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The Current Transcript for October 17, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I believe that he was standing up for Quebec and that's a good thing. I think I'm learning about him as the campaign is growing. It's interesting to see what he has to say.

LAURA LYNCH: Quebec voters like Sophie Collin are taking a much closer look at leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet and his Bloc Quebecois. The party is surging in the polls, even as others are faltering. That is first up today. And then, in the second of our two special documentaries on party leaders, a closer look at Justin Trudeau.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When I first met Justin, he wanted nothing to do with politics. You know, how do I follow my dad. But as he got older, he really became enthralled with public service and I know that's what catapulted him into it.

LL: All that, plus political analyst and journalist Chantal Hebert and a lighter touch from Montreal, comedian Sugar Sammy. Today we put the spotlight on Quebec in our campaign coverage. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Why some Quebecers say they’re leaning toward the Bloc Quebecois this election

Guests: Marika Wheeler

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The Bloc exists to fight against a Quebec, a federal government that doesn't understand Quebec and yet, with our priorities every step of the way, we've demonstrated that we are always there to stand up for Quebec values and indeed Canadians.

VOICE 2: We are going to win seats all over this country. We are going to win seats in Quebec because the choice is becoming more and more clear. And Canadians now see that there is only one party, there is only one leader who will ensure that life becomes more affordable. There is only one leader that will bring us back to balanced budget.

VOICE 3: I wanted to make it clear Quebec, that you know, despite maybe differences of appearances, I share the same values. The progressive option for Quebecers is us, the New Democrats.

LL: With just days before Canadians go to the polls, Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh are have been spending a lot of time in battleground Quebec trying to wrangle support away from the resurgent Bloc Quebecois. According to the CBC's poll tracker, the Liberals are still in first place there, but the Bloc is a strong second. The CBC's Marika Wheeler spent some time talking to voters in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, and she joins me from Quebec City. Hello.

MARIKA WHEELER: Good morning.

LL: How palpable is this resurgence of the bloc that we've been hearing about?

MARIKA WHEELER: Oh, it's palpable. I have a colleague who spent some time following the block bus around for a couple days, and she said that the party was getting superstar welcome at community events. People were lining the streets, cheering. They were packing venues. And, you know, just to give you an idea, there are 78 seats in Quebec. And CBC's poll tracker is projecting that the Bloc could take 33 of those. Now, just for some perspective, the same poll tracker is projecting 34 seats for the NDP across the country.

LL: But this is a party that a lot of people have just written off.

MARIKA WHEELER: Yeah and a lot of the new interest for the party is tied to the new leader. He was a provincial politician who took the helm of the Bloc just in January. This is Yves-Francois Blanchet. So now many good backers are learning to get to know him as the leader of a party. Have a listen to these three voters that I met: Sophie Collin, Axel Denault and Denis Lapointe.

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VOICE 1: Well, at first I had no idea who he was. I knew he was a past minister, but I had no real impression of him. After the first debate in French, I was really impressed by him. And I think that he's very good. I think also that they win the goodwill, both from one in Quebec and preventing the environment as well. So I'm really happy he took that route and I think that Fracois Blanchet is doing a very good job right now.

VOICE 2: I believe that he was standing up for Quebec and that's a good thing. It can't be a bad thing for standing up for what you believe. So I think it's a, he managed well. Yes.

MARIKA WHEELER: Did you know very much about him before this election campaign?

VOICE 2: Not so much. I think I'm learning about him as the campaign is growing and it's interesting to see what he has to say.

VOICE 3: [French speech]

MARIKA WHEELER: So Denis Lapointe there says that he thinks that the Bloc has a good chance of winning seats. He didn't believe in the party until Mr. Blanchet came along.

LL: Well, what about state was the Bloc in before Blanchet became the leader in January?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, at the beginning of this campaign, the parties certainly had its work cut out for it. In 2011, when the orange wave of NDP support swept go, the Bloc was almost decimated. It went from holding 50 seats in the House of Commons to four. Gilles Duceppe Who swept the longtime leader lost his seat to the NDP. He stepped down that night. He ended up coming back in time to run the 2015 campaign and even though the party did win back more seats in 2015, a total of 10, Mr. Duceppe lost to the NDP again and stepped down again. And then the Bloc went through this long period of turmoil in its leadership until finally, Yves-Francois Blanchet came in and was acclaimed leader just this past January.

LL: You know, a lot of people in English Canada don't know anything about him. So tell us a bit more about him.

MARIKA WHEELER: So his background is in the music industry. He was the legendary Quebec rocke, Eric Lapointe's gent for 20 years. Then became a, you know, eventually became a provincial politician. He was first elected to the National Assembly in 2008. He served as environment minister under Pauline Marois' very short lived Parti-Quebecois government. And then he lost his seat in 2014. After that, he became a political commentator on Radio-Canada's super high profile political show called Le Club des Ex. And during his time there, as well as the National Assembly, he was known for a very combative form of politics. And has a reputation that he's told La Presse that he's worked really hard to replace with a friendlier image as the leader of the Bloc. And he says he's doing that one smile at a time, trying to replace the photo banks of scowling faces into smiling ones.

LL: Well, whatever he's trying to do, the image seems to be working because those voters that you talked to earlier said they found him interesting. Where did you meet them?

MARIKA WHEELER: So I spent nearly a week in the Laurentians. That's about an hour's drive north of Montreal. It's cottage country. It's got rolling hills, hundreds of lakes. There's lots of skiing in the wintertime. It's a really beautiful area. It's where I grew up, actually. And I'm taking you there because there are five ridings in the area. And it looks like some of them might flip or at the very least have a very tight race. And heading into the election, these ridings were split between the Bloc and the Liberals. Over time though, that's not always been the portraits. The Laurentides-LaBelle riding, for example, which is the one where I grew up, was Bloc for years. It voted NDP in 2011 and then the Liberals won in the last election. And that's pretty typical for a lot of the writings in that area. It's a pretty typical history. This time around. the Canada, the 338 Canada website, polling website is actually projecting that that riding will flip from Liberal to Bloc.

LL: Did you meet anybody who actually plans to do that, who plans to vote Bloc instead of Liberal this time around?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, when I spoke with Denis Lapointe, who we heard from earlier, he was standing on the main street in the town of Mont-Tremblant. It was this really perfect autumn afternoon. He's a restaurant owner in a town just a little bit further south. He's been a longtime Liberal voter. He's 69 years old. But this time he's leaning far toward the Bloc and I asked him if he'd ever voted for the Bloc before.

SOUNDCLIP

[French speech]

MARIKA WHEELER: So he says he has never voted for the Bloc. He used to be a sovereignist, but stop voting for the PQ years ago because he stopped believing sovereignty would ever happen. He said after talking about it for 50 years, he's moved on.

