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The Current Transcript for October 16, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Liberals are known to spend, Conservatives are known to cut. If we could find somewhere in between, if you have that magical party appearing between that can do both, they would hundred percent I think have most of our votes.

LAURA LYNCH: It's probably too late for magic acts now. Voting is just a few days away and in some ridings the race is tight. We'll hear from four people who make the case for which party deserves their support. That's in an hour. In other election coverage this morning, a profile of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The lunch table in high school, if you brought up the subject of balanced budget or tax bracket creep or you know, some of the things that were issues back in 94-95, I very quickly realized that you were the only one talking.

LL: The Current's Julie Crysler brings you a documentary report. But first, our national affairs panel sort through these final few days, the promises, the polls and the potential for a minority government. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Lookahead to final days of election campaign: talk turns to shifting poll numbers and minority government ‘what-ifs’

Guests: Shachi Kurl, Marie Vastel, Tanya Talaga

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Liberals have let them down. They don't have to choose Liberals. Conservatives are going to cut services, they don't have to just choose Conservatives. They have options in this. And there's folks who are going to tell them that they don't. I want people to know they do not have to settle for less.

LL: That's NDP leader Jagmeet Singh talking to me on the program yesterday. His party is seeing a bump in the polls, while the Liberals and Conservatives remain neck and neck. So talk is turning to the possibility of a minority government, even as Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau continue to rollout promises on everything from trade to health care in the hopes of snagging a majority. There are only a few days to go before Canadians have their say about who forms government. So let's dive right in with our weekly rotating national affairs panel. Shachi Kurl is the executive director of the Angus Reid Institute. She's in our Vancouver studio. Marie Vastel is parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir. She's in our Ottawa studio. And Tanya Talaga is a Toronto Star columnist covering Indigenous issues and she's the author of All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward. And she's with me here in our Toronto studio. Welcome to you all.

SHACHI KURL: Good morning.

MARIE VASTEL: Good morning.

TANYA TALAGA: Good morning.

LL: Shachi, that's lots of energy, especially for you out on the west coast.

SHACHI KURL: So many espressos this morning.

LL: I'm sure that the leaders are doing the same thing. The Liberals and the Conservatives are remaining neck and neck in the polls, but we are, all of us seem to be talking about the possibility of minority government. Tell us why.

SHACHI KURL: Well, this has been the story of interminable blockage in this campaign. We go into the final week of it very much where we started with the two main parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, battling for some sort of supremacy or upper hand and really not being able to push through any momentum. And and with each passing day, we're running out of runway. They're running out of runway. We see that their path to a majority government looks rockier and rockier and more improbable. And I think this speaks to a rejection wholesale of the political class in this country. So you had two parties saying, look, you know, we got it were the best ones to run things. And the and parties that seemed to be well out of the campaign at the beginning are the ones coming on. So we see overall nationally a picture of the NDP picking up momentum, picking up support, particularly after the debates, but also a big story in Quebec with the surge of the bloc, which has really taken away the one safe battleground that the incumbent liberals had going into this campaign and taken away a place where the conservatives were hoping to pick up gains as well. So, you know, with with each passing day, we see paths to victory or paths to majority closing for these two parties and that's why we are where we are at this stage.

LL: And over to you, Marie Vastel. The Bloc is up in Quebec. What do you think's driving that support?

MARIE VASTEL: Way up. I think it was underestimated, actually, by the other main parties. I remember talking to Liberal and Conservative strategists before the campaign and no one really mentioned the Bloc. It was as if it was a bit of an afterthought. And now they're as Shachi said, threatening both the Liberals and the Conservatives strategy towards winning because both were banking on making gains everywhere, but amongst one of those places, Quebec. The the idea being that while the NDP is going to go down, they're going to lose almost all of their seats, which seems to probably still be the scenario in Quebec at least that they would lose a lot of their seats. But the Liberals and the Conservatives were hoping to pick up those seats in order to secure their own wins. And now it's looking like those seats are most probably going to the Bloc Qubecois. Now, the thing that I find difficult to predict is how evenly spread out each party's support is because the liberals and the Bloc remain pretty tight for first place in Quebec, but are the Liberals only concentrated on Montreal Island? Is the Boc only concentrated in and around Montreal? Or do they have support between Montreal and Quebec where they're hoping to? To take some of those famous NDP seats, that's what remains unclear. Five days from the election. But but you definitely see the Liberals and the Conservatives. I mean, they're spending. Both are spending the day in Quebec. Today, Mr. Scheer was in Quebec already yesterday. You're seeing that both parties are really trying to avoid either losing seats or not being too able to pick up any seats at all. I mean, and you're even hearing that some cabinet ministers in the Liberal government could lose their seats to this uprise of the Bloc because it's going to essentially lead to three way races that are difficult to predict five days from voting.

LL: Okay. And Tanya Talaga, there's also close races in and around the Toronto area and BC. It seems to be everywhere. What do you make of the fact that we could be looking at minority government? What do you think it says about the mood of the country right now?

TANYA TALAGA: Well, I think that the only poll that matters really is Election Day. I'm sorry, Shachi. But that's something that I've noticed in my sadly, many years of working as a journalist and a political journalist as well. And I think it's really interesting, too, that, you know, everyone's talking about a minority government. You know, keeping in mind, the only poll that does matter is on Election Day. If this is how we decide to vote as a country, I think that no one really has confidence in any of the parties, any of the issues that are being put forward. Canadians are kind of just going and you know, which one is actually going to be the which leader, which party is going to be the sort of the the best of the mediocre right now is what it sort of looks like to me. And I think that people are going to be voting that way. You know, if if the polls are and if people are what they say, you know, they're undecided. And I talked to a lot of people who are undecided and they don't really know what to do. But I also talked to a lot of people that seem to be voting in different directions. You know, the the Liberal vote seems to be splitting up into the NDP, the Greens. So who knows actually what's going to happen. And we're probably not going to know until we see and we turn on The National that night.

LL: Or CBC radio. Shachi go ahead.

MARIE VASTEL: Oh it's Mary, actually.

LL: Oh Marie. Sorry.

MARIE VASTEL: One thing, if I may that I do find interesting in the polls. Only a few days from voting day is that amongst those people in other parties, if I can say so, amongst NDP voters, Green voters, Bloc voters, a lot of them, almost all of them actually have as preferred Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So if you look at the abacus poll that came out this weekend, 94 percent of NDP voters had preferred Justin Trudeau as prime minister. 90 percent of Green voters, 70 percent of Bloc voters. And amongst those voters, the respondents also said that they expected a Liberal government to be elected next Monday. 39 percent of NDP voters expected a Liberal government, 32 percent of Green voters, 50 percent of Bloc voters. And that, to me, really emphasizes the possibility that there may be strategic voting on Monday. If a big majority of these people are expecting a Liberal government, hoping for a Liberal government, I wouldn't underestimate what could happen once they get in the voting booth. If they come to expect a Scheer government, does that change their mind? I know that's what the Liberals are hoping. And I wouldn't exclude the possibility that it does move the numbers a little bit as we get closer.

LL: Shachi, defend your corner.

