Front Burner - Minority Report: What to watch for as the House returns

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

The Conservative Party is objecting to Parliament’s new mandatory vaccination policy. Its leader, Erin O’Toole, is fending off attacks on his leadership. And the Liberals are being accused of benefiting from unfair advantages in the House. This is just some of what’s playing out as Parliament returns for the first time since June and the federal election. CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton breaks down the new political season for us.

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. Hi, I'm Angela Starrett. I'm Senator Denise Batters, and I'm launching a petition so that our party members can have their say on the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole is fending off attacks on his leadership.

His party is objecting to Parliament's new mandatory vaccination policy. And the Liberals are being accused of benefiting from unfair advantages in the House. This is just some of what's playing out as Parliament returns for the first time since June and the federal election. It's a lot to cover, so who better to explain it than CBC's chief political correspondent, Rosemary Barton. Hi, Rosie. Hi, Angela. So today is the Commons' first sitting with a mandatory vaccination policy for MPs, unless, of course, they have a medical exemption.

The Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens are all in favour of this mandate. The Conservatives are not. Why is that? Well, it's not that they are against vaccination. In fact, the leader, Aaron O'Toole, has said quite the opposite. He himself is vaccinated. He encourages Canadians to get vaccinated. Vaccines are safe and effective for use. Vaccines are the best way for you to protect yourself, your family and your community.

So get vaccinated. Let's fight COVID-19 together. And certainly we, as a Bureau here, have tried to contact as many MPs to find out if they are. The vast majority of Conservative MPs are vaccinated. But there are some of them who just don't want to say, believe that this is a private health issue and that they shouldn't have to disclose it to the media. And then there are those who believe that mandates impinge on their freedom and that they shouldn't have to be forced or dictated to about their own personal health choices. So that's sort of where their thinking is in a broad way. Interestingly, on Friday, Aaron O'Toole did an interview with my colleague,

Daniel Thibault, at the Les Coulisses du Pouvoir, which is Radio-Canada's Sunday political talk show. And for about 10 minutes, they went back and forth in hopes that Daniel could get a clear answer from Mr. O'Toole. But he seemed to suggest in that interview that all his MPs will show up on Monday today and that they are either vaccinated or have a medical exemption. It was a little still vague at the end of the interview, but that's what he suggested. So I'm not really sure we're going to see any any issues when MPs show up. But I guess we'll wait and see because, again,

it was a little bit vague, his answers. And I mean, just to be clear, does O'Toole support actual mandatory vaccinations for MPs in the House? Like, why doesn't he come out and say that? To be honest, it's because of his own caucus problems, which I'm sure we'll talk about. He has to be sort of the defender of personal choice and freedoms. And so he can't actually say, I'm in favor of mandatory vaccinations. We've always said that vaccines are critical and we need to encourage as many people to get vaccinated as possible. And our party encourages that. Some of your members aren't.

What we've said is it is a personal health choice. And when we're trying to tackle that remaining 10% of our society that may be not vaccinated has some hesitancy, the way you tackle that is by addressing it. And we've got a plan actually to do that without dividing people or having an us versus them. Which is consistent with what his position has been for some time. He also wasn't a huge proponent of mandatory vaccines for the public service or mandatory vaccinations for airlines and railways too.

I will respect the personal health decisions of Canadians. And we can use rapid testing on a daily basis to make sure we all do our part to fight COVID-19. And yeah, that was an issue during the campaign as well, right? Yeah, a divisive one. And, you know, one that, yes, is where Erin O'Toole's base is, certainly, and is an issue for Conservatives, but not where the vast majority of Canadians are.

