The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Moore Butts Conversation #4

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

They’re back! James Moore and Gerald Butts are back by popular demand. The two experienced political observers drop their partisan positions (or sure try) to give us their take. This time the conversation is about what happens and what needs to happen inside a party when a new leader takes power. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday, the start of a new week, and the start of the Moor Butts Conversation, number four. Well, welcome to a new week. Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto on this day, although the program was actually recorded over the weekend, or at least the major part of the program, the Moor Butts Conversation, was recorded over the weekend while I was in Winnipeg.

The Moor Butts Conversation, what is it, if you're a first-time listener to it? Well, we started it earlier this year, and it's proven really rewarding for a lot of our listeners. James Moore is the former Conservative Cabinet Minister. Gerald Butts is the former Principal Advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And the reason this has been an interesting discussion over a number of different topics is both men try their hardest, and they're pretty successful at it, in dropping partisanship from the conversation, and really trying to take us behind the scenes of the important parts

of the political process. James Moore is now, as I said, former Conservative cabinet minister. He's now a senior business advisor to Denton's and a public policy advisor to Edelman. Jerry Butts is the vice president of the New York-based Eurasia Group. So they're both more or less out of politics, but they're both very much players in politics in our recent past and have a new Alberta leader of the governing party due on Thursday, and another new premier expected in British Columbia, the NDP leader, is expected to be announced within the next two months.

So we've got three major political leaders to be named. And the question is, what do they have to do once they've won the leadership? What are some of the key areas that have to be dealt with almost right away? Because that can set the stage for a successful or an unsuccessful leadership run. So that's the topic for today's conversation. As we said, this is the fourth conversation that the team of Butts and Moore have had on the bridge. We look forward to it, so enough preamble. Let's get right at it. Here we go. All right, gentlemen, let's start with this. You've just won the leadership of your party.

Could be federal, could be provincial. You've just won it. It's that day or that night. What's the first thing you should do, James? On the night of, reach out to your immediate opponents and make sure that they're feeling the love, that their contributions to the party, the growth of the party, the expansion of the party are recognized, that they have a place and an opportunity to continue to contribute to your leadership going forward. But also, if they want to exit gracefully from politics because of the nature of these things it's a very human business that they're free to do so and that you will only say good things about them upon exit the next morning

when you wake up you should probably spend the next few days one by one by one going through your caucus to ensure that you have caucus solidarity uh and make sure that everybody in in the broader parliamentary family understands that because in our system, we have such deference to authority and deference to leadership that when you're a member of parliament, party members and the public think that you have a substantive insight into the personality of the leader. And so your approval and consent to the transition of power to the new leader is a proxy for a really important mandate. And if you don't have that caucus solidarity, a leader will get off to a very rocky start.

So the first evening should be what I said. The second day should be that. And then you build up from there. Just like you build a hockey team that wins, you build from the goaltender out. That's the first base. The first thing you do is you reach out to your opponents, build your caucus, and then you can expand from that. Let me rewind you just to the first thing, reaching out to your opponents. How do you make that real? How do you make it sound more than sincere,

but that you really mean it? Because we always see these things kind of happen and people go, oh yeah, well, he's doing that because he kind of has to do it. But it's not real. How do you make it real? Well, I think it's a science of single instances, right? Which is to say it's no science at all. And the interpersonal relationship, like I have no insight.

And frankly, it's not really my business about one-on-one when they look eyeball to eyeball what Pierre-ev and Jean Chouet really personally think about each other I have no idea you know what Mark Garneau and Justin show thought of each other or you know what Hedy Fry thought of thought of Paul Martin like it's it's not it's and there's a dynamic there interpersonal that it could be oil and water or it could be something where they they come together and move forward effectively so so it's a very personal business and you've gone out there and you've gone across a continental size nation and you've appealed to people and asked them to sign up and to join you. It's, it's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of passion. It's it's,

you've put yourself on display for ridicule attack and, and, and all that and you lose. And so, so you have to deal with people and politicians have, you know, we have particular kinds of egos and it's a very public business. And so you to mend those things, it's not even just a tactical thing of if you come along, what you thought about or what you push for in the campaign, we will recognize. But it's a matter of mending egos and getting along and trying to put country first. And it's it's tough. It's the most high profile process we have in Canada of interpersonal relations that's on display. Jerry, you've seen this more than a few times. What would you add,