LL: So does the rise in Bloc popularity mean that there is actually a resurgence in support for Quebec sovereignty?

MARIKA WHEELER: Sovereignty has not been a big pillar of Blanchet's campaign. You know, obviously different voters will vote for different reasons for the Bloc. One voter I also met in Mont-Tremblant described himself a PQist, so a fervent sovereignist. And he said he'll vote for the Bloc just like he always does. And then, of course, on the other end of the spectrum, there are the people who will never vote for the Bloc because of its sovereignist ideology. I met Pierette Cote-Mattio in a little town called a Arundel. And she came up to me and she had one point that she wanted to make.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well, what's bugging me? OK. Bloc Quebecois getting paid by the federal government to break up the country. That drives me nuts. I think that is so. It doesn't make sense. It's gross. I don't like it and that's it.

MARIKA WHEELER: If the Bloc does as well as the polls suggest, it will be really interesting to see how Yves-Francois Blanchet interprets the support for his party in relation to support for sovereignty. Listen to him speaking on CBC Power and Politics just shortly after he became leader.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I did not want the Bloc Quebecois to fall to 1, 2 or no MP at all. And then the adversaries of the idea of sovereignty would have said once again, but with more credibility this time that the Bloc was dead and that the idea of independence was also dead. And I said this must not happen.

LL: OK. That's interesting, because even though he's not campaigning on it, it's obviously still a priority for him.

MARIKA WHEELER: For him and also for some Bloc supporters. But it's really not what's attracting the voters I spoke to to the Bloc.

LL: OK, so what is attracting them to the Bloc?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, people told me they believe that the block is best positioned to defend Quebec's rights, the French language, Quebecois culture and values. And the other big issue, which I'm sure doesn't come as that much of a surprise given how much space this has taken in the debates and also during the campaign in general is Bill-21, Quebec's new secularism law.

LL: And that's got a lot of attention right across the country. What did you hear about that?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, it's been a divisive issue since the law was proposed. As you know, it prohibits certain government employees and people in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. But as Mr. Blanchet points out, it's a law which has the support of the majority of Quebecers. And for many people I spoke to, it's an election issue. Denis Lapointe, the man we heard from on the street in Mont-Tremblant, told me that he's likely turning his back to his Liberals because specifically of this. He feels Justin Trudeau's interfering with Quebec politics when he says that he hasn't closed the door to challenging the law in court. And that's a sentiment I heard from others as well.

LL: But what about those who oppose the law?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, that's the case for Pat Thomas. She describes herself as left wing. She says that she has almost only ever voted for the NDP, but she really likes the Liberal candidate in her riding. So this time around, she's planning to vote for him. And this is what she said about Bill-21.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I have a badge which has Bill-21 with a cross through it that I support. I have on my purse that I bring everywhere here, because I think that whole Bill-21 issue is shocking. I am a teacher. I've been a teacher for 47 years, I've been teaching. And the fact that there is some of these lovely young women wearing the hijab, you know, their whatever on their heads and they're not being allowed to teach when they've gone through the whole process and they're probably wonderful teachers that the issue of wearing whatever the heck you're wearing is not going to affect them at all, I think it's shocking. Mr. Trudeau has taken the strongest stand federally, saying that it isn't a closed issue for him. It is something that he is willing to deal with, and that is to his credit, as far as I'm concerned. All the others are saying, you know, it's up to let the process go through the way it will, but I you know, it's a very important issue.

MARIKA WHEELER: So Bill-21 is swaying votes in this federal election. And from what I heard in some cases it's prompting people to cast ballots for the Bloc.

LL: But what else? Are there other issues that people like came up when you talked to people?

MARIKA WHEELER: So I went to a community quilting event in this small town called Arundel. It's in a riding that the Liberals are hoping to hold on to. And at this event, there were only women. Nearly all of them were retired. Many identify as Anglophone Quebecers. And here's Pat Thomas again, along with Judy Devey and Brenda Cater.

SOUNDCLIP

MARIKA WHEELER: What has struck you the most during this election campaign so far?

VOICE 1: The pettiness, I would say. The concern about digging for dirt and not really hearing enough policies. Like it's I tend to turn it all off because the policies aren't coming through loud and clear. It's defending whatever dirt has come up that particular day. That concerns me a great deal.

VOICE 2: I hate to see things centred on the leaders all the time because the leaders, you know, they have some power about I mean, it's really their, the party they belong to and the issues in the party that are the important things. And one of the things that I found interesting with this whole blackface whatever thing was that the press was on it all the time and sort of you know they were focusing on just that and the issues. When you went out to the people, the people were saying, look yes, I mean it has issues and what, but we want to talk about the issues. You know, the basic important things that are going on in the country.

VOICE 3: I get fed up at the silly issues that I consider silly and I wish it was more about unemployment, medical issues, education and not blackface and not Andrew Scheer having a passport in the States and things like that. I just find they're not important.

MARIKA WHEELER: So to those women said that they were voting Liberal and the other one preferred to not say who she was going to be voting for.

LL: OK. They all want more substance and that is something we've heard from other Canadians. So far, you've introduced us to Liberal and Bloc voters, but how much traction are the other parties getting in the Laurentians?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, I didn't hear too much in the Laurentians. One voter told me that all parties, except for the Liberals, were still on the table for her. But I saw posters for all of the main parties. And I want to introduce you to one last person who has been watching all of the parties campaigns very closely. He loves elections. He's probably one of the few people who is super happy to talk to pollsters when they call him up. And he's a young dad with a chatty two year old daughter. His wife is nearly nine months pregnant. And I met him in his home.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: My name is Axel Denault, 26. I work in Montreal as a manager salesperson in a finance firm. And I think so far the campaign is pretty bland. It's not a very interesting campaign because I haven't found a core subject. Every campaign has its core subject where people in the end will vote for in the box and for not this one, it tries to be about the environment, but really it isn't. So what Trudeau is making and what everybody is aiming to do is conservatism versus progressism. So the question for people, the main debate is conservative position on abortion or that assistance, even though they won't touch it. So it is a very useless debate because no party in their right mind will touch those rights because it will be a political suicide.

MARIKA WHEELER: What issues are you looking for personally? What issues matter to you the most?

VOICE: Our main issues would be the environment. I think there's a lot of opportunity there and not only doing some more loss protected, but really doing some investment project because green technology really is growing in the world and there's a lot of jobs out there. Well-paid job. Another issue for me would be to protect the interests of Quebec in terms of their own choices. I'm especially talking about the law 21st that was passed.

MARIKA WHEELER: Bill 21.

