Front Burner - Politics! Liberals’ survival mode, Conservatives vs CTV News, and more

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

While the Liberals survived the first non-confidence vote tabled last week, the Conservatives are already trying again. The Bloc Quebecois have issued an ultimatum to the Liberals for their party’s support. The Prime Minister has accused Conservative MP Garnett Genuis of making a homophobic comment during question period. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh confronts Pierre Poilievre after repeated accusations of selling out. And Pierre Poilievre goes after Bell Canada and CTV News over the editing of a clip of him in a recent news item.CBC’s J.P. Tasker joins us from the Parliamentary bureau to go over a rollercoaster week in Canadian politics.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcriptsTranscripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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. It has been an eventful few weeks in Canadian politics. We had a non-confidence vote geared at toppling the government last Wednesday. It failed, but the Conservatives are back with another one now.

What do the Liberals need to do to keep their government afloat? Where does this leave opposition parties like the Bloc Quebecois? The tone and tenor in the House has gotten really hot. I mean really hot. Incredibly fractious. And Pierre Polyev has taken on Bell Canada and its news arm, CTV. So we're going to parse through all of this today with my colleague, JP Tasker. JP, hello. Hey, Jamie. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. All right. So let's start with the non-confidence votes. As I mentioned,

the one the Conservatives put forward last Wednesday failed, as was expected. The Bloc and the NDP and the Greens voted against it. And we expected that. They said that they would do that. But the conservatives introduced another one less than 24 hours later. And JP, just before we get into what the liberals may have to do to keep the other opposition parties on side, On a logistical note, can the Conservatives just keep introducing these motions to trigger an election? Is this just how this is going to be until an election now? Yeah, essentially. I mean, the Conservatives are very, very eager to go to an election as soon as possible. They're just itching for an election right now. And it's not hard to understand why. I mean, they have a huge lead in the polls. A CBC poll tracker suggests they're up about 20 points nationwide. So they're

on track for a massive supermajority government winning virtually every part of the country. So they're like, let's get to an election. We want to do this now. So they're going to introduce non-confidence motions regularly in the House. You mentioned one failed last week. They introduced another one that's going to go mentioned one failed last week. They introduced another one that's going to go to a vote this week. Mr. Speaker, who could be against the following motion? That given that after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history. The House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax,

build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime. They have three more opportunities between now and Christmas to introduce non-confidence motions, but they could try and bring them down on other things too, like when there's financial matters to discuss, a budget vote. there are other opportunities for them to try and trigger an election. And you bet they're going to try and do it. So what do the liberals have to do here to keep their government afloat? They essentially have to cajole some of the other opposition parties to stand with them on the next non-confidence motion votes over the next several months. They have to

essentially ask the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to go with them, to go along with them, to try and push off the Conservatives and Pierre Polyev, who are eager to bring them down. And the reason why they have to have at least one of the other opposition parties stand with them is because we're in a minority parliament. The Liberals only have 153 of the 338 seats in parliament right now. So they can't win one of these votes on Liberal support alone. They need someone else to come along with them. And either the Bloc or the NDP would do it. That would give them the majority they need to maintain the confidence of the House and to continue governing. So that's what this is all about. How can we get the bloc or the NDP on side or

maybe a bonus, get them both? So let's do the bloc first. The bloc has said that they would support the liberals, but, you know, they want some stuff in return, right? And the leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet, has issued a bit of an ultimatum here. Our job is to serve Quebecers. Triggering an election or stopping an election is not our motivation. And just tell me a bit about what he says he wants in exchange for supporting the liberals, you know, at the moment. Yeah, the Bloc is saying, OK, if you want our support, Liberal government, it's going to cost you.

