Front Burner - New Canadian ‘centrist’ party accuses rivals of extremism

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

 A new federal political party, the Canadian Future Party, is pitching itself as a centrist alternative for voters disillusioned with the Conservatives and Liberals.It’s already announced candidates for two upcoming byelections.Front Burner host Jayme Poisson spoke with the party’s interim leader, Dominic Cardy, about why he believes voters are so dissatisfied with the major parties, how he says there’s a “drive towards more and more extremism” among the Liberals and Conservatives, and why he thinks centrism can satisfy Canadians looking for change.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 Jamie Poisson. Let me know if I'm alone in this experience, but before every election, I end up overhearing people in my family or my friends having the same conversation. They talk about their voting options. Then someone inevitably asks, can you believe this is what we have to pick from?

Couldn't anyone find a policy platform or a leader I actually want to vote for? Well, last week, a new federal party officially launched itself, trying to be an answer to exactly that kind of fatigue. The Canadian Future Party is pitching itself as a centrist option for people sick of the Liberals and the Conservatives. And the party already says it's running candidates in by-elections next month. This announcement made me wonder, what did the people behind the sea as so broken with our political landscape that they thought we needed a new party? Why would Canadians vote for centrism at a time when they're clamoring for change? And what does a party defined by holding the center of the spectrum actually believe? So I'm talking to Dominic Carty.

He was formerly the leader of the New Brunswick NDP and the education minister under New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs' progressive conservative government. He is now interim leader of the Canadian Future Party. Mr. Carty, thank you very much for coming on to FrontBurner. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Much appreciated. So your party is billing itself as a home for Canadians who are, quote, politically homeless. And can you describe for me who this potential voter is to you? Like, who have they voted for in the past? And how do you think they feel as they look around Canada's political landscape right now?

Well, our slogan is not left, not right, but forward. And that sort of sums it up that you get about 70% of Canadians who say that they are broadly in the middle, that they are socially liberal, really not particularly interested in who's in love with who or any of those personal questions. Don't want to interfere with what a woman does with her body. Any of those personal questions, don't want to interfere with what a woman does with her body, equally are fiscally responsible. Support government programs, absolutely, but want to see them deliver results, recognizing that if we spend public money, that there should be results for the public that comes from that spending. And there's no contradiction between expecting results from the public service and being a supporter of government programs. So that's our goal, is we want to have a program that really talks about making democracy deliver for Canada. Because if democracy isn't seen as delivering by voters, it opens the door to the sort of dangerous populism that unfortunately I think that we've seen Mr. Polyevre engage in.

And sadly, Mr. Trudeau has been the perfect foil for Mr. Polyev by over-promising and under-delivering on program after program, spending that does not appear to be connected to results at all, a growth in a public service that's happening at the same time as the public service is felt to be delivering less and less to Canadians. So we think that there's a need for bravery to look at some real restructuring of the programs that we have, to look at what works and what doesn't work in our government, and to do all of that in a value package that is very clear about where we stand in terms of being strong supporters for the Western model of liberal democracy, small liberal, and supporting individual freedoms, collective

responsibilities, and standing up for democracy at home and abroad. Okay, lots going on in there. So let's try and unpack that. I think, if we could, let's start with the liberal side of the equation. And just elaborate for me more on what you think the liberals are falling short of here. Sure. We have people who have been drawn into the leadership of the Canadian Future Party from all different parties. And we've had lots of Liberals join both before our launch last week, but then in the last week, so many people on the organizational and policy side who had backgrounds in the Liberal Party saying, thank God there's a home for people who are talking

some sense, that there's been a real concern throughout the time that Mr. Trudeau has been prime minister, that he has done a great job of making announcements, making apologies, giving speeches, but the delivery hasn't been there. We still have First Nations communities that don't have drinking water. When I was education minister, I worked for nearly 18 months on negotiations with the federal government around signing the $10 a day childcare deal for New Brunswick. And at that point, it was clear that that program was going to need substantial additional investment from the feds at the most two years after it was signed.

