The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - THE FINAL GOODBYE

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

The long goodbye for Queen Elizabeth is over with her body now on its way to its final resting place at Windsor Castle.  The end of an historic ten-day period since her passing.  Today the Bridge deals with that with Andrew MacDougall joining us from London.  But today's program also deals with issues surrounding journalism and its coverage of politicians. Andrew, a former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper helps us on that too.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The long goodbye is over. Well, I don't think it's the first time I've said it, and I'm sure it won't be the last time I've said it, but nobody, nobody does special events like the British. Now, I know they have gone over the details of what would happen during these eight or ten days for years now, decades in fact. But nevertheless, when it happened, when the Queen passed 10 days ago, they had to institute the plan.

And everybody had to be ready. And my gosh, they were ready. This seems to have gone off. I mean, I imagine in the days ahead, we'll hear various things from the background of this story, but it seems to have gone off without a hitch. Amazing moments that we've witnessed together, that the world has witnessed together. And again today, in the funeral procession through London, the service of Westminster Abbey, it was all quite remarkable. For a remarkable

person, let's face it. The final goodbye of a long goodbye. With precision. With emotion. With class. And now we look forward to. What's going to happen. In the future.

Nobody knows for sure of course. We'll all look. forward to seeing that. Now, if you watch any or all of the services today, you saw that there were an awful lot of people there. And I don't just mean the ordinary people. There were an awful lot of dignitaries from around the world. Once again, underlining the fact that this so as queen of the world but there is of all the pictures that were taken the Canadian picture that I found the most interesting I'm sure there'll be lots of lots

of pictures of the Mounties that were kind of leading the procession away from Westminster Abbey. But there was a picture that came out last night that was taken of the five prime ministers of Canada who were in attendance for the funeral procession. Two were missing, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney. They were both at the Ottawa service on this day. But the five others, including the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Jean Chrétien,

Paul Martin, Kim Campbell, Stephen Harper. They had a picture of the five of them taken together. And I always get a kick out of these kind of pictures because, you know, maybe it's just the moment. Maybe it's just the photographer saying, smile. But they're all smiling. They all look like members of a club. They all look like they're pals. We know they're not.

The two extremes in the picture, the two, one of the extreme left, one of the extreme right, are Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. That was not a great relationship, especially near the end of the Chrétien years. Kim Campbell always seems

to be happy, in spite of the fact she took her party to the worst

defeat in parliamentary history. They went from a majority to just two seats.

And then there is Justin Trudeau standing next to Stephen Harper.

This was not a great relationship when it was in Parliament, when Harper was Prime Minister, and in the early days of the Trudeau Prime Ministership. Not a great relationship. But that's not what it looks like here. And special moments create their own special moments, and that picture is one of them. And it's worth looking at.

It is, as our friend Jerry Butts said in a tweet when he tweeted the picture, it's an awesome photo. And it is. We don't see enough of moments like that. Now, the Prime Minister made news, Justin Trudeau made news last night, because he kind of answered the question about whether or not

there is going to be a debate surrounding the end of the monarchy in Canada. Now, it's already come up a number of times, not surprisingly. But he gave an interview yesterday to Global News. And on Global News, he made it clear he doesn't think that discussion is going anywhere.

I'll just read you a little bit from the story. Prime Minister Trudeau says the complicated process that would come with any attempts to abolish the monarchy are likely a non-starter for Canadians amid pressing national problems like inflation, climate change, and the need for continued work on reconciliation. Trudeau reflected on what the Queen's death means for this country and why he thinks Canadians have bigger things on their minds than abolishing the monarchy. This is the quote, We're able to have all the strength of debates that we need to have in Canada about worrying about the overarching stability of institutions

because they are embodied by structures that have been in place for hundreds of years. Canadians have been through a lot of constitutional wrangling over the past decades. I think the appetite for what it would take when there are so many big things to focus on is simply a non-starter. So there you go.

