The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Insiders -- Strategy for the Final Seven Days

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

It's gut-check time for all leaders during the final seven days.  What do you say, what do you do, where do you go? These may be critical decisions so how do you make them.  Our Insiders draw on their experience to give their best advice.  And today's fun fact:  just what did the last Parliament accomplish.  The facts and figures tell a story.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Seven days to go until the election. It's Monday. The insiders are coming up next. Tim Horton's Smile Cookie Week is back, starting September 13th. For one week, the iconic chocolate chunk cookies topped with a pink and blue smile will be available at Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada. 100% of the proceeds from each smile cookie will be donated to local charities and community groups in each restaurant's neighborhood. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the smile cookie campaign has raised more than $60 million

for charities, hospitals, and community programs across the country. Grab your smile cookie from September 13th to 19th, only at Tim Hortons. And hello there. Yeah, one week to go. Just seemed like yesterday the campaign started. It's all come down to go. Just seemed like yesterday the campaign started. It's all come down to this. Every indication is that things, at least right now, are very close.

Very close between the two main parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives. And the NDP aren't that far behind and could have a huge impact in terms of how this next parliament, led by whomever, will unfold. So we're going to get at it with the insiders today, because with seven days to go, there are some critical decisions that have to be made by all the parties. Some of them are obvious, some of them not so. And that's what we want to get at with Supriya Deveti from the Liberals, Kathleen Monk from the NDP, Tim Powers from the Conservatives. They'll be with us in a moment.

But I also want to tell you, as we've said throughout this campaign, we've been giving you kind of like fun facts about the election, about running for a campaign, parliament in general and today's specifically about parliament because i think if there's a common theory out there and i know i've been one who's argued in favor of it over time is you know nothing much happens in parliament we go all through all this fuss on election campaigns then it it gets to the actual parliament, and they kind of sit around, argue, and throw cheap shots at each other. But what do they actually accomplish? So it's worth reminding ourselves what this last group of 330 MPs accomplished.

Not just one party, all parties. What they accomplished. You know, how many bills were brought before parliament, not just one party, all parties, what they accomplished. You know, how many bills were brought before Parliament, how many petitions. Petitions can be from anywhere, right? It can be from you, you know, as long as there are enough signatures attached to it.

How many petitions were brought before Parliament? How many private members' bills? You know, the assumption is always, oh, it's just government who gets to do this. Well, there is the opportunity for private members to put forward their own bills. Often those don't get too far, but in some cases they in fact do get far, and they in fact get passed.

So I'm going to bring you up to date on what this last parliament did because I think well, let's wait and see you be the judge when I give you the facts and figures on this last parliament but first we want to get to

the insiders. They're next. All right, let's get at it. Supriya is in Oakville, Ontario, just outside of Toronto, for those who might not know. Both Tim and Kathleen are in Ottawa. All right, I want you, and maybe kathleen you can start us off i want you to surprise me a little bit in terms of what the last what the thinking

is in the uh you know the strategy rooms the back rooms call them whatever you want of uh the various parties as you go into a final week i mean we all know that you kind of go to the places where you think you might be able to pick up a seat or you go to the places where you're a little concerned that you might be losing a seat and an appearance by a leader could make the difference in the final days. Those are kind of what we always know. But what else is at play? It surprised me with something that I don't know. I think there's three key pillars in the last week in the kind of end game, what we call it when we're doing campaign planning. And obviously, it's tour, looking at tour and where the leader is going and where the leader's resources are going.

It's message. Do we need to tweak or tune up the message anymore? And then there's your paid, final paid media blast. I'm going to start on paid media for a little bit because the worst nightmare of any campaigner is to have money left on the table at the end of a campaign. So you want to throw it out all in the door and you may have seats opening up or you may need to shore up seats. And so you need to move money in that last week of the campaign to message, which was my second point, you can see the parties really trying to refine in this endgame period, this final, you know, Tim would come up with some brilliant sports analogy. I'm not going to be able to do that. But I guess you would say the third period, right, of the game or the final minutes of the game. But in this endgame period, the message is really important. So I predict what we're going to see, obviously, the Conservatives really pushing on this change message, a change in government, a change is needed now.