I think we're now sort of up in the 85% of Canadians who mostly support vaccine mandates for public health reasons. And of course, all throughout the pandemic, we've seen these different hybrid situations. Since O'Toole objects, what do you know about what he's going to do about that in the House? Yeah, so the Conservatives very much want to see Parliament returned in person. They want all MPs to be there, which may seem inconsistent with the idea about being sort of against a vaccine mandate. But this is what their position is. The Liberals and the NDP are certainly more flexible, happy to have a hybrid situation

where some people would be there and some people would be on Zoom like the rest of us who are still doing our jobs that way. But conservatives really believe that the Liberals are not being transparent enough, that they are hiding from Canadians, that they aren't answering all questions when they're not there. So they would like to see everybody in the House. And you touched on this very briefly, just about, I guess, divisions into the House. O'Toole is walking into the House while dealing with infighting over his leadership. I mean, just last week, he booted Senator Denise Batters from caucus. What steps was Batters taking to try to get O'Toole removed? So she is a conservative senator who was appointed by Stephen Harper.

Her deceased husband was a conservative MP. She was very close to Harper, but she was also close to Andrew Scheer. She's also from Saskatchewan and close to Peter McKay. close to Andrew Scheer. She's also from Saskatchewan and close to Peter McKay. Those are all sort of relevant points. As I explained that she now launched publicly an offensive against Erin O'Toole, launching a petition for an expedited leadership review. Erin O'Toole lectured our party members on election night, telling us we need to have the courage to change into what he hasn't yet said. But members deserve to have a say on this change and the future direction of this party, including our leadership. Fellow Conservative Party members, join me in

signing this petition and make your voice heard. Now, there are different views within the party about whether that constitutionally was allowed. But what really angered Conservatives was not necessarily that she had started the petition, but that she went on a bunch of talk shows and talked about it and talked about Aaron O'Toole and what she believed were his contradictory positions during the leadership race versus during the election campaign, where some Conservatives believed he brought them closer to the middle, like more progressive Conservatives. All I want is for the members to get a say in such an important matter of our party.

When Mr. O'Toole has taken the party in such a dramatic reversal of direction, the members need to have a say in that. Our last policy convention was in March. That was one month before Erin O'Toole did the 180-degree flip-flop on the carbon tax. So the members deserve to have a say on such important matters. This was the beginning of something that is public. And we know that this is not just Senator Batters, who has now been thrown out of Conservative caucus,

though not the Senate Conservative caucus, just the general national caucus. We know there are other people there. I think the question now is whether this really aggressive move to try and, you know, cut the movement off at its head will be enough to quiet other people or whether other people will now feel emboldened to push back against this really pretty heavy handed discipline that was probably needed, frankly, if Aaron O'Toole wants to show that he is a strong leader. And I mean, these are two cases where it seems like minority opinions are leading to big problems for the party. It's small groups who are refusing to get vaccinated or openly pushing for a new leader. So how can the Conservatives stop these splits from growing into bigger, bigger fractures? Yeah, I mean, this is the problem for the Conservative Party. It is a coalition of groups, whether it be libertarians or fiscal conservatives and all sorts of different branches of the Conservative Party, of course, that was formed by the progressive conservatives and the Reform Party.

And that's always been a hard and fragile coalition. What seems to work for the Conservative Party is when you have a leader who is able to, I would say, A, keep a heavy hand on discipline, as we saw under Stephen Harper, or B, able to give a little bit to all those different groups in order to keep them happy. That has been a real challenge under Andrew Scheer previously and now under Aaron O'Toole. And I think this will be a

test of whether he's able to be responsive to those different groups and keep them all satisfied, maybe not happy, but satisfied. I'm not sure that we've seen that yet. You know, his bid to become leader was really him suggesting he was a true blue conservative and pushing into some of the areas that he knew would make the base happy. It's time for a true blue conservative who can win the next election and get our country back on track. Who's going to fight for auto workers who just saw the last car roll off the line? Who's going to fight for forestry workers who just watched another mill close? Who's going to stand up for those

who wear a uniform of service to protect us at home and abroad? Who's going to defend our history, our institutions against attacks from cancel culture and the radical left? The stakes are high for Canada. In order to win an election, he tried to move into the middle,

which is where most Canadian voters are. And he didn't win the election. And so some people view that as a strategic mistake. And whether or not they are going to get louder, I think is really unclear right now. But certainly, unless Mr. O'Toole does something, they will. And how are members of the Conservative caucus that support O'Toole rallying behind him right now? Well, I mean, there are public statements, certainly, from people, people admonishing Senator Batters. And so we can't abide by members who aren't following the law. And that's the reason why, one of the reasons why the decision was taken, which I fully support.

