The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Encore Presentation - Moore Butts Conversation # 13 - How high does foreign policy rate when parties meet?

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Today an encore presentation of an episode that originally aired on January 23rd. For the most part the old saying that foreign policy isn't what Canadians vote on, but does that mean Canadian governments and political parties take a pass on worrying about foreign matters?  Time for another great Moore Butts conversation, this time #13 of our series.  Former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore and former principal secretary to the prime minister Gerald Butts take us inside the process.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with your Summer Encore Wednesday episode of The Bridge. It's More Butts number 13 from the 23rd of January of this year. And hello there, welcome to Tuesday. And today is another More Butts conversation. We've been having these for the past, I don't know, I guess a year and a half or so. We're up to number 13. We've covered a lot of ground, a lot of different issues by these two gentlemen who agree to leave partisanship aside and talk about what it's really like behind the scenes.

What happens behind the scenes when these discussions take place among parties and in parties about the issues of the day. This week's issue is one we don't normally talk about in terms of that kind of back and forth inside a political party, and that's the issue of foreign policy, foreign affairs. How often do parties talk about that when they get behind closed doors? How often do cabinets talk about foreign policy? How often do party caucuses talk about foreign policy? Well, we'll hear that, and we'll hear their anecdotes. James Moore, the former Conservative cabinet minister under the Stephen Harper governments, now working

as a special advisor to Denton's and Edelman. And Jerry Butts, the former principal secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau, who now is the vice chair of the Eurasia Group. Let's get to the Moribot's conversation. Number 13, as we said, it's on foreign policy. Ready? I'm ready. They're ready. So let's go. All right, gentlemen, I want to start in a, you know, as general a vein as possible. And that's from the assumption, you know, the old saying about politics,

I think probably across North America, is there's much more concern in governments about domestic politics than there is about foreign policy. Would that be an accurate assumption? James, why don't you start? Yeah, because I care about what's happening in my wallet. I care what's happening in my job. I care what's happening in my child's school.

I care what's happening down the road. I think concentric circles kind of build out from there. There have been every sort of generation seems to have moments where you've shattered that sort of very sort of NIMBY local sphere of things. 9-11 was one of those moments, right? Pearl Harbor for another generation was one of those moments. They're moments, right? But in Canada, you know, we've kind of had an emphasis in politics on what is domestic, not what's international.

That does get rattled over time, and it gets rattled over time in Canada because of the, you know, the makeup of Canada, because we are an immigrant nation. We are a country that is diverse. And, you know, where I live here in suburban Vancouver, it's every time you go out and you see large gatherings of the public. I remember on Canada Day and I was speaking with the mayor of Coquitlam and it's just, you know, a full, you know, full menu of diversity on display in a big public park there. And you kind of realize that this's going to be, there's, there's a long tail to that in terms of people's perspectives, priorities, biases, expectations of sentiment being expressed by their political leaders. And it's, it's not too

surprising, but it creates new challenges, obviously for, for governments and politicians to try to stick out of that when you're not quite as literate and fluent and appreciative of the expectations. And you get torn about where your priorities ought to be in terms of expressing your energy and expressing your focus. Jerry, what's your take? Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think it's important to dispel one myth that you hear all the time about Canadian politics, and that is because we're a culturally diverse community diverse country full of immigrants that immigrant communities tend to vote more based on issues

happening in their countries of origin than they do what's happening in their communities around them and in my experience both in Ontario and nationally that's just not the case that uh some of the more stereotypical takes you hear in canadian public comment is that the south asian community in brampton for instance will vote more based on what's happening in the uh tempestuous relationship between india and pakistan uh than they will over what's going on in their local school in Brampton. And I find that's just nonsense. And it's a little, it reflects a naivete about why people vote the way they do. Does governments and the government of the days, foreign policy posture influence people's attitude toward the party that happens to be forming that government?