It's not going to be Prime Minister Trudeau who introduces any discussion on the end of the monarchy in Canada. And something tells me it's unlikely to be any of the other parties in Parliament at this time. Anyway, if that discussion is going to happen, it's not in the short term. Last point on the services that we've witnessed, services and moments that we've witnessed over these last few days, that I would say, I mean, you, if you haven't been

there, you've watched them on television. And it's moments like this where television can really shine because the power of television is the image, right? It's not necessarily the commentary. And on days like today, that shone through. The broadcasters that did the best job today, in my humble opinion, are the broadcasters who limited the commentary and allowed the pictures and the sound to carry the day and carry the day they did.

So congratulations to those that kind of went with that idea in their coverage. And perhaps those who didn't might want to take a hard look at what they did and why they did it. All right. Let's figure out what we're going to talk about today. Because I think there are two topics. They're very different. Very different.

One is, what did this last 10 days tell us? Especially when we're looking at Britain, a country that's got all kinds of problems right now, but was so united in their grief. So that's one story. I want to try and understand that, what it meant, and was it just a short-term thing or does it actually mean something for the future? And the second story, totally different, is a Canadian story. And that's this

discussion we had a couple times last week, but I don't think we finished it. And that is the idea of a politician running against the media. How successful can you be in doing that? So I look at these two things. I wanted to do them both today. And I thought, who am I going to get? Who am I going to talk to for this?

And I thought, well, there's one person who can deal with both these issues and deal with them really well. His name's Andrew McDougall. He's been on this program before. He's a friend of the bridge. He's the former director of communications for Prime Minister Harper. That's where I first got to know him

in dealing with that office and trying to get interviews and what have you. But for the past few years, Andrew's been living in London, where he's the director of a strategic analysis group in London. Trafalgar Strategy is the name of it. And so he looks at all kinds of things, including the monarchy. And he's a keen observer of things that have been happening in Britain and the UK. But he stays very much in touch with his old kind of area of expertise, which is Canadian politics. So, who better to talk to than Andrew McDougall?

So let's have at it. Here's the discussion Irew den um over the weekend and we had this discussion so enjoy so andrew let's let's start with a a sense of what's been happening uh in that country over the last what eight or ten. It has been remarkable to watch when I watch, and I don't watch all the time, but I watch every once in a while. And just the size of the crowds and the emotion that you witness in every picture you see. What is it telling you?

Is it something about the country and its relationship to the monarch and the monarchy, or is it something about the country and its relationship to the monarch and the monarchy or is it all about her is it all about queen elizabeth i think it's maybe even something more than that peter i think it's about it's about that sense that there are very few things in our lives particularly our adult lives that we can recall being there the whole time and and her majesty queen eliz Queen Elizabeth II was certainly that. And I think that constancy, that idea, you know, you can't mark a change unless there's something that's been the same the whole way through. And if you think about the span of her life,

you know, you have the rise and the end of the Cold War. You have a dozen Canadian prime ministers or so, 15 British prime ministers. You know, there are very few people that have been through those events, met those leaders. And so when they depart this, this earth, uh, it's a tremor, you know, and I think that's what we're feeling. And it's a very weird sense being here in that, you know, I think we're used to being part of history in our lives in small ways, you know, there's a Canadian election. Okay. The world will note that, but it won't stay with people um the death of the monarch uh you know former empire country uh so there's a there's natural tentacles that shoot out into the world uh and then there's all the people that will have met her over those years that will have

their remembrances and then there is that that sense of you know a loss of a family figure and i think that's what she was in a strange way to a lot of people even they only listen to her on christmas or or you know if they saw her do her funny bit with paddington bear at the jubilee celebrations it was somebody that looked like their grandmother that was there to reassure the country like a grandparent or parent would and i think it's all of that put together that's produced this very real kind of sobering and somber effect, but an appreciation for the institution of the monarchy. And I think to answer your question, I think it's equal parts her as a person and the span of her life and the way she conducted it and her steadfastness and her sense of duty,

and also the fact that these institutions do matter because the immediate installation of of um king charles iii has given that sense of continuity um sorry i don't know if you can hear my child snoring there on the monitor if you need to but i think just to put it is that sense that that um that something big has happened and a figure that we're familiar with in our lives is gone. And that means change. But the institution of the monarchy has snapped back into form and shape. And King Charles has had a pretty steady start. Is the country any different than it was eight or ten days ago?

