The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Marc Garneau: A Journey from Space to Politics

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Marc Garneau has made history twice. As the first Canadian to fly to outer space and as the first astronaut elected to the House of Commons. What does this former cabinet minister and space traveler think of that journey? He tells it all in his new book: "A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics, and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream." And Marc Garneau joins Steve Paikin to discuss.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Garnot has made history twice. As the first Canadian to fly to outer space and as the first astronaut elected to the House of Commons. What does this former cabinet minister and space traveler think of that journey? Well, he tells it all. In his new book it's called A Most Extraordinary Ride. Space, politics and the pursuit of a Canadian dream. And Mark Garnot joins us now here in the studio for more. It's great to have you in that chair. Great to be with you Steve. Pleasure. You joined the Navy at age 16. In part I gather as you tell us in the book because you spent a night in jail. You want to tell that story a little bit? Well I was a bit of a rebellious kid and when I was just turning 16 I was out drinking with some friends.

And I got drunk. And unfortunately, when we left the tavern and went down the street, my friend said, watch this. And he actually, there was an open trunk on a car, and he stole something out of the back. And just at that time, the owner came back and he said, hey, hey. And I scattered, and he scattered. And about 15 minutes later, I was picked up by the police. And they took me to jail and put me in a cell

and called my parents. And about 3 o'clock in the morning, my dad came to get me and took me home. I'll bet he was thrilled. Boy, oh boy. I have to say, I was very proud of the way he dealt with it. He was very quiet for 20 minutes. I had sobered up by then.

And then he said, what happened? And on the drive back home. And I explained it to him. And he said, look, we'll talk in the morning. You look very tired. And I was. I was exhausted. That was the turning point in my life.

Yeah, what was the takeaway? The takeaway was that I was young, immature, did some stupid things, and it was time to get my life in order. And very shortly after that, I went down to the recruiting centre in Quebec City and joined the Navy.

It's interesting that you did not necessarily set out from childhood to be an astronaut, and you certainly did not have dreams of being a politician, and yet you did both of those things. Is it fair to say you've led a kind of accidental life in a way? Yes, sometimes I feel a little bit like Forrest Gump. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time,

but those were not childhood dreams. You also tell us in the book that you were shot almost in the eye with a BB gun when you were a kid. And had that BB gun, well how many millimeters between where you got it and right in the eye? I would say about six or eight millimeters. So if not for those six or eight millimeters miss, your whole life is different because you're not getting into the space service with a bad eye.

Absolutely. It was one of those moments where I in hindsight realized how fortunate I had been because it would have changed my life completely. Remember that movie The Right Stuff? Of course you do. Here we go. Sheldon, put this picture up and Mr. Gurnow, take a look at the monitor. You are one of the final six Canadian contenders to go into space. This is 1984. There's you on the right, looking like quite the stud.

Roberta Bondar, Steve McClain, Ken Money, Robert Thirsk, and the guy whose name I can never pronounce, and you're going to help me. Bjorni Tryggvison. There we go. OK. Why do you think you got picked to be one of those guys with the right stuff? Well it's a very good question because in the final part of the selection I met many

of the other astronauts or candidates and I thought, wow, these are really talented Canadians. So I don't think my chances are all that good. Why I got chosen in the end, I think, is because perhaps an experience I had in the Navy, where I crossed the ocean in a sailboat with a crew of 12 other people, 20 day crossing, was perhaps an example that I could work as part of a team, accomplish a fairly challenging objective, which is to get across

the ocean and to do it successfully. And I think that was, in a way, they were looking for proof in your life that you might have done things that might prepare you well for the space experience. And I was an engineer and I had designed a couple of things and so I thought perhaps those were factors. They put you through an endurance test. How often did you puke? Too many times to remember.

Right here in Toronto as a matter of fact. I used to dread coming to the place but they'd spin you or tumble you until you filled your bag. Which you did you filled your bag. Which you did on a few occasions. Which I did on many occasions. How many times in your life have you used the expression, Houston, we have a problem? I've tried to avoid that. I was very fortunate to be the voice of Houston for many of the flights, 17 flights.

