The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What's This Picture Got To Do With A Podcast On The Pandemic -- You Might Be Surprised -- I Was.

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

But first, is there actually serious talk in Ottawa about an election? Beware.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with another episode of The Bridge Daily. Here we are, Thursday of week eight of The Bridge Daily. You know, I spent most of 10 years working in the Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa, covering Parliament Hill from sort of the mid-70s to the mid-80s. And it was a lot of fun. I love covering politics. I didn't think I would when I moved there from Regina. But immediately I kind of got right into it and loved covering Parliament Hill. And Parliament Hill is interesting because there's usually a story going.

But when there isn't a story going, you know what the kind of default position is? If you want to do a story, you start talking about when the next election might be. Well, there's been talk of the next election in the last couple of weeks, and you know why? Because the polls that are done, which mean nothing at a time like this, really, but nevertheless, the polls that have been done show the Liberals under Justin Trudeau were the pair of pretty significant lead. Keep in mind, they were,

they are the minority government after an election last fall that saw them not get as many votes as the Conservatives. But right now, if you believe the polls, if there was an election at the time these polls were done, it would show the Liberals winning. And in some cases with a pretty big lead. Most of the surveys that are being done now, if they translated into votes, would mean a majority Liberal government.

I think I saw one the other day with a lead of almost 20 points. I mean, that's kind of unheard of. You rarely see anything like that. So how real are they? I mean, this is not a real time we're living through. If this is the new normal, then we're not going to enjoy it in terms of the times we're living through. But in terms of a poll, in terms of what it looks like,

I mean, the rumor running around this morning for a little bit was, oh, Elections Canada is on an election footing for next spring, spring of 2021. Then it was found out that, well, in fact, sure, they're looking at 2021, but that's by legislation when they're supposed to be ready. They're supposed to be doing a check in the spring of 2021 about how ready their system is if an election was to be called. So there's nothing sort of sudden about that.

But minority governments, you know, there's a history of minority governments in our country, and usually the space between elections during a minority government is somewhere in the sort of year-and-a-half to two-year spot, which would drop in next spring or summer, because the election, remember, was in October of last year. So, okay.

So you're a liberal and you're all excited by the poll numbers. Should you be? Not really. You know, this is kind of normal when a government is in crisis or a country is in crisis. A government of the day, it's a great opportunity for them to look good and look like leaders. And usually that's what happens. Just because in the United States right now we're looking at a government that looks like it's tanking, that's not representative of the times when past crises have happened.

But the other thing that's representative of those times is they don't last. Things can change quickly in some cases. Let me give you a couple of examples. You know, we always turn to think of the Gulf War as 2003 when George W. Bush led the invasion of Iraq. We tend to think of that as the Gulf War. Well, actually, it was the second Gulf War. The first Gulf War was in the early 90s, and it was George W. Bush's father, George H. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush. Iraq had invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990. Bush said, we're not going to let that happen. He compared it to Hitler invading Poland in 1939,

and the world got together and went up against Hitler. He compared that situation, formed a coalition, and they were going to take back Kuwait for the Kuwaitis, which eventually he did in the January of 91. Took back Kuwait, chased the Iraqis out of Kuwait, could have finished them off, could have gone to Baghdad, knocked out Saddam Hussein, but chose not to. But I digress.

He was hugely popular for doing what he did do. And I mean hugely popular. When you look back at the polls in early 1991, George Bush was at 89% approval. I think that's the highest mark that Gallup had ever seen any time. It was one of the largest rises in the 50-year history of polling that Gallup had done. But it didn't last, because things like that don't last

because things like that don't last that was 91 by 92 Bush was in trouble people had forgotten about Iraq and that Gulf War and were instead focused on a hike in taxes after Bush had made an earlier promise in the election of 88 saying, read my lips, no new taxes.

Well, he put in some new taxes to pay for, among other things, the Gulf War. Anyway, Bush ended up going up against Bill Clinton, and he lost. He became a one-term president. And after having achieved 89%, just a little more than a year earlier, he lost the election. These things just don't last, these huge increases in popularity. There are, you know, more than a few examples in U.S. history.

FDR, hugely popular. We talked about him earlier this week. He had a huge lead for 30 weeks after Pearl Harbor in 1941, but then it kind of went down. He still won the 42 election, but that huge lead kind of evaporated. JFK, John Kennedy, 31 weeks he had a huge lead after the 62 Cuban Missile Crisis. We never found out what would have happened in the 1964 election if JFK had remained president, but he was assassinated in November of 63. Jimmy Carter had a 30-week huge lead after the American hostages were seized in Iran in November of 1979.

