At Issue - Political response to the B.C. mass shooting

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Canada’s political leaders put aside their differences in the wake of the Tumbler Ridge tragedy. Carney tries to clear up Trump’s misconceptions about the Gordie Howe Bridge. And, a Conservative MP refuses to take a pay raise. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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This week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, February 12th. The nation boards with you. Canada stands by you. We will get through this. We will learn from this. But right now, it's a time to come together, as Canadians always do. This is a time for all Canadians to unite, to support the families and the community at large. So this week we are asking how are politicians and the politicians and the United States?

leaders responding to the shooting in BC. Plus, we'll talk about the latest tensions with the U.S. As Donald Trump pushes back on a bridge, he approved. So how are politicians responding to the shooting in BC? And what does the show of unity mean for the people affected, for the country? I'm Rosemary Barton here to discuss. Chantelle-Barrell, Andrew Coyne, Altheiraj. I should say that the prime minister is headed to British Columbia tomorrow to attend a

memorial, a vigil. And he has asked all the opposition leaders to go with him, and they have. have all taking them up on that request. So everyone's in another show of unity going out to do this together. Andrew, in this moment, what does political leadership have to look like, whether it be the prime minister or anyone else? Well, these sorts of moments always have somebody saying that the leaders put politics aside. But of course, they can never put politics aside. They are in politics. It's not a part-time job. They're under scrutiny at all times. And in fact, what we require them is to be very political about putting politics aside.

They have to find, and it's politics in the best sense of the word, of being politic, of finding the right word, the right gesture that fits the mood of the moment, that captures the mood of the public of this. And they all did a credible job of that. But the notion that this is, you can depoliticize this, I'll just take one aspect of this, this desire for unity. Well, the desire for unity in this country is not universally shared. And so you saw each of the other leaders saying,

that the nation is united, but the leader of the Black Quebecois only wanted to talk about the Quebec nation. Each of those were choices. They're each defensible, but don't let us pretend that there wasn't politics running through all those remarks. It was the first time the block leader had spoken English inside the House of Commons, though, and he did that to make a signal to British Columbia, obviously. Althea, you want to pick up on that point, but also just what you think the moment calls for. You know, sometimes I think I'm the cynical one on this panel, but Alas, Andrew is there to grab the mantle away from me. I actually thought it was a really refreshing show of non-partisanship.

It feels really sad to say that the worst moments, the biggest tragedies seem to unite us. But that is also perhaps a really good thing and something we should welcome that, you know, when there is national grief, our political leaders, come together and the partisan battles that here in the House of Commons are completely set aside and the demonizing of your opponent is gone and now we are coming together as a group. And I did not see the leader of the Braciquebé's speech that way at all. I thought it was actually quite nice of him basically to say to Quebecers, his voters, I'm going to speak English now because not everybody in British Columbia has had a chance to learn French, so let me speak directly to them. And you see that across the country. You know, there are so many MPs who do and help other constituents from

different writings at all times. And, you know, I used to work as a parliamentary intern for the member of the Black Kimiqois in a nonpartisan program where you're sent to the opposition and to the government. And the block was helping a BC MP, BC constituents consular cases. So there are moments of non-partisanship and things like that. I just want to kind of reframe. that block thing, because I don't think it was fair to I. Francois Blanchet. Okay. Put that part aside, Chantal, and tell me what you... No. I can't put it aside. Go ahead. I can't put that part aside either for the same reason.

If Francois Blanchet is elected only by Quebecers, as opposed to any other leader in the House of Commons. It is totally natural for him to speak in the name of the Kemparkers. nation, or at least the section of it that recognizes itself in the bloc. And I don't believe a single Quebec or a thought that there was anything called playing politics in that sense. What I mostly heard, and I'm closer to LTIA stake on this, are people who are parents speaking as parents and as political leader. And it was authentic because you could tell that that side of them was more important in what they had to say.

