The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - A Retiring (but not shy) Senator

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

The Agenda invites longtime friend of the show, Frances Lankin. The former senator and former Ontario cabinet minister has been trying to make a difference in Canadian politics for over 30 years. Having recently retired early from the Senate, she joins us in studio to find out why.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She got appointed to the Ontario cabinet at the tender age of 36 and ever since Frances Lankin has been trying to make a difference both inside and adjacent to politics. She started her political life as a new Democrat MPP but was appointed by Stephen Harper to do intelligence review and then by Justin Trudeau to be a senator. Now five years before she had to, Lankin today retires from the Senate. So we thought we'd get her into this studio to find out why. Welcome back Frances Lankin. Thank you very much. Let's start there. Let's start there. No one leaves this job early but apparently you're leaving five years early. How come?

I am because I think I have another chapter left in me and I don't know what it is and I really came to the conclusion that I have to close one chapter before I can start to write the next. And it seemed like the right time for me. The Senate, I don't have to tell you, for only about 157 years has been, I guess, the most maligned legislative body in the country. Now that you've been there for a while, from your vantage point, does it deserve to be? No.

Things have happened that deserve to be criticized. The institution has grown in a direction, like politics in general being more divisive. And it has, I think, in the time I've been there, has played a lot to the repeating the speaking lines from the other place, which I think is of very little value to Canadians but the reform movement that has been going on, the move to a less partisan and more independent Senate, I think is critical and I think the incredible talent that's

in that institution brings really important diverse thinking to the review of legislation. Let me follow up on that because obviously Justin Trudeau brought in a new way of doing the Senate. He wasn't just going to appoint the chief fundraiser for the Liberals as had often been the case in the past. You're supposed to be acting, I guess, more like a council of elders as opposed to a very partisan carbon copy of the House of Commons. Again, with the benefit of the hindsight you now have, has that in fact happened? We've moved a distance towards it, but there's more to go.

I think it's important to, for me at least, I mean everyone has perhaps a different opinion, I think you can't divorce the Senate from its role as part of the two chambers of Parliament. And so there is a connection and should be a connection to the democratically elected accountable chamber, the House of Commons. But the role is different and I think as it was set out in the Supreme Court decision, you know, it really is to review government legislation, review what comes from the House of Commons with a view to ensuring that it's constitutionally compliant, charter compliant, that we understand the regional impacts, the impacts on indigenous peoples and other minority populations.

There's a, and sometimes just fix bad legislative writing, you know. There are errors that come through as well. So there's a breadth to it. But the other part of the role, the studies that are done by committees can be far reaching and can set a legislative agenda that we see come into being many years later. So medical assistance in dying is a really good example. That was a big one.

The critics would say those kinds of important debates that the Senate takes part in and helps shape future policy for the entire country are few and far between. And conservatives in particular say, the prime minister hasn't appointed, quote unquote, card-carrying partisan liberals, but most of them are sort of progressive and from his side

of the political spectrum anyway. So is it all that different? What's your take? Well, I think that that's a legitimate concern to put forward. And I think that over the years that I was there, there were a lot of center-center left appointments that were made. But notable others as well. I mean, my friend Charles Adler doesn't fit into that center-center.

No, he does not. He does not. So I think that there has been a mix. I think remembering that when when I was appointed as one of the first independents appointed the group of seven the chamber was largely composed of members of the conservative caucus so there was a balancing that was done. I think that very few parliamentarians like myself were appointed. Now you see some more of that because there

are some skill sets and some knowledge and some understanding of the workings that it's helpful to have that diverse view at the table as well. So I think it's headed in the right direction, but it's a work in progress. Well, Pierre Poliev says if he wins the next election, he's going to go back to having the Senate and senators be appointed the way they were, which is basically

whoever the prime minister wants. And if they're partisan conservatives, that's fine. If that happens, what do you think will be lost? I believe the opportunity to enhance the value of that chamber to Canadians, to have a group of people that are not subject to and loyal to a party first but are looking at the large picture and all politicians should be doing that but quite frankly you take a look at what goes on in the House of

Commons now that's not the game that's being played not just in the House of Commons writ large political divisiveness not just in this country you know there's there's another whole force at work and it's a pendulum. It will swing back. I fear it will get worse before it swings back. And I think the Senate in Canada is a check against that and that will be lost. But it will take some time because although there are a number of senators who will retire over the next couple of years, it will take a few years before the numbers that perhaps Pierre

Pauliev, if he's elected, would like to see would be reached. Conservatives are quite outnumbered right now. Yes they are. They may not be, obviously, if he wins. You're there almost nine years, right, in the Senate? What do you think the most useful thing for Canadians you were associated with? What happened? Well, wow, there's so many things. you were associated with. What happened?