And they have issued a number of ultimatums. Essentially, the big ask is they want the government to hike old age security, so pensions for the elderly, by 10 percent. What we are proposing is good for retired persons in Quebec, but also in Canada. The problem is for the government that comes with a huge price tag. It's about $16 billion over the next five years. That would really blow a hole in their budget. They're trying to rein things in. They're trying to reduce spending to maintain their top credit rating. So a huge cost like this would not be a welcome development. And there's also questions about generational fairness, of course, as well,

something the government has said they care about. We already spend about $80 billion a year on elderly benefits like old age security and the guaranteed income supplement for low income seniors. So for the bloc to ask for something like this, it's a big demand and they want it quickly. They want it by the end of October. They're also asking the government to come along with a private members bill that's before parliament right now that would protect supply managed farm sectors like dairy, eggs and poultry. Always a controversial issue. Essentially, they want them to exempt these farm sectors from any future trade deals. So that would also be kind of problematic for the government because they have to renegotiate the new NAFTA sometime soon. And there may be some bargaining going on there that would involve the farm sectors like it did last time. So

some big ask from the Bloc Québécois in exchange for supporting the government. The Bloc will negotiate based on the fact that the government would have refused to have been useful to Quebecers on fundamental issues and will start discussions with other oppositions to reverse the government. They say, though, if they do go along with these two programs, if they do increase OAS and do protect the agricultural sectors, they'll support them beyond Christmas. So that would really guarantee the government's survival until the new year. It just might cost them. What do you think the odds are that the Liberals will do that, will go along with the block?

It's possible. It's possible because I think the Liberal Party is very eager to hold on right now. They know that they are doing so poorly in the polls. They know they're down 18, 19, 20 points. They know it would be a bloodbath if there were an election held anytime soon. And the liberal strategy is to kind of hold on and hope that people get tired of Pierre Polyev. They hope that they can kind of bloody him up a bit, that they can make people be scared of Pierre Polyev and the conservatives. And they feel like they need more time to do that. They don't think that that would be a successful endeavor just yet. You know, they need to have a few months of ad campaigns,is want, but they may be able to turn to the NDP as well and ask them to kind of back them up at least for a few more months. It's just whether the opposition parties really want to do that, because as it stands now, they would really benefit in an election if it were held right now.

Even the NDP. Some polls suggest that the NDP has actually surpassed the Liberals in English Canada as the second most popular party after the Conservatives. So would there be any benefit for them to hang on longer? It's, you know, to be determined. I just want to be clear about one thing. The Liberals could lose the bloc, right? And still keep power if they had the NDP on side. That's right. They absolutely can. They have enough votes if they just cobble together the NDP and the Liberal MPs in the House of Commons.

If those two parties stand together against a non-confidence motion, they would survive. The government would survive. They don't need the Bloc Québécois. It's just a question of whether the NDP is willing to stand with them again and again and again after Jagmeet Singh, the party's leader, kind of dramatically tore up that supply and confidence agreement earlier this month. Like, does the NDP have the appetite to continue supporting the Liberals for the next three, six, 12 months. You know, you mentioned that the NDP has gotten a bit of a boost in the polls, which, you know, might make an election a little bit more palatable for them right now. Yeah. Although, you know, they still don't have a lot of money, right? That's important too, right? To run a campaign.

Yes. The problem is they have so little cash on hand and they are bringing in so much less money, much less money than the other major parties. But what about the Bloc? Why might the Bloc like an election right now? I know they just won that longtime liberal seat in Montreal, which was yet another huge upset for the liberals. Yeah. I mean, the Bloc Ébiquois winning a seat on the island of Montreal in a riding that has, I think it's like nearly 40% English speaking people in that riding. So that's a huge upset for the Bloc Québécois to win a seat like that. Sauvé took home 28% of ballots compared to 27.2% for Liberal candidate Laura Palestini and 26.1% for the NDP's Craig Sauvé.

248 votes are what separated the Bloc from the Liberals. I mean, the Bloc Québécois are indifferent. I think they are happy to go to an election whenever one comes up. They're not particularly concerned about the timing. I think that they know that they are essentially a protest vote. A lot of French-speaking Quebecers just park their vote with the Bloc Québécois when they're unsure of what they should do. When they are not sure about the liberals, they're a little worried about the conservatives.