or could you add something to that in terms of the first things you should be doing? Well, Peter, other than every time I hear James talk, I lament that he's not the incoming leader of this party. But other than that, I think I would agree with what James said. I would also say that it's important that you establish continuity with the promises you made during the leadership campaign itself. You establish that there's kind of a new sheriff in town that you, if you plan any changes, you want to signal that you were serious about them, and that you start making them on day one. I think those conversations are very difficult ones, especially in hard fought, close leadership campaigns. And it's as we lament all the time on this segment of your podcast,

it gets harder and harder as the politics of the country gets more and more toxic, not just between parties, but within parties. But it's an opportunity to rise above partisanship. It's an opportunity to be a leader for all of the people that you want to lead and not just the narrow partisan segment that delivered the leadership to you.

So from my perspective, it's all about establishing with an eye to a general election campaign. It's about establishing a broader coalition of people than the ones that, than the people who granted you the prize that you're. So you're always trying to think a couple of steps ahead and i think that's the secret to success in politics one of the first decisions i guess any leader has to make other than the ones you've just mentioned is who to immediately surround themselves with who he or she feels is is the person or the people they want closest to them as they make some of the

decisions that every leader has to make. Now, there are two schools of thought here. You can go with the people who brought you there. In other words, the people who helped manage your leadership campaign, or you can have a totally different kind of operative working there. And we've seen this over time through all parties, where it's not necessarily the best campaign organizers who make the best policy advisors. So how do you make that decision? Jerry, you start us on this round. That's a really hard one, Peter. And it's certainly, I would argue, more difficult when you win the election campaign because of the dynamic you described. I think that's a bit of a cliche in my experience.

There are lots of versatile, talented people who are very valuable and useful on campaigns who also are valuable in the prose environment of know, the old cliche that campaigning is poetry and governing as pros. I think that's true, but I think it's also true that lots of talented people can make that transition, but it's inevitable that there are a few people to whom the candidate or leader or new prime minister is very close that you can't necessarily bring them with you to the next step of the journey. And those are very, very difficult conversations that you have to have with people. But again, I think it's, you want to have a plan, right? And I know that sounds like a cliche, but I used to say this all the time, politics plan beats no plan, 99% of the time.

And if your plan was only to win the leadership and then you plan on making another one once you get there you're going to have a really rocky start that you want to have at least the first uh the fabled hundred days planned out uh so that you create a clear sense in the broader public of who you are, what you stand for, and why you're there. George Will, in describing what constitutes sort of the, he said there are three pillars of what constitutes a good leader in a democracy. First is, does the person surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are and fill in the gaps? And do they know their limitations and surround themselves with those people? And do they listen to them? Number one. Number two, when they're presented with the balance of evidence that is substantive and objective, and also subjective and political,

and those two worlds collide, and when they have to make the decision of judgment on balance to the sweep of their careers, do they make the correct judgment call? So surrounding yourselves with smart people, and then the question of judgment. And then the third pillar is, at core, is this a person of good character? Is he a good guy? Would you trust him with your spouse, with your money, with your kids? So surround yourself with smart people and listen to them. When it comes to the question of judgment, do they make the right call on balance? Nobody's perfect. And then third, at core, is it a person of good character? And then institutions around the leader should buttress and fulfill all of that and should reinforce the best elements of those things. Let me just isolate that first one, first of all. Surround yourself with smart people and listen to the advice they get.

Can you, each of you, can you name an example of somebody who did just that? Your own personal situations, perhaps. Ignore those. But in terms of the the kind of modern history the recent history of canadian politics because it's always seemed to me that there's that in in a way is kind of the hardest thing to do the surrounding yourself with smart people not necessarily that hard but listening to them taking their advice acting on their advice sometimes may be harder yeah I mean you know and we've made it harder and and I think you know um Jerry will have a very long list but I have a very short list of sins of the Harper government um and but but I I think among among the mistakes that were

made I think where it was the the accountability act quote quote which is a large piece of legislation and a series of pieces of legislation but among them you know was the five year ban on lobby coming back into government because it in on the cultural side it sort of made government relations and and all that's you know look like a dirty business or be tainted that way number one but two seven five of the last seven elections have yielded minority parliaments and so you have a churn of politicians a churn of staff and you're not going to attract painted that way number one but two seven five of the last seven elections have yielded minority parliaments and so you have a churn of politicians a churn of staff and you're not going to attract quality people in the prime earning years of their life when they're full of them and vinegar to and passion about public policy to to you know risk you know sort of a half decade of their livelihoods

