Full Comment - Trudeau resorts to ‘Project Fear’ for his rescue

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the latest episode of Full Comment. I'm Anthony Fury. Our guest today is John

00:00:10.020 Iveson, National Post post-media political columnist. What do you need to know about

00:00:14.240 this election? About the parties and their platforms? Will Trudeau squeak in a victory?

00:00:19.040 Or is Aaron O'Toole going to pull it off? Oh, and why are we having this election now anyway?

00:00:23.680 There's no one better to tackle these questions than John Iveson, who joins us now. Hey John,

00:00:28.020 thanks for stopping by. Hi Anthony. Great to have you. It's been an interesting election

00:00:32.900 so far. I know a lot of Canadians more and more tuning in now, you know, after Labor Day

00:00:36.680 and so forth. And to go back to that original question, I guess, I mean,

00:00:41.080 why was this election called? Justin Trudeau clearly thought, I'm going to get a majority.

00:00:46.900 Right. I mean, that's the essence of it. And it has backfired spectacularly because

00:00:53.140 three weeks in, it is still an issue. I don't think people ever want to have an election,

00:00:59.480 but they certainly didn't feel this time around that it was justified. I think most people felt

00:01:04.780 that the minority parliament was working okay, that it could have continued. I mean,

00:01:10.120 there was no threat to the government's longevity. The NDP were pretty much on side with everything

00:01:17.800 that Justin Trudeau proposed. So this thing could have run and run, but Trudeau looked at the polls,

00:01:24.140 thought that he could eke out a majority while people weren't looking. I mean, we had,

00:01:30.820 the majority of the campaign is going to turn out to have been before Labor Day. Most people weren't

00:01:36.080 really paying much attention. So, you know, it was pretty much one guy, and I think it was one guy,

00:01:43.180 because I don't think there were many people in the liberal camp who were supportive, but it was

00:01:47.020 one guy putting his own vaulting ambitions ahead of the country's interests. And I think that with

00:01:54.500 other things that conspired to happen, like the fall of Kabul on the day that Trudeau called the

00:02:00.400 election, Canadians just were not impressed. So do you think other MPs, cabinet ministers and so forth,

00:02:07.380 that they were actually a little lukewarm about this? Like this was not a, you know,

00:02:10.180 go team rah-rah enthusiasm. Some people were like, I don't even really know if I want to do this right

00:02:14.520 now. Well, it's never, you know, it's, while we live in a democracy, these decisions are not

00:02:19.720 democratic. And usually it is a small cabal of people around the prime minister who hammer these

00:02:28.540 things out, the pros and cons. There was a sizable number of people who did not feel it was a good

00:02:35.300 idea to do this, that it would be too transparent and that the public might take it out on the,

00:02:41.840 on the liberal party as a result. They've been proven correct. And I think Trudeau's been proven

00:02:47.160 wrong. That's one of the big surprises for sure, just that things are not going the way Justin Trudeau

00:02:51.820 wanted them to. Perhaps one of the other surprises for, for folks who really only check in at politics

00:02:56.660 during election time, you go back to 2015 and you go, here's the sunny ways guy. It's, it's all

00:03:01.460 power of positivity, lots of smiles, fresh young face and so forth. And then we move forward six

00:03:06.340 years later and well, I'll read the headline in one of your latest columns, John, Trudeau drops the

00:03:10.480 sunny ways, heads into dangerous territory. This has been an election that has been kind of a nasty

00:03:16.360 one. And most of those sort of more negative notes, they haven't been sounded by the conservatives

00:03:20.700 or by the NDP, but I mean, as you know, really by Trudeau. Yeah, well, I think it was an act of

00:03:27.160 desperation because I think prior to them bringing up the gun control issue, nothing was really

00:03:32.440 working for the liberals. You know, when they kept hammering, uh, Aaron O'Toole on healthcare,

00:03:38.720 on abortion, on any, a number of other things that normally work. And yet this time the public

00:03:45.860 just kind of shrugged. And, and, uh, you know, as I said that some of these attacks are less credible

00:03:50.800 when the target has more credibility than the person issuing the, the, uh, the attack ads. So

