Front Burner - Politics roundup: David Johnston, budget tactics and byelections

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

MPs have just a couple weeks before Parliament is set to break for the summer, but there’s still a lot going on in Ottawa. David Johnston continues to fend off calls to step aside as special rapporteur on foreign interference, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is signalling Conservatives will continue to protest the Liberals’ budget in the Senate, despite its passage in the House of Commons, and the People’s Party of Canada leader is trying to make his return to the Parliament. On this episode, guest host Saroja Coelho dives into the top political stories with Catherine Cullen, host of the CBC political podcast, The House. For transcripts of this series, 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 Saroroja Coelho. There are just a couple more weeks before Parliament breaks for the summer, and there's a lot going on in Ottawa. The foreign interference story, along with former Governor General David Johnston's role in investigating it,

is still grinding on. This appearance of bias to a reasonable person would undermine the work that you're hoping to do and that that work cannot be achieved because of the appearance of bias, which is so fundamental. I am also disappointed that you rejected the majority vote, that the house, the will of the house was expressed and you rejected that vote. I think that's disappointing. will of the House was expressed and he rejected that vote, I think that's disappointing. That's NDP leader Jagmeet Singh this week speaking to David Johnston in a parliamentary committee meeting. Last week, the NDP passed a motion calling on Johnston to step down as special rapporteur on foreign interference, but it's non-binding. And Johnston is refusing to give up the job. And there's more federal politics to sort through.

So for some help with that, I'm joined by Catherine Cullen. She's the host of the CBC political podcast, The House. Hi, Catherine. Welcome back to FrontBurner. Hello. I'm happy to be here. OK, I want to start with a story that is just swirling around David Johnston and his status as special rapporteur. There's been a whole ton of blowback to his decision not to hold a public inquiry into election meddling. And in fact, a majority of Parliament voted for him to be removed.

And all of this is happening before he spent more than three hours getting grilled by MPs in a parliamentary committee this week. So if Parliament hasn't been able to get the answers over the last four years, and you're not going to seek the answers in your upcoming hearings, and we're not getting a public inquiry with all the powers of subpoena, all the powers to call witnesses and to gather evidence, then how on earth are we to get the answers we need to play our constitutional role and hold this government accountable? That's conservative Michael Chong. He's a central part of this story since his family was targeted by Chinese officials. Catherine, what, if anything,

did we learn from this committee meeting? I don't want to disappoint, but the answer is frankly, not a lot, despite it being three whole hours. Now, we should say, to be fair, that he did put out a 60-page report already that had a lot of information about what he had found about foreign interference. But in terms of digging into new avenues, he would say, well, you know, there's a lot of information in my brain that is sensitive, top secret, I can't talk about. And there's two parts of my brain functioning here. One is the part that deals with classified information, and the other is the part that deals with open information. And it's important that I not cross that boundary. So if you want to know the official information, allow me to quote my

own report. And he would sit there in the committee room and read a portion of it, which, as you can imagine, I think was quite frustrating for some of the MPs who were trying to get new information, who made the point that they had read the report repeatedly. The big thing, I think, that was really the takeaway from these three hours was the focus on David Johnston himself. I mean, so much of this conversation was about whether or not he was up to the job, whether or not he was up to the job, whether or not he was concerned about the appearance of bias in this role that he's taken on.

Well, one thing that we discovered there is that it doesn't seem that he spoke to the elections director or to Han Dong, the MP who was accused of advising Chinese officials to delay the release of the two Michaels. And that's something

that he strongly denies. But doesn't it seem like these are two people that Johnston might have wanted to talk to? Did he explain why he didn't do that? Yeah, when it comes to complaints specifically about elections activity, so both the head of Elections Canada and the commissioner for Canada elections, and that's the office that looks into specific concerns about, you know, sort of bad activity around voting. Johnston does say that those conversations are coming, but they haven't happened yet.