You're going to see the Liberals emphasize it's too risky to change. And then the other pillar, which is the question which you really started with, is the tour. Right. And where do you put the leader? And are we shoring up seats that we already have incumbents? You know, is there some concern that some of these, you know, Fortress Atlantic may fall and you'll see the Liberals moving there a little bit more? Or do they need to shore up some parts of Toronto? Or are you going to see parties on the offensive? I know the New Democrats this week are planning on being largely on the offensive. They're up in northern Ontario trying to pick up some seats today.

And they plan to zigzag around the country, as all parties will. But looking at where they are and if they're trying to grow or just keep, you know, basically save what they have. All right, Tim. No rugby analysis here. Tim is a huge rugby person weren't you like like the grand poobah of rugby canada that was the title in fact but then they changed it to chair just because it was easier yes yes yes but i'll give you a hockey one peter just just for this you don't want to take to kathleen's point you don't want to take costly penalty in the last few minutes of the game. So you do want to take risks.

You do want to get the shots on goal. But I'll give you a specific example of that. 2004, last week, Harper and Martin are close. The Martin team is very worried. They're throwing everything at it. Harper's team makes a mistake. They put out a release from the war room saying Paul Martin supports child pornography. To use a good Newfoundland expression, the arse comes out of it then for Stephen Harper's

campaign. They overreached. They were excited. They were giddy. They were drinking their Kool-Aid. They were thinking they could push the envelope. And then it all changed. Stephen Harper has an awful, uncomfortable news conference. He doesn't look ready. Paul Martin's able to get his footing back along with other things and win. So if you're Aaron O'Toole, you're Jagmeet Singh, and you feel that, as polls suggest, the game is tied. If you're the conservatives, you don't want that to have happen either. While the other side is trying to goad you into that mistake. So look at what's happening now. The Liberals are pushing really hard over a target seat for them and a target seat for

the Conservatives, that Peterborough-Kawartha Lake seat, where the Conservative candidate, Michelle Ferrari, has gotten in the news because she's been partially vaccinated and she's gone into seniors' homes. Marion Monsef is the Liberal. She's been pushing out a lot of stuff uh challenging uh aaron o'toole i'm watching for mistakes in that very specific riding on each party because that will tell you how intense this battle is and how much risk they're prepared to take and do mistakes start to happen and that riding of all in the country is is the classic

bellwether it seems to go with whichever party ends up winning as we've mentioned a number of times supria um what surprised me what what what are you thinking i mean i don't know if this is much of a surprise but i think that right now the majority for anyone if it is within grasp and i would suggest it's within the grasp of the liberals is going to be decided in quebec and so that's why i think last week when you had the english language debate and you did have that question from the moderator about bill 21 and bill 96 and it being of a discriminatory nature um you saw the headlines right away and i think anybody who was from quebec or knows quebec a little bit could have predicted the bleep storm that was going to ensue in that province because of the question.

And it has basically breathed new life into the ndp and the greens are like these super federalist centralizing parties and you know he would prefer a conservative minority so i think quebec is going to be the one to watch see where some of the polling kind of shifts and if it does indeed shift um and i think just you know other than that i i have to agree with everything that tim and Kathleen are saying. I think it'll be really interesting to see where the leaders are in this last week. And, you know, before we started recording Peter, you and I were talking about how the prime minister was right here, um, pretty close to my house at the drive-in in Oakville,

um, shoring up the bases. And it does, I think, speak a little bit to the nature of the GTA and the importance of the GTA, but also the fact that, you know, you have minister and and who really ensured that we're all vaccinated right now, extremely competent in the file, I think exceeded all sorts of expectations and yet nobody's taking her seat for granted. Right. Like it's kind of like all hands on deck. And I think that that's really instructive to where the race is right now, because if we were in an alternate timeline, I don't necessarily know if that's the kind of thing that you would want to be putting your leader into.