And their understanding of the tragedy that has taken place than any political interest, am I looking good, will this be a good clip for the social media? And I was actually refreshing to find that all of them were not trying to address. for a clip on social media. Yeah, I mean, there was a remarkable amount of emotion from everyone, which is obviously normal, but the Prime Minister and Pierre Puele of in particular, very, very emotional and making it quite personal. Andrew, I'll let you have the last word. Well, there are people. Of course, they're going to be affected emotionally,

but there are also people with a spotlight on them who have responsibilities. When I say they're being political, I'm not saying that in a negative sense. I went out of my way to say it's being politic. but to pretend that they're not conscious that every word and every phrase that they're saying is going to be parsed, and that they have to avoid putting a foot wrong, is, I think, foolish.

And to also say that they would not also be looking for ways to insert their own points. All sides did it. You could notice the moments when they did it. They weren't doing it foolishly. They weren't doing it cynically. They were doing it because these are the moments when you have to be politic.

Yeah, and I would imagine, and we'll leave it, but I would imagine as well the conversation will become political going forward. And they all acknowledge that as well, that that wasn't the day for that to happen. But there will obviously be questions and policy issues around that we'll have to be discussed once we know more about what happened. Okay, we're going to leave this block there. Thank you all for weighing in on that. A difficult subject on a difficult week. When we come back, we'll talk about just the things we normally talk about.

Donald Trump's opposition to the Gordy-Haubridge. So what's been made of this latest tension point with the U.S. and reports of the growing uncertainty around the future of Kusma at all. That's next. Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge over $4 billion, that the ownership is shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada and that in the construction of the bridge, obviously there's Canadian steel, Canadian workers, but also U.S. steel, U.S. workers.

So this latest dust-up with the U.S. comes after reports that Trump is also considered, leaving the trade agreement entirely, the one that he signed with Canada and Mexico, here to break down this latest dispute between Canada and the U.S., Chantal, Andrew, and Althea. I mean, we might be doing a block of this every week at this stage. It feels like every week there's something else, some other threat or idea that the president had. In this case, it's my understanding he was being lobbied by the developer, the owner of the other bridge, who was worried about losing money. So there's a couple of interesting things, both from the president and I think the prime minister.

Chantelle, you start us off there. It seems to me after a couple of days that President Trump scored in his own net. In the end, there was not a single sentence of his statement that stood the test of reality. And in so doing, I think he kind of shored up the increasing unyeweled. of Republicans and others towards his policies on trade. And that was followed fairly quickly by that vote in Congress that didn't go the way that the White House would have wanted. But the other thing is, it's one thing to stop a project

that has not yet happened. You can walk beyond that, stop a pipeline from being built. Say somebody wakes up tomorrow and says, we're not going to do the fast train between Toronto and Montreal and Montreal. Well, it doesn't exist. But it's another thing to tell people the bridge is right there, and I'm not going to open it.

Yeah. And it's sitting there in broad daylight. It's paid for. And the facts of the case actually hurt the credibility for those who still have credibility in Mr. Trump's handling of trade between Canada and the U.S. I thought, too, Andrew, it was interesting that in this instance, the prime minister got on the phone with him right away,

told us about the conversation to try to clarify immediately what was fact and what was fiction here. And I don't know if that's a different tactic or it's just the first time that he has told us that he's gone about things that way. Maybe the first time that Trump has heard those things. I mean, you just never know with Trump what mixture of corruption and ignorance and credulity

is motivating his action. So, yeah, some guy who owns the other bridge gets on the phone to him, tells him a storyline presumably of how he's been hard to do. done by on this and Trump reacts in the moment. That's one possibility. That's one explanation for this extraordinary action. The second is that this is another demonstration of Trump, of the many ways in which Trump can get mean with us if he chooses to. So if the tariff weapon is running out of steam, I've got other things I can do. I've still got you on my mind.

We're interconnected in 100,000 different ways and I can find all kinds of ways to cause trouble for you if you don't do what I say. That's another. possibility. I think the thing we should also note is I don't think it's a done deal this is going to happen. And it has to be noticed this is coming at a moment when there's a whole bunch of things happening that are going against Trump's direction. He is rapidly losing altitude. He's now down to the mid-30s in the approval polls. He's been rebuffed in the Congress. They couldn't get a grand jury to sign off on that crazy attempt to indict six Congress people. This may be another marker of his declining power. Well, it also, though, could be as that happens, and you've

both made that point, you know, how desperate does the president become in terms of the threats? And maybe that's also should be of concern to Canada. But Althea, give me your sense of why this unfolded the way it did. Andrew, are you saying you don't think the bridge is going to open or you don't think the threat is going to materialize? We used to see whether the threat actually materialized. Oh, okay. Well, you know, there's this saying, if you read a bit of it. American news all the time or listen to American radio or TV taco. You know, Trump always chickens out. And I was at a conference this week and the chief economist for TD was presenting and she noted that only 35% of Trump's tariff threats have actually materialized since November of 2024.