The revelation that he hadn't spoken to Handong was perhaps a bit more of a surprise. He does say, though, you know, this is a process. It's obvious that the first part of the process was really about engaging in getting information from some of the players and talking to intelligence agencies and whatnot. Clearly, though, by raising those issues, some of the politicians who are critical of him were trying to make a point that maybe not all the work that needed to be done was being done. He sort of says, watch this space. I'm not done yet. I have heard clearly the disagreement with my recommendations not to call a public inquiry,

as well as allegations about my integrity and my independence. These allegations are, put simply, false. And the decision to repeat them does not make them true. The issue of foreign interference deserves serious and robust debate. I will continue to invite disagreement on my recommendations, but will not be deterred from completing my work. It seemed like the committee members really are split into two almost separate worlds here. On the one side, you've got the Liberal members.

On the other side, all the other parties. We heard one of Michael Chong's questions, but basically, what were we hearing from his party and the NDP? You know, the NDP in particular is trying to sort of thread the needle here. I mean, on the one hand, you had the liberals who were swooping to David Johnston's defense. On the other hand, you had the conservatives who, in some cases, were like just blasting Johnston right out of the gate. It felt like an interrogation. The NDP, Jagmeet Singh came to committee. It's not often that you see a party leader there,

but obviously this was what counts as a special occasion, I guess, if you're on Parliament Hill. He made this point. He was relatively deferential is the right word, but respectful of David Johnston. And he said, the problem here is the appearance of bias. You know, I appreciate that you are trying to serve the country, but I feel it is evident to Canadians now that there are too many questions about your credibility that have been raised in order for you to continue. But he did kind of try to bring it around to the issues, talk about, you know, people from diaspora communities, for instance, and how Johnston was actually going to try to help them in this process, as he has said he is going to. He said, you know, people from diaspora communities, for instance, and how Johnston was actually going to try to help them in this process, as he has said he is going to. He said, you know,

it can be quite frightening to speak out publicly. You're talking about these public hearings. How can you assure that people will have a safe place to speak? So I thought it was interesting. I mean, he's trying to kind of straddle the question because, of course, on the one hand, you have the NDP supporting the government through the Supply and Confidence Agreement, but on the other hand, kind of standing with the other opposition party. So Singh was trying to maybe walk on both sides of the line. Here you have the Liberals, and we can take a look at them for a moment. They seem to be there basically to prop Johnston up in his role. They dismiss the concerns about a conflict of interest, that sort of thing. What stood out for you from the Liberals in this meeting?

Yeah, it was interesting. Liberal MP Jennifer O'Connell made this point. Madam Chair, I just want to point out that the Conservatives just had a total of 15 minutes worth of questions, and they didn't ask a single question about foreign interference. Not a single question. Not a single question. Madam Chair, it was nothing more than a character assassination or conspiracy theories around children playing together. you have to appreciate that the Liberals have put a lot of stock in David Johnston. And even as the questions have piled up about him having previously said that he was a family friend of the prime minister's, a friend of the prime minister's, his involvement, even though Mr. Johnston himself has tried to add some nuance to it, he was at one point doing

some work to help the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, which has also kind of gotten tied up in all this mess about foreign interference. You know, if the Liberals were to back down here, I really don't know where they would go from here. I mean, the prime minister has said, said a long time ago, this is the process. This is how we're going to do it independently. Whatever the special rapporteur decides, that's the path forward. Also, you have to consider that politically, a public inquiry, even if it may be what polls suggest the majority of Canadians are interested in, has the potential to be an unwieldy political exercise for any party in power, certainly for the

Liberals here, especially since some of the information we've had already is that we missed the ball a few times, right, on some important issues. The government did. There were important pieces of information that just slipped through the cracks. So there's not a lot of incentive, I think, to chase after and exercise, no matter how good it may be for our democracy, that's going to cause you political pain. Plus having to backtrack on something that you have, you know, put your foot down about time and time again. At the same time, though, like this issue is dogging the liberals. They can't seem to get away from it. So I think hoping that they can sort of lift David Johnston up and maybe in the same way lift themselves out of some of their problems. Well, that's really what we're seeing play out.