Will it just return to where it was when this is all over? Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see in a sense but my sense is yes i'm a lot more confident saying that it will than i was in theory thinking about the death of queen elizabeth the second because in my mind you know i'm not staunch monarchist peter i'm not i'm not a republican either but but i thought a lot of it was tied up in her and her unique kind of skill set and and and her way of doing things and her familiarity and i think having been through this now i'm more minded that it's more the institution and and a we're starving for institutions that work uh you know politics these days is so much about institutions that don't work and i think you know the trick of monarchy of course it doesn't do

much work um but but its symbol at the top of the constitutional order does matter. And that kind of constancy that I was just mentioning, I think that kind of stuff does matter. And so I think, you know, I think that's, we'll get this country back to where it has to be. And look, you know, come the end of the funeral service and the kind of period of mourning, the country does have very real problems.

And it's almost easy to forget now a very new prime minister that had just met her majesty that you know the day before uh she left this earth to do the transition from boris johnson to liz trust and and you know the fact that inflation is still in double digits and climbing and and the fact that trade volumes aren't recovering from brexit and and gas supplies, you know, consumer energy prices were set to go up 80% here in the UK in October. And the government's now come in with 150 billion pound package to try to cap that. So these are very real issues that have just been wiped off the map by this new supernova. So I think it's good that the monarchy's done its bit now it's time for the governing institutions of this country who have been kind of quite frankly poor uh for six seven

years if not longer to kind of take up the mantle of service and and get a result for their people does this make the job such as it is uh harder or easier for King Charles? Yeah, I think, I think it makes it, I think it makes it easier in that they are now the de facto part that works and they're not expected to metal. And, and hopefully, you know, the transition and how seamlessly and kind of flawlessly it's been run will maybe give a bit of inspiration to the, to the kind of mere mortals that occupy Whitehall that have to crack on with fixing some pretty tough problems. And, you know, King Charles III

has said all the right things about limiting his interventions, recognizing the role of the sovereign now is not to opine, as he has done for most of his life on issues, but rather to provide that constancy, to really provide that certainty in the constitutional hierarchy of the united kingdom that that sovereign is there her majesty's or his majesty's government i have to catch myself now you know one of those many things you know it's the it's the king's council not the queen's council and etc etc um yeah so i think uh you know hopefully they'll pick up the baton and the governing elite and do their bit. It'll be interesting to see whether he really can resist from opining

on things that he has in the past, especially on things like the environment. I understand, as you suggested, that he has said he won't, but it's going to be hard for him not to. I mean, it's like one of the number one issues in the world, and he's been a part of it. Yeah, and, you know, I think history will treat him quite kindly in terms of when he looked back at when he was worried about things, you know, leave aside the interventions he wants.

It has clearly been something that's been on his mind. And I think one thing or two things, Peter, that help is that the kind of classic small C conservative view of environmentalism is kind of in that custodians of the land and good stewards of the land and, and, you know, not taking more than you can get from the land and, you know, Liz trust for all her kind of out there ideas is still committed to Boris Johnson's net zero agenda for 2050 so there shouldn't be huge ructions uh from the off but as we all know the devil's in the detail

and how are you going to do what in what order to get to that result is going to be that is going to be the trick and we've already had you know wobbles about nuclear investment you know we had the ongoing issues with the spot market for natural gas and what that's going to cause. And so, you know, one of the first actions the government made was, the trust government made, was to kind of, quote unquote, lift the ban on fracking, which really wasn't a ban, which nobody can really lift because the communities have to give their consent and then North Sea oil, making sure you can kind of go back out there and get every last drop, you know, which, which on its face seems incongruent with, with being an environmentalist, but look, you know, we're in the frying pan right now. And, and we either take the emissions from Vladimir Putin,

or we take them from ourselves. And I know which side of that equation I'd rather be on. So, hey, ho, let's go. All right. Well, speaking of let's go, let's go all right well speaking of let's go let's go to a different topic uh one that you are equally familiar with if not more um and that is the situation that we've witnessed over the last week and in fact we've witnessed for some time now uh and that is the relationship between um the politicians and the media.