and plus their family disruptions and all that when you're basically curbing off their ability to parlay uh not in a nefarious way but their public contributions into sort of you know private opportunities and so so we made that mistake but you know it's so it's hard to attract quality people to public life who can fulfill what jerry and i just sort of described at a high level um so it's tough that's why I think it's really important for the course of a leadership race that people who are running for leader think ahead to that and think ahead to that dynamic

that if I'm going to run, do I think I can win? Do I think I can beat my political opponent? Can I have the right messaging, raise the right money? Yeah. But you also need a crew of people who will be ride or die with you.

You need people who will forever in their lives be tattooed with Jerry Butts as a Justin Trudeau liberal. I'm a Stephen Harper conservative. In life, it closes certain doors. It opens certain doors. It's a bargain that I made. It's one that I'm very proud of. It's one that Jerry's very proud of. And you need people like that in your life.

But then you have to also fulfill other things in other capacities. And you have to reach out to people. And you have to, you know, if you want the privilege of being the prime minister of the country, not only do you have to sell yourself to 35 million Canadians, but you also should have the capacity to fulfill a cabinet, to fulfill a caucus, and also to have a core group of staffers who can buy into your vision.

And if you can't do that, then you probably shouldn't be prime minister. Jerry, you're the classic fork in the road here. You can either go with what you were trying to get in earlier, or you can take the road, which is the answer to my question. But it's your choice. You take the road you want. I'll be a good guest and answer your question, Peter, but I'll answer it in a different way. Because my favorite example is neither Canadian nor recent. It abraham lincoln and doris kearns goodwin wrote a great book about this the um uh i can't remember what i've

talked about but my favorite of those stories is uh william stanton who had embarrassed lincoln publicly when lincoln was a young lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. And the most, you know, you can kind of it's like nails on a chalkboard to think of the story. And then a few years later, through the most improbable set of circumstances, Abraham Lincoln finds himself president of the United States as it's beginning to self-immolate and who does he call to be in his cabinet? But Stanton, because he was the best person

available when their one and only meeting had been a horrific embarrassment both personally and professionally for Lincoln that's the kind of character you want in positions of leadership people who are going to almost be able to step outside their own bodies and look at themselves as if they're objects and understand what's best for the state, province, country. I would say another example, frankly, is the Harper government during the financial crisis, that had they taken the traditional conservative ideological approach to responding to the financial crisis, the country would have been in a much deeper hole than it ended up in. But Harper listened to people who wouldn't necessarily tell him what he wanted to hear. And they developed a pretty good response

to what was potentially a catastrophic event. I'll give you an example. I will answer your question this time about failure. And it was actually the moment when I knew Stockwell Day's leadership of the Canadian Alliance was over. Some people may have known it earlier, but I was in the Conservative Caucus or the Canadian Alliance Caucus at the time, a new MP. I thought everything was going great relative because what did I know? And I remember Stockwell Day, he had, he had, he was surrounded himself.

He tried to follow the Lincoln example, whether he knew it or not and surrounded himself with rivals. Deborah Gray, Lincoln example, whether he knew it or not, and surrounded himself with rivals. Deborah Gray, you know, it was it was deputy leader Chuck Strahl, Jay Hill, Ian Todd on the staffing side, who's now Pierre Polyev's chief of staff. He was Preston Manning's EA. So the Preston Manning team, he made Ian Todd his chief of staff. And Stockwell Day just never he just crashed and burned on the runway after the 2000 election, never got anything underway. These people were about to quit. And I remember Stockwell standing up in our caucus room and he actually put out his hands and people were saying, like, where's your team? Who's your strategic advisor?

Who's who's the person who's going to who's going to sort of get us going in the right direction? We want to give you a chance. And I remember he stood up in the caucus room and he put his hands out. He said, you guys are my you're my advisors. That actually happened. And I sort of think, like, it's over. Like, it's over. He doesn't get it.