But he never got them out. And as a result, he lost the election in November of 1980, a year later. So history tells us in the States, you can't have those big leads and expect them to last forever. Richard Nixon was at the height of his popularity when the war ended in Vietnam. He had an approval rating almost of 70%, and it was 69% in March of 73.

A little more than a year later, as he was facing impeachment, he resigned with an approval rating under 30%. So there are your Canadian, or sorry, there are your American examples. So should Justin Trudeau be looking at those examples if he's even thinking about an election, which there's no indication he is,

but as a politician, you always at least have one eye open on that situation. But he can go back and look at his father's record in a time of crisis, October 1970, the Quebec crisis, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. His moves, including the War Measures Act, at the time were extremely popular. He was supported in overwhelming numbers by the Canadian people.

October 1970, two months later in December of 70, Gallup surveyed the Canadian population, 59% supported the Liberals and Pierre Trudeau. That was 37 points ahead of the progressive conservatives under Robert Stanfield. But a year later, support for the Liberals had dropped considerably. So it was even behind where it had been when they won in 1968.

And then they were into an election in 1972, and Pierre Trudeau, after having these stunning numbers just a year and a half before, almost lost. He definitely lost his majority, very nearly the government. He won by two seats. And the only way he was able to stay in office was to cut a deal with the NDP, which he did. That minority government lasted almost two years. And then Pierre Trudeau won a majority government in 1974.

So what do we take from all that? We take from all that that you shouldn't assume anything. Right? You shouldn't assume anything by the numbers we're seeing right now. They don't mean anything. Nobody's going to have an election in the middle of this crisis. And it's awfully hard to be thinking of one for when this crisis ends because nobody knows when this crisis will end.

Lots of little things going on right now in terms of reopening. It's a little different in each province. But clearly there are signs of reopening across the country and in different parts of the world. You know, Italy. Remember Maria Santaguida, who we talked to, gosh, more than a month ago now, on the depth of the Italian mess around the virus.

Got a text from her today saying they're reopening, that things are looking much better. Hope that they had at the time we talked to her has now transformed into a sense of we're past, we're definitely past the worst, but we may be now in the clear. That's what everyone's hoping, right? They know they're still battling the virus. They still know they'll keep battling the virus

till there's a treatment of some kind. There isn't yet, but there's a lot of confidence that there will be soon. And there's equally a lot of confidence that will be a vaccine, perhaps as early as this year. We've talked vaccines before. Once there is a vaccine and once it's produced in the numbers that can satisfy the incredible demand for a vaccine, that'll be the point at which we move past this. But we're not there yet, and it could be a while yet. But there's a lot of optimism around the race for a vaccine that's taking place in research firms, drug companies,

and laboratories at various universities around the world, including more than a few in Canada. We focused on Saskatoon, but it's not the only one. And there's great hope that that'll happen. So there's a sense of... I'll be careful with the word I use. There is a sense of some degree of optimism in spite of these horrific numbers that we keep seeing and the knowledge that people are dying every day.

That we may, we may be at the end of the beginning to steal that great Churchill line. That's the hope. But the end of the beginning just means we launch into a whole other phase. It's not over. We still have to be extremely careful and cautious. Of which I think, in Canada at least, the overwhelming majority of Canadians are being exactly that. Careful, cautious, worrying about their fellow citizens. All right. Enough of that.

I want to end on something totally different. All right? Totally different. So here's the question for you. Let's hear you answer this one. Without going to Amazon and looking up the most searched items on Amazon, imagine you're doing that. And what would be perhaps the most surprising thing

you saw on that list up near the top, certainly in the top 10. And things you know you'd find there, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, you'd find all of those. But what would you be surprised to find? Here we live in this high-tech world. All the things we're used to, all the things that are demanded by us as consumers of all ages,

what would you be surprised to see on that list? And it's only jumped into the top ten in the list through this, through this period of crisis around the virus. The answer is puzzles. Puzzles. You know the games? Puzzles. Those things people of my age used to play as kids. The family would get around the table, and they'd try to work the puzzle.

