Front Burner - As crises mount can Trudeau get back on track?

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

A dispute with India over assassination allegations. A Nazi fighter in Parliament. Plus a housing and cost of living crisis. What damage has been done? Can Justin Trudeau find a path forward? Or will his party and the country lose faith? Catherine Cullen, senior reporter and host of CBC’s political podcast The House, answers those questions and more. 

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everyone, it's Tamara. I'm sad to say today is my last day hosting FrontBurner. The last three months have gone by way too fast, and it's been so nice to get to talk to all of you five days a week and to work with the wonderful team behind this show. Jamie will be back very soon, but for now, starting next week, I'm handing the mic over to my colleague, Damon Fairless.

Thank you so much for listening, and on to today's episode. After trailing the Conservatives and the polls all summer, Canada's Liberal government was hoping for a fresh start this fall. And then... We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian world veteran from the Second World War who fought the Ukrainian independence

against the Russians and continues to support the troops today, even at his age of 98. Parliament hasn't even been back for two weeks, and the country's already made international headlines twice. The week before, for accusations that India could be linked to the assassination of a Canadian citizen. And this comes as the Prime Minister was already the target of a lot of anger as Canadians struggle to make ends meet. a lot of anger as Canadians struggle to make ends meet.

Today, we're taking stock of the mounting crises piling up at home and abroad for Justin Trudeau and looking ahead a bit to some thorny issues he'll be facing in the near future. Is there a path forward for the leader or will his party and the country lose faith? Catherine Cullen is back on the show to tackle those questions. She's a senior reporter on Parliament Hill and the host of CBC's political podcast, The House.

Hi, Catherine. Hi, Tamara. Thanks for being here. So I want to get into the many things going sideways right now for Justin Trudeau's government. But first, let's go back to the beginning of the month when the liberals went to their London caucus retreat. They were pretty deflated. They were getting hammered on housing, interest rates. People were drowning under the cost of living. And the polls reflected that with the Liberals lagging behind the CPC. But when they came out, they seemed to have a plan to win over Canadians. And what had the party envisioned for the beginning of this

session in Parliament? Yeah, it sort of felt like they were trying to hit the refresh button. And, you know, the caucus meeting ended with Trudeau, all his MPs behind him clapping. There was maybe a sense that this could have been something of a turning point for them, in part because they did put forward some new measures on affordability, which a lot of Liberal MPs had acknowledged. They felt that was what Canadians wanted to see. So they're going to cut the GST on new housing units. They made this pitch that they were going to bring together all the grocery company CEOs and talk about stabilizing prices in time for Thanksgiving. But all of that got swallowed pretty quickly by some international intrigue. OK, so that was the plan, but they barely got through the day before Trudeau's India announcement in the House of Commons. Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing

credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. And the repercussions for that came fast. And what's happened so far as a result of that announcement? pretty rocky relationship with India. Somebody described it to me as putting the relationship in a cryogenic freezer. And it's not just this sort of chill, which might seem like an abstract thing. There were concrete implications. There are concrete implications, too. Canada kicked out an Indian diplomat in response to this. So India kicked out a Canadian diplomat. India then upped the ante. They suspended visa services for

Canadians. And that's something that people in their day-to-day lives are really going to feel the impact of. Right. The suspending visas for Canadians is a pretty big deal. There's a huge Indian population here, lots of people with families in India. Canadians were the fourth largest tourist group in 2021 with 80,000 people visiting the country, but it's pretty hard for Canada to retaliate in that way, right? Yeah, it would have major implications for Canada. Obviously, it would upset a lot of people within Canada, which is, I think, part of what the Indian government was trying to do here, right? The discontent of people affected by this, they're hoping that that puts pressure on the government. But if suddenly people from India

can't come to Canada, well, that upsets, again, big parts of the population here in Canada. It also has a really big implication because we bring in so many international students from India. So there's an economic pain that universities and colleges would feel. The idea also that Canada would up the ante when this has already been a bombshell, it really doesn't feel like that's where we're at in this discussion. That's not what the government seems to be trying to do. I think they're trying to calm things down a little bit at this point. And just really quickly, can you talk a bit about how this has impacted Canada's trade relationship with India? Well, we know that going into Justin Trudeau's visit to India,