VOICE: Bill 21, yes. So it is a Quebec issue. It is a debate that needs to be taken inside Quebec. It was done in the last election. And I don't think that the federal government should interfere in that. And there's other, that in other regard, presumably immigration, Quebec should have more right to choose because of a different language or even the fact that we have to fill out two taxes form every year while we can easily just make one. But it'sjust a matter of power, of who of why they won't want to change that. So it's again, giving more liberties to the provinces to Quebec is another big issue for me.

MARIKA WHEELER: So given all of this, do you know who you'll be voting for?

VOICE: I'm pretty sure this year I will vote for the Green Party or the Bloc Quebecois. Last election, I voted also for Bloc Quebecois and the year prior I voted Conservative because it was the economic crisis, and I thought that a strong government would be better to navigate through that and because I'm pro most of their ideas, but they were pretty solid in terms of economic management.

MARIKA WHEELER: What do you make of voting for the Bloc or the Green Party, given that it's impossible or unlikely that either of those parties will form government?

VOICE: Of course it won't. But first, if we have that mentality in mind, no third party can ever rise. And secondly, I think that there are high chances for the government to be a minority. So it will need somebody to pass any bills. And that somebody I would like to be either the Bloc Quebecois or the Green parties because they're both pretty green. So every bill we have to be tainted with a bit of an environment to be accepted by the other party. And I'm looking I'm voting for the balance, not for the main power.

LL: So Marika, what happened after you spoke with Axel Denault?

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, like about 4.7 million Canadians, he went out to vote over the weekend. He said given that his wife's due date is so close they felt that it was important to fulfil their civic duty and in the end, he voted for the Bloc.

LL: Oh, well, okay. I guess we will find out on Monday night how telling that actually is.

MARIKA WHEELER: Well, it's something we're seeing predicted in the polls in much of Quebec, but other parts of the province have a different portrait than the one in the Laurentians right around the Quebec City area, which is where I lived. For example, the Conservatives are counting on picking up a few seats. The NDP are trying to hold on to some of the ones they have here, but we'll see how much ground the leaders and the candidates cover in the next four days of campaigning because as we know, a lot can happen in four days.

LL: It certainly can Marika. Thank you.

MARIKA WHEELER: Thank you.

LL: Marika Wheeler is a CBC reporter based in Quebec City. We did invite all the major party leaders to speak with us during the campaign and that includes Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blanchet. So far, he hasn't agreed to an interview. The CBC News is coming up next. Then we stay rooted in Quebec with a profile of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When things are pointed out to him, he's certainly one of the better people I know at apologising.

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

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Longtime friends reflect on how Justin Trudeau originally wanted 'nothing to do with politics'

Guests: Terry DiMonte, Mark Miller, Ali Nestor, Sean Smillie, Justin Trudeau

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

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, veteran political columnist Chantal Hebert says the rise of the Bloc Quebecois isn't surprising. In fact, it's been months in the making. In half an hour, she'll take us through the implications of that surge in popularity. But first, the Liberal candidate in Papineau.

[Music]

LL: This week, in the run up to Monday's vote, we're bringing you profiles of the two frontrunners in the race to run this country. Yesterday we heard a documentary about Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. If you missed it, you can find it at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Today, we're focusing on Justin Trudeau. Before this campaign, most Canadians probably figured they knew everything there was to know about the leader of the Liberal Party,tThe son of a former prime minister who grew up in the spotlight. But that was before the brown and black faced photos, the scandal that prompted people to ask, do we really know him? This is The Current's Alison Masemann with her documentary, A Very Public Life.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

TERRY DiMONTE: Brand new from the Franklin Electric, it's called Made It Up In Your Head.

ALISON MASEMANN: Terry DiMonte sits behind a mic, just as he has done most every weekday morning for the past three decades.

TERRY DiMONTE: Good morning. It's 8:44.

ALISON MASEMANN: He's a well-known rock radio guy with CHOM FM in Montreal.

TERRY DiMONTE: A minute away from the rock cry. Here's a peek.

ALISON MASEMANN: Terry DiMonte's work attire includes a comfortable sweater and socked feet.

TERRY DiMONTE: Time for the 8:45 beer.

ALISON MASEMANN: It's not beer, it's Coke Zero. Necessary fuel for a guy who's up before the sun rises. It was the late 1980s when DiMonte had an unlikely encounter with a stranger in a bar, one which led to his first meeting with a young Justin Trudeau. DiMonte remembers spotting a man watching him.

TERRY DiMONTE: And when the bar was closing, he came over and he said, you know you're just a giant pain in my side. And I thought, well, I don't know what that's all about. And he explained to me that he was an RCMP guy who was protecting the Trudeau children and that he drove them to school every day and that the kids had control of the radio and that he had to listen to CHOM every day and he wasn't a big rock music fan. And we chuckled about it and a couple of days later, the phone rang at the station and it was Justin.

ALISON MASEMANN: Trudeau had heard that DiMonte had run into his security guard and the teenager had a question.

TERRY DiMONTE: We were the radio station that was presenting a movie. I can't remember which one. It was a blockbuster film and we had passes to it. And he asked me if he could come to the movie. And you know once I figured out that I wasn't being pranked, I said of course, I'll be glad to help you.

ALISON MASEMANN: After their first meeting, Terry DiMonte would hear from Justin Trudeau quite regularly, and the two would bond over movies and music. And although he's more than a decade his senior, DiMonte would become a good friend to Trudeau. They'd talk politics and even argue about it over the occasional drink.

TERRY DiMONTE: And I said to him one night after maybe my third martini, I said you know what, you should come in. You should come in and we'll talk about Christmas. And he agreed. He said okay on one condition. I said, what is it? He said, I get to bring my iPod. I get to pick the music. I said OK. Because I thought because I was fascinated by what was Christmas like at 24 Sussex? At 7:38, 22 before 8 o'clock and I've got my pal, Justin Trudeau.

ALISON MASEMANN: And so it was that the CHOM annual Christmas show tradition began.

TERRY DiMONTE: Did you send us a song?

ALISON MASEMANN: Over the course of a morning, the two would hang out.

TERRY DiMONTE: And you know told stories about, you know, his father taking him to the North Pole and, you know, Christmas morning on Sussex Drive. And he opened the curtain just a little bit about what it was like to be the son of, you know, the iconic Pierre Trudeau at Christmas. And he got to play what he wanted. Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. And, you know, Beck and other artists.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: But one of my favourite Christmas songs is Sarah McLaughlin cover of Gordon Lightfoot, A Song for a Winter's Night. And for me, it's just a classic Canadian.

ALISON MASEMANN: And it was this yearly ritual that became a big part of their friendship. In fact, Trudeau began doing these Christmas shows right around the same time his father died in the year 2000.

TERRY DiMONTE: He finished the eulogy in my kitchen.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Friends.

