The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 37

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's episode features a live taping of podcast held in Toronto, Canada on September 16. Janice and Rudyard discuss the upcoming Canadian federal election, the changing of the guard in Europe with Merkel's exit from politics and why western government are increasingly struggling with one of the their most basic tasks: the competent delivery of public programs and services. A note to our non-Canadian listeners: this episodes is heavy on Canadian politics due to our upcoming election. The podcast will return to its usual format next week. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk Podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, a special taping of the monk members-only podcast. Last night, Thursday, September 16th, we gathered a group of monk members in Toronto, Canada

for a in-person recording of our regular Friday podcast. What follows is a discussion between myself and Professor Janice Gross Stein, founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned author and scholar. We kick around some of the big topics in the news, take questions from our monk members live in person. And just a note to our international listeners, please forgive us for the Canadian heavy content in this edition of the Monk members podcast. We have an election coming up here in Canada on Monday. And with all the people at the live taping, wondering how they're going to vote, we spent more time than we usually do on Canadian domestic politics.

So I hope you enjoy this live taping, and we look forward to doing these more again in the future with you, our monk members. So Janice, to start, you know, you said something in a recent show of ours that kind of stuck with me in terms of trying to think about this election that we're going to have on Monday, this Canadian federal election. You called this an election about insecurity, and that's a really interesting kind of motif. to think about what this vote means on Monday. I've not heard that in the mainstream press, that word and how you unpacked it. So could you do that again and maybe just talk about it in the context of this campaign,

which is now almost over, which is in the final stretch? When I said that to Rudyard, what I was groping towards was there's almost no one I speak to, who isn't worried about something. Everybody is unsettled in different ways. So people are worried about the pandemic.

There are parents who are worried right now about sending their kids back to school. There are people who feel so strongly the vaccination mandates should be in place now, and they can't understand why we're only getting them in place and we're late. And there are people who think vaccination mandates are the worst thing they've ever heard of

infringes on their civil liberty. But first of all, the emotional temperature is way up, way up. And people are not generous right now in the way they're talking about political leaders, frankly. So to put it in very concrete terms, people who talk to me often have the following conversation with me. I'm really tired of Trudeau. That's how they start. I'm really tired.

but you know I really want those vaccine mandates. They're really important to me. And I'm furious at people who haven't been vaccinated. And so I'm voting on that one issue. I want those vaccine mandates in place. So that's in a sense when I meant by an election of insecurity. My friend Rudyard over here, and by the way, for all of you who thinks he interrupts me, he does not. He's my friend.

I interrupt him. Give him a break. So my friend Rudyard here is worried about stagflation, about inflation and overspending by government, right? And so are you a one-issue voter? I'm not going to ask you who you're voting for, but it's coming from a place of insecurity. It's coming from, oh, my goodness,

we are sacrificing our children's future because of the rate of spending that is going on in the current economy. And so when you talk to people, there's almost nobody who ever says to me right now, I'm voting for because I like. Right. And that's when you know that you're in an election that is fundamentally driven by insecurity. And that's what we're seeing. If you look at the People's Party, which Richard and I were talking about yesterday, 8% in the polls, Richard was saying, out in British Columbia, that is, those are people, they're familiar voters to us, we've seen them in the United States, where they are far more numerous than they are in Canada,

but those are people who are opposed, right? And so when people are voting because they're either worried or they're opposed, that's an election of insecurity, frankly. There's no enthusiasm right now for anybody. Right, I think, again, that's really smart analysis. So, Janice, let's just assume that what's going to happen on Monday is what we think is going to happen, which is a liberal minority, again, possibly even a weaker one. And let's have just a little fun for a moment, take out a whiteboard, and think about what could happen in the months coming up.

You know, they say you should never do this, but that's why we like to do these things, because they say we should never do them. So we're going to prognosticate here about the future and about the future of Canadian politics. So let's see that is the result, that the polls are generally right, that the liberals are going to be pressured by an NDP party that's doing slightly better, by a conservative party that's doing slightly better, by a block party that's doing slightly better. The conservatives are going to be held back by a surging people's party, and we end up with a parliament very similar to last one, but again, possibly even a weaker position for the liberals. What does that do for the country? I'll give you my analysis, but I want to hear you. yours first? That's probably more or less

what the polls are saying right now. That we're certainly in minority territory. Now there's always a surprise here. Let's start right there. There's a surprise because how many people have voted in advance. It's the first time in this country. We don't really know Rudyard and we don't have a good sense of that. And it's also not clear whether we will not have a lower turnout on Monday for two reasons because there is no enthusiasm, firstly,

and because people don't want to go to the polls in the middle of COVID. They're not convinced that that's necessarily the safest activity, especially those people who have been very careful. So we may have a lower turnout, and that would hurt the liberals, in fact, if there's a lower turnout. So your prediction, let's put big question marks, big brackets around it. But when we think about the next year or 18 months in Canada, politics. I think Erin O'Toole has exceeded expectations. And it's the first round at this. And generally, generally parties are generous. And they don't punish the leader unless they do

terribly in that first round. So I would assume that the conservatives will keep Aaron O'Toole as their leader and he'll have another two, two and a half years to reorganize the party and grow. And if you notice, by the way, Brian Mulbrony this morning came out in support of Aaron O'Toole. I paid a lot of attention to that because what he did the last time

six years ago was signal to everybody that he was in support of Trudeau. So his is not an inconsequential endorsement. Jasmeet Singh has done better than people thought, right? So there's a moral here. Set

you know, encourage people to think you're going to do very badly. Don't raise expectations, and then when you exceed them, it's all good. But Jasvite-Ten has done better than expected, so he'll, I would imagine, say, so the real question