Well, wow, there's so many things. I mentioned medical assistance in dying. So I guess that's just in my head right now, having said that. That is difficult legislation. It's difficult public policy. There are intricacies to it, and there are impacts from it. And I don't believe we've got it absolutely right yet. It will evolve and that's part of the process of building laws and ensuring that the laws are

meeting the needs of Canadians. You have to learn as you go along. You have to do developmental evaluation and be willing to course correct. So I mean I think that that was a pretty spectacular piece of work. I think that the, I mean personally I've had the opportunity also to look at the national security and intelligence side of things and I think that some of the reports and most recent report on foreign interference from that committee has spurred a greater transparency and openness and probing and Canadians are much more aware, witness, as we've seen the revelations of the RCMP investigation

with respect to Indian government officials directing, it would seem, directing work here in Canada that has led to even as much as murder of people. These are serious issues. And the Senate is, and the Senate Committee on Security is gripped with these. And I think one of the advantages is when you don't have to play it out,

for the sake of the camera and the social media clips and the partisan rah-rah, I think people settle into really trying to understand and to come to collective decisions that are influenced by a lot of opinions. And that, to me, is always better than the majority wins. You've got to have that breadth of consideration of ideas to really come to good conclusions about our country. I wouldn't necessarily put this at the top of your list, but you were part of a group

that got the words of the National Anthem changed as well. It's not all our sons command anymore. No, it's not. All thy sons command. No, it is in all of us command. And I just want to say, you know, in the chamber, there were, when they did the retirement tributes, there were a lot of people spoke about O Canada. And I might have got it over the finish line but many senators, there's

over 30 years of attempts to change those two words and in particular I want to pay tribute to Senator Nancy Ruth. She did the long-haul work on it and when she reached 75 and that was her retirement date she passed it to me and it was an honor and it was fun and I knew enough about the rules to sit and wait for my time to do it and sprung it and got it done and and I'm happy because I have five great-granddaughters and they are growing up now learning words that don't exclude them and when I saw the National Women's Hockey Team you know win and the anthem was played and I saw the first of all

the you know the absolute joy in their eyes, but I heard the words too. It meant a lot to me for years of working on gender discrimination and the elimination of such. It was important and I feel good about that. Good. This is a bit of an exit interview because you've been in public life for quite a long time, so I don't just want to talk about your time at the Senate. I want to go back. I want to go back 34 years, because as I said off the top, you were in the cabinet of the government of Ontario at the age of 36.

And while I'm tempted to ask you whether your time as a child care worker or jail guard prepared you for politics, that's too easy, I do want to ask, 36 is pretty young to have that much responsibility. Did you feel you were, I mean let's face it, no one thought Bob Rae's government was going to win that election in 1990. We never had an NDP government before. Did you think you were ready for it? I don't think anyone is ever absolutely ready to step into something brand new. But was I up for it? Absolutely. Was I gung-ho about it? Was I passionate?

I think I had that youthful exuberance that helped bring a dedication and a drive to the work that I did. And so I didn't feel like, oh, I'm too young for this. That never crossed my mind. I just felt like I've got a lot to learn, so let's get to the books. You were in the studio almost a decade ago on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the swearing-in of that government. And here's what you had to say about that day then. Sheldon, if you would. I was shaking.

I was delirious with joy. I was looking forward with great anticipation to all that was to happen and all the wonderful things we were going to be able to accomplish finally, you know, after years of pounding the table, we were going to be able to do these things that meant so much to us and I felt so passionate about in terms of building a better and more equal Ontario. As you look back at those years, what's the thing you got done that you're most proud of? You always want to bring it down to one thing.

I am incredibly proud of our government's response after the bombing of the Morgentaler Clinic. I had fought for years for the rights of women to control their own bodies and to make their choices. And as Minister of Health, along with the late Marion Boyd who was the Attorney General at the time both of us strong feminists we came to cabinet with a proposal of how we were going to protect women seeking access to a legal health service how we were going to protect the health care providers that

were being for the young people watching this who will not remember any of this yeah this was an abortion clinic a freestanding abortion clinic on Harvard Street in downtown Toronto which was bombed, firebombed one day. Yeah and there were death threats against physicians in their homes and it was happening in the States. There were you know gunshots at doctors homes in the States. It was overflowing here in Canada. I'm really very proud of that work. I'm very proud of the work that I was able to be part of in economic development and trade where we looked at the big picture and we dealt with all the big companies in terms