ALISON MASEMANN: And it was that eulogy that he gave at Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, which has become such a key part of Trudeau's well-known personal story. As a 28-year-old when he stood up in front of a church packed with foreign dignitaries and a who's who of Canadian politics and said goodbye to his father.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: He taught us to believe in ourselves, to stand up for ourselves. To know ourselves and to accept responsibility for ourselves.

TERRY DiMONTE: He knew what he had to do, he was saying goodbye to his dad, but he knew the nation was going be watching, so it's something I'll never forget.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: There were certain basic principles.

MARK MILLER: He felt an immense sense of responsibility towards Canadians who needed their own closure.

ALISON MASEMANN: That's Mark Miller, who 19 years ago also sat with his friend at Terry DiMonte's kitchen table as Trudeau wrote his father's eulogy.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Every card, every rose.

ALISON MASEMANN: A eulogy that proved to be polarizing. Some people thought they'd just seen a future leader of the Liberal Party. Others called it melodramatic.

MARK MILLER: I think his friends reacted more strongly than he did. I think his friends were outraged because they knew came from a place, from a person of mourning that had put together pretty good speech. Hear these people there are twice or three times his age criticizing.

[Trudeau speech followed by applause]

ALISON MASEMANN: Mark Miller has been close with Justin Trudeau since they were teens, so much so that he followed him into politics, becoming an MP in 2015. At this moment, Miller was watching his friend mourn for a second time. Two years earlier, Trudeau's younger brother Michel was killed in an avalanche in B.C.

MARK MILLER: His brother's death I think he would readily admit as much and I think so, in fact, I know so had a much more profound impact on him, his psyche, his relations with his only other remaining brother, the way he saw his friends. Marc Garneau leaned over to me the other day and asked when the prime minister started hugging people and it was after his brother's death. I've joked that I'm a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, so the handshake is about as far as I get, so I had to get accustomed. But clearly, it was a radical shift in his thinking, how he approached people, how he refused to take people for granted.

ALISON MASEMANN: It also may have changed his thinking about his future. It was after Michel's death that Trudeau stepped into the public eye, becoming an advocate for avalanche safety. Before that, he'd been working in relative anonymity as a bouncer, a snowboard instructor, and then a teacher in B.C..

TERRY DiMONTE: When I first met Joseph, he wanted nothing to do with politics. You know how do I follow my dad? But as he got older and thought about it more and knew the history more of his family and he really became enthralled with public service.

ALISON MASEMANN: As Trudeau tells it in his memoirs, he really caught the politics bug when he got involved in Gerrard Kennedy's campaign for the federal Liberal leadership in 2006. And of course, the rest of that story is well known. After the federal party got in the way of him running in the Montreal riding of Outremont, which was thought to be a safe Liberal seat, he set himself up for a real challenge in Papineau, which at the time was held by the Bloc Quebecois. He won that seat in 2008.

TERRY DiMONTE: I remember asking him not long after he was elected to parliament, I said to him, what's the thing that surprises you the most about being on the backbench? He said, you know Ter, what's amazing to me is the amount of stuff you can actually do for people.

ALISON MASEMANN: In some ways, he was the underdog in that race in Papineau. But of course, in other ways, he wasn't, given that his name is Trudeau. Ever since he got into politics, he's been accused of trading on that famous name, of taking his political legacy for granted, of being cocky enough to presume he could win even when he didn't have that much political experience. Mark Miller says Justin Trudeau learned from a young age just to let that kind of criticism roll off his back.

MARK MILLER: He's gotten unfair scrutiny. No one's going cry for him for having gotten that scrutiny, but he's gotten unfair scrutiny, unfair comparisons to his father. Criticism he's not like his father for the good stuff and criticism that he's precisely like him for the bad stuff. So he learned very early on to filter that out. It's made him tougher. It's made him the underdog and underestimated. So in a way, it's been an advantage.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Sunny ways my friends, sunny ways.

ALISON MASEMANN: Now, Trudeau struggling to convince Canadians that he's still the guy they elected back in 2015.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: This is what a positive.

ALISON MASEMANN: Ali Nestor believes he can.

[Sounds of boxing]

ALISON MASEMANN: The trainer stands in the middle of a boxing ring, opposite a 12 year old girl. He's showing her how to spar. He's muscular, dressed all in black. Ali Nestor's gym sits next to a highway in a residential neighbourhood. We're in Justin Trudeau's riding of Papineau, a multicultural community in downtown Montreal.

ALI NESTOR: He care.

ALISON MASEMANN: Justin Trudeau and Ali Nestor have been friends for the past nine years. Ever since Trudeau dropped into the gym for a visit, reigniting his childhood interest in boxing.

ALI NESTOR: [In translation] I was impressed because I had seen Justin, the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, on television. I was surprised to see how close he was. How humane. He was very nice with everyone.

ALISON MASEMANN: Trudeau trained here pretty regularly back before he became prime minister, and especially for that famous showdown in 2012 against Senator Patrick Brazeau, who was a Conservative at the time.

ALI NESTOR: [In trnaslation] He came to see me and said he wanted to fight a match. He was ready to fight a match. It's striking that he is a person who is determined, despite the fact that many people often underestimate him. Boxing has given him a chance to prove himself, but prove himself to himself. Now he has tested himself. He knows what he's capable of. He doesn't have to prove himself to others.

ALISON MASEMANN: It was a charity event with a lot at stake.

TERRY DiMONTE: I was one of the first guys to you know, I went to his house and I said, what are you doing? When he was getting into the boxing match. I said what the hell are you doing?

MARK MILLER: I think anyone that you ask and if they tell you otherwise, they're lying will tell you that it was a dumb thing to do. This is one of these calculated risks that he will take. He's fearless. He's someone that shows very little fear and I've always said he needs to be a little more fearful.

ALISON MASEMANN: Ali Nestor figured that if they were gonna go ahead and do the fight, it was time for a little psychological training.

ALI NESTOR: [In translation] It's funny because before the fight, I knew that it would take place in Ottawa. There were a lot of enemies, a lot of Conservatives who were there. I did things here to try to really destabilize and mentally to if he was ready. I prepared a training session for him. He got here and the place was full of people, but he thought that they were there to root for him. But I made sure that there were people there who were not Liberals, who were against the Liberals. The people around the ring started shouting nonsense. Bad words. [Beep] I wanted to see what he was capable of. Plus, I sent boxers to fight him who were much more experienced than him. In that moment I said to myself, okay, now he'll understand what a real match is. He'll want to do something else. And then I said you want to stop? And he said, are you crazy? I love this.

[Bell]

VOICE: And it's now time for your main event.

ALISON MASEMANN: That boxing match against Patrick Brazeau, who's now an independent senator, was called a stunt by Trudeau's critics. A publicity bid from a junior MP. A match few people expected him to win.