In fact, most of those that did materialize actually came in the first part, if you wish, of his new mandate. Like, we've had the threat on the Bombardier jets that didn't materialize. We had the 100% tariff threat if we find a deal with China that didn't materialize. We had the 10% threat against Canada after the Ford Ronald Reagan ad. That didn't materialize. To me, I think there's two things. One, I think, you know, this is a president who unclear what his motivations are besides lining his own pockets. So Matthew Maroon gets on the phone with Howard Lutnik and says the owner of the Ambassador Bridge. The only bridge that competes with the new bridge that will come on because trucks can't go in the tunnel

and says he's going to lose a whole bunch of money and he will because this new bridge apparently can get trucks going through at 400 trucks an hour. So, you know, if you're a truck driver, which bridge are you going to pick? So, you know, I'm going to lose all this money, do something about it. But his rant on truth social, 300-word rant, is incoherent. He tells us that China is going to take away ice hockey and the Stanley Cup. And then also, I think his real motivation comes on. He's mad about there's no American liquor in Ontario liquor stores,

which we know he's been lobbied on by American lawmakers. But the real thing to me was we're going to be left with the leftovers. China's going to have first picking over Canada, and then I'm going to come in and I'm just going to get the leftovers. Because if you read the national security policy that they have released just in, the late fall, they view Canada as a client state. And that is how the White House wants Canada to exist. And so everything that Canada does to suggest that it's pulling away from the orbit of the United States is a threat to Donald Trump. I too agree with Andrew. I don't think

it's going to materialize. Chantal. I also don't think that anyone in Canada is quaking in here over this particular rant or many of the others. For the very simple reason, I think Andrew alluded to that, increasingly this administration is being lobbied by some of its own constituencies over, for instance, the fate of Kuzma. Unless you decide to view Kuzma sitting in Canada as a charity act, an act of benevolence of the United States towards Canada, you have to know that there are some fairly powerful economic interests that do not want to see this unsettled. But if that's going to be the case, I think it's pretty clear by now that the current prime minister has the backing of Canadians to not agree to turn Canada into basically a client state of the U.S. administration. Yeah, the agriculture sector was the latest one, as we reported on today, that started a coalition to try.

and stop the deal from falling apart. But it does make it, you know, whether these things are real, I think Althea laid out clearly that most of them aren't, it does make it really seem impossible, Andrew, to negotiate with someone who's constantly threatening things

and not even following through on the threats. Yeah, which is, exactly, and won't follow through on concessions if he makes any either. That's right. I think we should add another possibility following through from this discussion, and I put this in all seriousness,

Trump may at this point be living in a parallel world where he has enacted these threats. It seems to be immaterial to him whether they actually happen or not. And given all the other signs we've seen of advanced mental breakdown on his part, I think it's entirely possible that he's simply unaware of the difference of whether the bridge has been closed or not. Once he said it, that's all that really matters to him. Well, is it all that, is it that, or is it that he gives that impression to his sense? supporters that he's doing things, even though he's not actually doing. But his supporters don't want this.

No, they're going to lose. They're going to lose. They're going to lose any chance in Michigan over the midterms over this. This is not a bridge that happened because we wanted it and Michigan didn't. That is not reality. So unless, and we are not the center of the political universe that Donald Trump operates in. The backlash, we will not defeat Donald Trump, but he is defeating himself increasingly and shrinking his tent.

And at some point there will be a reckoning. It will not come from us, but it will happen. And you're seeing signs of it this week, but you're also seeing signs a year in in Canada of Canadians. Yes, concerned, but not concerned in the sense of let's not make much noise for fear of waking up the lion. Yeah. We're going to take a short break here, but when we come back,

we'll talk about a conservative MP refusing a pay increase and the pushback from his own caucus. That's nice. So what's been made of this move by MP Dawson and the pushback he received? Let's bring everyone back. Chantal, Andrew, and Althea. This is a story that my colleagues have been working on today.

