Shaun Newman Podcast - #814 - James Manson & Bruce Pardy

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

We discuss the prorogation of the government and whether Canada can be changed through the current framework.James Manson is a constitutional lawyer representing the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) in its lawsuit against the Canadian government challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to prorogue Parliament in January 2025. Manson acted as one of the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, David MacKinnon and Aris Lavranos, two Nova Scotia residents who sought a Federal Court declaration that Trudeau’s prorogation was unlawful and unreasonable.Bruce Pardy is a Canadian legal scholar, professor of law at Queen’s University, and a prominent commentator on constitutional rights, freedoms, and the rule of law. Known for his classically liberal perspective, he champions principles such as equal application of the law, negative rights, private property, limited government, and the separation of powers. Pardy is an outspoken critic of legal progressivism, social justice movements, and the discretionary administrative state, arguing that these undermine Canada’s legal traditions.Cornerstone Forum ‘25https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastSilver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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The first is a constitutional lawyer representing the JCCF. The second, a Canadian legal scholar and professor of law at Queens University. I'm talking about James Manson and Bruce Party. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Bruce Party. and James Manson.

Gentlemen, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having us, Sean. Great. Now, I'm going to, normally I let the two guys decide who, you know, tell people about their backgrounds and everything.

I'm going to rattle it off for the first time in a long time because I want to get to this and really move things along. So we got James Manson. He's a Canadian and constitutional lawyer associated with the JCCF and was the lead counsel

on the lawsuit against the Canadian government challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to pro-rogue parliament, which got thrown out. I'm sure I'm using the wrong terminology there, James. I'll let you tell us all about it. And then, of course, we got everybody's favorite on this side, Bruce Party coming back on Canadian legal scholar, professor of law at Queens University.

I'm sure I could have went extra paragraphs for each of you. But in general, I think that pretty much summarizes the two of you. What I want to do is I want to start with a tweet that Bruce put out. And then I want to have you two talk about it and just see what comes here because I'm very curious. I got the guy who was in on the case and I got another guy who is a scholar and is looking at the case as an overall outlook on Canada. This is the tweet. Some people may be taken the wrong lessons from the prerogation decision in my opinion. The problem is not that the decision is wrong and the court did it anyway. The problem is that the decision is probably

mostly correct. That is, it is consistent with the juror prudence and constitution. In other words, the problem is not just that some bad people are corrupting our system. The problem is that this is how our governance system works. Therefore, fixing the problem does not just mean rooting out bad apples. It means overhauling the constitutional or architecture of our country, of the country. Apologies. And maybe that's politically impossible for Canada, which is one reason I believe Alberta must lead the way out. But please don't spend your time and energy in the margins shouting at the sky.

James, Bruce, I, A, I'm like, I've been thinking about this all day. Your thoughts, James, on that tweet. And then by all means, I'm just curious to sit as a fly in the wall as you two discuss the prerogation and what it means for Canada. Well, I hear that tweet, that quote. And I immediately want to reach for my emergency bottle of scotch that I keep on my desk drawer here. It's a very complicated question, I think Professor Party would agree. Is there, should we be disappointed with this decision? Should we be encouraged?

Should we try to change things, as I think Professor Party, Bruce, you know, might suggest. We have this system, this is the way it is right now. We know how hard it is to change the Constitution. Are we stuck with this forever? You know, are we limited to people like me and my clients trying to nibble around the edges and try to get whatever results we can within the system that we've got? Is it possible to move the needle in the way that we're asking the court to move the needle? I don't know, you know. I can tell you, you know, what we thought about the case.

But I can also say that, look, I think there was some victory in the case. perhaps a little bit of disappointment in terms of the actual final result. But it's complicated, which again has me reaching for my beverage of choice over here. I'm curious because I was telling Bruce before we started, he got my brain exactly where I don't know if this is a lot of Canadians, but this is kind of where I'm at. The problem is that the decision is probably mostly correct. And I'm like, that worries me.

Would you agree with that? Or is in the ruling, are you like, well, actually, there's a few things that Canadians should know about. And you see maybe some inconsistency with maybe that statement. Let me start with what I think was good, unequivocally good. Number one, the court found that it had what they call jurisdiction to entertain or to hear the case at all. And related to that, the court also found that the matter that we were talking about was what they called justiciable. That's a long word that basically means that the court is the right place and can adjudicate the issue. And really what we're talking about with these issues is, is it a political issue such that it's not something the courts are going to want to deal with?

Or is it a legal issue? Because, of course, as the viewers will understand, courts, it's a court of law, right? Not a court of politics. And so you're supposed to only deal with legal issues. And so the issue in this case was, was this prerogation decision by the prime minister? Was it a political issue or was it a legal issue? And the government, as I'm sure we all know, was arguing very forcefully that, no, this was a political issue. And the court can't even go there.

The court doesn't have jurisdiction. The court can't decide this issue. The court should just toss this out at first base, because, there's no way for the court to get involved. And we said, no, this isn't a political issue. It's a legal issue. It's dealing with a legal mechanism, a constitutional mechanism of prerogation, which involves the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and Parliament, all these things. It involves the interrelationship between all the parties, sorry, all the, you know, players in the government. And therefore, the court is the correct place to be to decide who has the

power to do what and all that. And the court in this case did find, yes, we have jurisdiction, and yes, the matter is, as they say, justiciable. So those were good. My own opinion of that is that that was the correct decision. You want the courts to be able to referee between other branches of government, Parliament and the executive. I know that really the executive is part of Parliament. it's not really a separate branch per se, but that's essentially the concept, I think, that the government and the parliament, if there's a dispute between who does what,

remembering that in this case, it was the prime minister that essentially shut down parliament. So there's that tension there. The court said, we are the right place to talk about that. We're the right place to analyze the prime minister's conduct and to get involved where it's, where it's necessary. And so I think that that's a good decision.