[Commentary from Trudeau's boxing match]

ALISON MASEMANN: Ali Nestor chalks the win up, not only to strategy, but also to Trudeau's determination and his confidence. And though the two are from very different backgrounds, Nestor, a black man who'd had a troubled youth, Trudeau, an MP with a privileged past, Nestor felt he'd come to know and admire the man. And then.

[News report]

VOICE: Tonight, a photograph jolts the federal election campaign.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I'm really sorry.

VOICE: Justin Trudeau addresses an old photo that shows him in brown face.

ALI NESTOR: [In translation] The day it came out in the media, I talked to Justin. We talked on the phone. He told me that he regretted this gesture he did in the past. He apologized. Of course, I asked for an explanation in order to understand what happened 20 years ago. Why were these pictures taken? Then I just wanted to make sure that I had never been mistaken about him. He simply reassured me and I told him that he personally did not shock me. And I said that I do not think it's going to shock anyone. And I told him plainly that he still has my friendship and he still has my support.

ALISON MASEMANN: Nestor believes the photos show a guy in costume, nothing more.

ALI NESTOR: [In translation] And I know this gentleman personally. I know that when he dressed up like that, the goal was not to hurt anyone.

ALISON MASEMANN: Perhaps not his goal, but Trudeau was quick to admit it did hurt people.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I didn't understand how hurtful this is to people who live with discrimination every single day. I have always acknowledged that I come from a place of privilege, but I now need to acknowledge that that comes with a massive blind spot.

SEAN SMILLIE: Strangely, the way it broke, I was out mountain biking. I live in the mountains and I came home and my phone, the voicemail box was full and that right there, I thought, that's odd.

ALISON MASEMANN: Sean Smillie knows Trudeau from those days in B.C. when he was teaching at West Point Grey Academy, where the Arabian Nights gala took place.

SEAN SMILLIE: I've known Justin for a long time.

ALISON MASEMANN: The two men met a few years before as snowboard instructors at Whistler.

SEAN SMILLIE: We goofed off a lot in the mountains.

ALISON MASEMANN: Thaey both loved the adrenaline rush of hurtling down the slopes, but Sean Smillie says they really bonded over the more nerdy pursuits of science fiction and movies. His thoughts on the blackface?

SEAN SMILLIE: I think it was enthusiasm that probably just got the best of him. It was a dress up party. Justin loved things like that.

ALISON MASEMANN: Smillie remembers one Halloween where Trudeau went to great lengths to dress up as a character from Star Wars.

SEAN SMILLIE: When he dressed up as Boba Fett. He really dressed up as Boba Fett. We talked about it a lot.

ALISON MASEMANN: He knows, though, a love of costume is not an excuse.

SEAN SMILLIE: It's weird to be comparing Boba Fett to just because this has really raised alarm. It was wrong. It was insensitive. I think we all should have known at the time things like that were racist.

MARK MILLER: You know felt terribly this. I was there at Brebeuf for the incident with Day-O as a 16 year old. I think he was 17.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I dressed up at a talent show and sang Day-O with make-up on.

ALISON MASEMANN: At CEGEP, when his friend dressed up as Harry Belafonte, complete with blackface, Mark Miller describes his reaction.

MARK MILLER: I had none. I saw the event. It was part of a gala. And then, you know, as a young man, I immediately thought about other things and moved on.

ALISON MASEMANN: How do you feel now about the fact that nobody said anything at the time?

MARK MILLER: I don't know. I think, you know, it's really for others to judge that. It is definitely an event that is the product of its time. My generation has to deal not only with racism, but unconscious bias and the silence that I mentioned earlier.

ALISON MASEMANN: Opposition politicians have been less conciliatory.

ANDREW SCHEER: Well, I think Canadians might have been able to accept Justin Trudeau's apology if he hadn't lied about it. But he was asked specifically if there are other incidences and he said that there was only one other incidents. Now we know that there are at least three and an apology based on a lie is not a real apology. I clearly would say that it's Justin Trudeau who's hypocritical on these issues and when he can't even tell the truth about it, I think Canadians see him for what he really is.

ALI NESTOR: [In translation] Sincerely the hypocrisy comes rather from those who brought up those pictures and wanted to create a scandal. Those people were not shocked by these pictures. They might have expected the black community or the immigrant community to be angry at Justin, but it wasn't a case. This is a situation that does not involve the black community. It's a matter of white politicians seeking to use the cause of blacks to succeed. It's just a question of politics.

MARK MILLER: This isn't about political gamesmanship. It's about owning an act in society that as a human being, you shouldn't be doing. But when things are pointed out to him, he's certainly one of the better people I know at apologizing.

ALISON MASEMANN: There's one apology though, that Justin Trudeau has clearly decided he will not make.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: What we did over the past year wasn't good enough, but at the same time, I can't apologize for standing up for Canadian jobs.

JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD: We didn't have to get to the place that we are at right now.

ALISON MASEMANN: Jody Wilson-Raybould, the woman at the centre of the SNC-Lavalin affair and Trudeau's former justice minister. She told The Current she is still waiting for an apology.

JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD: Yeah, I guess I still wish that the prime minister would have acknowledged that something went seriously wrong and take action to ensure that it never happens again. But I think Canadians are genuinely forgiving, but people need to acknowledge where mistakes have been made and move forward after that. And people can determine their own opinions about what was said.

ALISON MASEMANN: In her testimony to the House of Commons Justice Committee, Wilson-Raybould made her position clear.

JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD: In my view, the communications and efforts to change my mind on this matter should have stopped. Various officials also urged me to take partisan political considerations into account, which it was clearly improper for me to do so.

ALISON MASEMANN: And the ethics commissioner, Mario Dion agreed with her.

[News report]

VOICE: Canada's ethics watchdog has ruled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act when he tried to convince his former attorney general to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal trial. The CBC's Katie Simpson is here.

ALISON MASEMANN: Critics have pointed to the ousting of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott as proof that Trudeau is not who he purports to be, a progressive who does politics in a different way.

MARK MILLER: Frankly, if this wasn't a new way of doing politics, the two people in question would have been, they both had jobs and fired is the wrong word, but they both would have been dismissed immediately. If you look at the way their departure occurred, it was after long consultations with caucus, long consultations with individual cabinet ministers, and a real reckoning of what went right and what went wrong in particular.

ALISON MASEMANN: Back at the boxing gym in Papineau, Ali Nestor says what's important is that while Trudeau may make mistakes, he believes they're not made with bad intentions.

ALI NESTOR: I think what's important, let's say we have a head of state, a prime minister or mayor of Montreal or whatever city, does this person really want to do something good for my country? Something good for my city? So when he makes a mistake, was it for his personal interests or did he try to do something for the good of the country? And unfortunately made a mistake. You have to be able to tell the difference.