But the reality is, is that Oakville and much of the GTA does swing right blue or or or red. And I know the New Democrats are trying to shore up a little bit more support in areas of the 905. So it is very competitive even into the last week. I haven't heard, I haven't heard anybody use the word majority in weeks. And, but yet you started off saying that it might still even be possible. Are you blowing smoke or what here? Do you really think a majority is still possible? I think it is. And I think if you're looking at some of the, you know, more recent seat counts, right. With some of the polling, I don't know if it's completely without a grasp and I'm not going to go out here. Like,

I'm not like a betting person. So I wouldn't necessarily be like, oh, the prediction markets are saying this and this, but I just think people tend to coalesce their vote and they tend to, you know, put their weight behind a party if they do see momentum building. And I think if you're talking, if you're looking at the specific dynamics of this race and looking at the, you know, like here in Ontario, it's been very tight, right? BC has been another one to watch. And then you factor in Quebec. So if Ontario ends up going, and again, this is is like it depends on like a gajillion things going directly in the way of any one of these parties. But if the liberals eke out much of those seats in the GTA that they think that they can get and if they can hold on to B.C. in a way where they are still in the game, then Quebec decides it for them.

And I think, you know, and Tim, feel free to tell me I'm smoking my own supply here. But, you know, if you're talking about Atlantic Canada, I think that is one area where the Liberals are definitely vulnerable and they're definitely would acknowledge that the conservatives are right to pick up a few seats. But I don't know. I don't think it's completely impossible. And even if we're talking not necessarily getting to the 170 mark, I think picking up a few seats isn't out of the realm of possibility. So they'd need about, well, more than a dozen, 15 or so.

Yeah. Tim and Kathleen both want to jump in here. So who jumps first, Tim? Well, just on Atlantic Canada, I mean, right now it's closer than it has been. And the Liberals have 27 seats there. This week, today, a week to go, there's some suggestion they would lose. And does it swing back? I don't know.

It's still hard for Conservatives to win there. On the question of can a majority be achieved? Yeah, I suppose it's possible. We've got some abacus data out today that shows the Liberals with a seven-point lead in Ontario and a bigger lead in the 416 than they had the week before. That could create some of the conditions Supriya's talking about, but I don't know, going away from the data to the gut feel, it just still feels like Canadians want some kind of minority, and somehow we'll end up with that. That's not based on science science but that seems to be

the the mood out there um but maybe trudeau has played himself back in the game o'toole's not out of the game though too i think for him the the next three days are really important i think he's got to have a good start to the week if he can get to wednesday or thursday as people are defining their intentions and it's still kind of like it is right now, there haven't been any major mistakes, then maybe he holds on to this vote. Maybe he gets a minority. So there's, you know, all sorts of variables here at the moment still. I guess the one thing I would just add on a big picture on Endgame is that one thing we won't see in this next seven days is we won't see the parties insulating the leaders so you tend to insulate your leader and pull your leader back

when you're building a momentum and you're doing really well that's when you see you know we saw this you know with harper in 2011 and and other leaders yeah even even with um with trudeau certainly in 2015 where they don't have to do as much media or really hustle and work it really hard. But it is so tight right now. You know, Abacus has them at 32-32. Others, it's all within, you know, the CBC poll tracker. It's within, you know, decimal places in terms of closeness.

And so what's interesting about that is we're going to see all the leaders really out there on the hustings and not pull back and not just do an air war. They are going to have to be out there and fighting those dogfights like Supriya and Tim mentioned,

whether it's Oakville or whether it's Peterborough, they're going to have to. And certainly Supriya was right to mention that Quebec is going to be very interesting. I still hold that BC will be, but always the big enchilada is always Ontario.

You know, I've always liked the phrase, they're trying to save the furniture in terms of an election campaign, you know, a party that knows it's going to get clobbered and is at least trying to save the basics of their party traditions and history, really. It doesn't appear to me that anybody is playing the save the furniture game here right now. You know, perhaps the Green Party might be playing that. The numbers I keep seeing have the People's Party ahead, and not only by a point or so, but more than that.

But none of the major parties are in the save the furniture game, right? Anybody? Well, those that track actual riding placements, the liberals have been more in their own ridings. They have more seats. That's obviously, you know, you know, but they have been more in the GTA shoring up some evening when they were in Quebec, largely shoring up some of their Quebec star candidates too.