That is absolutely the case. But I think in the political version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's a little lower than most casual observers assume it to be. That's true. But you know, where it gets overemphasized, right. And I saw this, I saw not that long ago, I think, I think it was on, it doesn't really matter, a show talking about politics where they said, well, this issue of whatever it was on foreign matters is really important because you think about the ethnic communities that exist south of the fraser in vancouver or in markham or or in parts of ontario and and there's a large

portion of this community that exists in these and so in the general election this is an area that justin trudeau needs to be nervous about it up here that's not where the pressure is because jerry's point is correct. And most people who come to this country, no matter where you come from, they want to be here to be Canadian and pay respect and know who they are and where they came from. But they're here because they're, they're working on a new thing and they're working on a new project and

they're part of a new collective community where, where the soft spot is and where it gets overemphasized in our politics is not in the general election campaigns. And you often see that on the political shows where they describe it as I just did. The soft spot in our politics is in the nominations and it's in leadership races and leadership politics, because in Canada, you have to be a Canadian citizen in order to vote in an election campaign. You don't have to be a Canadian citizen to vote in a nomination for a political party or in the leadership of a political party. And so Canadians are aspiring Canadians or people who are not yet Canadian citizens who are here, but who want to have an influence and they want to have a voice because they're

paying taxes and they aspire to be Canadians and they have frustrations and they have hopes and et cetera. They are overly indexed in the nomination races of local ridings. And so therefore members of parliament are often beholden to cohorts of voters who may not vote in general, but they really have them by the throat in terms of their real power, which is to win a nomination in a safe ridings. The general election is a foregone conclusion. The nomination is the real battle.

And that gets, gets parlayed over into the leadership dynamics as well, where you see leaders who we've known and we've known in british columbia past premiers who are beholden to certain communities who don't vote in the general but really have a power base within political parties in the leaderships and in nominations it's a hard thing to say and we're saying this out loud because you get accused of all kinds of things but everybody who's been active in politics knows that that's a reality so so the soft spot is nominations and leaderships.

It's not the general election campaign. You know, I was reminded the other day when we were talking about this whole sort of immigrant, non-immigrant thing, is that we're all immigrants, right? We're either immigrants directly or descendants of immigrants, you know, with the exception of indigenous peoples. And, you know, there was that great line in one of John Kennedy's books, Nation of Immigrants, which addresses that in particular. Let me ask you, getting back to the, you know, the more general point about how dominant an issue foreign issues are in a government of the day,

no matter, you know, which stripe. I've sometimes wondered that because most of the people who ended up, end up in elected office in Canada, at the federal level, for sure, come from backgrounds that aren't necessarily those that are foreign policy related, you know, they come out of local politics, or they're concerned about local issues issues much more than they are about, you know, foreign affairs. So it makes me wonder when a party meets in caucus or governing party in cabinet, you know, if you're on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, 1 being the lowest, where would foreign issues rate in general in a party? Well, another big qualifier, Peter, is in Canada, we tend not to think of Canada-U.S. relations as foreign affairs, when it very much is.

And certainly the time I spent in the prime minister's office, it dominated our approach to foreign affairs given the renegotiation of the NAFTA agreement. So there are all kinds of people with niche concerns and issues that don't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. From a national political perspective, no election is going to turn on very many of them. I think that there's a bit of an exception in the province of quebec where

uh francophone quebeckers tend to be more internationally oriented than anglophones and the rest of canada do but uh really really i didn't realize that oh absolutely i mean i think that you look back for instance at the protests against the um uh the protests against the iraq war and in the lead up to the Kachin government's decision whether or not to join the American-led effort in Iraq. It was the protests in Montreal, I think, at the end of the day that got the government snapped to attention on that when hundreds of thousands of people were flooding the streets of Montreal. So you didn't give me a number where you'd be between. Oh, okay.

Well, America, Canada, us relations, eight, uh, somewhere between seven and nine, depending on who's president and what are the issues of the day everywhere

else. It barely crosses for James. Correct. And it's not just agree or disagree with the Vietnam war, agree or disagree with the Iraq war, agree or disagree with Donald Trump broadly, but it's also things like the anti-vaccine mandate trucker convoy in Ottawa. That was a foreign policy issue.