00:03:58.640 I think though they really didn't have much choice because things were, were, were heading into free

00:04:04.720 fall for the liberals. The time for change number, which is always a good indicator of how fed up people

00:04:10.600 are with the, with the incumbent government had started rising and it looked like it might keep

00:04:16.700 rising. And I think they needed to do something pretty dramatic to check it. And, and as we saw,

00:04:22.520 uh, on the last weekend, they threw everything but the kitchen sink at Aaron O'Toole, uh, in the hope

00:04:30.200 that, uh, that some of the, the, the liberal NDP switchers might decide, well, we better stick with

00:04:37.420 the liberals because we might end up with this guy in IE O'Toole. And so that seems to have arrested the,

00:04:44.020 the, the rise of the time for change number. It seems to have arrested the, the, uh, the conservative

00:04:50.000 party's rise and the liberals are, have eked up for the first time in this election. But I, I do think,

00:04:56.840 uh, you know, as that column you've just quoted starts out, what's Justin Trudeau going to do for

00:05:00.840 an encore? Cause normally this type of stuff is left to the final week when the, the liberals try and

00:05:06.880 scare progressives back into their columns and away from the NDP. And I've just finished talking to

00:05:12.620 the NDP and they've got a full strategy to make sure this doesn't happen. I mean, it clearly

00:05:17.900 happened in 2004. I remember it well that the, uh, the conservative campaign ran out of steam and the

00:05:25.060 NDP support was scared back into the, to the arms of the liberals. It didn't work for the liberals in

00:05:30.360 26, uh, 2006. It kind of worked in 2019, although the conservatives were never really, uh, I don't think,

00:05:36.800 a threat for government, but, uh, but it's clear that this time the, the prospect of a conservative

00:05:41.940 government is being used as, uh, as I call it project fear by the, by the liberals. And I'm not

00:05:51.220 sure it's going to work this time. I think that he's used most of his bullets too early in the

00:05:55.060 campaign. Yeah. Let's unpack a bit of that fear mongering there. Cause you talked about the abortion 0.92

00:05:58.860 issue and they were trying to basically float that really perennial idea that we've been hearing

00:06:02.660 for many years now, you know, you bring in a conservative government, they're going to restrict

00:06:05.500 abortion rights or what have you much more of a conversation that's kind of pulled from,

00:06:08.840 from us political talking points. And then Aaron O'Toole just kind of shrugged and said, well,

00:06:12.560 I'm pro-choice and they don't have that secret video of him, you know, talking to some church

00:06:16.660 group saying he's going to do this and that and the other and so forth. And I feel like the more

00:06:19.840 the years pass by, it's just harder for them to bring out those sort of attacks. Oh, you're all a

00:06:24.300 bunch of secret homophobes or, uh, you know, anti-abortion and all that kind of stuff. I mean, 0.89

00:06:29.980 it does seem like this is getting more and more difficult. Is Aaron O'Toole, even though, you know,

00:06:35.040 he's a traditional, you know, white guy, gray hair, so forth, wearing the suit and so forth.

00:06:40.000 Is he in some sense a new generation for the conservatives where you just can't pull that

00:06:44.800 stuff anymore? Well, he does make the point as a new leader with a new approach. And, you know,

00:06:49.180 quite frankly, it is. I mean, this is a very liberal light platform. I think O'Toole, it's in O'Toole's

00:06:57.500 image. And I think O'Toole, you might not admit it, but I think he's a traditional red Tory. And this

00:07:01.560 is, um, a platform that is much more appealing to potential liberal conservative switchers than

00:07:10.080 Andrew Scheer's platform. Uh, on healthcare, he inoculated himself because he's promised to spend

00:07:15.100 $60 billion over 10 years in increased health transfers to the provinces. On abortion, as you

00:07:21.320 point out, he's, he's somewhat inoculated himself, um, by proclaiming himself pro-choice. But the

00:07:28.740 liberals are, are, are, are pretty canny in this regard. Um, on healthcare, they got O'Toole talking

00:07:35.400 about, uh, experimentation and innovation within a universal access system. Um, but it allowed them

