The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What Was That All About Ms. Freeland?

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

It's the Wednesday Smoke Mirrors and The Truth with Bruce Anderson on the day after a classic smoke, mirrors and the truth session in Ottawa.The finance minister gives her economic statement and it was revealing to watch her and to watch the way the opposition reacted to it.  Some thoughts on that and also about pandemic management following the first ministers' meeting last night.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday, it's Hump Day, it's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth Day, it's Bruce Anderson Day. All in just a moment. And okay, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Did we see a lot of smoke mirrors and some truth yesterday in the economic statement? You know, I can recall somebody telling me, and I thought somebody was a former finance minister, telling me one day, you know, being finance minister is tough. You got a lot of focus on you, but really there's only two days that count in your whole calendar year. One is obviously the budget.

The second is the economic statement day. Other than that, you can always answer all your questions by saying, Hey, I can't answer that question until the budget or the economic statement. So, you know, leave me alone.

And, you know leave me alone and you know he was exaggerating obviously about how difficult the job was but there's a certain truth to that and you see finance ministers trying to play that card when they're under fire at different times that are not the budget or the economic statement well yesterday was the economic statement for a government that has running the highest deficits in the history of the country that's got the highest debt in the history of the country not not you know kind of people kind of get it as to why because of the enormous amounts of money that have been spent on dealing with the pandemic in almost two full years now.

But nevertheless, so a critical day for Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland. And there has been, you know, reaction. Keep in mind in economic statements, not a budget. A budget, you have all kinds of potential, or not potential, you actually have tax measures in it and all kinds of statements around amounts of money. But an economic statement does give you a overview. It's kind of like a throne speech on the political agenda ahead for a government. This is kind of like a financial overview of kind of where we are and the direction in which we're heading and the major uh issues surrounding that direction

so having said all that christian fieland uh does her thing she actually wasn't in the house because of you know some issues surrounding uh covid with some of her staff, but she was obviously online and talking to members of the House of Commons. So having said all that, Bruce, what did you make of what we heard? What was the most important thing about what we heard? Well, just before I get to that, Peter, you know, it was a great day for me because it started in toronto i was on an annual shopping trip with my older daughter that we've been doing this shopping trip for i think we figured out it was like 25 years or something like that and so that day went well it's always a special day for me it's really great fun and then of course we went into indigo to get some some books and we saw this amazing stack of this book that everybody has been trying to get in

ottawa and it's really in short supply here it's that off the record book uh written by you so good to see that that the printers have been able to manufacture more copies in time for the holiday season so to get to your uh to your no no we could spend more time talking about that if you want i thought you might want i want to know why now the the trip to the annual trip to toronto is that more because it's kind of a father-daughter thing as opposed to the fact that there's you know a much wider selection of uh of goods in toronto than there are in Ottawa. Yeah, 100%. That's what it is. It's a chance to spend four and a half hours in a car both ways,

to go out and have a nice, safe COVID safe dinner, and to do a little bit of shopping, principally for Kate's mom, my wife. And that's why we do it. It's not that we can't order things online or shop in Ottawa, but it's great fun to do it. Good for you. I hope we'll do it forever. So I actually thought yesterday was really interesting

on the economic statement. The first thing I would say is that I think all the parties, except maybe the BQ, did kind of what I think they're there to do. I felt they all had variations on reasonably good days. I think it was, for Chrystia Freeland, possibly her best day in the role as finance minister. And the reason I say that is I think she was quite forthright in talking about the challenges of COVID as it relates to fiscal planning. I think she made the points that she wanted to make about what it was that the government was committing to using language that was pretty straightforward. I think she avoided over-the-top rhetoric about other parties and politics and that sort of thing.

And so I think she had a pretty good day in terms of the communications of it. But I also think it was pretty good public policy. It won't make everybody happy. And there will certainly be parts of the public policy mix that some people, maybe even lots of people, just disagree with. But I thought she had a good day. I thought that the conservatives, for the most part, I watched some of Aaron O'Toole's response in the House of Commons. Some of the arguments he was making, I think, are what you expect an opposition party to do, which is to say, focus on inflation and

the cost of living and the cost of housing, where they fall short, I suppose, is what would you do differently? And I saw an interview with Pierre Polyev, the finance critic, who was asked, well, you know, this deficit update showed that the deficit was going to be $10 billion less than it had been planned to be and your fiscal plan as the conservative party running in the election would have had a higher deficit than this so how would your approach if you had been elected would be better from an inflation standpoint which i thought was a pretty good question by paul adams on the cbc paul workman uh paul no not paul hunter no paul hunter that's it sorry all the balls too many polls apologies to all the polls out there so uh i thought it was a it was a good conversation

i thought it was an interesting question because i felt as mr polyev was playing the role of finance critic for the conservative party, asking him a question about a platform that probably wasn't the platform that he would have written had he been the leader of that party was an interesting one. And I want to come back to that on childcare in a moment. And I watched a young MP, Blakey from Manitoba talking about it on behalf of the NDP. And I thought, you know, articulate on behalf of the NDP, pushing the Liberals on certain issues. I thought it was a good presentation. I didn't follow Jagmeet Singh's comments very closely yesterday.