which came before these allegations were made public, that Trade Minister Mary Ng was talking about, you know, building stronger trade ties with India. And suddenly, those conversations seemed to be off. So at the time of the visit, when Justin Trudeau was in India, we thought, oh, is this a sign that, you know, the two sides aren't getting along? We now see it differently in hindsight, right? Understanding that at the time, the Prime minister was saying to Narendra Modi, we have this credible evidence, we have some very real concerns. You're not exactly going to be trying to, I think, build stronger ties when all this uncertainty has been created. So yes, certainly a chill there. We haven't seen the kind of economic repercussions that we saw,

for instance, when things went offside with China, where China stopped accepting some Canadian goods. And I think there are a lot of farmers in Canada that are glad that this hasn't resulted in the kind of economic implications that could really hurt them seriously if they suddenly lose a market for their products. They've been growing things like lentils. This is far from over. The investigation's ongoing and we haven't seen charges yet. So it's probably safe to say that this is going to be a persistent issue for this government, right? It seems inevitable that it is going to be a persistent issue because we assume that behind the scenes, the criminal investigation is moving forward. As you said, charges would be one sort of new inflection point in all of this. There have been questions around what precisely the evidence is

to back up the claim that Canada is making. CBC News, my colleague Evan Dyer, has done some reporting around that, saying that there is both signals intelligence, so basically messages that were intercepted, and human intelligence, so people providing intel. But does that evidence become public? Well, that would be a new point of tension around all of this. Also, if there are charges, do we ever get to the point, and I don't think this is like a wild hypothetical leap,

if Canada believes the Indian government is involved, do we get to the point of asking for extradition? And is there a world where India would ever extradite anybody? Now, again, important to say, we're not there yet. These are allegations. anybody know. Again, important to say, we're not there yet. These are allegations. There haven't been charges. But you can see that if Canada had strong enough evidence to make these allegations public, it seems almost inevitable or certainly very likely that this is going to continue to move forward and these moments of tension are going to crop up again and we don't know what the blowback will be. So that happened. And then four days later, the government applauded a man who fought with the Nazis in Parliament. He's a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero,

in Parliament. He's a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service. Thank you. And since then, it's been a solid week in crisis mode. And what has that looked like for the government? It's not absolute chaos. I think that's a bit too strong, but a real sense that it's just been a hot mess of really strong feelings here on Parliament Hill. A lot of upset people talking about being disgusted by what happened. And between the political parties, really quite angry at each other. But I think it's important to actually take a bit of a mental step back and think about what Friday was supposed to be. Justin Trudeau has had a rough political go and surely he thought walking into the House of Commons on Friday, finally a win. Like this will be nice. After this rough week with India. OK, I'm going to sit here with my buddy Vladimir Zelensky.

And then Zelensky goes on to give this speech about what a light in the world Canada is. goes on to give this speech about what a light in the world Canada is. And I thank you, Canada, for being a real example of leadership and honesty for so many around the world, an example that inspires others to defend life. Sort of talks about us as a moral beacon who always makes the right choices. So Justin Trudeau thinks something's finally going right. Of course, I don't know what he's thinking, but this is what you imagine. And then, blam, right over the weekend, it starts to come to light what had actually gone on with this man, Yaroslav Hunko, who was applauded in the gallery. And as you say, the fact that he fought under the

command of the Nazis. And it has led to this really, you know, this is such a gut punch. Yeah, and I guess just to kind of recap, in the days since Roda has lost his job, he resigned. Trudeau has apologized and apologized on behalf of the Canadian government. On behalf of all of us in this house, I would like to present unreserved apologies for what took place on Friday and to President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation for the position they were put in. For all of us who were present to have unknowingly recognized this individual was a terrible mistake and a violation of the memory of those who suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazi regime. Is that enough, you think, in terms of damage control? I mean, what is enough, right? On the one hand, I do think the majority of the big political discourse around this has quieted down because Anthony Roda has stepped away from his job. And the apology, I think, too, just sort of felt like perhaps the end of, like,