ALISON MASEMANN: So the job of voters will be to decide whether Trudeau's mistakes, both personal and political, are forgivable or whether they make him undeserving of a second term.

TERRY DiMONTE: Bad to the bone from George Thorogood.

ALISON MASEMANN: Terry DiMonte, the radio deejay in Montreal, says as far as he's concerned, the Justin Trudeau running this time is the exact same guy he was when he came from behind to win the election back in 2015.

TERRY DiMONTE: I just assumed that was the end of the Christmas show and I got a text from him in the end of November saying, hey, when are we doing the Christmas show? I was like wait a minute, aren't you running the country? I'm gonna take caller number 10 and caller number 12.

ALISON MASEMANN: And then Terry DiMonte tells me about the kind of friend he thinks Justin Trudeau is. About how on the night before the Christmas show, Trudeau was on the other side of the country in Vancouver visiting the mayor.

TERRY DiMONTE: And I got a note from the PMO saying, Justin will call you tomorrow on the phone at 8:30. And I thought, well, OK, I'll take whatever I can get and when I got up in the morning, there was a text from Justin saying, disregard that note. I'm coming in.

TERRY DiMONTE: Good morning, Prime Minister.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Good morning Ter.

TERRY DiMONTE: How are you?

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: It's still weird when you call me that.

TERRY DiMONTE: I know, I know.

ALISON MASEMANN: And he's done it faithfully every year since. Like this appearance in 2016,.

TERRY DiMONTE: Somebody wants to know did you finish your Christmas shopping?

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: No, of course not. I'm a guy. And worse, I have this excuse, right. I'm like, well, I'm sort of, you know, busy with you know being the prime minister. He goes yeah, that doesn't fly with Sophie. I'll tell you that.

ALISON MASEMANN: It's safe to say DiMonte likely expects his friend will be part of the Christmas show again this December. Regardless of whether his address is 24 Sussex Drive.

TERRY DiMONTE: Thank you, Paul. Thank you very, very much. I love you.

LL: We've been listening to the documentary, A Very Public Life. It was produced by The Current's Alison Masemann and our documentary editor, Joan Webber. And thanks to our CBC colleague Francis Plourde for voicing over the English translation of Ali Nestor's words. Well, coming up, a view of the election in Quebec and beyond from a journalist who's been covering politics for more than 40 years. Chantal Hebert joins me in our next half hour. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music]

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Voters returning to Bloc Québécois over fears provinces are 'ganging up' on Quebec: Chantal Hébert

Guests: Chantal Hebert

LL: I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to The Current. We continue with our focus on the important election battleground that is Quebec.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: To me, what is the ultimate absolute importance is the environment. I mean, it's if we aren't coming to terms of that, we're absolute fools and the traditional parties aren't

VOICE 2: Another issue for me would be to protect the interests of Quebec in terms of their own choices. I'm especially talking about Bill 21. It is a Quebec issue. It is a debate that needs to be taken inside Quebec. It was done in the last election. And I don't think that the federal government should interfere in that.

VOICE 3: The economy, the environment, immigration policies.

VOICE 4: I wish that our elderly are taking care of. And in terms of the environment, it's also for thinking of my 14 year old. What's it going to be like in 20 years from now? So that's also a concern. So I think those two are my top priorities.

LL: Quebec voters. And there is probably no better person to talk about Quebec and federal politics than Chantal Hebert. She's a political columnist with the Toronto Star and also a weekly participant on the At Issue panel on CBC TV's The National. Her first book, French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date with Quebec, was published in 2007. Her second book, The Morning After, was shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen prize for political writing. And she joins me from our Montreal studio. Hi Chantal.

CHANTAL HEBERT: Good morning.

LL: It's been a long time since we saw each other on Parliament Hill. I'm glad to hear from you again. There has been a big push in Quebec in this final stretch of the campaign. Yesterday, the only leader who wasn't campaigning in Quebec with the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May. I'm wondering if at the outset of this campaign, did you get a sense it would be such a hotly contested battleground?

CHANTAL HEBERT: It was always going to be a very important battleground and there were always going to be votes up for grab in the election and those votes up for grabs for a long, long time. You could see them probably ever since Thomas Mulcair was fired by party members. You could see that the votes that would be up for grabs would be votes that the NDP had managed to keep in 2015. Remember, the largest NDP provincial caucus in the last parliament was from Quebec. And even at the time of the leadership campaign, it wasn't so much Jagmeet Singh that brought the decline of the NDP about in Quebec. None of the people who were running for the leadership to replace Thomas Mulcair, who in Quebec was considered as a known quantity, but someone also with the stature to become prime minister. No one who wanted to replace him have numbers that suggested that they would do particularly well in Quebec. So those votes up for grab, many of them. And people had forgotten that the votes that the Thomas Mulcair kept back in 2015 were votes that initially often came from the Bloc Quebecois. In 2015, Justin Trudeau did really well in Quebec and he probably brought 90 percent of the lapsed liberals who had participated in the so-called orange wave in 2011. So that left the they the ones who would move it over from the Bloc Quebecois to the NDP. It is also a fact that outside Quebec, people do not pay a lot of attention to the Bloc Quebecois. The party looked moribund this time last year. They were leaderless. They the party had broken apart under the leadership of the previous leader, Martin, without being fired by party members. So it was easy to say, well, the bloc's not going anywhere except one if crossword bloodshed, who, after having been a Quebec minister of the environment, was a pundit for Radio-Canada, was is someone who we knew was very articulate in a time when it has never been easier if you're a Quebec voter and you don't really want to have another referendum and plunge back in sovereignty politics. It has never been easier to vote for the Bloc without having to fear those unintended consequences because the Parti Qubecois in the National Assembly has fallen to last place with 10 members, so is not on the way back to government in any way, shape or form.

LL: So that answers suggests to me what most people who look at Quebec politics know about Quebec voters is that they're very analytical and pragmatic. And at some point or another, over the years, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc have been dominant in Quebec federally. Why are Quebec voters so changeable?