SHACHI KURL: No need. No need to defend my corner. I'm very comfortable in my court. And what I will say though, is I'll talk about the vote dynamics that Marie is exposing a little bit. So one thing we do know is the left of centre vote, even at this stage, five days out continues to be very mushy. So only one third of professed NDP voters are saying they're absolutely certain that they are going to vote for the NDP. They're solidly locked in. Fewer than a third of Green voters say the same thing. Only about half of liberal voters, indeed, are saying the same thing. So who has the rock solid vote in this campaign? It is the conservatives nationally and in Quebec. It is the bloc. So what does that tell us? It tells us a couple of things. First of all, we could see people lock in for their preferred party. And certainly you hear from Jacques Meat saying you're hearing from Elizabeth May. Hey, it doesn't have to be a binary decision between the Liberals and the Conservatives. You can vote your conscience and maybe get what you want. That's the message that they're counterpunch punching with to the the the other two parties saying, well, look, if if you want some clarity, you've got to vote for one of us. The other permutations, however, is that you will see some of this vote switching at the last moment. Incumbency does have something to do with that. So at the end of the day, when they're in the ballot booth, they you may see voters saying, you know, I really don't like the leader, but I do like my MP. So I think I'm going to stick with my MP or I'm going to stick with my local candidate, because ultimately that's who they're ticking or Xing a box or a circle for on the ballot. And then you also have to take into account, Tanya talked about undecided voters or uncommitted voters. If you have voters who who really come Monday, don't know who they're going to vote for. Often they end up self-selecting out of the voting pool and they stay home. And so we're going to be watching for all of those dynamics and permutations. The thing about elections is horse race. Polling tells us it does a good job of telling us how the pie is sliced. It doesn't necessarily tell us the size of the pie. And turnout is going to be key because we also know that conservative voters tend to be older. They have a higher propensity to vote historically than left of centre voters who tend to be younger and their likelihood to show up at the polling stations is more volatile and it's less predictable.

LL: Tanya do you have a sense, I mean last time around, Indigenous voters came out in historically big numbers to vote. They found a reason to get involved in the election. Do you have a sense of whether they are going to turn out at the polls this time?

TANYA TALAGA: I would say yes. I you know, I can't speak for for every Indigenous voter that's out there, but I would imagine that yeah. You know what? There's an upswing. We have more candidates again running in this election than we did in the last election and the one before that for sure. And I think that we realize that we need a seat at the table. And in order to get there, we have to come out and vote. And we did come out and vote in the last election. The indigenous vote, there was an upswing in that. You know, most of it went, as we saw with Justin Trudeau and his promises. And, you know, that got a lot of people out what was in the platform and the promises that he was making. What's going to happen this time around? That's going to be really interesting to see where the you know, where votes were from First Nations, Metis and Inuit do go. Who knows? You know, it's right now, I would say it's a pretty well a toss up, but not too much for the Conservatives.

LL: OK. The leaders are still in it to win it. They're still out campaigning and they're still making promises. Andrew Scheer was Quebec yesterday, as Marie said, where he promised that if Conservatives form the government, he'll dismantle interprovincial trade barriers. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: These barriers prevent the free flow of people, goods and services across provincial borders. They make it more expensive to run a business. They hurt consumers with higher prices and less competition. The International Monetary Fund estimates that eliminating interprovincial trade barriers could add $80 billion to Canada's GDP.

LL: Now Marie Vastel, interprovincial trade barriers, how pressing an issue do you think that is for the average voter?

MARIE VASTEL: Well, I think it depends who you ask. I think it's a very important issue for the industries that are involved in interprovincial trade. I do find it odd that it it would be one of the main priorities to quote for a Scheer government's first hundred days in office, because I don't think voters really care. It's an old issue that the Liberal government, the Trudeau Liberal government has tried to tackle that I've heard about for the past 10 years I've been on on Parliament Hill. There was an agreement in 2017 under Dominic LeBlanc, who was actually named Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, but also the added internal trade to his title in an effort to take care of this long standing issue. Yeah, I'm not sure it's the most pressing issue on voters minds. Certainly not that famous ballot box question that we've been wondering what it will be. I did find it also surprising, though, that in Mr. Scheer's announcement, he mentioned that so there would be a premiers meeting and a prime minister and premiers meeting early January if he's elected. And they would sort of go over all laws and regulations to see if there are some of them are unnecessarily preventing trade or if they are, and I quote, reasonable exercises of provincial jurisdiction. That was an odd phrasing to me coming from a conservative leader who has been strongly campaigning on asymmetrical federalism. I'm not I'm having a hard time reconciling that with what he he he announced that he would essentially go through provincial laws and regulations on interprovincial trade and decide which ones will work or don't.

LL: Well bold idea. And while Scheer was talking about those kinds of things, Justin Trudeau was in Fredericton, New Brunswick, laying out the Liberals prescription for health care.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So our team will take steps to ensure that under a re-elected Liberal government, all Canadians have access to a family doctor. We'll also continue to improve access to homecare and palliative care. Mental health is equally important, and so we will improve access to mental health services. And finally, a re-elected Liberal government will bring in universal national pharmacare.

LL: Now, arguably, health care. pharmacare are more top of mind issues for most voters than interprovincial trade. Tanya, how realistic do you think it is that the Liberals would fulfil those promises?

TANYA TALAGA: Well, it sounds like he's just waving a magic wand and going to make everything better when it comes to the health care that we have, the health care system that we have, and that's completely not going to happen. I mean, it would be grand and wonderful if everybody had access to family doctors and if everyone had access to mental health care, but in actual fact, not everybody does. You know, we do have a two tiered system of health care in this country. And I'm talking about First Nations, Inuit and Metis people that have a hard time gaining access to health care. Many of our First Nations communities do not have doctors. We do not have qualified nurses. There are no clinics. I mean, if he's actually talking about everybody who lives in this country, he's actually got to talk about everybody who lives in this country. And right now, he is not. I mean, like when he's making these promises, who is he making these promises for? And that's the thing that's kind of you know, we have to watch with politicians, because all the politicians, they always make these grand promises about how they're going to make this utopian vision of Canada, which actually never ends up happening. And it takes a lot more than four years. It takes eight years, you know, 16 years to actually build the country that you have the vision for that you actually set out in your platform. The last time around in 2015, we saw the Liberals make so many promises, such as implementing all the TRC, Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations and that, you know, even when he was saying the words, we knew there was no way that was going to happen because that takes far more than four years or eight years.

LL: Shachi do you think that kind of, I guess, scepticism that Tanya's talking about is baked into people's considerations when they're deciding who to vote for.

SHACHI KURL: I think to an extent, but I think also important to remember that at this stage in the campaign, it's not about the ballot question of the general electorate, but of whose electorate. So the reason Andrew Scheer is talking about the very exciting and sexy prospects of inter provincial trade is because that's an important issue for his base, along with taxation, along with federal deficit spending, along with transparency and honesty in government. Those are the key issues for Conservatives. For Liberals there's a reason Justin Trudeau was talking about health care and pharmacare, because that is a top issue, not just for his own base, but for NDP and Green voters as well. And it's why we've heard so much from the left of centre on climate change in this campaign. Again, it's all about I call it sort of the platform Olympics, where everybody on climate change is trying to claim a higher ground, except of course, for the Conservative leader, again, with calculated in good reason because only six percent of his own base look at that as a priority issue. So there's always the push and pull with voters around. Yeah, yeah, I know you're making all of these promises, but I'm not entirely of the view that you're actually going to bring these to fruition. And the other side to that being, well, why aren't you talking about the substantive issues and why aren't we hearing more about it? And certainly in this campaign, I feel like it's been one that's been largely devoid of substantive issues and we've focussed on a lot of just grass.

LL: Shachi I just want to stay with you for a second, because Elections Canada says voter turnout during the advance poll was up 29 percent over the same period in 2015. Does that surprise you?

SHACHI KURL: Yes and no. I think it's often a combination of that cohort of super keen voters. When do I vote? When do I vote? I really, really want to vote versus the greater population, which may or may not vote. So considering that you had extended hours in advance voting, considering that Elections Canada has opened up more and more convenient ways for people who are very keen about casting their ballots to actually do that, I'm not surprised to see more up tick. But I think we'll have a better indication in terms of turnout with this next weekend coming of advance voting. Are people still showing up in the same levels and the same amount of enthusiasm over the next weekend in the rollup to October 21st. If we see that, then we learn a couple of things. Higher turnout overall will have an impact on which way the vote goes. It probably speaks to a greater benefit for left of centre parties. If we see turnout slump, that's going to be an advantage or a benefit to to the right of centre, because, again, we know that people vote for different parties with different levels of propensity.