That was the United States putting in place mandates that Canada had to abide by. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to have access to the U.S. market and Americans wouldn't have access. It wouldn't export it to the Canadian market because it wouldn't be able to get back. That's a foreign policy issue that had real domestic consequences and led to, you know, the occupation and illegal siege of our national capital for a month, an embarrassment and the invocation of security policies that were,

you know, that in my view, went too far, were unnecessary. But, you know, we won't go down that rabbit hole. But that's a foreign policy issue that came home to roost in a very acute way. So the Canada-U.S. relationship, as we're intertwined, you know, again, has a very long tail in terms of its integration and what its consequences are. And so it's, you know, it's something that doesn't go away. The United States is particularly unique because we do speak the same language, because, you know, Vancouver and Seattle are integrated because, you know,

all across the border, we shop and we see our neighbors. We root for those teams. If you're in Toronto, you're probably rooting for the Buffalo Bills and Vancouver, the Seahawks, all that stuff. So culturally, politically, economically economically we are very much akin and so the stresses that exist when we do disagree can become pretty raw on the surface how engaged is the average federal cabinet and James you sat in one and Jerry you were certainly watching one close up. How engaged are they generally? I understand the hot button big issue, big ticket items that you both mentioned.

But generally, how engaged are they on foreign policy as a full room, as a cabinet? Because I'm sure on a lot of issues they all want something to say i'm just wondering on the average day-to-day foreign issues foreign policy issues how engaged is a is a cabinet well there's a cabinet committee that's focused on that right the foreign policy and security cabinet committee maybe it's been rebranded under prime minister trudeau it'll it'll you know changes over time but there's a cabinet committee that deals with that if it's high enough level it goes to priority and planning which is the cabinet committee that deals with that. If it's high enough level, it goes to priority and planning, which is the cabinet committee that's chaired by the prime minister

and its members are the chairs of all the other cabinet committees. So there's that. There's the operations committee, which is the political committee of cabinet, right? That was set up by Brian Mulroney. And originally it was the most political ministers, the people who have their brains really tuned into the political side of things, you know, who are those kinds of animals. They sit on that committee.

And they're diverse and they represent all the countries. So you have committees and cabinet ministers whose expectation is to be very literate about what's going on in different parts of the country with hot spots, and they get more regular briefings and they pay more acute attention to that. Plus you have Department of Foreign Affairs, you have CSIS, and folks in the PMO and PCO whose emphasis is on that. Plus you have Department of Foreign Affairs, you have CSIS and folks in the PMO and PCO whose emphasis is on the... So there are lots of, I think, checks in the system that catch these kinds of stresses. Individual cabinet ministers, I mean, if you're the Minister of Veterans Affairs, you're the Minister of Revenue, you're the Minister of Canadian Heritage, probably not, but things pop up. But it's certainly true if you're aspiring to be prime minister

and if you're sort of seen as a top five portfolio cabinet minister that you should have a very keen eye on things. We undersell, and I think we need to remind ourselves that Canada really is one of the true global countries in the world in terms of our footprint. Founding member of the United Nations. We're the only country in the world that's a member of the Franco Funding and the Commonwealth. And also a member and a partner

in NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement. The only country in the world that has tariff-free market access to almost 60% of the global economy. Our European lineage, our Asia-Pacific footprint, we're truly a global country in terms of our opportunities,

but also our risk profile, also the expectations and our reputational equity matters. And so, you know, when you have moments in foreign policy and you have either a prime minister who's ill-equipped or cabinet ministers in key portfolios who are ill-equipped to have the nuance and sophistication to deal with these issues responsibly, I think you open up real weaknesses. And we've seen some fallacies over the years. I would say, speaking from my experience, Peter, that cabinet ministers, federal liberal cabinet ministers, who are the ones that I've been obviously most closely exposed to over index, if you use the general population as a reference case

on their interest in and facility with foreign affairs. And I think that they start from a relatively high base. And then there are process issues that tend to immerse them more in their subject, their given subject areas. So we all pay attention to the leaders meetings for things like the G7. But on what usually passes below the public radar screen is that seven or eight different ministers will have microcosms of a G7 meeting with their G7 colleagues at some point throughout the year in the host country that happens to be holding the G7 that year. And that drives a kind of bureaucratic momentum that you start to focus on getting briefed for those events. You start to get to know your colleagues from other parts of the world and understand the troubles that they're trying to deal with and the challenges that they're trying to address in the more obviously foreign-oriented posts

that James just listed, to get cabinet ministers more engaged and more aware of foreign affairs the longer they're in cabinet. So I had this cartoonish experience, exactly what Jerry's describing. This was coming after the 2008 election campaign, I believe it was. We're in Quebec City, Canada's hosting the Francophonie. Premier Charest was there, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and I was there, campaign i believe it was we're in quebec city canada's hosting the francophonie premier charret was there prime minister stephen harper and i was there a guy from vancouver i'm at the francophonie why because i was the minister of official languages and so i'm minister of canadian