So I think if you just did a numbers game, you would point to them, but, but, you know, lots of ridings are clustered. You know, when you go to Hamilton, you're hitting a whole bunch of incumbents and possible opportunities. Yeah, but that's a really interesting point. So the, there are, we talked about back to Peterborough Kawartha Lake. So if that's a close riding then there is a ton of work being done on the ground there and you're hearing as kathleen said anecdotally local writings maybe are doing more work um than they would in other campaigns because this is seen to be a very close campaign so if if if supria may be on to somebody, if Trudeau gets a majority,

it's also going to be because those local ridings did a ton of work. So on the ground organization, which tends to benefit incumbents, is really going to be put to work right now over the next week. I mean, we've just gone through one more day today, a weekend of advanced polling. I'm going to be fascinated to see what the number is, number of Canadians that have done the advanced polls, because all the parties will be cluing in on that because that will determine the amount of work too, that's going to need to be done on, on E-Day to get all of these people out. So some interesting things we'll see over the next week, which may also give us a sense of how prepared people are to get the vote they need to win.

You know, I just want to point out, I'm not saying a majority is likely. No, no. Peter told me to surprise him. And you did. Look, it turned into five minutes of great conversation. We won't drive over you, Sabrina. We're not going to run you over with the bus. On the advanced poll question, the only numbers I've seen so far are Friday, the first day of advanced polling, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today, Monday, right? But it was over a million on Friday for one day, you know, 10 days out from the election.

That's pretty impressive. And if it continued on through through the weekend um i know here in stratford ontario there were lineups at the advanced polls on the on the weekend um which is interesting i don't know what that suggests is whether it's a kind of pandemic thing and people want to get ahead of the game whether the mail-in vote which uh i think that's got to be in by tomorrow. Correct, the 14th, yes. The 14th, yeah, tomorrow. So, I mean, those are all, you know, interesting factors,

and we'll see how that plays out. I mean, that's a significant number of people who are basically, have made their decision before the last week, and whether if there are any surprises in that last week, obviously it won't affect them although most people who vote early have known for some time how they were going to vote you know and they're they're not going to change their mind um can i just say one thing here they're just in case listeners you can you can request a mail-in ballot in person up till the 14th tomorrow uh in terms of mailing it in you can still obviously post-market after that date.

So, and people can vote at any point at their elections returning office, right? That's how I voted. I voted a couple of, a week ago, and I did it just at my returning office. You already could attend the, this is my PSA here for election day. Yeah, you've lost me advanced

polls yeah however you vote vote you've lost you've lost me there a little bit i i thought it was just sort of advanced polls and then the mail-in vote by a certain date but no there's more than that yeah it's more than that basically you can go into your i think it's believe it's called the election returning office so i went to my local election returning office at a school in my neighborhood and I voted last last Sunday. And it's open, you know, really reasonable hours from nine to six, maybe even later. And on Sundays was open like from 12 to five. So it's and that's those are where basically all the elections Canada workers are for your riding. And you can just walk in there when you go to vote there, though, you do have to remember the name of your candidate and you write it out on the ballot.

So, you know, you actually write out your you don't have a pre-filled ballot, but they're always posted on the wall. So there's many ways to vote to make it easy for people. And Elections Canada, please DM me if I've said anything. That's very it's really impressive that you know all these rules. and Elections Canada, please DM me if I've said anything incorrect. It's really impressive that you know all these rules. How many times have you voted now on this election? But you know what, just advance polls and COVID, there's a reason this is interesting because we have a living example. So, you know, again, back to my home province, Newfoundland and Labrador,

that four-week election that turned into 10 plus what the incumbent government did very well was get its people out in the early days of advanced polls, which was before the big pandemic outbreak hit and the campaign was delayed. So what the parties are trying to do now, you're right, Peter, people who know how they're voting tend to vote in advance polls. God forbid something happens in the next number of weeks. Conditions may be worse and people are less inclined to vote because they're concerned about going out. That's why these advance polls for parties are so important. That's why perhaps it's not just the parties getting them out, but you're seeing people vote because you want to get the results in the bank, so to speak, because it's all about controlling the variables that you can.