LL: Alright, you guys, you get about 20 seconds each for the last question before the election. What are you going to be watching for in the final countdown to Election Day? Marie?

MARIE VASTEL: I'm going to be watching momentums and if the Liberals "scare tactic" into getting people to vote for them and not to vote for opposition parties actually works or if we're actually going to see strong NDP, strong Bloc and a minority government.

LL: Tanya?

TANYA TALAGA: I'm going to be watching for leadership. I'm going to be watching for which party actually steps forward and looks like they are capable of leading this country. And also too, I'm going to vote by looking at the platforms which I've been doing for the last several weeks, reading them all. And I think that's important for us to focus on policy when we actually get to the box.

LL: Shachi?

SHACHI KURL: I'm with Marie on momentum. I'm also looking at where the left of centre locks in. If it does lock in or does it continue to just be oil on water spreading everywhere and turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout.

LL: Got that. OK. Thanks so much to all three of you. We'll talk to you again after the votes are cast.

TANYA TALAGA: Meegwetch.

MARIE VASTEL: Thank you.

SHACHI KURL: Thank you.

LL: Shachi Kurl is the executive director of the Angus Reid Institute and she was in our Vancouver studio. Marie Vastel is parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir and she was in our Ottawa studio. And Tanya Talaga is a Toronto Star columnists covering Indigenous issues. She was in our Toronto studio. The CBC News is next. Then in half an hour.

SOUNDCLIP

We would like the international community, the British, the French, the Europeans in general, the Americans to take their part and to take their responsibility for the defence of their allies and their partners in Syria.

LL: A plea from the Kurdish led Syrian democratic forces in northeastern Syria asking for help now that U.S. forces are pulling out of the region. We'll talk to a reporter who's been there documenting the growing conflict. I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

From high school politics to PM bid: Longtime friends reflect on Andrew Scheer

Guests: Jeremy Harrison, Denise Batters, Lorne Nystrom, Karin Howard, Andrew Scheer

LL: Hello, I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, a growing riding, a high profile conservative incumbent. We'll speak with residents of Milton, Ontario, about how they're voting and why they believe their parties can make gains in next week's election. But first, a closer look at the highest profile Conservative, Andrew Scheer.

[Music]

LL: In this final week before the election, we're bringing you two documentary profiles on the frontrunners in the race to become prime minister. Today, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. In this campaign, he's been accused of hiding the fact he holds dual Canada-U.S. citizenship and he's been questioned about whether he's misrepresenting his credentials. Today, we're asking the people who know him best. Who is Andrew Scheer? This is The Current's Julie Crysler with her documentary, From the Start.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CRITCH: You really love The Simpsons. We have a Simpsons nerd. So I'm going to test your nerd knowledge with some Simpsons trivia in a segment we call Doh! Canada.

JULIE CRYSLER: Well, I thought I knew a fair bit about The Simpsons, but not even close to because he's so smart. That's the thing. Big brain. He's got it all out there.

ANDREW SCHEER: HMS Pinafore.

MARK CRITCH: Nicely done. Nicely done.

ANDREW SCHEER: I shall send you to heaven before I send you to hell.

VOICE 1: I don't know if he kind of approaches Brad Wall, because Brad was like the absolute authority on Simpsons references. But Andrew's pretty good too.

MARK CRITCH: Speaking of Sideshow Bob, do you think Sideshow Bill Morneau now has a villa in Shelbyville?

ANDREW SCHEER: I think his villa in Shelbyville is in the beautiful shade of the turnip plants that they have growing.

MARK CRITCH: You really are a nerd. I love it.

JULIE CRYSLER: That's Andrew Scheer showing off his encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons on CBC's This Hour Has 22 minutes. It might seem surprising that it's such a favourite for him. After all, it's a show that often parodies conservative and Christian values, some of which he's known to share.

[Quote from Rev. Lovejoy: "I cannot marry two babies names like any more than I get, but a hamburger on a hot dog bun."]

JULIE CRYSLER: Andrew Scheer's love of The Simpsons, puts him firmly in the cultural mainstream and also fits with an image he's hoping to project that of the regular guy. But proving this to Canadians might be his biggest challenge, trying to overcome concerns some have about his personal views on abortion and gay marriage, both of which cut against popular opinion in this country. Issues he's had to assure voters he has no interest in reopening.

JEREMY HARRISON: I'll see if we can get into the chamber and see that.

JULIE CRYSLER: For his longtime friend, Jeremy Harrison. Andrew Scheer's detailed memory for all things Simpson speaks not only to his pal's sense of humour, but to his talent for absorbing information. I meet him at the legislature in Regina.

JEREMY HARRISON: Portraits through here.

JULIE CRYSLER: Harrison is dressed casually, jeans, a blazer, a chequered shirt. No tie.

JEREMY HARRISON: It was named differently at that point, but it was the only constituency that had three prime ministers.

JULIE CRYSLER: He's a cabinet minister with the Saskatchewan party, and he's a font of information about the history of the buildings on the province.

JEREMY HARRISON: There's Douglas's first cabinet, for example.

JULIE CRYSLER: You have a mind for those kinds of facts.

JEREMY HARRISON: Well, I mean, I'm kind of a political nerd too. So it's, Andrew would know stuff like this too. He has a great sense of history and a great understanding of political history.

JULIE CRYSLER: Back in 2004, Jeremy Harrison was part of a wave of rookie MPs with the new Conservative Party. He, Pierre Poilievre and Andrew Scheer were among the youngest of the group.

JEREMY HARRISON: We're actually looking at a picture the other day from it was like literally from our first day on the Hill. And it's like, well Pierre looks way younger and I look way younger and Andrew looks the same.

JULIE CRYSLER: They were all in their 20s and eager to learn.

JEREMY HARRISON: You know, he'd always write from when we got there, we both had kind of a nerdish interest in kind of procedure and a desire to figure out why is this happening now? Why, you know, is the government moving concurrence on a committee report? I mean, all of those things which are to most people probably not that interesting and I think even to a lot of parliamentarians, not particularly relevant a lot of days, you know, there was a high degree of interest in why that is happening. I have the same fascination with procedure.

JULIE CRYSLER: It was a fascination that Harrison and Scheer shared. Their wives less so.

JEREMY HARRISON: There'd be occasions our wives are just like you guys, you know, stop talking about like second reading amendments. Like, just please stop. Stop talking about the appropriate time to move a previous question motion, like we're not interested in this or just go downstairs.

JULIE CRYSLER: Jeremy Harrison first met Andrew Scheer in the early 2000s when they were interns in the office of the Leader of the Opposition under Stockwell Day. Scheer's job was to write what was known as the quick scan.

JEREMY HARRISON: So Andrew had to get up like literally at 4:00 in the morning and go through all of the newspapers and do not just clippings, but actually summaries of all of the news stories and opinion pieces and columnists that were in newspapers right across the country. So now, you know, people will just go to, you know, news aggregation service on on the web, you know, national news watch or something like that, but at that point, those didn't exist.

DENISE BATTERS: Every year, I don't really care if we win any other games, but I want to win this.

JULIE CRYSLER: That's Senator Denise Batters, another close friend of Andrew Scheer. It's a big football weekend in Regina and she's excited. Rough Riders versus Blue Bombers.

DENISE BATTERS: Yeah, it's a big thing.

JULIE CRYSLER: The lobby of the hotel where I met her is draped with green flags.

DENISE BATTERS: Well, I got to know Andrew, because my husband, Dave Batters, got elected that same year as an MP with him.