When I heard the feds then turn around and try and blame the New Brunswick and other governments for not really supporting the program because they were making those demands that they knew were going to come. That was the sort of cynicism that I'm talking about, where efforts by provinces to work with the feds were spun back at them as the federal government attempted to turn it into a political issue where they could claim that, in this case, progressive conservatives didn't support childcare. It's the politicizing of social programs rather than delivering on the promise of social

programs that is my biggest concern with the liberals, that we've got multiple programs that are being announced with insufficient funding, insufficient planning. And when we roll out government programs that aren't planned and aren't funded, it increases cynicism about those programs, which makes it more likely that we get a hardline right-wing reaction to that saying government shouldn't be involved in these areas lest it's cancelled them all. So I think Mr. Trudeau's team are actually responsible for some of the biggest moves towards an anti-government perspective that Canada has ever seen, unfortunately. And I don't even know if they realize it, but the fact that they don't is why this new party, I think, is needed. I just want to pick up on child care as an example there.

I take your point that there have been real issues with the rollout of that program, but there are still a lot of people that are currently using or benefiting from that program and are getting, you know, substantially discounted daycare fees. I'm one of them. I just want to be transparent there. So, like, how would you respond to the argument that, like, it's not perfect, but this is a program that people have been asking for for decades? And many of them still don't have it. You have it, but lots of people don't. And here in New Brunswick, we have thousands of families that were asking for subsidized

spaces and see their neighbors, folks like you who were lucky enough to be able to get a subsidized spot, and they can't access it, but they're paying the same amount in taxes. So it's not fair to have a universal program that isn't universal. Because if you do that, it just increases the perception that there are winners and losers, and it depends on who you know and whatever else. And in many cases, that's not even true or fair. But if you don't have government programs delivering for the public, and instead they only deliver for some people, it makes people more cynical, which is one of the reasons

Mr. Polyev hasn't committed to keeping it. Getting rid of it will be a disaster. It needs to be fixed and improved upon. But when we have the folks who are launching these programs, whether it's the early childhood education program, whether it's pharmacare, whether it's dental care, all of these programs that look great on the first day when they're announced, but there is no substantial plan to make sure that they work in the long term. And that has got to be the focus, is making democracy deliver. Same as healthcare. I spent the last winter talking to university and high school students. There's a lot of young people who are on the left, much further to the old left than I am, who are really not pleased about the idea of paying a large chunk of their

income in taxes for a healthcare system that, as one young person told me, my grandmother can't get a hip replacement surgery, my mother hasn't been able to get in to have an elective surgery, and I don't have a family doctor. Being told that our healthcare system is so great and wonderful and distinguishes us from other countries when Canadians can't access it increases cynicism about government. So what I'm hearing from you, correct me if I'm wrong, is really a criticism of the execution of these policies, right? And you started this conversation saying that your party slogan is not left, not right, but forward, right? And so, like, are you taking issue with the liberals in their political leanings?

Do you think that they have gone too far left? Well, I think there's been an enormous focus on performative politics. When we say that we are not left, not right, want to go forward, our basic position is that we are being right now kind of conned by our two major parties who act as though there's this left-right divide between people who want the government to do everything and the government to do nothing. First off, neither of those parties really believe that. Both of them believe in a mixed economy with the private sector making the money and public sector delivering on some programs. But when we talk about our politics in the left-right context like this, it forces those of us who are more or less socially liberal to say, okay, well, maybe I have to support the liberals.

But then with that comes this utter financial incontinence where they're just unable to keep control of the money that's spent or connected in any way to results for Canadians. And then you say on the other side, okay, well, if I'm looking for fiscal responsibility, I go to the Tories. But on the Tory side, you see that party embracing meetings with actual German neo-fascist members of the European Parliament. You see them taking someone like Roman Baber, who was expelled from Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative Party for his extreme views on social questions and his anti-vax perspective, welcomed as a candidate by the federal conservatives. So there's this drive towards more and more extremism, more on the rhetorical side with the Liberals and some policies with the Conservatives.