I think all MPs should be focused on the needs of Canadians, period. Do you think this puts an end to this call for leadership now that Ms. Batters is out of the Conservative caucus? I sure hope so. But, you know, I think there's an interesting question there around if Aaron O'Toole wants to show his force and strength as leader, maybe he should allow that leadership review to be triggered in caucus. If he believes he has the support, you know, would that actually quell some people's concerns about him to have then a public display within his own caucus to quiet people down? For now, that's not the road he wants to take and the Conservative caucus wants to take. They're hoping that this situation with batters will quiet things down. I think they're

also hoping that once everyone's back in the House, that Mr. O'Toole will be able to sort of, you know, redirect everyone's fire towards the Prime Minister and towards the Liberals. 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.

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I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Flipping over to the liberals now, we're seeing claims that they got some unfair help from inside parliament the clerk of the house of commons is supposed to be an impartial figure who advises all mps on procedure so what's behind accusations that he's biased towards the liberals so this is some excellent reporting by my colleague ash Ashley Burke, who got multiple sources. And by multiple, I mean like 10 people who came to her and said that they had concerns about how he was doing his job.

So he's supposed to be sort of the arbiter, the procedural arbiter inside the House of Commons to make sure nobody gets unfair advantage. And there were multiple people saying that he made partisan comments at times. Sources allege Robert admitted to staff that he told the Liberals the outcome of a ruling ahead of time and asked the party when it wanted the speaker to deliver it in the House. After the Liberals won a minority in 2019, Robert also allegedly said during a speech to hundreds of staff that he was happy with the results. The clerk should feel loyal to the... That he shared confidential information to liberals that would have given them an advantage,

a procedural advantage inside the House. I know this sounds really inside Ottawa and super nerdy, but... And it is. But it's also important because if you have someone in the House who is not perceived to be giving, for instance, equal time, right, or equal opportunity to make a case or debate on an issue or vote on an issue, then it could give advantage to a government. And in a minority situation, that becomes problematic. The clerk, Charles Robert, has said this is not the case, that he has served with integrity and to the best of his ability. The Liberal House leader came out and defended him. But the Conservatives and the NDP want to see more on this.

They want to investigate a little bit further what has happened here. So I'm not sure how much of that is going to get hung up in these first couple of days, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. And just to note here, Robert maintains he served all parties with integrity. The Conservatives and the NDP are now calling for emails and text messages between Robert and the Liberals to be released. I mean, with all of this, it's almost easy to forget that we're getting a speech from the throne tomorrow. The Liberals only have four weeks in the Commons before breaking for the holidays. So what are we

expecting Trudeau and the Liberals will point to as priorities with this speech? Yeah, I mean, it's not a lot of time to get stuff done, that's for sure. But the throne speech has to do a couple things. I mean, broadly, it lays out the government's priorities, the things that it campaigned on, expect to hear a lot about the pandemic, obviously, and recovery after COVID, expect to hear a lot about climate change. And because of what we're seeing where you are in British Columbia and the government's climate agenda, I would think that you would see those two things linked as well in the throne speech as evidence that things need to happen urgently. But there should also be sort of a message to the

opposition parties, particularly the ones the government knows that it can work with the NDP and the bloc, that it is listening to them and willing to cooperate with them on a handful of issues. So that would be sort of the overall message that I think we would get from this throne speech. But more specifically, there are about eight bills and a handful of other measures that the government committed to doing within 100 days. We started that clock ticking after the election. I'm not sure the government did, but those bills would be things like a ban on conversion therapy, which was on the order paper last session but died and is really important to the LGBTQ community, and federal paid sick leave days. They promised 10 of those during the election. That

would be one of the early pieces of legislation. And also the ban on protests outside of healthcare institutes. We saw, of course, during the election, some really heated moments where people were protesting outside of hospitals. So the government would also move quickly on that front. And the Liberals want a minority, of course, so they once again need support to pass the throne speech and legislation. Will they be looking to the NDP for that? And what will the NDP be pushing for in exchange for that support? Yeah, I mean, there have been all these reports, as I'm sure people have seen, that there's some sort of arrangement between the Liberals and the NDP. I have not seen any evidence of anything formal.

