn't go hang out with their friends at the mall. And that was because the people who work at very modestly compensated jobs

and retail didn't have jobs for the time that was going on. And there were lots of reports of people being harassed and abused downtown. And as you know, you both know from spending a good portion of your time in Ottawa, downtown Ottawa is not Rockcliffe, right? It's not the rich part of Ottawa. It's where there's a lot of fixed income seniors. There's a lot of low income housing. There's a lot of people who work driving buses and working in shopping malls and that sort of thing. So it was not, they weren't taken into the man. Let me put it that way by being in a lower town and being in center town and disrupting the lives of the people there. So the two observations I

would make one was, it was pretty clear that the federal government wanted to stay as far away from this as possible, right? From the very beginning, they were the initial responses where this is a problem for the Ottawa police to deal with. And we have full confidence in the Ottawa police, which I doubt anybody ever really had full confidence in the Ottawa police from the very beginning. And as we've learned from the tome of emails and text messages that have been aired through the public inquiry process, it was pretty early when they were having their doubts about whether or not the Ottawa police had their handle on the situation.

But you would be kind of conflicted by these two opposing tendencies. One is to wrap your arms around this thing and make it go away. And on the other hand, not be responsible for things that you can't be responsible for. Because if you were plotting, again, you two both know Ottawa, if you were plotting to cause maximum jurisdictional chaos in this country, you would park in front of the prime minister's office on Wellington street, because as someone who worked in that building for the better part of four years, it's really unclear who has jurisdiction over it.

It's allegedly the Ottawa police, but it's the road that divides the office of the first minister from the houses of parliament so what right thinking canadian is going to think that's a problem for the ottawa police and not the rcmp or some other federal force so i think that they were what i what i what i'm sure they were thinking about behind the scenes was we don't have the tools at our disposal to deal with this it's somebody else's problem but ultimately we're going to get blamed for it. So what do we do about it? Well, and the other thing to do about that protest, you mentioned the prime minister's office there, right?

Is that, you know, I'm not unlike the shooting of October, 2014, when Parliament Hill was torn by one lone gunman. You know, these protests, if it was anything that was genuinely dangerous and genuinely deadly and anything like effectively planned, it could be a massacre. Like it could have been a massacre on on absolutely in October of 2014. If he had a more effective rifle, knew the layout of the building and all that, you know, with regard to the national capital, it genuinely is problematic. You'd think I mean, the Americans learned because they moved their embassy after the Oklahomalahoma city bombing and other things that had happened in ottawa to be more secure where

they are in the national capital um but but in ottawa it's very dangerous but yeah to your more macro point that peter i've always had the view that you know in retrospect um you know the most effective governments are governments that have a relentless pursuit of empathy it doesn't mean you're trying to please all people all the time but a relentless pursuit of empathy. It doesn't mean you're trying to please all people all the time, but a relentless pursuit of understanding people's perspectives and then navigating appropriately towards your design goals, towards what your ideological or policy view are, what your mandate is and all that.

You have to relentlessly pursue an empathetic mindset so you understand why are people reacting the way they are and think what they are. And with regard to the trucker protests, I've always had the view that there were actually three protests there there was the the there was stage one of the protest which is sort of a rising up of exhausted canadians particularly from western canada particularly those in the center right who were just exhausted and frustrated with justin trudeau's approach to things and all the mandates even though they were 95 provincial they decided

to go after justin trudeau because the tipping point was this mandate American imposed mandate on on vaccines fine but there's virtue in people being exercised to the point of wanting to express their point of view regardless so that's stage one stage two was the siege of the national capital which was unconscionable illegal wrong dangerous sets a wrong precedent sends a bad message to the world and then stage three was the the attempt to close the borders and all that so people who are broadly empathetic of the government focus entirely entirely on the border closures and the dangers of the national capital which is fine because that's a reasonable perspective and the people who don't like justin