And that's driving people further and further away from a middle ground where we can actually sit down and talk with each other about how we make democracy deliver and how we make Canada better. 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. entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Let's talk about the conservatives and

Mr. Polyev right now. They have a huge lead in recent polling. Abacus has them at 20 points above the Liberals. And just how would you explain that level of popularity, if not that they're putting forward a vision or brand that's actually exciting to a decent amount of Canadians? Well, first, I think there's absolutely not to take away from Mr. Polyev's success in uniting his party, largely by purging people he disagrees with and embracing some more extreme elements who would traditionally not have been at home in a Conservative party in Canada. But he is also benefiting from a level of exhaustion with Mr. Trudeau that's leading many people to say anything but Mr. Trudeau at this point. And that's not just

people on the right going on about vaccines and mandates or whatever. It's people in the center and even on the left saying that, again, this guy promises but doesn't deliver. He spends money but doesn't deliver. He apologizes but doesn't deliver. So there's a clear demand for change in the country right now. The question is, is Mr. Palliere for an acceptable change? And I would argue he isn't for some of the reasons that I've already laid out, that there's a tendency towards extremism there and embracing voices that reject science, reject evidence, broadly line up with the foreign policy perspectives of Canada's enemies in Russia, China, Iran, that we see the conservatives of all parties rejecting the idea of spending 2% of our budget on defense at the same time as Europe is gearing up to spend 3% or more as we try and work to defend

democracy in Ukraine and the risks of attacks against democratic Taiwan by communist China. A long list of foreign policy challenges. And Mr. Polyev's position apparently is just to stay out of that and say that that's not going to be Canada's fight. Well, I got news for him. That fight doesn't care about his feelings. And we have a massive undefended border across the Arctic with enormous natural resources becoming ever more accessible as the reality of climate change opens the Arctic. That has to be dealt with. We have a NATO commitment that we should be honoring because we are a democracy that should be helping to defend democracy so that we don't have to defend it here

at home. Well, that's Polyev's position too, right? The 2% spending. No, it isn't. No, it's not. Several weeks ago, he came out and said, and I've talked to multiple journalists who have not paid attention to this. He came out several weeks ago and said the Conservative Party will not commit to 2% of GDP on defense. Let me come back to you on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Carty, you know what? You're right. Once you commit to meeting the NATO target, instead of saying you would work toward meeting the spending commitment, I'm inheriting a dumpster fire when it comes to the budget. Every time I make a financial commitment, I'm going to make sure I've pulled out my calculator and done all the math because people are sick and tired of politicians just announcing that they're

going to spend money without figuring out how they're going to pay for it. So, okay. That's an interesting. And I don't understand why this isn't getting more attention when this is, again, further evidence of the fact that built on his votes against Ukraine on totally spurious grounds, claiming it was about the carbon tax, various efforts to try and play footsie with the extremists linked to the American MAGA movement, and beyond that to the efforts by foreign dictators to influence the democratic discourse inside Western democracies, that that's clearly happening in this case.

There's an abandonment of the Atlanticist position that has always marked the Conservative Party's defense policy. Before the reform period and the creation of the new party, Stephen Harper was as much an Atlanticist as Brian Mulroney. Aaron O'Toole was even more so than most of those folks. What we're seeing now is a wholesale reversal of that position. And that's leaving us in Canada with no party committing to 2% of its GDP on defense within the next decade. The liberals are saying, you know, maybe 13, 15 years, we'll buy some submarines. That's not a serious plan. We're talking about the need within five years to get to 2%, and within a few years after that, to get us above that to 2.53, you know, I have to say the majority of people that I have spoken to there are not kind of talking about Mr. Polyev's positions on the World Economic

Forum. They're talking about the policies that they like that he's proposing on housing, on axing the carbon tax. And you mentioned before climate. What is your party's position on the carbon tax? The carbon tax has turned into a massive political distraction that's got nothing to do with carbon taxes, nothing to do with carbon, and it's just simply about taxation. And of course, people don't like taxes. And the liberals seem to have forgotten that the whole point of a carbon tax was that it was supposed to be something people didn't like, made them pay more, and thus changed

their behavior. Instead, their endless claims that they're actually giving most people more money back totally undermines the whole point of it. So the carbon tax is dead because it's no longer achieving its goal of changing behavior. And it is so confused in its delivery that no one even understands what it's for. Do you think it's not changing people's behavior? I mean, certainly there's research to suggest that carbon taxes do change people's behavior. They certainly can.