00:07:42.860 to talk about private for profit healthcare. On abortion, they talk now about, uh, O'Toole allowing MPs

00:07:50.360 to push their own anti-abortion legislation. And, um, they, even though that, uh, O'Toole has talked

00:07:59.480 about a price on carbon, they're still talking about, uh, the conservatives taking the country

00:08:04.840 back to a time of denial and inaction on climate change. And in their attack ad, they then stick

00:08:10.280 up a big picture of Stephen Harper, the scary man. So this is, uh, this is all stuff which,

00:08:15.360 um, has worked for them before. It's a variation on a theme. It's, you know, as I point out though,

00:08:23.840 that there is, there are drawbacks for the liberals and having done it before people do get tired of

00:08:29.600 hearing these things. And then, you know, if you cry wolf far too many times, the other thing,

00:08:33.520 you know, Trudeau was out this week talking about O'Toole as a, a weak, uh, wishy-washy leader.

00:08:40.560 We just did some polling with Leger about, uh, weak leadership and Trudeau is seen as a weak leader

00:08:48.080 by twice as many people as O'Toole and about, about the same proportion to Jagmeet Singh. So

00:08:56.240 that's, that's when I talked about dangerous terrain, that's one, one of the areas of dangerous

00:08:59.520 terrain he's wandering into by, by making accusations about other leaders that people think about him.

00:09:04.720 I mean, he said after O'Toole, uh, changed his position on the semi-automatic weapons,

00:09:12.400 uh, Trudeau said, this guy will say anything to get elected. And yet anybody with a memory longer

00:09:20.160 than five minutes will remember that just, this is the guy who promised electoral reform,

00:09:24.320 balanced budgets after two deficits, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:09:28.080 It certainly seemed like what Justin Trudeau also wanted to do was to, to create quite a culture

00:09:33.920 war wedge issue over vaccine passports, vaccinated, non-vaccinated, looked at the polling numbers,

00:09:39.360 felt this was, uh, good for him. He kind of did that calculus, uh, thought maybe we can get Aaron

00:09:44.240 O'Toole to say, all right, I'm more siding with the unvaccinated. Uh, but you know, I, I can't help 1.00

00:09:48.960 but think a lot of people aren't too into that. Yes. The polling shows there's lots of support for that.

00:09:53.520 Uh, there's a lot of people though, you know, myself included, I go, okay, I got the vaccine,

00:09:57.360 but I'm not crazy about this whole vilification of others kind of thing. I mean, is this a good idea?

00:10:02.080 Are the numbers showing John that people really are gravitating to that as a main election issue?

00:10:07.520 No, I think that, um, the politicization has been, uh, pretty despicable on Trudeau's part. And I,

00:10:13.200 and I think that it will rebound on him too. I think the only thing that worked for him was getting

00:10:19.040 stones thrown at him. And, and, you know, this, uh, sense of intimidation and violence that comes

00:10:24.400 from the, the anti-vax protesters. I mean, you know, I stood in front of them in Nobleton and Bolton,

00:10:30.880 and it was not pleasant. And I think most Canadians looked at that and went, we want nothing to do with

00:10:35.920 that. Um, you know, I talked to liberal MPs who are saying they're hearing that on the doorstep,

00:10:41.200 that, uh, that the, the protests are working for Trudeau, which is probably why he's still exposing

00:10:46.800 himself to them because anybody who's run a campaign will tell you, you don't need to be

00:10:50.720 there. You could, you can make sure your tour is inoculated against protests, which Harper always

00:10:56.800 did. And these guys could do too, if they wanted to. Um, but it kind of works for him because it

00:11:02.000 shows the contrast between him and, uh, O'Toole. I'm not so sure. I mean, O'Toole has been, has,

00:11:09.440 has been very, um, pragmatic on this and saying, look, it shouldn't be us, us versus them.

00:11:15.680 I'm vaccinated. I want to get vaccinations levels up to 90% in this country. Um, but if for whatever

00:11:24.080 reason you don't want to get vaccinated, you then have to do rapid testing and prove that you're,

00:11:30.400 that you're, um, you're not positive for COVID. Um, you know, there are many, many people who

00:11:37.440 do not like being told what to do by the government, um, or who have religious

00:11:41.520 problems with vaccinations or, uh, medical problems or whatever. And yet they are all

00:11:49.600 vilified as one by Trudeau as part of this anti-vax mob. And as I found out when I started

00:11:54.560 phoning some of these people, there are many and varied reasons why they're angry at Justin Trudeau.

