Here’s the thing about polls and Ottawa.
Polls almost always have an impact, especially when they signal that change could be in the air. We might still be two years from an election, but that hasn’t kept a lot of people from thinking, and talking, and planning.
The signs are everywhere. The media certainly is talking (I’ll concede I’m guilty there too, but hardly alone). Business leaders are planning, determining how they should position themselves if real change happens. Party leaders are trying to play it cool as if they haven’t heard what’s going on behind them, but not so their staff. Some are already thinking of bigger offices, nicer drapes, and rides in limos. Others though are wondering if they’ll still have an office, or worse, even a job.
Then, there are Ottawa’s restaurant owners. That’s right—restaurant owners. The familiar haunts of the governing party could suddenly find themselves empty, certainly struck off the go-to list. Others start thinking this could be their big chance. The smart ones, though? They adapt.
This brings me to my favourite story about adapting to change in government. By the late 1970’s the Liberals had been in power for close to twenty years. And they were the toast of the town, especially at a great little Italian restaurant, then on Kent Street – Mamma Teresa’s (it’s still around but now on Somerset). Mamma Boselli worked the back and rarely came out to the dining room. Her son Giuliano ran the front and was constantly making sure everyone from top cabinet ministers (and even occasionally the PM) to senior staffers all got preferential treatment, especially on Wednesdays. “Wonderful Wednesdays,” as they called it when the House of Commons didn’t sit. It became a night, usually a long night, of good eating and more. I even remember an article in Maclean’s one week that talked about how on Wednesdays in Ottawa “you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.”
Anyway, back to Mamma’s. What went almost unnoticed was how Giuliano made sure everything was just right. Just right, that is, if you were a Liberal. Take the tablecloths, for instance - they were Liberal red and white checked. Perfectly ironed of course, with matching napkins. It might as well have been party night in the Liberal caucus room.
But the Liberals were in trouble in 1979 and everyone knew it. Giuliano certainly did. When that year’s election campaign was launched, the Conservatives and Joe Clark had the lead and they never gave it up. When the votes were all counted there was a new gang in town and something magical happened at Mamma’s as it opened for dinner the next night. That’s right: the red and white tablecloths and matching napkins were gone, seemingly replaced by a snap of the fingers, by Conservative blue and white checks.
Giuliano was no dummy.
Nor was he a dummy nine months later when Clark’s minority government was defeated by the Liberals on a confidence vote. That election night, as Pierre Trudeau welcomed the country to the 1980’s, the red and white checkered tablecloths were back in place at Mamma’s. I guess Giuliano played it safe and never threw them out.
Pierre Poilievre may be trying to change some tablecloths too.
He’s jumpstarting his recent popularity in the polls by doing what those who think they can win often do during a campaign. He’s not visiting ridings his party already holds, but instead spending time away from a polarized House of Commons, barnstorming through vulnerable Liberal and NDP ridings.
A good piece along those lines in the Globe this week from Kristy Kirkup and Ian Bailey:
Pierre Poilievre in campaign mode, targeting ridings held by Liberals and NDP
The Liberals have spent the last month “getting in the game” of pre-election politics too.
After a poorly received mid-summer cabinet shuffle, they rolled out the housing initiative and the grocery price summit. Now, they’ve announced a hat trick of moves on the heating oil, heat pump and carbon tax front. Some see it as a backflip. Nick Nanos had these moves characterized as indicative “of a government politically on the ropes.” Rachel Aiello of CTV News was out front on this one:
Canada doubling carbon price rebate rural top-up, pausing charge on heating oil: Trudeau
Over on The Bridge, the latest edition of Good Talk with Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert digs a little deeper into this ‘backflip.’ You can find it on SiriusXM, your favourite podcast platform, or our YouTube channel. You can also find the link right here on NationalNewswatch.com.
Speaking of Bruce, let’s break a little news.
He’s got some new data on Covid being released later this weekend and it gives us a good sense of where we are as Canadians on protection. From spark*insight’s research department, the top-line results of the 2000-person online survey are:
“One in every two Canadians (49%) say they contracted COVID, and 1-in-10 (11%) were infected more than once. But while almost 90% of Canadians have had prior vaccinations for Covid, a lot fewer are sure they will get another booster, and 28% are sure they will not do so.”
Bruce says this about the findings:
“A great number of Canadians have had experience with Covid directly and while many plan to continue to take up the opportunity for Covid booster shots this fall, a sizeable minority will not. This is likely due to a combination of factors, including a sense that the severity of the illness has declined, the cumulation of misinformation about the risks associated with the vaccine, and politicization of the choice to be vaccinated or not. The science of the disease and the vaccine is the same whether you are Conservative or Liberal, so the only difference is what you’ve been told and what you trust, by the politicians you are attentive to.”
November is Financial Literacy Month
Financial literacy is an essential life skill and an important part of overall financial well-being. Canada’s banks support several programs to help Canadians strengthen their financial knowledge, skills and confidence, including the Canadian Bankers Association's free seminar programs, Your Money Seniors and Your Money Students.
Here’s a story you might have a hard time believing.
Guess who sounded the alarm about climate change fifty years ago and warned of a major jump in the cost of living as a result? The answer: insurance companies. They’ve been proven correct with costs skyrocketing to the point where some high-end companies have pulled out of weather-beaten states like California and Florida, leaving customers there without any insurance at all.
Armine Yalnizyan is a contributing columnist for the Toronto Star and wrote this piece:
Fifty years ago, the insurance industry warned of climate change — now parts of North America are becoming uninsurable
Are you comfy in your den this weekend, reading The Buzz and sipping a latte?
Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable but perhaps this fact will and maybe should. Almost two million visits were made to Canadian food banks in March of this year. Two million. That’s a staggering figure. And it’s up 32 percent from the year previous. Thank you, inflation. Rhianna Schmunk is a senior writer with CBC and this week she wrote the story behind those numbers:
As cost of living soars, millions of Canadians are turning to food banks
In early 2016 I was invited to join a table for a small, intimate dinner with Shimon Peres, who served as both prime minister and president of Israel during his long political career.
There were only eight of us and because my wife was performing on stage that night, I had asked to bring my son Will. At the time, he was approaching 18 years old and about to enter the University of Toronto.
I didn’t want him to miss this opportunity. It would be a learning moment - Shimon Peres was walking history. A Nobel Peace Prize winner who was truly a part of the Israeli story since its creation in 1948, handpicked as a future leader by the country’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion. He was in the last of his 93 years as we ate and talked. While I’m sure he didn’t remember me, I‘d interviewed him a few times in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was great to see that his mind was still sharp, and he dominated our conversation.
At one point he turned to Will and asked whether he had a question. Will didn’t blink. He said all his life he’d known nothing about Israel other than the constant conflict with Palestinians and the inability to find a solution. Was there any chance, he asked the former prime minister, that things would ever change?
Peres paused for a moment, looked directly at Will, and said, “Your generation can change this. You can communicate with each other in a way we never could.” We left with some hope, but seven years after Peres’ death, here we still are.
Can there ever be peace in Israel, and what would the process to achieve that look like? That was part of the focus this week at a conference in Washington at American University. Check this article out. It’s not long and is well worth the read:
A Conflict Resolution Expert on Peace and the Israel-Hamas War
I’ve had some mail in the last few weeks asking when my latest book with Simon and Schuster will be released. Well, here you go. How Canada Works, co-written with my friend and colleague Mark Bulgutch, comes out on November 21st. Shortly after the release, I’ll be on this book tour:
Lots more info on the book on my website thepetermansbridge.com