The other decision that the court made, which I think was good, was on standing. There's another issue in the case where our clients are just regular citizens, to be honest. They are interested in the rule of law. They're lawyers. One is also a doctor. But anyway, they have a deep and abiding interest

in the rule of law and legal things. And they said, hey, we want to get involved we think this is affecting us, you know, because our members of parliament can't sit and can't do their jobs and all that. And the court said, yes, we agree that as a matter of public interest, it's appropriate for these guys to stand up here and bring this claim. If the court didn't want to hear the claim, Sean, the court could have said, we don't think that these two people are just random people in Nova Scotia. We don't think that they have enough of a stake in this. They aren't any different than anybody else anyway in Canada.

So they're not special. They don't have any special interest. So we're not even going to hear the case. So I think that's important to know is that the court had a couple of chances in the beginning to bounce this case right off the bat. And it didn't. It said, yes, they have standing. Yes, this is a justiciable issue.

Yes, we've got jurisdiction. And the other thing they did, which was from the beginning, was that Chief Justice Crampton agreed that the matter was urgent, that there was an urgency to the matter. That's important, too, because in this particular case, if the court had not found that this was an urgent hearing, that this warranted an urgent hearing, then there wouldn't have been a point, right? So all of those preliminary issues broke in our client's favor. And I thought that the analysis on all those issues was sound, and I thought it was good. And I think that that is a win for us, because what that shows, regardless of what happened, you know, in this particular case, we now know that the prime minister, the court can supervise or can get involved and review the next time a prime minister pro rogues parliament, it's possible that that gets examined. the right circumstances. So I think that that is all, at least from my point of view, those are all

good things. I think we want the prime minister to be superviseable. I am not of the category of people who think that the prime minister ought to exercise unlimited prerogative power like the kings and queens of days gone by used to do. I don't think that that's appropriate in a democracy, in a constitutional democracy. So those are all good things. I could talk about some of the bad things, but I recognize I've been talking for a while. I might want to let Professor Party speak

or perhaps throw it back to you, Sean. Bruce, I'm curious, your thoughts on this. Yeah. Well, first, my hat's off to James and lawyers like him who are trying to work within the system to try to hold back the egregious, conduct that we all perceive. There's a lot of work in the trenches to do, and they're doing their very best to do it. So they have my admiration for that. I don't disagree with most of what James

said. I do think that the court has a role in drawing the line around where these kinds of powers lie. I mean, you can't have a prime minister with unlimited powers. There's got to be a limit somewhere, and if there's going to be a limit, then it's the court that's going to describe where it is. On the other hand, you don't want the court's, my inclination is you don't want the court to be involved in this too much. And this is the respect in which I think the decision is also correct in the sense that it was reluctant and said it wasn't their place on these facts to decide whether or not the decision to perug was proper or not. And I'm fine with that because there are going to be other circumstances in which a different prime minister, Perrault's parliament, and we're not going to want the courts to get involved. One of the dangers in our system is that the courts over time, especially the Supreme Court,

has taken on more and more powers to decide what the policy in the country is going to be. So I think we have to be alive to that and be wary of running to one branch of government when another branch misbehaves, thinking that the first branch is going to be the savior when they're all a problem. All right. So my difficulty is a much broader one, which is not solvable by going to court,

which is that, as the tweet reflected, that this is the way our system is designed to work. I mean, Parliament's been forrobed lots of times through history, lots of times. And it is one of the powers that the prime minister has to go to the governor general and say, please shut the place down for a while. Stephen Harper did it, and it's been done lots of times in the past. So if you don't like, the bottom line is this. If you don't like the idea that the prime minister should be able to prerog parliament, then you do not approve of our Westminster system of government.

You're not going to be able to wipe that out. If you did that, you would change the system. And so my my objection is is to the idea that we can change our system incrementally, like one little bit at a time. We'll work on this, we'll work on that, we'll set this right. That is not the way it's going to work. We have a system, and over time, a lot of people are very fond of the system, very fond of the system. They're committed to the system. And over time, I have found that the system itself is the problem.

And in order to fix that system, you're going to have to have a whole big upheaval and then a resorting of how this country runs. And I admit that there is no fast route, fast and easy route to that politically, virtually impossible. Virtually impossible to do as a country because there are so many vested interests committed to the status quo. It's just not going to happen, which, as the tweet. you read out, suggested, which is one reason why at the moment, I think that the best way to disrupt this country is for a province like Alberta to say, you know what? We've had enough. We want out. And that in itself would cause, maybe, maybe cause enough of a disturbance that you'd finally get some conversation about very basic things happening. Maybe not, but at the moment,

it's our best shot. I agree with much of what Bruce has said. Sean. And, you know, as a litigator, right, I'm sort of trapped in what he's described, which is trying my best to do what I can in the system that we got, right? I think that one of the things that used to hold this system together was, frankly, honor and decency and knowing what to do, knowing to do the right thing. I mean, we're in a situation now where these prerogations. are getting less and less credible from a constitutional point of view, I would say. Maybe others would disagree. Maybe others would say, hey, it doesn't matter what the reasons are to pro-rope parliament. The PM can always pro-vote parliament, no matter what, that's it. That's the ballgame.