And this was called a CAPCOM, the person who talks to the crew on orbit. And I was up there as well and fortunately my three missions went very well. You were in the Oval Office when Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan, the Canadian Prime Minister and American President, met for the first time. What was that like? That was something that I have such fond memories of. NASA was not too happy because this was three weeks before our flight, and they don't like the crews

to be bothered. But when the president of the United States says, I'd like you to come up to the Oval Office because I'm going to meet newly elected Prime Minister Mulroney, it was a real special treat to be in the Oval Office with two of my fellow crew members, and President Reagan and Mulroney, meeting for the first time and very clearly hitting it off very well.

Well, everybody famously remembers the Shamrock Summit where the two of them met and Mulroney grabs the microphone and, and they'll steal your heart away. Anyway, you were there. I was there. What was your job there? Well, my job, which I swore I would never do again,

was they had this forklift that raised me through a hole, an opening on the stage floor, and with swirling smoke and light beams down on me. And I was coming up with dramatic music in front of this whole audience, including the president and the prime minister, and speaking what I call the immortal words, take me to your leader. Did I ever feel silly in hindsight? But the crowd loved it.

You always wanted to be in show business anyway, right? Oh my gosh. That was my day. When you were on The Challenger, waiting interminably to launch, You admitted the book to being a little nervous. Is that different from being afraid? No, I don't make a difference between. I think it's a matter of degree. Was I so nervous and afraid that I really wanted to get off the vehicle, which of course it was too late to do, or was it just the natural feeling of anybody who's a thinking human being

realizing that they're going to light up this rocket and there's seven million pounds of energy that's going to push you up into space. I think that's a fairly normal thing for most people and even astronauts will admit to having a little bit of nerves, but they can't resist the fact that they're going to have this incredible adventure, assuming all goes well. Your body changes in space. Did yours? Yes, it did.

It did. How? Well, you grow a little bit taller because your spine is unloaded because you're not getting the effect of gravity compressing us as we do here on Earth. So your discs between your vertebrae, they're like sponges, they open up a little bit. And so the other things that happen is that there's a big fluid shift from your lower body into your upper body. Your face looks fuller.

People who look at the picture on the front cover of the book say your face is fuller than it looks down on Earth. And that's because of a fluid shift. So that's another effect. And of course there are other changes occurring your muscles slowly start to atrophy your bones start to lose calcium doesn't matter on an eight-day mission but if you're on a six-month mission it's it's it's more serious anything permanent happen well in no not in my case but even today they have such a good program to try to rebuild what you've lost when you've been up there for six months that

Most young people recover completely you have experienced something that so few Canadians have and we're gonna do a little excerpt from the book here as you discuss it Sheldon if you would bring this up I had echoed the thoughts of an American astronaut who once said, When I sat in the shuttle waiting for launch, I hoped there was a God. When I got to space, I knew there was one. As someone who has struggled with his faith, you write, I could relate to the first part of this, although I still struggle with God's actual existence. This is interesting. You were raised as a Catholic, but what is your relationship with religion like now having experienced everything you have?

Well, I still struggle with my faith, but I still work at it And I go to church occasionally And I feel it's more An exercise in being part of my community But I try to speak to God like everybody tries to speak to God and have that communication. But you know, I'm not completely there yet, but it is something that I will continue to do.

Do you think you have any added insight into the whole question because you've been up there? into the whole question because you've been up there. Well, you really do think about the big existential questions about the origin of the universe. How did this all come about? And of course, none of us have the answer for that. And so I can understand why people believe that somehow there had to be a creator. That's what I think a lot of people feel and I am learning that it is such a complex question that I'm not sure we'll ever

get the answer so it boils down to faith. I want to return to the issue of the Challenger because you were on the sixth flight of the Challenger and we all well remember it was the tenth flight that blew up. How many times over the years have you said to yourself, they are but for the grace of whatever, it could have been me? Many many times and in fact 20 number of years later Columbia also was lost as well. You know when you get in that vehicle that there is a certain amount of risk. I'm an engineer, I know that you know with all the complex parts that are part of that vehicle that if

something goes wrong and we spend a huge amount of time training for those contingencies, those that we can manage, but there are some things where it's not recoverable. You think about it now the first time I flew 12 missions had gone very well so I was very optimistic. Second time I flew, 12 missions had gone very well, so I was very optimistic. Second time I flew, I had that picture of Challenger in my head. And it's something that shows in a concrete manner that space flight still carries risks, and will always.