Well, that's really what we're seeing play out. As much as the Liberals keep trying to put out their version of an election meddling investigation, our focus keeps drifting back, returning to Trudeau, to Johnston, the perceived conflict of interest. So do you have any sense of how they think they can continue to push through this? They're just going to follow the process they've set out. Johnston says he's going to go ahead. He's going to hold public hearings, which are different from a public inquiry insofar from what we can tell. They're going to deal with the sort of broader issues here rather than examining the specific missteps

that we know have happened over the course of the past few years on foreign interference. So he's going to follow his process. He's going to deliver a report. There's a whole alphabet soup of other groups that are looking at this as well. NSACOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and CIRA, all these other groups that are looking at the issues.

And so I think the Liberals are going to point to all of these various investigations. They're going to say we're doing the work. Mr. Johnson is doing the tasks that we have put before him. And they're going to, frankly, hope that they can kind of plow through it and move on. Say they're making the improvements they need to make. And they know that Canadians, I mean, at the end of the day, are also seized with some other very pressing issues that don't have a lot to do with foreign interference. Like this is a hot topic in Ottawa. It's important because it speaks to the functioning of our democratic system. But I think we also have to acknowledge that most Canadians are not following every twist and turn of this saga. Oh, I don't mean to continue to lean into Johnston, but there are some other points of contention here. There's been controversy around the fact that Johnston

hired crisis management firm Navigator. What does the fact that he turned to Navigator tell you about the situation? Yeah, I mean, I think it is the fact that Navigator is so closely associated with crisis management that kind of raised everybody's eyebrows, right? Their slogan is like, when you can't afford to lose. And it does speak to this idea that perhaps this has become something of a crisis for David Johnston as he tries to manage some of the reputational damage. I will say he has gone on the record saying that's not the case, that in fact he needed a communications firm essentially from the get-go. At the same time, I think because Navigator has this history of representing some high-profile cases of people who were experiencing reputational damage, shall we say, I'm sure that there are some folks saying, oh, my tax dollars are going to these guys. What's up with that?

But that does seem to have ended the Globe and Mail reporting, in fact, that David Johnston dropped Navigator after the Globe and Mail started asking, hey, didn't Navigator also represent that now former liberal MP Handong? And Johnston's office got back to them and said, no longer using their services. 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. financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cops. Okay, Catherine, moving into the next item in our grab bag of big political stories, I want to talk to you about the budget, and more specifically, the way opposition leader Pierre Polyev is handling the budget. He's actually trying to block it. Why does he say he's doing this? Yeah, I mean, he says that Canada is finding itself on the precipice of a financial crisis, that the budget is part of what's going to make that situation worse. And so he has made it clear, certainly rhetorically, he has made it clear,

he is saying that he's going to do whatever it takes to try to stop it. He had this big speech in the House of Commons on Wednesday night. He spoke for about three and a half hours. I am rising today to speak and to speak and to speak for the people who have no voice, the people who have been silenced for too long. You might call something like that a filibuster. The only thing is he wasn't technically slowing down the process. We knew that the conversation around the budget was going to get cut off right around midnight. It's still a bit of an extraordinary, we could call it

a stunt. What he's trying to do here, fundamentally, is get the attention back on cost of living issues, right? I mean, the Bank of Canada raised the benchmark rate the other day. Canadians are concerned about being able to afford their bills, food. It's something you've talked a lot about on FrontBurner, something we're all talking about everywhere. He's trying to put the spotlight back on this issue because he feels that this is an issue that is close to people's hearts and one that frankly is a winning one for him politically. But did you feel that he actually was able to do that? I mean, are we actually talking about those issues today or are we talking about the three-hour conversation? I think he would be happy that we were talking about the three-hour conversation rather than, let's say, some other issue.