Too bad. You don't like it, change it, pass a law, or have a revolution or whatever. My sense of it, right? And I'm not a historian in that way, but my sense of it, this is that we've gone from bad to worse in terms of when people taking it back to prerogations when when when prime ministers do this it used to be back in the olden days right it used to be a very garden variety tool so that you could shut down parliament legitimately for a number of months because back in the olden days parliament didn't have to meet you know all year round

They only had to meet every few months or for a couple months a year or something because the federal government didn't have so much business to do. And it was a long way to take the train back home to BC. So, you know, MPs would literally leave Ottawa for a long time. And rather than have a new election, they just shut down parliament for a number of months. That was prerogation. They'd come back, you know, six months later, there'd be a new speech from the throne. That all made sense. It wasn't political.

It wasn't to avoid a non-confidence motion. It wasn't to avoid scrutiny in Parliament for a scandal, one of the many scandals that we've been subjected to over the years. It wasn't to gain tactical advantage in a leadership race. It wasn't any of these things which I think everybody just knows innately are wrong. You shouldn't be able to do that. How easy or hard would it be to open up something like prerogation, and getting it rid of or or another one another one is is carney just got elected and and is not an mp but i always like to point to daniel smith because it wouldn't work in your favor you plot it

right what a great idea daniel smith got in not being an m l a sorry and i was like how is that possible why is it even a rule because because that's the way the system works right and right which is to my point so so so so uh james referred to confidence, the avoidance of non-confidence motion. The way our system, the way our legislatures work is that the person who leads them, whether as Premier or Prime Minister, has to have the confidence of the chamber. Now, in the case of Trudeau, the fact of the matter is that he survived a whole series of non-confidence motions over a period of time.

And, and, you know, as far as the Governor General was concerned, that was and should have been the evidence that he had the confidence of the chamber. Now, a lot of people are going to say, well, he didn't really, you know, because these politicians said this and this, and they were all threatening, and he was on the eve of being defeated, yada, yada, yada, but nevertheless, over a period of time, he successfully survived a number of non-confidence motions. And so as far as the governor general should have been concerned, he had the confidence of the House of Commons. And if she had seen fit to say, well, no, I've read the papers.

I know that people are not really happy with you and therefore you shouldn't be able to paroch. I would have been much more alarmed at the political decision making now of the Governor General. She would have been wandering out of her lane. I agree. Right. Right. So we have to be very careful with this. If you don't want people who are not elected to be at the cabinet table, then you have to change the system of government.

Because our system of government allows people who have not been elected as an MP to be appointed as ministers. And that includes the prime minister because he's just a minister in our system, which goes back to the main point, which is if you don't like all these trappings, then you don't like the system. don't try to fiddle with it, try to get rid of it. Well, and how, and sorry, Bruce. So then my brain goes, okay, we don't like it. It doesn't matter if it works for us or it works against us. I just pointed to two things in the last two years that have happened. And they're pretty, you know, they're pretty monumental.

I mean, Daniel Smith literally is the one that goes against Team Canada one week and is the national news. She's going to talk to Donald Trump. And now you have, on the flip side of that conversation, Mark Carney, open global. talking about like, you know, how the United States has a warm, woke, and we're going to be inclusive, and we're going to get rid of the tax to have a shadow tax, and on and on it goes. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So my question for the listener, the average listener who doesn't stare at law all the time,

because I just want to cement this in my brain, because my brain says it's impossible, but maybe I'm wrong. And maybe you two fine gentlemen are going to say, you know what, if you just had X, Y, Z, you could open up the system of governance and change some things. How hard would it be to change the Westminster way we operate? You're both laughing. If everybody can't see it, Bruce is emphatically shaking his head and James is laughing. I'm reaching for my scotch again, Sean.

So there's no fixing this. That's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Unless we become the 51st state. Right. No, but then, whoa. So that is a giant cataclysmic change. That is what there's no, hey, we all get together, band together as Canadians.

and we just vote in a new system. That's not going to happen. So back to the theme, though, Sean. So that is not going to happen as a country. Canada will not become the 51st state. There's not a chance. No chance that will happen because there are so many interests, especially federal interests of all political stripes

whose interests depend upon there being a candidate in its present form. Therefore, that is not something that you want to try and push on. it's it's pointless instead you push where the possibility lies and that is alberta well i'm sitting in it i'm literally i'm literally sitting in alberta and the conversation we've been having for the last week and change is like okay first conversation alb cana 51st state within the first 10 minutes we're all like that doesn't make any sense why would alberta let alone all of cana enter into that that makes zero sense but when you start seeing the the conversation from an alberta's perspective on Canada and what's going on there.

Alberta Independence, whether that is its own country or 51st state, and you wrote an article on this, Bruce, that really solidified in my brain, if it hadn't already been before that, of like, that's the cataclysmic change that could actually spur on changing out the system we have and all the loopholes that are just everywhere and they just keep exposing them right in front of us. And it's mostly lawful because that's the way this is. system's been set up. Yes, yes, yes, 100%.

