Front Burner - Will the political fumes of the convoy protest linger?

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

The streets in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa are now mostly cleared after more than three weeks of intense protest. But the debate inside Parliament carried on into Monday night as MPs voted to pass the Emergencies Act. Still, the impact of those convoy protests that led to the unprecedented use of this emergency law could last beyond just this week. Today, Aaron Wherry, of CBC's Parliamentary Bureau, talks about the potential effects of the convoy protests on the Conservative Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the health of our political discourse writ large.

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. Well, the streets in front of Parliament are now mostly cleared after more than three weeks of intense protest. But the debate inside Parliament, it carried on into Monday night as MPs voted on the Emergency Act. How often does the Prime Minister plan to use the tool of last resort as a tool of first resort? The fact that this legislation is being contemplated, let alone invoked, is a failure of leadership

at all levels of government to respond adequately to clear threats to national security and our very own democracy. It's a very considered view that threats remain to our communities here in Ottawa, to the neighbourhoods here in Ottawa, Mr. Speaker, who have for far too long been under siege, Mr. Speaker. As expected, the vote passed with the joint support of the Liberals and the NDP. The Conservatives and the Bloc opposed. Still, I have a feeling that the impact of these convoy protests that led to the unprecedented use of this emergency law,

that captured national and international attention, that brought so much frustration and anger right to the country's political doorstep, it could last well beyond just this week. So today, my colleague Erin Wary is here to talk about the potential effects on the Conservative Party, on Justin Trudeau, and on the health of our political discourse writ large. Hey, Aaron. Hey, Jamie. Thank you very much for being here. First, I'll timestamp this conversation right off the bat because we're talking on Monday afternoon. So the House is still debating the Emergency Act right now.

And can you just start by giving me a quick sense of what that debate has sounded like today? So I think, I mean, look, these parties have kind of staked out their positions and they weren't going to move. The Conservatives' main arguments are that this doesn't meet the threshold of an emergency. The government hasn't justified the use of the Emergencies Act. And more than that, really, the Conservative argument is that Justin Trudeau is to blame for all of this because he has been unnecessarily divisive in his actions with vaccine mandates and then in his rhetoric around those mandates. The Prime Minister talked earlier today about mending fences. He called on Canadians to call their unvaccinated cousin

and for Canadians to aim for more decency in our public discourse. I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he would be willing to lead by example and apologize to Canadians that he called racist and misogynist and with unacceptable views because he disagreed with them. I think it would go a long way, Mr. Speaker. You know, the liberal argument is, look, this was a threat to the economy, a threat to public safety. There are people within these protests who hold very extreme views. It was a dangerous and costly situation, and it was beyond the ability of provincial or municipal laws to deal with. Invoking the Emergencies Act has been necessary. Law enforcement

agencies relied on it to set up secured areas in downtown Ottawa and at border crossings. It prevented foreign money from continuing to fund illegal blockades. And it's making sure our borders remain open. It has been the responsible thing to do. And then, you know, we're in a minority parliament, of course, of course so you know the vote kind of depends on on the other parties and you've got the bloc saying this is a dangerous intrusion on provincial jurisdiction and quebec in particular so they're voting against it and then the the kind of almost the most interesting part is the ndp saying you know we're going to vote in favor of this and

they've been taunted a lot by the Conservatives over the last few days with the memory of Tommy Douglas, the sort of patron saint of the NDP, former party leader, who very famously opposed the War Measures Act in October 1970. The government I submit is using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. This is overkill on a gargantuan scale. So the Conservatives have been reminding the NDP of this throughout the debate, and you can see why. The NDP is generally the party of sort of sticking up for civil liberties and government overreach. So you might expect them, generally speaking, to oppose the use of the Emergencies Act on a protest.

might expect them, generally speaking, to oppose the use of the Emergencies Act on a protest. But I think the NDP has looked at this from the other direction, which is, you've got this protest that is taking up kind of extreme views. There's been Confederate flags and swastikas cited. Some of the organizers have been linked to pretty, you know, racist, extreme views. And I think the NDP looks at it and says, you know, yeah, we obviously have concerns about civil liberties and government overreach. But if we have to choose between that and siding with those protesters, then they are going to come down on the side of wanting to take action against this movement. OK, I know we're going to be talking a lot about rhetoric today, but I want to bring up one particular piece of rhetoric related to the Emergency Act. On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Christa Freeland said that a liberal democracy must be prepared to defend itself. And that's why the act was necessary. But I have to say, having been on the ground in Ottawa, it was a real mixed bag there.

having been on the ground in Ottawa, it was a real mixed bag there. Of course, you've got the so-called leaders demanding the dissolution of government, though they did have a very confusing plan involving the governor general and didn't make a ton of sense. But also like one of their figureheads told protesters to wave white underwear because that's international law, then the cops can't touch you. It's international law law so if you're out there with a white flag they have to walk away from you guys telling you right now take your white shirts off take your white underwear off do what you want guys this is serious other people were invoking their first amendment rights which obviously is not a thing here so i wonder what your take is on this. Like, did you see this? And I ask you because you're always so thoughtful on this stuff. Did you see this as a threat to our democracy?