JULIE CRYSLER: That year was 2004. Now at 49, Denise Batters is one of the youngest senators on the Hill. Her hair is smooth blonde, and it curls under at her shoulder.

DENISE BATTERS: And so he and Dave became fast friends and, you know, he I think they both liked having somebody that was Dave was 10 years older than him, but still quite young at the time, mid 30s. Andrew was very young, mid 20s. But it was nice for them to have, you know, that common friendship and bond. And so my early impressions of Andrew were just that he was very kind and very funny man, actually, and and very smart.

JULIE CRYSLER: At this point Andrew Scheer is still fairly new to Regina. He's met and married Jill Ryan, a young woman from a well-known local family. And he's still getting to know the scene.

DENISE BATTERS: You don't get much more Saskatchewan than Dave and I. And so he was a good person for Andrew to have by his side during some of that timeframe because I remember there was one time we went to a banquet and there was this one former Rough Rider player who was there who Dave knew. And he introduced Andrew to him and this guy had played for the Rough Riders quite some time before, but he was obviously, you know, very well known in Saskatchewan circles. But Andrew, not being from here, big football fan, but, you know, the name didn't just mean as much to him. And afterwards, he said to Dave, yeah tell me who that guy was. And Dave's like, OK, when you live in Saskatchewan, you need to know things like that. That's very important because people bleed green here.

JULIE CRYSLER: Scheer has said he fell in love with Saskatchewan, and Denise Batters says he fit in well.

DENISE BATTERS: He often very proudly boasts about how he won. I'm pretty sure was in Abernathy, Saskatchewan, a pie contest. So he's multitalented.

JULIE CRYSLER: He won a pie contest?

DENISE BATTERS: He did. He won a pie contest at a country fair in Abernathy, Saskatchewan. I think it was Apple, but I'm not positive. Yeah. Apple with some sort of secret ingredient that may have been involved a little bit of liquor perhaps.

JULIE CRYSLER: It had been a much bigger contest of course, that won Scheer his Regina riding.

LORNE NYSTROM: My name is Lorne Nystrom. I was a member of parliament for a little over 32 years. I got to know him because he was the Conservative candidate in Regina.

JULIE CRYSLER: Nystrom was the NDP incumbent.

LORNE NYSTROM: On a one on one versus he's a very friendly, upbeat kind of guy and friendly and smiley and smiley and smiley and smiley, Mr. Dimples or whatever.

JULIE CRYSLER: But Nystrom believes there's another side to Andrew Scheer, that his approach to politics can be nasty.

LORNE NYSTROM: I've seen hundreds of campaigns and this is one of the worst in terms of that.

JULIE CRYSLER: If you remember back to 2004, shortly before Election Day, the Conservatives put out some controversial press releases. They accused Liberal and NDP politicians of supporting child pornography.

[News reports]

VOICE 2: Our own team was there when the story broke and we were filming as the political spin and the counter spin.

VOICE 3: Of the news release and what they're outlining is Mr. Martin's voting record on the issue of child pornography.

VOICE 4: That's not what it says. It says quite clearly here that Paul Martin supports child pornography.

VOICE 5: The record says that heading was too strong. It's all going to change, but the record is that the Liberal Party has not taken anything near sufficient measures to oppose child pornography.

[News report concludes]

JULIE CRYSLER: Lorne Nystrom says in the dying days of the campaign, Andrew Scheer accused him of something similar.

LORNE NYSTROM: But it was a way overboard and it was held off right to the end where you couldn't really respond to it.

JULIE CRYSLER: Nystrom says he's over it now, but it seems like it still nags at him.

LORNE NYSTROM: Well, I don't like that kind of politics. Obviously, you know, who would? And when you're the target of it and it particularly was not true. You know, when it's not true, it's a pretty nasty thing to say.

JEREMY HARRISON: I've heard kind of different snippets from Lorne's kind of retake as to what happened during that campaign. And I don't remember it the way I think he does. But look, I mean, the reason Andrew won was because he worked hard at it and because he was out knocking on doors. His voters know him and they like him. And it's gone from being a relatively close riding and historically a close constituency to being a riding that's no longer considered to be in play.

JULIE CRYSLER: After the win Andrew Scheer was spending a lot more time in his hometown of Ottawa.

DENISE BATTERS: Well, he and Dave actually briefly stayed in the same apartment together in Ottawa for a couple of months, and Dave would often tell me how energetic Andrew was and always be talking about how smart he was, what a bright future this guy had, and he would tell me about it. But I think he's going to wear me out because he would say that they would have these extremely long days in Ottawa and, you know, meetings and committees and question period and that lengthy travel. They had to get to Ottawa as well, but then they'd get back to their apartment late at night. And then, you know, they both like to talk and they were outgoing fun people. So they would still stay up till the wee hours of the morning talking more politics and Dave liked it, but at a certain point, he said to me, you know, Denise, I think I'm going to need a break from this. Like, I can't talk politics. I don't have the level of energy that this guy does.

JULIE CRYSLER: That enthusiasm for politics started early.

ANDREW SCHEER: You know, at the lunch, at the lunch table in high school, you know, if you brought up the subject of, say, you know a balanced budget or tax bracket creep or, you know, some of the things that were issues back in 94-95, I very quickly realized that you were the only one talking. And so, you know, young kids, especially at that age, it's just not something they're engaged in, not something they're interested in. And I realized I was the odd person to have that kind of level of interest in it.

JULIE CRYSLER: There's evidence of this in Scheer's high school yearbook. One section name students who are most likely to do things. There's the kid who's most likely to eat poutine for breakfast. There's the one who's most likely to become a famous rock star. And Andrew Scheer, most likely to lead the Reform Party. On a different page there's a small photo of Scheer in his graduation gown. The blurb beside it includes the line, "Long live Preston." Manning, presumably and the last line is "Reform."

KARIN HOWARD: I feel kind of motherly toward him because he was only 18 when I was 39. I guess I was 40 in those days. I'm Karin Howard and I was a city councillor and in Ottawa and Ottawa-Souts and I struck a ward council and Andrew Scheer was the local youth rep.

JULIE CRYSLER: Howard was impressed with Scheer.

KARIN HOWARD: I remember he was thoughtful and never spoke out of turn and did a lot of listening. And she liked that a teenager wanted to volunteer, you know, his family were very involved in community. So I think that probably instilled in him an interest.

JULIE CRYSLER: Scheer was raised Catholic and the Ottawa neighbourhood of Riverside Park. His father was a deacon at his church and the librarian for the Ottawa Citizen. His mother died in 2017 while Scheer was seeking the Conservative leadership. Karin Howard remembers her fondly.

KARIN HOWARD: Mary was the kind of person who, you know, showed up early and showed up. She commits herself or committed herself to the things that take a lot of time. You know, the organizing of a team or organizing of people phoning around the thankless work. Thankless work.

JULIE CRYSLER: Mary Scheer was an anti-abortion activist in a member of a group called Nurses for Life. Andrew Scheer seems to have adopted some of his mother's views. He has consistently voted with anti-abortion employees on bills on the issue. His critics have made much of this and of the fact that he voted against the legalization of same sex marriage. You may recall this speech he made in the House of Commons in 2005.

[Andrew Scheer speech]

ANDREW SCHEER: How many legs would a dog have if you counted the tail as a leg? The answer is just fou.r just because you call a tail a leg, doesn't make it a leg. If this bill passes, governments and individual Canadians will be forced to call a tail a leg, nothing more.

JULIE CRYSLER: But since Andrew Scheer put himself forward as a Conservative leadership contender, he has said he's willing to set those convictions aside in the name of unity. Here he is in an interview with Rosie Barton in 2016.

