At Issue - Poilievre accuses Trudeau of paralyzing parliament

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

A Liberal-Conservative standoff over releasing unredacted documents to the RCMP grinds parliament to a halt for more than a week. Pierre Poilievre is silenced in the House. Plus, the latest from the foreign interference inquiry. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood, or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton.

This week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, October 10th. The House of Commons grinds to a halt. It sounds like there's a new story every week to justify paralyzing Parliament to cover up the truth. A standoff over releasing documents to the RCMP with both parties accusing the other of delaying the work of the House. It is the government's view that we should send this to committee so that we can get on with the important work of this House

and protect the rights of Canadians. This week we're asking what's to be made of the stoppage holding up the House. How will it affect the bloc's ultimatum or will it? Chantelle Iber, Andrew Coyne and Althea Raj join me to talk about that. Plus, Pierre Poiliev has silenced the House of Commons for one day because of his comments toward Melanie Jolie. Pharmacare did pass in the Senate on Thursday night, so that's something.

But the government hasn't really been able to do much else because of this privilege debate on a couple of issues. Althea, what do you make of the way this is being handled by the Conservatives and the government? Well, at the core of it, it is an important issue. I don't want to take the substance away. There is a fund that was created many years ago, more than 20 years ago, actually, that has successfully worked to invest in startups and seed companies that made green technology.

That worked. And then it went through a period where it didn't work. And the AG released a very scathing report earlier this year saying, hey, a number of companies got millions of dollars that they shouldn't have gotten, that either they didn't meet the definition of being eligible for the money or actually cases where there were conflict of interest, including with the chair. So the Conservatives have gotten a ruling from the Speaker saying they have a real cause for wanting to have access to these documents. And they've been monopolizing the House time to have a motion passed to go to committee to talk about all the documents related to this case.

Except that the Liberal government actually says, we support you. And the Conservatives are basically filibustering their own motion. Today, they introduce a sub-amendment to their other sub-amendment to their amendment on the motion. And it is every time they do this, the clock starts again, and every single MP in the House of Commons gets to have a 20-minute speech with a 10-minute question and answer. So who's filibustering whom, I think, is a little bit the question here, and why. The Conservatives would love for the Liberals to bring forward a motion to shut down the debate because they would need to find one party to support them. And then they would attack that party for shutting down debate over things that they alleged,

like corruption. They've been saying words like this is worse than the sponsorship scandal, which we don't have evidence of just yet, to be clear. So there's that gamesmanship at play. I think there's also some wishing that this filibustering will mean the Liberals prorogue and that they can attack the Liberals for that as well. So there's all sorts of shenanigan working around this. But the Conservatives could also just stop talking and send this motion to committee where it would be debated as it should and discussed as it should. That was a very good synopsis of what's going on and maybe the why.

I should also point out that the RCMP have said we don't want to get documents this way. This is not going to help us in an investigation. Andrew, what do you make of either, as Althea points out, the gamesmanship or the substance of the issue, which I think everyone agrees is important, for sure. Well, I don't doubt there's games being played, but there's also an absolutely fundamental issue, which is when Parliament demands documents, the government has to hand them over. The government doesn't get to decide on what basis or on what grounds it passes them over, and it has not agreed to do so. It has found all kinds of reasons to justify why it should not hand over this document, or that document, or why this document should be redacted, etc., which it maintains to this day. The only issue that's in dispute within the Parliament is not whether or not the document should be handed over, but the secondary part of it, whether Parliament, once it has the document, should then pass them on to the RCMP.

That's fine. Parliament can debate and decide that and go over it in committee. But the government's obligation still stands, regardless of what happens to the documents after they've gone to Parliament. The government has to hand over the documents to Parliament. This is far from the first time either this government or the government before that has played this game. We went through this under the Harper government with the Afghan detainees documents. We went through it with the F-35 costing. We went through it with this government with the WE Charity documents. We've gone through it with the Winnipeg laboratory affair where they took the speaker to court. So time and time again, governments in this country have been essentially defying the law. This is not controversial. This is not in dispute.