trudeau and are sympathetic to the stage one which is the uprising of people who are frustrated with government in general and covet in particular and justin Trudeau and brand, you know, they focus on that because there's some virtue and someone, some empathy with people who have that perspective. But if all you do is focus on stage one and have empathy for that, for that perspective, or if all you do is have empathy for people in downtown Ottawa who lost a month's worth of sleep and babies lost, you know, you know, their ability to sleep, which is their ability, all that stuff. If you only focus on your perspective and you have no empathy for the other, then all

we do is clash and all we do is yell at each other. And all we do is just double and triple down on our perspective and have no sense of respect for each other. And that's really dangerous. All right. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. Obviously, I think that like most protests, Peter, it was susceptible to being taken over by people who weren't necessarily in line with the original intentions of the first people who protested. And let's not forget, we talk about things that would have been at the

disposal of the government that the rest of us didn't see. This was in the run up to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, where you would have had access to, through the Five Eyes network intelligence, that would have made you a lot more certain about what was going on in Russia than your average Joe or Jane was on the street. So you also have to factor that into your considerations about what's transpiring in front of you because it wouldn't be the first time that uh foreign actors took advantage of a domestic situation to create chaos and discord okay we're gonna you've given us a good segue because that's the next story we're going to deal with is the ukraine story uh we spent a lot of time just now on the on the convoy and i'm glad we did, because it was insightful and exactly what we're looking for you two guys. But we're going to have to condense

things down for these other topics, so we'll never get them all in. But let's talk about the Ukraine situation in terms of Canada's role in supporting Ukraine, I mean, I think we saw numbers just this week that show that Canada was number four in the world in terms of giving support to Ukraine, well ahead of some of our normal partners like France and Germany and others, but just behind the U S U K. And I'm not sure who the third one was Poland, but nevertheless, I want to talk about this one too, because this has been a dominant story throughout the years started in February indications of it, as Jerry mentioned before that, but it really started in february it's still going on now what are you seeing in this story as it relates to canada um that we're not

seeing um james you start again here on the subsidy side i mean i mean look this is very very political i mean it's not as though the canadian subsidies and support of ukraine are going to tip the balance but the the solidarity that canada demonstrates with ukraine is absolute and it crosses all party lines and it's you know for the obvious demographic reasons of our align alignment with family our extended family for a large part of Canadians. So, you know, I don't think that's that big of a surprise. It's interesting to see, though, the caving of support for Ukraine with sort of the Russian-backed media interests in the United States and what that has done and whether or not that has a tail,

but it doesn't seem to have a tail because you see in the UK, I mean, they've had multiple leadership races and multiple candidates and opportunities for for disparate voices to emerge and sort of be a voice for for a different path and nobody has nobody has sort of flexed that muscle and it doesn't exist in canada as well so you know i think canada is is clearly aligned um with that and it speaks to i just think a sense of family solidarity as much as it is a geopolitical instinct. I don't think, you know, you look at, look at the consistency of speeches from Paul Martin to Harper to Justin Trudeau and all the opposition leaders, and nobody really talks about the importance of Europe or the importance of the region or the importance of,

of even, you know, feeding the world and agricultural exports, you know, we talk about on a very familial basis. And I, and I think, you know, that's, um, that's a bond that, that I don't think can ever be betrayed and expect to run for office again in this country. Sure. Yeah, I think that's right. It's, uh, um, I guess it's more commonly known now given the events of the last year, but Canada has the biggest Ukrainian diaspora of any country other than Russia on the planet. And of course, we have a lot fewer people overall. I think it's something like 1.5 million, and I'm proud to call myself part of that diaspora. So my grandmother was Ukrainian. I think the point that James is making, which is really interesting, and you're not seeing very many signs of it mercifully here in Canada,

is the extent to which it's become yet another issue that's fed into the American political polarization machine and how Fox News and the far-right commentators are jumping on this bandwagon. And it's a material risk to the war effort, how this plays out in the presidential election and in the primaries leading up to it for 2024, that if it becomes a political football and the ultimate winner of the Republican primary is a person who decides not to support the war effort,

then we're going to have a big problem on our hands because while we're number four, the United States is larger than every other country combined. Someone told me the other day in the U.S. administration that if it were a country, Microsoft might be number three on that list, by the way, given all that they've contributed to the cyber defense of Ukraine. So I worry about that. I'm very glad it has not become a polarized political issue here in Canada. And I think the concentration of Ukrainian Canadians in Western Canada, although

there's an enormous number on the East Coast and in Toronto, has played a role in that. There's just no political constituency for it but there certainly is in the united states and it's something we need to keep a close watch on all right let's move to uh story number three and that was pierre poliev winning the conservative party leadership um now the leader of his majesty's official opposition, and for obvious reasons. We'll start with Jerry on this one. What have you seen through this story? What have you seen that would surprise us that we're not seeing?