ANDREW SCHEER: I have my own personal beliefs and, you know, my own faith background. And and but at this at this point in time, with the Conservative Party of Canada trying to build a national viable coalition, it's not something that's.

ROSEMARY BARTON: But that sounds like you're just going to live with it. You're going to live with the fact that gay people can get married, but it's not something you believe in.

ANDREW SCHEER: It doesn't matter. Like people have personal views on things. There's a lot of things that divide us as Conservatives, a lot of things that, you know, I think this is one of those issues that it's happened in 2005. And I was a member of parliament at the time. I voted my conscience, I voted my constituents wishes. It's not something that, you know, you say live with it. It's not something that I'm looking to revisit or to re-open or things like that. I think the party has other things that we want to talk about and connect with Canadians and deliver for the future.

JULIE CRYSLER: I spoke to some people on the socially conservative wing of the party. They seemed to take Andrew Scheer at his word that he would not reopen those issues and they were not happy about it. None of them wanted to speak publicly because they were more worried about Justin Trudeau. I asked Jeremy Harrison and Denise Batters how Andrew Scheer would handle pressure from that faction. They seemed confident that sure would stand firm and offended that his private convictions were being turned into a campaign issue.

JEREMY HARRISON: Look I mean being pro-life is not an illegitimate position. I mean, I'm pro-life. I think you would find members in this assembly on both sides who are pro-life. I mean, it's not a position confined to one side of the political spectrum or other. I think he's been clear about his personal view, but that being said, he's been very clear that there is going to be, this is settled law and it is settled law.

DENISE BATTERS: What we want to do is focus on the things that are actually uniting for Canadians and not on the few issues that divide Canadians, especially when they're so well settled.

JULIE CRYSLER: Over the years Senator Denise Batters has become one of Andrew Scheer's biggest supporters. She helped him when he made his successful bid for speaker and she was at his side for the Conservative leadership race in 2017. It's a friendship that deepened after a terrible loss.

[News report]

REPORTER: It was a sombre day as guests from across the country packed this Regina funeral home to celebrate the life of Dave Batters. Even the prime minister made an appearance.

DENISE BATTERS: He suffered with anxiety and depression and then, unfortunately, that despite all kinds of treatment and tremendous support from his family and friends, he took his own life on June 29th, 2009.

JULIE CRYSLER: Andrew Scheer was a pallbearer at the funeral.

ANDREW SCHEER: Ottawa can be a bit of a lonely place sometimes when you're away from your family and friends.

JULIE CRYSLER: In this interview with a local reporter, he seems to be blinking back tears.

ANDREW SCHEER: And we spent quite a bit of time together.

DENISE BATTERS: You know, he was one of the close friends that Dave trusted. You know, sort of be there with him in the toughest times of his struggle in the last year of his life. And then after Dave died, Andrew and Jill both, they were the, you know, among that very tight circle of close friends that I felt comfortable to go to and spend time with during those really, really tough anniversary days, like the anniversary of Dave's death or our wedding anniversary or his birthday or, you know, those kinds of really tough days that I knew were going to be tough. I mean, I think he was one of the very first people that came over to visit with me. I think the day after Dave died and helped to plan with, you know, because when the prime minister comes there's obviously a lot of logistical things. So he helped with those kinds of things. And then yeah just being a friend, you know.

JULIE CRYSLER: In the years after Dave Batters died, Andrew Scheer helped organize charity golf tournaments in honour of his friend.

DENISE BATTERS: Extremely difficult time, but just have tried to make some good out of it. And, you know, I know somebody like Andrew, mental illness, the cause of mental illness has always been personally important to him and probably emphasized because he saw the loss of his close friend because of it.

JULIE CRYSLER: With that close friendship, it might be surprising that Andrew Scheer was not her first choice to lead the Conservative Party. Batters wanted to see what Peter Mackay would do first. He's also a close friend. But when he decided against a run, she threw her support behind Scheer and she was there in May of 2017 when it came down to the final vote.

DENISE BATTERS: When I first came into the convention hall, that was the night of the speeches. I actually saw J.P. Tasker from CBC as I was walking in. And he came up to me and he asked me what's going to happen? And I said, Andrew Scheer is going to win on the 13th ballot. And I called it.

JULIE CRYSLER: But it was close.

VOICE 5: And the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada with 51 percent of the vote.

VOICE 6: Next leader, Andrew Scheer.

DENISE BATTERS: When I was standing at the side of the stage that night and watching him give that victory speech.

ANDREW SCHEER: What a race this has been. This makes a 78 day campaign look like a walk in the park.

DENISE BATTERS: My colleague right beside me, my friend looked at me and he said, are you crying? And I said, yeah, I think I am actually. And because it felt just exactly like I felt like, wow we did a really good thing here. Like this is great for Canada. And I thought about how proud of him Dave would have been.

ANDREW SCHEER: And my kids, Thomas, Grace, Matty, Henry and Mary. That's it. So far.

JULIE CRYSLER: Bringing a party together after a leadership race is often a challenge. And for Scheer the stakes were high. Remember, he was a young activist when the Canadian Alliance collapsed in 2003. It was a defining experience for many Conservatives of his generation.

ANDREW SCHEER: There is hope because Conservatives are united because we are positive.

JEREMY HARRISON: So I think that a lesson I took away and I think Andrew did as well is the importance of having a united party, making sure that we made a point of being united, working through difficult issues to make sure that we were on the same page.

JULIE CRYSLER: But after the leadership race, there was a challenge to that unity from Maxime Bernier.

MAXIME BERNIER: Andrew Scheer keeps talking about his positive conservative vision, but nobody knows what that vision is. If we want conservative principles to win the battle of ideas, we have to defend them openly with passion and with conviction. That is what I want to do. And this is why, as of today, I'm no longer a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

DENISE BATTERS: It was sort of a betrayal. And not of a person, a betrayal of a party, you know, betrayal of a caucus almost.

JEREMY HARRISON: No. Andrew tried, Andrew really did try and work in a constructive way with Max in the period following the leadership race and, you know, I think, you know, Max clearly was just going to do what he was going to do regardless as to whether the leader and the rest of the caucus were very indulgent and were very much trying to work with him. But he was going to do what he was going to do.

DENISE BATTERS: I think he was surprised that someone who had just spent that long with the party and fighting for the leadership of a party could do that to their supporters.

JULIE CRYSLER: Since that time, Scheer has been working to define himself to Canadians.

ANDREW SCHEER: Hi, I'm Andrew Scheer, the new leader of Canada's Conservatives.

JULIE CRYSLER: Take this ad, which ran after his leadership win.

ANDREW SCHEER: I know what it's like growing up in a family that had to make sacrifices.

JULIE CRYSLER: It was shot just down the street from his home in Regina. Hi Andrew.

ANDREW SCHEER: Hey

JULIE CRYSLER: Hey, he's walking through a well manicured park, flanked by suburban homes. He's wearing dad jeans and a short sleeved chequered shirt. Not exactly a flashy look. And he seems a bit unsure about what to do with his arms.

ANDREW SCHEER: That's who I'm fighting for.

JULIE CRYSLER: Despite the fact that Scheer has spent most of his adult working life as a politician, his friends like to say he's a regular guy who doesn't just talk about the middle class, he's lived it. Unlike Justin Trudeau.

MARK CRITCH: Who would you think Justin Trudeau would be in a Simpsons world?

ANDREW SCHEER: Well, I want to be careful because I don't want too too mean. But maybe Disco Stu. He does have his own particular style. He's got some grey hair and you know, certainly up to date on all the hot trends.

JULIE CRYSLER: Even before Trudeau's blackface controversy, Scheer was dismissing the Liberal leader as a political pop star: all style and no substance. But how Scheer sees himself in The Simpsons world, we never quite learn.