They just go with the Bloc Québécois because they know that that's essentially a vote for Quebec, you know, in Quebec's interests. It's not going to prompt a referendum on independence if they vote for this party that is only represented at Parliament Hill and in the federal scene. So they know that it's not a huge risk to go with the Bloc Québécois. And also the separatist movement in Quebec is kind of enjoying a bit of a renaissance right now. I mean, support for independence itself hasn't ticked up all that much, but a lot of people are frustrated with the premier in that province, François Legault, and the Collision d'Avenir Québec, the governing party. A lot of people turn into the Parti Québécois, which is, you know, the provincial party that first launched the modern Quebec independence movement. So

they have a popular charismatic leader. Some of that good fortune for the Petsi Québécois could rub off on the Bloc Québécois, which runs candidates federally. So the bloc is like, yeah, we'll go to an election. If you don't meet our demands by October, we're going to start to work with some of the opposition parties to try and bring down Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government, they're okay with that scenario. 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, 50% of them do not know their own 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. vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. Let's move on to the tone and tenor in the house of late. It is generating a lot of thoughts. It's generating a lot of thoughts. It's been very fractious in there. How would you describe the vibe and the tone right now? Yeah, it's pretty nasty. People are grumpy and they're riled up. You know,

they're ready to take it out on one another. They're like, okay, let's go to blows. And it really has been quite nasty. I mean, frankly, I've been watching question period virtually every session of it since, you know, 2014, you know, I've been watching this for a long time and I think that it's probably among the nastiest I've ever seen it. I mean, I don't want to say it is the nastiest ever because it's hard to gauge, you know, and I feel like we always say that every time there's some development. But yeah, it's unprecedented. Yes. Right. And it's like, you know, I'm not sure about that. I'm sure it might have been a little worse during some of the he had debates over conscription, say, in the 20th century. But, you know, it's it's not great. And I think, you know, a lot of people are kind of itching to get to an election on the conservative benches and they're kind of taking it out on their liberal colleagues, trying to bully them, bullying the NDP potentially as well into going to as well. It's not just one side that's behind all of this. There's just a lot of he had rhetoric right now. the NDP, there was that moment where Jagmeet Singh, you know, basically ended up in the

middle of the chamber, right? Like, kind of yelling at Pierre Polyev, just tell me what happened there. Yeah, so essentially, the Conservatives are very frustrated that Jagmeet Singh and the NDP ripped up that supply and confidence agreement that propped up the government and then immediately said only, you know, days later that they would support the government on these non-confidence motions going forward. So Pierre Poliev called Jagmeet Singh a fake, a phony and a fraud. How can anyone ever believe what this sellout NDP leader says in the future? A liar, which we don't usually hear a lot of. Pierre Poliev said that Jagmeet Singh ripped up the deal before by-elections just to give voters a sense that he was not standing with the liberals.

And as soon as those by-elections were over, he's back with the liberals. And that's why he's a phony and he can't be trusted. He's a sellout. You know, not great. Right. And so Jagmeet Singh obviously got to him at this point. And he stepped into stepped onto the floor of the house of commons and looked right at Pierre Poiliev and said I'm right here bro uh you know simply suggesting that if you want

to go toe-to-toe I'm willing to do it Poiliev appeared to point in Singh's direction and repeatedly say do it he obviously didn't touch him. There was no physical exchange, but just like the body language suggesting that Jagmeet Singh was not willing to take it anymore. There was another one I want to talk to you about. And I think that this happened last week during question period. It was the bathtub one. Right. And that is going to sound very weird, very weird to people. So maybe you can explain what happened there.