Well, this is part of the where is this story going that I talked about with the convoy, because the convoy came to Ottawa with the written express purpose to replace the prime minister and they ended up replacing the leader of the opposition and the premier of Alberta. So to me, I see that all of one piece. It's part of a larger story of radicalization of the official conservative movement in Canada. And I don't think it's a good thing. And I'm not expecting James to 100% agree with me given how many friends he still has in the camps there. But I think most Canadians want to see a more thoughtful, conservative movement than one that's playing footsie

with anti-vaxxers and the anti-vax movement and the people who believe that an economic conference in Switzerland is somehow nefariously running the world. I don't think that's been a good development. And I think Polyev has taken great pains not to be offside with that wing of the conservative movement on pretty much every issue. And that's going to be his biggest challenge. This is something that many people who write for a living on Canadian politics have commented on more eloquently than I can. But his ability to speak truth to power and power in the conservative movement is the far right right now

and bring them to the center so he can present himself as an electable alternative to the government is job number one. That's going to be, it's not going to be easy. And of course you're not being partisan in those comments. Well, I think I'm not saying anything that many, many writers, including some who you two have talked to weekly on your show, I've said, right. I'm not one of those people who thinks that Pierre Polyev can't be prime

minister of Canada. Let me put it that way. I think he is a very skilled politician. He's easily the most skilled politician that has led that party. No offense to Andrew Scheer or Erno Toole since Stephen Harper in the 2008 to 2011 period. So I'm definitely not one of those people who think he's too extreme to be elected. I think that their campaign strategy, which is a very simple one and therefore can be very effective, is to take the liberal vote, which was 7 million in 2015, 6 million in 2019, 5.5, 5.6 in 2021, and drive it down to 5 while they keep their vote somewhere between 5.6 and six.

That is not rocket science. And the playbook is out there for how to do it. And I think that's what they're trying to do. They could be successful. All right, James, your turn. I mean, I think one of the most interesting things about Pierre's rise to leadership, I think Pierre is, as Jerry said, you know, the most talented politician that has led the Conservatives since Stephen Harper. I think he's got energy for days. I think he is very, very smart. But he's very smart, but he understands that being very smart and communicating effectively are two different things. Governing effectively, understanding public policy, picking your spots, knowing the danger zones and all that, that's a very cerebral part of governing and part of politics.

But the public facing part of it and how you engage in what you say and how you say it is an entirely different muscle. And that one is also very healthy and strong with Pierre. And you see it time and again. The two most impressive things about his leadership, I think, are objectively, I think, can be said, are his capacity to mobilize and organize effectively to raise an army of over 300,000 Canadians to join the party, to put down their money and to join the party. It's not like, again, back in the day where you can do bulk signups. I mean,

the way in which these things are policed internally, like you have to actually, an individual has to actually buy their membership with their own money, with a credit card. Like there's no cash cash exchange you can't buy memberships in cash so so to actually raise that kind of a following and to mobilize it as effectively as he did that's genuinely very impressive and on the communication side as it's been you know largely talked about you know to win the leadership of a national political party to be at this point, you know, competitive to become the next prime minister of the country and to effectively do no media interviews at all and to not talk at all.