[Simpsons theme song]

LL: And we have been listening to the documentary, From the Start. It was produced by The Current's Julie Crysler and our documentary editor, Joan Webber. Well, coming up in our next half hour, Milton is Ontario's fastest growing community. And when demographics change so quickly, it's hard to predict how elections might turn out. We'll talk with four voters about how they've made up their minds. Plus, the latest from the border region between Turkey and Syria. I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music]

Back To Top »

U.S. withdrawal from Syria already creating 'a new regional order': Guardian correspondent

Guests: Martin Chulov

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current. The moment that changed the Middle East arrived with a sudden silence. Those are the opening words in Martin Chulov's last dispatch from Syria. The Guardian newspaper's Middle East correspondent had been reporting from north eastern Syria since the Trump administration's sudden decision to withdraw U.S. troops last week. In the days since, he's watched as the region's fragile peace quickly disintegrated. We've reached Martin Chulov, who lives in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Hello.

MARTIN CHULOV: Good morning to you.

LL: Martin, tell me about that moment that you describe, the moment, as you say, that changed the Middle East.

MARTIN CHULOV: It was a moment when it was almost as though the air was sucked out of the room and not just the room, in the streets around us, in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, which has been the administrative hub of the Kurds for the last seven years. They've controlled that city and they've controlled the province from it. But that moment which followed the Internet being taken down across the region and it followed a news flash which said that the Syrian regime would be returning to towns along the border, called Manbij and Kobane. People started to digest what that meant. It meant that power was changing hands and the fear on the streets was palpable.

LL: So what happened? Everyone just went inside? The streets were cleared?

MARTIN CHULOV: Yeah the streets were cleared. They were bustling. They were hustling. It was a relatively normal day compared to the four or five days prior. People were going about their normal lives, but all of a sudden people were scurrying for cover. The streets emptied. There was fear on people's faces. Those who we could see. And our guests, the people we were staying with started to tremble. And one of them said to us, you must leave now.

LL: And you did leave?

MARTIN CHULOV: We had to leave for the Iraqi border. We left along the highway. There were rumours the whole way that the Syrian regime had taken up checkpoints on that road, which would have been a big problem. But luckily, they hadn't. And we had no option but to leave Syria the following morning.

LL: So you were watching events from Erbil. And this morning we were hearing about a lot of attempts at diplomacy. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is calling for a cease fire. Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, says, no, that's not going to happen. Do you think there is an opening for diplomacy right now?

MARTIN CHULOV: Not at this point. I think that the vacuum that the US has created is profound and its effects cannot be overstated. The protagonists in this conflict, the Turks, the Russians, the Syrian regime, and to some extent the Kurds, although they have the weaker hand, are all pressing advantage at this point, Turkey is on the verge of achieving what it has been seeking for several years now, and that is meaningfully changing the colour of its border with Syria, which is dominated by Kurds. And that's been a problem to it because according to Turkey, northeastern Syria is controlled by its worst enemy, which is the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, with whom it has been fighting a four decade insurgency inside its own borders.

LL: And which it considers a terrorist group.

MARTIN CHULOV: It does and it's also proscribed as a terrorist group by the U.S.and this is the baseline of the problem here, for Turkey, is that in 2015, the US partnered with Kurds of the region to fight the Islamic State, who were very prevalent in Syria and Iraq at that point and and running rampant over the central Arabian Peninsula. So four years later, we've reached a point where the Turks are saying we are not going to do this anymore. Donald Trump has said you can have what you want and we have now a vacuum of historic proportions. The effects of which cannot be overstated.

LL: And you say that the Turks are getting what they want, but Syrian government forces are actually now back in the country's north after brokering a deal with the Kurdish fighters. I'm wondering, does that lend any more a suggestion that there's going to be more of a clash before this is over?

MARTIN CHULOV: No, I don't think so. Turkey will be happy that the Syrian regime is returning to the borders because they will effectively set up a buffer between themselves and the Kurds. So that's one part of their objective achieved. There's a lot of sabre rattling here. The Syrian regime is not in a position to take on the Turkish military, which is far more powerful than they are, that they will talk a lot. They will enter several towns just to just to establish a presence there or to say that we've been at a rate of raised a flag. But at the end of the day, once the fighting is done, there will be an easy accommodation between Turkey or between Ankara and Damascus, and that will be held together by Russia, who has been the brokering party in all of this.

LL: I'm wondering now, a week into this, how are the Kurds viewing the U.S. abandonment of northeastern Syria.

MARTIN CHULOV: With a great sense of bewilderment and anger. Only eight days ago, there were 110,000 Kurdish forces in the northeast who were being trained and mentored by the Americans. They'd been there for four years, they believed and they did. They owed them a debt of honour. The Kurds had lost 11,000 people. Regardless of what they were fighting for, there was an element of we share some of the values of the West and without them, the Islamic State could not have been defeated on the battlefield. After they were in February, March this year, the Kurds turned from fighters to jailers and they've been keeping the remnants of the Islamic State and the communities that are alleged to have supported them in detention centres. That has been a significant role for global security. They have less incentive or capacity to do so now and we've seen in the last few days, at least one of those camps there's the Kurdish guards have walked away and there has been a walkout of upwards of 750 accused Islamic State members. So it's not all going well for the overall security of the province and the potential for the Islamic State to to be revitalized.

LL: Then the power shift between the Assad regime and the Kurds and Turkey is one thing Martin, but what about the other power dynamics that are at play in Syria right now?

MARTIN CHULOV: In Syria, certainly in the northeast, the absence of the Americans, the retreat of the Americans is very, very significant. That province has been seen to be a linchpin for the relative order that we've seen over the last four or five years. The Americans have been the most dominant presence, political presence in the region. They have left suddenly. The Russians have stepped straight in. They've moved into their bases. They brokered a deal between the Kurds and the Syrian regime. Vladimir Putin has already been to Riyadh for a bilateral visit and the Russians are saying very loudly, we are stepping into this space. Friend and foe alike of the US understand that they have Donald Trump's measure that he's not somebody, in their estimation who is going to stick by his allies. So new alliances are being very quickly formed in real time. And I must say, in all my years in this job, it's been very unusual to see something like this play out so rapidly.

LL: Yeah, I was going to ask you, you've been covering the region for almost 15 years, and it may be unfair given, as you say, how rapidly events are unfolding, but where do you think this is headed?

MARTIN CHULOV: I think it's fair to say that this is a new regional order, with Russia at the top of the totem pole. The Syrian regime, through the help of its of its patrons, will be able to say that they effectively control north eastern Syria, although a very tight military, it's been fighting for seven, eight years, I should say. And, you know, whether they can actually hold onto onto the province in any meaningful way is another thing. What does it leave for the Kurds? They're without a friend at the moment and I think that their only play will be to look towards Iran as a regional patron. And I think that Iran, who has long coveted north eastern Syria, would see the Kurds of the province as a good way to assert their influence. In my estimation, there will be a tussle for political power in that province and new alignments will be rapidly shaped elsewhere in the region. It remains to be seen whether Saudi Arabia will actually remain a strategic ally of the US after they feel abandoned a month ago, when Iran was accused of attacking their oil production facilities and the Americans, despite talking very loudly about it, didn't come to their rescue.

LL: So much happening and so many civilians caught in the middle of all of this. Martin, thank you for your time.

MARTIN CHULOV: You're welcome.

LL: Martin Chulov is the Middle East correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. We reached him in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

[Music]

These 4 voters have made up their mind. Can they convince each other to switch their ballots?

Guests: Sean James, Mayurkumar Dave, Doreen Clarke, Bilal Arif

LL: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM. I'm Laura Lynch.