heritage so i'm there and at the time canada was aspiring to get a seat on the rotating seat in the un security council and so we were doing our lobbying. And the concept was, let's if we can get Francophone nations to vote for another Francophone nation, Portugal was our main competitor, then we would have a shot at getting the seat on the national on this rotating seat. So there I was, right, like a 32 year old guy from Vancouver sitting in a room, you know, the two club chairs at 45 degrees facing each other with sort of staff foreign affairs next to me with uh the uh the minister from wanda of whatever of transport and i'm sitting there and we're speaking in french i'm like you know so the one thing i wanted to talk to you about was uh the upcoming rotating chair of the u.n security council you know that you can go back and when you have

your cabinet deliberations if you can have a conversation and, you know, make the case for Canada, these are the three strongest arguments. And we think it's really important that Francophonie nations come together and that we have a voice and all this. And she was just nodding very politely. And she goes, well, I will, I will think about that. And, and, and I, I appreciate what you're saying to me. I'm wondering, does Canada have a program where you can help us build a fence in a rural airport because cattle are running across the runway? And I was like, you know, we'll take a look at that.

And, you know, if I can get you in touch with the right look at my officials, I go, do we have a program for that at CETA that funds fencing and runways in rural Rwanda? Is that something that we can look at? We can look into that. Let's look into that. And so you'll follow and we left the room and I thought, like, what is going on? What is this? But that's, you know, there you are. And we left the room and I thought, foreign policy on the ground, gritty one-on-me with the culture minister from

Rwanda trying to get the Francophonie rally, and all right, there you go. And that happens all the time and it's that's foreign affairs in its most sort of granular um way what's yeah the stuff that doesn't make the front page of the ft of the new york times right what is the lesson there james what was the lesson of that experience i think that's a that's a small version of i think the the macro that i just described right well here's a more sensitive one right uh? Like Canada has a large footprint, large obligations,

large opportunities and all that. And, you know, delivering on these things is a hell of a thing sometimes. And it's really causes these kinds of conversations. But here's a tougher one. Canada decided to, based on the inspiration of Izzy Asper, to create the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg. It was originally the Holocaust Museum, that it became the Human Rights Museum. But it started as a Holocaust Museum and a lot of money was raised for that purpose.

But it was decided that it was too narrow of a focus and we wanted to broaden it out. And so, okay, so we're going to talk about human rights at home and around the world. How do we do this and how do we do this responsibly? Well, all of a sudden, if you go from the narrow focus of the Holocaust and how to honor that, on that memory and learn from it, and broaden it out to genocides, well, what do you do? Where do you start? Where do you begin? How do you decide these things? And so we were stuck in a policy thing. And I'm the minister responsible for the museum, but the Museums Act means the minister can't get involved in what gets displayed and what doesn't.

But you need to set up a policy framework. So what is it? And at this time now, the Canadian-Ukrainian Congress said, if you're going to have a Holocaust museum, you have to recognize the Holodomor. Okay, well, you can't say no. You need to say yes. But okay, well, then what? Canada's, you know, the Assembly of First Nations puts their hand up and says,

you know, there's a bit of a story to tell with Canada's First Peoples. And, you know, you want to include that. Yes, we do need to include it. And then it sort of, so what's the policy that you set up? And it became really, really, again, granular and ugly and vicious to the point where we said, ultimately, our policy was Canada as a parliament, because it's a government of Canada museum, Canada is a parliament, what our formula will be, the Parliament of Canada has recognized at the time five genocides. And so those five genocides, those will be recognized in the museum. And if they add more, we will add more. I think since then, in the last few years, we've added three more, the Uyghurs and a couple of others since then officially by Parliament.

