The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "the bridge" - Wagging The Dog? .... And, Remembering Taliban Jack.

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

Something for everyone here, from Trump, to Iraq, to Iran, to why Canadian political parties keep being forecast to die, but don't. And then how, one issue at least, Jack Layton was so right and so many others were so wrong. Enjoy.

and hello there's peter mansbridge with the first edition of the bridge for 2020 for 2020 for 2020 call for 2020, for 2020. Call it whatever you want. We're into it now. A new decade, the 2020s. A hundred years ago, they called them the Roaring 20s. Who knows what they're going to call these ones. Now, you might have noticed a little bit of a different top of the episode,

Music Bridge, but you probably are reminded of that one Now, you might have noticed a little bit of a different top of the episode music bridge, but you probably are reminded of that one because he used to use it in the middle of the bridge before. Moving it to the top. I kind of like it. Move the other one down for the time being anyway. So in Stratford, doing the bridge tonight for the first edition of the new decade. Lots going on, and I assume the thing that's top of mind if you listen to this podcast within the first few hours after its release is the situation regarding Iran as a result of the takeout in Baghdad in Iraq of a top Iranian leader by the Americans.

And a lot of people trying to figure out, okay, what does this really mean? How bad could it get? Well, it could get bad. You've heard all the different analysts talk on this about what it could mean and how it further affects the situation in the United States and on Capitol Hill there's a lot going on and I'm not going to

weigh in on any significant factor here but I am going to remind you of a couple of things you know when you hear factor here is, but I am going to remind you of a couple things. You know, when you hear Donald Trump now talking tough on Iran at the same time that he's in trouble at home with the impeachment hearings, when his former National Security Advisor could take Trump down in a second if he said what most people believe is to be true about the Ukraine situation,

but he won't testify and he won't talk. But if there's one thing John Bolton has always wanted, it's to be aggressive, really aggressive on Iran. Trump has always said, I'm going to be tough on Iran, but we're not going to go to war with Iran. That'll never happen under my watch. Some people think they're on the verge of war, if not at war, with Iran as a result of what's happened in the last couple of days.

Anyway, I want to remind you of something from just a couple years ago. You hear Trump in the background there? Listen to this. Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected, and as sure as you're sitting there, is to start a war with Iran. Now, I'm more militant and more militaristic than the president. I believe in strength.

But to start a war in order to get elected, and I believe that's going to happen, would be an outrage. Our president... Okay, so there you have it. That's Donald Trump from this week. No. Of course not. It's from 2011. Who was he talking about?

He was talking about that guy who seems to be in his head all the time, the former president, Barack Obama. So there in 2011, he was saying about Obama what some people are saying about him right now. Anyway, this is a fascinating story, and there's lots of reason for all of us to be digging into it on a level which brings us kind of up to speed on foreign policy issues and the state of Iran and the state of U.S.-Iranian relations and where all the other countries are on this,

whether it's Iraq or whether it's France or Britain or Canada. Where are people on this story? And if you're cynical about why this is happening right now, may I suggest a movie for your holiday weekend viewing pleasure, Wag the Dog. Now that movie came out not during Trump's presidency, not during Obama's presidency, not during Bush's presidency, not during Obama's presidency, not during Bush's presidency.

It came out as a result of the Clinton presidency. Now, the movie was fiction, but it came out shortly after what happened. Here's what happened. President Clinton was impeached. And while the impeachment process was going on, to put a shiny object into the picture but off to the side to take your glance away, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on, you guessed it, Iraq. Baghdad. Because of an imminent threat. Here we have a different one.

Iran. Anyway, that would be only if you were cynical. Would you want to think that way? We don't want to go there. Here's where we do want to think that way? We don't want to go there. Here's where we do want to go, by the main thrust of the bridge this week. It's got nothing to do with Trump. It's got nothing to do with Iran, nothing to do with Iraq.