So that made a difference in Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't know if it'll make a difference here, if there will be a circumstance that is created where it's as important as it was there. OK, got to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you whether anybody has made, you know, the classic big mistake in this campaign. We won't count actually calling the vote. But other than that, has there been any big mistakes made in this campaign? But we got to take a quick break.

Starting September 13th, Tim Horton's Smile Cookie Week is back. From September 13th to 19th at Tim Horton's, 100% of the proceeds from all Smile Cookies purchased will be donated to local charities and community groups across Canada. In the last 25 years, you have helped us raise over $60 million and in 2020 alone, Smile Cookie Week brought in 10.6 million dollars while helping over 500 community organizations. You can participate by grabbing your own Smile Cookie at Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada from September 13th to 19th. It's time to get back to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. all right back with the insiders supriya's in oakville ontario and tim and kathleen are both in ottawa um okay big mistake has anybody made a big mistake in this campaign i mean it it's been

an interesting campaign. It seems, at least to my eye, to have gone fairly quickly, which is unlike a lot of past campaigns, which seem to go on forever. This one has gone by relatively quickly, and I'm trying to determine whether anyone has made a mistake that once it's over, they're going to say, you know, if that just hadn't happened uh the results may have been different supria i don't know if there's one big mistake um but if i

had to point one out i would say first of all in the beginning of the election not having a proper answer to why the heck did you call the election probably did not help the Liberal campaign in the early days by, you know, having the narrative kind of hijacked with that constant question. But I would say just the overall kind of is this really what you wanted to do or say is Mr. O'Toole and being somewhat wishy washy on vaccines. We're in the middle of a pandemic. It's an all hands on deck public health situation. And yet he has a candidate that right now, as Tim pointed out in a very competitive riding, is out visiting seniors partially vaccinated. And I understand why perhaps ideologically or philosophically you would want to do that. But I'm not sure if that is not also then alienating a whole heck of a lot of voters in some of the more competitive urban and suburban ridings where it's just like we want to get this the heck over with, especially if you're in, you know, a setting like today, for example, we're expecting more anti-vax protests in front of hospitals across the country. Like that's the sort of thing where even if you're not necessarily a diehard, you know, politico that's getting super jazzed about elections, you go, well, I want to stop

whatever the heck that is. And so I'm going to vote for who I think will help stop that. And I don't know if Mr. O'Toole's rhetoric on vaccines necessarily inspires that sort of confidence. And as Tim mentioned, as we get into the last week and if cases do start to tick up and, you know, we know the way exponential growth works is that we're likely expecting there to be somewhat of an uptick in cases. I think it makes the case a little bit better to vote for the alternative parties out there that are for vaccine mandates like the NDP or the Liberals. Jim? Building off of one of Supriya's points, and I'll get to the other one in a second. So yeah, I think the Prime Minister not having an answer for why he's calling the election. But now as we're into the fourth week, and we see a little bit of this in some of our abacus stuff, the current for change hasn't changed

much uh so it's at i think today we had that 49 which is actually lower than 2019 so the opposition parties haven't yet also been able to take the narrative yeah it's an unnecessary election into why should there be change and i think they hadn't thought that out to the extent that they would. They scored some good points early and perhaps got people supporting them because there wasn't enough because of the election call, but they haven't converted it. I do actually agree with Supriya on vaccinations. O'Toole's run a really good campaign.

I think by all measures, everybody would have to say that. But I think this vaccination thing and everybody would have to say that. But I think this vaccination thing and not just biting the bullet on it and going with mandatory in the beginning where many other conservative leaders are, as could maybe have a detrimental impact on him in the end. I don't know if it's a huge mistake, but it's one that's still causing conversation. And because the pandemic is so front and center may impact the way people who were inclined to switch and we're on that fence may not now. All right, Kathleen.