When you heard, and I'm sure you've either read the books or seen the documentaries, and certainly followed the reportage of all of the appalling screw-ups NASA made, which resulted in throttle-up and explosion. What did you think? Yeah. I think that when you look at Challenger, some very bad mistakes were made.

It was too cold that morning to fly, and the famous O-rings were no longer doing what they're supposed to do. And with Columbia returning from space in 2003, there had been indications that a piece of foam had come off the external tank, hit the left wing, and possibly damaged it. But do you ever think, how could I put my trust in these jokers?

Look what they did? Well, to some extent, you have to have faith that the people who prepared the vehicle were working conscientiously but humans are fallible and humans sometimes make errors and in the first flight for example there was a lot of pressure on NASA to keep the flight rate up and I think that clouded some judgment. I want to talk I normally don't ask people questions about their personal life but you get into this in the book and there

are some you've had your share let's just put it this way your wife of 14 years with whom you had two children descended into mental health hell and was lost to suicide how do you tell 11 year old twins about that it's the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. And I, when I learned of it, they were away and came back a couple of hours later. And during those two hours I agonized about how I was going to tell two 11 year olds that their mummy wasn't there anymore. It's the hardest thing that I've ever had to do. But in the end, I managed to do it and we cried and we hugged and somehow with the support of friends, I was able to, and family,

I was able to, we were all able to move forward. I'm very, very, it was at a time when people didn't talk much about mental health and there weren't many supports. This is back in 1987. But we were lucky enough with the support of people to get through it. It was the hardest thing to write in the book, too. How are those twins doing today? They're doing super well. One of them is living in Europe and has a family with two children and everything is going well. And the other

one is living in Montreal so I get to see her every day and my granddaughter. So yes. People may have the impression until they read the book that you know you've been a high-ranking politician, you've been to space, you've had this just, I mean, extraordinary life. But again, your wife lost to suicide, your older brother lost to cancer at the age of 48, one of your younger brother's children, your nephew, he's a friend of one of my kids at school. Emmanuel.

Emmanuel, dies as a teenager. You have had your share of tragedy. How does a family deal with that much tragedy? You know, you don't know until it happens to you. And I think ultimately, I come back to the fact that if you have people around you who are there to support you, you can get through it. Without that support, I don't know if I would have gotten through it or other family members would have gotten through it. But

everybody I think either has experienced this kind of tragedy or knows of somebody and it is unfortunately part of life and that's why it is important for us to to be there to be supportive of each other. And I was very fortunate. Let's move to politics. You've had quite a journey in politics. You decide to run for Paul Martin's liberals, just as they are about to go into the tank. Great timing. You lose by 9,000 votes, but you are one of many people who had a great political career

despite having lost the first time out. But I do have to ask, why did you decide to run in that election when the Liberals prospects seem so bleak? This is 2006 right? Yes. The one that Mr. Martin lost to Stephen Harper. Yes. So why go then? Well in the vernacular my timing sucked very badly. Well I thought that it was my one opportunity perhaps to do something that I'd always thought about. And I didn't think about the fact that Canadians were tired of the Liberals after almost 12 years. The sponsorship scandal was a very big issue in Quebec. I didn't think about those considerations. I just sort of charged into it.

And of course lost convincingly the first time, but learned some important lessons and because I don't like to lose, I said I'm going to hang in there and perhaps I'll be luckier next time, which I was. And you were, you won the next time. And then, Sheldon, let's bring this picture up if we can because in the 2013 Liberal Leadership race you were a contestant, as was the guy who eventually won, Justin Trudeau, there the two of you are in that picture there at the convention.

And you asked him what turned out to be a pretty devastating question during the course of that campaign, which is what made him think he had the qualifications to be the leader of this party, given that he had, let's be blunt, he had a fairly thin resume at that point. How much do you think asking him that question in that campaign affected your future relationship with him? It's a very good question. I have asked that.