I mean, they take great pride within the poly of campaign of the fact that he became leader of the party without doing any media interviews at all, speaking directly to voters directly to their aspired constituency and to mobilize them without having to frankly put up with the Ottawa press gallery. That's a very new thing. You know, it has, it's dangerous, and to mobilize them without having to, frankly, put up with the Ottawa Press Gallery. That's a very new thing. You know, it has its dangers, of course, broadly with civics,

but it's also, it tells about the weakness of media and its importance to everyday Canadians, the way in which media has been fragmented, and the effectiveness that Pierre has used that in order to speak to his designed audience is something that's new in politics that no other party has yet figured out federally or provincially. Steve Schmidt in the US, he says he was McCain's campaign manager in 2008. One of his sayings about politics because of the way in which we now can analyze voters and run databases and target and micro target is he says it used to be in politics that voters choose their politicians, but now politicians, you get to choose your voters.

And so you can decide who you want to speak to, what channels are most effective for that audience, how to mobilize them, how to energize them, and then how to follow up and make sure that they vote. And this sort of fragmenting of the country into sort of silos of messages and regions and identities and brands, and to be able to focus your politics that way is is is being done very effectively by Pierre Polyev and we'll see if other parties learn that as well well maybe being done effectively it's debatable whether it's a good way to do politics

um and you know and we'll and we'll save that for a subject of another more butts conversation I I want to go to one more story before we go on to take a quick break and then come back with a, you know, a kind of quickie round. This one has fascinated me. I mean, obviously the China story is big on a lot of different levels, but this, this part has fascinated me. And I think you could both really help me try to understand it. Cause you've seen it close up or you've been a participant in it

we saw that you know a few seconds of the conversation between uh the chinese leader uh xi and uh prime minister trudeau um and it was all done through a translator and there was clearly a difference of opinion on on a few things during that conversation. But the addition of the translator and having to stand there waiting for things translated for the respective leaders, what is happening in those moments? And how difficult is it to analyze and assess what happened in those moments? Jerry, why don't you start this one again? Yeah, sure. It's very strange.

It affects the way you talk. It affects how many words you say in any given intervention in a conversation because you don't want to go on for three minutes and then have this poor translator have to translate it all while you're waiting for them to finish. So from a pure logistics point of view, it's a very strange way to communicate. And it's an art form that has to be learned and the best leaders figure it out. I think the thing to notice about that particular interaction was that it was clearly staged by the Chinese. They're not in the business of going around lobbies of hotel rooms. Well,

actually, let me put this a different way. They are in the business of going around the lobbies of hotels and filming things. They're just normally not in the business of making those films public. And in this case, it was pretty clear that this was a setup and they were trying to make their guy look big and tough and send a message to middle-sized and smaller democracies all around the world that the Chinese had very little respect for them. And if they chose to, they'd push them around. Even little subtle things like the way in which the camera was sort of pitched up. Xi Jinping is not short, but he's not tall. Justin Trudeau is 6'2". So even these little subtle things matter, right?

And to Jerry's point that, you know, in diplomacy, the images that come out speak more often than the words because the words are kind of, you know, what you'd expect, and it's very diplomatic, and it's sort of couched in sort of a nomenclature that's diplomatic and all that. But the body posture, how you carry yourself, those awkward moments, and how you stand, and your posture, the demeanor in your face, the look in your eyes, where you look, do you seem shifty and all that?

You know, it's, it's very different. It's, it's actually why, even though it seems by traditional, you know, diplomatic norms, you know, Donald Trump going to some of these events is kind of, you know, bouldering in and being the big guy in the room and taking up a lot of space and elbows out and doing up his jacket and slapping people in the back and the long handshake and the and the sawing back and forward of the arm and that whole thing you know it was it's an american bravado of strength and toughness that again doesn't speak to everybody but it speaks to his audience and all that so it's so it's done in different ways and xi jinping relative to his audience back home

i mean you saw how they treated hu jintao in a very public display of disregard and disrespect for a previous generation that was seen as soft to the West versus his sort of strength and leadership. You know, these things, the symbolism and the physical display of strength and posture relative to your adversary and what those images look like, like that will be in B roll forever. Communicators come and go and who cares and speeches come and go and who

cares, but the, but the physical manifestation and presence of your message that lasts forever. Well, the interesting, the interesting point about both those images that James mentioned, the kind of dismissal of who Gento and the confrontation of Justin Trudeau

have one thing in common, and that is that they were intended for a global audience. They didn't really exist in the domestic, they weren't broadcast to the domestic audience in China. So it wasn't as if Xi Jinping was trying to look tough for the home crowd. He was trying to send a message to everybody around the world of what kind of guy he was going to be now that he had complete control over the people's republic of china and canadians shouldn't necessarily take this too personally uh xi jinping was sending a message to a five eyes partner to a north american ally of the united states it wasn't canada it was a five eyes partner who was the biggest trading partner of the united states that's who their message was to canada's canada that's there but that's that wasn't the. So what do you tell your person, your leader?

