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Edward Greenspon: Hello, I'm Edward Greenspon, editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail. Welcome to the fourth edition of the Globe Roundtable, the home of the civil tri-partisan discussion of the political issues of the day. While the universe continues to unfold, Stephen Harper is getting ready to name his cabinet, the Liberals are getting ready to find a new leader — everyone is watching the political battle in the South. And I couldn't help noticing that Sarah Palin was campaigning in Roswell, New Mexico earlier this week home to what believers in extraterrestrials think was one of the great alien visitations of all time.

And I'm not even going to try to ask what that means. Joining me this morning to help put it all in context is our highly down-to-earth roundtable; John Manley, Senior counsel at the law firm McCarthy-Tetrault and Canada's former minister minister of industry, finance, foreign affairs and deputy prime minister, and we must say a much speculated potential candidate for the Liberal leadership.

And Jodi White, president of the Public Policy Forum, a non-partisan think tank based in Ottawa and former Chief of Staff to Joe Clark and Kim Campbell and as I understand it has completely disavowed any aspirations to the Liberal leadership.

And finally Doug McArthur the distinguished fellow of public policy at Simon Fraser University and a former cabinet minister in Saskatchewan and deputy minister to two premiers in British Columbia. And Doug it's been a long time since you've been elected politics. Are you also not going to run for Liberal leadership?

Doug McArthur: Well as a good politician I should say never say no to anything. No no I'm not intended to run for the leadership!

Edward Greenspon: That's a good role model for John. Maybe we'll get back there later.

Look I want to start with the Liberal leadership race and it's just beginning to break out with Stephane Dion's resignation this week, maybe it's not beginning to break out. Maybe you'll correct me on that, but let's start with a different question on it, which is the question about money. Now Stephane Dion has commented when he resigned he talked about being outspent by the Conservatives and being demonized before he could even get into the game, and of course all the candidates for the leadership race are going to be hobbled by the campaign rules now. I mean, the law of the land on political contributions which creates a threshold of a little over a thousand dollars and anyone can contribute, so there's no big backers that you can get.

Let me start with you Doug. You know these reforms were brought in by Jean Chretien right at the end of his term. A lot of people think they hurt the Liberal Party more than any other party. What do you make of these kinds of limits?

Doug McArthur: Well I think they're one of the really good things and Jean Chretien really did do a lot of good things you know I think that dealing with campaign financing is something that in the modern democracy is very very important. Very few countries have dealt with it as effectively as we have.

I think that the way the campaign financing arrangements we have now are forcing the political parties to break their ties to the big corporate donors and the big donors from the union side and so on and go to what is perfectly feasible - and the Conservatives have shown it is and NDP to a lesser extent have shown is - going to individual donors and raising money in a broad-based fundraising campaign.

That's the way of the future for politics, and I think it really sets a kind of standard in our politics that's very very good. I don't disagree. I'm not familiar with the inside workings of the Liberal Party, but I don't disagree that the Liberal Party became very independent of large corporate donors. I think that was a bad and unhealthy thing. They are making an adjustment from that, but they'll make the adjustment and they'll all be better for it.

Edward Greenspon: John, what do you think of these roles and indeed should they apply in leadership campaigns to the same extent that they do in the election campaigns?

John Manley: First of all I was there when we brought them in and I did support them at the time. I think there's one thing that we did really fail to take into account in dealing with the leadership campaign rules and that is while there's a very significant quid pro quo for political parties in the restriction on contributions, both the limit and the non-availability of corporate or union donations that that quid pro quo being funding from the State. There is no equivalent for leadership candidates.

And consequently when you have even more sharply reduced limits now down to $1100 on contributions it's very very difficult to raise the money that's necessary to run a a professional party leadership campaign in a country as large as Canada, and so you got this awful scene of most of the candidates in the last Liberal leadership not having been able to get themselves out of debt, not through any want of effort, but just because the rules are so restrictive that you can't do it.

So you know I think applying the the rules to leadership campaigns and creating the transparency that comes with that is not a bad thing, and you know the campaign that I ran in which as you will recall Ed was not widely reported. I made a point from the outset of public disclosure of all of my contributions and much to the anger of of my principal opponent I challenged him to do the same which he was not really in a position to do.