He doesn't understand. And from that, I lost confidence. And at that moment, it was myself and James Rajot, Scott Reed. We went to Stephen Harper and said, we said, this guy's done. We need to rebuild. And the other guys broke off and created the DRC and we had a civil war for a couple of years, but spoiler alert, it all turned out great in the end. One of the things that, that both you two have experienced,

both firsthand and, and watching from off the field is situations where a leader comes in, a new leader comes in and you know even from the get-go like right away uh that there's probably 10 to 15 percent of uh of the the caucus or even the party are going to be offside with this new leader just no matter what that leader what he or she does they're going to be offside how do you deal with that how do you how do you first of all prepare the leader for the that reality is is going to happen um but how do you decide how to how to handle it? Well, I think that this is not unique to politics, Peter. I think there are kind of three kinds of conflict in any organization. One is process conflict,

which is, I don't like the way we're doing this. One is content conflict, which is, I don't like what we're doing. And the last is interpersonal conflict, which is I don't like you. And if it's the third, then you have to figure out a way to manage those people out of positions of authority. But generous leadership dictates that you give them every opportunity to air grievances and categories one and two

and try and solve them, right? But there comes a time when if someone is ardently opposed to everything you're trying to accomplish and they're wearing your jersey they need to be traded yeah yeah and and there are people who are on suicide missions it's their version or no version and and they're not prepared to put some water in their wine they're not prepared to take half a loaf and all that and and and those people frankly have to be jettisoned you know graveyards of the world are filled with indispensable politicians so you know you have and their advisors exactly so you know you mean speaking you know putting names to circumstance

i mean alan reyes right and and pierre paulieff in his transition uh clearly a very talented politician he was the deputy you know leader or the and the quebec you know caucus chair and quebec lieutenant for both andrew sheer and aaron o'toole so this is a guy who has you know clearly had had a great deal of support and respect within the caucus but you know he doesn't like pierre paulieff doesn't agree okay well in a democracy the majority has rights and boy does pierre paul polliev have have a have a have a right to lead the party he won alan avea as his own riding he won every riding in quebec except for two so he has a right to lead the party whether alan avea likes it or not and alan avea has respectfully has stepped out of the way and he's not coming along stephen harper you

know when he when he when the merger happened and he beat belinda stranek and tony clement for the leadership of of our party like it was actually pretty messy. Rick Barotic, who was the House leader for Peter McKay, didn't come across. There were four progressive conservative senators who stayed as progressive conservatives and tried to keep the brand going. Scott Bryson crossed the floor. Keith Martin crossed the floor. John Heron from New Brunswick crossed the floor. It was not without its problems.

But that took about three months, and it solved itself when we moved forward because people respected the mandate that Stephen had and he just soldiered forward. So, so these things can be messy because of egos and personalities and you wonder whether or not that leader will, will transmit in my writing, whether or not I can carry forward or I don't like his, his personality, as Jerry described those three, those three dynamics. So the challenge of a leader is to,

is to face those conflicts and move forward. The more challenging problems, of course, are when those conflicts happen, not in a transition from winning a leadership to becoming a leader, but becoming a leader to becoming the prime minister. Okay, I want to take a break here in a second, but one last point on this particular topic. You know, Brian Mulroney used to be given a lot of credit, still is today, as sort of the leader who showed a style in managing his caucus by meeting with

them individually, having dinner with them, bringing them to 24 Sussex when there used to be a 24 Sussex, all of that stuff. And that he was kind of a master at that. Now, you'd think that other leaders would automatically do that to keep caucus on side, but that hasn't happened. Or at least if it has happened, I'm not aware of it. Is that a good approach or can it carry its own potential problems in sort of cozying up on a constant basis to as many of those MPs, backbenchers mainly,

who seem to be out of the orbit of the decision-making process? Jerry? Well, it's certainly the results speak for themselves, Peter. When Brian Mulroney was down to the proverbial blood relatives and paid staff in support levels, not a single member of this caucus split on. So I think that that's, that's well with one really important notable exception from his cabinet on other matters, but it wasn't because of Brian's personality. I think Prime Minister Mulroney is a very naturally gregarious, extroverted guy, and he legitimately enjoyed the company

of other politicians. In my experience, all politicians are not like that. So I think leaders would be well advised to follow the Mulroney model, but not all of them can. I think that's right. I think that's right. And there's a question often,

what's better to govern by fear or to govern by love and respect? And fear lasts longer and it's more effective. But if your government starts to lose its footing, then people push back against that over time. And also, if you're governing in Canada, a minority government in Canada, you need to have 135 seats is kind of the floor now, you know, to a majority of 165, 170.