I didn't have a chance. Can I just stop you there for a sec? I know you're going to pick up again. I watched that same conversation. I had two observations. One, the deficit issue and the difference between what the conservatives had promised a couple of months ago in the campaign versus what we looked at yesterday in terms of the projections on the part of Freeland that the deficit was going to be lower than the originally

forecast and the conservative argument that yep we don't argue with those numbers but we do look at why it's happening and why it's happening is because of inflation and as a result you know things are more expensive and as a result you know tax revenue that the government can take in is higher and that that makes the difference according to the conservatives i thought it was a reasonable argument to make um and one that could be you know put out there in in their window in in terms of uh challenging the numbers but more than that was the optics of that panel. Yeah, I was kind of impressed by it because Polyev, he knows how to fight.

And, you know, he can really take shots and deep shots. And sometimes it gets a little ugly on behalf of all of them who get involved in that. But here's why I liked it. Because yesterday, earlier in the day, I'd watched the feed from London and watched the debate going on inside Westminster and the British House of Commons. And the difference between what you see there and what you see here is stark. I mean, these parties don't like each other over there

in terms of some of these critical issues and even within each party there is huge separation and it's evident it's not secret and hidden in the background you see it you see it in their votes and you saw it in a vote yesterday where i think over 90 conservative mps voted against boris john Johnson's plan on COVID. But it's all done in such a polite way and with such great speeches and speakers that you go, wow, what would it take to have that here as opposed to what we often see, not always, but what we often see not always but what we often see uh in ottawa and that's why i thought that panel it only lasted what was it 10 minutes maybe probably 10 minutes yeah but it was a not just an issue of polite but it it was it was constructive you know they

laid out their different positions and they laid them out in a you know in a way that was easy to watch yeah i agree with that i found it one of the best things that i've seen of that sword in a very long time and uh just wishing that it wasn't just an accident paul um asked a question that hunter yes mr hunter allowed for a moment of levity between the the two of them they're both very articulate they're both very strong uh in putting their positions and i felt like that it was a very welcome uh kind of way in which they talked about things um i did think that the bq uh spokesperson had a rather odd take and a and it wasn't a particularly effective take i thought on the budget saying it was extreme or the budget the financial uh update saying it was extremely shallow and hardly worth the weight or something like that and and um uh I just felt it wasn't the most effective criticism. So I thought that the opposition parties and the government both all did, you know, relatively good job at

what they're there to do. I think the challenge for the government obviously is what to do about COVID and how big a challenge will it be from an inflation standpoint, from a deficit standpoint, and from a COVID management standpoint. And we're seeing more and more frustration with people about in some provinces, access to boosters quickly, in a lot of places, access to rapid tests that are affordable for people as they're trying to do the right thing. And I'm very hopeful that the prime minister and the premiers who were getting together last night to talk through some things are able to come to some agreements to have a better standard of and maybe more consistent standard across the country. I think there's one or two other things I want to mention. I've watched a clip of Mr. Polyev from a few days ago, I think, on the child care agreements that the federal government has been signing.

And I think they're almost all done now. It's Ontario, I think, is maybe the only province that doesn't have one of these agreements that is intended to reduce the cost of health care by 50% in the short term and to $10 a day over five years. And Mr. Polyev said that he would scrap that program if the Conservatives were in office. And I just had this feeling that I'd be surprised if Aaron O'Toole wants to run on that as a platform, especially as a conservative party is talking about housing affordability and the cost of living. And the truth is that you can't do very much about housing affordability and you can't do very much about global inflationary pressures. And so if you go into an election and you say the one thing that these young people

who are trying to figure out how to afford that first home which most economists say is the heart of the big political affordability problem there are other housing affordability problems that relate to to low income housing how you how you convince those voters that you can solve their housing affordability problem and they should just be okay with you killing these lower cost child care initiatives. I find that hard. So I'm wondering if Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Poliev are actually in sync on this, or this is a kind of a rift that will widen as they talk about this a little bit more in the future. And I promise this is the last point. One of the things that wasn't discussed much politically yesterday, and I was encouraged by that,

is the news that the federal government in its negotiations with indigenous groups is arriving at a, it's not a finished deal yet, but the broad outlines of an agreement in terms of compensation and treatment of those who've been harmed by residential schools and there was a price tag a notional price tag attached to it of 40 billion dollars and included in the fiscal update was the additional cost of that i think it was was $25 or $26 billion, which is not an insignificant sum of money.