But here's, so, here's the danger. If it so happened that Alberta, the people of Alberta decided that this is the way they wanted to go. They had seen enough and they wanted change. The danger is this, that they would not change things enough, that they would arrange to change certain things, like equalization. like, you know, pension plan, like, you know, research control, and so on, and think, oh, you know, we've now fixed it. Uh-uh.

This idea is such that Alberta has a chance to change the system of government. And so if all they do is resolve to leave Canada and then resurrect the same kind of system, like if Alberta were to keep a Westminster system of government, then, you know, it might be an improvement, but it's really no different. So what you have, what you need in the population is a determination, not just to settle for marginal change, incremental change. You have to decide that Canada is sick because its system of government hasn't worked out. And what you need instead is something much closer and even better than what they have in the U.S. I tend to agree, Sean.

You know, like I said a few minutes ago, in my view, a large part of what used to hold all this system together was the concept of honor and decency and what they call responsible government. And what that means is if there's a scandal and you're caught, you resign. There's an election. There's a new mandate. If, you know, whatever happens, it's no good. You call an election.

You know, these types of things don't happen anymore. Now people just skate through because there's so many, there's so much self-interest, I think, in the system now. Nobody wants to do the right thing. I think back in the days gone by, there was more of that. And I agree. I agree that there are so many holes right now. People like me are doing what we can, but it might not be something that is necessarily fruitful. As we saw in the prerogation decision, right, that just came down. I mean, we got some victory, but did we get the whole victory? No. Forgive me, James, and this may be a poor man's analogy and and maybe you can be like oh no it's it's better than this but i've got to you know

in my limited time of looking at politics and let me tell you boys you two have been around law and all this you know 10 times maybe more than that than i have but when i watch what what the prerogation um case and don't get me wrong maybe i'm wrong on this i would love your thoughts i watched people like just recently ruby dahlia meet certain requirements and then just get so it's a win we got we got accepted and then they exit yeah back to the conservatives grant abraham joseph bergoe i mention these names all the time because they made the level to get accepted to be on the national stage for conservatives and they just slowly took that win and swept it on the rug and said oh yeah by the way though you're not allowed to run because you didn't do these

things and when i watch your case maybe it's way too simple and uh Maybe I'm making it way too simple because there's probably more things in this that are monumental. But when I look at it, I go, you've got a couple of wins, but generally they just go, oh, by the way, it doesn't matter. And I'm like, it's kind of like I go to Bruce's train of thought where we need a cataclysmic change to shake us out of the system that gives, oh, yeah, these little wins. Oh, yeah, there you go. but not the thing like if there was ever a time for prerogation not to be lawful or whatever yeah wouldn't it be right now like is there any better circumstance well we thought in our country we thought so but i mean i agree with bruce bruce says we're never going to have that cataclysmic change it's never going to

happen i agree so we're left with you know people like me or whatever trying to again effect move the needle however way however which way we can in the within the constraints of the system that we've got. And I hear you that we certainly thought that the prime minister's comments shutting down parliament were pretty nakedly unlawful, that they were not reasonable. But I want to just digress a little bit back into the case

just because it's important, I think, for the listeners to understand what we were doing. When you're talking about a prerogative, a prerogative power. That is, again, this executive power that used to be in the kings and queens. It was unlimited like Emperor Palpatine. Like he could just do whatever you want. That was the prerogative power. Wasn't based on a law, on a statute. Well, obviously, as we become a more modern democracy, you want to have that power to be less and less. And generally speaking, that is the case. The prerogatives are becoming less and less as we go on.

We haven't really ever analyzed the prerogation prerogative hasn't really come up, except for five years ago in the Miller case in the UK when Boris Johnson prorogued parliament in the Brexit time. Right. So anyway, we were basically saying this is like that. In the Boris Johnson case, the UK Supreme Court was talking about. about when can you prorogue parliament? When can you go there at all, right? There's two different concepts.

One is, can you go there at all? And I think Bruce was talking earlier about drawing a line or drawing a line around the power. Where's the line? Where's the circle? Are you in the circle or not? Can you be in the circle or not? That's what Boris Johnson's case was about.

Did he do it? Was he able to do it at all? or no. Okay, that's the first basket. There's another basket. The second basket is assuming that you're in the circle and you're okay to be in the circle. Is what you're doing in the circle harming somebody? Did somebody get hurt by what you've done? Constitutionally speaking, meaning that were their rights violated or whatever? It would be difficult to say that they suffered actual damages, but I guess it's possible. But generally speaking, you're saying, did that person get hurt constitutionally? So as an example, you remember the Omar Cotter case from a while ago,

when Omar Cotter was in Guantanamo and he was saying, hey, please, you know, bring me back to Canada. Canadian government as a matter of foreign affairs decided not to ask the U.S. government to do that. And that was their prerogative of foreign relations. That's a prerogative too. Anyway, long story short, the Supreme Court said that harmed Mr. Cotter. It harmed his constitutional charter rights, under Section 7. So ultimately, Mr. Cotter got a payout, as we all remember. So that was an

example of basket two. The prerogative exists. You know that the government can do a foreign affairs relationship with other countries. That's not an issue. But the manner that they did it harmed Mr. Cotter. That was the Supreme Court's conclusion. Whether you agree or not, that's what they said. That wasn't what we were arguing in this case. Okay, we were arguing over here. We were saying, Does the prime minister have the power to launch the prorogation at all to begin with? Right. It doesn't make much sense because how he exercises that power to prorogue is almost meaningless because, I mean, what can he do?