That's kind of the range in which that's a lot of personalities with a lot of different needs. Some of them are at the end of their political career. Some of them are at their start. Some of them want your job one day. Some of them want to be in cabinet but never will be but don't know it. Some of them are in cabinet and probably shouldn't be but for the for the grace of dynamics um and so so there's a lot of egos a lot of pressures a lot of personalities and takes to manage and you know my my way of saying by the way and we don't we don't say this often enough i think in certainly canadian politics but the expectations of the

capacity of a leader in canada are overwhelming you have to be a genuine public policy expert on something or a few things and surround yourself, but you certainly have to be literate on a broad sweep of public policy issues. You have to understand the nature of Canadian federalism and the regional pressures of this country. You have to understand the multicultural dynamics and pressures of societal life and what people are dealing with. You have to understand economics. You have to understand some grasp of sociology. You have to have economics. You have to understand some grasp of sociology. You have to have IQ. You have to have good EQ.

You have to have a good GQ. And by the way, you have to be able to do all of this while understanding Canada's place in the world as one of the most international countries. And by the way, you have to do all of this while managing personalities in a parliamentary system with a presidential expectations of the media environment. And by the way, you have to do all this flawlessly in two languages.

That's a hell of an expectation. And you didn't even mention managing the president of the United States. All of that. So I mean, you know, so we have a hell of a lot. Right. So so so when somebody puts their hand up and says, like I've had it many times where people said, you know, thinking about running for leader provincially, federally and what do you think? And I said, you're not in because the answer to the question of are you running for leader is not yes or no. It's either yes or hell yes. And if you're not hell yes, and you understand this whole dynamic that's in front of you,

you will not survive because what we expect and what is required for successful leadership in this country is so grand and so complicated that it's very, very tough and there are very few people who are up to the standard. Okay, we're going to take that quick break here, but we'll be right back with our latest More Bots conversation. And welcome back to The Bridge. You're listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. And welcome back to the More Buts Conversation number four. We're trying to analyze just what a leader, a new leader,

has to do when they take over their party. We've covered quite a bit of ground, but we're going to cover some new ground here in the final segment of the program. And that new ground is, aside from the staffing close to the new leader, what else does this new leader have to worry about in terms of the people who are working for him? Well, one potential area is funding. The party is eventually going to have to run an election campaign and they need money to do that. So the funding arm is really important and who you put in charge of it is important and how you make that decision. Also, policy development.

Who's going to do that? How do you make that decision? Also, policy development, who's going to do that? How do you make those decisions? So the question is, how important are those decisions in the first place? And how important is it that the leader involves himself or herself in those decisions? So let's get it started. Jerry, your quick analysis on that question. The person that you're going to lean on to write your platform, you want to be very close and simpatico philosophically with that person. And this is all extra parliamentary appointments, of course, and the campaign director. Those, I think, would be the person who's going to raise your money, the person who's going to develop your ideas with you, and the person who's going to run your campaign, other than your immediate staff, are the most important people in your life.

James? Yeah, I think all that is right. But I think most importantly as well is that, you know, this is not a cooperative. No. This is like, if you're going to lead, you need to lead and you have to have your hands on it. Party members expect the leader to have both hands on the wheel and to be driving in a clear direction and to be transparent about it and to be accountable and say, this is the executive director of the party. This is the chair of the fund. This is the board of the fund. This is the

executive of the party. This is my house leader, Coxley. You have to own the executive of the party. This is my house leader, caucus leader. You have to own the leadership of the party because you will be held accountable for when the wheels come off. And you can't say, well, I was just trying to be fair, you know, to the red Tory wing of the party that I kind of have. Nobody cares about that. They care about results and outcomes. It's said in conservative politics that, you know, that conservatives have to respect their leader. They don't have to love their leader. They don't have to like their leader. They need to respect their leader in terms of their substance and their capacity to to to to push things forward.