So it's at least a partial win for him. You know, he tweeted out when this not quite a filibuster started that it was happening. And I logged on to his Facebook page to see what was going on. And there were like 1,400 people watching at 8.30 at night when he was talking about, you know, the history of monetary policy around the world and, you know, various foreign regimes. Like, that's not a bad showing. I think this idea that he's really trying to push back against the liberals is one that he is happy to embrace. And he did successfully get himself on a lot of newscasts, sort of making some noise about the budget. Now, the idea that he is actually going to stop a budget that has sufficient support in minority

parliament, it's difficult to understand. I mean, the political support is there. It's the way our system works. The governing party has found support in the NDP. But that he has chosen to make a big stink about it because it is a key political argument for him, that's clear. It will be interesting to see how long he stands his ground on this. He was saying, you know, Justin Trudeau needs to cancel his summer vacation. I'm not going to stop here. I'm going to be interested to see how long he lasts. So I'm calling on him to do the honorable thing,

to put aside his pride and his personal ego and cancel this budget. He should also cancel his summer vacation. Conservatives are prepared to work all summer long to rewrite a budget in order to bring down inflation and interest rates, and that cancels all increases in taxes. The Budget Implementation Act passed the House this afternoon, is now headed to the Senate. Pierre Polyev, leader of the Conservatives,

now promising to perhaps do some kind of procedural thing in the Senate to hold it up further. I'm wondering where the NDP is on this. They have the confidence and supply agreement with the liberals. That's going to remain in place for at least another couple of years. Why do they say they're supporting it? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think for the NDP, what is happening here is that they believe that however much, you know, every time we interview Jagmeet Singh, every time the NDP leader gets in front of a microphone, he has to take questions about whether or not he's going to take down the government.

Like every single time. Surely he is getting sick of it. You know, you're not happy with what they're doing on foreign interference, Mr. Singh. Why don't you bring down the government? You think the government is doing too much to allow for private health care delivery in the country. Well, if you don't like it, you could bring down the government. The NDP is willing to put up with all of those questions because they believe that they are forcing the government to take action on key priorities, things like dental care. They believe that they will see movement.

It's part of the confidence and supply agreement on a national pharmacare plan. And they think that they're going to be able to go back to voters when the next election comes around and say, listen, you only got that stuff because of the NDP. We're showing we can actually get action on our priorities and not just be, you know, the conscience of Canada, the party that's always there saying you should be doing this differently. They fundamentally believe in that vision. They believe it's going to pay dividends for them, that voters are going to recognize that when the time comes to vote. And so there is absolutely no indication that Jagmeet Singh is ready to back off of that anytime soon. In fact, he said because of foreign interference, he doesn't necessarily believe that this is a time Canadians should be going into an election, that we need to clean up the system first. So it looks like the confidence and supply agreement, I don't know if it'll last

all the way until 2025, but it is not on the verge of falling apart anytime soon. It does seem like a bit of a high stakes game here. I'm wondering how long the NDP can play along with the Liberals before they themselves start to take some of the heat for issues that keep coming up, namely, as you just said, foreign interference? Again, I think they've made this calculation that it's worth it that they'll take those tough questions because they are getting specific things that they can point to for Canadians and say, hey, low-income Canadians wouldn't have dental care if it weren't for the NDP. We wouldn't be that much closer to a national pharmacare program. There wouldn't have dental care if it weren't for the NDP. We wouldn't be that much closer to a national pharma care program. There wouldn't have been some of the affordability measures

that we've seen over the course of the last year or so for, again, low-income Canadians. Because they feel that they have specific concrete accomplishments that they can point to, they think it is worth the political heat. They think it is worth the political heat. Finally, I see Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, trying to make his way back to a seat in Parliament. And there are four ridings with by-elections coming up on June 19th. Advanced voting has actually started today. Advanced voting has actually started today.