00:11:59.120 And, um, a lot of it has got to do with this sense that, uh, government should not be delegitimizing

00:12:05.840 its, its, uh, citizens in the way that he has, has done over the last little while.

00:12:10.960 No, certainly. Uh, when you mentioned the NDP earlier and they have a strategy to sort of make

00:12:15.520 sure that, that, that they have enough, uh, you know, gas in the tank to keep going until the end

00:12:19.520 and so on. How should we think of the NDP right now under Jagmeet Singh? Because back in the nineties

00:12:25.200 and predating that the NDP was kind of happy to just be the third place party. And, and I guess

00:12:29.760 they called themselves the social conscious of parliament or what have you. And they'd approve or,

00:12:33.680 or, or not approve, uh, things in a minority government situation or push for things in

00:12:38.000 committee. And they were like, that's what we do. And then Jack Layton came along and said,

00:12:41.200 no, we try to win elections very aggressively. Tom Mulcair, he took that ball and ran with it. And

00:12:46.160 there were polling moments when it seemed like both of those gentlemen maybe could have become,

00:12:49.360 uh, prime minister is Jagmeet Singh carrying that along is the NDP. And I know the numbers aren't

00:12:54.000 great right now. Are they a contender or are they back to just being perpetual third place?

00:12:58.320 No, no, they're, they're, uh, they're genuine contenders or at least maybe not for government,

00:13:03.120 but you know, we've seen in the last, uh, couple of years that, that the NDP have got a role to play

00:13:09.520 in minority governments. They, they've pushed the liberals to go further than they would have done

00:13:13.840 on any number of occasions. Um, you know, I think there is a real danger for them getting too close

00:13:19.040 to the liberal party and getting the blame and none of the credit. And we saw that with the NDP

00:13:23.840 in the, in the seventies, when, when they were decimated, they got reduced to half their caucus

00:13:28.480 after the 74 election. Well, hold on though. Is it that the NDP is getting too close to the liberals

00:13:32.480 or is Justin Trudeau's liberal party getting too close to the NDP? Well, you could barely get a credit

00:13:38.000 card between them, to be honest. But it's a factor of both things, the NDP becoming more pragmatic

00:13:43.840 and the liberals becoming more progressive. Um, but this time they're in reasonable shape,

00:13:48.720 you know, I mean, they were, they were rising. I think they've started plateauing now as the,

00:13:52.400 as the, as project fear takes, takes hold, but the, you know, they're, they're plateauing at 20%,

00:13:58.160 which when you think that they were at 16% in 2019 and they won 24 MPs, I think, you know,

00:14:03.600 if they come in north of 20, then they're probably doubling their caucus and potentially denying

00:14:09.920 the liberals government because, um, you know, at 20%, you're, you are eating into,

00:14:16.960 to a lot of liberal seats. So, I mean, these splits are very hard to predict, but, um,

00:14:23.520 but it's clear what happened last time that they were in the week before the debate last time,

00:14:28.880 they were, they were averaging about 15% in the polls. In the week after the debate,

00:14:34.080 they were averaging somewhere around 19% in the polls because Jagmeet had a very good debate.

00:14:40.880 If you remember back in 2019, they didn't have any money. They ran out of money and they ran out

00:14:45.760 of gas and they could not support with good outcomes, the, the good performance. That is not

00:14:52.160 going to happen this time. They've got enough money and the, and part of their strategy is to save

00:14:56.960 most of that money until after the debate where after they expect a good performance from their leader,

00:15:02.400 they can then promote that. And they're spending a lot of time on getting out the vote

00:15:06.720 and various other ways to make sure that the, the, the perennial scare the dippers campaign,

00:15:12.320 the project fear does not work this time around. What do you make John of the two other parties,

00:15:17.360 Green Party of Canada, first one in many elections without Elizabeth May at the helm, now Annamie Paul

00:15:22.160 and People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier as leader doesn't have his one seat like he had last time,

00:15:27.680 not in the debates like last time, also Annamie Paul, not involved in all of the debates either.