It's a Canadian story. I mean, politics in this country is at times as polarized as we witness it south of the border and it certainly was this past year in 2019 during the election and it's most likely to be continuing through now as we have

a minority government with a lot of different issues at play and one of those issues is the state of the Conservative Party of Canada after Andrew Scheer announced he would be stepping down. Now, you know, I was flipping through Twitter the other day. I try to only follow kind of reasonable people who post on Twitter and try to keep the other stuff out of there. But there are reasonable people making interesting comments all the time,

and sometimes they're quite provocative. And there was one the other day that talked about the state of the Conservative Party that perked my interest because I see this happen every once in a while. And it's good to keep things in context. The point being made by this particular tweet was that the Conservatives are so screwed up, they're never going to recover from what they've been through in the last couple of months. Now, I don't believe that. I don't believe it at all. The Conservatives,

quite frankly, didn't do that badly in the election. Their vote total went up and their seat total went up. They're sitting in there around 120 or whatever. In terms of seats, they're not going to disappear overnight. Should they have won the election? Many conservatives think they should have. But their leader held them back. And that's fine.

They'll have that debate. But this issue about the party is on the verge of disappearing is ridiculous. I know we live at a time when lots of things are changing in our world. Lots. Not just in politics, but you name it. Right through up to and including the broadcast landscape and the journalistic landscape. Things are changing. But in politics in this country, certain things are relatively stable

and have lasted through crises after crises, through decade after decade. Let me remind you of a couple of things where in past times, people including Peter Mansbridge have said, oh, these guys are done like dinner. They can never recover from this. I remember in 1979 when the Conservatives won after a long period of liberal rule, so much so over the century before that election,

the liberals became known as the natural governing party because they were almost always in power. Anyway, in 79, Pierre Trudeau lost to Joe Clark, starting off a conservative government. And there were those who said, this is it, this is a momentous period in Canadian politics, and it could mean the end, eventually, of the Liberal Party. Liberals still had about 100 seats at that time.

They weren't going anywhere right away. But it was not sort of off the top of somebody's head. It was one of our leading journalists at the time in Ottawa who suggested that, wrote a cover story for one of the weekend magazines suggesting that. Well, we all know what happened. Within months, the conservative government fell, the liberals were suddenly back in power, and nobody talked that way anymore.

Until four years later, when the liberals got hammered in the election by Brian Mulroney in 1984. And then suddenly, with the liberals sitting at, I think, they were around 40 seats with John Turner, people said, see, this is what I meant. When I said the Liberals were done, they're done. They're not going to recover. 40 seats was unheard of for the Liberals.

But what happened? Well, in 88, the Liberals doubled their seats, and in 93, they came roaring back with a majority government. So they're kind of out of power for less than 10 years. The Conservatives, after Clark blew it in 79 and 80, some felt the Conservatives could be in serious long-term trouble. They weren't. Four years later, Brian Mulroney wins the biggest majority

in the country's history. 93, when Jean Chrétien wins, the Conservatives had not 40. They would have loved 40 seats, which was seen as kind of the bottom line for a major party, the two major parties. They didn't have 40. They didn't have 30. They didn't have 20. They didn't have 10.

They had two, two seats. How can you ever come back from that? I remember that night. I remember sitting in the studio, standing, walking around in the studio. We did one of those walking shows. And driving that point home, they're dead. They're done. Two seats.

But we ever hear from them again. The reform, the block, the NDP all had more seats than the Conservatives. And Hugh Siegel, former Principal Secretary for Brian Mulroney, for Bill Davis in the Ontario government. Very well respected, very well liked, smart guy. Very smart guy politically.

He was in the studio that night, and he was yelling at me from the other side of the floor. Look at those numbers. It's not the end of the world. It's a terrible night for the Conservative Party, but for those who are in that kind of conservative fold, whether they're PCs, which was the Conservative Party at the time, or the Reform Party, they're kind of cut of the same cloth.

That percentage is still up there, and it was together. They were somewhere around 30%, 32% of the vote. It didn't seem to make much sense then, but it did 10 years later, didn't it? Because after those two sides of the kind of right-of-center parties got together, they were back in the game. And in 2004, they came back as the official opposition,

and in 2006, under Stephen Harper, they were the government. Now, this up-and-down stuff is not immune to the conservatives or the liberals. It was also for the NDP. Formed in 1961, you know, it was kind of an up-and-down history for the NDP. You know, they'd have 30 seats one year, 9, 13, 21, 43. That was the high point in 88, high point at the time. And they bounced around.

They lost official party status a couple of times. And all these times people would say, they're done. They're never coming back. It could be the end of the NDP as we know it. They could end up just kind of folding into the Liberal Party. And then what happened? Along came Jack Layton. A couple of elections, increasing numbers until suddenly 2011.