of investments and jobs but we also really looked at community and community economic development. That's where my heart and soul has always been, at community. We got to do some really interesting work there. Labor legislation didn't survive. It got repealed by the next government. But there are bookends in life. And the Ray government passed anti-SCAP legislation, so anti-replacement worker

legislation. And I just had the opportunity a couple of months ago to be the sponsor for the government legislation in the Senate that banned replacement workers in federally regulated corporations. So, you know, it begins and it ends and the circle continues. You know what's interesting about that answer? The cabinet minister called it anti-SCAB legislation, but the former senator says, well, wait a second, I have to be a little less partisan in my dialogue, so let's just call it anti-reab legislation but the former senator says well wait a second I

have to be a little less partisan in my dialogue so let's just call it anti replacement worker legislation. Well I thought about you just saying that no one will know what I'm talking about when I said the market dollar clinic and I thought you know anti-scab is a bit of a lingo and I thought I would it wasn't just being the senator I thought I would just be more explanatory. Gotcha. You guys obviously took over in the teeth of the worst recession since the Great Depression, and there was a lot of stuff you wanted to do that you couldn't get done because of the economic reality at the time. Like what? What do you regret that you didn't get done?

Auto insurance. Public insurance. Public insurance. It felt to me that that was a true pocketbook issue and one that people understood and one that was an important aspect of people's lives. And honestly, I'm one of the ministers who came to the conclusion that we couldn't proceed with it. And I looked at all of the head offices that would be rightly so amalgamated. That was the whole plan to bring the costs down of administration. But all of the women clerical and secretarial workers, largely women and lower paid,

and in the middle of a recession they would be put out of work and I could not bring myself to support that. I still think it's a good public policy but I couldn't support it at that time. That's an example. The most, if I may say, the most controversial thing you guys did as a government back in the day were the so-called Ray Days. This was the social contract, the idea being to give, and we were affected by it here at TVO, obviously, you give people some unpaid days off, and that way you obviate the need to fire 20,000 people in order to save a couple of billion dollars in public expenditures. It also, I mean the fact is you had to unilaterally abrogate collectively bargained agreements,

which for a party of labour is a very tough thing to do. Again, let's go back almost a decade to the 25th anniversary of the Ray government. Here's what you said in the studio about that then. Sheldon, if you would. I left the chamber and cried after that vote. I'm a trade unionist and I really believe in the importance of living up to the contract, the collective agreement. You can't just do that by legislation. We did and it was soul- was soul destroying for many of us.

The intent behind it was absolutely the right thing and absolutely saved thousands and thousands of jobs. And so it was just a horrendous experience to go through. With the benefit of an additional decade of hindsight, do you think there was any better or different way to achieve the savings that you needed to achieve than that? I still think it was the wrong thing to do. And I think when the collective agreement came open, it could have been more vigorously bargained at the table and that there were routes to go. I do remember the arguments and understand that if we were not to do something that it would flow

down to municipalities to make those decisions and in many communities the political circumstances would mean cutting of services that we also cherished and wanted to see. So things aren't always easy choices, but I believe opening up collective agreements was a mistake. Bob Ray and I were talking about that last week. It still comes back to haunt us in conversations. And I still believe that it was a mistake. But here we are, and life goes on. And as you talked about it last week, did you convince him of the wrongness of his ways back then?

I'm not going to tell you what he said to me. You can ask him sometime. OK, I will do that. I will do that. Well, after the aforementioned Mr. Ray stepped down as the leader of your party, defeated first in the 1995 election, then a year later stepped down as leader of your party, defeated first in the 1995 election, then a year later stepped down as leader of the party.

You ran to replace him. I did. And you came second. I did. Howard Hampton won. Do you ever wonder how things might have been different for you personally, for your party, for the province, had you, instead of Howard,

won that convention? Not really. I don't reflect on it that way because I don't want to seem overly modest, but I don't put myself at the center of these things. There were ideas that we were all fighting for. The party, I believe, needed a break from the direction that many people felt Bob took us that they disagreed with and I was very closely aligned with with Bob's leadership. I'm part of what they call the inner circle

and so I understand how that went down. I also think that I personally hold a little bit of ambivalence about stepping into the center of leadership and there was almost, I don't think this is revisionist, it was almost a sense of relief and I think part of my performance in the leadership campaign was affected by that little bit of ambivalence that I had about it. It was almost like it was something that was expected of me to do and I did it and I don't know that I ever committed myself fully enough and maybe that's why I didn't win. Okay, let's come back to present day.