And I think, you know, you can't lead unless you can control things. That's going to be one of the and it's already been talked about, I think, in some shows, you know, the Michael Chong, the Democratic reform stuff that he's he's put forward. Justin Trudeau is skillfully avoided that trap. The previous leaders of the Conservative Party have not. But I think that one of the most important things that Pierre Paul Leif should do out of the gate is ensure that there's clarity with the caucus, that he leads the party, that he leads this effort to provide an alternative government to Canadians, and that caucus doesn't lead this. This is not a British, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, not a British model. It's a Canadian model. It's unique. And,

and we cannot you cannot lead the party if you're not actually in control of the party. You know, you were, you were doing some heavy nodding, Jerry through that answer. Well, I agree. I agree completely. You can't be, as we'd say back home, an arsehole about it, but you've got to show people that you're in charge. And I think of the early days of the Trudeau leadership, which seemed, which seems like a thousand years ago now, but when Trudeau made the decision to remove the Liberal senators from the Liberal caucus. That was, it was a big story publicly, but nothing compared to the shockwaves it sent through Liberallandia. He basically threw people out of caucus, some of showing that he had his own ideas about how he was going to conduct the office and let everybody put everybody on notice that not unlike Mr. Qualia, if he came in with a massive majority of support from the party, that he was going to implement his ideas.

And it wasn't just he wasn't there to talk about them just to clarify when you say that we use this term back home we're we're talking about cape breton are we cape breton yes yeah which we should say a word about by the way because people are really suffering yeah in cape breton and my hometown of Glace Bay was particularly hard hit and people are pulling together as they always do in these circumstances in that part of the world but I would encourage anybody who has extra money lying around to donate to either the United Way of Greater Cape Breton or the Red Cross both of whom are doing great work out there. And both of whom are at least the Red Cross, perhaps both of them,

the donations they compile are being doubled by the federal government. So good for them. And it is. You know, what we witnessed in Atlanta, Canada, and what we witnessed in Florida is unlike anything we've seen in our lifetimes in terms of damage on this continent. Sadly, we will see a lot more of it in the rest of our lifetimes. Yeah.

But that's perhaps a topic for another. Yeah, and it is a good topic because it becomes this sort of, you know, we kind of hinted at it on Friday in Good Talk, this, you know, if the ballot question ends up being, you know, inflation versus climate change, what's the winning ticket? But as you said, that's a conversation for another day. I want to kind of finish this off, and we can take as much time as we want on this,

by coming up with examples of, and they don't have to be Canadian, they could be anywhere, a new leader who's done it right, and a new leader who's not done it right, who's done it wrong, and has paid the price as a result of that. Let's start with the done it wrong one. Who wants to go there? And I know that in some cases, you don't want to destroy friendships here, but that's why I say it's a wide open field. You can use any example that you can think of. Who's done it wrong?

Well, I think there's a very live current example, and that's Liz Truss in the UK, that she was, through the democratic system that James just described in the UK, she was the beneficiary of the caucus deposing the leader. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Great Britain, of the United Kingdom under, you know, odd circumstances peter where she has very few actual voters who put her in the highest office in the land and she chose to interpret her mandate very radically and as a consequence

um you know cost almost you know billions of pounds to the brit public. And I think that there are a lot of lessons to be derived from that. But one is, I think the most important, whether you're taking over the leadership of a party or a country, is to understand why people put you there and what your mandate looks like. And if you overstep those bounds, the checks and balances within any democratic system are going to punish you severely. I think trust is a glaring example of that. I think one of the didn't go well, and we've already talked about the operational stuff and the staffing stuff. But on a higher level, I don't think Paul Martin did well um and i actually think he was hobbled in the beginning as a consequence of it um you know it's been said um by uh um john quincy adams not john adams but his son quote one of his quotes was being all things to all people means being nothing to no one

and paul martin you know the juggernaut who is going to win certainly my suburban vancouver riding which was sort of a gordon campbell you know blue liberal red tory crossover voter you know perfect for the moment in the mid 2000s and all that um you know his coalition spent everything from ujoldo sanj to keith martin to scott bryson to heady fry like it was just it was too big and in politics as you know you know they're the when a government you have three and as a cabinet minister as a prime minister there's sort of three things that are that are thrust upon you there are things that you proactively want to do there's the things that you operationally have to do by function of being government and then the third thing is are the

things you have to respond to that happen donald trump happens the floods happen crises happen ukraine being invaded by Putin happened so stuff that you want to proactively do stuff that you have to happen by do you have to do by function of government and the things you have to react to and Paul Martin had a million priorities you know like he and so there was no clarity and focus and so the transition I think failed because he had promised so many things to so many people and there were just too many people on the ship and the ship never got got out of the port because it was weighed down by so much expectations and so many priorities you got to focus you got to be clear about what