Huge election for Jack Layton. 103 seats. Official opposition. Now we all know what happened. We lost Jack Layton. Died of cancer. During that term. And in 2015,

the party dropped back down. 103 to 44, to this year, 24. So what's the common thread in all these big bounce-backs? Is it suddenly a shift in ideology of Canadians, political ideology? They suddenly, you know, I actually, you know, I really am a conservative, or actually I really am a liberal. I really am an NDPer.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's got something to do with it. But quite frankly, I think it's all about the kind of leader-centric nature of Canadian politics. There's the Stratford clock. Belling the toll. Tolling the bell, whatever the phrase is.

Anyway, leader-centric politics is what happens, as far as I'm concerned. In 84, it was Mulroney who captured the sort of excitement of Canadians for a change in government. The old Trudeau and Turner ways was replaced by Brian Mulroney. Then 10 years later, roughly 10 years later, same kind of thing, they went to Cray-Chan

because they were tired of Mulroney. Even though Mulroney was gone and Kim Campbell was there, it wasn't what they wanted. They wanted something that they were comfortable with. And Jean Chrétien was something and someone who they were comfortable with. And in 2015, it's quite remarkable, really, when you look at it. In 2015, the Liberals, before the election, had 36 seats, and they were in third place. They went from 36 to 184 in the space of an election campaign.

They went from third place, where they were in the polling data when that campaign started, they went from third place to first place. Why? Sudden belief that, oh my God, you know, really, I'm a liberal. Or was it Justin Trudeau? I don't know, you tell me. I think there is a thread through all these bounce-backs, and the thread is the leader, and that's why this is such a big day,

a big year, a big next few months for the Conservative Party. What are they going to do? Who are they going to pick? Why are they going to pick them? And what impact will it have on the whole picture? Because I don't think anything's clear yet. I don't think anything is clear on the leadership front, no matter the party.

I think everything is open to, you know, some guessing for the next couple of years or however long it may be before the next election happens. A lot will be decided by the Conservatives. Who do they pick? How are other parties going to react to that pick? How comfortable are the other parties with their leader right now, no matter what they're saying?

And the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, lost roughly half his seats. They're a long way from where Jack Layton had taken them less than a decade ago. A long way. And you see what Justin Trudeau's doing. He's trying to take the shine off himself and place it amongst others within his cabinet so it's not all about Justin Trudeau's doing, he's trying to take the shine off himself and place it amongst others within his cabinet, so it's not all about Justin Trudeau.

How long will that last? How necessary is that? What could happen as a result of it? So, a few things to think about there. And some excitement for what could happen in the days, months, and possibly years ahead. All right? So, it's 2020. 2020. It's time for our first dip into the old opening music.

Now the bridge music into the mailbag. Before we get to the mailbag, there was something else that I wanted to say about Jack Light. You know, I've been thinking about it a lot lately. But remember in 2006, when the Canadians moved, their Canadian forces in Afghanistan moved from Kabul to Kandahar

and really started to seriously get into the action and as a result get into action that cost lives. And the majority of the 159 lives that we lost in Afghanistan were centered around Kandahar. So we made that move, first under Prime Minister Martin, a couple months later it was Prime Minister Harper. I went over, we did the National from Kandahar for a week or so. Shortly after Martin had lost the election and shortly before Harper decided he would go as well. Anyway, we did a lot of reporting on what the situation was there and how unstable the situation was around Kandahar.

But Harper came and did the famous we won't cut and run on you speech. Of course, within a couple of years, they'd cut and run from combat. We're still in Afghanistan, technically, and we're still those, I mean, it's more than technically, those Canadians who are in Kabul, based in Kabul, are under some constant threat, but they're not in a combat role. But my point was going to be about Jack Layton, and it's this.

Within literally weeks, if not months, of those opening challenges in the Kandahar area, Jack Layton stood up in the House of Commons and talked about the, that wasn't it time that there was some kind of discussions with the Taliban, those who we were fighting, to see whether there was any common ground, whether there could be some kind of negotiation.