So we've gone from five to eight, but they had their own place permanently in the museum. So that's kind of the policies that if Parliament recognizes it, the museum of the government of Canada will recognize it. And then they said, okay, and they kind of had a detente and we agreed on that. And then folks went there and they said, well, there are square footage of this exhibit for genocides and atrocities. Why is ours next to the bathroom and theirs isn't? That's not right. You need to either move the bathroom or move art because that's disrespectful because people are going to be walking through our exhibit to go to the bathroom and theirs isn't like how do that's not right you need to either move the bathroom or move our because that's that's disrespectful because people are going to be walking through our exhibit to go to the bathroom okay and then we get a call from the ukrainian

ambassador who's not happy but okay so like so these things happen and sort of go on here but you know the foreign footprint and recognizing it at home and being respectful has again really complicated implications and everything from you know a museum to the day-to-day operations of cabinet well if um if i'm allowed to digress just for a second uh because you raised it that museum is a great museum you know i mean i knew is he pretty well from my manitoba days and covering him when he was in politics i i know the kids i know gail his daughter works so hard on that on that museum but it is a really good museum very different given where it started from financially and on a policy basis and all the risks associated with what i just sort of described and there are many more complicated ones than that but we're on we're

apparent it was launched and stayed steady and it's has stayed steady and it's the canadian museum for human rights in other words there's an advocacy component to their mandate that's that's a risk but i think they've managed it well yeah yeah no there's there's certainly been enough controversies attached to that museum over time and funding in the early days was certainly one of them but i I'll tell you, for school kids who go there a lot and for just ordinary citizens who have the opportunity to go there, it's well worth it. And, Gerry, a quick question before we take our midway break here.

And who is the prime minister's, I'm sure it changes with every PM, but generally, who's the go-to person that the prime minister would talk to about foreign policy? Is it the foreign affairs minister? Is it a top bureaucrat? How does that work? I think it depends on the circumstance and the subject matter, Peter. But in general, one of the things that I've noted over the time I've been in politics, and it's certainly been true around the world, is that, if I can put it this way, the people in suits, the people in uniforms have slowly replaced the people in suits. In the first part of this century, most, at least, democratic governments' orientation toward the world was fundamentally economic.

You're negotiating trade agreements. You're trying to open up markets, you're doing team Canada trips. And in the last for a variety of frightening and very obvious reasons, the emphasis has become on national security and military relationships. So whether you're in Washington or London or Ottawa or Paris, it doesn't matter. The people who are wearing suits and mostly dominating foreign policy discussions over the certainly the G7, but I'd say more broadly. And as a consequence, that will color the kind of foreign policy advice that any given leader is getting within our system. There is, of course, and James would know this well from his time in government as well. There are people who are, there are specific roles,

for instance, within the Privy Council office, there's a foreign policy advisor to the prime minister. And the person who was the foreign policy advisor when I was there is now the clerk of the Privy Council. So that will show you John Hannaford. So that will show you how much more emphasis is being placed on expertise in foreign relationships vis-à-vis domestic politics. I know that's contradicting a bit what we said at the outset, but it is becoming a much more complicated world out there. And if you're Prime Minister of Canada,

you're going to need more depth and texture on foreign policy advice than you probably did 20 years ago. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll pick up this conversation on the other side. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. It's a more butts conversation, another classic with James Moore, the former Conservative cabinet minister, and Jerry Butts, the former principal secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau.

Okay, I don't want to get into current international issues specifically, but I do wonder at times whether the whole Israeli-Palestinian question is unlike any other issue for any government because it melds both foreign policy and domestic politics into one thing. And my guess is there's more activity around that issue when it hits the table than most other issues other than the big 9-11 the day and the week after. But in general, is it a separate is it like totally different than

anything else james yeah and when you talk to reporters when you talk to members of parliament they're often surprised by the the depth and the passion especially people who are not um haven't been sort of engaged in the issue they're really kind of blown back by the depth and the passion behind it all. There's also another lens on it that you avoided there in your description of the layers of all this, right? It's theology and people's faith and their connection to the region and their connection to the country and their connection to everything that's going on there.

And that's as deep as it gets, right. For, for, for a lot of people. But yeah, it's an extraordinarily complicated thing to sort of manage and to, and to get a grasp of and to understand. And also I think like a lot of things, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a domino of events behind. If you want to sort of boil this down into sort of the two narratives of, of the, of Israel and of the Palestinian people and of Jews post world war two and the Palestinian experience since 1949.

And if you, if you subscribe to a, to one sort of camp versus the other and the dominoes that are associated with it, it's you you hear it very quickly when you sort of see the clips on television or you walk and i saw that i had this happened not that long ago after after the october massacre uh by hamas on the israelis people shouting at each other in front of the um the vancouver art gallery and i stood there for about 30 seconds and at the same time of, they're shouting at each other. Do you kind of take it all in?