you want your legacy to be very early in your mandate and drive towards it and be persistent about it you know we talk about climate change obviously Justin Trudeau has hung his hat on that and he wants that to be his legacy we won't get into the substance of the debate of that, but at least there's a clarity there in terms of thematic that Justin Trudeau wants 20 years hence. People look back and say he was the guy who focused on that thing. And I think Paul Martin never, ever had that focus. It was never clear why he wanted to be prime minister other than the fact that he wanted to be prime minister and you know and within two years he was you know he was he had lost that uh that job that position and and i've said this but i mean not to tell tales out of tip but i've said this to pierre poliev as well it's you you can become prime minister because the public just wants the other team out a lot

of people have become premiers and prime ministers just because we got to throw the bums out. That can happen. But in order for you to become the prime minister and then to do something with it, the public has to come along with you. You can become prime minister, but the public has to really want you to be prime minister

for you to actually get to do something with that mandate. To throw the current government out is one thing, and then you're standing there and you're left with kind of nothing in terms of an energy and a force. actually get to do something with that mandate. To throw the current government out is one thing, and then you're standing there and you're left with kind of nothing in terms of an energy and a force and a consent by the public to do stuff. They have to want you to be prime minister to do a certain thing. So you need to decide between now and the campaign, what is it that you want to get from the public as a mandate to do? And it can be relatively vague. It can be thematic. It can be specific. You know, Stephen Harper cutting the it can be relatively vague. It can be thematic. It can be specific. You know, Stephen Harper cutting the GST by two points.

It can be one of those things. But you have to get a bit of a mandate from the public. Otherwise, you're going to be very limited in terms of your room to move forward and to focus on something in a way that Paul Martin never did. Yeah. And then you have to do it, right? Yeah. That's the key thing.

I used to maybe even said this on the key thing uh i used to maybe even said this on this show but i used to say all the time in politics that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing and if you can't tell yourself what that thing is you're going to have a hard time doing it um but you better darn well spend most of your waking hours trying to make progress on it while you're in the job and i I do have to say, and this is where I think Justin Trudeau is at risk as we go forward. I mean, there's a real economic crisis. We talk about what's happening in the UK. I think there's every expectation that could very well happen here. Recession is likely going to come. It could be substantive. It could be global in nature. Cost of living, rising interest rates,

rising cost of fuel, all these things, you know, and if the government is still talking about climate change, you know, sort of seeming to be void of the of the immediate pressures and crises that people are having, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's a thematic that's consistent, and maybe the main thing. But if you know, the public gets to decide what the politicians are talking about, if the politicians are talking about that, they will go and get themselves a new group of politicians to talk about their thing. All right, Jerry, let me just, before we leave Liz Truss, let me just ask you this.

The reason I mentioned Paul Martin, you know, he got his two years, but because he stumbled out of the gate, he was gone in two years. Can Liz Truss turn this around, or could it be proven over the next year that the actions she has taken, as bad as they look right now, actually were right? You don't seem to be giving her any chance. I don't think she has a

chance. I mean, I would, we're, in my day job at Eurasian Group, we're in the business of assessing probabilities these days. I would say she has a 10 to 15 percent chance of turning things around. And we'll we'll know one of the key signposts will be what the economic statement from the chancellor is on the 23rd of November, because all that's happened at present is the markets are being, the hounds are being kept away from the door because the Bank of England took the extraordinary step of responding to not some external crisis, but the policy decisions of its own government.

And therefore, the markets have been calmed. But what markets are expecting is that the UK will reverse course on on the 23rd and if they don't reverse course they're probably going to lose the next election so that's a bit of a seat that's a bit of a floor on how bad things can get in the United Kingdom but I don't think you know she's dying to generate the headline she's not bent for turning uh so that she can emulate her her idol margaret thatcher and she may indeed get that headline but she should turn um okay last question uh and and feel free to abandon your team colors on on this one but it but it is it is the question who's done right? Who do you point to in this country or elsewhere, say, you know what, they were right from the moment they won the leadership of their party?