Jodi White: I mean I probably am not in as much in favour of the new laws as the others are. I was never that upset about corporate Canada contributing and in fact I'm concerned that the line for corporate Canada is we don't want you to be involved in any of this process at all, and I'm not sure that's healthy for government. I think in fact all sectors should be involved in government and thinking about it and I worked in the private sector where I mean there was no question that anybody thought we were getting anything for our donation and you know equal donations were given to the two major parties as most corporations did.

... you know some did think they were going to get something for or were looking for something, but I don't know what the middle road is, but the astonishing thing to me is that Mr. Chretien brought this in and and didn't prepare his own party for it. His legacy is is disastrous really in this way in terms of having changed the legislation but not helping that party adjust and learn more about direct mail. I mean it was never as good at direct mail as other parties were; that's been known for probably 20 years, but I mean it's just astonishing the position he's put them in now and the party has floundered from it and and been damaged by it is his own.

Doug McArthur: I don't think everybody would agree that contributions from corporate Canada haven't had some impact on what parties do, I mean we never can trace this completely but large contributions from corp Canada have always caused anxiety amongst observers to politics in my own look at it that I would I would say it is not neutral and as you said corporate Canada supported two parties, not broadly-based supported the parties.

I think a level playing field is important in politics today. I think that's the expectation of the electorate. I think taking any kind of even whiff of corruption in political finances is important today. This does that. I think I'd have to disagree Jodi I think this was one of the major improvements the fact that the Liberal party has taken some time to adjust, well that's I think too bad and unfortunate but they got to learn.

Edward Greenspon: Is there though also an issue here about freedom? Let's say my cousin David wants to run for leadership for some party and I want to give him you know $5,000 or $10,000 to do that, and you know as long as it's transparent shouldn't I be allowed to do that?

Jodi White: I think that's an excellent question.

John Manley: Yeah and I think though the limits are probably the least useful feature of this whole of this whole system I think is transparency that really is key and you know I don't I don't think that having the the very strict limit is a useful feature of the system where you've got full disclosure requirements. You also I think could usefully permit donations in kind which are in my experience really important in a leadership campaign.

Doug McArthur: But all the leadership candidates will be running on the same rules and and put on the same basis.

John Manley: Yeah I know but Doug you're not running for high school president. I mean you're you're running to lead a modern political party in a country that's one of the largest on the face of the earth. It's a very difficult task and if you can't raise the money you know I mean some people you and you know Martha Hall Findley was happy to take a bus and drive across the country. She hasn't paid all her debts yet. And a major restriction is the limitation on contributions. I mean how many people do you have to find at a maximum of $1100 a pop to properly fund a decent campaign and what does it cost to run a decent campaign.

The upcoming campaign's going to be I guess close to nine months long, it's going to cost to do a first class professional campaign at least $2-million. That's a lot of $1100 and smaller contributions.

Edward Greenspon: But Doug let me ask you Stephane Dion is about $200,000 in debt or so - that's the number the last number that anybody seems to know for sure. Do you worry at all - and perhaps this is just a matter of the contribution limit or maybe it's the set up of how it works - you know John says there's no public money into a leadership campaign unlike an election, do you worry this will inhibit good people from running?

Doug McArthur: Well, I looked the the the last Liberal leadership campaign seemed to me to be in any ways a a a very good campaign, good people ran, there was a lot of people running most of the people have been able to pay off their debt, yes there's always the negative consequences of this kind of thing, but when you look at the results putting people on the same basis and going out there maybe parties will have to run shorter leadership campaigns. That wouldn't be a bad thing.

Maybe that people will have to learn to be leaders. They'll have to learn new techniques, but no I don't worry about it that much, because I think on net it will provide as much opportunity for people who might not have otherwise run given that some of the people who could raise big corporate money can't go out and do that now.

John Manley: But is has the opposite effect because it turns the leadership campaign totally into a ground war. In other words it's all organizational on the ground with no resources, which means unless you've been out organizing organizing and organizing before the thing ever starts you're coming from behind and there's no way that you can you can launch yourself into this without having already built the the the network across the country. It is just, you know, money and politics are closely linked. That's just the way campaigns work.