This is absolutely fundamental to our system of government. It's as bedrock as the Constitution Convention. The power of Parliament to send for persons, papers and things goes back centuries. And governments on both the left and the right are defying it and it's got to stop. Chantal. I think every party believes it has something to gain from this paralysis. The Conservatives obviously believe that they're on to something and that they can make the case, corruption, dismissal of Parliament. Although the RCMP element is probably the element that they didn't need. Because, yes, Parliament should be able to order governments to produce documents. But to say so that they can be passed on to the RCMP really gets in the way of the independence of an inquiry by the RCMP. But set that aside, so the conservatives believe that they're keeping the government

on its toes, demonstrating corruption, lack of transparency. The liberals believe that they're showing the conservatives for what they are, people who are not talking about day to day, and they're happy when Pierre Poitier is not talking about bread and butter issues. And the more that this issue goes on, the more it stays inside the bubble. Frankly, it is not a conflict. It is about something that most Canadians would see as something that is vital to their daily lives. The NDP is happy enough because it gets to call the Conservatives agents of chaos in Parliament. And that's pretty good if you're going to face the Conservatives in many ridings in an election.

And even the Bloc Québécois, that I think rightly says neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives want this to end. Did I mention it allows the Liberals to live for another day, another week, another three weeks? Get the sense that they get more leverage, i.e. if the liberals want this to stop, then they would probably need either the NDP or the BLEC to be on side for a closure motion. And the BLEC is saying, well, give us what we've asked for and we'll help you end this dead end. So I don't think there's any political will on any side of the House to end this. I will say there is concern from what I've heard from the Conservative side about that issue that Chantal signals there,

that you're not going to be talking about the things that matter to Canadians. I think this is very hard to understand. It's very hard to see how it relates to your life or why it matters, Andrew. Well, that's a sad commentary on how far we've already let Parliament slip. So it's true. Nobody cares what goes on in Parliament. One way we can start to make people care about Parliament is actually allowing Parliament to exercise some powers. It doesn't get any more fundamental than whether the government's going to obey the law or not.

Supposing there was real corruption behind this. I don't know if there is or not. But the fact that the government can just endlessly stonewall and obstruct and cover up on these things is fundamental. You know, it's only a convention that we obey the law. Ultimately, all of our system of government and our system of law depends upon people in the crunch actually obeying it and deciding to obey it. Nixon, even Nixon, when the Supreme Court said you've got to hand over the tapes, hand it over the tapes. He could have just said, well, come and get me. So basically what Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative,

have been saying is, come and get me. Chartel and then Althea, yeah. Yeah, except that the Conservatives or the opposition parties are not judge and jury in this. The RCMP is undergoing an investigation. It does have the tools to get the documents. And the notion that documents should transit to a parliamentary committee to get to the RCMP is frankly not...

That's not in dispute. I don't disagree with that. No, but the only reason for the filibuster is to talk forever about the motion that says that this issue should be trashed out because it is a serious issue about the independence of the rcmp it's not no longer about governments not handing documents yes it is about the opposition making the government the government can hand over the documents today okay okay althea althea gets the last word here Yes, it is. It's about the opposition making the case forever on their own motion. OK, OK. Althea gets the last word here. Like everything, there is policy and politics. I agree with Chantata on the politics.

I think the risk for the Conservatives is they are shooting themselves in the foot. And frankly, we're on day nine. I really wonder if this is the privilege motion they want to talk about when we return for Thanksgiving or if they're going to bring in another, frankly, I think more scandalous privilege motion. On the substance, I mean, Andrew raises some really good points, but all of these points could be discussed in the committee. The other issue, which I think the Liberals are right to point out, is if the RCMP says we can't even use these documents, please don't give them to us. What if you have a constituent who has a criminal case against them and is like, hey, why don't you ask Parliament to get some documents because that might help me with my case. Maybe there are things that we want our legislators to think things through and they can do that at committee. And all of that can be done after the government has rendered the documents.

There's no reason why they have to wait for the committee to rule. Chicken and egg, Andrew. Chicken and egg. But that's the Speaker's ruling. To send it to a committee. You know what we did there? We made Canadians care with that vigorous debate. At issue, Pierre Poiliev was silenced by the Speaker for a day after attacking the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Jolie. Twice she refused to condemn those remarks.

She continues to pander to Hamas supporters and the Liberal Party as part of her leadership campaign rather than doing her job. Poiliev did not withdraw the remarks and Joly fired back. Clearly what we're seeing is that Pierre Poiliev is about double standards and he's about himself. So what's to be made of Pierre Poiliev is about double standards and he's about himself. So what's to be made of Pierre Poiliev's remarks? What challenges come with this strategy? Here to break all that down, Chantelle Hébert, Andrew Coyne, Althea Raj.