But one of the problems with the carbon tax is it's being rolled out by the liberals. I'll take my province as an example. We're not blessed like Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal is with multiple forms of public transit. People in most parts of Canada need to rely on personal vehicles, which in most cases are still internal combustion engine powered vehicles, to live and get around. And attacks really can't change their behavior except taking more money out of their pockets for other things like food and rent and so on. So what I'm interested in is technological solutions to climate change. That attacks on big polluters, attacks on the people who are causing the problems, I

think is entirely appropriate. And we need to focus on game-changing approaches to deal with the carbon crisis, because I do believe that we have a climate crisis. But the methods that we're talking about for dealing with it are entirely inadequate. So we've got two ways of handling that that we need to work on. So first, let's take advantage of what we have. We have a huge advantage with our nuclear industry. We have can-do reactors that are tried and tested. We have an evolving small and modular reactor sector that isn't proven yet, but certainly has big potential. But if we're serious about getting carbon emissions down, let's get reactors built in Canada. Let's export them to as many

democracies as we can to get climate emissions down as fast as we can. Simultaneously, let's have incentive-led programs to drive the creativity of the market to come up with climate solutions. It's not directly on CO2 emissions, but in terms of making a better world, some of the tech that's being used to start cleaning up the garbage patches in the world's oceans, some of those ideas have come from teenagers in junior high and high school science competitions. We need to be using that same power for the government to say that if someone's got a clever idea that they can show they can monetize and clean up the earth, that we should have prizes for that. That's how we drove innovation in the aerospace sector over 100 years ago. We went from the Wright Brothers biplane flying 35 miles an hour for a

couple of hundred feet to supersonic flight in less than half a century. We did that in part because wealthy private individuals in the government offered incentives to people to drive innovation forward. Rather than being terrified of climate change and talking about only how we can mitigate it and what we can do to reduce our quality of life to deal with it, we need to be talking about how we can expand good green practices with new technology to fix these problems and critically to help export them to other countries that need our assistance because they're not yet as well developed, don't have that capacity. We need to take advantage of our privileged position as a wealthy, safe, at this point, corner of the world and be a driver for technological change and

innovation, something we have fallen down on. How is what you're saying different than what the conservatives are saying around climate change? For example- I don't even say it's real. Well, many conservatives do say it's real. Is Mr. Polyev saying that climate change is real and it's going to be a priority for his government? I haven't heard that. I mean, we certainly haven't seen

any real policy from them right now. I think that that's fair. But certainly, we have heard many conservatives talk about what you just talked about with technology, right? With carbon capture. But many experts say relying on tech that doesn't exist yet is just like a fantasy or a gamble. relying on tech that doesn't exist yet

is just like a fantasy or a gamble well the tech doesn't exist nuclear powers existed since the 40s but going back to to your point about conservatives the conservative party isn't saying any of these things so that's not the case there is no party saying this there is no party saying let's get to two percent on defense there's no party saying we need to open the canada health act to allow for greater competition under a single-payer system. There is no party talking about massive focus on nuclear power to help us deal with the climate crisis. Again, the Conservative Party doesn't even accept that climate change is real. Forget about anything else. you mentioned before that you see your party is socially progressive and i just what does that mean to you like what specific social issues would you say set you apart from the conservatives

on the conservative side we are not going to and some on the liberal side. One of the weirdest things in democratic politics, or in politics writ large, is the small group of people on the left and the right who really love talking about sex all the time, either about how people should have it or shouldn't have it. My perspective is, as a good Canadian coming from the Trudeau senior tradition of politics has no affair in the bedrooms of the nation, government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, is that should be our policy. We should be defending people's rights to live the lives they choose, to love who they want, and to ensure that there are proper protections against discrimination, harassment, and so on. But otherwise, we need to reestablish a private

versus a public sphere and to stop going on about who people are sleeping with all the time. It's not relevant to making our healthcare system better, to making sure Canada's democracy is better defended. So having small extreme groups barking at each other, dominating public discourse is a complete distraction. So I am tired of listening to conservatives trying to frighten people about, you know, a tiny number of trans kids in this country and making that sort of the central issue for government. Yeah. I just want to get some clarity from you on that. Okay. So just first, uh, Polyev has said that he backs banning trans women from women's sports change