So that's a, that's a big question. One of the most interesting moments of this debate for me was in the very early debate in the House, Jagmeet Singh stood up after the Conservatives had sort of said their piece and said that the convoy stated their mission, which was to overthrow the government. It sounds ludicrous, but they brazenly... And he was sort of, he was jeered and heckled for saying that. And I think that speaks to a real split here in that some people saw those demands and thought, well, that's ridiculous. And, you know, maybe that's some people's motivation, but that's not everybody's motivation. So why are we taking that seriously? And I think other people looked at that and said, well, you can't not take

that seriously. You know, maybe at some point in history, we would have looked at that and said, well, that's silly and that's ridiculous. And we're not even going to pretend that is a serious demand or goal. But, you know, the last, let's say, six to 10 years of Western democracy, notably the events in the United States and the attempted insurrection there, has sort of, I think, sent the message that you dismiss these things at your own potential peril. However ridiculous it is, you could be making a pretty serious mistake to just go, oh, come on now. You know, their demands to overthrow the government aren't serious. Let's not take that seriously. Like, you know, Rideau Hall has told reporters that they were getting inundated with thousands of phone calls. So, you know, some people clearly took this pretty seriously. Now I want to step back a bit and think a bit more broadly about the impact that the last few

weeks of anti-vaccine mandate protests have had or could have on our federal politics. And let's start with the Conservative Party, who ousted their leader in week one of these protests. What effect do you think it's had on them? So, you know, with the caveat that it's always dangerous to predict that everything has changed this early in the game, you know, and we'll see where things go from here, I do think that there is potential here for pretty big change in Canadian politics. The first, as you say, the Conservatives. So, you know, they had various members of their party, prominent members of the party sort of cheering on the convoy as it came into town. I think that it is possible to hold individually responsible anyone who says or does anything unacceptable

while showing support for the hard-working law-abiding peace-loving truckers who are fighting for their freedom and their livelihoods. And you know what if they want to drive across the country I think that's actually a really healthy way to demonstrate what you feel about something. And that should be encouraged. Absolutely. And arguably, one of the sort of straw that broke the camel's back with Aaron O'Toole was his sort of waffling on that position. The conservatives have also, you know, tried to distance themselves from some of the extreme elements or condemn some of the extreme elements. But they, you know, did that in addition to kind of embracing it on the way in. And, you know, one of the comparisons that's been floated is that the

convoy could be like the Tea Party movement, which was an anti-government movement that sprung up during Barack Obama's first term as president of the United States. Do you want your freedom? That the convoy could be like that and that it could become an influential force. In the case of the Tea Party, it became a very influential force within the Republican Party. Now, part of that is because it was actually very well organized and it had a lot of organizational power. And we'll see whether that happens here. But I do think when you look at, you know, Pierre Polyev, who was the finance critic in the Conservative Party, a very prominent

frontbencher, his embrace of the convoy and his messaging coming out of it, in which he talks a lot about freedom. If he wants to put an end to those protests, if he wants to actually reunite the country, then he should do what others have begun doing, because freedom is on the march in this country. Suggests that this is going to have an influence, this convoy experience is going to have a lot of influence in the party, or at least in the kind of ideas that the party is pursuing. And so the question then becomes, you know, does that mean that the party moves further and further to the right? Does it become a kind of harder edge party? Where does it go exactly coming out of this? You know, if it senses that it has sort of a lot of anxiety and aggravation and frustration

that it can appeal to, how does it answer those feelings? And what does it propose to resolve them? And can it kind of harness it? It's interesting, you talk about Pierre Polyev, who is considered the frontrunner in the race to be the next leader of the party. There were like trucks in the convoy with Pierre Polyev for prime minister flags on them. Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, we'll see how well Polyev sort of stance translates to public opinion. But at this moment, it does feel like they want to kind of ride that energy. Do you think that they can continue to ride that energy or that that energy can continue to shape the direction of the party, even if vaccine mandates end and people move on from the pandemic? Yeah, that's a big question, too. I mean, it's possible in that, you know,

I don't know that we know whether the convoy and the people who supported it were really just upset about vaccine mandates and that once vaccine mandates go away, the anger and the frustration will dissipate. I think it's at least as likely that the frustration and anger will just transfer to something else. Similar to the fact that, you know, I don't think the convoy itself was necessarily unprecedented. We had the, you know, the United We Roll protests a few years ago, and those were supposedly frustrations about the energy industry, the oil and gas industry. So I think it would be riskier to assume that this energy is going to go away. I suspect it's more likely that it sort of just gets transferred to something else. one of the organizers of the group, she showed up to her bail hearing in an I Love Oil and Gas sweater. Yeah. I'd like to talk about the Liberals now, if that's cool. In particular, Justin Trudeau. And maybe to help put this conversation we're about to have into context,