And you heard all the arguments that we've all heard for the past 20 years. And then this happened and then that happened in the Oslo court. And then they didn't really mean the intifada. And then, and then, and then Rabin was killed. And then, and then, and then, and then Netanyahu. And then, and you hear it all. And people are, there's too many people, a lot of people who just subscribe to the entire chain of events and the dominoes

that have built up behind the narrative of one side or the other. And they are so beholden, and too many people are so unwilling to empathize with the other side that it makes engagement, from a public policy perspective and from a minister or prime minister perspective, that if you dip your toe in that water, that the other side ramps up. And it's so challenging. I think that's why if you are going to speak out on this, whether you're Prime Minister Trudeau, Prime Minister Harper or others, that you better have a very clear worldview and you have a very clear perspective.

I think people can, enough fair-minded people are out there that they can respect positions that they might disagree with if they surrender to other people's logic about things. But particularly in Israel, Palestine, that there's a sensitivity and a heat there that's unlike i think any other in the world and that heat is on display inside a caucus room and inside a cabinet room too i imagine can be uh it's less so in the conservative party there there's a much more entrenched view because like with with any with any foreign policy thing i think it's truly george will once said that

foreign policy is a science of single instances, which is to say it's no science at all, that the relationship with each country is very different, and the alchemy behind the narrative and the history and the formulation of our relationship over time is unique with every sort of pocket world. And I think there's truth, but also, I think

within sort of ideological movements, the conservative movement of today is one that grew up loving Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and believing that the big battle of the generation that they grew up learning politics from, it was left, right, capitalism, communism, freedom and democracy versus authoritarianism. And so therefore, there's a very clear sort of assignment of things. And so for a lot of people, there's a theological alignment with Israel. But for a lot of people, there's for me, for example, there's a very clear alignment of liberal democratic values of a country that is a democracy. That's a postage stamp in a football field of sort of authoritarian rule. And they're a liberal democracy that is struggling to survive against all odds and they are and they're thriving and the the alignment with a country that is a democratic

ally to me is a higher is higher up in the hierarchy of of alignment with canada's values than a lot of other things so that's my perspective and other people have theirs jerry what's yours uh well um you can tell both James and I don't want to say too much on this issue because there's no right thing to say. I would agree with everything James said. I would just note two additional things. One is that there's a generational aspect

to attitudes toward this issue now that those of us who are 52 years old, I grew up in a period where while not directly affected, obviously, I was born 30 years after the 26 years after the end of the Second World War. The Holocaust was a very present thing in the cultural imagination through my entire childhood. It was constantly being talked about and people were well-educated on what happened. I remember the Ernst Sundell case in Toronto, the cultural imagination capture

from Schindler's List in the 90s. But for younger people who have grown up only knowing the Likud Netanyahu version of Israel, there's, I think, an unfortunate overlap in their general values, which they then apply to the Palestinian cause. So the so-called anti-colonialist sympathy for Palestine, which then immediately projects Israel to be a colonizing power, I think confuses unhelpfully a lot of terms. But you can see how if you fail to educate an entire generation in the horrors of the Holocaust, how that elision can be made.

And I think that unfortunately has just deepened the moat between the people who identify themselves as predominantly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And those who I think like James and myself certainly ascribe to that view that if we have, as you aptly put it, James, a postage stamp of a democracy in a football field of autocracies, then we should disproportionately favor that democracy. The Netanyahu government has not done itself any favors whatsoever in looking to erode the democratic institutions that allow people to put their chests out and support that. So we're now in a particular historical moment in the evolution of the Israelrael-palestine conflict that makes it easier for quote-unquote young progressives in the west who don't have the same

um you know they don't close their eyes and see scenes from the holocaust in the way that those of us uh who grew up in a certain generation do. And I think that's very problematic. It's especially true in the United States. And it's been given accelerant by TikTok, suspiciously so in my view. If you're a young person who is just letting the algorithm do its thing on TikTok, you're going to see a very anti-Israel, pro-Palestine story within the first seven or eight videos that come into your feed.