CHANTAL HEBERT: Quebecers, Francophone, Quebecers are a majority in the province, but they are very mindful of the fact that they are a French speaking minority, not only in Canada but across North America. And so they collectively react to the level of the temperature out there towards their difference. Over the past year, what they have seen is a number of provinces turning to the Conservative Party, I'll name just Ontario, New Brunswick and Alberta and in all and every case, with some discourse or narrative that a Francophone Quebecer for various reasons would probably find threatening. Mr. Ford's measures to curtail some Francophone services in this province. The attempt to shelve the plans, long standing plans for a French language or university that sent a pretty powerful message in Quebec that this Ford government was not particularly Francophone friendly in New Brunswick. People are well aware of the Acadian minority gets a lot of coverage in Quebec. People are well aware that the current Tory government of New Brunswick is governing with the help of a party that is hostile to the equality of the two languages and the providing of equal services in New Brunswick. And then you have in the prairies the election campaigning in Alberta with Jason Kenney campaigning on pipelines and talking about how Quebec should accept pipelines because it gets equalization payments and it has no right to stand in the way of pipelines that would allow Alberta to make the money. That, in Mr Kenny's word, is then being sent on to Quebec. So you add all of that and I bring you back to that front page picture that Maclean's published of those premiers or then aspiring premiers in the case of Jason Kenney, along with Andrew Scheer, the federal leader called the Resistance. It builds up to a sense that this is probably a time when it is good to sound the people who will fight the hardest for you in the face of a perceived threat from the rest of the country. The notion that there are forces marshalling mostly around the Conservative Party, but that are would be ganging up on Quebec. And I'm not saying that that's the case, but I'm saying that that perception was certainly built on events that have happened over the pre-election year. So when you put all that together and you put Mr. Scheer's conviction and to it that his first act in office would be to dismantle the climate change framework that Justin Trudeau has put in place, and you add to that his clear intention to be a pipeline champion. You have all of the ingredients for Quebecers to say we're running for cover here and here is an articulate, also price articulate Bloc leader who happens to be on the right place at the right time.

LL: Is that is that what you mean then when you wrote earlier that the resurgence of the Bloc has been in the making for a while?

CHANTAL HEBERT: Yes, certainly there is. You watched all of those things and I think four months before the election I was writing that I couldn't see how the Conservatives were going to be campaigning in Quebec. Where SNC-Lavalin was not seen as the kind of story that the opposition parties framed it as. It was seen Mr. Trudeau's version that he was working to protect jobs and an important Quebec company from consequences from previous management, that narrative carried the day in Quebec public opinion. So you've got Mr. Scheer, who spent six months on SNC-Lavalin. This isn't a big card for him. He wants a pipeline to go to Quebec. There is not a single party in the National Assembly, including Premier Legault that will support the notion that the pipeline should go to Quebec. So that's number two. Mr. Scheer is aligned with Doug Ford in Ontario, but also Jason Kenney in Alberta over dismantling the carbon pricing scheme, but also all over the notion that Quebec is in some way beholden to accept these measures because of equalization. So when you add all of that up, what you get is a climate where people who are either non-Liberals and have been voting Conservative but are Francophone. Most of the I mean, all of the Quebec seats of the Conservative Party are in Francophone territory, so that is where they get their vote. You have that, you have the debate over Bill-21 where no federal party except for the Bloc is in support of Bill-21 and then you have Justin Trudeau, who turns out in the eye of many voters if they are on the SNC-Lavalin story, it turns out to have been unable to put the company out of harm's way. And for the record, Premier Legault to this day continues to maintain that the SNC-Lavalin should be offered the remediation agreement by the federal Justice Department. And you have this pipeline thing that hurts the Liberals, because if you if you are a Quebec voter and you're worried that there is this pipeline thing coming your way, maybe you don't think that Justin Trudeau will have your back. Because when you look at how far the federal government was willing to go to make sure that the Trans Mountain expansion takes place over and above the opposition of the B.C. government, if you're a normal voter in Quebec, you'll say, well, if he's willing to force a pipeline on B.C., what tells us that he wouldn't force a pipeline on us? So this mix, it's it's a large mix, but it goes to to how the blogosphere than this campaign. And when you talk to people, they don't tell you that they're angry at Justin Trudeau. Many will tell you that they don't want a Conservative federal government, but they will tell you that they find that the Bloc Quebecois, at this juncture in time, fits their bill for the next parliament better than the other options.

LL: So the polls then do suggest that we could be heading for a minority government and the Bloc could be holding the balance of power in Ottawa. And that wouldn't be the first time. But how do you think that would work this time around with you Yves-Francois Blanchet?

CHANTAL HEBERT: I think Mr. Blanchet like every political leader running in this campaign, will have to meet some of the expectations of the people who vote for him. For instance, the notion that the blood could be equal with downs with a minority Conservative government on climate change is one that would create a significant backlash amongst the people who are poised to vote for the Bloc Quebecois. The expectation of most of the voters who are rallying to the black in this campaign is that the Bloc Quebecois will not be cooperating with a Conservative government on taking down the climate, the carbon tax, or on on anything pipeline related. When it comes to other issues like Bill-21, I'm not convinced that the Bloc Quebecois in any near future will have to use whatever balance of power it might have over Bill 21. If I could just point out a couple of things. There are two issues. One is of major interest, obviously, to Alberta and the prairies and then to the Trans Mountain expansion. The other issue, which is a Quebec issue, is what the federal government that we elect on Monday does about the litigation surrounding Bill -21. And that's really more of interest to Quebec voters at this juncture. But in each of those cases, the bloc could be quite with the balance of power. And in this scenario, we are kind of assuming that the NDP, the Greens, Maxime Bernier do not have leverage too. But suppose that there was a motion brought about by the could be quite a minority parliament led by Andrew Scheer or Justin Trudeau that basically said, we are withdrawing our confidence in the government unless it abandons the Trans Mountain expansion. What do you think would happen? How would the Liberals and the Conservatives vote? They would vote together. The Conservatives in an opposition would never support a motion that calls for the end of the TransMountain expansion, and nor would the Liberals who have bought the pipeline. So up to a point, I don't think that at the end of the day, the current pipeline plans would be in jeopardy in the minority parliament. The other issue, Bill-21. Kind of the same, imagine that there was a motion of non confidence because the federal government intervenes in a case in the Supreme Court where its own jurisdictions are called into question over Bill-21. Do you really believe that the NDP and the Conservatives, even as they say that they would not lead a judicial battle against Bill-21, would actually vote to stop the federal government from standing its ground in the Supreme Court over minority rights? I don't think so.

LL: It's going to be interesting to see if that happens then how much manoeuvring and power that the Bloc has, if it becomes a balance of power. I want to come back to Jagmeet Singh for a moment. We spoke about him earlier. One moment that stands out from this campaign was when a man approached him at a campaign event in Montreal and suggested that he remove his turban. I wonder what you think that incident and Mr. Singh's response tells us about racism in Canada today?