And for me to observe that that didn't become a political football, the cost of it, the need for it, the appropriateness of it, well, I was encouraged by that because I do think it's very, very hard policy. It's very hard policy work to do. There's a lot of strong feelings associated with it. There were a lot of people criticizing the government for continuing its legal posture relative to some of these claimants. And maybe we're going to get through to a successful outcome of that successful being

defined, obviously, as an agreement that harm was done and this compensation makes sense without it becoming politicized. I'm hopeful. I know you follow that issue carefully. I'd be very curious to know what your takeaway on that is, Peter. You know, there are two ways to handle something like this. One is not to say anything until the deal is done and everybody's signed on, and that's that.

The other way is to kind of leak a little bit of it out, give a sense of the direction in which things are going, which always runs the risk of one or more partners saying, you know what, I think we can get more if we just squeeze a little harder. So that's actually where we are right now. I think all the various groups whether they're government or indigenous groups uh special interest groups have been working on this as well in you know in a good way uh are tiptoeing very carefully around the edges of this right now

um because i don't think it's in anybody's interest, nor do any of them want this to fall apart near the finish line. And we are near the finish line. I think they want to try and get it wrapped up in some fashion before the end of this year, may drag over into January, who knows. But it would be a huge accomplishment. And as you say, one that involves a huge amount of money but it has been holding back the movement towards some kind of you know resolution on this on this issue um and so if it works well more power to all of those uh involved and i think

you're you're absolutely right it didn't become like a political issue yesterday which we've seen it become at other times so you know full credit to all those involved all parties involved um yesterday that they didn't latch on to it. It doesn't mean they won't. Today's another day. No, but, you know, your point is right. I mean, I think that Jagmeet Singh has been a very strident critic of the federal government in terms of its legal pressures

or at least the legal posture that it has been taking. And if he was going to trash this deal, almost because it's his role as a partisan opposition leader to criticize the government, they had an opportunity to do it. And I didn't see any evidence that he did. And I'm glad of that. because I think that, you know, maybe when it's all said and done, he will find flaws in it that he wants to raise. But he didn't do that yesterday. And I think that probably does reflect that there is an element of good faith around this issue across all parties. The Conservatives didn't raise the question of cost or anything like that, as far as I could tell so far. And I think it signals a kind of a common hopefulness that we can not put this issue behind us. I don't mean it in that sense of, well, let's forget about it. But let's acknowledge that this is difficult and important work to do.

And let's try to see if we can't find a solution together. All right. Can take quick break. When we come back, I want to pick up on something else you said a moment ago. All right. Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa today.

This is The Bridge, Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth. And it's good to talk to you no matter where you're listening from. It could be on Sirius XM Canada, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or wherever you get your podcasts from, whatever platform you use. Glad you're with us. You mentioned a moment ago the fact that the Prime Minister and the Premiers met last night. And it was, you know, a virtual meeting, and they were all hooked in talking to each other. And I think the main topic of discussion was about pandemic management.

And, you know, this has come up a few times over the past two years now. This issue of the fact that it's, you know, the management is different in different provinces. Now, you know, I understand that is part of our makeup. That's part of our constitution. Provinces have powers, and certain powers they're very protective of. And it's a little hard for the federal government in some areas to blanket the country with the same rules.

But we are facing that right now and there is something i don't know whether it's inherently unfair or it certainly seems disorganized uh that on the booster rollout where they're all saying you've got to get your booster and yet for some populations they're saying not yet you've got to wait till you're 50 or the over 50s can't get an appointment you know they're online or on the phone for hours on end trying to get in somewhere um and it's not because we don't have the vaccines we've got the vaccines we've got millions of vaccines same with rapid tests there's storage bins full of rapid tests and yet people have trouble accessing them it's all kind of set up once again differently in different provinces but it's kind of set up and in some

areas like ontario where you got to be a business with a certain number of employees, and you've got to apply for a kit through the Chamber of Commerce. And it's, you know, there's a school rollout in Ontario, which, you know, good for them. That seems to be working, at least initially anyway i wonder we we haven't had a full debrief and people aren't uh you know leaking the details of what that what that call was like at least on a in such a fashion that we could have a full understanding of what happened on the call but i would love to have you know been listening in to see how they were discussing that and whether they were able to duplicate what we talked about in that panel that Paul, what's his name, did, that Paul Enter did,