He can only decide how long it's going to be and when it's triggered. There's not much else you can do in terms of the actual decision. So it's kind of meaningless to talk about how it is exercised. whether you can do it is the question. And that's what we were arguing. We were saying, like in Miller, in the case in Miller, the prime minister in this case shouldn't have had the power to even do it. Because in Miller, what the court said was, here's a test.

And we need a test to establish the limit. And we have to have a limit because the power, as Bruce just said, can't be unlimited. There's got to be some limit to it. There's got to be a circle. Well, what is the circle? Where is the circle? Where do you draw the circle? And the UK Supreme Court said there's got to be a circle because if there's no circle, there's no limit, then parliamentary sovereignty is going to be harmed. Because parliament will be shut down at the arbitrary whim of the PM. And they can't do their job. That's no good. They can't supervise the government. That's no good. And so basically that was the reason why there had to be a limit. But the actual limit was the reasonable justification. And that's what the Supreme Court in the UK said. They said, you've got to have a reasonable justification.

Essentially, you've got to have a good reason. You can't just be no reason. In Boris Johnson's case, he didn't give a reason. And the Supreme Court said, well, that's not good enough. So we're going to dismiss or we're going to grant the case. Well, in our case, the PM, Trudeau, did give some reasons, and we say they were bogus. We said he was trying to give his liberal party a chance to elect a new leader, and he was trying to avoid parliament. And I, again, take Bruce's point about the evidence, right?

The governor general should not be able to look at newspaper articles and figure out whether there's confidence or not. I agree with that. The only vote that matters is the vote on the floor of the House of non-competence for the Governor General's point of view. But what about the court's point of view? Is the court, as a judge, able to go, I know the Governor General can't go there, but why can't I? I can take a look at all this evidence. I can figure out that, yeah, he was obviously trying to avoid a non-confidence motion. No PM would ever admit to that.

But as a matter of evidence, I can make the inference. I can conclude that that's kind of what he was doing. Didn't happen in our case. But one of the things that I would suggest would be that you can do that. Anyway, back to the thing, there was a test set out, right? That's what we were trying to establish. Unfortunately, the court did not accept that test. And to me, that led to some mischief, but I've been talking for a while now,

so I'll yield the floor again. But I think there was some mischief because of the chief justice's unwillingness to accept that Miller case. I think that led to some issues in the rest of the decision that, well, we may be looking at in terms of an appeal. We'll see. Can I go off in a slightly different direction? So both James and you have mentioned ethics, ethical behavior. and I've heard lots of people say that they've made

they've said things like the rule of law depends upon the ethical behavior of our rulers judges politicians officials of various kinds

if that is so if the rule of law depends upon ethical behavior of those who have power, then our governing system does not work very well. Because the whole purpose of having one is to protect us against rulers who are not ethical. Now, just imagine the reverse. Let's say that you could count on people with power being ethical. If they were wise and judicious and fair-minded and even-handed and acting in faith, if that was the case, then we would not need a constitution.

We wouldn't need checks and balances. We could just say, look, you're a philosopher king. You just take power and do what you think is right because you're ethical. The whole reason for having a constitutional system is to protect us against people who are not ethical because our experience has shown that people with power are not. And if we are stuck on the idea that the people who are now in power on a,

not ethical, then we have not seen the problem because people like that are always around. The fact of the matter is our system does not have the robust checks and balances in place to catch and prevent people who are not ethical from having power. It's it our our system of governance has evolved to the point now, you know, we are dominated by an a managerial state. And that state is is preserved and protected by all three branches of government. The legislature, the executive, and the courts. And whatever checks and balances we think exist do not work very well.

And so I think we're stuck on this ethics idea. I wish people would get over the idea that our problem is a choice of bad people. you are always going to have bad people in power. Not every single one of them, don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm sure there have been lots of very fine people in power, but that you can't count on that. If you can't count on it, then you must have a governing system

that takes account of the fact that you're not going to have it all the time. And we do not have one of those systems. I think, I don't know if I'll spit this outright. Maybe you guys can correct me. But one of the things that's happening before our eyes is, you know, in order for the system to work, you just, you need people to be decent or to see the writing on the wall, Trudeau. Like, just, it's time to get out of the way, right? I know that's a stupid statement to make, but if I may, Bruce.

Yeah, yeah. But in our current system, we don't even, you know, even when bad people are in, we can't tell the world when our election's coming. We can't tell the population when it's coming. Right now, we're sitting here. we have no idea of our elections in a month in seven months next year there are ways as crazy as I've been

your conspiracy fear is Sean I'm like I don't know I got in an argument with an American over it and the more I dig into it the more I'm like no there is a way now it doesn't have to be a conspiracy though this is the way the system works our system is built on the idea that we do not have

timed elections the elections happen when when I mean we have we have time we have a maximum time now in the Constitution. But the actual timing of the election does not depend upon that the same system as they have in the United States. It happens, for example, if the party in power were to lose a non-confidence motion, then we're thrown into an election. That's the way it's supposed to work. And so it's not that far off from the way it's supposed to work. This is the point that we're making. This is not an aberration. This is the way the system works. And so all those people who are fed up

with it after I wish they would get on the page of saying the system has to be changed and how you do that you do that again I'm afraid I don't want to I don't want to harp on this but but you're not you're not going to get the people in Ottawa to do it you just not that's not that's not happening so you got to have you got to find the you got to find the weak link and the weak link is that more people in Alberta are upset with this than anywhere else. Again, I agree, Sean, with Bruce. And I mean, take, take for example, the trade war that's going on right now, right? You've got Donald Trump and you've got Doug Ford and our federal ministers completely disregarding the free trade agreements that have been signed.

by both sides, everyone's just literally, apparently tearing up these free trade agreements that are supposed to, you know, guard against trade wars. That's the whole reason to having a free trade agreement is not to have this type of thing. But apparently we don't care and we're just going crazy right now. There's no regard. Nobody seems to value those documents right now. And so I think I agree with Bruce when he says, you know, no one's going to act in people's best interests anymore. It's, it's, this is where we are. I think it's the same with the Constitution, right?