SOUNDCLIP

SEAN JAMES: I am Sean James and we are in Milton, Ontario, in what I call the middle aged section of town, in the 70s homes. Nice, established neighbourhood. It's a beautiful, beautiful town. It really is. And this is my garden. And we do our best to be all eco-friendly and it's sort of English cottage on steroids. It's not all native, but there's a high percentage of native plants. Because people are always looking, it seemed like a good place to put up a Green Party sign.

LL: Okay. Sean James is obviously a Green Party supporter. Milton is 50 kilometres west of Toronto. It's a mix of commuter suburb and farm country. Here's how Milton Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Scott McCammon describes it.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well, change is the big thing. Milton is still one of the fastest growing communities in Canada. So I always joke because as soon as they put up the population signs, they're out of date. The ones that we have now say 110,000 and by the time this interview airs, we'll probably be at 140,000. So with the growth in Milton, there has been a shift too, in some of the diversity, which has been very positive in terms of the communities we have here, the types of businesses that we now have in Milton.

LL: Politically, the riding is held by conservative Lisa Raitt. But with changing demographics, other parties are hoping to have success here, too.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Lisa Raitt is the deputy leader for the party. She's been our MP for 11 years. She's a very eloquent woman and I think she will best represent Milton this upcoming election.

VOICE 2: OK, so our Liberal candidate is Adam van Koeverden. He is a former Olympian. He competed in Canada in the last four summer Olympics. What he's really brought to this campaign is to bring that same sportsmanship mentality he experienced as an athlete.

VOICE 3: Milton NDP has Farina Hassan as candidate. NDP has a very diversified platform, which really speaks for people. We are in it for you.

VOICE 4: The Green candidate for Milton is Eleanor Hayward, and she's an excellent candidate because she has firm roots here in Milton. And I think she has a good touchstone on the issues that matter to not just to Milton, but to Canadians as well.

LL: And four of those Canadians gathered at Sean James's home back in that quiet suburb.

SOUNDCLIP

SEAN JAMES: Hi, I'm Sean.

DOREEN CLARKE: Sean, I'm Doreen Clarke. Nice to meet you.

SEAN JAMES: Welcome.

LL: And The Current's producer, Karin Marley, was there.

SOUNDCLIP

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: Hi, my name is Mayurkumar Dave. I live in Milton since 2003. Came to Canada in the very same year. I bring students from India predominantly to Canada for their higher education.

DOREEN CLARKE: Doreen Clarke. I've lived in Milton all of my life. So 59 years. I just retired last, twelve months ago, as a financial planner for 37 years. So helping people with their finances.

BILAL ARIF: Hi, my name is Bilal Arif. I'm currently a third year student at the University of Toronto studying stats and maths, and I have lived in Milton for about five years now.

SEAN JAMES: I am Sean James. I grew up in Milton and I have an eco-landscaping company.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: I am voting for Lisa Raitt because she has done a fantastic job so far. Conservative policies as far as the immigration policy is concerned, I think they have some robust ideas, which I agree with.

DOREEN CLARKE: I'm voting for the Liberals. Adam van Koeverden, a very good up and coming young person for Canada. He's been very well groomed by a lot of corporate Canada's CEOs. The Liberal party, you know, they've done some things that I don't agree with, but they've done a lot of good things, especially around immigration. You know, fiscally, they need to be reined in a little bit. I think they spent a little more than they should.

BILAL ARIF: So I'll be voting for Farina Hassan. I really like the NDP's a platform. I like the way their priorities are set. I think they give climate change a high priority. They care about people in general. I really like Jagmeet Singh in general, the way he presents himself as a leader, as a professional.

SEAN JAMES: I'm voting Green. Eleanor Hayward in the Green Party have an amazing platform that goes beyond the environment. But everything else aside, I'm tired of voting strategically. I want to vote my conscience and I think that we're out of time. We just have to spend the money, which I'm one of the only people I know who doesn't mind paying taxes and is willing to pay more. But I think that the costs of not doing it in the short and long term we're out of time and out of options.

KARIN MARLEY: Out of all the people who are in this room, who do you think you could maybe convince to vote for Lisa Raitt and what's your kind of sales pitch?

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: So Lisa Raitt have worked with corporate Canada, so she knows how the business works. She was the minister of natural resources. She was minister of transportation. So she has an experience of how to run the day to day Canada as well. We are a resource rich country. We have a lot to offer to the world and we can developed so much business activities in Canada to support our people. At the same time, we can bring more in as well. And I totally agree, we should invite people from all across the world. Conservatives are in favour of that as well. The only difference is there are certain rules and regulations which we should go by. They will stop some of the loopholes which we have into the system as well.

KARIN MARLEY: What do you think?

DOREEN CLARKE: No. The problem is you can't say we're going to only let people come to Canada, have the skills and the developments and the education stuff that we're looking for to improve us overall as Canada, because they do do that. But if they say that everything is going to go up in arms and say, well, you know, you're leaving out these people and those people. So they're very selective who comes in. So I believe the Liberal Party has done an outstanding job and we have opened our doors quite substantially and I think we should open our doors more because we need more people in Canada. We don't have the population we need to do to serve the jobs that we have available, but we do need to continue to do it the right way.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: I totally agree with that. Liberals have proven that, that yes, they bring in good people.

DOREEN CLARKE: And that's the industry you work in.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: But at the same time, you know, because I know some of the qualities people do bring in Canada and because of certain loopholes, I'm not saying everything is bad, but certain things, we should be more careful. There are certain rules and regulations which we have set for people who want to come to Canada.

SEAN JAMES: I have two issues with let's call them the big parties and one of them is environmental. Obviously, that's that's my shtick. But the other is that the parties in power often seem to support large business because that's who gets them in power. I need somebody who's going to support the economy overall, support small business, support the regular people. I see the NDP and the Green Party being better options for that and history speaks to that. It's been about cutting environmental standards. It's about making compromises for big businesses. Bilal, you may have other things to add to that as well, but I think the the NDP and the Green, I mean my perfect world would be a coalition of that.

BILAL ARIF: I definitely agree with what he's saying. So if you look at the Liberal Party these last four years, like in terms of the economy they said they wouldn't try to exceed a $10 billion deficit. So they completely, I wouldn't say lied, but kind of broke their promise. I understand that going into a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing because you're trying to build for the future, so that's why I'm kind of, I can't really trust the Liberal Party with their financial decisions.

SEAN JAMES: Whether you're talking about people or the environment, it's going to cost money. It's going to cost a lot of money. But I think that building the economy from a pro-environment standpoint is going to help everybody. I think we have to spend, but it's about what we're hopefully going to prevent spending. The remediating from storms, from fires, from stuff that we're seeing every day is enormously expensive.

DOREEN CLARKE: And when the Conservatives came out with their platform very late, might add, it's going cost money to do what they want to do. So I honestly don't mind going into debt load them more than we anticipate. But at what cost? You know, and historically, if you go back because I've been around longer than you, historically, you go back Liberals are known to spend. The Conservatives are known to cut. If we could find somewhere in between, if we have that magical party appearing between that can do both, they would hundred percent I think have most of our votes because you need to be environmentally friendly. We need to make sure that we have health care, proper education for our children. I'm willing to pay more taxes.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: No, I agree. Health care and education. Those are the key parameters and we should not be touching those ones. At the same time I agree with the sustainable development as well, but there are a lot of smart technologies upcoming, like, you know, clean technologies as well. And we should work towards those ones. Our fossil fuel will be there for next what? 40, 50, 60 years? Then what? So we should support all of these things, however, with the right amount and that way it will prosper from all direction.

DOREEN CLARKE: That's why sometimes as much as I am voting Liberal, yes, it would be nice to see a minority government because it'll keep the spending a little bit in check. It will keep us, I mean, the one thing about Liberals that really pissed me off was the SNC-Lavalin case. We have to have our integrity and that really makes me hesitate.