You know, when you have a leadership race within the same party, you realize that you're all competing against each other, somebody's going to win, and you hope you're all going to work together afterwards in a harmonious way. So you don't want to cross certain lines. And I agonized over the question that I was asking him, but I thought ultimately it's a fair question to ask. I don't think that he held it against me. At least I hope he didn't, because when we finally were elected in 2015, he made me his transport minister.

So I have to think he looked beyond that particular issue that day. Well, here's where I come back with, yes, but you were his transport minister, but you didn't have any kind of relationship with him, right? I mean, you never met with him. You never had... Well, you tell the story. Well, you know, we're 23 years apart in age. I was not one of his childhood friends. I don't think you need to have a very strong personal relationship with your boss, whether it's in politics or any other area. You do have to have trust in each other,

and you have to be competent in doing the job that you're doing. But, you know, in the end, I have to say that in the six years that I was a minister, our relationship was not one of the close relationships. He didn't sort of call me and ask me what my thoughts were about this or that, or invite me to his house or anything like that. Did it make you feel any better that he didn't... He treated all those other ministers the same way apparently? Well I think most were in the same boat as me. He did have some very close friends. I think some ministers

could knock on his door any day of the week and talk to him but those tended to be people he had known even before life in politics. They were almost childhood friends. Did you read Bill Morneau's book? I didn't read it but I read all the critical... He says the same thing right? He's the minister of finance and he couldn't get a meeting with his prime minister. Yeah yeah yeah and no we're not unique either. So when you're reading about how Brian Mulroney used to take care of his caucus or his cabinet do you wish you had a prime minister who was more like that? Well the prime minister, Justin Trudeau did say in 2015 that you know the these sort of walls that had been erected by Harper through his PMO would not exist under his leadership but he didn't change that. So I always felt that

there was a barrier between me and the prime Minister and I was never sure when I dealt with the PMO Which was really my conduit to the Prime Minister most of the time. I was never sure what might get through to him And there were times where I felt I've got to have a direct conversation with him I did have on two occasions in those six years a direct conversation with him But I was not one of these people who could just knock on his door and say, hey, have you got five minutes? I know he's a busy man, and there is the need to protect his time very, very carefully. But in the end, I want to come back to this.

I had an incredibly privileged 14 years in politics. And I do thank the prime minister for making me a minister in two different portfolios. Well, that's not the whole story. We're going to get to the rest of the story in a second. I guess I need to remind, well, you don't need reminding, but Donald Trump was president while you were a minister in the government of Canada.

Indeed. OK, so here's my helpful question. Who was the biggest horse's ass you had to deal with in the American administration when Trump was president? All right, Trump himself. Do tell. I think that Donald Trump is getting more extreme in his rhetoric, more angry, telling more lies.

And I really worry because the United States is our strongest partner, our biggest ally and I worry very much about the future if he is re-elected as president. Okay let's get back to liberal politics in Ottawa and we talk well you talk about the circumstances which led to a couple of departures from cabinet which were very high profile and problematic. Sheldon let's bring this excerpt up. This was a serious error in judgment you write made worse by obfuscation, outright denial and the demonstration of little or no remorse on

the part of the Prime Minister which promptly led to Treasury Board President Jane Philpott resigning in protest as a matter of principle. Sadly there is a tendency over time for those at the top to think they can control everything. In this case the Prime Minister had clearly overstepped his authority. This is all about the Jody Wilson-Raybould business and Jane Philpott resigning in sympathy with what she saw as the inappropriate... Is it abuse of power should we say that, or inappropriate use of power, however we want to describe it.

You were a part of this story inasmuch as the Prime Minister asked you to take over at Veterans Affairs after Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned that portfolio. And you didn't say yes. What did you say to him? Well, I said I would take that on if I could also hold on to my transport portfolio. But in fairness to him, he said, before I ask you this question, I want to tell you I will accept whatever answer. If you don't want to do it, I'll understand that. And because I was a veteran myself and because I realized that he was asking me to step into the breach,

I told him I was willing to do it. But I also was in the middle of a lot of work at Transport and for me to just drop that and go over to Veterans Affairs, maybe it's the engineer in me or whatever, but I felt that is not logical. So I said, yes, I'll do it if I do both portfolios. And that was not an option for him? Not acceptable to him. OK. Did you consider that to be a cheeky request on your part?