Edward Greenspon: Now it would be possible I would think maybe Jodi you might want to comment on this to have a leadership campaign that has less emphasis on organizational quality because maybe not every camp that somebody can invent in the country would get two members and maybe not every maybe there might not be special numbers for aboriginal groups. Maybe you know maybe it would just be a riding, perhaps it could just be the Caucasus which in some countries you know selects its leader you know is there a way to move toward a system that's just cleaner and easier you know Jodi you ran a leadership campaign a number of years ago in the Conservative Party. Do you think the system has become sort of too sprawling?

Jodi White: Well I mean some people have gone onto you know phoning in ballots and things and that has seemed to be not very successful at all for one thing because the final contention in fact does create a galvanizing effect for any party. All parties benefit from it and the new leader does too. So I think there's some people who wonder why the States should have a say at all inside the party what is happening. I mean there are all sorts of restrictions on party funds, but since when should the government be deciding exactly what happens within a leadership race by a political party?

I mean is that the ultimate in any State basically and you know again I understand all of the concerns and the problems in terms of money but and when John says money and and you know these kinds of things are intimately involved it almost I mean my first reaction was to say that sounds awful, but I don't think it is. I mean more to the point it's expensive and it probably should be in this huge country with 308 ridings to run one of these and somehow get yourself into a position so that people want to be part of you and you know part of rebuilding the Liberal party is going to be all these meetings that are going to be held across the country in the riding level etc., and people coming together — that will all be part of what is is basically their rebuilding process and it will be an important part for them.

Edward Greenspon: Let's talk about the race itself for a minute. Maybe if the two of you could tell me ... who do you think the front runner is? Doug?

Doug McArthur: Um, my guess and I have no inside information my guess is right now Bob Rae is the front runner, but I think that Ignatiff and he together are the front runners. I think that the Liberal party will also though be looking for - as they did in the case of Dion - looking for some alternative to those two who have certain - each of them have certain things that they carry with them that people don't like.

So I think we'll see somebody younger and somebody not so much part of the mainstream, but Rae and Ignatieff are the leaders right now.

Edward Greenspon: John, I don't want to put you on the spot you have an opportunity to declare now or just avow interest or neither but who do you think the front runner is other than perhaps yourself?

John Manley: Well I think it's well it's certainly not myself because for the reasons we're already talking about. There are two campaigns that are spring-loaded and ready to go, in fact they've already sprung and that they are you know Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae who were one-two the last time and who's organizations are still extant and in Bob's case he's paid off all his debt. I guess we'll know on the 31st of October whether Michael has reached that point or not. I don't think on the last public declaration that he had.

So they're they're ready to go and that's a huge advantage.

Jodi White: Yeah I mean between the two of them I wouldn't know who's ahead, but I also think that is the fear among many Liberals that they're locked into a battle between those two titans who are pretty evenly you know matched basically with an awful lot of talent and ability. I mean that's what they ended up seeing the last time around, so I think there's a lot of them sitting scratching their heads saying okay I mean do we walk into this battle or can we avoid it somehow and is the avoidance by bringing in several other candidates or will people really see that one of the two of those is not as strong as the other?

I think we'll see it unfold but it seems to me that a lot of these liberals I hear sit and worry and say what are we going to do about it? It's just that two-man race and you know I mean you can I mean as I say they're both very talented so some parties would wish that they would have that kind of a thing, but if it's an absolute 50-50 deadlock, it doesn't really get them anywhere and it can be very divisive for a part that has has suffered from that for you know the last six years of a very divisive internal battle.

Edward Greenspon: I guess that's the fairest perpetuation of the polarization of the party that you know occurred obviously with Chretien, Martin and even Turner and Chretien to some certain extent.

John Manley: It goes back to Turner and Trudeau in fact, Ed and I think that Jodi's exactly right because if we have a real split of that sort coming out of the next convention then this you know we're in a perpetual struggle for survival here. We got to find a unifying force that can bring the party together and redefine it's values; that's really important.

Jodi White: Leadership conventions are more divisive than election campaigns for most parties.