Chantelle, I'll start with you on this one. These attacks on Mélanie Joly followed a very passionate but quite partisan speech that Pierre Poiliev made on Monday at a memorial for October 7th. And I'm sure that part of the idea was to keep that sort of theme going for him. What did you make of the comments and the way he handled that? I'm not sure that if Pierre Poiliev was a truck, he would have a reverse gear. I've seen no evidence of it, so I'm surprised that he wouldn't withdraw his comments. That being said, I also find that he tends to always bring it a line too far. And on this, there are many things you can say about Mélanie Joly

and Canada's stance, difficult to pin down on the Israel-Amas issue, but the notion that anyone in the House of Commons is pandering to Amas supporters is a bit hard to swallow, especially when it's framed as part of a leadership campaign. I suspect that most people in Mélanie Joly's writing would question whether the fact that there may not be pro-Israel makes them Hamas and terrorist supporters. So there is something to be said about being the aspiring prime minister and to be able to talk with some moderation about foreign affairs. I do note that Mr. Poiliev also this week said that initially Israel should feel free to bomb

nuclear installations in Iran. No ally of Canada that I know of is really promoting that line, and it has now become that he meant that they should be able to target nuclear weapons. So I don't know. If there's a file that requires a bit of moderation, it may be that one. Yeah, and I wonder what the risks of that is, Andrew, to be so staunchly in one camp

and be willing to attack on those grounds, whether there's a risk politically for Mr. Kualiev there? Well, he's obviously calculated there isn't. I'm not sure that the eternal equivocation of the Liberal government has stood it very well politically or morally, frankly. I'm less concerned. I mean, yeah, it's over the top. He only has one gear. I agree with everything Chantel said. I'm less concerned with that in this particular instance

than with the way it was handled by the Speaker. Parliament is supposed to be a pretty free-willing place. People say things every day that are a little over the top, hyperbolic, etc. But it's the kind of place where you can say things that you couldn't say outside of Parliament because you get sued for libel. Why? Because we want the people to be able to test the limits of debate. We want them to prod things to get out uncomfortable truths and sometimes they get out in ways that are pretty unconventional. In this particular

case he did ask Melanie Jolie a very direct and simple question. Would she disavow, would she disown these appalling remarks, chants that are being made at these rallies that have increasingly taken a tone that is not just pro-Palestine, but anti-Semitic and indeed pro-Hamas. All she had to do, it seems to me, this was not a gotcha question, was just denounce them. Instead, she retreated into strange kind of prepared remarks that had been written for her. And I think a fair amount of person could say, what is the game that she's playing at that stage? Was his comeback to that well-judged?

No, but it seems to me that's the sort of thing that the court of public opinion can figure out rather than the speaker basically banning him from speaking for a day. And I think I would say the same thing about the speaker's ruling in the case of Yvonne Baker, the liberal MP who talked about the Putin wing of taking over the Conservative Party. Again, overkill, but gets at something, some questions that need to be answered by the Conservatives. Althea? Well, I mean, I think by Andrew mentioning the case of Yvonne Baker, you just answered,

you know, why did the speaker do this? I don't know that if Yvonne Baker had not gone public and noted to reporters, you know, a lot of us didn't even notice that he had been muted for the past six months for saying that there was a pro-Putin wing had taken over the Conservative Party. The Conservatives complained in the House, and the Speaker told him he wasn't going to be recognized. So in order to have some consistency, still like visible hypocrisy, because it's not like Pierre Palliot has been muted for six months. There had to be some form of discipline in order to maintain some level of consistency. And now, lo and behold, Yvonne Baker's muzzle has been lifted. So I think that's why there was that punishment against Mr.

Paglia. On the substance, I do agree with Andrew that Melanie Jolie, the foreign affairs minister, could have actually responded to the question and said something substantial. I also do worry that with Mr. Poiliev's so ardent stance, like very, very pro-Netanyahu-Israel stance, and the painting of everybody who's protesting as pro-Hamas supporters, how does that, how does a leader bring different Canadians together after the fact? Because you can't just say all the people out there protesting on the streets because they're worried about their family members and their friends, you know, having no food and being bombed and dying. And so many Canadians have family members that have died to say oh no you're all hamas supporter you're all terrorist supporters and i will not be a prime minister for you like

that that raises a whole bunch of other questions in addition to the iran nuclear stuff question that raises a lot of questions about does the prime does he probably have as prime minister have a nuanced button uh when it comes to foreign affairs that wouldn't get us killed you know like you can't go around saying stuff like that well that is one type of an error the other type is turning a blind eye as this government appears to be doing to these increasingly unhinged protests and i can tell you there's a lot of jews in this country who are terrified as a result and i have not seen a very strong stance from the government on that particular problem at all. Well, they could be more vocal. I agree with that.

