CTV News and Current Affairs
Wed 20 Jun 2007
MIKE DUFFY: Welcome back in to the Wednesday edition of "Mike Duffy Live". Our MPs had to flee for the big vote which they hope will clear the way so that they can head home to their ridings where undoubtedly they'll be met by parades, bands, and all of that. People say, oh, we're so lucky to have you representing us in Ottawa. Well one man who keeps his finger on the pulse of the nation from the thought control centre at CJOB in Winnipeg, I'm going in to my radio voice because he's got a big set of pipes, he's got a big brain and a huge audience. His name is Charles Adler. He's the leader of the Adler nation. What do you call it, you're a vehicle of mass, how does that go?
CHARLES ADLER (Talk Radio Host): Well some people to the left of me think of me as a vehicle of mass disinformation. But, Mike, I've got to tell you, it's wonderful to be back. I really missed your warm and fuzzy demeanour.
DUFFY: Well, we have fun and you can be the brisk guy. Your meeting of mass, instead of destruction, mass instruction, as you tell people what to think. What were audience members telling you today about this whole David Miller yellow ribbons, etcetera?
ADLER: Well, unfortunately, when it comes to the telephones, Mike, and you know enough about talk radio, from all the different talk masters you speak with, you tend to attract at least people on the phone, people who agree with you. Then on e-mail of course you get people who disagree. But we did get one person who did call in disagreeing with my position that we should all be wearing those yellow ribbons, put them on the fire trucks, put them on the ambulances, put them on the pizza wagons, put them on everything. But the thing is that this individual said that only those people who are on the right are for that. Now I tend to believe that if only people who are right wingers were for the yellow ribbons, David Miller and the other councillors wouldn't have chickened out today because we know what the real position was, but in face of all the media attention that they got they had to back down, especially on a day where we lost three of our own. This would not be a good day to come out against the troops.
DUFFY: So what do you think happened there in Toronto? I mean all three papers in the biggest city in the country, big stories today about we're going to take these decals off. Are these guys drinking their own bath water, or what's going on? All of a sudden the big reversal, 38-0, all of the great heroes of principle suddenly hiding in their caves?
ADLER: Well the radio station that we're on in Toronto, AM 640 Toronto radio, they got hundreds of calls. No doubt other radio stations got many, many calls. The newspapers got calls. But most important, as far as the city councillors are concerned, they got calls, and my guess is that some of these people got more calls than they've ever gotten in the past and they weren't coming from Stephen Harper acolytes, or right wingers, or pro Bush people or whatever the left wants to dismiss those of us who like these yellow ribbons, they were getting them from the masses. It was mass appeal, mind of like NASCAR, and they backed down.
DUFFY: Chuck, let me just read what David Miller had to say about this. "ItÆs a controversy on both sides. There are people who see it as support for the troops. There are people who see it as support for a war". That was before the deluge, before the phone calls, before the e-mails, etcetera. So all of a sudden now he's gone silent.
ADLER: Well the overwhelming majority of people in this country are for the troops, they're for the yellow ribbons. It may be controversial in the sense that there's a small minority, clearly based on what Miller did today in backing down as well as some of his councillors backing down, clearly a very, very tiny minority that is against the ribbons. Most people are for it because the thing is that regardless of whether or not you're for a particular policy position, once our men and women are in harm's way, we have to support them. And if we don't support them when they're in harm's way, what does that make us as a people?
DUFFY: Finally, let me ask you the question about equalization. We had the Finance Minister on earlier. They're still doing the dance among Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. I asked Pat Atkinson what effect the brouhaha was going to have on the provincial election there. The last numbers I saw showed the Conservative Saskatchewan party running ahead of the NDP. Is Lorne Calvert going to have his hide saved by this issue?
ADLER: Well for those people who are just voting for the first time in Saskatchewan, they've just turned old enough to vote, all they remember is an NDP government, NDP for as far as the memory can see. So finally the Saskatchewan party is about to take over and I suppose this is a hail Mary that many politicians go through whether they're down east or out west, bash the feds and hope some people come to your ballot box.
DUFFY: Charles Adler, always great to have you with us. Thanks very much for giving us an update from the heartland in Winnipeg.
ADLER: You're welcome. You bet.
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