that there was a constructive attitude on the part of all and not the one that suddenly you know, suddenly fell into the, you know, the partisan pit. What do you make of all that? And especially the lack of uniformity on the way some of the key issues dealing with this pandemic, especially right now with Omicron, you know, are different in different parts of the country. Last year was really frustrating for me to watch on a number of levels, not just because of the virus, but because of the repeated politicization of the response to the virus,

whether it was the back and forth barracking about are we ever going to get vaccines is it going to be 2030 before we get some how come they're not coming fast enough how come this how come that there was an awful lot of tension and friction and some of it is legitimate it's causing the you know it's it's applying pressure on governments to do the right thing more quickly to be more open and transparent those kinds of things but some of it was political and some of it you know raised the level of stress in the population not because it needed to be raised but because it served some ostensible political purpose.

And there were some premiers as well who chose to make decisions about the management of COVID and the protocols around safety and the distribution and the requirement for vaccinations in ways that reflected their own political orientation. And on some level, that's legitimate. I don't have a quarrel with that, but I think that it frustrated me because it felt to me like we were all going to end up in the same place, which is we're still dealing with this virus

and we're only going to solve it if we all do pretty much the same things at the same time and we stick with it. And so to watch politics get some big chunks of this right, and also that big math part of it not so right, is frustrating. Now I can look at our situation and say, well, if we had avoided Omicron, it looks like we'll be the only place, we would have only been the only place in the world that would have done that. So this is going to be on us. And now I'm assuming that last night when they got together, if I had to guess, there's a fatigue and a sense of we should really probably all get on the same page about this. I'm hopeful, but it feels to me like there's less politics around it because every politician kind of understands that the consequences of looking like you're not moving fast enough with boosters, you're about to close down schools again, you might close down businesses again, you might close down travel again you're not making those tests that the federal government

bought and distributed to the provinces available to enough people at a low enough price or free that they can do the things that will protect themselves and others i don't think there's a premier in the province in the country including the ones who generally like to be at daggers drawn with the federal government. I don't think any of them want that movie. Jason Kenney doesn't want that movie. He's kind of deep underwater in the polls in Alberta. Doug Ford, he's so quiet right now, it seems.

And I think he's going to make an announcement today about booster availability. He doesn't seem to me to be putting any of the old political doug ford uh wants to be prime minister doug ford in the window of how he talks about covid right now and i and and i think that's a good thing but we're you know where we end up i think it's still going to be a question of of are we at a point where people are so tired of the consequences of COVID on their ability to live the lives that they want to live, that they're going to interpret partial data about low severity and the availability of a pill that you can take if you get it to reduce the severity and use that as a license to keep on doing somewhat hazardous things? I don't know. I don't think any of us know.

I think that's the big question for the politicians is how do you create a sense of this is the last chapter of it? Let's just hunker down. Let's get through another winter with it and do the safe things. Yeah, the problem is they've played that last chapter card, all of them, at other times. I don't think there's a person who was on that call yesterday, last night, that thought we would be at this situation at this time. After a year of vaccines, an incredibly successful rollout of vaccines for more than 80% of the country.

You've got 5 to 17-year-olds getting vaccinated now. There are booster shots. they desperately need them, but they're being delivered out there. And for any of those premiers to be in a situation where they were having to have basically an emergency call about what the hell do we do now is something that none of them, I'm sure, thought they were going to be involved in. What happens now? Can I add one other thing to that, Peter?

When we looked at polling early and midway, I say midway through the pandemic as though I really in my head think we're at the end point. I kind of do, but remember how we would talk about the fact that most incumbent governments were benefiting from public opinion saying they're doing the right thing. They've got income support programs. They're helping businesses out with rent. They're ordering vaccines. They're trying to do what's right to keep people safe. And the theory was, you know, politically speaking, it's good to be an incumbent government during the pandemic because people will really appreciate that you spent the $140 billion or the $250 billion and you did all these things. Well, that was bad theory. I mean, the federal government did all of the things that it did, many of which probably surprised people in terms of the speed and to some degree, the economic generosity is not the right word, but at least the idea that the backs were covered and people were able to stay home and be safe and know that they could put food on the table. But they had an election and it didn't materialize in any significant

increase in support. They were pretty much where they were before the pandemic. And so I think that all of the politicians now know that the math, the magic of being incumbents during the pandemic leading to some sort of big political upside, I don't think any of the reasons why he's not talking that much right now is that he knows that there's more risk for him and going public and trying to claim some credit for the management of covid because people are going to at some point go yeah it wasn't perfect and i wish you wouldn't keep trying to claim credit for it and so i think the politicians have changed the way that they think about the political math here. Yeah, and I agree, especially Doug Ford. I mean, he's walking a thin line here.