rooms and bathrooms. He said, quote, female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males. And he added that a lot of those spaces are controlled municipally and provincially, not federally. I just want to point out that using that term biological males or biological females is dehumanizing for a lot of trans and non-binary people who would tell you it's dangerous and leads to real violence. And do you agree with Polyev's stance on this issue? Where do you stand on that specific issue? Well, I think if you look at my record, I'm partly responsible for triggering the national conversation about trans kids because I signed policy 713 in New Brunswick that reflected federal human rights law and applied it to the Newotic education system in terms of protecting the rights of those trans kids. There are absolutely, I think,

issues around, and I don't accept that saying someone is male or female is dehumanizing. Humans are male or female, and there are some intersex. And again, all to the point that we start going down this rabbit hole of spending all of our time talking about minor differentiations between people. I don't care. Humans are humans and they should be allowed to love who they love without bothering by the state. That's it. Our education system is purely provincial in our constitution. So when a federal politician like Mr. Polyev weighs in to try and score political points by going after trans kids, or when Mr. Trudeau weighs in on a provincial area of responsibility to try and defend trans kids, both of them are playing political games on a subject that literally is not their job.

That they can express their sentiments as human beings or citizens, that's fine. But federal versus provincial jurisdiction matters. And if we get to a point where the federal government has achieved all of its goals in terms of defending our country and making sure our tax system works well and our healthcare system is working well across the country, because that's an area of shared jurisdiction, then maybe there'll be time to start mucking around with the edges of the constitution. But I don't think that's going to happen in our lifetime i want to ask you about something that happened to you this month you were arrested um for what you said was disturbing the peace, I believe, right, at a pro-Palestinian rally.

You said you chanted free Palestine from Hamas at protesters after police asked you to leave. And later on X, you called the demonstrators Hamas enthusiasts. A lot of Canadians, I think you would agree with this, of course, feel orphaned from the major parties because of their stances on the war in Gaza. So I just I wonder if you could be clear for me, do you believe Israel's attacks and the resulting casualties are justified in pursuing Hamas? I'm assuming you mean Hamas' attack on Israel, which prompted an Israeli response? I do. And then the subsequent attacks that have resulted in casualties. That's a defense, right? The same way that Ukraine is defending itself against Russia by invading Russia, Israel is defending itself against Hamas's attacks on October 7th.

Yep. So do you think that what has happened in Israel and the resulting casualties are justified in that pursuit. I think they are entirely the responsibility of Hamas, that I support a two-state solution and a free and democratic Palestine, the end of Israeli settlements that violate international law and encourage Israel to follow international law to the highest standard, which I have not seen, apart from instances which have been highlighted and are resulting in investigation and prosecution by the Israeli authorities. What I see is a democratic state responding to an aggressive attack against civilians launched by a hardline right-wing fascist religious movement that violently oppresses Palestinians of different political orientations, violently suppresses gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual Palestinians,

and is leading Palestine, the Gaza Strip at least, to be a horrible place to live before October 7th for anyone who wasn't part of the incredibly wealthy group of organized criminals who run Hamas. And I use the word Hamas enthusiasts for the protest where I was arrested because those folks were wearing Hamas t-shirts, wearing Hamas headbands, chanting in favor of Mr. Hanea who had been assassinated by Israel, I believe the day before that event happened. And were busy trampling on an Israeli flag and chanting genocidal slogans. So, there is absolutely room to be pro-Palestine. I am pro-Palestine. Being pro-Palestine starts with Palestine being freed from a fascist government

that currently is squatting in its territory. I hope that happens sooner rather than later, just like I hope all victims of vicious religious and ideological dictatorships are freed from oppression by those governments. I think democracy is a system of government sorry i don't mean to interrupt you um i just want to add i just want to say uh i was not at the protests that you were at obviously but i have covered quite a few of them here in the greater toronto area and in montreal and it has been my uh observation that of course there are outliers at these protests but that the majority of the people protesting are protesting peacefully and that their their their focus is really on the plight of palestinians i i believe that the health authority there is now saying that the death toll