It's really true. You know, Peter, during COVID, when TikTok really kind of took off and other social media platforms, sort of the first wave of disinformation, some people thought it was kind of funny, which was, remember there was a couple of years ago, maybe there was sort of this thing, is the earth really flat? And Neil deGrasse Tyson came out and said, oh, come on. And he said, have you ever looked out the window of an airplane you can see the curvature of the earth and the flatter society came out and they actually had a convention with i think hundreds of around a few thousand people and there was a few celebrities like i can't remember what maybe it was charles barclay or benny there's somebody in you know kairi irving i can't remember who it was but

there's somebody who was out there of like who said no no it's true that the earth is the earth is flat i kind of believe that and i don't know and and and idiots online were talking it's like what they like and it was like what the hell is going on like it was and it was kind of funny well it's kind of funny when you're talking about something that's so clearly demonstrably you know self-evident it's but but that that showcased the what can happen on really serious matters that really have consequences that are life and known reading out loud the bin Laden letter. That was sort of the, the, the, the pricey of why nine 11 was justified. And then people say, well, you know,

there are some arguments there that you see doubting about the Holocaust now at all times. Like, like, you know, the fragility of what's what human beings, what we've built up until now is, is fragile beyond people's wildest imaginations jerry's probably had probably had moments there i was you know i remember a couple moments when i looked around the room and it's like it's really the three of us as you know we're sitting in this room right now on this issue that's really consequential that are really the

line between sort of chaos in terms of the perception of things and it's we really are that fragile there's this thing in politics where on the catwalk governments are supposed to walk down the catwalk and look very orderly and very firm and very clear very orderly and everybody looks great and everybody's focused and on message and all that but you peek behind the curtain you see what's going on behind the catwalk and at a fashion show chaos and everything's kind of madness so that's often very true but when it's true on stupid stuff then it's it's kind of run of the mill it can be grist for the mill for a show like v but when it's on really serious stuff and it can happen like that um canadians don't i think often appreciate that politics when you see it on tv people look

great and they sound great and it seems very organized and authoritative and substantive but behind the scenes there's a lot more fragility to it than people recognize and for a lot of files in government and it's true of our red team blue team orange team doesn't matter a lot of files you know you you make an announcement and you're hoping that things will land rather than knowing that they will in in the right way i could add one more thing to that peter and i hesitate to do this this may get me in trouble a lot of people you hear this question like what's so special in the right way. I could add one more thing to that, Peter, and I hesitate to do this. This may get me in trouble. A lot of people,

you hear this question, like what's so special about, there've been lots of horrible, catastrophic, monstrous things to happen to all kinds of people over the course of human history. Why are we focused so much on this one? And I, I think it's understandable,

right? It's very understandable that the holocaust should have a special place in the annals of western history largely because it is a western problem right that this happened in the most philosophically technologically sociologically advanced western country to date at that point and the germans you germany used all of the tools of modern civilization which up until that point had been um seen as emblems of pros of of progress and they use that to attempt to exterminate an entire race of human beings. The fact that that happened at the heart of Western civilization is why we should pay

special attention to it. And I think that we have failed to educate a generation of young Westerners about the uniqueness of that event and why it should concern them, cause them anxiety, keep them humble, and recognize that even in the midst of the most advanced societies in the world,

monstrosities like the Holocaust can happen. They always need to be vigilant against the most illiberal, repressive, unempathetic elements within their own societies. Okay. You know, as I suspected when I asked the question, clearly the Israeli-Palestinian issue is different than everything else. And it causes different tensions and different expressions in political rooms just as it does in living rooms and we're certainly going through that now but if i can get back to what was our main main topic and ask this question i mean one of the beauties of this more about conversation over the year and a

half or so that we'd be doing it is that people love it because you're able to kind of check your partisanship as much as you can at the door before before we start this may be the greatest challenge for you on that point um when you look at our history and not just the history that you've both played part in, but your study of history. Who do you think was the best statesman that we've had, that Canada has had? It may have been in your time. It may be something you studied at university. But who do you think was the best statesman and perhaps in a couple sentences why

uh can i can i be a typical liberal and pick two um and i'll pick one conservative two liberals i'll pick one conservative and one one liberal the liberal the obvious choice is lester pearson i think that uh his accomplishments as foreign minister, and although he had a rockier than is currently appreciated relationship with the United States, the students of Canadian history in that period will know about the talk that he got from LBJ at Camp David. But beyond that,