00:15:32.640 They're both kind of polling in just under 5%. They're kind of, you know, at this, at this low

00:15:37.680 level there. Are they, are they having an impact either of these parties?

00:15:43.840 Well, the Greens are only running 252 candidates. So that, that means you've got 86 vacancies

00:15:49.440 where there is no Green candidate. You know, there's been analysis done on whether

00:15:57.600 in those seats, I think there was 12 of the 86 where the Green vote share was larger than the

00:16:03.360 margin of victory by the Conservatives or Liberals. So, you know, you can argue that at the very margins,

00:16:11.680 that that might make a difference in a dozen seats. It's strange the way the Green vote goes,

00:16:18.240 though. It doesn't splinter, as you might expect, straight to the NDP or even to the Liberals.

00:16:23.680 It goes all over the place. It goes to the Conservatives. In fact, sometimes I've been

00:16:27.600 hearing about Greens going to the PPC because they're both anti-establishment parties. So,

00:16:33.520 I don't suspect we're going to see, I think we're going to see a very much reduced Green vote.

00:16:38.640 And that might have an impact on the number of seats it elects. You know, they were at three,

00:16:45.200 one defected. I think they might lose in Nanaimo. We were, we were in Nanaimo with

00:16:51.040 Erno Toole. They think they could win that seat. That's Paul Manley's seat. I would think,

00:16:54.720 as with May, we'll come back. But as far as the, the splits,

00:16:58.800 it doesn't look like it's going to have a huge impact either way. The Conservatives tell me that

00:17:04.480 the People's Party is not having a big influence on its vote. I find that hard to believe. I mean,

00:17:10.880 I think that, that they are going to come in and surprise people with the size of their vote. I

00:17:16.080 mean, some of the, some of the pollsters are starting to show them up around eight,

00:17:19.440 nine percent. When they're eight or nine percent, they've got to be impacting the Conservative vote.

00:17:26.000 I think they are getting votes from people who are non-partisans or who hadn't voted. But,

00:17:31.040 but I think that they're going to be a factor in this election. And even, even if their vote doesn't

00:17:37.440 increase greatly, it still impacts the Conservatives. Because, you know, for example, I was in Miramichi

00:17:41.920 with the Liberals. The Liberals won Miramichi in New Brunswick by about 300 votes. The PPC

00:17:47.920 got 1500 votes. That was in 2019. You know, without that 1500 to the PPC, it's almost certain

00:17:55.760 that the Conservatives would have held a seat that they've, they held for many years.

00:18:01.360 One thing I find remarkable is that Maxime Bernier is really the only party leader who's

00:18:04.880 been critical of lockdowns and, and much of the sort of standard approach to tackling the pandemic.

00:18:09.920 And it's just curious, whatever you think of these issues, that this has been really some

00:18:14.000 of the most momentous changes in our lives and obviously in many decades. And yet the main parties

00:18:19.520 preceding this election and in, you know, sitting in the House of Commons and so forth,

00:18:23.120 most of them, their main quibbles were just questions of process. You know,

00:18:26.560 how many vaccines you're procuring, when you're getting them and so forth, when you're closing the

00:18:30.240 airports. But it wasn't a sort of a more wholesale debate about, well, what are we doing? Why are we

00:18:35.360 doing it? Maybe we shouldn't support it. And for that percentage of people who views things that

00:18:39.840 way, however small they are, and they are in the minority, the majority of people have supported

00:18:43.360 a lot of what's happened. It seems like Bernier is the only guy who's really representing that

00:18:46.960 perspective. Well, I think Max will say whatever he's required to say to get people to vote for him.

