Front Burner - Politics! Carney calls for big cuts, army members' terrorism charges

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

To kick off the week, we tackle a few big stories in two realms of Canadian politics: the military, and the federal public service.First, the Ottawa Citizen's David Pugliese tells us about the investigation into a Facebook group where military members of one regiment regularly share misogynistic, racist and derogatory content. He also shares his thoughts on another story involving the Canadian army: the charges laid last week by the RCMP against military members accused of planning to form an anti-government militia.Then, to get a sense of what Prime Minister Mark Carney's goal to cut tens of billions in government spending might look like, we are joined by Yves Giroux, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer, the non-partisan watchdog whose job is to promote budget transparency and accountability.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Over 613,000 Canadian small businesses use TikTok to grow and succeed. Like Chez Mag Fine Canteen on Ile d'Orléans in Quebec, who went from feeding crowds to feeding the local economy. Or Smudge the Blades in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, who uses TikTok to grow their business while supporting Indigenous youth. Visit TikTokCanada.ca to learn more about how TikTok is helping small businesses in Canada make a big impact. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi everybody, Jamie here.

We're going to kick off the week by looking at a few big stories in two realms of Canadian politics, the military and the federal public service. Before we get into those though, I just want to note that I am sure you are noticing there is a lot of news coming out of Trump's global trade war, including more threats to Canada. We are putting together a standalone episode on that right now, so please do stay tuned this week. But for today, later on in this episode, I'm going to be speaking with Canada's budget watchdog about the Kearney government's plans for big cuts to the federal service. First though, the Ottawa citizens David Pugliese is back with us to talk about concerns involving the Canadian Armed Forces on a couple of fronts. A Facebook group where military members of one regiment

regularly share misogynistic, racist and derogatory content and charges laid last week by the RCMP against military members accused of trying to start an anti-government militia. of trying to start an anti-government militia. David, hey, thank you so much as always for coming on. Oh, great to be here. Thank you. So let's start with your own reporting on this Facebook group used by some members of a regiment in Ottawa. And what is this group? members of a regiment in Ottawa and what is this group? So this group is called the Blue Hackle Mafia and it's made up of members of a reserve unit, a high-profile reserve unit in Ottawa, the Cameron Highlanders.

So this has been operating since 2007. It's a private Facebook group. And in December 2024, the military received complaints about it. There's anti-Semitic material there, racist, misogynistic, all kinds of stuff like that. And so the complaints have been made about that. I know a lot of the language is quite derogatory and there are pictures, photos that are quite graphic, but I do wonder if you could give us some examples. Sure, I won't get into the specific language in some cases, but so there's derogatory comments about Jews, about Muslims. There's photos of military personnel in their uniforms exposing their genitals these are all males of course there's photos of individuals posing naked with military weapons. Carl gustaf rocket launcher that type of thing a lot of derogatory just back and forth about women.

derogatory, just back and forth about women. There's comments about former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a lot of homophobic material as well. So it kind of runs the gamut. rank-and-file soldiers or would higher-ups have been in it too, officers? Well, some of the individuals that started off as rank-and-file have moved up the military chain of command. So they are officers now, and so there's a whole range of individuals on this group, and some civilians as well that were associated with the with the unit Do you have a sense of who in the CAF's leadership was kind of aware of these? Posts when they knew about it how high up they were so when the individuals military individuals went to the commander of the unit itself. They filed complaints with the brigade commander and they filed complaints with the military

police and that was in December. Nothing really happened. The military police, although they had hundreds of images, turned it over to the unit to investigate themselves. And so you had a captain, a reserve captain, investigating his comrades. And so the individuals who first complained about this came to me and they provided many screenshots of the inappropriate behavior. I sent those to the army commander,

Lieutenant General Mike Wright, when I asked him for a comment on these images. And that was the first he knew about this. And so he issued comment, which was covered by various media outlets. I wanna put this into the context of the kind of massive cultural shakeup the Canadian military has been going through

in the past few years, like there have been reports and major inquiries into CAF's pervasive problems of sexual assaults and harassment, racism, homophobia, military leadership has promised big changes. And so what does this say to you about the extent to which they've made good on those promises. I think it exposes that there's problems with the leadership on whether these promises have been kept because the leadership is good in the sense of it launches these initiatives, it gets publicity

for these initiatives. Like Operation Honour, for instance, was one of these initiatives to crack down on this type of thing. In the Canadian Armed Forces, many allegations are first reported to the military's own police force, which can launch an investigation. And rather than head to the civilian court system, the cases are typically prosecuted and then heard by the military's own judges. And that's how Jessica Miller's case was handled.