First of all, we should say, and I'm sure Althea was going to make this point, Mike Dawson can't actually refuse the increase. It's a thing, a fait accompli. So I guess he could donate the money. But what do you make of the idea that he was trying to send a signal to Canadians, I guess, Althea, and the people inside his own caucus weren't on board? I think it shows us that he is a new member of the conservative caucus and hasn't been with the kind of team atmosphere that some of the longer veterans might have shed some light about. I mean, basically, the conservatives are upset

because their colleague has shamed them by sending out a press release and saying, I think it's outrageous that I'm getting $10,000 extra. I did nothing. Well, he didn't say this, but I don't deserve it. And everybody else is not getting the same amount of money and the prices are outrageous at the grocery store and this is unfair.

I'm going to refuse it. I don't know if he's, He didn't know that he can't refuse it. But MP's salaries are legislatively tied, like the Supreme Court Justice's salaries, and they go up by a certain percentage every year. And so he is free to say, I will donate it. You know, he could also donate half of his salary if he wants. There's nothing that prevents him from doing this.

But the House of Commons can't deduct $10,000 from his salary because he says he doesn't want it. As far as I know, no other MP has told the House of Commons that they would also. like their salary deducted or inquired about how that would happen. But I think it really just kind of, it puts everybody in a bit of a box on the conservative side, because how do they respond, right? They look like the ones that are not willing to stand up for this increase, whereas, you know, they could have brought forward a private member's bills, saying we should unindex their salaries so that, you know, we don't have these increases every year.

I mean, it's complicated because affordability is an issue for the party, and here's one guy saying, yeah, this is an issue for everyone, and here's what I'm going to do about it. So that's, it's awkward to say the Lee Standard. Yeah, I mean, this is a party that's made great hay out of saying it's only out of touch boomers and Laurentian elites who care about defending the country from Donald Trump. We should be talking about the price of groceries, affordability, the little guy, and somebody actually talks about it within the party, and they basically showed him down. It's within the power of MPs collectively of Parliament to change the legislation governing their pay. There's no law, and there's no cosmic law, shall we say, that says they have to earn $200,000 a piece, given how little they actually do for it, the little in the way of actual roles and responsibilities that are left in members of Parliament. Harsh.

Harsh. Harsh. Harsh. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair. Well, there's no shortage of applicants for the job, shall we say, every time. So the question becomes, people will say, well, we need to pay more to MPs to get good people to go into politics. No, you need to give them meaningful work.

People will take pay cuts. They'll earn much less than they could in the private sector if they think they can make a difference. And the reason that we have such trouble attracting good people into politics is that most of them take a look at it and realize, I'm not going near there. I'm just going to be swallowed up in the machine the same way this poor schmuck has been. Okay, Chantal. That is not my take on MPs. I do believe most of them work hard, and just because they don't have big roles in the House of Commons,

does not make them people who collect fat checks while sitting and waiting for their pension to kick in. Well, you came awfully close to that. I'm saying they don't have real roles or responsibilities left to them. Well, you don't actually know that, but maybe spending a week in a writing office or going to do with Althea, did as an intern, would show you things about people who don't have official roles.

But that being said, it would have been possible if there is this sense from this MP that this should be done, that he go around and try to lead others to it for one. But also, it brings back bad memories for that party. remember the debate over pensions and pension reform. And some MPs saying, I'm not going to take the new pension. And others saying I'm going to opt in. And it puts the onus on individual MPs who already have a tough time with social media going after them. Each MP is now open to attack from whoever feels like doing it to say,

you're all fat cats and why aren't you doing what he's doing? And I can understand the Anhees and his caucus because it is a team sport. Yeah. Well, he's learned that this week. I think he has learned that one lesson anyway. Thank you all. That's at issue for this week. What do you think of an MP refusing their annual pay increase?

Let us know. You can send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. Remember, you can catch me on Sundays at 10am Eastern on Rosemary Barton live. We will be back here in your podcast feeds next week. Thanks for listening. Take good care. For more CBC podcast, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.