00:18:52.560 I mean, he tweeted something out yesterday about, well, it was a speech. I actually saw him give a

00:18:56.880 speech where he talked about revolution. I mean, I remember Maxime Bernier when he was in the

00:19:01.200 Conservative Party. He was a free marketer. He was a libertarian. He wasn't a revolutionary. So,

00:19:07.120 you know, I think he saw which way the wind was blowing. Not that I doubt his sincerity in opposing

00:19:15.040 lockdowns. I mean, that fits in with his prior political history. But I think, you know, the case

00:19:25.040 for doing things that governments all over this country have done, regardless of their shade,

00:19:31.200 the medical case, in my opinion, was justified. So, you know, it doesn't surprise me that there

00:19:38.240 was a minority of people who don't agree with that. You know, if you're seeing your business

00:19:41.520 decimated or your job gone or whatever, of course, you're going to be angry about that.

00:19:45.840 But, but I think that Max is something of an opportunist in seeing the political gap there.

00:19:53.520 Okay, maybe it's not fair to say Justin Trudeau wanted to make himself out to be a revolutionary when

00:19:58.560 he became Prime Minister, but he certainly wanted to make himself out to be someone very different.

00:20:02.080 The old classic saw about I will do politics differently. Obviously, the Sunny Way slogan,

00:20:07.520 a number of other slogans that he put out there. John, are people just just tiring of him now after

00:20:13.040 six years of him making rather grandiose promises about about to so many different individuals,

00:20:18.800 different groups, and so forth, and just not not fulfilling them? I mean, is he wearing almost

00:20:22.720 more than six years of baggage right now? Yeah, I think that, you know, all governments

00:20:29.680 overstay their welcome. And usually, you know, you can usually say it's around about 10 years.

00:20:33.840 But this guy seems to have done it in six. And, you know, maybe because of the intense nature of the

00:20:41.440 the pandemic and the fact he was in everybody's faces every day, he just got overexposed. And that

00:20:46.560 maybe just truncated the timeline down. But I do think you hit you hit the nail on the head there

00:20:52.560 when you say, if you keep saying these things, and then they don't happen, then when you keep when

00:20:58.720 you say them, again, in another election, and there, you know, there's an incremental development

00:21:03.600 in whatever the promise was in the first place, then people stop believing. And I think people have just

00:21:09.120 stopped believing. You know, I was on the road with him for a week, and every single commitment

00:21:16.800 that was made in that week was a variation on the theme that he'd already embarked upon, which is,

00:21:23.200 you know, not surprising, given the fact that when you've been in government six years and gone

00:21:29.200 through two elections, you're continuing on the same road rather than branching off in a completely

00:21:36.080 different one. But none of them had any impact. I mean, I don't think anybody could remember what

00:21:42.000 Trudeau talked about in the first week of this campaign, right? Other than being asked questions

00:21:46.160 about Afghanistan. I mean, it just was a total non event, because people have just discounted these

00:21:52.640 suggestions. And, you know, one of the NDP tactics, for example, going to be in the final week of the

00:21:58.480 campaign is there is a cost to voting liberal, which is new was new on me. I hadn't heard them say this,

00:22:04.880 but you know that the liberals are always saying, well, there's a cost to voting NDP,

00:22:09.120 you get a conservative government. Well, these guys are now going to turn around and say there's

00:22:12.960 a cost to voting liberal. He'll promise these things and then not delivering them. So if you want

00:22:18.800 pharma care or action on climate change, or whatever it might be, then vote NDP. I think that's a smart

00:22:26.240 tactic, because I do think that that there is a sense in the electorate that Trudeau is just not to be

00:22:32.800 believed. Are there a lot of progressives who are still upset about not reforming the electoral

00:22:37.520 system? I mean, I never supported that pledge that Trudeau made. I didn't feel like, you know,

00:22:41.200 you don't need to fix something that's not broken. But that's been a thing that progressives,

00:22:44.480 I mean, Jack Layton was going on about for many years, many NDPers said we got to change the

00:22:48.640 electoral system thought Trudeau would bring it. And maybe that's why he swung a lot of votes

00:22:52.560 originally. And now that was obviously a promise just totally shelved.

00:22:56.000 Yeah, I mean, I never supported it either. But I do think that for those who did, it was their one

00:23:01.200 of their main reasons for voting for the Liberal Party. And whether they still bang on about it when

00:23:08.000 they think about it when they go to the polls, who knows. But it certainly was a major disappointment.