Right off the bat, what I was disappointed was that I was told to come alone, no support, no one there with me. And I sat in a blank room with a two-way mirror with a recording device all alone. It was kind of traumatic, actually. Well, many of the posts were done right in the middle of Operation Honours, so it shows to me that those doing it didn't really worry that they're going to get caught or punished for it. You know, I did a story, you know, based on Canadian Forces documents that the military saw the sexual misconduct and some of these other problems in terms of a public relations

problem as opposed to dealing with the actual issues themselves. The Military Story of the Moment So let's talk about the other big military story of the moment. Last week, the RCMP charged four men, including two active Canadian Armed Forces members being part of an extremist plot that allegedly involved trying to start an anti-government militia and forcibly seize land in the Quebec City area. According to one expert who spoke with the CDC, this is the largest cache of weapons and components ever seized in any terrorism-related incident in Canadian history. I know you haven't been actively reporting on this, but you're following it super closely. What do we know

about these men, what they believe in, what they were allegedly trying to actually do here? Matthew 18 It is interesting. These are active Canadian forces members that have been charged with terrorism-related issues. In the past, Canadian forces members that have been charged with terrorism related issues in the past Canadian Forces members who have been charged like that's happened in the US for instance with Patrick Matthews 28 year old Patrick Matthews as you say that accused of being a neo-nazi recruiter and these the sentence now is in relation to some weapons charges that he has previously pleaded guilty to

in relation to what the FBI has described as a neo-Nazi plot to instigate a race war in the United States. We've got Corey Hearn, you know, seeking out Prime Minister Trudeau and he was armed. He was never charged with terrorism-related offences. Forty-six-year-old, a former military reserv reservist had left his wife and two children in Manitoba, drove to Ottawa in his vehicle, a number of weapons and ammunition. There was an agreed upon statement that was entered when Hiram pleaded guilty. And in that he admitted to wanting to arrest the prime minister during one of Justin Trudeau's daily live pandemic briefings.

So that's the unusual aspect of this case. We don't know a lot. Police aren't releasing a lot of information. The Crown isn't releasing a lot of information. So we don't know the, you know, the actual plan or what they're accused of wanting to do like seizing land. But it's not like we haven't heard anything about a plot to blow up government buildings or you know, that type of thing.

So you know, there's not a lot of information there at this point. To prove these terrorism charges, what would the Crown have to prove here? Well, I'm assuming they're going to have to have messages or audio recordings of these individuals actually talking about doing a terrorist act. Because, you know, the photos that we've seen that the RCMP have published or released to the media shows a bunch of guys in uniforms with guns in the forest. Well there's no law against dressing up in a uniform and shooting firearms. Now we're talking you know there are including charges here of prohibited weapons and that type of thing. So you've got that aspect.

The other aspect though is that one of these individuals was associated with a military tactical company. So you know, that company would have had access to firearms, to night vision equipment that the RCMP have talked about and that type of thing so. You know until we see very specific allegations where these individuals are. Actually talking about doing a terrorist act using these weapons for instance then i think we're really at a early stage. then I think we're really at an early stage. We've been talking about two fairly different stories, but both dealing with pervasive issues

in the Canadian military. I just would be curious to hear your thoughts on any through lines that you see here. Well, I thought it was interesting that the defense minister, Mr. McGinty, when he was asked by CBC about this, he said, well, extremism is a problem throughout Canadian society. He said, oh, this is a terrible situation, but extremism is a problem throughout Canadian society.

Well, that's true. But what we're dealing with in this case are individuals who are given military training by the taxpayer, who are given access to military weapons by the taxpayer. And so it becomes a different scenario in that respect. And so a theme that joins these two stories is more of a focus on military leadership and what has been done or hasn't been done in such cases. Dave, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. We're all looking for great places to visit in Canada. One of my favorites is the Stratford Festival.