But I want to ask you about this one rural riding in Manitoba, Portage-Liscar, where Bernier is running against, among other people, conservative candidate Brandon Leslie. So Bernier is from Quebec and his former seat was in Quebec. Why is he running in Manitoba? Well, because he's really trying to give the conservatives a run for their money here and puts him in the national spotlight again as well, doesn't it? This is a really fascinating by-election to watch because, of course, the Conservatives have a new leader now in Pierre Pauliev. I know it's been a while, but he's still relatively new. And he is somebody who has drawn a lot of new supporters into the party, a lot of attention to the party. And some of those people are people who might have otherwise been inclined to vote People's Party of Canada. Indeed, yeah.

Yeah. So this is a real litmus test. And I can tell you from talking to conservatives here on Parliament Hill, they want to see what's going to happen. Not whether or not Maxime Bernier is going to win. I don't think that that's considered terribly likely by the conservatives I've spoken to. But if he can still get a high mark of support, I believe last time around, last election, it was just upwards of 20%. If Bernier can maintain those kinds of numbers, it's going to say something to the conservatives about how effective

Pauliev's message is and whether or not he can form the kind of voter coalition he needs message is and whether or not he can form the kind of voter coalition he needs to succeed in the next election where his predecessors haven't. It's really, really almost won the conservative leadership. But Andrew Scheer did. And then Bernier sort of went off in the political wilderness and decided, I'm starting my own party. His political views, I think it's fair to say, have shifted over that time. And in this by-election in particular, you hear him talking about, for instance, he said, about, for instance, he said, Polyev has betrayed the conservative movement by refusing to condemn,

quote, gender ideology, mass immigration, climate hysteria, and the cult of diversity or abortion. It's not quite necessarily what we would have expected from a libertarian. He's talking a lot about gender politics. I mean, really, he is speaking to some of the concerns of the more extreme right. degeneracy. Radical cultural Marxists have seized control over our educational system, the mainstream media, and governments. That is, I think, what a lot of people would say the People's Party stands for. It is going to be interesting to see how the conservatives position themselves in a way that appeals to voters in Portage-Lisgur, but of course, doesn't alienate more mainstream Canadians who might be really put off by some of the specific things that Bernier is talking about. I am finding this conversation so interesting. We are really winding down now to these last

couple of weeks before MPs head home for the summer. So as that clock is ticking, I'm wondering who you think might most be looking forward to a break right now. I'm going to say the prime minister. I mean, he has got, I think particularly this foreign interference file, it has just been one hit against the government after the other. Maybe it's David Johnston, actually. He's certainly got to be mopping his brow. Yeah. I mean, he has a lot of work to do over the summer, but I think he will be happy if the political debate gets a bit quieter around this. But I think, you know, the foreign interference file in particular has been a difficult one for this government.

One revelation after another. In a sense, they don't fully have their hands around some of these issues. Right. It's not clear that these issues are top of mind for Canadians, but they are overwhelming the government's agenda. Pierre Polyav, frankly, looks like he's having some fun right now on Parliament Hill, going back to one of his favourite issues, which is these financial issues, right? He was the party's finance critic for years and years. So he certainly didn't seem, he was frankly about as happy as I've seen him in Parliament. He's going to need a break just for all the talking. Yeah. Although, again, he says that he's going to do this right through the summer. So, you know, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, maybe you shouldn't count on that break.

We're going to have to see how this all plays out. But I will say, you know, there's a lot of rhetoric. There's a lot of theater. There are some real pressing and important issues that are being sorted out right now on Parliament Hill. But I do think a break is eventually in the offing. I don't think we call this silly season sometimes on Parliament Hill, right? Things start to get a little bit ridiculous. Some of the attacks in the House of Commons get a little bit personal.

Everybody, frankly, is probably a bit ready for a break, and it might be good for everybody to sort of turn down the temperature a bit, but we have to get there first. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the meantime. Oh, well, Catherine, never boring. A really, really interesting conversation about the Canadian political landscape. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Thank you for having me. And that's all for this week. Front Burner was produced by Imogen Burchard, Dennis Calnan, Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, and Jodi Martinson. Special thank you to Jonathan Monpetit and Julia Poggle at CBC's audio doc unit. Our sound design was by Matt Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Shabison. And our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Saroja Coelho.

Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again on Monday.