What do you tell him or her about how to handle those kind of situations? What to expect in those kind of situations? You have to expect them at any moment. Recognize them as soon as you can and stand your ground. It sounds trite or gimmicky or whatever, but, but I think effective leaders sort of sit in quiet in a good, there's a reason why you have green rooms before television, all that. Yes. It's to sort of, you know,

consolidate your message in your head and how you're going to present yourself. But you should also actually do some visualization exercises. Like if this, then that, where the camera is going to be, how do I position myself? If I look like this, if, you know, you know, should I, you know, where should my hands be? How long the hand, like you just sort of think about like, if things go, and the thing is, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, Aaron O'Toole, Pierre Polyev, they're very well tested in school to this. I mean, they get it always right,

but you know, town hall meetings where somebody stands up and throws a shoe at you or a, or a, or a one-on-one, you know, rope line with a constituent. And all of a sudden, somebody starts yelling at you in front of a camera. All that stuff trains you and your muscle memory for the ability to sort of stay calm and cool, you know, reflect energy back in an effective way. Recognize that, you know, these moments pass, but how you stay cool and calm. The public wants to see their leaders at the best of times, the worst of times stay at a relatively calm and, and effective level of energy.

That is not rattled, not overly excited when things are good, not overly rattled when things are tough, but you keep an even keel, you stay calm and you don't buckle and you just, you recognize that demeanor and through years of exposure that, that, that gets developed.

Prime Minister. It's often said of politicians, Peter, that they have a keen sixth sense for danger and how to turn those dangers into opportunities. And that's absolutely the case in the top-notch politicians I've watched. You know, I was thinking, you both had me thinking back to the Harper-Putin moment at some conference. I can't remember where it was. It was one of those summits. G20 in Australia. Not that conservatives brag about that moment a lot, but we do.

I mean, Harper, you know, I'm assuming the one we're talking about, if the audience is unfamiliar, was Harper basically told Putin, get out of Ukraine. Yeah, and Prime Minister Harper has talked about it. I mean, I've talked to him a lot about that, actually, that event, as Putin has risen up to be the guy that he is now, that we now know he intends to be.

They're in the assembly room and all that, and everybody was sort of shaking hands and milling about, and Stephen, you know, and they were sort of prompted to take, and Stephen said, well, and this is exactly what he said, he said, well, I'll shake your hand, I guess, because I have to, and then he locked hands, and he is exactly what he said he said he said well i'll shake your hand i guess because i have to and then and then he locked hands and he looked him in the eye and

he said but you really need to get out of ukraine now what do you have thought that one through like i mean it was out of spur of the moment thing or do you think it was something that he woke up i know i know the prime minister harper he decided very early on when it was still the g8 and russia was at the table he decided very early on that vladimir putin was a bad actor with bad intentions not interested in the global good not interested in partnership and that and that he he was a danger to the world he decided that very early on and and this is not you know you building steven harper up after the, I remember him coming back from those conferences and frankly, reporting to us in cabinet and in conversations and just saying,

he is going to be a problem. He's going to be a problem for the longterm. This is when he was doing this switch with Medvedev back and forth on the leadership side. And he just said, this guy's a bad actor and a real problem and the world needs to wake up. And he was critical of Barack Obama and his softness and Hillary Clinton andinton in the reset and he he knew that that the america america and europe were mishandling the russian relationship and that was going to be a problem in the long term so what he you know it's a pretty straightforward thing to say and what else you're going to do because of what we just discussed about the ukrainian diaspora in canada and so it was you know it was easy it was kind of an easy line

for him to push but steven doesn't um you know, he wasn't going to miss that moment to sort of say very bluntly and clearly to Putin what he thought. Too bad he didn't have a microphone in there. We sort of got it in the briefing afterwards. All right, we're going to take a quick break, a quick one, and we'll be right back with some short snappers right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Moore-Butts conversation number five.