If, if we don't, people don't value or embody what's supposed to be there and the principles and how it, you know, it's just never going to work. And I think that's where we are. It's just a sad, just a sad state of affairs. One of the one of the good things about this period of time, including COVID, but not just COVID, including this trade war that James refers to, and other things, is that at this time, it is more possible than it has been for a long time to see how the system actually works. COVID, for example, pulled back the curtain on how our system of governance actually works. You had people at a microphone on a Tuesday telling us all what the rules were going to do. be the next day. That is not the rule of law. That is not how the rule of law works.

So, Sean, you refer to Ruby Delia and the liberal leadership campaign. People are like outraged. Like, how could this be? I'll tell you how it could be. The liberal party is not a public institution. Right. It's a privately held body. And they can do what they want. It's a club. It's a club. And, and, and, and, Our expectations, the people's expectations for the way things work are incorrect. Yes. Not to interject, Bruce, but I had a Twitter conversation or X conversation a couple days ago, better part of an hour.

And it was very respectful, but people just didn't get it. They didn't understand. And I kind of felt like, oh, my gosh, I need to actually do another tweet here because this person doesn't get it. And I'm like, no, it's actually perfectly constitutional under our system for, you know, Mark Carney to be the new PM. It's totally fine. Yes, he is obligated under convention to seek a seat as soon as he can.

But that's a convention. It's not the law. And that is how it is. And, you know, eventually he will face a, face parliament. There will be a confidence motion and parliament will do whatever they'll do. But people didn't. get it. They didn't understand. And I think they were shocked, as Bruce says, shocked that this is how it is. And I'm like, yeah, I know, not saying I like it. Trying to be diplomatic as a lawyer,

right? Not saying I like it, but this is how it is. I try and bring it back to hockey all the time. I think both of you understand that I'm a hockey player. And when I watch the NHL and I know the Canadian culture, we love our hockey, there's nothing wrong with that. And when you are sitting there trying to wrap your brain around this. Just watch what the NHL has done over the course of, I don't know, has it been the last five years, seven years? I can't remember now, folks, when they brought in the Las Vegas Golden Knights. They really wanted a team there.

So they bent the rules and gave them this lottery draft or this expansion draft, and they made a Stanley Cup finals. Oh, man, we don't need that. Well, we better change the rules. So the next team, Seattle, doesn't get that. And then you watch how Las Vegas skirts the rules with, and I keep bringing up Curtis Stone because they put them on this long. long term injured reserve.

And that's like skirting the rules. All the fans know it. And if they get to do it, then they go on and win a cup. You're like, is that, is that fair? And the thing that we all got to get through our bloody heads is like, we're watching it play out over and over again. There's nothing fair in politics. And we have this idea of democracy that everybody's going to operate on this level of,

oh, we're all here for a good time. And we all want what's best for all of Canada. No, we do not. Like there's people that were naive like me at the start. that assume that's the way that it operated. But when you say reasonable justification for pulling prerogation, I'm like, well, what's reasonable? What does that word even mean?

When you don't have a clear black and white, this is when it can be called. Immediately I go, well, the governor general is going to look at what Bruce said and go, well, he passed that confidence vote and passed that confidence vote. And it doesn't matter the BS that all the people can see. By letter of the law, he passed it all, which means he had the voice of what's going on there when in fact all of us know that isn't exactly true but the way our system set up is just messed and i just get to the point where i talk myself into a circle and i'm probably starting to ramble now because i'm like the longer i talk about this the more i'm like upset i become just how stupid

this is yes but to fix it you have to have something cataclysmic happen like a referendum or whatever that looks like from alberta to shake the system enough to maybe break it out of this And that's when I had Ben Trudeau on a week ago talking about the 90s referendums in Quebec and him talking about just how impossible it was even to get it through in Quebec. And they had everything going for themselves. So I go like the, nothing is impossible. I do not believe in that word. But the mountain in front of Canada to try and write this ship is not some easy jaunt that's, you know.

Yeah, no, 100%. You're there, there are no easy outs here, even for Alberta, especially for Alberta. Alberta, this is not going to be easy at all. It's a huge mountain to climb. It's a funny, it's a funny moment, though, because in some ways, the, the more acute the problems are, the more likely a solution will come because it has to. So let me, let me just throw something else out into the table. So south of the border, Trump and his people keep talking about this 51st state idea.

So, you know, what is going on there? I don't know exactly. But my guess would be that things in Canada have become so bad in ways that many of us don't realize. The Americans are now alarmed at what Canada has become, you know, infiltrated by 400,000. powers, infiltrated by, by, you know, drug materials, infiltrated by money laundering, infiltrated by international organizations. I mean, some elements in the American government may be thinking, you know, this is, this is getting bad. This is getting dangerous for us. This is our neighbor. We have a border with them, and they are out of control. And so the worse it gets,

the more some elements in America might think, we cannot let this happen. We have to take this under our own control. Now, I don't mean they're going to evade or anything like that. I just mean they're now interested in what's going on up here because it can't continue in their own interest. I don't mean that they're trying to save us. I think they're trying to save themselves.