is over 40 000 people so i i just i just to, you know, I just want to, yeah. That does help. The Hamas Health Authority is a branch of Hamas. Yeah, which the UN has also said that it is in line, right? They have said that those numbers. No, the number, actually, the UN came out just last week and did a substantial revision downwards based on what turned out to be massively inflated numbers

from Hamas, which include Hamas's claims so far publicly that not a single Hamas fighter has died, but all the people who died are civilians. And the civilian casualty in Gaza is horrifying. But those casualties are caused in large part by Hamas, who refuses to allow people to leave. When Israel drops leaflets saying, this area is going to be bombed, you've got X hours or even days to leave. Hamas doesn't let them leave. Hamas has said publicly that looking after civilians is not their job. It's the job of, bizarrely, the Israelis and the international community. They're on record saying that. So, Hamas is absolutely no concern for the civilian population of Gaza, is on the record saying that, and they bear responsibility for this and the previous conflicts they have initiated.

And I hope that this war, if it has any positive effect, is to end the rule of Hamas so that Palestinians can actually have a government they voted for. They never even voted for Hamas. Hamas seized power and overthrew the Palestinian Authority, sees power and overthrew the Palestinian Authority, who is a legitimately elected government of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza, back over nearly 20 years ago now. So, Hamas is an illegitimate organization, which has an illegitimate claim on power, using illegitimate means to act as a terrorist organization. I look forward to their end as quickly as possible. Okay. I'm just going to pause for one second, B, because I do have one more question, but I just want to make sure for our listeners that we get that number from the UN. I just want to make sure that we have it just for everybody listening.

Well, we have to accept, I mean, regardless of who, the UN has no independent ability to collect data on the ground. The data comes from Hamas, who have a decades-long history of lying about it. So it's, again, the continued reliance on a terrorist organization who relies on driving up civilian casualties to generate Western sympathy and to raise the funds that allow them to live the lives of billionaires in Qatar. I would, again, question the use of those statistics at all. We certainly did not rely on the statistics from other dictatorships in previous conflicts that Canada has taken a side in over the decades. And if we did, we asked for greater levels of data and clarity.

Okay. You know what? We're going to come back. We're going to loop back at the end sort of with those sort of updated UN numbers. I understand the context that you're putting around that, but I just, I do want to give people those numbers. So just to end this conversation, we have been talking during this conversation about the appeal that you see for a centrist party. But around the world, we have seen centrist parties get quite trounced lately, right? In the UK, in France, we know people in Canada have been clamoring for their material lives to change. That's just not the case. The UK just elected a centrist Labour Party that rejected a more left-wing version and returned to a more Blairist version of itself

and won an enormous majority. We've seen Emmanuel Macron's party, which looked like it was about to face annihilation at the hands of the extreme right, create an alliance with people in the center and the center left. Right, but his party did not do well, right? And certainly the Labour Party positioned themselves left of the Conservatives. Well, sure, left of the Conservatives, but also very far to the right of where they were under Jeremy Corbyn a couple of years ago. And Macron's party came in, did much, much better than anyone expected. And that's after he was reelected as president a couple of years ago. So you've had France under broad centrist control for

a number of years now. The UK has just returned to that position. You see in the US a return to some of those sentiments with including a rejection of some of the more extremist organized groups that have been trying to push their way into left-wing parties, like the folks who position themselves as pro-Palestine but have only popped up in the last year and are functionally pro-Hamas. In other democracies, a similar rejection of extremism. It absolutely is the case that extremism on the left and right is on the rise around the world, which is why I think it's important to have a voice that recognizes that explicitly in Canada. Mr. Trudeau likes to describe anyone who doesn't agree with him as extreme.

Mr. Polyarv is now claiming he's a centrist, which I find entertaining and somewhat bizarre, but is clearly embracing a number of policies that are extreme because as a centrist, I don't think it's appropriate to meet with neo-fascists, which Mr. Polyarva has no problem with. So it's absolutely a moment of growth for extremists, but there's also a growing movement of people in the middle going, can we please talk about how we fix our problems? Because Western democracies are the most miraculous political creations in the history of the human race. They allow folks like us to