Doug McArthur: They don't need to be. I mean again it seems almost like we're feeling sorry for the Liberal Party for not being able to heal its wounds and not being able to take care of these things I mean I think back - it's years ago now when Allan Blakely ran for the NDP in Saskatchewan and Roy Romanow ran against him and ran a very strong campaign and and the two of them were a terrific team together after the election, because they were mature people who understood the importance to the party and to the government of working together, and I don't see any reason why these two intelligent people shouldn't be able to work together. If they can't, then shame on the Liberal Party.

Edward Greenspon: Good. Listen let's move to another topic. Jodi you know has been talking a little bit about her disappointment with the media and the way it covered uh the election campaign and I want to give her a fair chance on that, but I also want to broaden out that question and Jodi you can start with it. But, it seems that we have a very shallow, superficial, immature political debate generally — not just in this country — but in many other countries and I'm thinking of the election in the United States which has has basically degenerated into you're a socialist, you're a terrorist, kind of discussion to a large extent. Kind of frightening because what happens to the United States is so consequential and that election there is so important at this particular moment in history.

So why do you think that our politics have descended into un into into this you know superficiality really? Let me start with you Jodi.

Jodi White: Well I'm not too sure I know why. I certainly haven't done a real critical analysis of the media, but you do wonder about the sort of infotainment business that is taking place everywhere. Some even call it the dumbing down of news. I don't know if I want to go there, but you know I was astonished at the polling - the reporting on the polling and the horse-racing on this one. I mean it isn't very it's only a couple of elections ago that all the polls were wrong and all of the media swore they would not use polling again and they weren't going to get caught in that and it seemed to me it was worse this time with the three-day rolling polls and you know with any television newscast they'd be running three or four results of polls etc.

And you know it was a substance reelection as I called it one day. I mean were they talking policy? Very very little frankly and um in fact I would say in the Untied States they are talking more policy than we are in this country. You know it may be broader as you say I mean some of the parties may be at fault too and and I think there's evidence that they are in terms of what they are feeding and there's a cynicism about uh about it, and I don't know what you do about it. I mean I was struck watching Colin Powell on Sunday in the United States of just how much integrity and wisdom he brought to his statements.

I mean Colin Powell's got some problems in his own past and I understand that, but I also thought it was an individual who is admired by many and he took it to a very high level in terms of his discussion about what he saw in this election. And and I just don't see that in Canada. We're not talking at a high level. We're going downwards if nothing else and I don't know what the answer to it is, but I'm concerned. 

John Manley: Wow. I've been there a long time and I don't mind referring to it as the dumbing down of politics and quite frankly in the in the print media Eddie you know the use of of undisclosed sources has become pandemic. It used to be very exceptional and those of us old enough to have read the you know the Watergate story you know remember the anxiety that they went through at the Washington Post about what to print without naming a source.

And just my observation is on the print side it's very frequent to sources close to unnamed people you know you may have to rely on them. On the other hand the torqueing up of news that occurred after the National Post arrived on the scene and the use of unnamed sources on the print side has I think really contributed to some of it. On the electronic side, you know it a picture is easily worth a thousand words if not more words, and consequently, I think that we've had a tendency to really turn things into a much more snapshot kind of discussion rather than taking the time to have really thoughtful discussions and and I think I think in a democracy it's a great worry if the electorate is ill-informed or poorly informed or even worse misinformed.

Doug McArthur: I have a slightly different view on this.

Edward Greenspon: I'm happy for that.

Doug McArthur: First of all on polls. You know polls are information and I think information is an important for the electorate to have, so I'm not at all disturbed that we get good reporting of polls. I think that the electorate has to deal with that information just like any other information they get when they're shopping for goods or whatever with with the type of skepticism that goes with it. But I don't feel disturbed at all and actually the polls came through very well in this in this election, so I'm happy with the polling and I think it's a good thing to have and I'd be very upset if the media was not reporting on the polls and keeping them away from us.

So the polls — excuse me — on the polls I think it's fine. With respect to the coverage, I agree with John's point about the undisclosed I don't like that either. I find that disturbing not showing who said what in a report. But other than that I didn't have a problem with the media coverage of this election. I thought the media did a good job and Ed I think that looking to the Globe and Mail  you could find out pretty much anything you wanted to know or needed to know about what was going on and what the parties had disclosed and what the parties had provided for information.