I think he was instrumental in constructing the multilateral institutions of the post-war order that served the entire world very well, specifically the management and his role in leading to a peaceful resolution of the Suez crisis for which he won the Nobel Prize. But I'll also say one that'll be, you know, some of my liberal friends won't like very much, and's brian mulroney i think brian mulroney's role in um the acid rain treaty with the united states is less appreciated than his more prominent role in being one i think the only person around the table at the time that was stridently anti-apartheid vis-a-vis south africa that that took a very courageous uh stand that was a very courageous stance it must have taken a lot of personal gumption to do that around that table. Everyone knows that around the G7,

Canada is not the largest economy. Around the Commonwealth, it's the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom. And Brian Mulroney took very, very strong stances on a very strong stance on a very important moral issue of the day. And he was ahead of his time in doing so. And I think that that that should grant him special status.

I also think it took political gumption for him to negotiate the free trade agreement when he knew it was going to be relatively divisive within his own country. But he firmly believed it was in the best interests of the country in the long run. And I think he was right on all those things. James, I think, um, statesmanship, uh, at least on an international level, I think it's there, there are people who have those traits that still get there, get the reality wrong, right. Who carry themselves in a certain way who are studious and thoughtful, but in the end make the, make the wrong choice. I think I look, I look actually more moments of statesmanship rather than an individual. And, you know, a couple come to mind.

Sometimes international, by the way, sometimes they're domestic, which can be just as an important moment of leadership. I think of Peter Lougheed. I am an Albertan and a proud Albertan, but I'm a Canadian first. That was a moment of statesmanship, right? At a time when he could have ridden a wave and become a Albertan, but I'm a Canadian first. That was a moment of statesmanship, right? At a time when he could have ridden a wave and become a populist, you know, Western, you know, Waldorf and the rest of the country.

But he said, no, we're a major player. We will be at the table and we will influence things. Thanks very much because I am an Albertan, but I'm a Canadian first. That's a moment of statesmanship. Another one was, I mean, it's not Canadian, but it has a Canadian consequence because you see the juxtaposition that we're going to see this year, which is when Barack Obama lost the presidency in 2000, or it didn-elect Trump was about to be sworn in.

And President Obama, you know, with a positive posture, sat up and leaned forward with his sort of forearms on his knees. And he said, you know, I wish you success because if you succeed, America succeeds. And at a moment where half of the country was so inflamed against it, It was a moment of cool, steady transition of power, which, of course, Donald Trump didn't offer to his successor. But I think just that moment, Barack Obama got a lot of things wrong, a lot of things right, but that moment of statesmanship is something that everybody can learn from about. You just roger up in the moment.

You know historically what the right thing is to do here, which is to have that responsible transition of power. It's the right thing to do. Peter Law, he did as well. Another one, I mean, an obvious one to me, showing my bias, I guess, Stephen Harper going into the G20 in Australia back in I think it was 2013, 2014, and they had the line of everybody coming into the room and everybody was shaking hands. Vladimir Putin showed up and Stephen Harper

fancifully sort of paused for a second second he's told the story a few times and in private and public but he paused and he's and I guess Vladimir Putin was his body language was like he was going to stick out his hand to shake Stephen Harper's hand and Stephen Harper famously said I'll shake your hand if I have to but you really need to get out of Ukraine and stared at him and he said the mood behind the scenes where this is this behind the cameras where in the room where people are kind of shuffling around, Hey, how are you?

How are your travel? How are the kids? How's this going on? And the usual sort of bumping around that, that all the, all the state government and state leaders do behind the curtains. And they come out for the group photo. Steven sold the story.

And I've heard it told by others as well, who were there that it changed the room and it changed the, the thinking and the, and the way in which the room should treat this guy who was clearly a thug and a bad man in the world and that just a moment of statesmanship so we should study the moments more than i think the the then make a messiahs out of individuals great moments in canadian handshakes we can have a whole um yeah that was a great conversation. I'm used to saying that at the end of our conversations,

but this was another good one, and we definitely appreciate your time. So thanks, gentlemen. We'll go into February or early March, and we'll grab the next one. So thank you very much. My pleasure. The More Butts Conversation number 13. very much. The more butts conversation. Number 13, another winner from the, uh,

the two who used to haunt the halls of Ottawa. Who knows? Maybe there'll be back someday, but right now they're not. And right now they're with us every five or six weeks. And we pick another topic for the more butts combination. That was your summer encore episode of the bridge. More butts. Number 13 from January 23rd of this year.