the really great, big, top-of-the-website, front-page-of-the-newspaper headlines on this. But there's some damage here that I think we have to acknowledge. It can't really be undone exactly to Canada's reputation. Like, sure, it's not top of mind over time, but the prime minister has said repeatedly, this is very embarrassing for Canada. Plus, on top of that, you got Russia making hay with this, right? People will remember that when Vladimir Putin went ahead with this full-scale invasion of Ukraine, part of his excuse was the denazification of Ukraine. So you've handed them a sort of propaganda

win, which I think is just, again, another gut punch in what is ultimately just a really sad situation. Yeah, like you said, this was supposed to be a win and it turned into kind of a nightmare. I'm sure having the immigration minister, Mark Miller, being grilled about this and about Canada's history harboring Nazis on his way to the weekly caucus meeting isn't what the government had in mind for September. Canada has a really dark history with Nazis in Canada. There was a point in our history where it was easier to get in as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person. I think that's history. I think we have to reconcile the cabinet. It brings me back to that point that Volodymyr Zelensky made in his speech when he said Canada is always on the bright side of history. Justice is not an empty word for Canada.

Another extremely important fact about you is that you never, never, ever make a political bet on hatred and enmity. And you are always on the bright side of history. Now, even in the moment, I'm sure there are many people who might have quibbled with that claim. We're approaching the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, so there's a prime example. But what you talked about there, Mark Miller talking about Canada's history of letting in people who fought with the Nazis and by many accounts, not doing enough to hold them for account, letting some of them live out their lives in peace. Those are not the actions

of a moral beacon. In the end, the very same event where Canada was sort of being held up winds up being this moment where we're an example of almost the opposite side of the coin of things going terribly wrong. I also heard that there was a nighttime caucus meeting without the prime minister this week. And I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in that room. Do we have any idea what happened inside? a fly on the wall in that room. Do we have any idea what happened inside? No, which pains me to say. The timing is very weird because all party caucus meetings happen on Wednesday morning. So you're about to all get together and then there's this late night meeting the night before. Very strange. We understand that it seems to have been about the news around Juncker and next steps,

but Liberal MPs have been pretty tight-lipped about what exactly happened. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to,

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And what kind of effect do you think all of this has on the cohesiveness of Trudeau's government? One thing that I think was so interesting about that cabinet shuffle is that it did send the message, Justin Trudeau really is sticking around, right? You don't completely retool your cabinet if you're sort of thinking like, maybe I've had enough of this whole prime minister gig. I'm going to go try something else. You have to wonder if he's had at least a private moment or two since then going, oh, my goodness, it's not about the cabinet necessarily. It's his caucus. It's all the Liberal MPs. They have been freaked out by what's happening with the Liberals in the polls. And, you know, some politicians like to say, oh, we don't talk about polls.

OK, fine. Let's not talk about it in terms of polls. Then we can talk about what they're hearing when they go to, when they went to barbecues over the summer, when they knocked on people's doors and people were saying, I can't afford to buy groceries to feed my family. I'm worried about being rent evicted. I'm worried that when my, you know, I have to renew my mortgage, I won't be able to afford it. I'm going to get kicked out of my home. These bread and butter issues. And I think like that is the fundamental challenge for the Liberals here is within the party. I think there is the fundamental challenge for the liberals here is within the party. I think there certainly was a sense around that caucus meeting that they weren't meeting Canadians where they were.