The theater is truly of the highest caliber and there's so much selection. They have 11 large-scale shows on stage and trust me, whatever is on when you're there will be exceptional. People always think Shakespeare when they think of Stratford, but it's so much more. Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fiora's Annie, you will be blown away. It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. Hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished

paying off all my debt with the help of the Credit Counseling Society. Whoa! Seriously? I could really use their help? It was easy! I called and spoke with a credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses, gave me a few options, and helped me along the way.

You had a ton of debt and you're saying Credit Counseling Society helped with all of it? Yup! And now I can sleep better at night. Ha ha ha! Right on! When debts got you, you've got us. Give Credit Counseling Society a call today. Visit nomordets.org. Okay, so on the show The House this weekend, my colleague Catherine Cullen spoke to conservative

leader Pierre Poliev and asked him why he thinks he lost his Ottawa area seat in the election. The reason he gave was that he was honest about his plan to cut public service jobs. Now some people might say well it wasn't the best idea to run on a smaller federal public service when you're an Ottawa MP but I had an entire country to represent and I had to be honest with people. Like I guess I could have done what the Liberals did, which is hide their plans, but I didn't do that. I said very clearly, we're gonna have to eliminate federal public service jobs.

That's the only way you bring down taxes and deficits. And I was honest about that, and the people in that particular constituency voted accordingly. That line is a clear jab at Kearney, who ordered his ministers this week to find big cuts to government spending. To get a sense of what this might look like and how they could affect you, we are joined

by Yves Giraud, Canada's parliamentary budget officer, the nonpartisan watchdog whose job it is to promote budget transparency and accountability. Mr Giraud, thank you so much for coming out to Frontburner. My pleasure. According to reporting from the Toronto Star, the government is looking for about $25 billion in annual savings from the federal budget for the next three years. I wonder if you could tell me how big a chunk of the federal budget that would be. Well, that would be about 5% of the overall Government of Canada expenditures.

The 5% is if you include everything that the Government of Canada spends money on, including EI, whole-day security, transfers to provinces. But these big programs are excluded from the request from the Minister of Finance to look for savings. So the Minister of Finance has asked his colleagues to look for proposals to save seven and a half, ten and fifteen percent based on voted appropriations. So that excludes all these statutory programs that I just mentioned. Am I correct to say that these cuts are actually quite a bit deeper than what Prime Minister Carney promised during the election campaign? I believe at the time he was talking about $13 billion in what he called productivity

savings. Yes and no. So what the Minister of Finance is asking of his colleagues is to send him proposals to reduce spending by 7.5 to 15% in the next year to three years. It doesn't mean that the government will implement all of these, but it could. And if the government implements all of these expenditure reductions, they would be very significant. But that's a big if. And just to give an idea of the order of magnitude, it would be significantly more ambitious than what the Harper government implemented in 2012,

where departments were asked in that case to submit proposals for 5 and 10 percent. So in the case of the Carney government, they're asking for, at the very minimum, 7.5 starting in April 2026, rising to 15 percent two years later. So it would be significantly more ambitious and more demanding in this round than it was in 2012. We know that the Prime Minister has pledged to increase defense spending by an additional $9 billion this fiscal year. Other programs kind of not on the table, according to him, during the campaign are dental care, child care, public funding for birth control and diabetes medications.

These are all programs that came in under the previous Trudeau government. So given all of that, in your estimation, what would be on the table? Like, where would these cuts likely have to come from? As stated by the Minister of Finance in his letters to his colleagues, it's virtually everything else. So that includes salaries, public servants' salaries and benefits. It also includes what is referred to as transfer payments, so that's grants and contributions to businesses, for example, to NGOs, to not-for-profits. So it's operational spending that has to be approved by Parliament year after year.

So public servants, so the number of employees, and transfer payments to other organizations. So it includes virtually everything that is not spent based on standalone legislation. I know I remember during the campaign that Carney promised a cap, not cut, public service jobs. One thing you can see is that the scale of increase in spending and the scale of increase in the public service hasn't been matched by greater productivity in certain areas. So the focus does have to go to that.