Listen, I agree with my colleagues on putting out the timing of election, not having the right message and certainly the vaccine thing. So I'll try to say something different. So one thing I think is surprising is is is that O'Toole's flip-flops which normally would be considered a mistake whether it's on firearms assault rifles like haven't seemed to hurt him so that's interesting but I guess if I was to point out what I think is probably one of the biggest mistakes. It may be the Liberals' mistake in not fully grasping

that sometimes the right policy, the good policy, doesn't make good politics. And that's on childcare. So I am surprised, I've been speaking to Liberal strategists, not Supriya, another unknown strategist I won't name,

about their campaign and trying to understand how really in the last 10 days it kind of has gone off the rails and what were they doing? And the response was, well, we're surprised that really child care, it just doesn't, you know, in the research is not going anywhere. People just don't care about it. And I just started laughing. Have you talked to any new Democrat? We've been running on child care for years. We know that it's hard to move people at the door. It's hard to move people to the ballot box on the issue of child care. It is the right policy. And I 100 percent stand behind it. And I would work hand in hand with liberals that normally I would want to murder, you know, to get that policy through. But it doesn't, for some reason, motivate people to get to the polls.

And so I was really surprised that they either didn't do that research or didn't fully understand that. And I think that's an error on their behalf. Can I just agree with Kathleen here wholeheartedly? Because I think one of the biggest aspects of this that I found quite puzzling is that the child care rhetoric talk messaging has yet to be connected back in a forceful way to the economy and to the recovery and so you've seen Armin Yelnesian who is like the inventor of the term she recovery and she session and the economist behind a lot of this is and her a lot of her, you know, pieces, a lot of the talks that she's given have all brought it right back to the actual economic recovery. And you're not necessarily seeing that with the liberals. And it's all well and good to make the pitch to parents like myself who do have young kids and, you know, will likely benefit from this plan within the next you know couple of years or so but the problem is there are fewer people of course that are parents of young kids than there

are the rest of canadians out there and you need to bring that argument back to yeah this is go ahead katherine yeah no i was just saying the the you know the labor movement the women's movement those who've been working for child care for years have always said that child care is an infrastructure project child care is an economic project an economic stimulator and so uh and so that that argument has not been forcefully enough made and and the problem is that people you know i was once in supriya's position now my children are older and so it's you have to actually make the argument along the demographic continuum, you know. And while right now they may have the grandparents and the parents that have young, young children, they need to connect it through all that demographic swath of all ages. And they haven't done a good job at that.

And not having a research basis going into this campaign around child care, I was just I think that is defined an error but is that another scene here though too to your question peter um the liberals haven't seen prepared for this campaign for the ones who control all of the the levers they seemed wholly unprepared for this knowing when they were going to have it and knowing what assets, as Kathleen and Sabrina described, that they had among progressive voters. You're getting a spin coming out of certain liberal camps. Oh, we knew this was going to be tough all along and we knew it would be close all along. I'm calling BS on that. I don't think they figured the competition would be as tough as it was. And they're now trying to reframe it for whatever result happens. And when the history and the review of all of this is done, they have to look back and say, wow,

we got off on the wrong foot here. As much as O'Toole has played himself into the game, the liberals have allowed a game to be played with every asset that they've had. And, you know, you talk to we all do. There are liberals of different eras. And one of them remarked to me, well, Justin Trudeau is calling an election and he doesn't have a defining issue. And it takes us back to where we started this conversation a while ago. They haven't run on anything. They've just run on reelect us because and that has created in large measure the competition that we have now all right here's the here's the last question for this week and you've got to stick to the question okay so here it is

if you can and you know it's just a basically a short answer from each of you on this but um i want you to point me towards the one area or the one issue that you're the leader that's associated with the party that that you are in favor of has to do this week, has to accomplish this week. What is it? Supriya. I'm going to be honest. I don't really know if I understood the question. So what the leader needs to do this week, the one thing they need to do. What's your advice for your leader that they have to do this week in the closing days of this campaign?