No, I didn't, because I was very committed to transport. But usually ministers don't put conditions on their prime minister for accepting assignments, and you did. Was that okay? Yes, because beforehand he told me you have the you're entitled to say no. Okay. If he had said I want you to do this this would have been a different matter and I'm not sure how he would have answered that. Intriguing. January 2021 you get shuffled in the cabinet to Foreign Affairs. Great

job. But you're the fourth minister in five years to have it. And here's what you have to say about that. Sheldon, graphic please. My new responsibilities did not bring us closer. In fact, I was called only once and that was to discuss the status of the two Michaels imprisoned in China. And it was in a boardroom with various other people

from the PMO and the Privy Council Office in preparation for a meeting with our ambassador to China, Dominic Barton. The Prime Minister's aloofness led me to conclude that he did not consider my advice useful enough to want to hear from me directly, relying instead on his staff. I found this disappointing to say the least. The expectation was that communications between him and me would be via the PMO and so consequently I never knew what information if any reached him. So many things to pick up on here. Well let's start with this. You had to call the two Michaels families, right, as minister? Yes I did.

What was that call like? Very, very painful and very necessary of course. And so I was talking to the families including the parents and it it was tough because what I was telling them was that we're making progress. I know it's gone on for a very long time and they were always invariably polite with me. But I think they were skeptical because they weren't seeing anything happening. And by this time, they had been in jail for over two years. And you could tell how, and particularly the parent

side of things, because these were people who were very senior in their years. And there was almost a sense that we may never side of things because these were people who were very senior in their years and they were almost there was almost a sense that we may never see our sons again. And so it one of the tough parts of being a foreign minister in a situation like that and but but I kept telling them you know we are going to make this successful and you know Please don't ever think that that we're dropping the ball here And I was just so pleased that before the end of my term we were able to bring them back But I'm also inferring from this quote here that

You had hoped that being foreign minister, which is a very senior portfolio might Give you an opportunity for a closer, more meaningful relationship with the Prime Minister, which again did not happen. Disappointing again? Yes, I was disappointed. You know, I've lived 17 years of my life abroad. I have lived in Europe for eight years of my life. I've lived in the United States for nine years of my life. I have always been a student of international affairs. I feel that I was the prime minister's critic for foreign affairs for two years

when we were in opposition. And I just felt that there was not ever a request on his part to tell me, what do you think of this, Mark? Well, after the third Liberal election victory, sorry to bring this up, but you wrote about it. Here we go. Last excerpt from the book, please. Mark Garnot gets dropped from cabinet. And here's what he writes. It felt like a punch in the gut.

There's no other way to put it. I had been dismissed. Saying I was disappointed does not convey the intensity of my emotions at that moment. I felt totally blindsided and didn't know what to think. Had I done something wrong? And if so, what? Was I taking the fall for Canada's response in Afghanistan? Or was it simply poor chemistry between me and the Prime Minister? Only he can answer that question, and he chose not to do so.

The PM does not owe me an explanation and I felt it was inappropriate for me to ask him why. I will say that none of the speculative reasons offered by friends and colleagues were related to my competence, nor was I ever disloyal to him." Okay, this is the point where I'm reading the book and I'm screaming at the book because he didn't offer an explanation and you didn't ask him for one? Well, people have remarked on this just like you just did, Steve. And you know, imagine yourself in this scenario. You're me and I'm the Prime Minister and I'm

telling you that that you're out of cabinet. How appropriate do you think as an individual it would be? Why are you taking me out of cabinet? I wouldn't put it that way. But I'd say, is it something I said? Is it something I did? It would be useful for me to know if I didn't meet your expectations or what. You didn't do that? I didn't. Maybe I was caught so badly off guard that I was left tongue tied and totally,