I think it is there's a new kind of politics today compared to at least 20 years ago or 30 years ago. That's for sure. It's a different kind of politics. The fragmentation of the media, the focus on electronic media, new campaign techniques that are becoming well known I mean there's a more focused kind of messaging — all of that I don't find that problematic. In fact I actually thought the debates while I thought for instance I didn't think that Mr. Harper did very well on the economy but I didn't think he told us anything, but nevertheless what we found out was what he was intending for the economy which was not to do very much.

So we got the information, so I think we did pretty well.

Edward Greenspon: I'm going to resist the temptation to leap in although maybe I'll just ask you this: particularly for you Jodi and you John; is there a political side of this on the way that politics try to manage their message, politicians try to manage their messages so carefully and that the media and the politicians just begin to descend with each other?

Jodi White: Begin to what with each other?

Edward Greenspon: Descend with each other. I mean you know if the dumbing down, is that a universal dumbing down or do you really think it's driven by the media?

Jodi White: You're probably attached basically at the hip on it. I mean there is no doubt I mean I was just going to say in terms of Doug I didn't mean no polls at all, but I think in terms of if you look at a lot of the broadcast coverage you got polls and you got nothing else basically on this campaign in terms of them talking about issues.

You know campaigns are highly manipulated; there's no doubt about that. It seems to be where it's all gone. And the media are in some amount of crisis because I mean the pressures on the media now are horrendous for 24-7 news and fewer resources. You've got economic problems within your own industry and I think we see some of that in in the kind of coverage we get. I mean the parliamentary press gallery is not as large as it was 25 years ago in terms of journalists. That's an interesting sort of statistic, and yet all of them have to do way more than what they used to have to do too, because they have to file 24-7 as opposed to no matter if it's newspapers, radio or television.

So you know that puts huge pressures on the media in terms of what they can do and whether they can get on top of and and fight back on some of the manipulation that's done by the parties when they're trying to withhold news or steer you only in one direction etc. So it's a constant battle you are more familiar with than any of us probably. But I think it's something that's worrying in terms of what's happening in the country.

John Manley: You know it's very hard to get the public's attention on on on difficult issues. I think I have to admit that, and very often at least on the print side if it's not above the fold on page one it's you know kind of confidential in terms of the impact that makes on the broader public. So I think I think this is a deeper problem in in in society that you know the the uh the attention spans are short, uh you know content on uh electronic input essentially is unlimited and therefore if you're not interested in public affairs it's pretty easy to avoid it.

And I think we need to worry about this, I mean we need to worry about the fact that we don't teach history in our schools. We need to worry about the fact that we're graduating people from universities that are ignorant about economics and so we you know we have a less informed and less educated electorate and in retail politics you're you're pitching you have to pitch at at the level at which at which people will engage, and likewise if you're in the business of selling newspapers you got to know who your market is.

Doug McArthur: You know I think that if there is a problem here and I think getting a full understanding of what the parties represent is a challenge, but I think it rests almost exclusively with the parties. I don't think the problem is with the media. The parties have developed and learned that in a modern campaign uh you have to control your message, you have to manage your message, you do it in in a way that doesn't lead to too much analysis. For instance, it used to be that parties would all have a fairly extensive platform. Uh the we saw this election there's a lot of criticism at the Conservatives that they didn't do a platform until the very end and then it was it was minimal it really wasn't a platform.

And uh they didn't get a majority but they won the election. And so they had they had a strategy which was to withhold information and to manage information and it worked. So I would say let's look to the way the parties operate and the way the political contest operates and not be passing the blame onto others.

Edward Greenspon: Let me just throw this in. I've always been struck that it seems to me that the level of political discourse is the highest in countries where politics really matter or in regions of countries where politics really matter, and in times when it really matters, and of course we're in times when politics is really going to matter. And you know we're learning things that we haven't learned before. I've learned about the panic of 1907 as well as a lot more about the Depression and Brenton Woods and things like this and I think we're going to have many more discussions about this so. I guess we can hope that the level of political discussion all around will rise.

I was going to tell you that I thought the Globe Roundtable was doing very well on the polls, but I'm going to resist discussing the polling, particularly to you Jodi. You're numbers were good but I'm not talking about them at all.

But I do want to thank you guys today for what was a very substance-rich conversation and I look forward to talking to you again next week.