I guess the implication there is that you would kind of shrink the public service through things like attrition, right, retirement. But just to be clear, we are indeed talking about potentially major cuts to the civil service, correct? People losing their jobs. Absolutely. So the key will be what the government decides to implement among the proposals that ministers are being asked to submit by the end of August. So it's one thing to ask for ideas, but the real test will be which of these ideas will the government implement. And if they do implement ideas that are leading to savings of 15%, there is no other way but to have significant cuts in many departments and agencies. It doesn't mean that overall the government will shrink in size because of what you just mentioned, increased spending on defense, and the government

in a budget could decide to use these savings that the government will be considering or cuts to fund other priorities. But for sure, in some departments and agencies, the cuts will be felt. Stop doing cuts! Stop throwing cuts! Dozens of public servants gathered outside an immigration, refugees and citizenship Canada building this afternoon. That department recently announced cuts to about a quarter of its workforce. Unions who organize the rally are worried more cuts like that are on the way across the entire public service. And that may mean a combination of reducing the number of employees or reducing the grants

and contributions, the subsidies that are provided to some groups. So we'll have to wait until the budget to have a much better sense of what will indeed happen. Because for now, it's just the Minister of Finance asking his colleagues for ideas to save 15%. But there's no guarantee that the government will implement all or a significant portion of that. Yeah, I take your point.

This is like a somewhat hypothetical conversation. And look, I imagine a lot of Canadians are probably listening right now and they're thinking, okay, so cutting some government bureaucrats, that doesn't really affect my life. But a couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives economist David McDonald put out a report that analyzed the impact of promised spending cuts. And this is based on that initial number during the campaign of $13 billion in savings, not this new reported $25 billion number.

And he told the Ottawa citizen, quote, these are deep service cuts. I mean, this is you calling the CRA, and nobody picks up the phone. You're trying to get a passport, and there's no one there to renew it. Like from your perspective, would those kinds of frontline services cuts be a possibility?

Are there ways in which Canadians would really likely feel these potential cuts coming their way? Certainly. So cuts to government services have no impact on Canadians until they need to call the CRA or until they need to have, for example, an immigration application or visa processed or until they need to get a passport application processed relatively quickly. So it doesn't have any implications until you have to deal with government. And that's the thing about the federal government. It's not as close to Canadians lives on a day-to-day basis as our municipal or

provincial governments. But when you need services from the feds, you really need these services because it's very often life-al events. Maybe not CRA, but immigration and passports and consular services and food inspection agency. Yes, these are events that you really want the government to be there. So to go back on the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives and Mr. McDonald, they've done, I think, a very good analysis

of what the impact could be at $13 billion. So you can only assume that the impacts would be probably even more acutely felt if it was $25 billion. Of course, the government could decide to target a specific area where it would affect one segment of the population or the business community and not the broader population. But again, we'll have to see what the government decides to do when it decides which ones of these proposals it will move ahead with. Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the size of the Federal Public Service reached record highs. But my colleague, Aaron Wary, he did some interesting analysis where he noted that our

population has also reached record highs. And so he compared the size of public service to the population. And when you look at it proportionally, the federal public service is actually quite a bit smaller than it was in the 1980s. And Aaron was kind of riffing on Blue Sky last week. And he wrote that the Trudeau era was preceded by roughly 20 or 30 years of what could basically be described as austerity. And he was saying essentially that he doesn't take a position on what the right

sides of government is, but that a conversation that starts with 2015 as a baseline is really inherently limited. And just in your experience, do the size of government bureaucracies need to grow alongside the population in order to adequately serve the population? And what happens when they don't? That's an interesting question because it boils down to what role you expect to anticipate the federal government to play in the lives of Canadians. So you can have a growing federal government

that is delivering direct services through various programs. You can also have a growing federal government that grows through spending money to order other levels of government. And in one case, direct service delivery probably requires a significant increase in the number of employees.

In the other area where the government tends to send checks or transfer money to other levels of government, you obviously don't need as many public servants. So I don't think there is a right or wrong answer as to whether the number of employees relative to the Canadian population has to grow or has to decrease. It depends what the government of the day wants to do, or how it wants the federal government to serve Canadians through direct service delivery or through delivery that is done by partners such as provinces and municipalities and First Nations communities.

Mr. Giraud, thank you so much for this. It was very nice to talk to you. Always a pleasure. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.com. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to see more of our podcast videos, please go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.