You had a nice day the other day in the Senate. A lot of people stood up and gave very lovely speeches about you. And I want to play a clip here. This is Robert Black, your Senate colleague, quoting your former NDP cabinet colleague Elmer Buchanan about you back in the day. Sheldon, if you would. Having been a former guard in the infamous Don jail in Toronto, Frances was a tough, fearless chair. When she thought she was on the correct side of a discussion, she did not back down, not even for Premier Wray.

Elmer also noted that if my remarks were to be made in a less formal setting, he would have suggested much more colorful language. Well, that raises a bunch of questions. Did you swear a lot at the cabinet table? I don't think I did. But I want to know from Elmer. I'm going to get a hold of him to find out exactly what he meant.

Outside of the cabinet table, yeah. Do I still? Yeah. Maybe just a little bit. Just a little bit. How was that day? Oh, it was, it's like any of these big days, swearing in or whatever. It's sort of like a blur. I haven't had a chance to go back and look at it in detail yet, but there were lovely things that were said and I got to put

out a few things that I care deeply about you know say thank you to a lot of people but put out a couple of things and and make the points that I wanted to make on my way out. I've got a clip of one of them I want to play this now because I thought certainly the part of your speech that really grabbed me was your concern about the normalization of the spewing of hate, as you called it, in our politics today, highlighted by the trucker convoy that you were able to see out your window from your Parliament Hill office. OK, here's what you had to say about that.

Sheldon, the clip please. And then I looked and hanging on the fence, once again, above the Canadian flag was a Trump banner. I looked back down to the Canadian flag, I was insulted by this, and then I saw that every one of those Canadian flags was hung upside down. I have to tell you, I mean, I was disgusted. I was incensed. I was moved almost to intemperate behavior. Screaming at them, calling them traders, calling them criminals. There's no place in peaceful debate for that kind of behavior. There

is no place for treating servants of Canada, whether they're elected, whether they are working in staff positions, whether they are support staff within the building. Our politics seem to be inexorably getting more toxic and I wonder if you believe that it's inevitable that that will continue. In the short term, yes. We're on a path and I do not see any of the key leadership figures that need to speak out whether they're in politics or in the corporate boardrooms or they're in union halls or they're in community organizations.

I don't see a groundswell of voices saying enough already, stop this. This is dangerous. It's inciting violence. And I mean, I know we all know from the news that there are both domestic and foreign influences that are fomenting this. But political leaders have a stage. They're given a stage. It's a position of privilege. They have a responsibility and duty. And many of them are failing badly right now and are part of the problem.

And I'm angry about it. I mean, I could see here in my voice when I was talking about that. I just believe that this country is so amazing and so wonderful and that good people with good hearts have to stand up and have to unite and join hands and insist that political leaders stop and do what's best for Canadians, not what's best for them and their political fortunes.

The monetizing of misery is... it feels inexorable right now. You know, people make peacock speeches in Parliament and then they clip it, they put it on their websites, and they fundraise off it. And the more egregious it is, the more money they seem to bring in. How is that cycle broken? Well, most of that I see through the eyes of the Senate. And it's broken by this project and moving forward on the independence project. Because most of the speeches or questions

asked by my good friend, the leader of the conservative caucus in the Senate are designed entirely to clip and put on social media. And now I'm feeling old. When I was young and my parents rejected something of the younger generation, I just think that we have not found a way to harness the positive power of social media. I thought at the beginning we were, but I think it has become the center of toxicity

and promoting toxicity. And that goal of getting the clip and being the next viral outrageous statement out there has overtaken people. I don't know. I guess I'm just getting old. I don't understand where the goodness in the hearts are and where people can't reach out to find a way forward that encompasses a lot of different views and

not just insist on their own view as being right. Last question. You may say you feel old old but you're only 70 years young so you've got another you've got at least one more act in life. Yeah. You got any ideas about what that's going to be? I don't. I've said this so you know people have heard this. I have been trying for the last couple of years since my husband passed. I've been trying to figure out what does you know the next chapter look like and every time I go back to Ottawa I get you know into another project and then gung-ho to you know do this or do

that and I haven't been able to to reflect and to really know what it looks like so I need to close the one chapter before I can write the next but I do know it won't be sitting home cocooning. I'll do a little bit of that. I'm tired. I'll do a little bit of that. But I will look for places to continue to have an impact and to more and more work to support young people whose voices I think are a positive feature of our communities and help them grow and help them have the impact.

That is the Frances Lincoln, your late husband, Wayne, knew and loved so much. Thank you. The woman who still wants to make an impact. That's Frances Lincoln. Her last day in the Senate was today. Thanks for joining us here at TVO. Thank you for all the years, Steve. Thank you.