CHANTAL HEBERT: I think it tells us more about ignorance than racism. I do note that the man meant well. He thought he was offering friendly and useful advice to someone that he said he planned to vote for. But it does, what we have seen over the course of Mr. Singh's tenure as NDP leader, manifestations of what you could call racism, but also a deep, deep ignorance. How many times has Mr Singh had to put up with people who were ranting about Muslims? And to his total credit, he never said, well, I'm not a Muslim. He he said what these people are saying are wrong. But I believe that a lot of what we have seen of those incidents, they betray more ignorance of others than actual deeply felt racism. And I'm not saying there are not people who are racist in this country. I'm a Francophone raised in Ontario. I know fully well that we are not the nice, tolerant society that we'd like to pretend when we look in the mirror. But I do think that if one thing good comes out of this campaign that has nothing to do with the bean counting and the horse race on Monday, it will have been that a lot of people will have watched Mr. Singh in action and seen beyond a turban, an articulate politician who is fighting for values that are dear to the NDP and doing so effectively, I would say.

LL: Well, then, let's talk about for a second about Justin Trudeau and the brown and black faced scandal emerging. You said that even if he wins another mandate, he'll be a diminished figure at home and abroad. So tell me more about that.

CHANTAL HEBERT: Well, that picture, as you know, whenever there is going to be something sad outside of this country about Canada and Justin Trudeau, that picture will continue to resurface regularly. It doesn't mean that Mr. Trudeau would not be an effective prime minister on the international scene, but he has lost some of the shine over that picture. And I think you will see it for as long as he's in politics. You will see it resurface periodically.

LL: As it did yesterday when people were surprised to see former U.S. President Barack Obama endorse Trudeau. What was your reaction to that?

CHANTAL HEBERT: Well, two things. First, as far as I understand, Barack Obama also expressed support for Emanuel Macron when he was running to become French president and did express hope that Angela Merkel, would be re-elected in Germany and in the big picture, in the big international picture, it is totally coherent for Barack Obama to believe that this is not a good time to take progressive leaders who are engaged in the battle against climate change of the checkerboard. So I am not particularly indignant about political interference, but I do note that I haven't looked. So maybe I could dig out some columns written at the time of the last referendum when Bill Clinton, a sitting president of the United States, did intervene in the Quebec referendum in the last days of the campaign to express his preference for a united Canada. I'm not sure I recall a lot of ink expended in the outside Quebec media on this incredible "foreign interference" into Canadian political affairs. But I'll leave that at that. I think I'm not going to find too many columns either in the U.K. that would have expressed discomfort over Andrew Scheer liking Brexit earlier on.

LL: And we also just remember back when Ronald Reagan actually more didn't endorse, but sort of put a stamp of approval on Brian Mulroney wasn't during a campaign. So you're right. It's happened before.

CHANTAL HEBERT: Yes. But they did sing well together. I remember that Quebec Irish Spring Summit.

LL: Maybe we'll dig that out. We've got about 30 seconds left. Chantal, all elections matter, but in your view, what's the significance of this one?

CHANTAL HEBERT: That we are at this point maybe we expect too much, but we are not inspired by our political choices and that we are up to a point deeply divided on a regional basis. I talked early on last year looking at the federal election that whoever is the next prime minister might have a unity crisis or huge unity tensions on his hands. I look at the probably or possible outcome on Monday with possibly Quebec, if the Liberals lose. Mostly or all in opposition, and if the Conservatives lose Alberta and the prairies, mostly all in opposition. And I think it's not a great recipe for whatever comes next over the next two, three years.

LL: Chantal great insights as usual. Thank you for your time.

CHANTAL HEBERT: You're welcome.

LL: Chantal Hebert is a political columnist with the Toronto Star and a weekly participant on CBC's The National. She was in our Montreal studio. Well Quebec stand-up comic Samir Khullar a.k.a. Sugar Sammy, is known for his ability to get people laughing at themselves and each other in both French and English, sometimes in Punjabi and Hindi, too. Sugar Sammy has wrapped up a Canadian tour that just happened to coincide with the federal election campaign. So we caught up with him and asked him for his thoughts on Quebec's Bill-21, the resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois and how the leaders are stumping for votes in Quebec.

SOUNDCLIP

SUGAR SAMMY: What's up to a city? Welcome to the illegal English edition. How many francophones think it's cool to come to English?

[French dialogue]

SUGAR SAMMY: Well, Bill 21, you know, you do find humour in and the way to do it is you have to almost make sure that it doesn't become too preachy. That's with anything. I you know, I definitely hate it when comics say, oh, we're you know, we're here to change the world. I don't think that's our function as comedians. We're here to report what we see. You know, we're basically, you know, doing lots of research and anthropological work and like digging up all of this information and then reporting it back to our to our audience in a humorous static fashion. That's our job. You know, without really taking too much of a stance, I think it's good to just show the little cracks in all of the arguments in everything in society. That's our job is showing the cracks everywhere. And I think with Bill 21, yeah, I bring it up for sure. And, you know, I've brought it up a few times with even Jagmeet Singh. I said, you know, even if he never becomes prime minister, he won't be able to teach in Quebec. That's for sure.

[French dialogue]

SUGAR SAMMY: Yeah, that's a fun slogan to go with. I think the new needs to be defined. And that's where if someone asks that question, you know, says to the Bloc leaders, you know, can you please find the new. That's such a loaded question. There's going to be so much. There's going to be so much to debate there. I think the Bloc is definitely taking in that sovereign rhetoric that the Bloc has typically taken. I mean people know when they're voting for the Bloc, what they're voting for. I mean, one thing I have to say is when politicians are actually straightforward about their platform and they don't tiptoe, I think people respect that a lot. That's why I think this Bill-21 thing, a lot of politicians are trying to play it safe, they're not trying to say too much. We're not sure, we'll let the courts handle it. But I think people respect it a lot more if someone's said, listen, we disagree with this law. I think we're going to oppose it and it's not Canadian. And I think that's one thing I want our politicians to do is say, listen, I'd rather sacrifice votes, but say what I really believe. And I think that's where, you know, you look at someone like, you look at some of these politicians who, you know, at least you know, where they stand. And I think sometimes it's wrong to think if we kind of just say nothing, you know, we'll be able to get all these undecideds at the end, you know. But I think undecideds are waiting for people to actually make a decision that they can get behind.

LL: That was Quebec standup comic, Samir Khullar, better known as Sugar Sammy. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Tom Power talks to South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho. This month, more than 200 Quebec songwriters, singers and producers wrote an open letter urging the federal government to intervene so they can be fairly paid for their work. The letter argues that while music is more available, artists are barely able to make a living. They were obviously hoping to put it on the agenda for the election, something that hasn't really happened. Pierre Lapointe is one of the province's top singer-songwriters and one of the people who penned the letter. And Pierre Lapointe has an album coming out tomorrow called "Pour dejouer l'ennui." From that album, this is Tatouage. I'm Laura Lynch. Thank you for listening to The Current.

[Song: "Tatouage" by Pierre Lapointe]

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Oct. 17, 2019 episode transcript

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