00:23:13.680 And I think if the principal reason you voted for a political party,

00:23:18.240 that party doesn't follow through on that promise, then you're going to be jaundiced about that party

00:23:26.080 going forward. And I think that that is very much where the NDP are coming from when they're

00:23:33.120 when they're aiming at people who might switch between the Liberals and the NDP.

00:23:38.080 You know, tapping into that feeling of disappointment and disillusionment.

00:23:43.040 John, have any of the issues that have been debated during the election campaign or been put

00:23:46.640 forward as major platform planks? Have they surprised you in terms of, you know,

00:23:50.160 why is this the big issue we're talking about here? I always wish foreign affairs was discussed

00:23:53.840 more as one of the issues that is the sole domain of the federal government. You talk about housing,

00:23:58.800 you talk about, you know, climate, COVID-19 or what have you. Those are also provincial issues,

00:24:03.440 municipal issues, foreign affairs, only a federal issue. I feel it never gets the airtime it deserves.

00:24:08.880 Then again, other folks want to see a whole bunch of other issues discussed that are not

00:24:12.480 addressed. Where do we stand in terms of what sort of terrain's actually been covered that

00:24:16.080 matters to people? Well, I mean, I think this is perennial in elections. Foreign affairs, defense,

00:24:23.040 rarely come up in elections. You know, the gun control thing. I mean, at the end of the day,

00:24:27.440 it's a pretty marginal. I mean, I guess it becomes a cultural issue. But, you know, we spent days and

00:24:34.240 days on gun classifications. Right. Which...

00:24:41.200 Do people really care about all of that, you know? And do people, have they now basically

00:24:45.840 internalized that conservative response that, look, most of the gun's causing trouble.

00:24:50.160 They're coming across the border. They're already illegal guns anyway. I mean, that's kind of an

00:24:53.760 established fact now. Right. I mean, and I think that O'Toole tried to hammer home the fact that

00:24:58.880 violent gun crime in this country has shot up over the last six years, up 20%. And, you know, virtually

00:25:09.040 none of those crimes were committed with the guns that we were talking about. So, yeah, I mean, we do

00:25:13.920 get bogged down on issues that are, you know, in the grand scheme of things, rather marginal. But I guess

00:25:21.360 what it came down to is that people in cities don't like guns of any nature. And it made it look like

00:25:27.040 the Conservative Party was in favour of these semi-automatic weapons, which, you know...

00:25:38.560 I'm not quite sure why it became such a huge issue. But, you know, the places that we're fighting

00:25:48.240 for votes, or that those parties are fighting for votes, the downtowns of big cities just don't like

00:25:53.600 guns. And they lump them all in together. They have no discernment between various types of guns.

00:25:58.880 Well, to circle back to one of the things that we started our conversation with here then,

00:26:02.240 the why are we having this election from the question mark, from the ballot box question,

00:26:07.360 I appreciate that Justin Trudeau, very soon, the day or two after the election was called,

00:26:10.960 he said, well, you know what, now we're talking post-pandemic, what direction we should head in.

00:26:14.720 And, you know, I want to sort of ratify the voters' support for all that. I thought that was

00:26:18.720 remarkably honest. At the same time, I don't really know that we're actually having that conversation.

00:26:23.760 So, even though there have been such momentous things, whether we're talking about people

00:26:28.240 frustrated with the relationship with China going on right now, or, you know, oil and gas sector,

00:26:33.440 major issues being decimated, that's not being discussed at all, talking about post-pandemic

00:26:37.680 issues, momentous changes to our lives. I feel like, well, that's not actually, you know,

00:26:41.520 the lead thrust in Perry right now. I mean, John, has this bizarrely been,

00:26:45.440 despite everything that's in the headlines, has this kind of been an election about nothing?

00:26:50.640 Well, it has a bit. I mean, you make a very good point there. Probably a good column for you,

00:26:53.920 Anthony. Thank you.

00:26:55.360 You know, when he called the election, he called it the most important since 1945.