And the worst things get, the more likely that will happen. I'm just going to have another scotch, guys. don't worry about me. Well, I mean, we're a giant, I don't know, Ukraine. I don't mean to make those, I know there's differences, stark ones, but the similarities are there, right? Like Russia is staring at Ukraine and we can get into the nuances, all that,

just that it's on their doorstep. And we're on the doorstep to the United States. And the United States is doing a lot of things to piss off a lot of people. And at the same token, you know, what we've been like, over the last five years and people that have been listening to this show have been on to it a lot longer than that it's been happening in canada for a lot longer than that why well you're talking about one of the largest if not the largest superpower in the entire world to our south and we have the largest border with them and you know it's going to come up here on the podcast talking with two

rcmp officials uh well sorry one retired and one is as a city police and they talk about how internationally, we have groups that don't want to work with our intelligence agencies because of the compromises. The fact that our judicial system or whatever system of governance it is allows for these big international crime syndicates to operate with impunity almost. And you start hearing that. You're like, we sit here as Canadians and be like, that is a big deal. But I hear that.

I'm like, I don't even know the full ramifications of what I'm. just heard. Nor do I. But, but, but people, people have been reporting on this. Sam Cooper, for example, has been a lot of good work on this. And a lot of it is a surprise to me. But it doesn't, but, well, I shouldn't say that. It's shocking, but not surprising. That's the way I would put it. Yeah. Um, it. And, and, and, and given that information, it is not surprising that we have the Americans' attention. Because if I were them, I'd be alarmed, too. Gentlemen, any, any.

Sometimes it just feels, just sometimes it feels like it's a perfect storm up here between complacency and incompetence with respect to the government. You know, I mean, we are in some ways very fortunate to be beside a huge superpower because we have military protection and we have economic, there's an economic conduit right there at our doorstep. We don't have to work very hard to have a very easy trading relationship with the Americans. It's a huge market to trade into naturally. So we don't need a big military. We don't need, you know, to fight for, you know, to sell our resources, which of course that's what we are. We're a resource economy. We don't have to work super hard, right, to make ends meet, if you will, as a country.

That leads to complacency, doesn't it? And then you've got the decisions that have been made recently by our politicians. I mean, some of them are just unbelievable. One case in point, one case in point. Remember when the Chancellor of Germany came over and begged us to sell them natural gas for however long I think it happened in Japan too? I mean, whether you're a liberal or not, it's not the point. What a ridiculous result.

Go ahead. No, no, an analogy comes to mind. I've talked about this analogy before. I think you're entirely right, James. The analogy that comes to mind is I've called Canada the little brother. The little brother is protected by the big brother. Right. Even though the little brother slags off the big brother,

because after all, he's a big brother, you can insult him and you can criticize him and you can not like him very much. But he's your big brother. so he'll protect you no matter what, you know, from the bullies at school. Right. And you can remain the little brother, immature and presumptuous, and make foolish decisions, and the big brother will always be there until eventually the big brother gets fed up. Right.

And the little brother gets to be of an age where you should be grown up and more sensible. And the big brother says, you know, like, shape up or ship out. I'm not protecting you anymore. you're going to treat me like an equal or an adult or this is or this is done and I think we have taken an awful lot of things for granted in this country for a long long time I agree and we're we're now coming to a moment of truth I agree completely you know I don't know if this is adding or not with a few minutes left but one of the things about being on the northern border you know you talk about being under the protection in the United States but the

United States is kind of forgotten about us because we've just been the friendly neighbor for so long too. So little brother, sure. But you know, like when I talk to Americans, they have no idea about three quarters of what we just talked about. They just take for granted. Ken is always going to be this nice, friendly place and that nothing's ever going to happen there, which is interesting to me. Because, you know, when you look at, I just rattled it off here real fast because I want to see. The last time we met our NATO spend was 2006. Sure.

I'm surprised it was that recently. So you go like, that's what, 19 years ago? So 19 years, nobody's ever just went, guys, are you going to shape up? Like, are we going to shape up? They've allowed. It's shameful. I'm ashamed that we would, we're supposed to be such a nation of joiners and, and, you know, part of the international community and everything.

Well, it's just, it's just shameful. I think that the Americans are trying to get caught up on Canada just as fast as anyone right now. Like just as fast as I'm trying to get to the root of this, I think there's a whole bunch of Americans that are just like, what is actually going on in Canada? You know what? We didn't think it was that big of a problem.

They just got moose and syrup and they play hockey and they're just joyful group. And yet as they go digging as so many of us are, I think we're finding out just how nefarious of things we got going on. The only thing I would say, Sean, would be we will never be as important to the states as they are to us. It will never happen, right? So I'm not surprised that a lot of Americans don't know too much about us.

I don't know about that. That they're digging, right? But anyway, I think that they are going, we should always be thinking about our relationship with them and looking inward to see what we're doing to preserve it. and foster it, right? Oh, yeah. This is the elephant and the mouse, right?

