Live with Shauna Rae - Day 16 of 100 Days

I've been thinking a lot today also, I'm gonna be moderating, uh, the all-candidates meeting in our little town.

Uh, it's actually a, a number of municipalities together, so it's, uh, it is a municipality made up of a number of different hamlets, I would say.

And I keep thinking about school.

Uh, so separative public school when you are a kid, and there is a zero tolerance for bullying at school.

It's unfortunate, but I think we're gonna have to start with that.

That, you know, zero tolerance for bullying one another, for badgering and bullying.

And I, and I thought about, um, when I was, uh, a talk show host and we did-- we had candidates into the studio, uh, ahead of elections.

I went to, uh, an all-candidates meeting at the Press Club.

There was a Press Club in London, Ontario.

It was a big, big competition because there were three really strong candidates in all the major parties.

Uh, this was federal election.

Um, one of them was a fly-in candidate who was now living in the United States but was a former mayor.

And Rick Mercer was actually at the, uh, [laughs] at the all-candidates meeting.

Uh, his friend Elizabeth May, uh, flew in to v- uh, run for the Green Party in, uh, in this riding.

It ended up being a Liberal win, but the story about it is that there were a number of political activists that routinely would call into the show or, um, you know, work for candidates.

And, and one of them said-- They asked me point blank who I was gonna vote for, and I said, "That's none of your business." [laughs] And they were like, "Come on." And I'm like, "No." Like, "I'm not, I'm not gonna tell you who I'm gonna vote for." That's actually why we live in Canada and, and we have democracies.

I can choose whether I wanna share who I voted for or not.

I love that it's a secret.

Um, but they were also talking about how much they loved drama in an all-candidates meeting.

And by drama, they mean fighting, like people getting really riled up.

And I liken it to watching a hockey game, where there are folks that really love g- seeing a good fight.

And what is a good fight in hockey? When it's the NHL, those men are adults, typically.

Some of them are teenagers, though.

And there's lots of research around what it does to the human body.

But it also makes you think about, or it makes me f- think about, w- what is it that someone is getting out of seeing disagreements and people at each other's throats? Throwing punches, in the case of hockey, throwing barbs in the ca- and insults in the case of politics.