And specifically in this past week, Pierre Palliev in his first week on the job as leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition had a real back and forth with the journalists and it got out of hand on both ends of it all. But it does raise the question, and I'm really interested in, obviously, your take on this, because you know both these situations well, having given your past job in Ottawa,

you know Polyev because he was in Prime Minister Harper's cabinet, you know David Aitken because he was David Aitken when you were here as well. But what I kind of want to get at is, can you successfully run for office by attacking the media? Because there's no question there's an attack on the media going on here on the part of the Conservative Party. They're not the first to do this. Other parties have done it at different times, but they're really doing it right now.

Yeah, look, great, great topic that we can spend all night talking about. And I think, in short, you know, what's the expression? You never put the fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrel. That was the media in the post-war era. They dominated. They were the colossus. If you wanted to say something, you had to say it through

them. That was just a fact. There weren't very many national broadcast networks. There still aren't. There weren't that many national syndicated radio spots. And the papers loomed over every metropolis, two or three. And if you didn't get in there, chances are the average citizen wouldn't hear you. That has changed 100%. Now, anybody, including a political party, can be a credible media platform. They have the same access to the technology you need to get as far as you need to get to. They can target audience. They can raise money through advertising. They know how to manipulate all that machinery. It's not just the preserve of people trained as journalists or people who invested. Think of the difference in spending to get the CDC, to get all the nuts and bolts and broadcast technology, high definition cameras, satellites, the cost, that is huge.

Now, it's the webcam on your average cheap laptop and a decent microphone. And you can produce content that is as professional looking as that. And that's just changed the game and and then you have the decline of the media you know the rise of the internet and just kind of taking the bottom out of the business of news and taking all the advertising money that used to go to those dominant players not because people truly cared about the news although most did or some did at least but because advertisers knew that that's how they had to get um you know their their their product message across was was that and and they it was only the news business that

could aggregate those eyeballs now it's a facebook google tiktok uh you know even like gaming platforms now will give you a bigger audience than a nightly news broadcast. And so politicians would be dumb, Peter, to not try to find ways to go, you know, why dilute your message through an imperfect medium, meaning one that challenges the kind of bull spit you might be talking when you open your mouth. You'd be dumb not to try to go around the media.

Whether that's a good thing or not, a whole separate question. And, you know, as much as conservatives like to rage against the media, I bet you they would not for one second want to live in a world that didn't have the challenge function of the fourth estate out there holding people to account. And they love it when the media does it to their opponents. They hate it when it gets done to them. That's politics that will never change. But, you know getting to david aiken like i know david david was at my backside every day i was in that office

because he's a good journalist he finds stuff out he wants to find out what you have to say about it he's always fair about it always gives you a chance to get in the story and if conservatives you know want to look back through david's journalism you could find, you know, the Aga Khan story comes to mind. And that was David's exclusives, like Justin Trudeau jetting off to the Aga Khans. That was the first big ethics kerfuffle that Trudeau had. It got him wrapped on the knuckles by the ethics commissioner for the first time. That doesn't distinguish David because there's been several other ethics investigations of Trudeau after that, but he was the first. And you won't find a straighter person to deal with than David Akin.

You know, he'll go after anyone all the time. And, you know, it takes a bit of maturity to realize that. But that's not the point here. That's not the game. The game is to create that fight, to make the media a partisan player in a partisan game. And when journalists as good as David let the mask slip through frustration, I expect, you know, they've been shut out virtually through the entire leadership contest.

Let's not forget it was seven or eight months. And this is his first appearance as leader. And he's basically said, you're going to come be stenographers and listen to me say things and you tell the people what I say. And there isn't one journalist I've ever met in my life that would like the descriptor stenographer. You know, that's not why you're in the game. You're in the game, yes, to listen to what these politicians have to say, but then to challenge and ask them about it. And if you don't get that opportunity, you're basically a eunuch and a journalist doesn't want to be that uh so david went alpha and and started talking over him before

he did and that just you know right into the trap and the next day pierre polyev's team puts out an email look at what i'm up against people right you know, liberal hacks, you know, liberal hecklers. And it wasn't even the next day. It was, it was that night. And he puts out that line and he raises money on it. And I guess that's the issue because not the money angle, but the fact that he made the decision to do what he did. I mean, when he went to the microphone that day, there were going to be no questions.

He just wanted, as you said, make a statement and the journalist could go with the statement. Now, you know, maybe he thought of that on his own. The odds are that others suggested that to him as well. This is the approach we've taken for six, eight months. It's worked. Let's just keep it going. And I guess that's my question.