I wonder if you could tell me about the speech you've been thinking about lately that Trudeau made five years ago? It feels like it happened 100 years ago. But in February 2017, he goes to Germany, and he gives this speech at a very fancy banquet on the topic of people feeling anxious and how do governments respond to this anxiety. It turns into us versus them. And we're watching that anxiety transform into anger on an almost daily basis. And you got to remember, this comes in the wake of Trump and Brexit. And at a moment when Justin Trudeau is regarded as sort of a torchbearer for, you know, liberal democracy and progressive government. And he

sort of says, you know, look, there's this anxiety in the public, and we need to deal with it by proposing solutions, finding solutions. And he, you know, holds up his government's record of, you know, increasing taxes on the rich and bringing in the Canada Child Benefit, bringing in support for students and bringing in new training for workers. And then he says, the other piece of it is we need to listen to people. And the answers are not in this room. They're out there. We need to step out from these places and truly listen to people who are anxious about their futures. And he talks about the fact that he had just finished a round of town hall meetings.

He did this a few times as prime minister. He would go around and hold these open town halls and take questions from whoever came and listen to people. And it was a notable move from him because you don't usually see political leaders in that kind of open, freewheeling forum very often. It's time to realize that this anger and anxiety we see washing over the world is coming from a very real place and it's not going away. 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. Street Connections. 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. You know, I remember we saw him take some of this more empathetic approach you're talking about on the campaign trail last year. Uh, there were some really intense protesters showing up at his campaign stops. more empathetic approach you're talking about on the campaign trail last year. There were some really intense protesters showing up at his campaign stops. After one rally had to be cancelled over security concerns, he offered this message. He said, look, we've all had a difficult year. And those folks out protesting,

look, we've all had a difficult year. And those folks out protesting, they had a difficult year too. And I know and I hear the anger, the frustration, perhaps the fear. And I hear that. And I know we have to work even harder to be there for each other, to support each other. And we need to meet that anger with compassion. It was almost like a bit of an olive branch, right? But then I think it's fair to say that he pivoted a bit in his messaging on

this right during the campaign. Yeah, you know, as these protests follow him from event to event, and people are screaming things at him, by the end of the campaign, he's much more coming down on the side of, you know, these crowds are anti-vax mobs. You know, granted, they had thrown, at one point, gravel gets thrown at him, his wife gets insulted. It's a pretty heated atmosphere. But he, you know, he gives this interview in Montreal where he gets asked about what's going on on the campaign trail. And he says, you know, look, there's some people who just need to be reassured about vaccines. But then there's also the people within that who, you know, are racist, misogynist. They don't believe in science, they're often misogynist, often racist too.

It's a little... You know, who are taking up space and do we tolerate these people? And he takes on this very oppositional, like, I'm going to stand up to these people. And that message, that kind of approach really carries over to the convoy in that he starts talking about them as, you know, having unacceptable views, a fringe minority. And it's a deviation from the message of 2017 and the message of kind of early in the 2021 campaign of we need to listen, we need to understand people's anxieties, we need to talk to people. And it, you know, I don't know that the convoy would have been prevented if he

had talked about it differently, but his message changes, and it possibly fuels what's going on. And it, I think, exposes the conundrum for him in that, you know, he wants to be standing up to things that should be stood up to. But in this case, he's faced with a group of citizens, and he's sort of trampling all over his previous idea about listening. And I think it exposes a kind of tension that he hasn't quite resolved between sort of compassion and capitulation. hasn't quite resolved between sort of compassion and capitulation. Yeah, and I'll say that the protesters that I met, they talk about those comments that Trudeau made often. The interview that he gave in French in Montreal and then... The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable views that they're expressing. They have like buttons or these like homemade red felt squares snipped into a fringe that,

you know, they say identify them as like the fringe minority, right? Right. I want to talk about that line, right, between understanding and capitulation, because it is tough to do the I'm listening shtick while leaders in this group have explicitly, as we talked about today, their goal is some kind of overthrow of the government. And then how do you not condemn the obviously hateful extremist elements that were in the crowd? We saw one of the main figureheads, Pat King, in the crowd. This is a guy who has decried the depopulation of the white race. And he has like this celebrity cult status around him. People were taking tons of selfies with them. And so do you think you can walk that line? Is that a line that can be walked by a politician? I mean i i suspect the answer is you've

got to try and i think the line that trudeau couldn't quite find was figuring out a way to kind of condemn the leadership or the organizers or the extreme elements or you know the things that you had to condemn while not condemning everyone in the crowd. I do think Trudeau kind of strayed away from the listening and the compassionate leader that he had originally said was part of the answer to populism. Part of the conservative argument all along has been, well, why doesn't he just go meet with these people? And, you know, I don't know that any prime minister could put himself in a position where he was willing to meet with people who want to overthrow the government and who have who were effectively kind of holding the city hostage or the border hostage. to then turn around and condemn everything that's going on.