I think it will require a bit of a backstory. Yeah. So essentially, the government of Canada bought a new apartment in New York City for the council general, who is Tom Clark, a former journalist who was appointed to this ambassador role. And it was quite a pricey apartment that they bought, you know, $9 million. And the conservatives have been making hay out of that purchase for a long time, although the government says they're selling the old one for more than what they paid for this new one. So actually, they're going to make money on this transaction. But the conservatives have been very critical of buying this very luxurious apartment that has this great bathtub in it that's clad in some expensive stone of some sort, you know, copper, stunning powder room finished in jewel onyx,

crystal gold court, the court site, countertops, a handcrafted copper soaking tub, custom bronze bathroom fixtures, $5,000 coffee machine. Did the prime minister go and inspect this palace in the sky on his recent trip to New York? And the prime minister was responding to that in question period, saying we need a nice apartment. We need a place for, you know, Tom Clark and other future consul generals to meet with world leaders. Engaging with international leaders on fighting climate change, on solving global crises, on standing up unequivocally for Ukraine. on standing up unequivocally for Ukraine. And then Garnett Genovese, the conservative MP,

chirped from the other side of the House, like, what are you doing, meetings in the bathtub with Tom? And the Prime Minister bristled at the suggestion that he was sharing a bathtub with the Consul General, with Tom Clark, and suggested that that was a homophobic remark. Mr. Speaker, don't worry on this side of the house. We're used to casual homophobic comments from the other side of the house. Mr. Speaker, what is it about...

You know, two men sharing a bathtub. There are many tropes about Justin Trudeau, a lot of accusations over the years that are false, of course, but that's, like, kind of online rhetoric, kind of homophobic takes on Trudeau. And he called it out. Standing up to bullies requires us to call them out on their crap sometimes. And that's why we do it. And Garnett Genuis, he responded to those allegations, right? And he said that he wasn't

making homophobic remarks. Yeah, he stood up and rather flamboyantly said, The Hansard notes, does he engage with them in the bathtub? The point of that comment is to illustrate that, of course, meetings don't take place in a bathtub. Luxury, a luxurious bathtub has nothing to do with meetings. The prime minister's answer had nothing to do with the questions, but it had nothing to do with sex. I wasn't thinking about sex at all. He was quite animated in trying to defend himself because he really did feel like his comments were misconstrued, that he wasn't referencing gay people or trying to

call the prime minister gay or, you know, to try and imply that he was having relations with tom clark he was just trying to call out the government for this expensive bathtub and saying okay if you have this apartment for meetings why do you need such a luxurious copper bathtub um you know not everyone was buying it necessarily because garnett genuas is known more as a social conservative um and has um made some comments about conversion therapy in the past. So people were a little skeptical of it, but he was quite adamant that he was really not trying to make a homophobic slur about the prime minister. So I think a lot of people listening and, you know, I say this with no political leanings, I think objectively probably just feel like this is at minimum very high school sort of childish, all of this, right? Yeah, I always think about the visitors that come to Parliament Hill and that are in the galleries watching Question Period. These are like regular people, school children.

They're like students. Yeah. They're students. And like school children, like young people, like tweens, you know, like 12, 13, 14. A lot of class trips filter through here all the time. And I'm always like, what are they thinking when they leave this place? You know, it can't be a good impression of our democracy and how our institutions function.

You know, you got Pierre Bolliev calling Chrystia Freeland incompetent. This incompetent finance minister would tell you that Trudeau, you know, he's a fake and a phony. Prime Minister demonstrates

once again, he is a fake and he is a phony. Karina Gould calling, you know, Polly of a fraudster. So over the top, so irresponsible, so immature, and something that only a fraudster would do. You know, Jagmeet Singh also, you know, a biting assessment of the liberals. It's very clear to me that Justin Trudeau and the liberals were far too weak to stop big corporations from ripping off people. And people deserve it. Yeah, it's not great. You know, it doesn't leave a great

impression for people as they watch. Can you elaborate for me a little bit more on why people, maybe people even in Ottawa, think that things have gotten so hot and personal, like at the moment? You know, of course, the stakes are quite high. We could go to an election any minute. But, you know, why else? I think both sides feel like both the conservatives and the liberals feel like their opponent is a threat to the country. You know, I feel like the conservatives think the liberals have done a very poor job while in government. The economy is not great. We've been through it, you know, kind of a tough time with these higher interest rates. The economy's not great. We've been through a tough time with these higher interest rates. The housing market people are priced out. And so the conservatives feel like