it was a punch in the gut. He said, his office said, the prime minister wants to talk to you at, I don't know, 5 o'clock. And I was not expecting that. I mean, I had run in the election, been re-elected three weeks before. So I thought, well, I hopefully will continue in my job because there are a lot of things that I wanted to do

in foreign affairs. Having been there for at that point about seven or eight months, there were many many things that I wanted to do. So it was the last thing I was expecting and it came as a real shocker. Would you have run again had you known you were going to be dropped from cabinet? No, I would not have. And in fact, there has been a tradition in the past that sometimes incumbent leaders, prime ministers, do a round of their cabinet ministers many months before a possible election say,

are you intending to run again? Because in that case, they sometimes will bring in, do a small shuffle, bring in some new people to give them a few months in the in the their new portfolios before the election is called he didn't come to me and and say before the election mark I intend to switch after this so I went into the election even though I told my family that this was going to be my last election. But because he had appointed me seven months before to be the foreign minister,

and I had become seized with the issues that I wanted to work on for a longer term, I basically begged my wife, could I run one more time? And she said, well, okay, I understand. But had I been told point blank, no, I'm going to switch you. I would not have run in that last election. You've had three years to think about why he did it. What explanations do you come up with? I don't know.

I really don't. I'm not trying to be evasive or cute here. I do not know why. I mean, there are half a dozen I can speculate on, but I'm not going to speculate on any of them because I really don't know the truth and the one I might offer you might be wrong. Have you spoken to him at all since then? I have not. Really? on the day that I left and I was offered the opportunity to make a small speech in the House of Commons where I enjoined my fellow MPs on both sides of the aisle to be more civil with each other.

How's that going? Not very well. It seems a lesson has to be relearned about once a week. He did come up to me and then, you know, as just about everybody in the House of Commons came up to me and then you know as just about everybody in the House of Commons came up to me and shook my hand he did come up and shake my hand but I had very little to do with him after I was removed from cabinet and you know and I also want to add this I wasn't sure what he offered me an ambassadorship when he took me out he offered me that to be the ambassador in Paris, which I love Paris, and it's a lovely city.

I just didn't feel it was appropriate three weeks after being re-elected to say to my constituents, sorry, I'm leaving. So I stayed on. And I have to say the last year and a half, even though I was a backbencher, first as the chair of the parliamentary standing committee on indigenous and northern affairs, something I was interested in, and then later as the co-chair of the special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, turned out to be very very satisfying. So when I did leave in March of 2023, I felt really good about the 15 years that I had been there and I left with absolutely no regrets. Good. A couple of last questions here. You've been in space three times?

Yes. Three times in space. Do you want to do a John Glenn and go back up to space when you're, I don't know, 77 years old in two years like he did? Well, if they said hop on Mark, yes, I would go. If they said you've got to go through some training here, I'd say no. Okay. And just finally, you know, as you look back, and your life's obviously not over yet, long way from over, you still got stuff you want to do, but how do you make sense of the whole thing? A life of such extraordinary highs and such extraordinary lows? Yeah, no, when I decided to write the book and after I'd written it, I really, this may

sound disingenuous, but I was honestly shocked at the realization of how much I'd done in the last 40 years. And how did it happen that way? I didn't plan it that way. Most people can't plan their life in a reliable fashion anyway. But I think it was my attitude. First of all, as soon as I was born, I was a curious person.

And I wanted to go out there and grab life and made some stupid mistakes in my slightly rebellious childhood but I learned from those and What stayed with me was that you know I had met enough people who had retired After their careers and said I wish I'd done this and that's a surprisingly common refrain from any play people They say I played it too safe. You know, I did have some dreams back then and I didn't try to make them come true. And I've had dreams all my life and some of them I've failed in but some of them

I've succeeded in. And so that's my lesson to people and particularly to young people is, you know, don't be shy about trying. And failure is not that big a deal. You learn a lot, you pick yourself up, and you go for it. Great advice from Canada's first man in space, Marc Arnault, a most extraordinary ride, space, politics, and the pursuit of a Canadian dream, which he has lived. Monsieur Gagnon, a great pleasure to have you here in our studio today. Come back again.

Thank you very much, Steve.