Certainly there are conversations happening around, OK, well, what would you be willing to support? What wouldn't you? That's normal in a minority government. In fact, that's what we would want. That's what Canadians chose, right? To have some sort of level of collaboration and cooperation. So the NDP is the most obvious dance partner in most instances. They are certainly looking for extensions of support when it comes to pandemic relief. The federal paid sick leave would be a big one for the NDP as well. They pushed hard for that last time. Will the prime minister commit today to ensuring that all workers have paid sick leave? Will the prime minister commit? Will this prime minister commit? They would also be in favour of

strong and aggressive action on climate change. So there's some really natural places for that to happen. But I think we can also expect the NDP to push on things that the Liberals didn't even necessarily talk about during the last election campaign, like pharmacare. For Canadians, we recognise that now is the time to do more and to move forward towards national universal pharma care. But we recognize as the leader... That was mentioned once in the last election platform, but it was a major promise back in 2019.

So look for the NDP, I think, to push the liberals as far as possible as they can get them on the progressive left to try and commit to some of these social programs. And the NDP also took a lot of heat this weekend from their progressive base. We saw a lot of people saying they weren't fast enough or strong enough in responding to the arrests in Wet'suwet'en territory. Wet'suwet'en members put up barricades late last weekend. The barricades have cut off Thursday and 15 people on Friday, including photojournalist Amber Bracken, who was documenting the blockade of the Coastal GasLink worksite. This is obviously a tricky political needle for this party to thread as the BCNDP

are in leadership right now. What should the federal party be keeping in mind as they navigate this politically? Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. This is always complicated for the federal NDP and their BC cousins. In fact, on a handful of issues, the premier of BC and Jagmeet Singh have not necessarily been aligned. I think on this one, I think we would expect that Jagmeet Singh, given the position he's taken previously around these kinds of protests, probably should be more outspoken and perhaps will be in the days to come. I mean, I'm not sure he has anything to lose by standing up for the protesters

in the face of John Horgan and the B.C. government. They are friendly, but they are not best friends. So I wouldn't be surprised to see Mr. Singh bow to some of that pressure that you're talking about. And what about the Liberals? What are the factors they're likely weighing as this unfolds? You know, I think that there will be questions about what kind of progress was made in those talks with the Wet'suwet'en and the original agreement that stopped the protests that had been building. Where did those talks go? And why are we back to this space where people are being arrested, including, as you say, journalists?

I think that will be one of the early questions for the Liberals in question period, certainly. I guess the question is, where does it come from, that question, as you point out? It's unlikely to come from the Conservatives. It's sure not going to come from the bloc. So really, the only party that has the ability to put any pressure on the government on this is the NDP. So they sort of have to figure out strategically where they want to be on this, because otherwise, I'm not sure how much the government is going to have to answer for it. I feel like we've covered quite a bit of ground here, Rosie. I mean, but still, is there anything we haven't covered that you're watching for right now? No, I mean, I think it'll be nice to see people back in the house if they all come back and it's not virtual. You know, I think people often forget that MPs do a lot of work, of course, even if the House isn't sitting, as does the government. But this is a place where you can see them doing things and where legislation and big changes can happen for Canadians. And so I'm happy that they're getting back to it and we can continue to hold them to account. Rosie, thank you so much for this. It's been great to chat.

Yeah, good to talk to you, Angela. Before we let you go, you heard in the episode about several people who were arrested, including two journalists at a blockade of a coastal gas link work camp in Wet'suwet'en territory in BC. They're all expected to appear in court today. Coastal GasLink said in an online statement

Friday that the steps taken by the RCMP were quote-unquote unfortunate but necessary to restore access to bring supplies including food and water to their workers. We're working on an episode about this for you right now, so make sure to refresh your feed tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.