Can you, it's one thing to appeal to, you know, your loyal audience, you know, the party partisans. He needs to take it to a national audience now. Is there that much interest out there on the part of the ordinary people, so to speak, about media bashing and ignoring the media and not allowing them to be part of the process that brings forward analysis of the political parties. Yeah, I think a couple of things to unpick there,

I'd maybe flip that around to start with here, is that I don't think people care about media bashing as much as the media thinks that people care about media bashing. I think most of them are too busy getting on with their lives and, and care of poly of calculation, too worried about inflation and the cost of living and the fact that they can't get ahead that, that if a couple of reporters in Ottawa moan about the fact that Pierre

Polyev's not nice to them it's not going to lose you know anybody any sleep and I think I think that's because reporters understand the kind of unique role they have and the importance of that challenge function the accountability function but I don't think that's something that's appreciated by the general population and if it's just a question of of you know, people shouting at each other in Ottawa, well, I've heard that story for as long as I've been alive. And is that really different? But to get to your point about does he need to change gears now that he's got to make a different play? Yeah, during the conservative leadership race, he could put two fingers up to the media every single day and not only not be heard by it, he'd be applauded for it and and it's the jean charres of the world that that

kind of you know knew that they couldn't be that because it's not in their character because they lived as politicians and have dealt with the press and know and and feel kind of ashamed or too chastened to kind of try to be that brazen whereas pierre it's just like forget it whatever you know i know how to do this role and i'm going to do it because it's the right thing to do for this audience will he be able to switch that you know i think he's to do this role and I'm going to do it because it's the right thing to do for this audience. Will he be able to switch that? You know, I think he's counting as much on his own ability, picking up our earlier conversation to broadcast his own thing out there. And if you look at the Pierre Polyev and his videos that he puts out talking about inflation at breakfast time and how it's jacked up the cost of your bacon, et cetera,

or, or talks to the small business owner that can't make the nanaimo bars anymore because the input costs are too high that's the message the liberals need to be listening to not the argy-bargy with the press and the kind of theatrics about tactics and process they need to listen to what he's saying to average people through his channels and you know in his launch video say what you will about it got millions of views when's the last time anything ctv cbc or global put out got millions of views you know it's you know and maybe that's uncharitable you know i know that that you know broadcasts can still get a million a night but but that's that's not for one rarely rarely these days i'll tell you oh yeah no it's been a while it's been a you know it's been it's been a while things have changed dramatically on the landscape and you know we all understand that you understand

that but you know if this was it seems like a you know a generation ago but it was only five six seven years ago that that you and I were plying our trade on stories off Parliament Hill. You were advising a prime minister then, and you were arranging interviews, granting interviews, trying to ensure that Stephen Harper appeared before the press every once in a while. At times that was difficult because it's not like he was he loved dealing with the media but um have times changed so much in what's really a short period of uh of time in in in years that it's a totally different equation today than it was back then yeah peter maybe the the way to look at that is is it's not what's changed on parliament hill or in the media but what's changed in the information economy

and i can tell you everything's changed you know the the algorithmic power of tiktok to pick but one example there is not there's never been a piece of technology that can tell your little brain what it wants to see more than that algorithm made by the chinese yay um and um and and that's the kind of supernova that's changed there's no algorithm that can make me read a 3 000 word investigative journalism piece on on some contractual malfeasance even though that is far more important than the football videos that TikTok gives me. But my brain, it's the evolutionary thing. It's why we're all fat now because out in the savannah, we never saw sugar and carbohydrate. And we had to run for our lives all the time.