Because, you know, if you're a progressive, if you're a leader who wants to do something with government, you need to get as much public support as you can. You want to end up in a place where you're not only objecting to and pointing out what's objectionable, but you're also sort of shrinking the available voters and shrinking the momentum for these kinds of things. I guess one question I have is, is do you think that this is about him not really being able to figure out how to talk about this? Or do you think it's that he just straight up, like, doesn't want to, right? So, like, I mean, even just last week in question

period, I know there was much controversy over this moment. You know, a Jewish conservative MP, Melissa Lansman, said that Trudeau was fanning the flame of an unjustified national emergency. And he turned around and he accused conservative MPs of standing with people who wave swastikas and Confederate flags. Conservative party members can stand with people who wave swastikas. They can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag. We will choose to stand with Canadians. Like maybe this is just the direction that he's taking now. Yeah, I mean, look, it's politics, so it's possible that people are being political. You can definitely say that the liberal approach since sort of late last

summer when the election started was to make a clear differentiation between themselves and conservatives, that conservatives didn't want vaccine mandates and liberals did, and liberals were on the side of science and conservatives weren't. And, you know, now with the convoy that conservatives are on the side of protests that featured Confederate flags in the swastika, and, you know, there's definitely an attempt to pin this on the conservatives. And so, no, you know, it's, I'm sure that the Prime Minister was probably purposeful in his language in describing the convoy and talking about what's happened there. It's just the question then becomes, you know, is that a winner in the long run? Is that the message and the disposition that gets you anywhere

in the long run? Or does it really benefit you in the long run? Or do you need to be a bit more nuanced about it? You know, if you heard the prime Minister today, he says, you know, talks about how we need to kind of cool the temperature down. And we need to, you know, talk to each other. And we need to not just view arguments as winner-take-all sorts of situations. And, you know, maybe that's contrived. Maybe that's him trying to make up for what he said previously. Maybe that's him trying to kind of have it both ways. But I do think whatever the political considerations, whatever Trudeau is trying to accomplish or tried to accomplish, what you've seen over the last three, four months is a real kind of test for exactly how to approach this and whether or not the whether you found the

right way to talk about it. And I don't, on the available evidence, I'm not sure that he has found the right way to talk about this in a way that's going to, that is sort of the long term answer to this, to this problem. And so then if we're taking stock of the effect these protests have had on our federal politics writ large, I wonder what you think all this has done for the health of our political discourse. If on one side, we might be seeing the Conservative Party have its Tea Party turn and and on the other side, we see the Liberals accused of writing off roughly 30% of Canadians who supported the convoy. Yeah, well, we're not in a better place. And we're arguably in a in a pretty dangerous place. You know, it's always hard to know exactly where these things are going to go.

And I don't know that, you know, we're I don't think we're past the tipping point. I don't think we're spiraling into chaos or anything. But, you know, I think this has been a pretty difficult two years. I think it's been a particularly difficult last few months. I think this convoy movement could lead people down some unhealthy paths. And I think politicians need to think seriously about where things are going and how they're going to address it. I think this is kind of a raw, wounded, angry moment. And the government has had to take extraordinary action to regain control of things. And I think now there's a pretty big moment for sort of not only taking stock of what's happened over the last few weeks, but taking stock of everything. And then a pretty concerted effort

on the part of everybody, really really to take stock of where things are going and how you're going to deal with all of this sort of anger and frustration that's been revealed. Aaron, thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. I have been thinking about a lot of these over the last several days and you're just the perfect person to hash them out with. So thank you. Thanks, Jamie. All right. So before we go today, I want to play you a bit of a speech from a Toronto-based Liberal MP, Nate Erskine-Smith, from Monday afternoon. In it, he expressed his reservations about the government invoking the Emergency Act and essentially said he was only voting with his Liberal peers because it was a confidence vote. Basically, if the Liberals lost the vote, they'd be expected to dissolve Parliament and hold an election.

He also said this. My genuine plea to those listening, to those who dislike the Prime Minister, who dislike public health measures, to those who sit in the Conservative caucus especially. Just remember that democracies are fragile. Encouraging lawlessness and emboldening anti-government, anti-democratic voices does a disservice to our country no matter how much hatred you have for your opponents. If you don't stop fanning the flames, I'm not certain we'll be able to put out the fire. And reflecting on my own side of the House, if we are so fearful of polarization, then All right, that is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.