Living side by side. And it's always going to be like that way. And I don't blame the Americans one bit for not knowing very much about this country. But I mean, we're no bigger than California. It's just like we wouldn't. And yet, gents were one of the largest land masses on the planet. Yeah, but all the natural resources under the sun. Sure.

And who causes the biggest existential threat they have right now. Oh, wait, that thing you didn't think was a big deal. And I'm like, if we all sat here and went, if we could get our shit in order, which we won't, but if we could, can we become one of the most powerful nations under the sun? Could we? Yes. Well, we certainly have the resources for it. We should, you know, if we had been governed well and led well,

I mean, we could have been one of the most, well, one of the wealthiest countries on earth. And for a while it looked like we might be headed that way. It doesn't look that way right now. It doesn't look that way anymore. Well, if we continue to run away from what I believe is our true identity, which is the world's Home Depot, like we are the resource economy. We should not be running away from that. I'm not suggesting that the environment isn't important and all that. Great.

No problem. But we exist to provide the world with resources. That's what we've got. There's another version of identity that I think is one of our problems. And so we have a different origin story than the Americans. True. And in fact, our origin story is the opposite in a way of the Americans. So when the Americans wanted to be free out from under the thumb of the king,

the Canadians, instead of joining them, said, uh-uh, no, we, we want to be, we want to be subjects of the crown. Right. And so in a way, the reason for Canada's existence is to oppose the American spirit. And that origin story runs deep. And you can see in the reaction to these, you know, these tariff controversies, that that, that, that cultural DNA is not far from the surface. it's part of this relationship that we have with them and they don't understand they don't let me put this in a in a stark way

I don't want to overstate it but they don't understand the Canadian culture is programmed to hate them and yet where I'm from Bruce little tiny bar colonist colony settled why they settled in the middle of a swamp you know on the border of two provinces beyond me. But probably why the city of Lloydminster is the size it is, is because an American

brings up a refinery from the states that was doing bunker fuel in World War II. So while the origin story of Canada, the railway cutting off the expansionist of the United States and us swearing allegiance to the monarchy and instead of joining what becomes the United States. I'm like, I think there is something to tap into there that can push back against what is going on right now. No doubt. But this is the interesting thing, right? So that origin story that I just told applies most forcefully to that part of the country that the, that the people in the West would call the East. Right? So that was Canada at the time. right and i let me let me be clear i am not in any way suggesting that that all the people in

canada hate the united states that's not what i'm saying i'm saying that this is part of the story part of the mythology of the country it is why the the central canadian politicians the ones in ottawa are programmed to be team canada and to you know to insist upon our our our rights to be treated with respect by the Americans, this is all put on. It's elbows up, Bruce. It's elbows up. It's pathetic. It is pathetic.

It is pathetic. It's appalling and it's embarrassing. I completely agree again with Bruce. I mean, I for one, like when Trump, Prime Minister Trudeau before, he was talking about booing the US anthem and all of that stuff.

I mean, like that's just puerile, juvenile. Yeah, we're not going to, we're not booing you the American. but we're going to continue booing your anthem. I mean, that's basically Justin Trude.

I know several, all the Americans I've met have been lovely people. Oh, oh. I'm married to an American, Jen. I played hockey down there. I've been all across the American. It's just like going to Quebec. I've been told stories about what Quebec is. You go visit with the people there.

They're lovely human beings. Agreed. But let's just, let's just make a point, though. This has been comfortable. I mean, the policy, politicians are good at being politicians. And by that, I mean, they're good at, at what they're due and what they do is get elected. And those people who are flying the flag,

wrapping themselves in the flag and booing the anthem, the team Canada politicians are doing that because there is an audience for it in this country. Yeah. Well, look at what happened five years ago in terms of, you know, getting people to sign up to a certain point of view or a narrative or whatever.

Exactly so. Exactly so. So part of our challenge here is that an awful lot of the people are in favor of the kinds of things that we've been talking about. They believe that this is part of their identity. And it's a very hard thing to shake. And so I don't want to be unrealistic about the kinds of challenges that lie ahead. I appreciate it. Boys, I appreciate you coming on and doing this. This has been a fascinating discussion.

And one of the things that helps with this discussion is I think a lot of people, including myself, have had to come to terms with what we're talking about because you've been Canada all your life. You just, you know, like you've never thought of anything different. And here in Alberta, that conversation needs to happen more and more because people need to come to terms with what is going on. Canadians need to come to terms with what's going on. And James, if you have a final thought or Bruce, floor is yours.

I would simply say this, you know, having her. heard some of what we've been talking about and, you know, being a lawyer in the space that I deal with now, it's, it's, it's hard sometimes not to be very nihilistic about where we are and what we're doing. It's very hard to, to, to remain positive and, uh, and to think that there are good things in our society, in our country that we can be proud of and we can try to, you know, protect and try to, you know, foster and engage, develop. It's hard, you know, but I think conversations like this, Frank, and open conversations about where we are and what the challenges are is good. I think we shouldn't hide under a rock and pretend everything's okay and just, you know,

believe what we're told. I think this is a counter-narrative, maybe, if you will, this discussion we've had. I think it's good. So thanks for having me. I appreciate it anytime. Bruce, any final thoughts? Only that our first obstacle is our own disbelief. The first challenge is to try to see things actually, actually are, instead of the way we're programmed to see them. We can start to do that, then we can start to move ahead. But I would also like to thank you, Sean, for having this. This is, you know, this is terrific.

And it's the kind of conversation that we really have to have. Thank you.