And then now we live in a world where there's processed food and sugar everywhere. And our bodies are still savannah bodies. And so when we eat it, we get fat. And it's the same with the information economy for me is, you know, we like to think that we're cerebral and some of us are maybe more than others, but at the end of the day, we want to watch stuff that we like. And the internet has just made everything about the likes and the plumbing of the internet and the algorithms behind the Facebooks, you know,

Google's TikToks are meant to give us what we want. It hits that little button in our, in our brain that goes, yeah, more of that, more of that, more of that. And politicians get that, right? They know that's where they have to play. They want to get a big audience. It can't be one of those. Well, on one hand, on the other hand, if you look at this reasonably, it has to be that guy's an idiot. He sucks. They're the the problem they're screwing you over here's what i'm going to do about it and it doesn't matter if they hear i here's what i'm going to do about it has any semblance to reality because who's going to fact check that the media

um and then you get this kind of impotent feeling in the media of like well what he's saying is crap and you're a partisan actor of course you'd say that you're trying to keep us down and the information economy is it rewards all of that. And so it's not like how you want to do your job and how I want to do my job. It's the way information swirls around us that makes it hard to catch and frame and squeeze into a format that we might recognize where, you know, when you used to sit down with Harper and do a 30-minute interview, you know, it's rare that anybody has 30 minutes to think about anything, let alone a politician at the apex of whatever power they have. And, you know, and that information, I mean, I always used to, like, get nervous when you just

ask those simple questions, but how's that going? Or what do you think about that and you just invite somebody to kind of think and and and offer some expertise whereas now i think you know partly to get that kind of partisan or or kind of really zingy stuff it's the even journalists now feel they have to come in with their studs up and and kind of play that that kind of really kind of partisan actor voice to it, whether that's Aiken example or not, like whether or not what he was asking are fair or not, the tone and the kind of self-righteousness was,

was a kind of very partisan thing. You could see a liberal MP jumping up in the house and, and kind of playing that role. And I think that's kind of where we've lost ourselves is we're dancing to somebody else's tune now now but we were all trained on the old classics and and the savvy politicians are the ones that know what the you know know what the new coke is and the new coke doesn't suck you know they actually know how to how to juice it up and and make that content travel and get people excited about it and i think you know people of

us stuck in the older bits of the world go, how could that work? And look at all the memberships that Pierre got. Where do you think those people came from? Those are people who probably don't watch too much news or read too many newspapers, but feel a lot in their lives about what they're not getting out of the institutions that the media covers and go, yeah, this guy's telling it like I want to hear it. So I'm going to listen. And now we'll see if you can do that in a general election well let me ask you a two-part question um because people have always appreciated your advice uh especially uh your various political masters over the years but if if polyev was to phone you and say how do you think I should deal with the media? What would you tell him? That's the first part. The second part is, what would you tell the media about how to deal with not just Polyev,

but politicians today that they're not doing now? Yeah, I think we'll start in classic sense with the part I want to answer most, which is the second one. And this was true in Harper's day as well. in classic sense with the part I want to answer most, which is the second one. And this was true in Harper's day as well. Harper was always happy to talk to the press if he thought he was going to get a good, literate, serious conversation. You know, he never worried with you, Peter, for example, he was going to sit down and kind of who's up, who's down, who's in, who's out.

You know, that shouty thing that some MP said on social media, I'm going to ask the prime minister of the country about that um so it'd be kind of be serious on the substance of what's going on and and less on the process side of of the kind of stuff that people in ottawa love talking about but ordinary people don't care so like how are you treating the media you know when the media in the 2011 election campaign started using one of their four questions of the day that we granted them to ask why aren't you letting us ask more questions you know and then harper's like well what's your question why aren't you asking well what's your question that you're not you know it's one of those things but if you know if harper's gonna sit down with somebody at bloomberg for 45 minutes he knew that he was gonna have a pretty serious

conversation about the plumbing of the global economy. And he would talk about that till he's blue in the face. So if you think about the kind of, you know, the one press conference I still get reporters mentioning to me on the odd occasion is when we had to change the foreign investment rules in Canada, because the Chinese had started buying up the oil sands. And we couldn't kind of do the outright change and say, yeah, we're doing this because of the Chinese. But we brought Harper onto Parliament Hill where he hadn't been to do a press conference in a dog's age. There were probably 20 reporters in attendance. They all got a crack at him and they all stayed on tune. They all they knew this

was a big decision, a complicated decision, one that was important to the country. And they rose to that and asked serious questions about a very complicated policy that then Harper gave serious answers to. And then everybody left that room going, why doesn't he do that more often? Well, you know, the subject matter of the day is befitting of a prime minister, and the journalists recognize that. so i think so on the journalist side i'd say like as much as you can hold your nose about the form and really look at the problems the structural problems that canada has that politics isn't solving and pierre wants to talk about the economy a lot you know if you want to walk out on marginal tax rates i'm sure he'd