Well, hello, this was not what a lot of people wanted to hear, and suddenly Jack Layton was Taliban Jack. Conservatives made mincemeat of him in question period on the Taliban Jack stuff. So did a good chunk of certain elements of the media. But within a year, we find out now, within a year, there was, there were discussions going on with the Taliban. Trouble with the Taliban, it's not kind of like one thing, one place, one group. It's a bunch of different groups. And some speak in different

words than others. And some who might have been willing to get into negotiations were not friendly with those other sides of the Taliban equation which were not interested in negotiations. Well, what's happening now? We're in that same, you know, it's been going on. These negotiations have been going on for years. They're supposedly near some end. Although I've always,

ever since I'd been there and listened to people who were on the ground there, I've always been hesitant about buying into this because the different factions exist within the Taliban. Nevertheless,

we're to the point now where Donald Trump, Donald Trump, who we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, Donald Trump actually invited the Taliban to come to Camp David a couple of months ago to finalize negotiations surrounding a truce. It fell apart at the last minute because, surprise, surprise, another element of the Taliban conducted a bombing which killed a lot of people in Kabul. So he cancelled at the last minute, on the weekend,

before this was supposed to start, he cancelled the talks. So I'm not sure where we are right now, but you still hear talks about talks with the talks. So I'm not sure where we are right now, but you still hear talks about talks about talks with the Taliban. And whenever I hear them, I think of all the crap that Jack Layton took, Taliban Jack, for even mentioning the possibility of some kind of discussions. Anyway, there we go. Letter of the Week. Remember, that's what we do now, a Letter of the Week.

I'll try and go through this one quickly because I kind of rambled on a bit much. Wayne Kruski from Roslyn, B.C. He wrote a great long letter. I'm only going to read a paragraph from it but it was as a result of listening to the bridge last week when I was talking about Justin Bieber

I won't go through all that again but it was about hockey and it was about Bieber playing with some Leafs here in Stratford so here's what he says one of the things that grabbed me was an interesting rabbit hole So here's what he says. One of the things that grabbed me was an interesting rabbit hole that presented itself during your podcast, and I love a good rabbit hole.

You mentioned Justin wanting to play some shinny. I imagine that would be familiar to most Canadians, but I'm not sure. In any case, we used it growing up to refer to road hockey, a popular pastime in the off-season. I have a book called The Ghost Dance by James Mooney. In 1890, James was sent by the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology to document Indigenous culture. He spent two years and covered 32,000 miles,

and his report was originally published in the mid-1890s. He describes an Arapaho song used in the ghost dance and gives lyric in both Arapaho and English and musical notation for the melody. The song is about a woman's game called Shinny, played with a curved stick and a ball made of buffalo hair covered with buckskin. He describes the game. Two stakes are set up as goals at either end of the ground, and the object is to drive the ball through the goals of the other. Each inning is a game. He includes a picture of the stick and ball.

The stick looks pretty much like a grass hockey stick the girls used when I was growing up. Origins of things is a fascinating topic. Sure is. And here's his last point. Stretch this. You'll like this. So I'll leave you with something hockey related.

When a small town hockey team, the Trail Smoke Eaters, won the World Cup in 1961, they became famous overnight. But this story is really about how one often finds that someone who is accomplished and recognized for something may have other talents as well. I'm always interested in the person behind the legend. My musical partner for a number of years was legendary goaltender Seth Martin. His accomplishments on the ice are a matter of record, and he still often got fan mail from all over the world. But he was also a great singer,

and music was always part of the trail smoke-eater's routine. After games, they usually had jam sessions. In 2006, Seth got some of the 1961 team out, and we did a moment. We did a concert. If you're so inclined, you can go to my website, find the album Old Smoky Sweater and listen to some, if not all, of the concert. As well as some good tunes, there's some great hockey stories about the 61 tournament. Planes catching on fire

over the Rockies. Got to listen to that and many more. Take care, and I'm looking forward to your next podcast. Well, Wayne, thanks very much. Loved your letter, and as I said, there's a lot more to it. But those are the highlights. And for those of you who want to check out Wayne's website, RidgeRecords.net. Ridge, like Vimy Ridge. RidgeRecords.net And you can listen to the songs

at RidgeRecords.net slash albums. So there you go. Something to listen to this weekend. With some great Canadian content, great Canadian hockey history. The Trail Smoke Eaters.

You know, I was 13 when they won that, and I remember that name. I remember the excitement around their win. In some ways, like it was yesterday. Anyway, that's it for Episode 1 of 2020 of The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge, and hey, thanks so much for listening. Thank you.