have votes and voices and to complain about things and have access to a level of material wealth that's unimaginable to a generation of monarchs 100 years ago, forget about regular people, and to have rights that were unimaginable. And those are all under threat, both from folks inside the country who don't get how fragile our institutions are and how they need to be maintained and upgraded for them to continue to work and to be looked at in the context of changing technology and societal evolutions. But we also have aggressive foreign actors who have made it their explicit foreign policy goals to dismantle what they call the Western rules-based

order, the rules-based order that defends rights for women, gay people, for democracy, for the rule of law, for anti-corruption efforts. And those forces concentrated in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran have created an alliance of other bad actors around the world who do not offer their citizens democratic rights or freedoms, and they're coming after us. And our naivete that somehow we're so special and privileged that our system is going to persist is utterly delusional. Democracy in its current form with rights for most people most of the time is an incredibly recent phenomenon and incredibly limited the number of countries it's been tried. When it has been tried, it nearly always works better than

anything that's ever been tried before, but that's what makes the dictators spooked about it. So we've got to get ready to defend what we call Canadian values. And I don't mean that in some 19th century reactionary term. I'm talking about defending the rights, again, of women, of gay people, of rights of business people to have a business that can't just be taken away by someone in government when they decide that they would like to have access to its profits. A rules-based order where you've got some reasonable confidence that you're not going to be arbitrarily arrested for something foolish, where the law is applied evenly. I sort of cite that. Twelve years ago, when I was NDP leader in New Brunswick,

I spoke against First Nations blockades of roads that were limiting access to hospitals and schools because it's illegal. Nothing else. I spoke against the convoy because blocking streets without a permit in the middle of a public health crisis and doing all the other things they did, it's illegal. That's all that matters. The Palestinian protests, they're illegal. They don't get a permit. That's all that matters. We've got to have the law enforced evenly for everyone as the precondition for a decent society. And we've drifted away from that. Okay. Mr. Carter, I want to thank you very much for your time today. And I just, I do want to come back with that number. I just think it's important, you know, I understand that you've responded to it, but, you know, in a May 6th report, the UN said that 34,735 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since the war began.

So I just want to put that on the record. Yeah, for sure. And again, as long as it's, there is no, I am, I want to also be really clear in the record that the deaths of any civilians is a tragedy. And if Hamas had not attacked Israel last October 7th, this war would not have happened. And ultimately, we have to look at people who start wars. Wars are a horrible feature of human nature. We need to do everything we can to reduce them. The Western rules-based liberal democratic system has reduced conflict to a lower level

than just about any point in recorded history. has reduced conflict to a lower level than just about any point in recorded history. But in this case, we are talking about a hardline, right-wing, bigoted organization that is well known and has a history of manipulating figures and data to advance its own goals. And I just would hope that we wouldn't be part of enhancing their ability to mislead the broader public because that is absolutely one of their, and they've been very successful at it. And if you look at some of the revisions to casualty figures, I believe it was 10 days to two weeks ago, you'll see the UN dropping down after a claim of an attack on a school that killed 100 people, because Hamas was in two seconds. Several hours later, it was dropped

down to 40. There have been multiple revisions downwards because Hamas lies and they lie to gain money from folks like us. Yeah, I'll just note our producer saying he can't find any of that right now. But I do. I want to thank you. I feel like you and I could keep going for a long time. But we have. Thanks for the chat. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. All right. So before we go today, I want to add one last clarifying statement about the casualties in Gaza. I know this is a very charged subject, but I do want to ensure that you're given some additional context I didn't have at my fingertips earlier. Those numbers I read from May were obviously not current, but that was the month that the UN did make a revision to the number of casualties they believe are women and children. That proportion was lessened, but the UN clarified that the overall number of deaths was not revised

down. The UN this week acknowledged the Gaza Health Administration's total of over 40,000 Palestinians killed. Mr. Carty, of course, disputed the reliability of the Hamas-run health ministry's numbers, as Israel does, but many experts do consider these numbers reliable given the ministry's access and because of its accuracy in the past. reliable given the ministry's access and because of its accuracy in the past. Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, says everyone uses its figures and that, quote, in the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I'm not aware of any time which there's been some major discrepancy. Finally, our team also looked further and was unable to find the UN revising the

death toll from a recent Israeli attack on a school. We reached out to the Canadian Future Party for clarity, but did not hear back by press time. Okay, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.