I'll give kudos to Christy Clark in my home province of British Columbia. You know, she, because the circumstance of her leadership was unique. And I wonder if i wonder if danielle smith will be able to to replicate this because the circumstances are similar christy clark was an outsider came back took over the bc liberal party from gordon campbell had one mla in a majority government support her leadership race support her in the leadership race and she won on i think was the third ballot the contest leadership was very tight and she had no caucus support. But she came in, reached out to people who were against her, put key people in cabinet. Her main rival, Kevin Falcon, who's now the leader of the BC Liberal Party, was made as finance minister. She said, you know, I may personally agree with the HST, but I'm going to surrender to the public's judgment.

We're going to roll it back. I've tasked my finance minister to recognize the results of the plebiscite and to undo the's judgment. We're going to roll it back. I've tasked my finance minister to recognize the results of the plebiscite and to undo the HST. And then those MLAs who still didn't like her and didn't support her, she gave them an opportunity for a graceful exit. They left, and she restaffed the party with people who believed in her leadership, who were not the current crew of people. And she went on and won a surprise majority mandate and sort of did a transition. So she won on the third ballot, had no caucus support, showed respect to the people who were her rivals,

got them out of the way, rebuilt the party, and then went on to win a successful majority mandate. That was an example of a transition, which at the whole time in that window was listening to the public sentiment on the HST and then putting something new in the window, which was LNG and a hopeful, optimistic path forward for growth. I think that was about as clean as it could get with some difficult cards that were given to her. Jerry?

Well, in the transition to a government, I'll say something. There's two nice things I've said about the Harper government in this talk. I thought Harper did an excellent job of taking, if your objective is to consolidate and then grow, Harper started thinking about how he was going to put together a majority coalition the day after he won a minority government. And that was certainly one of those circumstances that James described where it was a throw-the-bums-out election. And Harper understood that, I think, and knew that in order to get to a majority position, he needed a million people to vote for him who didn't vote for him on the day they made him prime minister.

So I think that that's a good example of it. Someone taking over the leadership of the party, you know, obviously I think Trudeau did a good job, but that's not exactly playing against type now, is it? I think that I'm struggling to think of one. Tim Houston, the current Premier of my home province, I thought he did an excellent job when he took over what was generally considered to be a moribund political party

that was far behind in the polls and was going to lose the next election. And he very quietly and methodically put his own people in place, built different policies, appealed to a broader cross-section of the Nova Scotia population, and it all paid off. I think that Nova Scotia example is a good one. It's one that perhaps should be studied by certainly other provincial governments. Let's say there were provincial parties who worried that they're never going to get their opportunity because they look so far behind.

He did and managed to turn it around. Okay, we're going to get their opportunity because they look so far behind. He did and, and managed to turn it around. Okay. We're going to leave it at that. Gentlemen, this has been fascinating conversations as the conversations that we would, the three of us have had already this year have been all along and there'll be another one coming up.

So look forward to that. Thanks, James. Thanks, Jerry. Always a pleasure, Peter. Well, there you go.

The more butts conversation number four. And it was a great conversation. And so were the other three. In fact, you know, maybe I should package these as an album. Great more butts conversations. Or butts more conversations. I'll have to have that argument someday. Anyway, the table's set there.

There were a number of different things that came up in that conversation that could make their own conversation in the future, and we'll discuss those possibilities as the days and weeks move forward. I should just mention, as I did mention before this started today, and as I mentioned in the break, it was recorded in Winnipeg over the weekend. And I mention that because clearly the British Prime Minister, this lady is not made for turning.

Well, she in fact did turn, at least on part of her economic package just today. And we'll see how that plays out. But nevertheless, glad to have both James and Jerry with us this week. Hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow, Tuesday, Brian Stewart will be by, and he's got quite a few things to discuss on the Ukraine front, as he has had all along since we started using him in, well, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

So Brian has some thoughts that we should be considering on this day. Wednesday is Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday, your turn, your letters. So send them along. And if you have some thoughts on this conversation we just had, please send them to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Also Thursday, the random ranter.

And as expected, he was right out there last week on the issue of EVs, electric vehicles. And there's been lots of reaction to that. And I think he'll probably want to react to the reaction. So that'll be good coming up on Thursday, Friday. Of course, good talk, Chantelle Hebert. And Bruce Anderson will join us once again. Rob Russo filling in for Bruce last Friday.

And it was a great broadcast, as Rob always delivers for us as well. Alright, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back at you in 24 hours.