the liberals need to go. They have been bad for the country. They have allowed immigration to spiral out of control. There's a problem with international students and temporary foreign workers. And they just feel like the liberals have not served the country well. Whereas the liberals feel like we cannot let the conservatives win. These guys are not going to be good for our country. They do not represent Canadian values. They are too far right. They are too aligned with social conservative voices. So both sides feel like they really have a mission ahead of them to try and stop the other one from winning. There is just a lot of tension and they feel like it's an existential fight. And when you're in that sort of mindset, this is the sort of stuff that happens, right? You start to lose sight of your opponent as a human being and you're willing

to just toss whatever you want over at the other side. And hopefully something sticks no matter how nasty it is. The last thing that I want to touch on with you before we go is a fight between Polyev and Bell Media. And so let me try to explain a little bit about what happened here, because you were kind enough to take the bathtub. It's basically, it was a segment on CTV News, and it edited Polyev's words in a way that would have left the impression that he wanted an election over the liberals' dental care program. What he said, which is something that he has said many times, was that he wanted a carbon tax election. And so tell me a bit about how Polyev responded to what happened there. So he was like genuinely aggrieved and felt that CTV did him wrong, that they edited this clip and allowed it to follow a piece of script that talked about the dental care program.

And so he felt like CTV really did him wrong by trying to suggest in their item that he was going to bring down the government because of the dental care program. And really, as you said, is he really wants to. It was wrong. The CTV clip was edited. It was altered. It was not a fair reflection necessarily of where he stood on this non-confidence motion he wasn't bringing in about because of dental care. He wants to have a carbon tax election, as you rightly summarized. He wants the next election to be about the liberal government's climate plan that, you know, levies taxes on fuels and then rebates the money in an

attempt to bring down the country's greenhouse gas emissions. And he felt like that report from CTV was, well, in his words, Extremely dishonest and fraudulent report from Bell Media Controlled CTV, who is a company whose bonds have been downgraded to near junk status as its overpaid CEO empties the books to pay his wealthy friends an unacceptably and unrealistically high dividend. He really took it out on the CEO, which is something you don't really see very often. You don't see a senior politician like Pierre Pauliev kind of lashing out at a publicly traded company like this, you know, a company that's very important to the Canadian economy. A lot of people hold Bell stock, either as retail investors or in

their pension plans. And he was going after Mirko Bibic, the CEO, saying, you know, saying without evidence that he put the reporters up to this, that the CEO was responsible for what he's calling a deceptive edit, that, you know, they were essentially doing his bidding. Obviously, that's not what Bell says happened here. They maintain it was just a misunderstanding. But Polyev very much going on the offensive and taking on a major publicly traded company for what their reporters did in their media division. Right. And I just I'm sorry if you mentioned this and I missed it. But CTV released a statement apologizing. And then, you know, again, they released another statement and they said the two people in the news division are currently not working there anymore.

Just JP, right before we leave here, things seem very tenuous right now, as we've discussed. And where do you think things go from here? Well, you and i have talked in the past about the prime minister and his future and that was kind of the open question for weeks especially after that terrible by-election loss in toronto for the liberals people were like he can't go on like this you can't lose a long time liberal safe seat like toronto st paul's and carry on and then he lost in montreal just a few ago. Yeah, and they did it again. But you know what? His position now is more secure than ever. In many ways, there is no movement afoot

to oust the prime minister to get rid of Justin Trudeau. There have been some people that have come forward to say, we got to get rid of this guy, but not many, right? He has his caucus and his cabinet lined up behind him. So they're going into this battle with Justin Trudeau at the helm. And that's what it's going to be. And so they just have to try and hold off these non-confidence votes in their eyes. They have to try and hold off these motions and try and regroup and take on Pierre Poglia, bring him down a few notches and then try and hold on and win at least a minority government in the next election. But that's a huge, tall order. And it's going to be up to the opposition parties to play ball,

the Black Quebecois and or the NDP to go along with the Liberals. And it's not a certain thing that they will. All right. Well, JP, very exciting stuff. Thank you very much. As always, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me.

All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.