probably have a go at that or what the true role of the bank of canada should be so not like why did you dump on tiff macklem pierre but like what's wrong with the bank of canada's mandate you know and and maybe what should we be doing about it because you know they they didn't see this spike in inflation coming you know so get into the substance of it and if i were advising pierre um you know i i would just maybe maybe give almost a similar piece of advice in in that the inflaming is useful uh to build an audience but there comes a point where you have to deliver for that audience and they're not going to accept just that someone's on their side anymore if you then have influence and can do nothing to fix problems you're not going to be any further ahead you're going to have to feed that that crocodile in the hopes that that you know it won't eat you

uh and and the problems facing canada particularly the people he's trying to represent are real and serious and unless he's done some serious thinking about it, he's going to be found out. So that would be the kind of ultimate pivot is if you think he's this kind of populist showman, but then he actually looks at kind of how to fix 50 years of failed neoliberalism and is the conservative

that can grip the fact that it screwed the working class completely over and people in small communities, in single industry towns because we have oligopolies everywhere and the concentration of wealth and opportunity in cities then maybe that would be a nice act and and that like we'll see what he's got but i really hope he's got something there or else it's just going to be theater and the world does not need more theater now we are up to the back teeth with

theater i i've watched justin trudeau give me nothing but theater and and and mock empathy for for seven years now and the problems are are stacking up and unless we want some kind of pitchforky moments out there politicians on both sides of the aisle are gonna have to have to put their heads together and figure out what to do. Great conversation. And I want to note, Andrew, that it only took you 26 minutes and 45 seconds to get into the partisan nature that you have at times on topics and on people. But that was great. Listen, I'm glad we did this because i think it's a it's an

important discussion it you know it's an important time it's kind of a critical time in that uh relationship between what is a very important part of the democratic process and that that is the media when they're active you know when it acts responsibly um and does its part in trying to inform people so they understand what's going on and the other half of that relationship in terms of the politicians on how they react to a media that is, you know, its role is to try to make politicians accountable and understandable and to challenge certain assumptions that are being made. But right now, that relationship is kind of off the rails, not just between the media and the new conservative leader, but it's kind of the reasons why the people, as you said in one of your first answers about this issue of how the people look at national institutions these days, unlike the way they used to look at them not that long ago, that they're kind of wondering whether these national institutions really are delivering on what they're supposed to be delivering on.

And in the case of the media, it's a whole issue surrounding trust. And so this is an important conversation. I'm glad we had it, and I'm always happy to talk to you. Likewise, Peter. Thank you so much for having me on. I really do appreciate the opportunity to chat this through, because I couldn't agree more. And let's hope the news industry figures out its bottom line quickly, because I think that tension is something we didn't talk about, but that sense that the bottom is falling out. agree more and let's hope the news uh industry figures out its bottom line quickly so i think

that that tension is something we didn't talk about but that sense that the bottom is falling out um doesn't make it any easier to do that job and particularly if your bosses don't want to fund the kind of accountability journalism that we know our institutions need because that's not what gets clicks but that's what needs to happen so they have to find a way to pay for it yeah so get a subscription people pay for your media that's my idea and um and stay away from the clicks amen they are they are a problem andrew thanks so much we'll do it again cheers andrew mcdougall um former director of communications for Stephen Harper when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. Now with Trafalgar Strategy in London where he's a strategic analysis on all things from politics to the monarchy. And we got it all in that conversation.

Glad we had it. We're going to take a quick break. And we're not quite done yet. We've got a couple of end bits that relate to both these two topics that we just had. So we'll be back with that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday edition on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

You know the difference between linear and digital when you're talking television? Of course you do. You're a smart audience. You get it. You understand it. That's the big, I was going to say say the big crisis going on in television these days. It's not really a crisis.