He's got an election in whatever it is, six, seven months. So he has to be careful as to what he can be admired by his base on the right by attacking Ottawa and attacking Justin Trudeau, and he's done that in the past. Not so much lately, as you say. He's been quiet because he also needs that centre vote as well in Ontario. And Ontario is known for any number of different things, aside from the fact that Leafs are in first place overall in the NHL right now. But one of the things Ontario has always been known for politically is the residents kind of like one party in power in Ottawa

and another party in power in Queen's Park. They like the balance that happens. Will they still like that come the next provincial election? Well, we're going to find out. These next six months are going to be interesting, and it'll be a mix of smoke mirrors and the truth throughout that time. One last quick topic. But before on the Leafs, I hope it doesn't require a pandemic

for the Leafs to win a cup. If it turns out that the only time that they could win a cup in 70 years or whatever it's been is the pandemic, that's a bad omen. It is a bad omen, but a cup's a cup's a cup. All right. Let's see the last thought. The last thought, and it's just a quick last one, which brings us back to where we started all this from,

and it's about Chrystia Freeland. You know, I remember at the beginning of this government in 2015, you know, a couple of elections ago, that she was considered at the time a bit of a potential rock star, right? She'd been a star candidate, although we rarely use that term anymore when she came in and ran for the liberals she was immediately into cabinet she's had strong cabinet positions since then she's been on the world stage she's been on the domestic stage and now she's trying to manage the country's economy through a, through a pandemic. Here's a, my question is this, is she the sort of undisputed front runner for the top job?

If the top job becomes open? Well, front runner for sure. Undisputed, I don't know. I think it's too early to know whether or not she will be disputed as the front runner. So if your question is, does everybody who's sizing up the opportunity see her as the front runner, it's undisputed in that sense. If you ask a question that's a little bit different, which is does everybody who imagines a race two years from now think it's inevitable that she will win? I don't think that's the case. I think there's a lot to play for.

And I think that, you know, I like that you use the term rock star because I think for politicians, when that label gets attached to them or even kind of tossed in their direction, they're probably, you know, human beings in politics have a level of ambition that's generally higher than the average person. Let me put it nicely. And, and sometimes they have a self-regard that's a little bit bigger than that of the average person. And so probably when they hear that, they go, wow, I'm a rock star, or I want to be a rock star. It sounds good to be a rock star, but it's usually a bad brand attribute to have attached to you because it

really does mean, especially in a country like Canada. Oh, well, you know, we're going to take a little of the rock star shine off you at some point so it's definitely a mixed blessing for her uh that uh that she has been seen and discussed for a long time as somebody that um that could be the liberal party leader after justin trudeau if it seems too inevitable then it will create counter effects. If she seems like she's kind of enjoying the idea that she's the undisputed rock star ish front runner, then people will just human nature being what it is. We'll try to challenge that. I think that politicians who choose a path of really solid policy choices and communication that's as clear and simple as possible have the best chance. But it's rare that those advising them or what they think about when they're kind of putting their heads down on the pillow at night think, let's just be kind of dull and steady. Generally, they go in a different direction, and sometimes that works, and sometimes it causes other problems.

But I can think of more rock stars who've kind of regretted being termed rock star than the opposite. Right. No, that's a very good point. And we'll keep that in mind. We've run out of our time. Interesting discussion. And we're not done yet for the week. Are you going to use the holidays, Peter, to write a follow-up book, like a sequel?

Yeah, I thought I'd churn one out next week. Yeah, I thought I'd churn one out next week. I don't think there's a chapter in there. I read it. I did take the time to read it, and I don't think there was a chapter in there about our podcast experience together or anything like that. There's a mention.

There's a mention, but I think we can get volume two or volume three, maybe four. I'm not sure. One of those we'll definitely get in on the podcast. All right. Bruce, we'll be back on Friday, of course, a special Good Talk on Friday with Chantel. We're going to sort of do the year-in-review, a year-ender type program, some key questions about,

well, you'll have to listen because you can play along as well. Tomorrow, hopefully it's going to be the mailbag edition, your thoughts and questions and comments. So don't be shy. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Send along your thoughts.

This has been Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thanks for everything, Bruce. And we'll talk to all of you in 24 hours.