As we get ready to close out another year, James Moore is in Vancouver. Gerald Butts is in Ottawa. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Toronto on this day. All right. This is the lightning round. So it's like the old short snappers from Reach from the Top. Didn't you tell me, James, you were on Reach from the Top? Are you one of those Reach from the Top kids?

I don't think so. Well, you get a chance to beat one now so lightning round what was the political headline of this year that the media missed who's first you are oh political headline the end of cheap money i mean you know it's um you know we talk about is there a recession? What are interest rates doing? Which are headline conversations. But the downstream impact of the end of the cheap cost of borrowing, I think, is a tectonic shift, a generational shift in how people are planning to live their lives.

You have a lot of people in their 40s and 50s who are looking to their parents now and wondering, do we have to consolidate them back home? You have a younger generation of Canadians wondering if they're ever going to be able to buy a home. It used to be you wait until your mid-20s, then it was mid-30s, now it's mid-40s. And, you know, the social impact, the societal impact of the end of the cheap cost of borrowing money and all of its spillover effects has been grossly underanalyzed and underappreciated. Good one. Jerry? Climate change is still here and its effects are accelerating. And you think the media is not telling that story well enough? I think the media has got a very small pipe to shove a lot of things through right now. And inflation, Ukraine, Russia,

the ongoing political problems in the United States, all of those things probably drive more clicks. We're talking about the Canadian media in particular, are we? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Now, you both, even though you're from a distance now, you still watch what goes on in the House of Commons, you know, each week. The House of Commons, just like the NHL, has an MVP somewhere in that midst of 330-odd members of Parliament. Who was the Commons MVP this year and why?

Jerry, you start. You know, Peter, I have to confess, I don't really watch the House of Commons that closely, so I'm not sure. But if you're asking which Canadian politician is in a better position and the most positive position of 20 in december 2022 than they were in 2021 i think you've got to say pierre qualia i think that's probably probably the right answer i would give as well a a mention of um raquel danko who's a friend of mine from um kildona and saint paul winnipeg uh who's a rising star in the conservative movement i think she she has a very effective demeanor, you know, just the right level of outrage and substance

without being over the top and all that. But it is interesting to Jerry's point, though, that I remember when I was in federal politics, and I was there from 2000 to 2015, that federal parliament in question period and, you know, the CBC, the National, going to question period and what's in the news today and all that, that seems to be completely gone.

And COVID put a big dent in it because everybody was sort of remote and it doesn't make for good tv and all that but provincial legislatures you know question periods that long have long since passed being relevant and seems to be the federal parliament has long lost its luster in terms of being a real chamber of conflict and debate and it's only really super high level moments that punch through into earned media and it's um you know it's it's sort of just become another set for people to posture sort of like the u.s congress and i don't think that's an altogether healthy thing it may not necessarily be a bad thing because it could push the conversation beyond just that building but it's uh it's definitely a change that parliament and question period is not what it once was. That's for sure. I mean, when I started covering question period,

it was the mid-'70s before television, and everything changed with television. And it became that great kind of TV event. But that's long gone. But it's also the subject, perhaps, of another conversation in the new year because it's not like what happens in Ottawa isn't important. So how do you make it more interesting? How do you make it more interesting and more something enticing for Canadians

to either watch or listen to or read about? I can't wait to hear this, Peter, noting a bit of Cape Breton history here, that it was Alan McEachen, of course, who brought the TVs into the House of Commons when he was House Leader. And overnight, MPs' clothing changed. and of course we brought the tvs into the house of commons when he was house leader and overnight mp's clothing changed i can imagine i tell you we not to mention relative sobriety in some cases i'm sure that's true but those were the years of the plaid jackets and you know suits looked like they came off the uh back seat of a 55 Chevy or something, but they changed very quickly.