You'd hold the cover up. You'd see the picture the way it's supposed to be, and then you'd have all these dozens, if not hundreds, of puzzle pieces, and you'd try to get them in order. And sometimes you'd spend days, weeks even, doing a big puzzle. Sometimes you'd do it alone. Sometimes you'd do it with your brother or sister. Sometimes you do it with the whole family.

But puzzles are now the eighth most popular search term on Amazon. How do I know this? I read it today in Vanity Fair. I loved it. I loved the article. I'm going to read you a couple lines from it. The CEO of Buffalo Games, Najendra Raina,

watched last month as puzzles spiked to what I said, eighth most popular search term on Amazon. And Najendra Reina said, to be quite candid, I initially thought, well, folks are panic shopping right now. But holy mother, the demand does not stop. If I had one year's worth of puzzles today,

I could actually sell them to the consumer today. That's how crazy the demand curve is right now for puzzles. Who would have thought it? So they're constantly now having to come up with new puzzles, new ideas. Amy Stewart, a Washington-based digital artist who fell into puzzle art a few years back, I'm reading once again from this Vanity Fair piece, and is able to support herself entirely through puzzle royalties, said she was so conflicted by the idea that she was profiting during the pandemic that she stopped working for the first few weeks. Even as some puzzle companies' sales roared and soared over a thousand percent,

and agents were flooded with demands for more images. At first it was a bit of a conflict, like, how do I feel about being one of few people who may actually profit off this, said Stewart. But then, she said she started getting emails from puzzlers in Spain and Italy and the UK, telling her how her whimsically colored puzzles provided a crucial escape during a global crisis. I love it. I love it. Puzzles.

And so if you look at the cover art on the podcast today, it's a puzzle I picked up at an antique store quite a long time ago it's not a big one it's more of a kind of kiddies one but it's a great box it's from the Madmar Quality Company

and when I googled it they started making these puzzles in the 1920s. They don't exist anymore. They went out of business in the 60s. But this one I'm particularly proud of because it's a map of Canada. Quality map puzzle. map of Canada, shouts the cover on the box that's manufactured by the Mad Mar Quality Company in Utica, New York.

So that's my little offering for a puzzle today. And I wonder how many of you are doing puzzles. And in some cases, reliving your youth by doing it. Well, if you are, or if you aren't, and you know you've actually got puzzles down in the basement that were handed down by your parents or who knows, go down and get it. It'll pass some time. And they're actually kind of fun. They're not a video game.

They're not football or soccer or basketball that you can get in a video game they're not all those action video games this is a different kind of action and it's kind of fun alright, couple things to note I've asked yesterday for any of you who have big thoughts, big ideas, big projects

that you think Canada should be considering when this is all over, because when it's over, we're going to need those kind of things. We've got to get people back to work. We've got to take the opportunity to impact the country in a good way, in a constructive way, in a way that can make a difference. You know, what's your big idea? Do you have a big idea? I'll give you, here's one way. We're going to talk to somebody next week. Ralph Goodale, former Deputy Prime Minister, former Liberal Cabinet Minister.

Lost in the election last year, but is still very active. And especially in ideas. Wait till you hear his ideas from Saskatchewan. Here's my idea that I've had. I'm not the only person who's had this, but my idea of some way to improve the country, make it safer in a way, and yet at the same time employ lots of people, make a big difference in the job function.

You know how our country was set up and connected together by trains? And in still many ways it is. But most of those trains in most cities and towns in this country go right through the heart of town. Trains lumbering through Calgary or Regina or Winnipeg or Toronto or wherever, they go right through the heart of the city. And many of those trains are freight trains, and many of those trains are carrying dangerous cargo.

So don't you think maybe it's time we kind of rerouted them around cities instead of through cities? Now, that's a big project. That would cost a lot of money. That would create a lot of jobs. But would it make our country safer? Would it make our country better? What can we do that could take advantage of a situation

that we were talking about only months ago. We've got to do big things to impact climate change. Okay, so what are they and what can we do? So if you're thinking anything, write it out. You don't have to write out the detail exactly how you're going to do it. Just sort of the big thought.

What's the big thought? It would be a great thing to share with people. Beyond that, tomorrow's Friday. It's the weekend special day. So your thoughts, questions, comments, send them in. TheMansbridgePodcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Send them along.

We've already got quite a few from this week, but there's always room for more, and I'm always looking for new entries and new ideas, so don't be shy. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been the bridge special, the bridge daily. Tomorrow is the bridge special, right? This has been the bridge daily. We'll be back and looking forward to it in 24 hours. Thank you.