Last word to Chantal. So you asked about political risks to Pierre Poiliev. I believe that he believes that it's paying off. I think his stance as pro-Israelist stance made the difference in the Toronto-St. Paul by-election. And I believe that the attempts of the liberals to kind of straddle the divide caused them on the other side of the equation, the seat in Montreal, the Verdun seat. So in the end, there are...

And as for Mélanie Jolie, I don't think she came across as a minister of foreign affairs in that exchange. She looked like someone who was also trying to score partisan points. The prime minister is set to testify as the foreign interference inquiry wraps up next week. It comes as his national security advisor says there are no treasonous MPs in the House, despite warnings from the National Security and Intelligence Committee. So what's to be made of these comments and why are they only being heard now? Here to break it down some more, Chantal, Andrew and Althea. Andrew, I'm totally going to start with you on this, obviously.

I mean, we did for many months talk about potential traitors inside the House of Commons because of that report from Enzikop from parliamentarians who were looking at information. And now Nathalie Drouin, the new national security advisor, says, no, that's not what's going on here. There are people making mistakes, bad judgment, but not that. What did you make of that? Well, she seemed to be drawing a rather precious line, first of all, that she wouldn't give them security clearance, she wouldn't trust them, They were crossing lines, et cetera. But it didn't meet the legal definition of treason. I don't think that's really the issue. I think the issue that was flagged by an SI cop, and they certainly took a stronger line than she has,

and we'll have to see. Maybe the public inquiry can settle those differences. I would only say it's of a piece with the kinds of views of the people the Prime Minister likes to surround himself with. Day after day in the Foreign Interference Commission, we've been hearing from senior officials in this government and in both the political and the bureaucratic side saying, well, you know, the foreign interference didn't really meet that test or that bit of intimidation wasn't really my job to prevent, or I didn't pass the document on to the prime minister because I didn't think he needed to see it. It's just continuing to present this alarming position of a government, and senior officials of which,

who kind of hear no evil and see no evil on this file in general. So I can't say I'm totally surprised to hear his current national security advisor taking a similarly soft line on this, but we'll have to wait and see what the inquiry finds out. Yeah, I mean, I suppose you could also say, Althea, that she just has a different interpretation of the information than NSEACOP had and is less concerned maybe than they were. Well, NSEACOP talked about parliamentarians, which includes senators. And the way I interpreted her remarks, she was talking about members of parliament. So I guess you could say that maybe they're both right. I do agree in the nuance that she's making.

And I think what she's responding to is frankly what a lot of MPs themselves were worried about when this report landed, that they were looking at their neighbors wondering who was going to sell Canadian secrets and who could be trusted and who could not be trusted. And what she's basically saying is like, take a deep breath. You don't need to be worried about the people sitting next to you. Some people are quite naive. Some people are doing things they shouldn't be doing. Some people are saying things they shouldn't be saying. But you don't need to worry that there is, like, somebody out to sabotage Canadian interests or, you know,

like this isn't a movie from 60 years ago. So I do think there was value, I think, at least for MPs in having that message out. And as far as why we haven't heard it, well, she's a public servant. They don't really talk unless they're compelled to. That's right. Chantal.

I believe that neither the committee nor anyone else except in the heat of debate in the House of Commons used the word treason, which is a loaded word. And the test for defining treason is a lot higher than anything that we have found out about what's in that committee report or from the national security advisors. That doesn't mean that there aren't MPs who live dangerously. But that being said, can we go back to basics?

Unless we are talking about cabinet ministers and even they, how many MPs have secrets to share with foreign entities? They don't even have secrets to share with us. I think she means national security secrets. Just to be clear. I mean, MPs, by and large, are kept in the dark by their own parties and their own governments about almost anything of significance. There's lots of other ways, though, that you can be serving in other countries' interests without selling secrets. For example, asking questions in Parliament that somebody's paid you to ask. Yeah, yeah. Okay, opposition MPs would be doing that. It would be nice then if the leader of the official opposition

got the security clearance that allowed him to read the report to find out if any of his members are doing that. Okay, I'm going to leave it there. And I'm sure we're going to talk about it next week because the Prime Minister is in front of that inquiry again next week. Thank you all. Appreciate it. That's at issue for this week. Who do you blame for what's happening inside the House of Commons?

And what do you think it means for the Liberal government? Let us know. You can send us an email. We're at ask at cbc.ca. And remember, you can catch me talking about politics on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll be back in your podcast feeds next week. Thank you so much for listening.

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