we're talking about here is what's the future of the Liberal Party, frankly. Now, if the minority is very slim and much worse, liberals in general have a tradition of cut-throat politics inside their party. They are not tolerant,

they're not patient. They're not good to leaders who don't meet expectations. So Rudyard and I were saying, I don't think if the minority is very slim, I don't think we will have the current prime minister for very long, not for more than 18 months. Roger, you think less. Yeah, no, look, I think, Janice,

that this prime minister, even with a similar minority to the one before, even a few more seats, is gone by Christmas. I think there's a different kind of walk in the snow that happens come December, January, and he exits stage left. Why do I say that? Well, for the reasons you said about the party and the dynamics of the party, and that there are these compelling potential alternative leaders in the wings,

in the form of Christopher Land and Mark Carney. And I think both of these individuals as political propositions are far, more interesting than a prime minister who's now had three at bats and whose relative performance at each bat is declining. And I think the party just says to itself, that's it. There is no fourth inning here to extend my tortured baseball analogy. And instead, you know, it's a strikeout, you're tagged out, you're gone. So I see, I guess, a potential here for another election, you know, who wants that, but within 12 months. And I see a leadership change amongst the liberals that's completed by the spring.

And I think the most likely next liberal leader is our former Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, who would amount, I think, a powerful campaign for that job and would tick so many boxes for the liberal Laurentian elite that consistently look for, a profile, a CV, a resume of Carney's fine burnished pedigree. Do you disagree? Yeah, I do. Nothing gets done in Canada in 12 months. Nothing. So this is not going to get done in Canada in 12 months. The pandemic certainly made that point rather evident.

Vaccines testing 12 months? Good luck. Yeah, nothing will get done. So this is a certainly a minimum 18 months more likely two-year transition. But there are certainly these two. And let me just come back to a theme that Roger and I have talked about as well. As a result of the pandemic, I think the expectations of government have changed. And that's true in the United States. That's true in Johnson's UK.

That's true everywhere. What they want is competence. voters want competent government. But, Janice, you know, I think it's worse here, though, because we have a constitutional slogan of peace, order, and good government. So the idea of competency is literally kind of inscribed into our constitutional motto. And when we saw throughout the pandemic at the federal and provincial level, serial missteps, serial screw-ups, that I think was far more acidic to,

a sense of public faith in the efficacy of government in Canada than in many other countries where you could kind of write off occasionally government inaction, ineptitude on the basis of cultural history or predilection towards those very attributes. So do you agree that this pandemic in some ways has been especially damaging to our body politic? And maybe that's what's reflected, as you say, in this election of insecurity where nobody's happy, nobody's enthusiastic about any of these political choices.

That's what we're seeing. I'm not sure it's damaging. I think it's changed to expectations and it's active, and that's positive. It's heightened the expectation of government. You need to deliver, and you don't have endless, endless months for talking and consultation and messaging and

signaling and all the other things that governments do. You aren't truly, have to deliver. So let's come back to those two. Mark Carney has a impeccable record of delivering. And he's delivered in crisis, right? He was the governor of the Bank of Canada in the global financial crisis in this country and came to the United Kingdom. And it's not easy, by the way. I don't know how many of you who have ever studied in British universities. But it's not easy for a Canadian to walk in to British culture. There is this outsider label or you really don't understand us.

And I've seen people stabbed in the back in a polite conversation, not aware that they were stabbed and then they walk away and they see the blood trickling down. And they say, oh, did I miss something here? And that's in a sense. But, you know, Mark surmounted that. my big question and I have very high regard for my big question

I'm not sure he has the appetite for politics I'm really not Rudyard and I disagree here you look at his memoir biography I mean that is just the clearest to me political manifesto

that anyone has written it's not a particularly good book don't spend your time on it or your money It's so obvious. He was tweeting out during the election a blue t-shirt standing there signaling I'm the blue wing of the party.

Liberals love purges. They love as a party, the Kretchen Martin years, they love going in and just purging the whole system. So I think Christopher Flynn will have a real problem with Mark Carney as her competitor

because he will represent change. As you and I have talked in a number of episodes, I think we are going to be entering into an era of monetary and fiscal crisis globally and especially in Canada as a small economy that's quite unproductive and generally doesn't have a lot of foreign direct investment, there will be a desire, an inclination to index for a Carney-like figure who is in some ways exceedingly well-suited to guide this small economy, this troubled nation, through a period of real

financial insecurity, which is one of the themes that has weaved its way through this pandemic. I'm doing this on purpose to show you all that I interrupt him. She interrupts me too. But Christian Friedland has many of those same attributes, right? She's a financial journalist. She's the Minister of Finance. That's a little better than a financial journalist. Well, it's a little bit different than running the Bank of England or the Bank of Canada.

She's not an economist. She has no formal training as an economic. But she's the Minister of Finance. She was a successful foreign minister. She's much more skilled of politics, although the politics of the bank and managing a prime minister

are politics of its own. She's not liked in caucus. Well, you have inside access there. I don't have, Richard. So I think a lot will depend really whether Mark Carney

can be to... Let me say one other thing that's going to surprise you. Don't count Justin Trudeau. He's a competitor. He's politically toast, Janice. He's done like dinner. There is nothing left. I understand how you feel about this, Roger. But we've seen many examples. The rest of us may think that a leader is toast and there's nothing left and there's nothing more to do. But the leaders themselves don't see it that way. And then they end up like Brian Maroney with two seats in the House of Commons. That's what happens next. Well, we're going to, you know, but there's no evidence in this debate.

We're going to have to wait and see what happens. But we should do this a year from now again and see where Mark is, where Chris is, and where Justin Trudeau is. Fortunately for Aaron O'Toole, he doesn't have to deal with any of this. When he comes out of this, he can consolidate his leadership, build his party. and run again and lose against Mark Carney. Sounds like fun.