What is the thing they have to say or do this week? We need to finish the fight. We need to finish the fight against COVID. I know I said something kind of similar last week, but it is amazing to me that that hasn't been the defining sort of tagline. Finish the fight against COVID-19. We're staring down the barrel of a fourth wave right now. Parents have their kids in school right now. All sorts of, you know, folks are worried about what another fourth wave would do to the healthcare system. We will finish the fight. We've gotten you this far. We're going to get us past the finish line. Finish the fight might be a better line than we leave no one behind dropping

right in the middle of the Afghanistan story. Didn't, didn't seem right. Tim, you're, you're, you're a person. Do what you did yesterday for the rest of the week. What did Aaron O'Toole do yesterday when making that announcement on grieving benefits for grieving families of children? He showed a very human side of a circumstance he went through. Stop being all robot all the time. Be human. Your major challenge is people don't know whether to believe you or to like

you. If you want to win, you've got to drive up that believability and likability quotient. Try to be more like you were yesterday at that announcement. Kathleen, what's Jagmeet Singh's major challenge? What does he have to do to address it? Jagmeet Singh in these last seven days needs to continue to prosecute the case against the Liberals, to make the case that the Liberals need new Democrats in Parliament and more of them to be held accountable and actually to deliver on the promises and policies that Canadians want. This is the same guy won't pick between the Liberals or the Conservatives.

New Democrats fight for policies that Canadians want, the programs and the ideals. And they'll do that as, you know, as any party will to keep them unified. So, yeah, I mean, why should he have to choose? It's not his job who forms government. He's just trying to get as many elected as possible. I do think next, next Monday we should be talking about, you know, what happens if, if it's tighter and, and are we going to revisit the 2008 2009 coalition or what you know all the

accords or all the different possibilities because that could create some really interesting scenarios i will write that down and we'll we'll talk about it if we're in that situation or if it looks like we could be in that situation by the end of that night uh listen thank you all it's a terrific as always i love listening to you guys and uh the the best part of it is it seems to be done and, you know, in an almost nonpartisan way, underlining the almost there. And with a few PSAs for elections, Canada. Exactly. Your check is in the mail. Um, all right. Thank you so much.

All of you take care. Thank you. Thank you. And I do love them, the insiders. There's a lot to learn in that. It's another masterclass in how the, in this case, how the final days of a campaign roll out. All right. I promised before we left today to give you a synopsis of what the last parliament achieved. It was the

43rd in Canadian history, the last parliament. We're now electing a 44th parliament in our 44th federal election. The last parliament lasted from December 5th, 2019 to August 15th, 2021. That's that's 613 days in that time 446 bills were presented in the house there were some more that started in the senate but we don't elect senators so let's put that aside many dealt with the pandemic including the covid 19 emergency response act but also the act to implement the new canada u.s mexico agreement, and a bill that adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, among others. Six private members' bills were passed and given royal assent, so it's not all a matter of the government ramming through whatever it wants. There is room for a lonely MP to get things done. Also in those 613 days,

there were 1,778 petitions presented to Parliament. These can be on anything and everything. Citizens get together, sign a petition, their MP can present them. And they don't just sit there. In the last Parliament, the government tabled a response to 1,284 of those petitions before the election was called. Excuse me.

The MP who presented the most petitions by far was Garnet Genuis, a conservative from Alberta who presented 312 petitions. Boy, he's got pretty active riding. There were 211 votes by our MPs in the House of Commons and at least 205 committee reports. So can we draw a conclusion from all that, all those facts and figures? Well, you can question whether we have good MPs or bad MPs, and that's a legitimate question. And you can question whether any of what they do is useful. But those numbers would seem to suggest they are doing something.

All right, tomorrow's the reporters. Althea Raj, the new columnist for the Toronto Star. And Rob Russo, former Bureau Chief, Canadian Press in Ottawa, CBC in Ottawa, former Washington correspondent. We talked to Althea and Rob about, well, some of the pressing issues facing journalists in the final days of a campaign, and there are some. Wednesday, it's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday, your turn, so listen, get your letters in, your thoughts, your comments and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday, your turn.

So listen, get your letters in, your thoughts, your comments on the final days of the campaign, The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com, The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. And then Friday, of course, it's Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. So, a full week ahead. And listen, if you want, go to my website, thepetermansbridge.com,

and there's a contest for my new book, which is going to be published on October 5th. You've got to be in this month, during the month of September, to take part in that contest. So, I'll tell you all about the new book off the record and tell you about the contest. Okay. That's it for this day. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.