Oh, you may have answered this already. Which leader won the year? Is that too obvious? I think it's a toss up. I really do. I think one of the most remarkable things about the public opinion and environment in Canada is it is within a margin of error of where it was in the 2019 election, that not much has changed at all. We've had three years of the Conservative Party, we've had the ups and downs of the government, and they're still pretty much tied at 30,

depending on which poll you look at in the low 30s each. Yeah, I'll answer the question a little differently. I think federally, Pierre Pauly have won the year. Justin Trudeau came in with a ton of dangers. He survived. He's answer the question a little differently. I think federally, Pierre Polyev won the year. Justin Trudeau came in with a ton of dangers. He survived. He's at the end of the year. There's no threat to his leadership. He endures. So there's that rising negatives, lots of challenges on the horizon. But Pierre Polyev winning the leadership massively, overwhelmingly against a relatively crowded field of impressive people, and then consolidating the party after the fact and

continuing to move forward is impressive but about i would also um why that's one a one b would be john horgan um a good man in tough circumstance fighting cancer similar cancer to one that took his brother's life going through covid got into politics you know people were very in bc were very unsure of john horgan and who he was um you know it was said that he had a great bit of a temper and that might be his downfall. Turned out that to be the last thing that was of concern with John. He ended up having a very good relationship with Jason Kenney on a BC Alberta issues, good relationship with Justin Trudeau,

got through COVID in a very effective way of deference to authority, deference to medical science, putting Bonnie Henry and Adrian Dix out front, letting them be the spokespeople for government policy, not clamoring for the limelight and the praise of the good things of COVID and avoiding the dangers and just very effectively managing it. And then at the end of it, recognizing that it's time to go home, that he had done his part for the province as he sees it, and listening to his body, listening to his health, listening to his family,

and then moving on into the next chapter of his life. I think there are a lot of ways to do politics, no comment on ideology or substance. But John Horgan did it right. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I just want to say John Horgan, one of the most rock solid human beings I've met from any party in my time in politics. And I know James does too. I certainly wish him well and his family. Well, last question. When should we expect a federal election? And James,

you can go first. Probably not until the very end, which is, you know, to bring me in 2015, you know, spring 2015, I suppose. I think a lot,

frankly depends on whether or not Christia Freeland stays or goes. I think a lot depends on the nature of the recession. Should it come? How big? How deep? What the consequences of that will be on jobs? Should the NDP decide to break up the coalition and sort of lever that into, you know, the liberals aren't doing enough and we're the only people who can do the right thing? And the narratives that come out of that. So if Minister Freeland leaves and if the recession is bad uh what that means and you know the the the hangover effect of donald trump coming back

and whether or not that sort of infects the brand of conservatism i think those are the three biggest ingredients that would have an impact on that but my best guess is guess is probably not until spring of 25 um and uh and and i think the odds are even whether or not Prime Minister Trudeau will be around to contest it. 2025, says James. What do you say, Jerry? Yeah, I think that's got to be your base case. Whether it's 2025, all of the dynamics that James described,

I agree with. I think the NDP doesn't want an election and if the NDP doesn't want an election, then there's probably not going to be one. All right, we're going to leave it at that. Wish you both the best for the holiday season and the best, obviously, going into the new year and look forward to our next conversation. James of Vancouver and Jerry in Ottawa.

Thanks again, both of you. You're most welcome. James Moore, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister under Stephen Harper and Gerald Butts, the former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I could listen to those two guys for hours talking about some of these issues. I think it's informative for us. hear two people from opposing sides of the political spectrum be able to talk informatively and in a fashion that doesn't bring out the brickbats. They're basically talking about our system, how it works, and some of the things that they were able to see from their vantage point

that perhaps we haven't been able to see. So great to have them with us. As I said, love listening to them. And you know what? Get to listen to them again over the next couple of weeks because the two weeks that follow this one, we're going to be in the mode of repeating some of the best shows of the past year, and I'm sure that's going to be one of them.

Friday, our classic year-ender with Chantelle Ibera and Bruce Anderson on Good Talk. So that's it for this day, the launch of the final week before the holiday break. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Talk to you again in 24 hours.