But it is a big issue for decision makers at television networks around the world, not just in Canada. But linear is basically the way you've always watched television. You know, you either used to hook up your rabbit ears on top of the television, for us really old people, and then you started using cable, and that's kind of the way it's been. And cable delivered you lots of different channels. Trouble is, it charged you lots of money for channels you didn't even want never watched so a lot of people have cut have been

cord cutting in other words ending their cable relationship and going kind of fully digital right hooking up their various you, little TV boxes to the internet and watching streaming services where you can get everything from, well, you can get everything. Basically, you can get everything if you get the right streaming services and the right access. It costs a little less, gives you more choice. And in some cases, it gives you a choice that goes beyond commercials.

It's not cheap. It can be less expensive. And in some cases, it can be more expensive than the old way. But that's the basic. There are other differences between linear and digital that I won't get into here because i'm not technical enough but those are the basic that's one of the basic arguments and that's why traditional networks are so worried about their declining audiences and they're all facing this and on top of that there's this whole issue of trust in news, trust in journalism, which has impacted the number of viewers who are watching television news. Well, here's my first and bit for this day.

And it deals with this issue of especially young people who have been sort of bailing out of traditional news formats. And the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has just done a study that concludes a number of things. And I'm not going to go through it all, but you can find it on the Kaleidoscope, which is a web service. And what they talk about from this study is that for young people, news can be narrow or broad.

Young people make a distinction between the news as the narrow traditional agenda of politics and current affairs and news as a much wider umbrella encompassing topics like sports, entertainment, celebrity, gossip, culture, and science. The news is associated with mainstream traditional media brands who are expected to act impartially and objectively even if there are doubts that this is achievable. News is topically broader and afforded more tonal latitude. Alternative media is felt to operate better there. Rather than simply avoiding news, there is news to be avoided,

often to guard mental health. Because of this, young people seem to engage more with news than the news. Avoidance of narrow news has implications for mainstream brands who are felt to operate primarily at this serious end of the spectrum. That's interesting. I mean, the study goes on a lot more than that, but there is one of your reasons why traditional news formats that are desperately trying to find a tweak to the way they do stuff.

That's one of the reasons why. Because the future is in today's young audience, and if you lose it now, you're likely never to get it back. So they're trying to find ways of holding on to it. Here's the other end bit. And it's kind of the last point we'll say on the long journey home for Queen Elizabeth, which basically ends today.

We have witnessed these huge crowds in Britain, huge lining streets right up into and including today for the final journey home to Windsor. But here's an interesting point. Have you ever heard of FlightRadar24? FlightRadar, one word, two, four. FlightRadar24. It's a website.

What it does is track planes, and anybody can get on FlightRadar24 and see where different, you know, you know the name of your airline that you want to find out where it's going. In some cases, private aircraft. In some cases, military aircraft. If you have like the tail number, you can track it.

Some are able to kind of block this. But more and more, it's kind of available on any number of different things. So up until the Queen died, the most tracked by people who were subscribed to FlightRider24, the most tracked aircraft anywhere was U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she went to Taiwan last month. That flight was tracked. Like, you can track it. You can sit there and watch it, okay? Like, you know, it's just little dots on a map, but nevertheless, you know where it is,

what height it's flying, what speed it's flying, all of that stuff. It was tracked by 2.2 million people. That was the record for a flight tracking. Well, that record is long gone now. When the Queen's Coffin was flown last week from Edinburgh to the

RAF base north of London. It was tracked by almost 6 million people. That's directly on the website or watching the YouTube stream. And that's pretty remarkable. Queen's coffin was flown on an RAF Globemaster C-17 after it had been lying in state in Edinburgh. And it flew to London. That was her last flight. She was accompanied by the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, her daughter, and her husband. And people kind of watched it, just watched

this little dot going across the screen for her final flight. And today we witnessed the final services at Westminster and the final march from Westminster up the Mall past Buckingham Palace to the Wellington Arch. And then the final ride in the hearse, the coffin taken to Windsor Castle. The final journey.

The last stop. The last goodbye. At the end of a long goodbye. That's it for the bridge on this day. We'll be back tomorrow, Brian Stewart Day. On Tuesdays, we will look at the Ukraine situation, which is momentous right now. We will deal with that.

Wednesday, it's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday, the Random Renter. Man, the Renter is popular, is absolutely popular with you. So that's part of your turn Thursdays. Friday, of course, is Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. Always lots to talk about on Good Talk. So that's it.

That wraps it up for the first day of this week. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.