SEAN JAMES: Win you over to the Green.

KARIN MARLEY: Bilal, who do you think you could win over out of the people here?

BILAL ARIF: I would want to talk to the Conservatives, but I don't think I could win them over. I think I could maybe win over the Liberal Party. I mean, we have similar values. The NDP platform is really about, you know, the people. And I think that's like a shared thing with Liberals. I think the biggest reason is probably just the candidate we have. So if we look at Justin Trudeau in the past, he's made a couple of mistakes and I get that he's acknowledged them, but it's a a matter of ethics. And if you kind of violate that, it's kind of hard to get regain that trust. From what I've seen from Jagmeet Singh, I'm really I'm definitely very pleased with it. The way he responds to some questions, it makes me feel like appreciated as a person. For example, he was recently asked about the Indigenous and their water issues and he responded with why is that a question? And when I heard that, I thought that was like the best answer possible. He's far more professional than both Andrew and Justin. Even when he gets like he's faced with a lot of bigotry every now and then, he'll always respond with something that's very classy.

KARIN MARLEY: The NDP did reasonably well here last time, but this time I was hearing that a lot of people didn't know anyone who was voting NDP. There's obviously a lot of talk about strategic voting in this riding and across the country. Why are you sticking with them?

BILAL ARIF: So I think strategic voting is just a very bad idea. I understand what they're trying to accomplish, but the whole point of democracy is that you voice your opinion. You pick somebody that you like.

KARIN MARLEY: Doreen, what do you think?

DOREEN CLARKE: I do really admire the leader of the NDP party. I think the way he's handled himself is very professional. But, you know, I want someone that I mean, you say the Liberals spend actually, if you look historically, the NDP when they were in power in Ontario under Bob Rae was a nightmare of spending. So because the philosophies are very much the same, they say what they want to do, but there's nothing set up in place of what they would do if they were in power. And that's where I hesitate, because the inexperience or the lack of preparation for what the party would do, that makes me hesitate with NDP versus Liberal.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: So I believe that, you know, we should work for our future generation as well. We need to look after the environment like yesterday. I think Canada is doing wonderfully well so far, but at the same time they need to do much, much, much, more to have a sustainable economy, economic growth and a protection of environment. I'm sure that Conservatives will handle in a different way. Business growth should be there, but not at the cost of environment. That we need more jobs. We need more industries to come to Canada and we should work towards that one as well. But at the same time, we need to protect our environment.

DOREEN CLARKE: I think the Liberal government purchasing the pipeline as much as people go what, you know you want the environmentally good, but why are you buying it? If they purchase a pipeline, they can control it. They can ensure that it's environmentally safe. We need the pipeline. It's a huge piece of our economic engine in Canada and we need that, but we need to do it right. And bringing in our Indigenous people to make sure we're not affecting their lifestyle either. So I know it's going to be a challenge, but there has to be a little bit of compromise. But I think I don't mind paying more taxes to protect my environment.

BILAL ARIF: I think that's one of the big things that I like about the NDP is that they're actually constantly going, are making a large effort to try to tax the wealthiest and large corporations. So I'm happy to hear that they're at least making it a priority to tax people that are all the way at the top.

KARIN MARLEY: Who do you think he could persuade?

SEAN JAMES: Well, I don't think that I can persuade Conservatives in general, although you seem particularly open minded, which is awesome. I think we've talked a lot about the economy and we've talked a lot about corporations. I think it was $23 billion that Canada doesn't get paid from corporations, money going offshore and so on. $23 billion dollars will fund fixing the environmental issues and education. We could give education across Canada and fund fixing the environment. Who could I win over? Not to pick on the Liberals, but it seems that we're on the same page ethically, I just I haven't seen as much as I wanted to as far as progress goes. I wouldn't want to try and win over an NDP candidate because I think we're on the same page on most things. And I don't know if I could win over most Conservatives that I know. And we've got to remember, let people vote strategically. If you vote for a party, two things happen. They get money for the next election and whoever wins, says boy, there are a lot of green nut buyers out there. Maybe we'd better throw them the occasional bone, so it makes, if you vote your conscience, then it makes politicians pay attention. And I think that's extremely important.

DOREEN CLARKE: That's why I think a minority actually with either one of them and the Liberals will actually, if we work together properly as Canadians and do what's right instead of fighting and I think we will prosper properly as Canadians. Conservatives unfortuantely, I'm just on a completely different page than Conservatives.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: But as you say that I'm very open, but you know, if we work together on different platforms, yes that would be the best idea to govern.

SEAN JAMES: I think that we need to move away from the established parties because it hasn't worked yet and it needs to work now.

BILAL ARIF: Yeah, I think it's a very flawed logic to say that you shouldn't vote NDP or Green because they haven't had much experience because that's like saying I'm not going to give them a chance because they've never had a chance before. It's worth trying something new.

KARIN MARLEY: Let me ask you one thing. You've been going to Conservative Party meetings and such in Milton since you moved here, basically. What kind of change have you seen in the people who are there?

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: It's a huge change. Conservatives are much more open now than they used to be than ten years before. I remember like you know, certain events when I used to go to, no one even talked to you being like, you know, you can put me as a minority immigrant or whatever it is. It used to be a different platform, different kind of feeling and that changed a lot in the Conservative Party.

DOREEN CLARKE: Again, it goes back to our Canadians need to be more understanding of other cultures, which we have been terrible.

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: It wasn't the situation before.

DOREEN CLARKE: If you like, and you know, you look back at this brown face, black face as Justin Trudeau, you go back 20 years in Canada, I mean, we didn't know any different. So for Justin Trudeau to do what he did, in those days, that was OK. Nobody meant to hurt anybody's feelings. We just didn't know any better.

SEAN JAMES: It was a different time, but I think I'm worried that we're going backwards right now. The rhetoric in this election from some of the parties from from Quebec and from the PPC is awful. And it turns one group against another and it gives people permission who were already wrong minded as far as inclusion goes, to be worse and to be publicly worse.

KARIN MARLEY: What do you think after this discussion, what have you learned about your fellow Milton voters?

MAYURKUMAR DAVE: So I learned Greens and NDP, I never had, like little clue. I was well aware of Liberal ideas, the Liberal platform, but yes it was very nice to know the different platform from NDP and Greens too.

DOREEN CLARKE: I just it's nice to see that we all sound the same as Canadians, not necessarily at parties.

BILAL ARIF: I learned a lot. I learned that the Liberals, NDP and Green are almost on the same page. The Conservatives not as much. I learned that even with the Conservatives, you can have a normal talk without getting into a heated argument. You know everyone in Milton, the people here are open to talking about problems and might feel like you shouldn't be talking about them. You know, it's OK to talk about the things. People don't get mad. People will be honest with you.

SEAN JAMES: We're not going to move forward at all if we don't talk to each other. We do have similarities. Everybody in the room has similarities. Everybody's passionate, which I think is phenomenal. I think we've all thought a little bit more about how we're going to vote and why. And hopefully everybody has these conversations. Hopefully everybody thinks more about what and why and about the long term, regardless of what your political stamp is.

KARIN MARLEY: Thank you so much. And it was great to meet all of you.

SEAN JAMES: Thank you so much.

DOREEN CLARKE: Thank you.

BILAL ARIF: Thank you.

LL: You heard there, Conservative voter, Mayurkumar Dave, Liberal voter Doreen Clarke, NDP voter Bilal Arif and Green voter Sean James. All in the Ontario riding of Milton. That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Julie Andrews will join Tom Power for a conversation about a few of her favourite things from her Hollywood career. And remember, you can take The Current with you to go on the CBC Listen app. You can hear Canadian audio, radio, CBC Podcasts and CBC Music. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Oct. 16, 2019 episode transcript

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