And if you look at what's happened since, I mean, you know, Justin Trudeau sat down with Jamie Poisson the very same morning before that India allegation came out. Right. He wanted to talk about what he was doing on housing. And it just things just keep getting knocked wildly off course for him. And I do think there's discontent that, you know, maybe they softened some of that at caucus by all being in the same room and hearing the MPs out. But it's still, it's still burbling. It certainly hasn't all gone away. Yeah. I mean, I was also wondering, like, even if you're someone who doesn't care about foreign policy, if you're not impacted by the India issue, if you believe that this was an honest mistake, what happened with this person in parliament, there is still crisis after crisis. And if you're someone who wants the government to do something about the cost of living crisis, I wonder what kind of impact that

has. Like, is there a compounding impact here on how the public views this government? Well, just look at what happened in the spring with foreign interference, right? Parliament Hill absolutely gripped with this discussion around foreign interference. The average Canadian, meh. You know, I think that obviously that varies from individual to individual, particularly if you're a member of one of the diaspora communities that's being directly affected by foreign interference. That's not true. But like day to day, that was a complicated story. People weren't necessarily following the ins and outs. The bigger problem, you could argue politically for the government, is that they were talking about foreign interference

every day instead of using that same time to talk about housing and affordability. And so is this just a version of history repeating itself? I mean, I think like we kind of have to slow our roll. It's been like two weeks now. It's not months and months of this. But again're preventing the government from talking about the things that are, or overshadowing it, at least. I don't want to suggest that none of those conversations are happening. They are, but it's not probably what's filtering its way down to people who are only casual observers of politics. So you mentioned this foreign interference thing, and that's something that's coming down the pike. And I wanted to look a little bit at what's next for this government.

So there is an inquiry coming up into foreign interference. Can you talk a bit about that? And what kind of news will this dredge up that Trudeau would probably rather forget? Yeah. And in fact, you know, it was the day that Trudeau made the India allegation was the first day that the judge in charge of the public inquiry was supposed to start to do her work. When we talk about foreign interference, what we have meant over the past several months has been attempts to interfere in our democratic process or our elections. Our discussion has primarily been about the Chinese regime and the ways in which, and there are many government reports that have all said the Chinese regime did try to interfere in the last two Canadian elections, wasn't so

successful that it changed the outcome, but it happened. And it's an uncomfortable topic for the government because there are certainly some questions about whether the government was transparent enough or whether officials, even if they weren't political officials, were transparent enough with Canadians about what was going on. now former conservative Aaron O'Toole, he's left politics, and the NDP's Jenny Kwan, that the security officials were aware that they were being targeted, that they were potentially in some manner threatened by China, and that none of that got brought to the attention of those MPs. All that's going to get dredged up again. We don't know what else we're going to learn either and how that might also put pressure on Canada's fraught relationship with China. At what point do you think people inside the party get fed up? Like, Trudeau has made it clear that he's the guy that's going to run in the next election. But

do we have a sense that his party believes that or are there signs that he might be in trouble? I will say, as far as I know, like there is no political coup in the works, right? There's not an organized effort that I'm aware of to take him down. I think the challenge is more MPs, again, who are freaked out that they're going to lose their seat, that the government doesn't seem seized with the issues Canadians are thinking about. And that does have a corrosive effect. I mean, you can continue to be leader like there's no one there. You know, there are there are other members of the Liberal Party who are high profile, who people might say, oh, maybe this person or that person would make a good alternative leader.

But the truth is also that he's a really well-known name. Canadians feel strongly about Justin Trudeau. The argument has been made he's their best asset. But right now, I mean, the polls suggest it's just not working the way it used to. few months for the prime minister to ensure that the MPs in the Liberal Party remain on side. And more importantly, that Canadians do. He's got to get back on to the things that he wants to be talking about, right? Housing, affordability, trying to do something about the cost of groceries. First of all, to just be primarily talking about those things and ensuring people hear it. And then above and beyond that, convincing people that the solutions he's offering are really going to make a difference in their lives. And that isn't what has really been happening the last two weeks on Parliament Hill. Any efforts to do that have just been totally consumed by these bombshell issues. Okay, Catherine, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Tamara. It was

great talking with you. All right, that's all for now. This week, Front Burner was produced by Shannon Higgins, Rafferty Baker, Joyta Shangupta, Lauren Donnelly, and Derek Vanderwyk. Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Chavison. Our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Nick McKay-Blokos. And I'm Tamara Kandaker. Thanks for listening. FrontBurner will be back on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.