00:27:04.080 And yet, you're right. I mean, you know, even climate change,

00:27:09.600 pandemic recovery. To give O'Toole's due, that's what has, he's been laser focused on this plan that

00:27:18.160 he waves around at every single press conference and talks about Canada's recovery. I think it's

00:27:23.040 been a very disciplined campaign by the Conservatives. So they have been talking about the things that

00:27:28.480 they want to talk about. And Trudeau less so, you know? I mean, Trudeau is talking by and large about

00:27:38.480 why not to vote in a Conservative government. And it's been a really disappointing campaign from him,

00:27:44.880 I think. I think that even if he gets reelected, even Liberals would look at that and go, you know,

00:27:51.760 this is the guy of sunny ways. This is the guy of the hopeful narrative. He calls an election,

00:27:57.280 it's meant to be the most important since 1945. It's meant to be about, where's Canada going in

00:28:02.000 the next few years? And yet, it's been, the only memorable moments of it have been about

00:28:08.720 the negative side of it and why you shouldn't vote for the Conservative Party. So it may well be that

00:28:17.760 voters look at that and go, well, that's what most failing campaigns do. That's what the Conservative

00:28:24.320 campaign sounded and looked like in 2015 when they had the barbaric practices hotline. I mean,

00:28:32.800 that's the type of desperation you get reduced to when you feel everything slipping away. And that's

00:28:38.240 kind of what it feels like to me. So John, I hate to ask you this question. I know no columnist likes to

00:28:43.040 be asked this on any panel and any radio program. Who's going to pull it off? Who do you see at this

00:28:48.800 point in? Who's going to win here? I mean, Justin Trudeau, it's been remarked, 1972, Pierre Elliott

00:28:53.600 Trudeau gets a minority. Oh, he's going to be gone forever. Uh-uh. He got a majority and it was just the

00:28:58.080 beginning of the Trudeau show. Then again, well, no, it looks like Trudeau could be on the way out and

00:29:03.520 Aaron O'Toole for, well, we shall see.

00:29:05.760 It's at this stage, it's really is too close to call. But, uh, you know, so

00:29:13.120 Aaron O'Toole needs to be well ahead in the popular vote. You know, three, four, five points ahead

00:29:19.360 doesn't guarantee him the most number of MPs. Because Andrew Scheer won the popular vote in 2019.

00:29:25.440 Right. So you see that the polls at the moment have the Conservatives ahead. That does not mean they're

00:29:29.040 winning the election. So, um, that really works against the Conservatives. They need to get some,

00:29:35.360 some clear blue water between them and the, and the Liberals. And we don't see that at the moment.

00:29:40.000 I think it comes down to whether Project Fear works. Does, do these progressive voters

00:29:48.480 pay heed to these, uh, Liberal attack ads and say, well, if I'd like to vote NDP, but I can't because

00:29:54.880 if I do, O'Toole wins. We don't want a Conservative government. If the NDP strategy to retain,

00:30:02.800 to boost its vote after a good performance by Jagmeet Singh in the debates, if they can retain that

00:30:11.520 vote, they didn't last time, it slipped back away to the Liberals. But if they can retain that vote,

00:30:16.400 then I think that a strong NDP showing gives O'Toole a real chance.

00:30:20.240 Will Project Fear work? Wow. John Iverson, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate your insights.

00:30:26.560 Thank you.

00:30:28.160 Full Common is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Proulx,

00:30:34.640 with theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full

00:30:39.600 Common on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can help us by giving us

00:30:45.040 a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

00:30:50.240 I'll see you next time.

00:30:56.960 Thanks,ательно.

00:30:57.600 Thanks man.

00:30:58.960 ...

00:30:59.480 Thanks...

00:31:01.000 ...

00:31:01.580 Thank you.

00:31:02.920 I'll see you next time.

00:31:04.560 Thank you.

00:31:05.500 What...

00:31:06.620 I've seen this one.

00:31:07.700 Thank you.

00:31:08.720 Hey.

00:31:09.200 Thank you.

00:31:09.720 ...

00:31:10.280 ...

00:31:11.120 ...

00:31:11.820 Canal.

00:31:12.260 ...

00:31:13.260 ...

Full Comment - September 13, 2021

Trudeau resorts to ‘Project Fear’ for his rescue

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